Spoiler. Elune’s role/identity/power level revealed

Lore Story
21

Or, so if we extend you take to other things, you prefer:

  • why buff weak classes, if you can nerf everything to the lowest level?
  • why improve working conditions, if you can make everyone’s life miserable?
  • why build up diverse cast of races with interesting back stories, cool characters, and their somewhat unique perspectives on the story, if you can kick them all to the :poop:-iest level?

How about no? I wish to see more awesomeness, not crapping all over some characters / races for the sake of cheap shock value or promoting views of preferences of a few devs.

Nice try but while there are people like that, generalizing the thing does a great disservise to the story and discussion of the story.

The problem is, that the devs use some characters and themes as a tool to push forward whoever their favourites, and view they see as “correct”, regardless of how it fits the story overall. If you think it’s ok, sure - promote it.

But your opinion that such treatment of characters and story elements that made the players by the game to begin with, is any good, is not a reason for me to accept with such take.

It should have been done in a different way

yup, everyone need a trade-off. Night elves need after a loss, a pay off in the narrative. The forsaken after the devs bashing their ideantity, need a pay off and reconstruction. Faction stories after being demonized for ages, need to show that there are great things to get from them. And thing that are happening is not that IMO.

gl hf

9 Likes
22

I agree, but I meant emotional and historical ties as they appear to the concerned people, independently or whether or not it is to be retconned. And actually, you can’t retcon something like the bond between Trolls and the Loa : they’ve been living together and helping each other out since the beginning.

Well… I guess yes, since that’s apparently where the devs are trying to lead us, lol. Even then, genuinely thinking that the hero that gave you a future and a purpose cares about you, and genuinely thinking that you’re the chosen one race worshipping the ultimate deity… are not exactly on the same scale of hubris, right.

Also, yes, they’ve been pushing that “mortality is the best” thing quite hard recently. My guess is that they need it to justify something like “human potential”.

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They did so in the context of differentiating her from the Titans.
If they now expand on it further by introducing other godly beings such as the Loa, or the rulers of the SL.

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You just wait till the alternative motives show their ugly faces, and it would turn out that the creatures participating in the pact were just doing whatever for their personal gains, and whatever bad happened to trolls with all the troll patches was actually good and served the bigger purpose. Purpose for which it’s ok if some suffer / be killed / whatever.

Sad times.

It’s a central theme. I just clumsy in my attemt to tell that the devs decostruct key themes and ideas without following it up by something as a decet pay-off.

The exact context will be whatever they will want it to be whenever they wish. It was about 1 pantheon, and we were not told about other ones at the time, so it overall seems like cheating.

gl hf

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As said, i think Teldressil was a very bad decision.
And yes, Nightelves were demystified over the years, but still very much a cut above the rest with their leaders being basically demigods. I dislike the demystification of Elune, but not because “now everything the nightelves were is worthless” but because Mystery is good for fantasy, and more things should have stayed mysteries.
Loa were gods once, now they are smart animals blessed by Titans.
The Light was a mystical force of good once, now it’s a force of creation that wants to force stagnation on the universe etc.
The demystification itself is definitely a bad thing.

I didn’t say that everyone reacts like that, only that there’s a ocean of tears every time Nightelves are not perfect.

I don’t think that’s okay and as often before i completely agree with you :wink:

yup.

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You know what really bothers me in this? It’s Winter Queen’s “irritated” quote.
“Do you have a sister, mortal? You are certainly as vexing as mine.” - so Elune is “vexing”?? She has a personality? This bothers me more than it should.
Shadowlands is slowly removing the mystery from everything. I preferred not knowing a thing about Elune. Sigh.

27

Well, that is another mistake. Because in the questline, when Elune showed up, Winter Queen says:
“It has been so long… My sister… After all this time… She did not abounded me…”.

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Yeahhh, those quotes seem so out of place imo.

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Gods having personalities doesn’t deprive them of their holiness, though. In real life, polytheistic pantheons’ gods often have strong personalities and sometimes pretty bad flaws

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Not keeping outliers that somehow think themselves better than the rest, isn’t crapping all over anyone.

The only thing that does, is to put everyone on a more equal footing without feeding on absurdly high expectations or power fantasy levels.

