Dragonflight Beta SPOILERS! Titan Lore Objects

[Ersula]

The ones making the slaughterhouse are the First Ones. The worst thing the Titans do in these books is use magic water to domesticate the dragons into evolving, which is something not all keepers are comfortable with anyway.

Okay the titans don't oversee the slaughterhouse, they just oversee the pasture where the cattle is grown before it is "processed."

Also from what these notes describe the Titans are already gone. When exactly did the Titans leave & put Odyn in charge. It seems like the Titans only gave the Keepers & Watchers instructions to create the Dragonflights & they passed that information onto Alexstrasza after the fact. Did the Dragonflights ever actually meet the Titans?

[Skytotem]

Also we allready KNOW the old gods did "good" stuff and/or build amazing things. Look at the Aqir empire. The existence of well every native mortal on azeroth is because of them.

How the hell do you figure that?

[fatgunn]

Writing is... honestly a bit clunky.
BUT: I never felt the black empire was all encompasing evil. Mad yes. But they somehow had to form that empire no? You cannot build anything if all you do is kill everything that moves. They never seemed to be overly evil to themselves tbh. Xenophobic to the max^^
Also we allready KNOW the old gods did "good" stuff and/or build amazing things. Look at the Aqir empire. The existence of well every native mortal on azeroth is because of them. Not becuase of the titans.
And what is said there about Odyn... well that is most definetly in character...

Also the fucking first ones again... this will be the carrot on a stick for a while. I am intrigued and annoyed at the same time with this. I WANT to know. But if we ever do know they will just make another level on top. The firstest ones....

What if.....WE ARE THE FIRST ONES.

God I could see Blizz trying the whole recursive universe idea.

[Ersula]

Did Danuser or anyone else working on WoW work on Everquest Next (3)? Everquest lore had purely Evil Gods & Good Gods & a few Neutral Gods but then by Next they wanted to do away with the black & white morality entirely and it was in a way that made sense: The Agents of Good & Evil basically unilaterally slaughtered each other. From the outside it was hard to say which was good or bad. But there was a bit of lore from EQ1 that turned it into an ideological thing: The "Good" gods believed Death as a concept was something to be eradicated, and everyone would live forever if they had their way (an idea also present in Elden Ring) while the "Evil" gods believed Death was a necessary thing: So the war was simply between these two opposing philosophies. And good & evil was a separate, ethical concept.

I was wondering if they're trying to do that with the Titans & Old Gods.

[Cheezits]

What if.....WE ARE THE FIRST ONES.

God I could see Blizz trying the whole recursive universe idea.

If not us, then characters from the present like Azshara who could stand to gain by going back in time and becoming the First Ones.

Maybe she makes a council of bad guys who each represent a cosmic magic and go back in time so they can rule.

[Holdodlig]

I don't think it's bad to be honest. Titans trying to hide the truth to races they rightfully believe to be stupid and power hungry is just what every government does right now. Right now I have nothing against it. Odyn has always been a jerk anyway.

They are obviously setting up a return of the Pantheon as a future antagonist, which can be cool. They'll probably fuck it up, but there's a lot of things that can be done with arcane villains.

[Ersula]

How the hell do you figure that?

Because if the Old Gods didn't do "good" things then Odyn wouldn't have to rewrite history with the explicit objective to make them seem exclusively "bad"

[Hitei]

But what counts as bad? The current portrayal of the Titans is even less like hedonistic greek gods, and more like overseers of a slaughterhouse where the player races are the cattle. The Order they created is a system where they grow souls & leech anima off them for who-knows-what when we're nice & ripe.

I mean, as Cheezits said, this has always been the case.

I feel like people have forgotten that Wrath's quests were pretty explicit about the Titans viewing free will in mortals as problematic. The entire story of the curse of flesh from that expansion is basically that the Titans had a bunch of manufactured slave races whose only purpose in life was serving and enforcing their will who were then """corrupted""" by the curse of flesh into becoming actual independently thinking organisms.

The entire Titan story is shady to begin with, they're effectively just imperialist colonizers who hop from world to world, and when finding anything they don't agree with or that won't bend the knee (like Elementals or Demons) they'll just eradicate or subjugate them, take control of the planet and begin terraforming it to their vision of what planets should be. It doesn't help that their solution to a planet going too far outside their influence is to quite literally vaporize the entire world down to the molecular level, eradicating everything/everyone on it and rebuild it back to their ideal plan.

Chaos and disorder so they could rule everybody.

How are you pretending that isn't evil and cruel? The void intentionally tries to drive you insane so you become their puppet. Fighting against that was Alleria's entire little mini-arc on Argus.

And then we have the End Time where the Old Gods win and literally everyone is dead including Deathwing.

Or the Horrific Visions where almost everyone is dead or are insane and corrupted and are killing the people who are alive still.

Or Garrosh's vision for the future where everybody is dead, Horde, Alliance, and everybody in between.

Trying to make a group that has, for nearly (or more than) 20 years, been defined as "Pure evil chaos incarnate" as suddenly morally grey doesn't work. Or at least not with the quality of writers Blizzard has.

