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

[Ethenil]

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.

I disagree with the latter part of your reconstruction. It goes more like this:

""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 the former intends to sacrifice herself to ensure the death of the latter, overloading herself, but Elune doesn't want her High Priestess to die so she pulls the plug on her abilities."

- - - Updated - - -

Whether or not anyone has doubts that it is Elune's fault that the Kaldorei souls are in the jaws?
Well here Elune herself says it.

Instead of claiming the souls for herself as wisps, she let them go into the Shadowlands, intending for them to help Ardenweald in the drought... but then she finds out they were sent into the Maw instead, thus thinking she's condemned them.

Not that hard to follow really.

[Kyphael]

So my prediction of Elune ending up being an Old God with 4 mouths and 6 asses wasn't that farfetched. Huh.

[Ethenil]

She 100% let them die by not empowering her "favored children" during the War of the Thorns. She was apparently aware enough of everything happening to the Night Elves to "ease their pain", but just couldn't be bothered giving Night Warrior powers to the defenders of Ashenvale, Darkshore, and Teldrassil. No, no .. they had to do some silly ritual first because "oh, Night Warrior powers are potentially deadly", which doesn't stack up when those defenders are already being slaughtered left and right anyway. All it does is prove that Elune really couldn't give a damn about saving the Night Elves.

Another nail in the coffin of this idiotic narrative that the Night Elves have been given.

The only way we've ever seen Elune help the night elves, thus the only way she presumably can help them, is by empowering them, which she does through her priestesses. There is no indication that her priestesses lost their power during the War of Thorns... so she was still empowering them.

[Lolites]

She is directly responsible for choosing where night elves go in the afterlife. How the hell is she not in some aspect a god that governs death? What kind of religion has a god that simultaneously has the power to send souls wherever she wishes and also has no idea what happens to them once she sends them there?

she dont send them "wherever she wishes", she can claim there for her own (make them wisps or whatnot) or NOT, in which case they go to shadowlands like every other soul, she just counted on elf going into ardenweald due to their ties with nature...

hmm which religion... all the polyteistic?
closest similar is nordic - Odyn chose which wariors are worthy to go with him to valhalla, those he did not chose went elsewhere, and he had no power over them, or where they end up...

[Pheraz]

They should just stop with putting us into cosmic battles. It just doesn't work.
If you want to see good writing for a god then look at Tiffitti in Mojana. Blizzard should watch more Disney movies instead of game of thrones cliff hanger series. Disney can at least tell a story even if they are mostly very simple but they work

[Super Dickmann]

She 100% let them die by not empowering her "favored children" during the War of the Thorns. She was apparently aware enough of everything happening to the Night Elves to "ease their pain", but just couldn't be bothered giving Night Warrior powers to the defenders of Ashenvale, Darkshore, and Teldrassil. No, no .. they had to do some silly ritual first because "oh, Night Warrior powers are potentially deadly", which doesn't stack up when those defenders are already being slaughtered left and right anyway. All it does is prove that Elune really couldn't give a damn about saving the Night Elves.

Another nail in the coffin of this idiotic narrative that the Night Elves have been given.

Elune has never been implied to have ever been capable of interfering on that scale. She didn't with the Legion, she didn't with the Qiraji, she didn't with the Horde. The sum of her intervention is for her to give her powers to her priestesses or to do favours for people she specifically likes and as of BFA, creating Night Warriors. Creating even one Night Warrior is also said to be supremely draining to her according to that one leatherworking quest. She can also cheat the system and fast-track people to Ardenweald like she did with Ysera successsfully and tried to do with the Teldrassil night elves.

It's not that she doesn't care, it's that she's oblivious and humanizing a distant goddess figure of 20 years and thus killing the mystery just so that her first lines of dialogue become her being apologetic over fucking up is a staggeringly poor choice.

It makes her seem really inept. Like can she not communicate with her "sister" unless she has an avatar? She can apparently hear prayers across multiple dimensions and knows whats going on in the physical universe and yet can't figure out that while souls are still dying the drought obviously isn't a supply problem..

The story is supremely poorly told. The characters in the story didn't actually know the Maw was responsible or that the Jailer was involved until far into the story and we're meant to come away with the impression that the Winter Queen didn't specify as she didn't know herself so Elune helped her out upon being called. We as the audience though know that the Jailer did it as the premise and other gods like Bwonsamdi, who is implied to be on a lot lower level, know and act accordingly. Elune is thus a patch late and off-topic.