And it does nothing to diminish the narrative quality of those involved.

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It’s not the only thing it does, as it also has consequences on the continuity and how things are marketed to the new players. And it affects how people trust the developers, and investment into the franchise.

What you claim has IMO 2 things worth pointing out:

  1. making more equal could be done differently. Building up and expanding character rosters and their tools and racial fantasies are also a possible option. It’s longer and harder to do though, so yes, cheap way is to bash somebody instead of developing the rest.
  2. There is a problem that a lot of the horde players (my impression, I might be way off) are attracted to the horde among other things because of the “underdog” story part. Guess what, if thing get “in line” and instead of “player characters are exceptional and thus kind of equal because of the Azeroth connection, which is a common source” races come to equal-ish footing, that “underdog” story bit will no longer exist. One have to be underdog to be underdog.

It does. As it did with other deconstructed elements. You know really well what happened with Sylvanas, horde, and forsaken in the process of such deconstruction. It’s all the same approach: do what’s cool loosely based on selected story bits, and all the rest be doomed.

gl hf

1 Like
32

In what way does knowing Elune is the Winter Queen sister, diminish the racial fantasy she feeds to Night elf characters?

And I mean that particular bit alone.

I’m not a fan of how they are removing all mysteries derived from otherworldly beings. But in this precise case, how does it affect the narrative surrounding the Night elves?

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So, you originally quote

I wish to see more awesomeness, not crapping all over some characters / races for the sake of cheap shock value or promoting views of preferences of a few devs.

Answer to it with

The only thing that does, is to put everyone on a more equal footing without feeding on absurdly high expectations or power fantasy levels.

Which follow up the discussion of the overall theme of night elf going on, and then bail into “Elune”? Really?

Then you probably could’ve stated in right next to

Which could lead to a different answer from me.

Long story short, there was a specific image of what the race is and how it ties together made by the former devs.

Current ones alter things like that without both build up and explanation of how the old story bits fit into it.

It might very well go in a direction of “Elune allowed the elves to be killed because of some purpose for their souls after” which would be IMO about the worst way to handle the tree story in general and show them [devs] as totally morally bankrupt (the writers talk about applying irl morals to the game, not my take).

As mentioned before, the current take seemingly contradicts the older “let’s distance her away from pantheon(s)”, changes significant portion of the lore related to afterlives and wisps, on role of Elune, and should have a dramatic impact on their culture as most of what it was build around will end up being a lie.

gl hf

6 Likes
34

Really.

Because I don’t think that clarifying Elunes parentage, diminishes in any way the “awesomeness” of the core narrative aspects of Night elves.
Unless your entire “awesomeness” depended on feeling that “your God was better than everyone else’s”.

The above gets specially ridiculous when acknowledging that we are still dealing with characters more powerful or ancient than the Titans.

Are really people with so much complex, that they need to reaffirm that they are even above that?

How is said image changed?
Night elves are still considered the chosen ones of Elune. Tyrande is still the priestess of said creed.
Elune remains as some godly being above the Titans themselves, now with obvious ties over a full quarter of the cosmic afterlife that affects all races across the universe.

Really, in what way does it affect the narrative?

What lie? I don’t get it.

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What core narrative is there left unharmed?

We do not have characters that are “more powerful” and confirmed as such in the narrative. We did not even see a full scale of the unbound titan power. (and likely won’t see, because even doing a world boss turns the zone into a lag fest. And it’s not even “epic” scale of events)

We have a confirmation that the power of the Winter Queen is about on a level of a titan keeper

https://sagamer.co.za/2020/08/20/a-deep-dive-into-ardenweald-the-shadowlands-realm-of-hibernation/

We have a conflict with a bunch of sources going to WoWhead for “titan ++” quote, yet the same exact phrase mentioned in windowscentral article just says “titan level threat”:

But here, there is a major titan plus plus level antagonist that we are facing, and there are major steps in our journey to undercover the nature of the jailer’s plan and put together the forces to have a chance against him.

Is stated by wowhead.