I also see a lot of people in this thread confusing hostile towards you with "omg pure evil".

The void doesn't intentionally try to drive you insane so you become "their puppet". The void sees the world in limitless possibilities and truths and those who fuck around with it are subject to experiencing that way of thinking, which in weaker minds leads to insanity. Their desire for puppets is no greater than Life, Death, Chaos, Light, or god forbid Order, which as above, is entirely about subjugation and control. It's also no greater than the desire for having control over people that regular mortals express.

See: Horrific Visions. You're so focused on "red name = bad" you don't see that everything involved is wholly subjective.

Here is some dialogue from Stormwind's Vision:

Overlord Mathias Shaw yells: What do you mean Valeera escaped? Find her! I want her dead at my feet before day's end!
Valeera Sanguinar says: Champion! I... I need your help. - (At the entrance of Old Town.)
Valeera Sanguinar says: Shaw has gone quite insane killing everyone remotely allied with the light or that works against N'Zoth.
Valeera Sanguinar says: He is also completely paranoid, he locks himself behind both physical and magical protections that only his most loyal can bypass, and even then only by working together.
Valeera Sanguinar says: We'll have to do the same, get what we need to get to Shaw so we can stop his reign of terror.
Valeera Sanguinar says: Tereson carries one of the keys we need. - (Valeera spawns.)
Valeera Sanguinar says: We'll need to activate both security obelisks at the same time, pick one and I'll get the other.
Press Security Monolith.
It worked! The gates are unlocked, let's take care of Shaw.

Notice how Valeera, on your side calls Shaw insane and paranoid, and enforcing a reign of "terror"? But what is he actually doing? The exact same thing regular Shaw has done for decades as head of SI:7; that is: killing or ordering the assassination of dangerous individuals threatening/working against his faction, being paranoid of the potential for things being compromised, keeping himself secure in the safety of Stormwind.

It's only "evil", "terror", and "insane" because now instead of him doing all those things for Stormwind, he's doing all those things for the Void, so he's not on our side. People bring up stuff like Xal'atath talking about towers of sacrifice in Ny'alotha and rivers of blood, but then very casually forget the dozens of times that WE the player character have gone around slaughtering animals, beasts and even other people in order to charge an item or collect energy or samples. We won't even get into how many people and things you've killed for everything from being on the enemy's side to literally just "is around". Being in N'zoth or Yogg's name doesn't really make doing that same shit any more evil.

[Feanoro]

So still more "old lore bad, new lore good" retcons, middle school philosophy, and all the depth of a puddle on a sidewalk from Steve and Pals.

Anyone surprised by this didn't pay attention from BfA onwards.

[Nymrohd]

What if.....WE ARE THE FIRST ONES.

God I could see Blizz trying the whole recursive universe idea.

The First Ones are the friends we made along the way.

[VladlTutushkin]

Unregulated freedom implies you're free to prey on the weak. All becomes fair game.

From a standpoint of literally 95% of Azerothians or any other sentient population its a shitty way to live to begin with. Also insanity is not freedom, i'd argue that its a prison.

[Mrbleedinggums]

Did Danuser or anyone else working on WoW work on Everquest Next (3)? Everquest lore had purely Evil Gods & Good Gods & a few Neutral Gods but then by Next they wanted to do away with the black & white morality entirely and it was in a way that made sense: The Agents of Good & Evil basically unilaterally slaughtered each other. From the outside it was hard to say which was good or bad. But there was a bit of lore from EQ1 that turned it into an ideological thing: The "Good" gods believed Death as a concept was something to be eradicated, and everyone would live forever if they had their way (an idea also present in Elden Ring) while the "Evil" gods believed Death was a necessary thing: So the war was simply between these two opposing philosophies. And good & evil was a separate, ethical concept.

I was wondering if they're trying to do that with the Titans & Old Gods.

Idk about if they ever worked on Everquest, but the whole basis for WoW at the start was directly inspired by Everquest. That's why the original story was "omg so amazing!" it's because it was basic as hell and generic enough for the masses to lose their shit thinking it was the greatest writing ever.

I don't blame them from wanting to get away with the whole "this side is good, this side is bad" thing considering they don't want to focus on faction rivalry anymore as the main story (like BFA). They need something else to shake it up, you can only beat the Burning Legion or the Old Gods so many times.

[Skytotem]

I don't think it's bad to be honest. Titans trying to hide the truth to races they rightfully believe to be stupid and power hungry is just what every government does right now. Right now I have nothing against it. Odyn has always been a jerk anyway.

They are obviously setting up a return of the Pantheon as a future antagonist, which can be cool. They'll probably fuck it up, but there's a lot of things that can be done with arcane villains.

My issue is more that they haven't really explained how the 'brainwashing' affects the dragons, or what the Incarnates motivations are beyond being anti-titan.

There's no meat on these bones.

- - - Updated - - -

Because if the Old Gods didn't do "good" things then Odyn wouldn't have to rewrite history with the explicit objective to make them seem exclusively "bad"

That's a non-sequitur.

