Pretty empty point considering Bwonsamdi is actually keeping the troll souls out of the Maw.
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I don’t know how else would this be interpreted tbh. It was convenient that Sylvanas burned the tree when Elune needed to channel some souls into Ardenweald wasn’t it? It’s almost like Elune gave her a push to do it.
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It isn’t, it simply shows Elune couldn’t give two fishes about mortal life and only cares about the continuation of the soul. Which makes sense given what she is.
This doesn’t mean that’s the story’s or Blizzard’s message, that’s one character’s way of seeing things.
I doubt she was in cahoots with either Sylvanas or Zovaal given how stunned she was when the WQ revealed they ended up in the Maw.
It seems that she assessed the situation regarding the Shadowlands, peered into Azeroth, noted that the Night elves were dying and decided that what better place to go than to her sisters aid.
Having her have a hand in all of that is weird and out of place.
She says “In the wake of their tragedy…”
Also, we are speaking of Gods here. What is a mortal soul to a god? At least Night elves have now confirmation that they are indeed favoured by one.
EDIT:
No he is not. He is trying.
And he isn’t a godly being, he is a Loa/Wild God that already ranks beneath the WQ, and whose domain is but a pocket dimension withing the NE afterlife.
Hardly comparable to having a First (Eternal or whatever) One, being written as actively caring about a specific playable race.
“But look, you may have had a handful of troll souls stashed away by this guy” is some meagre solace to be had when compared with stories such as these. Stories that hint at renewal, recuperation, and acts of heroism on a cosmic scale.
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I didn’t get it either. Did Tyrande die or no?
Also I feel really bad that this is the “Elune” we worshipped since Ancient times. First our Queen turns crazy and abandon us for Demons. Then our empire collapses with the sundering. Then our “Night elves” start to be passively boring after Warcraft 3. Then we lost our homes in Ashenvale, Teldrassil, Darkshore, Feralas, and others. And now our Goddess doesn’t care about us dying.
Perfect… this race just keeps getting better and better. Honestly for the first time ever I’m jealous of the Nightborne. They don’t worship her, and they have a fabulous city to call home.
The Night elves lost their charm for me
I think I’m gonna switch character and become a troll. Bwonsamdi seems to be the guy in my corner.
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I’ll reply to both you and Zarao here.
I guess I am turning salty AF and raging a lot lately. This game made me miserable. I have 2 days left of my sub.
For the past 2-3 years I’ve only seen crappy lore and there hasn’t been anything going for the Forsaken or the Horde in general.
I’m happy that the night elves get their resolution, I just can’t take any of this seriously anymore. I need to take a break and chill the heck down.
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Understandable.
In the light of recent events, i’ll probably take a break and “Wait and See” without having to pay a few bucks for it.
Still, i can’t help but reel against the attention seekers that require an entire narrative team to trail behind their favoured lore bits while the rest is left to rot.
Honestly, many story bits would kill for a fraction of the attention Night elves are getting.
And succeeding.
Unlike Bwonsamdi, who clearly does not favor a specific race. Come on, you are reaching here. The only difference is that Bwonsamdi actually suceeding in protecting his people’s souls. Elune’s divine intervention was not even that. She chose not to intervene.
True, but not for the reason you believe. It is a meager solace when compared to what is happening to the NE, and that makes the troll story much more comforting.
The NE were genocided, had their home destroyed, were abandoned by their goddess, and the only “solace” they get, is as you said, only hints of future imporvements. The trolls meanwhile, suffered a few war casualties, retain their homes and have a god actively protecting their souls in the afterlife. Oh, and their leader was blessed by the Hand of Valor with no drawbacks, and has actually accomplsihed things with this power.
What the trolls are getting in infinetly better than the treatment of the NE, which makes your complaints so absurd and selfish.
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That’s how we feel as Night Elves. When did we get anything positive?
Since Warcraft 3 we have been passively boring, losing more and more of our areas to the Horde in Kalimdor. And of course Teldrassil had to be burned for the cherry on top of the cake. The Night warrior is a lame buff that barely made Tyrande fight Nathanos.