But here, there is a major, Titan-level antagonist that we are facing. And we have many steps in our journey to uncover the nature of the Jailor’s plan, and put together the forces and support to even have a chance against him.

from https://www.windowscentral.com/world-warcraft-shadowlands-big-interview-game-director-ion-hazzikostas

Where do we see it having impact on the story? Other than in negative way of undead elves running with “it’s all lie”, topic of “why Elune abandoned us”, destroyed amalgamation of souls calling it a lie, “consumed by vengeance”, and other things non of which is so far portrayed and good / justified, etc.

What will she be by the end of the expansion - remains to be seen.

Elune and afterlife of elves, wisps, Dream stuff, mentions in the game by victims that it’s all lie about Elune. Plus the whole Ardenweald connection and having a living “relative” of Elune should (but likely won’t) change a lot of meaning behind more or less all the ritualistic plactices. It’s now a very specific creature from very specific place, with connection to very specific powers / influences, which one can visit whenever (check random NPCs like Dezco in Oribos).

It touches a lot, going from reasoning behind why troll were changed into elves, to dragons lore, religion, and afterlife aspects connected to Elune. Will the devs handle it with necessary depth and breadth? Who knows, but I doubt it.

gl hf

2 Likes
36

Yup, it’s fun if deities have personalities, that’s why all loas we’ve met are fun, they are all different and fun to talk to. The titans have personalities as well, sure, fine by me. But I imagined Elune was supposed to be something else. Idk, I pictured her as more of a being of pure energy rather than someone who is, idk, irritating her sister.

1 Like
37

The fact that Night elves are still revering Elune. The fact Elune remains a godly being that grants boons to her followers.
The fact that her being the Winter Queens sister isn’t a fact that affects in any way the story she gives Night elf characters.

If you think the fact above, does, I’d appreciate if you could expand on how.

I don’t know how is this related to the uproar regarding whether Elune is related or not to the Winter Queen.

All the above, for good or ill, would remain the same regardless of the clarification given regarding her parentage.
That’s why I said that the narrative surrounding NEs remains the same regardless of whether she is now the Winter Queen sister.

Again, I repeat, what does any of that have to do with this new information about the Winter Queen being her sister?

Yeah, this whole afterlife concept presented in Shadowlands has challenged several preconceived ideas for several races, not only elves. (Where are the Orc ancestors? Where are the Loa?).

But the bit of information being debated now, is the fact that Elune is the Winter Queens sister.

I’ll repeat, how does THAT affect the Night elf narrative?

Why is it bad? Why do people think it somehow represents:

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I definitely see what bothers you and I hope the way they will depict her (because that seems inevitable at this point) won’t be too much of a mythbreaker for players that are into NE stuff

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You’ve been given an answer about why the new direction for the race and racial theme touches a bunch of core themes, places them in uncertainty, and renders some as false, and why the scope of the effect is so big, that the devs will likely never bother depicting it decently.

You not willing to accept why something is important to other players and why touching something that might have relevance beyond “it’s just a video game” to the topics, have nothing to do with it.

You talk about how bad was a change to the Sylvanas narrative and what it touched, yet the moment we move to “the direction of someone who is as fundamental to a race as Sylvanas to the forsaken is now in a state of who knows what the hell is going on”, you make a choice to downplay wilinness of the devs to remade alter this part of the story, yet highlight the relevance of what happened to Sylvanas and forsaken.

Just look at your own arguments on the topic of Sylvanas, and you’ll see more or less all the same underlying themes as what happens to other aspects where the devs say (metaphorically speaking) “we can take the stories the players like, and remake them because we can do better”. And time and time again, it does not end up being better.

gl hf

6 Likes
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Do you think that the clarification regarding Elunes parentage to the Winter Queen, represents a new direction for the Night elf race?

Wasn’t that myth already busted the second Blizzard already clarified a bunch of afterlife aspects with this expansions intro? (Aspects that trashed several other ideas with several races)

How is the fact that Elune is the Winter Queens sister, something that affects or harms, the Night elf story in any meaningful way?
No, I’m not talking about the overarching approach of the Shadowlands expansion, I’m talking about this new bit of information given to us and being discussed in this thread.

Why is it that Elune being the Winter Queens sister, represents ANY sort of effect upon the Night elf story?