What the heck is Blizz doing with Elune?

[Skytotem]

Elune, the nelf's major goddess, has been described as a pretty powerful deity throughout Warcraft's history.

Nelf's racial shadowmeld comes from her, she blesses their moonwells, mothered Cenarius, and has vague but notable ties to the various powers such as Green Dragons and Naaru, possibly even the Titans given her 'tears' are a pillar of creation.

She's never been depicted the same as the general 'light' or 'shadow' powers, and has even had shades of Arcane in her aesthetic.

But Blizz has been depicting her less favorably since the start of BFA, what could they be planning here? It seems really bizarre to kick the nelfs while they're down and have Tyrande say Elune abandoned them while WIELDING her "Night Warrior" power, so what's the story the writers are trying to lay the groundwork for?

[Biomega]

My guess is she's a light+shadow deity, standing in between the light (Naaru) and dark (Void Lords). Her apparent disappearance/abandonment might just be a prelude to a larger conflict in the next set, although it could also be seen as a "price" enacted in return for Tyrande's (not entirely pure-hearted) transformation. The ol' "alright I'll let you do it if you insist, but I won't be there to help you after" kind of deal.

[Feanoro]

It seems really bizarre to kick the nelfs while they're down

Why? That's the been the modus operandi since Cata.

have Tyrande say Elune abandoned them while WIELDING her "Night Warrior" power

Either 1) they forgot that fast, or 2) they saw everyone views it as a massive flop since Danuser Cringecaller was only mildly inconvenienced by it and are now trying to pretend it didn't happen.

so what's the story the writers are trying to lay the groundwork for?

I think "Fuck you, NElf fans!" about covers it.

[Foolicious]

I think the best answer is: we don't know.
We don't even know what elune is, what her motivations are, what her powers are, if she even exists as a single godess like we imagine. We can speculate cenarios that assume certain things about elune as fact, but thats basically a speculation within a speculation.
As long as we don't know anything about her its just a guessing game.

My personal best answer is that blizzard wanted to show another side of elune. That she isn't just the all loving godess of the nightelfs. Maybe she has a goal just like the void/light has and her own twisted way of achieving it like they do.

[Geotaku21]

Elune, the nelf's major goddess, has been described as a pretty powerful deity throughout Warcraft's history.

Nelf's racial shadowmeld comes from her, she blesses their moonwells, mothered Cenarius, and has vague but notable ties to the various powers such as Green Dragons and Naaru, possibly even the Titans given her 'tears' are a pillar of creation.

She's never been depicted the same as the general 'light' or 'shadow' powers, and has even had shades of Arcane in her aesthetic.

But Blizz has been depicting her less favorably since the start of BFA, what could they be planning here? It seems really bizarre to kick the nelfs while they're down and have Tyrande say Elune abandoned them while WIELDING her "Night Warrior" power, so what's the story the writers are trying to lay the groundwork for?

Wait wasn't Ysera Cenarius mother? She got boned by that elk demigod and gave birth to Cenarius. Maybe it got retconned.

[Skytotem]

Wait wasn't Ysera Cenarius mother? She got boned by that elk demigod and gave birth to Cenarius. Maybe it got retconned.

No, Ysera was basically his adoptive mom, Elune was the one who actually boinked Malorne though.

[tripleh]

Honestly glad they haven't shown her yet. Would suck to have Danuser and Alex work on her story/lore. They already ruined alot of stuff .

[Thage]

Ever seen a drunk guy throwing darts at a board, OP? That's basically their plan right now. So long as it makes things 'gritty' and 'morally grey,' you can expect them to take the most ass-backwards approach to any situation, aping better fantasy settings whose writers haven't thoroughly torpedo'd what made it stand out, as though the writing team were the Rob Liefeld to Michael Moorcock's Alan Moore: copying what made it popular without understanding why that made it popular.

They know dark, morally grey fiction is in vogue now and traditional heroic fantasy is kind of an underdog (though it's starting to make a comeback thanks in large part to the runaway success of the MCU), but apparently they've missed the elements of dark fantasy that make it work and succeed as a narrative in favor of slash-and-burning almost every concept of objective good and evil in the franchise save a tiny handful of extreme, Flanderized examples that lost all complexity, hammering decades-old lore and concepts into suddenly being morally-grey with plot swerves that came from precisely nowhere, or again robbed nuance and complexity from the morally-grey elements (such as the Scarlet Crusade and Sir Zeliek retaining access to the Light, as the Light was influenced by genuine belief of righteousness rather than objective righteousness, in favor of 'the Light is just super extreme order-at-all-costs').

Much of their latest attempts to shoehorn facets of the lore dealing with the Light and Void into moral greyness seem heavily inspired by their competitors' more nuanced and elegant takes on such concepts, most notably how FFXIV has set up major plot twists seen in Shadowbringers dealing with Hydaelyn and Zodiark years in advance (setup and foreshadowing that was only introduced into WoW lore after the fact in Chronicle, itself an attempt to hammer decades of sloppy retcons into a cohesive whole that couldn't even maintain cohesion between volumes of Chronicle itself). Final Fantasy XIV established early and often the necessity of balance lest one force grow too powerful, and a key plot point in the current expansion is the effect an overabundance of Light can have (with it shown as early as Heavensward that this is a completely unintended effect on Hydaelyn's behalf, spurring Her to send Her chief servitor to work on addressing the issue and the protagonists later addressing things more directly in the current expansion), while it's been established since A Realm Reborn (and possibly in the 1.0 storyline, I'll have to check on that since I didn't play 1.0) that the main villains we encounter hail from a world that's been twisted and fallen into the Void due to an overabundance of Darkness.