And now Elune doesn’t care about her children. And Tyrande might not even come back to Azeroth.
This is far far worse than the Forsaken lore.
And don’t even get me started on Gilneas.
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I am a fan who has been playing since the mid 2000’s.
I have been commenting on how poorly night elves have been presented since Cataclysm.
I remember how Tyrande’s short story portrayed her as needing Malfurion’s permission to try to save Shandris, having to sneak away when he told her not to, then having Malfurion doing the lion’s share of the work fighting off the naga army. This was portrayed as them “working as one”, and a sign of “true love”.
I remember how Wolfheart brought Maiev back into the lore after a satisfying end to her story… Only to go evil because she hated Malfurion for thinking that it was better to lose immortality than to regain it (almost as if to act as an evil foil to Jarod). And Shandris literally envied Jarod’s dead wife for getting to live with him. And the night elf army was saved by Varian/the worgen assault (after inexplicably being worse at forest combat than the Horde).
I remember how the WotA dungeon highlighted Tyrande’s failures and never showed her successes compared to Malfurion and Illidan. And how it sounded like Malfurion was telling her to just shut up.
I remember when a night elf warrior blabbed the location of the Divine Bell as a dying taunt, letting the Horde gain what was effectively a weapon of mass destruction through stupidity. Datamined information suggests there were plans for Darnassuss to be devasted in the wake of this.
In literally the same patch we had “A Little Patience”. This was supposedly part of a series of quests that would see Varian grow as a leader and prove himself to the other Alliance leaders. This was also supposed to be showing Tyrande “love” (Literally the dev’s own words).
Instead, the formerly hotheaded Varian crafted a master plan to attack a temple barricaded by the Horde, while the older, wiser, more experienced leader Tyrande whined about wanting to attack. Datamined information (confirmed with insider info) showed that the original plan was to have Tyrande attack anyway, and get everyone killed. Later revised down to “win with mass casualties”. And no, “Tyrande was hotheaded and passionate in WC3!” doesn’t excuse this. Especially given the widely different circumstances and promises to show her in a better light after repeated negative depictions.
Also there was the Submarine name “Tyrande’s Silence” in WoD. Remember the whole “Hush Tyrande!” issue? A lot of people thought that these were related, especially given how bizzare it was to choose “silence” for Tyrande. Not only did the adjective not make any sense for Tyrande, it would literally have made more sense for other characters. Blizzard’s response? “We named it after her ability in HotS”.
Tyrande does not have a silence in HotS. She has a stun. And that still wouldn’t explain why the people making the docks chose to name something after an ability made specifically for an alternate game that has no WoW relevance when there’s a ton of other stuff to mention. Given the allegations about the culture at Blizzard, this move seems even more sus.
These were the most famous Blowups about the dreadful treatment and use of Night elf characters in World of Warcraft to show incompetence before BfA. Note not only were most of the gross failures and portrayals of characters as weak/evil for night elf women, These were by and large the only portrayals they got. And I could also mention stuff like Cordana, or Tyrande driving the nightborne away from the Alliance. And how yes, when their men weren’t portrayed well, it was usually through obscene neutrality, which was portrayed as noble by Blizzard.
So I’m sorry that WC3 lore (which you claim is the absolute gospel truth to the point of refuting the evidence before your very eyes says) night elf women are meant to be strong and capable, but apparently Blizzard not only didn’t get the memo in the 2010’s, they actively worked to disprove it.
That have been promised for years. With things constantly getting worse in the meantime. It’s no wonder night elf fans aren’t expecting anything to improve, when promises of making things better for them have consistently resulted in them getting worse.
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Yeah, after Blizzard revealed that all the souls of Teldrassil went to be tortured for eternity, I did not think Blizzard could add more insult to injury. But, surprise! Their goddess chose to let them die! This is not circumstancial. At this point, we can no longer pretend that this is anything but an intentional effort to humiliate the Night Elves.