I think your idea that this exists mostly as an ass-saving exercise and to go 'Look, it's another tear, like Elune's tear 'member Legion' is the right one.

I disagree with the latter part of your reconstruction. It goes more like this:

""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 the former intends to sacrifice herself to ensure the death of the latter, overloading herself, but Elune doesn't want her High Priestess to die so she pulls the plug on her abilities."

The latter part is important. Elune is definitely manipulative as well as just oblivious because Tyrande makes one choice against Sylvanas and Elune prevents her from following through with that choice. When she does give Tyrande an option to decide otherwise, the extenuating circumstances are that she's about to detonate if she continues and that she's now a realm away from her target rather than in the process of choking her. The choice Elune imposes on her is one that has only one option that hasn't already been undermined and is also being put on her priestess under duress.

Honestly, this is all that needs to be said. True deities work best when kept ambiguous, when questions of "Why didn't God/Elune do x?" can be left as a matter of faith- if only because that's how religion works in real life, and thus adds a touch of believable mystery into an otherwise over-explained and increasingly shallow fictional world.

Ultimately, when a story regarding the destruction of two playable races becomes a story about a poorly worded message from one god to another and later a misplaced fed-ex delivery, the societal drama and character interaction that should result is gutted. It's a supremely demystifying, pointless cutscene, redeemable only if the intention really was to depict the gods as fickle, manipulative morons. In which case it suddenly becomes extremely successful and competent, if still a very poor story direction given how at odds it is with the themes associated with Elune up to that point.

[Kralljin]

This is basically why Sylvanas chose to serve the Jailor.

And the Jailer is still a cosmic Force, hence it doesn't fill the criteria.

[Aleksej89]

wow writing team needs to be fired, or at least all the leading positions.

its just irredeemably bad.

[Izzyfurious]

wow writing team needs to be fired, or at least all the leading positions.

its just irredeemably bad.

Thats what i've being saying for years, good more are finally starting to wake up about it and agree!

[sighy]

Hmm it seems a lot of people here have a lot of trouble distinguishing the perspective of a character, from the perspective of the omniscient viewer...

We know specifically that Elune is credited with saving Malfurion, in the WoT. (even tho ti makes Saurfang look stupid) It's clear that the writing was ont he wall, for those who were in the know that something has gone tits up, in the Shadowlands, at that point, even if they weren't necessarily aware of the exact nature of the issue since the topic of the Maw seems to have been a big nono, which ultimately greatly worked, in the Jailer's advantage both within shadowlands and outside. We've seen this, in the cinematic, which followed Uther and Devos. This revelation seems to have been an extension of that. Also you're talking about a goddes, which partly represents death and rebirth the odds of mortal death being a big deal to her are rather minimal.


I kind of have a theory that the Jailer's original plan was to use the drought to slowly choke the other Eternal ones out, but Teldrassil and the subsequent 4th war forced the issue so even tho he got immideate power it overall was a wrench in his plan and he needed to improvise, with the "pure hearted" heroes abduction and such stuff to act sooner than he'd necessarily like.

[lolskillzz]

LOL ELUNE CONDEMNED HER OWN PEOPLE. imagine being soy nelfs and being so bottom feeder that your own dumb "goddess" even throws you away. good riddance. This bit of lore makes Treedrasil even more awesome.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

The more I see the story of Shadowlands and BFA, the more I wish that these expansions hadn't even been made in the first place and that Legion was the end of WOW, and that the writers had been sacked a long time ago.

[Obvious10]

Yup
As always nice cinematics....but the story, the message..... allowing genocide ...omg.... Blizz cant do better then this, can not make better stories???

For the meanwhile i stick with WoD, Legion and BfA with my toons and alts.... perhaps i will even try firelands, nice transmorgs there

[SirFinlot]

So it is canon that Elune let the Kaldorei die to save her sister.
Looks of souls who worked hard to serve him discarded as cannon fodder to achieve a goal.

Now it all makes sense Blizzard and Elune are the same entity.


My question would be.
Also why did I kill the wardens in W3?

Not only did you kill wardens. You also released criminal archers being held there, along with Brolidan.

