PTR Spoiler/Discussion Thread (Part 3)

Argent Dawn
663

Yeah, Algalon tried to nuke the planet because of the people that were actively trying to save it, but it’s okay, because he didn’t end up nuking the planet after we beat him up within an inch of his celestial life, after which, he says this:

"I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers’ flames, their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart devoid of emotion… of empathy.

I. Have. Felt. Nothing. A million-million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do?"

Which can be summed up to:

And not just that, Algalon, even after we beat enough sense into him to stop what he’s doing, admits that the same thing had happened not only to countless worlds, but to entire planetary systems which died without even a whimper under the flame of the same thing which he would’ve unleashed on Azeroth, and not only that, but he also didn’t feel a single bit of remorse or empathy, not even in hindsight.

And on top of that, this plot point is from 2008, folks. There are people that are younger than this plot point that are able to drive in the United States and nearly able to do so in the United Kingdom. There are people who have been born and will soon become adults in the timespan of this singular piece of lore being created and still being maintained as canon.

Let’s not pretend that this didn’t happen just because it’s easier to pretend that it did not just to get another batch of likes from le current story = bad, yeah?

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664

This isn’t treating the Titans as evil either. They’re not actively watching and going “the slaves are disobeying, send the deathbot to slaughter them as punishment.”

Like the reorigination system, this is a failsafe that was put in place under the assumption that the earthen would only go against their orders and destroy the device that gave them their orders if something had gone terribly wrong, and they had fallen victim to corruption. This is not “the Titans are evil,” this is the Titans being flawed and short-sighted, without considering the free will of their creations and the possibilities that might arise from it.

So, this is another example of the Titans being distant and not understanding of mortal flaws (or in this case, mortal virtues) with the caretaking system that they left behind being flawed.

I don’t think this is a case of coping out of my gourd, this genuinely seems like another case of the cold, distant caretakers. Why are people trying to depict this as an act of insane, petty, intentional cruelty when it’s just an automated defence system triggering in circumstances that the Titans didn’t foresee - just like the Algalon incident?

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665

Ok, but you missed out the entire end part of his quote;

“Perhaps it is your imperfections… that which grants you free will… that allows you to persevere against all cosmically calculated odds. You prevail where the Titan’s own perfect creations have failed.
I’ve rearranged the reply code - your planet will be spared. I cannot be certain of my own calculations anymore.”

It might not be ‘remorse’ in the traditional sense, but that certainly sounds like “Ok, I’m starting to think I may be wrong and may have been wrong before” to me.

Also, see above re: Devs being wildly inconsistent because Lol Lmao

1 Like
666

yeah mb he did nuke countless of planetary system which he did himself admit had precious life that could’ve been simply left alone and left to their own imperfect happy lives but at least he did say sorry after which definitely makes the titans look good when even their perfect walking computer goes ‘wait this is messed up what the hell’

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667

Sorry you’re expecting Grand Literature and consistency from WoW, I dunno what to tell you -shrug-

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668

I’m not expecting grand literature from World of Warcraft, I am expecting basic literary comprehension from people discussing its lore. The few times that we see titanforged being good is when they actively work against the titan’s own devices, and this isn’t new at all.

I am not saying that the way World of Warcraft is presenting it is incoherent. I am saying that it’s absolutely mindnumbing to be seeing people claim that all these plotpoints are new or unexpected when they are present in such early expansions that they’re literally older than their World of Warcraft subscription history, and on top of that, from expansions that they claim were the ‘pinnacle’ of World of Warcraft’s storytelling and gameplay quality.

thing (2008) SO GOOD!!!

thing (2024) ew wtf where did this come from

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669

Ulduar was the first time we really got to grips with Titans and their plans. Uldaman was kind of…well, didn’t tell us much*, so outside of disparate creator myths/legends, Ulduar’s really what set the tone, and it was a bunch of titan constructs getting corrupted by Old Gods (not very good at their jobs) or set up to genocide all life (something they’ve done a bunch of times, apparently).

It never really improved. Forge of Origination shows up in Cata as another planet-wiping machine.

MoP shows us Ra, who upon finding out the Titans got owned got depressed and hid in a cave for a few hundred years, which is what let Lei Shen rise to power. Another “not very good at their jobs” sorta thing.

WoD’s a whole mess I don’t want to get into.

Then Legion gave us Odyn, and all of his problems, plus another corrupted Titan in Argus. That the Pantheon helped us doesn’t really show their benevolence, since a) we kinda saved their lives and b) they’d be screwed without us. They could barely sit up in their chairs! Mutual aid really.

And then BfA tossed us Uldir and G’huun.

Are the Titans depicted as ‘evil’? They’re not depicted as malicious, at least, no, but a throughline is that they don’t seem to treat mortal life with any real value (not surprising when they shape planets, but even so) and they’re apparently quite eager to abandon whatever experiments don’t go their way, along with leaving jobs half-finished.

They’ll exterminatus a planet at the touch of a button if it means one less potential Old God stronghold. Is that ‘evil’? Your mileage may vary, but I’d certainly strain to call them anything approaching Good.