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Also, what the hell is wrong with the Winter queen? why does she talk like she’s suffering major Latency issues. Maybe that was the first sign, being really thick runs in the family.
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Given how you actively ignore several of the key events that proof how false your “Night elf women are portrayed as weak” is, nobody would say so.
Guess all those books that had her being the one that saved Malfurion, or took the lead against several enemies, don’t really cut it in order to build a strong case about how NEs have it worst amongst all other races.
Nevermind all those that have been benched, leaderless and homeless for a decade now.
Yeah, not going to bother delving more into it.
I’ll only say that i wish Blizzard stopped trying with NEs. It’s obvious that their players will never ever appreciate it.
If any writer is reading this, please, i beg you, give the Forsaken this exact same cinematic, switching the WQ for the Primus and Tyrande for Nathanos or something.
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Tell me what they are? And how much digging you have to do to see the bit where they’re portrayed well? Or how their failures are highlighted in the presentation more than their successes? Or how even when they succeed they’re shown as weak as shown, say, by Tyrande cowering from a Satyr? Even after killing hundreds of them before?
It’s not always just that night elves fail, and fail badly a lot of the time. It’s that when they do do something impressive, the presentation emphasises the parts where they (and gain, typically the women) failed, or were weak, and then when they succeed it’s an afterthought.
Like how yes, the night elves beat back the Horde in Cata and after Darkshore. But for the former you have to go “oh wait, we actually won that” given how much devastation is shown (and not phased out), and for the latter there wasn’t any form of victory shown for over a year. Or how yes, it’s very impressive how Tyrande held off all those Demons in the WotA dungeon… Except you won’t notice her fighting them off until she is overrun and has to be saved.
If your failures are paraded front and centre as defining story moments, and you have to go “oh wait, look, we won!” or “Well, at least we managed to delay losing for a long time” to find the wins… Is it any wonder that the feeling is “Blizzard doesn’t want to portray night elves (especially their military or religion) as succeeding”?
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Like i said, @Blizzard bring on the rest of races this attention Night elves are getting.
It’s obvious that many of the target audience will never appreciate it.
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Finally, we can rest case that Night elves evolved from trolls. Elune crated them.
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I absolutely adore the fact that while everyone’s malding like crazy, your first thought was “phew, we’re not trolls”.
Such a night elf thing to say lol
She even quelled the pain of the fallen so they did not feel anything. Astaari says that she felt no pain when she died, as Elune guided her into a peaceful slumber. I don’t think Elune ‘allowed’ her children to die but was powerless to stop it. I think we forget that it’s not yet known where Elune stands in this cosmology and to what level of power she holds. Clearly, she is unable to directly influence both the living world and the dead, as she has to channel her power through those strong enough to sustain her essence.
I don’t believe she is omnipotent, hence why she was unable to see that the cycle of death is broken and that the night elven souls would go straight to the Maw. Her not directly intervening has to do with either a greater plan or need. The interesting thing canonically now is with a verifiable afterlife you spend millennia on that side than you do alive, your life isn’t anything more than a nursery for the shadowlands. So she didn’t intervene as there is a wider mechanism here. Death is the cessation of existence. It’s only mortals who believe they “die” when their mortal life comes to an end. But the truth is, mortal life is the preface for existence, which continues on within the shadowlands. The night elves never died, they were just released from their mortal constraints. Maybe Elune understood this?
Elune is not a god of death/shadowlands. She is one of life, the Winter Queen’s sister/opposite. So her being able to sense that her sister was in trouble but not knowing exactly what was going on in the Shadowlands makes sense. Not even the pantheon of death knew why the drought occurred. And as a God, yeah it makes sense that she cares more about the bigger picture, so a few thousand elves died? She is a deity that deals with the lives of creatures all over the universe. Sad, but still just a statistic to her, whereas the Winter Queen is her sister.
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The writers at Blizzard are lazy and just winging it now.
Garbage story that obviously was not planned out in advance.
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