I think this wasn’t such a bad cinematic. It is one of my favourites this expansion. To me it seemed that Elune didn’t stop the Burning of Teldrassil because of the pleas sent to her by the Winter Queen/other Eternals while not knowing they’d end up in the Maw, rather than she manufactured it. If the latter is true then I know this is still the same writing team, of course.
The only thing I don’t like is that Tyrande seems to choose renewal. Now it seems the only way to preserve her character, true, but I hope it doesn’t count her out of quest to make Sylvanas answer for her crimes.
No, I meant that this oversight from Elune from simply not knowing that the souls are going directly into the maw feels manufactured by the Dev team. I’m all for not making Elune stupidly omniscient but this is just not working here, not IMO.
Starshade’s law strikes again: all new lore revelations involving night elves retroactively make them (or in this case their goddess) look like complete idiots.
You know what, I’m done with this dumpster fire of an expansion that retroactively ruins everything in pre-existing lore that it touches.
But neither did anyone else though. That’s literally the main plot point about us returning from the Maw - nobody knows what’s causing the Drought and we’re the first ones to shed light on it.
If the Winter Queen didn’t know about the Maw causing it even though it’s her realm that’s suffering the most from the drought, how is Elune meant to know about it?
Like don’t get me wrong - be angry about the cinematic, story, etc. but I don’t think that’s the part to get hung up on.
I would like to remind you that somebody got paid to write this, and probably a decent amount of cash no less.
I believe they may have spent that cash on a number of psychadelics and/or narcotics, because that’s the only logical explanation as to how the plot of this expansion has turned out to be complete and utter
If used by somebody who already has a talent for writing. Drugs don’t give you talent and the story for Shadowlands may well be proof of that.
That or nobody gives a crap anymore and just wants out of Blizz’s offices as fast as possible, I’ll accept either. No way is this somebody trying their hardest for something they’re passionate about though, it sucks far too badly and in so many different ways for this to be someone’s earnest effort at telling a story.
Well, I could also rant about how “vengeance or renewal” is a false dichotomy, or how this moment feels completely unearned now when nothing has been done about the Maw claiming all souls and it’s still continuing to do so even now, or how making Elune speak and act as a person at all — and through ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL of Tyrande no less — was one of the most tone-deaf possible things the writers could have done to her.
But I’m just too tired to argue these fairly obvious points. As far as I’m concerned, Shadowlands is elaborate fanfiction by inept writers who don’t deserve creative control of the setting.
The dialogue is typical vague monologue so it’s hard to make out what the line of thought is, but I don’t think that’s the case. “And in the wake of tragedy, sent forth the cascade of souls to sustain you.” ‘the cascade’ implies it’s directly related to the former sentence, as opposed to ‘a cascade’.
To get a bit less troll-y and a bit more constructive, the problems I have:
A) Elune didn’t intervene at all in the safety of the Night Elves. She’s done divine intervention stuff before on Azeroth (to the extent it’s got its own section on wowpedia for her - https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Elune#Divine_interventions), so her not doing it here to save people feels very much like she sat back and let them die because:
B) She deliberately sent the excess souls, apparently by choice, to the Arbiter instead of snatching them up to safety herself. She did this without, apparently, knowing about the whole maw being broken and didn’t check in first. Also it’s kinda weird that Elune apparently divine intervention’d Ysera’s soul to Ardenweald but couldn’t do the same thing for all the night elves? Especially when, as noted, Bwonsamdi can apparently screw around with troll souls and keep them safe all he likes. I guess Elune was a bit more lazy about it and just crossed off “No I don’t want this delivery of souls to my eternal realm, please redeliver them to Miss Arbiter Oribos.”
C) She’s no longer a distant goddess who speaks through visions and symbolism, instead is now just chatting away with people, which diminishes her mystery as a deity. I just think that’s a bit lame for the last real distant deity we had, but I guess it’s par for the course since we’re just hanging out with Titans and First Ones and Eternal Ones and whatever from now on.
and i oop