And lets not forget the best gem - Goblin Land mines.
Tyrande mentions "Goblins must have left them when they where here."
Makes you wonder, did the Goblins build the jail ten thousand years ago?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Super Dickmann]

Do you mean to say that a deity who is powerful enough to protect against Archimonde, an immortal and skyscraper-sized demon of incredible magical power and talent, is somehow not powerful enough to protect against a bunch of mortal soldiers? And while we're at that, the Dark Moon during the Battle for Darkshore doesn't just empower Tyrande, but also everyone fighting with her. To say nothing of the various blessings and Elune-related artefacts that appear throughout WoW.

The problem isn't that Elune is oblivious, or even that she's being humanized (as bad as that is). It's that her power level, like anything in Warcraft, is wildly inconsistent both in scale and use because Elune herself only serves as a plot device McGuffin for [insert anything that features a Night Elf]. That's how we ended up with a deity whose motivations and actions are insane and inconsistent come this latest cutscene: she's the peak personification of the shitty writing that Night Elves have received.

Elune's intervention being inconsistent and arbitrary only becomes an issue post-humanization. It has always been the case that her power level and ability to intervene has no set bounds. Beyond just what Tyrande does in WC3 we first see Elune directly intervening to put a bubble on Tyrande in one of the Knaak books to protect her from the consequences of her crippling mental retardation. From then on and in the MMO she can cure people from being satyrs and even go so far as to help the Horde PC against night elves if they do some quests. You point this out yourself, there's tons of items and tools and none cohere in any meaningful way.

So long as Elune has no set origin, no limited abilites, no allegiance to any understood cosmic power etc and is only interpreted second hand by her followers and adversaries, that's no issue. When you give her a face and a voice and an active presence with things like pulling the plug on Tyrande all these elements cease being the unknowable machinations of the divine plan in a religious way and become the stupid actions of one tard in a cast full of tards. Elune's power level matters because she's now a character, not a force. By becoming a character she does also become the personification of all bad night elf writing.

[BrintoSFJ]

Maybe if they explain that wisps are the natural cycle for NE's and going to the shadowlands was intervention, then sure... But at the moment, it seems really poorly explained and craps all over NE's after we see Elune refuse to let Tyrande get vengeance.

Indeed, it is total crap! Night Elves keep getting shafted again and again since WC3. This is just another "fuck you" from blizzard to us players.

[Toppy]

Why are so many acting like there are set rules that Elune must follow?

She COULD have empowered her followers or at least helped them somewhat at Teldrassil. She's a fictional character and the writers are more than capable of having her empower her people as she has done in the past. Tyrande doesn't need to be a Night Warrior to be able to call on Elune to rain down moon bombs on armies like she did in Warcraft 3.

Elune has been handled so little that there were plenty of options for blizzard to go down to have Elune intervene that would have fit in the canon. They chose "She does nothing because sister and stupidity"

[Super Dickmann]

She COULD have empowered her followers or at least helped them somewhat at Teldrassil. She's a fictional character and the writers are more than capable of having her empower her people as she has done in the past. Tyrande doesn't need to be a Night Warrior to be able to call on Elune to rain down moon bombs on armies like she did in Warcraft 3.

Elune not acting on a mass scale is the only part of this nonsense that doesn't fuck with her lore too much as that would open the can of worms of why she didn't act in the much bigger wars the night elves were a part in. She still acted in the WC3 sense since her followers were still able to attack me with spells while I was chopping down 8 of them for pre-BFA World Quests.

[Biomega]

Controversial take: while it would at first glance seem quite horrifying that Elune would allow the wholesale slaughter of her self-confessed "favorite children", that only seems bad from a very simplistic view on life and death. One of the broker books (iirc) mentions how silly they find it that mortals look at death as the end of life, when really it's just one state among several. And as we see from the Shadowlands experience, it doesn't really end with death. Now Elune seems to hint at there being some kind of plan for the souls of the kaldorei, which similarly implies that death is a transition, not an extinction. In that sense, while the pain of the experience is regrettable indeed, the loss of life itself is not necessarily that big of a problem, in the larger picture. Certainly given what may be at stake, it may in fact end up being a fairly modest price to pay if it means the sustaining of what comes next. That this didn't actually end up happening because everything went to the Maw can't really be laid at Elune's feet - she made the choice she thought would be best overall, given the information she had.

[Pheraz]

Please please please fire Steve Danuser.

I actually can't deal with this shit lore anymore

They don't need to fire him. Just step down as the lead narrative dev/designer. He is too much into cliff hangers and cosmic wars