*Though frankly it’s not that great either:-

Uldaman is an ancient Titan vault that has laid buried deep within the earth since the world’s creation. Dwarven excavations have recently penetrated this forgotten city, releasing the Titans’ first failed creations: the Troggs. Legends say that the Titans created troggs from stone. When they deemed the experiment a failure, the Titans locked the troggs away and tried again - resulting in the creation of the dwarven race.

“Locking away this race we made? Eh, I’m sure it’s fine.”

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670

I thought Troggs were cursed Earthen… Who did not turn into Dwarves :weary:

671

They key wording is “legend says.” It turns out that troggs are in fact degenerated earthen who suffered from the Curse of Flesh far more keenly, that legend is false.

… However, it does expose that even the dwarves did not view their creator gods in an entirely positive light, even back when WoW first released. Clearly, they were seen in the same light as the Greek or Norse pantheons, as deities capable of errors and causing great catastrophes because of them.

But this sort of backlash whenever the Titans are shown as flawed and not respectful of the autonomy of their servants or the inhabitants of Azeroth. Basically every single revelation about the Titans in Dragonflight was greeting in this thread (and it predecessors) was greeted with this exact sort of anger, frustration and “oh great the Titans are now evil” criticism.

Some of it feels warranted to me, as it was confusing when Tyr was character-assassinated and transformed into a cold, clinical machine-god in some storylines, while other storylines continued to treat him as the most human, reasonable and moral Titan keeper on Azeroth.

On the other hand, some of it feels unwarranted to me, in instances like this when rather standard Titanic defence systems are activated in circumstances that the Titans didn’t foresee or take into consideration. To me, this feels like it’s totally in line with prior depictions of the Titans.

But in all of these cases, a whole lot of backlash is focused on complaining about how the Titans are being turned into “the bad guys.”

If I have to guess, this is due to the larger cultural backlash against any storytelling that is considered “subversive.” After the release of media like the Last Jedi, there’s a lot of people who are pushing for more “traditional” stories where the good guys are objectively good, the bad guys are objectively bad, where there’s no attempt to blur the lines and point out in flaws in the good or justify the bad. They want stories where it’s okay to slaughter every last one of the monsters because they’re evil, and they want stories where the gods and the kings and the people who serve them are good and righteous with no grey areas or room for doubt.

So when it emerges the Titanic defence system is triggered in a circumstance that the Titans might not have predicted, showing that the Titans are flawed and aren’t perfect benevolent protector gods (even though they never have been), this is bad storytelling because it subverts the “traditional story” of objectively good gods who can never do any wrong.

2 Likes
672

Hunter changes are looking gooood, I am feeling positive about this :partying_face:

673

Kind of weird because in Antorus they were literally calling us their homies + children, so why have their personalities suddenly completely changed.

Aman’Thul you got a bit too nice with ur kids, Blizzard is turning u into an absentee father figure.

Edit: Cold distant caretakers was way way cooler btw, Titans might not care for mortals (this is wrong) but them caring for the universe as a whole just makes sense considering the alternative is literally eldritch cthulhu cancer everywhere and I’m not sure how you make eldritch cthulhu cancer seem like a reasonable alternative.

Its almost like people don’t want 30 years of precedent totally flipped on its head to make it appeal to modern generational “everything is ambiguous shades of grey” storytelling. To clarify before this is jumped on: this doesn’t mean people IC have to perceive merely as good or evil, there’s shades of grey available IC as there always will be, but you can’t really have Metzen give 10 different interview sources of the Titans being confirmed “benevolent” and “unable to conceive of Evil” and then flip it on its head just because you want too, its bad storytelling and bad consistency and we should call it out like we do everything else, we shouldn’t be fine with it just because its theological.

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674

You’re going to trust ‘gods’ to be honest when their survival is dependent on us? They’ll say anything…

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675

Elenthas I know we all mentally barricade our childhoods but that’s just literally every parent ever.

Do this because I said so.

676

I like when cosmic powers, all of them, try to kill us. Mortals persisting in spite of cosmic powers is my favourite theme

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677

A Final Fantasy Protagonist typed this message.

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678

I will end you for labelling me like that.

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679

You are right; it’s not like they’ve continually installed Guardians and Keepers to slay misbehaving children throughout the game’s history.

Totally out of left field that a titanic facility would have some kind of failsafe and or guardian to prevent corruption or protect the secrets of the Titans.

Except for that one time, they left one in;
Uldaman, Halls of Stone, Halls of Origination, Ulduar, Uldir… to name a few.

On a less sarcastic note: I don’t understand how people have ascribed caretakers to their portfolio. - Sure they helped facilitate Azeroth’s life and brought order to the world but it was always to help Azeroth (the world’s soul). - We’ve always been a bi-product, and sure a bi-product that eventually got to aid the Titans but still a bi-product.

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680

Because for 25 years the idea of “worldsouls” wasn’t a thing, a small number of planets would hold Titans instead. For 25 years the lore was “The Titans helped forge the cosmos and specifically Azeroth, putting in place protections to help its various mortal races that the Titans either directly or indirectly shaped”.

681

So it’s more retcon contradictions?

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682

Welcome to the “they’ve changed so much of everything post-cata and post-legion that the old lore that actually established this setting, its races, mythology and theology no longer makes any coherent sense when you try to fit it into the modern WoW puzzle” dilemma.

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