If Tyrande never became The Night Warrior... would it have mattered?

[Smallfruitbat]

Weird takes there. First up we don't know what awareness the gods have of other realms, just because the Winter Queen and Elune are sisters (whatever that means in WC cosmology) doesn't mean Elune should know what's going on. WQ expected help from Elune, and Elune expected the souls to go to Ardenweald when she wanted which suggests that this may not be the only time something like this has happened. Not knowing what his going on in the Realm of Death doesn't make Elune a fool unless you want to imagine he so.

Then with Tyrande, if you play through the Ardenweald campaign you learn that the Night Warrior power doesn't just kill the one who wields it, it takes away their ability to reason and they only see opposition as an enemy to be destroyed regardless of consequences. That is a loss of agency. What Elune did is gave Tyrande a chance to look at the situation she was in and properly assess how best to use the power she had been granted. Obviously when she made her choices in Darkshore during BfA she didn't know and couldn't account for the later situation in Ardenweald and the Shadowlands.

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They still have places to go in Hyjal, Feralas and the Broken Isles, NElves have huge holdings and shouldn't have to shelter in another race's capital. The Horde might even be convinced to give Ashenvale back to say sorry for the whole genocidal dictator x 2 issue.

It's not really a weird take to describe taking away someones agency as 'taking away someones agency'.

It was clear when you played through the NW questline back in BFA that there was a danger to it and that Tyrande had chosen to make that sacrifice to get revenge. Regardless of whether it was a good decision, it was still a decision on her behalf. Elune handed over the power, also knowing the outcome. Then snatched it back just as she was about to get her revenge because she had to chose between revenge and renewal (she had already done that). How is that not taking away a characters agency? Good story-telling allows characters to make shit decisions and the decision to go all out for revenge instead of staying with her people and helping them heal was a shit decision on Tyrande's part.

It's pretty clear that for whatever reason content (story content) has been cut from Shadowlands. I tend to think the 4chan leaks make more sense narratively. I think they did a pretty poor patch up job, but internally they had a lot of shit going on.

The writers seem to be obsessed with making the universe bigger and bigger and finding new and more powerful puppet masters, but ultimately that takes away from us as characters finding our place in the world as murder-hobos.

[Shadowferal]

Hmf...running into the same problem with leveling in that regard.

[Dhrizzle]

It's not really a weird take to describe taking away someones agency as 'taking away someones agency'.

It was clear when you played through the NW questline back in BFA that there was a danger to it and that Tyrande had chosen to make that sacrifice to get revenge. Regardless of whether it was a good decision, it was still a decision on her behalf. Elune handed over the power, also knowing the outcome. Then snatched it back just as she was about to get her revenge because she had to chose between revenge and renewal (she had already done that). How is that not taking away a characters agency? Good story-telling allows characters to make shit decisions and the decision to go all out for revenge instead of staying with her people and helping them heal was a shit decision on Tyrande's part.

The situation at that point in Shadowlands is very different to what was happening in BfA. When Tyrande took up the power she knew nothing about Ardenweald, the Maw and the Jailer. Her initial choice was "I can get revenge but I will probably go mad and die." In Shadowlands the choice was "I can get revenge but I will probably go mad and die, and the souls of those I am avenging will be forever damned, and the spiritual centre of our civilisation and other across the cosmos will die, and a brutal despot will gain the ability to unmake reality." It's not such a balanced decision at that point.

[Smallfruitbat]

The situation at that point in Shadowlands is very different to what was happening in BfA. When Tyrande took up the power she knew nothing about Ardenweald, the Maw and the Jailer. Her initial choice was "I can get revenge but I will probably go mad and die." In Shadowlands the choice was "I can get revenge but I will probably go mad and die, and the souls of those I am avenging will be forever damned, and the spiritual centre of our civilisation and other across the cosmos will die, and a brutal despot will gain the ability to unmake reality." It's not such a balanced decision at that point.

That really is a reach!

Tyrande made a decision based on the information in front of her and her feelings, she decided that the consequences of taking the power were worth the price. -I'm not saying it was a good decision but it was a decision none the less. You cannot retrospectively change a decision because you have new information, that's kind of the point of things having consequences; you don't always foresee everything.