These are not concepts the WoW writing team has shown they've the skill or philosophical leanings to tackle with any nuance or grace. Instead, their primary mouthpieces for these factions are maddened zealots or slick and untrustworthy contacts who are open and honest about their untrustworthy nature. This results in things like Elune's sudden esoteric thought process, and the blackwashing of the Light and greywashing of the Void, feel like swerves introduced for the sake of empty shock value and things they can drop at Blizzcon to get pops from the crowd, rather than developments and evolutions in the story meant to blow wide preconceptions the players built for themselves and challenge the assumed cosmology of the setting.

[Lane]

I don't recall Elune ever having a direct hand in anything, so it seems bizarre to me that she's suddenly 'abandoned' the NEs because she didn't actively protect Teldrassil. The most I've seen her do is usher Ysera and (in the novella) the NE priestesses into death. I figure she's either somehow not allowed to intervene or she's one of those "free will" type of gods. Now, if she and Tyrande have been communicating and Elune ghosted her after the Night Warrior ritual that would seem far more plausible and concerning.

[Every Pwny]

Tyrande say Elune abandoned them while WIELDING her "Night Warrior" power, so what's the story the writers are trying to lay the groundwork for?

The power didn't even do anything, before the night warrior thing I would have said Tyrande could have taken Nathanos in a fight, but for some reason she needed Malfurion's help with her night warrior power to make him retreat. That was also after letting him complete his objective of raising a bunch of night elves, Sira and Summermoon. It almost seems like the night warrior "power" is handicapping Tyrande.

[jzhbee]

the main villains we encounter hail from a world that's been twisted and fallen into the Void due to an overabundance of Darkness.

The Ascians were not borne from the Dark world, they ruined the Fourteenth. They existed since time immemorial, before the source was split into the shards. Zodiark was their god, and they revere him, their world was not destroyed by him, but shattered by the Warrior deities of Zodiark and Hydalayn, at least according to Emet.

[mingarrubia]

In my headcanon she's the goddess of balance. She doesn't interfere unless the world's balance is in jeopardy.

[LuminaL]

I think the best answer is: we don't know.
We don't even know what elune is, what her motivations are, what her powers are, if she even exists as a single godess like we imagine. We can speculate cenarios that assume certain things about elune as fact, but thats basically a speculation within a speculation.
As long as we don't know anything about her its just a guessing game.

My personal best answer is that blizzard wanted to show another side of elune. That she isn't just the all loving godess of the nightelfs. Maybe she has a goal just like the void/light has and her own twisted way of achieving it like they do.

and thats what I hate about this new writing. SHE is considered to be a goddess, she shouldnt bother herself to have "goals" in pity mortal affairs. she is not Gallywix and trying to fill her greedy mouth with golds. she is the best thing so far (maybe up to BFA ) what a goddess should have been. she has no direct intervention but rather when her children pray to her and ask for help, she guides them/ helps them in ways that are hard to understand, but leads them to better places.

the moment they create a model for her and or we hear her voice directly, she will lose everything mysterious about her and lose the sense of power they built for her. just like sargeras, she will become just yet another NPC nobody cares about.

[DemonHunter18]

same reason their doing to everyone lately - ruining.

[eurojust]

There was something wrong with Elune the moment she chose Tyrande as the High Priestess.

[Thage]

...at least according to Emet.

I mean, if we're just gonna drop major spoilers, put them in spoiler tags, my guy...

The original world was suffering from an overabundance of Darkness thanks to the Ascians' liberal use of creation magic, something implied in Amaurot (both zone and dungeon) with the subtlety of a brick to the head. This overabundance of Darkness led to multiple calamities that saw the Ascians summon Zodiark out of desperation, and while the Ascian leadership had come up with a solution going forward that, while less than ideal, was workable, many of the surviving Ascians were very not okay with this plan and summoned Hydaelyn. She's why the Shards exist, as that keeps Zodiark's power spread out and thus manages the goal her original summoners called on her for. I know the Ascians aren't from the Fourteenth, but their world was still suffering under an overabundance of Darkness. However, until you talk with Emet-Selch, the Ascians present themselves as refugees of the Fourteenth Shard trying to bring it back from the Void, which served the purpose for my post well enough that I felt I didn't need to delve into major spoiler territory.

[Pandragon]

What if it turns out that Elune is the being of death? That all this time the Night Elves have believed she was something she isn't?

[Arrashi]

There was something wrong with Elune the moment she chose Tyrande as the High Priestess.

Its called dark sense of humor.

[LordVargK]

Personal theory: Elune is a goddess. There are many gods in the Warcraft universe, most of which were portraited ingame, if they were also mentioned in the game. All old gods have bodys or at least avatars. We have seen the titans, we saw the old gods, we saw many random minor gods, Loas and whatnot. But we never saw even a hint of Elune.

Also Elune "abandoned" the Nightelves right after Sargeras struck his Sword into Azeroth (the baby titan) and wounded her (emphasis on HER) critically. So in my Theory Elune = Azeroth.

From a writers perspective, this explanation would also be very convenient because it would eliminate the need for further explanation. Most questions would be answered in a simple matter and that seems to be right up blizz' writers alley.

[fakaroonie]

Elune IS the Moon.

What is the Moon? Well, not a planet, therefore could never born a Titan. Elune has phases, because she is both Light and Darkness.

She's Void aligned in her Dark phase, and Light aligned otherwise. She created the Naaru as vessels of light, but they too fall to the void at times.

She might also be the cause of many of the Void problems on Azeroth, say the Old Gods. They're physical manifestations of the Void. Through Elune, the Old Gods from Azeroth came into existence too.

This would mean she's OP AF.