Even if Odyn says "lie about what the old gods did" that doesn't mean anything the Aqir did allowed later mortal civilizations.

[bloodmoth13]

The Black Empire was never "evil" anyway. They're a hive mind of bugs. A swarm that consumes and runs rampant over the world. This isn't evil but it is antagonistic. It is very very very bad for any non affiliated being in the way.

The idea of an evil empire is a pretty lame one but it leads to awesome metal aesthetics.
I'm down for more grey cosmic forces instead of pure good Vs evil since it will give the universe more longevity and new conflicts need to be created for the story to progress.
I don't see a problem with a 'victors write the history' angle and even the watchers doing morally questionable things to ensure their side wins, every superpower does this.
From what I gathered the titans and their watchers were still very beneficial to the mortals for the most part and mortals probably would have had it far worse under the black empire.
Perhaps there were some benefits in the black empire that they don't want people tempted with, there are ways to do the story without making the good guys bad and the bad guys good and I hope they can succeed at that even if I'm not too hopeful.

If nothing else you can just give up on the lore and enjoy a better variety of raidbosses than spikey brooding villains over and over

[Xilurm]

I don't think it's about good and evil. It's about order and disorder. And then there's us, the mortals, which no one cares about. Just tiny little creatures than can be wiped out and remade at any moment.

[Yarathir]

I see, this is clearly the lore team without Afrasiabi making them do dumb shit.

Turns out, they can be incompetent even with less assholes on the team.

The Afrasiabi thing has always been a deflection and a cope.

[Skytotem]

The idea of an evil empire is a pretty lame one but it leads to awesome metal aesthetics.
I'm down for more grey cosmic forces instead of pure good Vs evil since it will give the universe more longevity and new conflicts need to be created for the story to progress.
I don't see a problem with a 'victors write the history' angle and even the watchers doing morally questionable things to ensure their side wins, every superpower does this.
From what I gathered the titans and their watchers were still very beneficial to the mortals for the most part and mortals probably would have had it far worse under the black empire.
Perhaps there were some benefits in the black empire that they don't want people tempted with, there are ways to do the story without making the good guys bad and the bad guys good and I hope they can succeed at that even if I'm not too hopeful.

If nothing else you can just give up on the lore and enjoy a better variety of raidbosses than spikey brooding villains over and over

I mean, the problem isn't 'victors write history' or grey morality.

It's... there's no REASON for them to lie atm.

Unless they pull some major retcons, the Black Empire WAS an evil time of madness and horror that the Mortals wouldn't want anything to do with. We literally have fought Old God minions enough to know that.

EDIT: Like, why would the incarnates or primalists prefer the Old Gods over the titans? Do they think they can get rid of the titans and not allow the Old Gods back into power? What is it about the titans order that they don't like? Why would the titans need to brainwash dragons into supporting them?

We don't know! None of them bother to say!

[Ersula]

So still more "old lore bad, new lore good" retcons, middle school philosophy, and all the depth of a puddle on a sidewalk from Steve and Pals.

Anyone surprised by this didn't pay attention from BfA onwards.

"Ain't Steve shit?" *literally references Afrasiabi lore*

- - - Updated - - -

Even if Odyn says "lie about what the old gods did" that doesn't mean anything the Aqir did allowed later mortal civilizations.

This suggests some technology we consider "Titan technology" actually originated from the Aqir, or for all we know, other races that may have lived in the Black Empire & were exterminated by Titans, in what is unambiguously described as an attempted genocide.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I mean, the problem isn't 'victors write history' or grey morality.

It's... there's no REASON for them to lie atm.

Unless they pull some major retcons, the Black Empire WAS an evil time of madness and horror that the Mortals wouldn't want anything to do with. We literally have fought Old God minions enough to know that.

EDIT: Like, why would the incarnates or primalists prefer the Old Gods over the titans? Do they think they can get rid of the titans and not allow the Old Gods back into power? What is it about the titans order that they don't like? Why would the titans need to brainwash dragons into supporting them?

We don't know! None of them bother to say!

I don't think that "we've fought Old God minions who did bad things" is particularly compelling. You've been fighting alongside Warlocks and Shadow Priests inflicting Agony, Horror, and Pain for all that time. They're fighting against you, they're going to do unpleasant things to make you die. The Champion of Azeroth has done most of those things too.

Also, the Black Empire need not be truly good as of these retcons, it merely needs to have some redeeming features which were covered up. That need not be inconsistent with what we've seen, since we've only really seen them in a state of war. Rome would have looked like a monstrous entity to its victims, and in many ways it was, but it also created great works of literature, art, and science.

[Ersula]

It's... there's no REASON for them to lie atm.

Dude, these edicts are an omission to rewriting history: Is rewriting history not a 'lie' to you? You don't rewrite history that portrays you positively. The only reason we don't consider the Titans wiping out the Black Empire as Genocide is because they merely backed the Troll Empires into conflict with them until they were destroyed...but actually none of that is true. Because we've been lied to.

Yes, assuming the truth is pretty bad for the Titans is an assumption, but it is a very safe assumption.