It`s my first post on forums in 16 years of WoW game.
Could someone explain what narrative purpose Night Warrior arc has? Tyrande became a Night warrior. Ok. It was an interesting development. Then, despite having all the divine might she failed to kill Nathanos (who is just regular forsaken with no special powers) and managed to loose wardens second in command in process. As we know now, valkyr kill didnt really mattered since Sylvana had full Jailer support and there is little doubdt that she would be returned by him even if all valkyrs are dead. Then Tyrande did essentially nothing for sometime but made a pose and spook Thrall in the novell. Then she finaly catched Nathanos (again, big feat for divine avatar to kill a guy with bow and hounds)Then SL came. She jumped into portal and ran all around with zero impact on the story and little information about. Then she failed to kill Sylvana and now this arc ends with no tangible effect on anybody save sidekick of sidekick of main villain. In my view this arc lasted for nearly a year and failed to show anything, but proved how NE are pathetic punching bag for everybody and fail to make an impact even with direct goddess intervention.
Also the existence of Night warrior arc was stated as a reason, why Tyrande do not make a presence in Nazjatar in some of the storywriters interviews (too many attention to 1 character already).
As a NE fan since W3, I kinda upset with this development.
The purpose was to empower the Night Elves to reclaim their lands and drive Tyrande towards an unhealthy obsession with vengeance that is eventually resolved when she fails to kill Sylvanas in Ardenweald and instead dedicates her power towards healing, which will be better for the future of her people.
Blizzard however, failed to massively to make any part of the arc satisfying.
There’s no such thing. Night Elves lost Teldrassil, Darkshore, Ashenvale.
They regained Darkshore. Even if you ignore Teldrassil because it’s destroyed, they are still missing Ashenvale.
Addressed as in “The jailer has the souls” or the souls being obliterated? Then that’s not a very good way to address it, and the Night Warrior powers failed to fulfill their purpose.
Well, Night Warrior present on the Darkshore only during her story arc. And Tyrande entirely failed to prevent yet another of NE heartland turn into warzone. Darkshore is ruined and poisoned, Sira is killed and then Warzone scenario starts.
My point is that Tyrande story is completely detached from main story and fails to make an impact in any possible way. It just happened. Actually, if we do small mental excercise and imagine, that Night Warrior arc is not present in game at all, nothing really changes. Darkshore is foght and won without Tyrande, Nathanos is fought by players in prepatch event, in SL tyrande presence is not felt at all. If this arc is unnesessary, why do it exist at all? It is like casino side quest in Star Wars 8 film. It takes a lot of time, it makes zero impact on later story, it do not really change characters involved, it do not add new lore.
We knew that Shandris and Tyrande has doughter/mother relationship and care about each other, we knew that Ysera cares about Tyrande, and NE are Elune`s favoured children. Tyrande cared about her people and was seasoned spiritual leader with relatively calm head and deep connection with Elune, now after this arc she is not burning with vengance and is seasoned spiritual leader with relatively calm head and deep connection with Elune.
Why this arc do exist? It does add nothing to story.
You hit the nail on the head there. There is definetly potential for the Night Warrior arc to be great, and Blizzard was happy to just keep it at “potential”. The way Blizzard ended up using her, there really is no point to this arc.
It is very much present in the game since it’s literally this week’s campaign. If it was good or satisfying is of course quite a different question…
I’d say that the issue here was that Blizzard underestimated how people would react to the events that kickstarted this whole arch.
In context, and objectively speaking, there wasn’t really a big loss. At least in terms of story given the cases we’ve grown used to.
A bunch of NPCs without story relevance?
The destruction of a zone accompanied by a framing of loss?
We already danced to said tune with the Darkspear and the Echo Isles, with Orcs and Draenei with Draenor, Gnomes and Gnomeregan, Worgen and Gilneas, and the most clear parallel, Blood elves and Silvermoon.
From a writers point of view the response was easy; create a vengeance drama narrative, a few fancy “fist pump” moments in cinematics and an attempt at framing the protagonist as “heroic”.
But well, the execution came lacking and many feel that it was insufficient. Which, I honestly can agree to some extent.
Although I honestly think that given the examples above, I think that they were lucky for receiving even that.
On the contrary. Sory of Night warrioirs in Ardenweald clearly about defending their land and their people. So NW is not about avenging something, but requesting divine power to archieve victory against impossible odds for the price of life.
Again, retake of the land had nothing to do with Tyrande who was not even present during battle. It is done by Maiev. On the same side Tyrande did nothing to save souls from Torghast. She delegated this task to Shandris and Maw walker. And abut saving ardenweald… Well, no. It has nothing to do with Night Warrior either. Nothing state that Tyrande had to be Nightwarrior for Elune to be able to convene through her. And all prior work is done by Hunt and Maw walker from fighting Drust to thwarting Loa plans to restoring groves etc.
Well, I may be lacking a certain perspective, that is why I`ve started this thread. How NE story is tied to general story which revolves around Jailer? I can imagine, that it could be tied to future story about different realms, including Realm of Life. But not to the current.
Only one out of the other three Night Warriors we know of, parted on said premise.
And regardless if that was indeed the purpose other ms gave it, Tyrande had a different one about as valid.
The power boost she had was extended to the rest of the Night elf army. A fact acknowledged both in the beginning and in the conclusion of the Night elf story around Darkshore.
The cinematic I quoted above, highlights it again by proclaiming how it was thanks to Elunes blessing, that they made the Horde pay.
She was the one that rolled like a truck, all over the Jailers army. She also helped us defeat the amalgam of souls, and weakened the forces enough for us to then free them alongside Shandris.
Its thanks to the said magic that they manage to forge a near Tear of Elune as substitute for the stolen sigil.
One that will probably lead to more stories of rebirth, as part of the “renewal” bits that wanted to be highlighted in said cinematic.
Also, it was thanks to said bond with Elune, that we were able to even have said exchange.
It’s literally highlighted as part of the campaign against him, and is heavily tied to one of the four major covenants.
We are all forced to play through it regardless of whether we want it or not.