And this is why I say they made Elune look dumb. Quite apart from the whole damning the Night Elves, she gave Tyrande the power knowing what it would do. Then snatched it away at the last moment. So what, the Goddess of the Night Elves treats them like kittens? Dangle the power in front of them to play with until she is tired of the game.

The story as a whole actually works better without giving Tyrande a temporary power up, which is the point of the thread. At the end of the day, the extra power didn't allow her to accomplish anything extra. All it did was gave players black eyes and make Elune look capricious.

[Dhrizzle]

That really is a reach!

Tyrande made a decision based on the information in front of her and her feelings, she decided that the consequences of taking the power were worth the price. -I'm not saying it was a good decision but it was a decision none the less. You cannot retrospectively change a decision because you have new information, that's kind of the point of things having consequences; you don't always foresee everything.

That's absolute nonsense, of course people are allowed to change their minds about things when presented with new information.

[ONCHEhap]

It's amazing how talented the writers are
I've never seen someone set so much groundwork for no payback whatsoever

It must be an entirely new genre

It's like narrative edging but without any sort of climax at the end.

It takes a while, it seems like it could end up being great, and then it just ends and you're just left confused, frustrated and unsatisfied

[bullseyed]

The only tangible effect was one dead Valkyrie, so the "heroes" would later face 10 of them in Sanctum of Domination instead of nine.

Self-oofs are rare. Way to show that you don't know what you're talking about.

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I mean the night elf power is there but totally ignored.

This is a lot of text to say "night elves are trolls who got high on magic water for too long".

[Amariw]

Nope, as far as i can te it wouldn't have mattered one bit, which is a darn shame as it was a good chance for actual story.

[Fistfighter]

The whole Darkshore storyline got scrapped along with the rest of Sylvanas's storyline that Africasabi had prepared when he got sacked.
That's why it's scrapped, he had thought of a master over arching plot for Sylvanas from the start of BfA until probly end of Shadowlands, but he never told anyone what the plan was.

[uuuhname]

nothing aside from the main plot mattered in this expansion, hell, most of what we've done this entire franchises' existence doesn't matter cuz that was all part of the plan.

[Romanthony]

Short answer no it wouldnt of mattered, because nothing really happened because of it, yes she became a rage monster but... what happened with it? What did she do with the power? Like alot of shadowlands, it was a wasted and abandoned plot

[Every Pwny]

Yeah the night warrior storyline was actually pointless, other than giving the night elves black eye customization, it feels like dropped plotline. But it's strange that it's even in shadowlands, it didn't impact the main plot at all, so if you removed it nothing would have changed.

[Dhrizzle]

Yeah the night warrior storyline was actually pointless, other than giving the night elves black eye customization, it feels like dropped plotline. But it's strange that it's even in shadowlands, it didn't impact the main plot at all, so if you removed it nothing would have changed.

It's significant in the Night Fae covenant story.

[ClassicPeon]

Tyranda is overall a pretty uninteresting character imo. In wc3 she was mostly just bitchy and too headstrong. i'm guessing the night warrior was a way to try and make her cool - they probably ended up not doing more with her because people in general wasnt really into her.

[Eosia]

Except the Ardenweald storyline was telling us the Nightwarrior transformation was fatal and all the other chosen of Elune died, that was a sacrifice they were willing to make to save their respective people, and a price Tyrande was willing to pay. And a price Elune was willing to pay when she answered Tyrande's original call for the Night Warriors power.

Until it wasn't and Elune decided that where everyone else had to die, Tyrande gets to live. Because fuck everyone else.

The Nightfae campaign portion that dealt with this has you seek out Theirnax and Qadarin, as well as Khaliq in Maldraxxas, and the Stonewright in Revendreth. They started to siphon the power away from Tyrande and spread it between them. It wasn't working but then the Winter Queen got involved which prompted Elune to take control of Tyrande to speak with her.

The reason why it was different for Tyrande was because she willingly gave up the power so that a new sigil could be created versus her being destroyed by it once she had killed Sylvanas.