[Spoilers] Elune talks!!! We finally hear/interact with Elune directly.

[bledgor]

The maw is a one way street but Elune doesn't know anyone entering the SL is getting sucked into the Maw. The brokers being in the city clearly shows there atleast used to be other means of travelling to the Shadowlands.

Again though, the shadowlands has existed since the beginning as far as we know, and the Zovaal breaking the system of death has never occurred during that time, and is fairly new.

To me it seems reasonable for an estranged family member to hear someone is in trouble and mail in some help instead of thoroughly investigating it. Idk, maybe I just had weird family dynamics growing up :/.

[Super Dickmann]

But she isn't able to stop the burning, only fed-ex the souls.

I guess it's bad writing if you assume that Elune has been built up as an entity that can manifest on Azeroth and extinguish a tree, but her shit has always been very limited on Azeroth. Which lines up with what has been shown lately (BFA): she knows, but cannot act in a significant way.

Fed-exing the souls and them ending up in the Maw, oops, how clumsy, means she's below Bwonsamd in both power and awareness. Her not being able to affect Azeroth much and ergo taking minimal role as regards the Legion, Qiraji, Horde and various other night elf-related wars is coherent, but the more she's implied to have awareness the dumber and less powerful she is in what she actually does.

She says Tyrande has to choose between vengeance or renewal. She did choose, Elune noped out of it.

Yup, while we're at it, not only can we add Elune to the mentally deficient counter along with virtually every participant in the plot, but we can also tell she's kind of a bitch. She gives Tyrande a choice of vengeance or becoming an Anduinist only after having pulled the plug on her mid-fight with Sylvanas and while she's so overcharged she's about to die if she doesn't let go of her completely justified grievances. Ergo only one of these outcomes is attainable and Elune rigged it in that direction to get to chat with her sister.

[Nagawithlegs]

Ironically, the idea that Tyrande has to let go to save Ardenweald at the expense of being able to kill Bad Sylvanas (who is dead already) does have gravitas, but it doesn't matter because players don't care about Ardenweald as much as they do Sylvanas getting pulped.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I mean 99.999999999999999999999999999% of mortals traveling to the shadowlands is a one way street, so not sure about that. Odin, a POWERFUL titanforged, had to give his eye up to glimpse the shadowlands, remember that.

Also if she is from the pantheon of life (which it seems to be) I would think keeping the Elves alive as undead would be pretty fucking much against everything stands for, resurrection maybe, but undead, very unlikely.

Yet we know it’s not always a one way and elune can look in with a host, so either she didn’t think of doing such in which case she’s an idiot or she didn’t care enough in which case she’s still an idiot.

As to keeping undead alive Loa are also part of life yet they can do it no problem so no that’s an awful excuse. We also already know night elfs can stay in Azeroth as wisp so she’d have options to keep them around undead or not.

- - - Updated - - -

She says Tyrande has to choose between vengeance or renewal. She did choose, Elune noped out of it.

“She must choose but can only pick t he choice I want her to” is what she meant to say.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

This expansion story is not getting any better. Gosh this is so predictable and stupid, I prefer to ignore it like most of Battle for Azeroth and the "One Burning Legion, Archimonde, Kil'jaeden and Sargeras for each timeline/universe" nonsense.

[bledgor]

Yet we know it’s not always a one way and elune can look in with a host, so either she didn’t think of doing such in which case she’s an idiot or she didn’t care enough in which case she’s still an idiot.

Lazy, sure, I'm not sure if I want to commit to idiot, because again, the whole Zovaal breaking death is both new and entirely unprecedented for the entirety of existence for them. Also again estranged sister so probably doing the family thing of staying the fuck away, shitty sister, yes, bad writing? very debatable.

As to keeping undead alive Loa are also part of life yet they can do it no problem so no that’s an awful excuse. We also already know night elfs can stay in Azeroth as wisp so she’d have options to keep them around undead or not.

That isn't accurate though, from what we see all Loa belong to the realm of death, they may LIVE in the mortal realm, but they die and go to the Shadowlands and reincarnate there, making them of the realm of death. Elune would be possibly a member/of the pantheon of life.

The wisps angle is something I had forgotten though, that point is fair. Wonder if that is the life pantheons version of undead.

[Super Dickmann]

Ironically, the idea that Tyrande has to let go to save Ardenweald at the expense of being able to kill Bad Sylvanas (who is dead already) does have gravitas, but it doesn't matter because players don't care about Ardenweald as much as they do Sylvanas getting pulped.

It fails also because these aren't the stakes as presented to us. We don't see Ardenweald and all the forest critters, night elf souls and what have you rotting away unless saved. Ardenweald is already on its way up and going pretty decently by the time we finish up its campaign. Instead, what it's for is to restore the Ardenweald sigil which is only one of 4 plot coupons needed to continue the story and which has had no visible effect before.

The actual reconstruction of events is the following: Sylvanas torches the tree and Elune, called there by the night elves' prayers ends up soothing them and then sending them to Ardenweald, since she's heard on the grapevine her sister needs a helping hand. She then shrugs and goes to read her newspaper. She later finds out that all those souls are actually going to turbo hell. What a bother. Feeling awkward about this she lets Tyrande act out for a bit until the fight with Sylvanas where, before Tyrande is able to achieve her goal and while Tyrande is pleading Elune not to be ditched, Elune pulls the plug on her abilities. Having maneuvered this silly mortal into the position she wants she admits to her sister that she kind of screwed up and puts Tyrande into a situation where she has to make a false choice. Tyrande makes the only decision that doesn't render her efforts entirely pointless and the two sisters reconcile Elune having given the Winter Queen the gift she meant to ages back and leaving the rest to sort themselves out.

