Although Alannyse touched on this, the reason why it became a thing only after the war was won is because… the Paladins were created during a war. There was no pre-war Paladin tenets or culture. But when peace settled, Uther and Turalyon deemed that the real work of a Paladin begins outside of battle as civil servants. Many derided Uther’s decision for war heroes to be playing wet nurse and delivering babies*, but Turalyon defended it by saying that this is the Light’s will, and those who speak ill of it fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of being a Paladin.
It’s not killing your enemies, but helping your fellow man - it’s even one of their oaths. Sometimes helping them means killing those who would harm them, but Uther deemed Paladins to be civil servants first at times of peace, and peace is what they should fight to defend. The Scarlet Crusade’s perversion of it with vengeance under Dathrohan/Balnazzar was what made them so contrasted to the Silver Hand.
There’s a very high chance that a character born in the rebuilt Stormwind after Second War was personally delivered by Uther, Turalyon, or one of the other first Paladins.
Naaru aren’t their source of power. Although they revere the Naaru, they don’t gain access to the Light through them.
It’s a fact that Des likes to bring up when he speaks of Uther and co, like “Hey, you all know that he was a famous paladin, but did you also know that he used to help deliver babies right here in Stormwind?”
I did read Beyond the Dark Portal too but its been a while, though I wil take your word on it, as I also tend to rp Des as a man of peace who just fights because he sometimes has to.
The newest Tyr questline gives me the biggest amount of anxiety. The fact that instead of doing what we just did and coming up with culturally fitting ways of getting paladins and implementing them into the lore and vibe of the races…
…we’ll be getting f-ing Tyr paladins. I hate this.
Made infinitely funnier by the fact that in their attempt not to homogenise all Paladins as Alliance Silver Hand Paladins they just made a new order that’s even more Alliance Silver Hand-y and slapped every race into it with Paladins.
I mean they could have just restarted their order as a subset under the Argent Crusade. Both have a similar mandate really and the AC is a neutral organisation already familiar with some of the traditions or teachings of the old Tyr’s Guard via the Silver Hand/Argent Dawn unification under one of the founding members of the Silver Hand who based themselves partly on the Tyr’s Guard.
The fact that the Zandalari refers to her master as “our Champion of the Light”, when that’s clearly just the over-arching name of the BOSS FIGHT ENCOUNTER against an enemy paladin (Dark Iron and Zandalari), rather than an actual cultural and religious title amongst the Zandalari, says everything about who wrote the lines of these characters.
The Argent Crusade isn’t a paladin organisation, it’s not that tied to Tyr, the Silver Hand didn’t inherit much of its customs from the Tyr’s Guard which remained a rather unknown organisation until its last survivor revealed himself in Legion and rather it’s the other way around with members of the Tyr’s Guard learning to wield the Light from the Silver Hand, and that way Blizzard couldn’t add a lazy tabard recolour.
I think the distinction between Paladin and paladin is just a fan-made thing which isn’t what we see in the lore: blood knights, draenei vindicators etc are Paladins.
Blood knights have been referred to as paladins since TBC, and Draenei Vindicators are called paladins multiple times.
If there is an official lore which officially distinguishes “Paladin” and “paladin”, or that canonically states only the Silver Hand paladins are the real paladins, I have yet to read it.
the only thing that differentiates paladin is the cultures they come from. A Tauren has a different outlook on the light than the human, because they call their light different. but that is really where the differences end.
Silver Hand Paladins undergo an empowerment ritual that infuses them with the strength of the Light and empowers them to a pretty significant degree.
That is the difference between a Paladin of the Silver Hand and a paladin of the Blood Knight Order, the Vindicators or the Sunwalkers, none of whom have such a ritual.
We don’t actually know if they have rituals or not, or the necessity of them in other cultures given that they seem to do everything a Human Paladin can do.
It’s unclear how relevant is this ritual is to be a Paladin today. Perhaps a similar ritual is more than enough to be the same class, and other races go through similar empowerments of their own - for example, the blood knights channeled through their bodies the literal power of M’uru, which according to the lore is more than enough for them to be paladins. This also “empowered them by a significant degree”.
Most draenei are also already infused with the Light, and Maraad is called a Paladin multiple times. Perhaps undergoing similar blessings is enough, or perhaps Draenei paladins also go through a ritual of their own. Seeing how the Light is a widespread entity in their culture it makes sense.
From the WoW quests about Uther’s ascension as a Paladin, this ritual simply involves some light dudes channeling magic onto you, which may have been outlandish in the Second War, but looks like a rather average feat today.