The end cinematic will get all the heat but this might actually be the worst cinematic both in Shadowlands and arguably at all. It's visually boring since it's just two people chatting away in an unchanging setting. It has no stakes as the thing all the movement centers on is a plot device with a completely vague purpose who's weight has no setup to it. It completely demystifies the only 'real' god the setting has had for twenty-odd years as a mixture of a machiavellian manipulator and an absolute moron and turns Tyrande's arc into a vehicle to restore the familial relationship of two characters of whom one we only know for one expansion and another isn't even expected to have a family. It's a total anticlimax on several separate levels while at the same time diminishing everyone involved in it except the Winter Queen. I can't even be mad about it, it's kind of impressive in that regard.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Let a few thousand night of elves die when the Shadowlands would have been getting millions of not billions of souls a day from a universal scale.


Great plan, Elune.

[huth]

Unless omnipotence isn't a characteristic in WoW's version of deities.

Omnipotence is not a common characteristic of deities, period. Omnipotent gods are far and few between. In fact, i can only think of a single one to actually have that attributed to them, and even that one is questionable. Some question whether omnipotence is even theoretically possible.

That aside, Elune didn't kill anybody. She didn't prevent their death.


For that matter, what good would that omnipotence do her when she lacks the knowledge of what needs to be fixed? It seems you're mixing up omnipotence and omniscience here.

[Varodoc]

I think Elune might be the most useless deity in all of Blizzard franchises. Literally the only thing she's done in WoW, despite the yearly world-ending threats, was turn Ysera into a random constellation no one cares about.

No wonder she was the creator of that worthless chandelier Xe'ra.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Lazy, sure, I'm not sure if I want to commit to idiot, because again, the whole Zovaal breaking death is both new and entirely unprecedented for the entirety of existence for them. Also again estranged sister so probably doing the family thing of staying the fuck away, shitty sister, yes, bad writing? very debatable.

if something new and unpredictable happens and instead of looking into it you just throw fuel onto the fire your an idiot.

That isn't accurate though, from what we see all Loa belong to the realm of death, they may LIVE in the mortal realm, but they die and go to the Shadowlands and reincarnate there, making them of the realm of death. Elune would be possibly a member/of the pantheon of life.

The wisps angle is something I had forgotten though, that point is fair. Wonder if that is the life pantheons version of undead.

Loa of are life as we know from the cosmology charts that’s really not up for debate no matter where they go when they die.

We know creatures of life can make undead and hold onto souls if elune can’t and she’s supposedly on the pantheon of life that’s just points even more so to awful writing.

[Vaedan]

She could at least have intervened so they didn't die in agony -y'know.

She did. At the end of Elegy novel, priestesses which stayed in the Temple sang Elune's song and they fell into calm sleep and did not felt the suffering. If that apply to all elves who burned is unclear, but we've been shown some were spared.

[Lolites]

who so many people think by sending the souls she meant she let them die?
to me it seems more like AFTER they died she didnt claim their souls for herself (turn to wisps or how it works) but let them flow to ardenweald (at least thats what she thouhgt)
she said "in the wake of tragedy" so that makes more sense than letting them die

[Nagawithlegs]

The actual reconstruction of events is the following: Sylvanas torches the tree and Elune, called there by the night elves' prayers ends up soothing them and then sending them to Ardenweald, since she's heard on the grapevine her sister needs a helping hand. She then shrugs and goes to read her newspaper.

Well yeah, part of this expansion is showing that Elune is cosmic and the Night Elves are just one of her follower races. Yes that makes the race less special but thats what happens when they want to do Universe of Warcraft.

She later finds out that all those souls are actually going to turbo hell. What a bother.

This however simply isn't true. She found out about this in this cinematic and says that she fucked up and doomed her people.

Complain all you like that she doesn't have omni-meta knowledge, but at least acknowledge the narrative presented in the cinematic.

[Sut]

So Bwonsamdi is smarter than Elune?

[Voidwielder]

I see this as a confirmation that Jailer/Sylvanas had a point - we are just play things in the hands of Gods/Greater Beings/Masters of the Universe. They don't care about us and the ''game'' is rigged in their favour.

[Nagawithlegs]

So Bwonsamdi is smarter than Elune?

He knew about the Maw drain because he's a Shadowlands creature that lives in the Shadowlands.

Elune isn't.

[Maljinwo]

This is huge. How many years have we waited for this moment!

And then she admits to letting her followers die


Not surpsising, considering the Horde can even use Elune's rituals to kill evertything in Nijel's Point, including nelves lol

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

We finally hear Elune herself talk! Through Tyrande as her avatar. Its not ambiguous - its Elune.
This is huge. How many years have we waited for this moment!

Zero, because Elune should have stayed a mystical and mysterious deity.

[Feanoro]

"Remember, Alliance (and especially Night Elves), if you're a victim and seek justice for the wrongs against you, you're just as bad as the perpetrators of genocide."
- Blizzard for more than twenty years

Why is anyone surprised? Told you the current writers would only wreck Elune if they touched her.