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

[BrintoSFJ]

So.... she let people die in Teldrassil? What was she even thinking?

That the fat fuck sings is a horrible tune?

[Super Dickmann]

thats bcs you think she let them die, i understood the "in wake of tragedy i sent the cascade of souls" as if she couldnt help them survive, but she could claim them as her own (make them wisps or what), but she didnt and rather let them pass to shadowlands

I don't think she let them die, it's just very poorly presented and so a lot of people will end up with that takeaway. The narrative as presented is that the Winter Queen knew a drought was going on but not the cause and so called her sister for help. Elune saw an opportunity when she saw the tree burn and instead of putting them through the sorting process she fast-tracked them to Ardenweald after soothing their pain. Then they ended up in the Maw.

Elune's exact level of power, awareness of the situation in Azeroth and the Shadowlands, the contents of the Winter Queen's message etc. are all unclear and unsaid by the narrative. However, as @Jackstraw says having her first spoken appearance to her family - already all unnecessary elements be the equivalent of "Oh, fuck, sorry I sent you guys to hell" and have it be followed up by her putting her champion into a false choice that she engineered by taking her powers away at a key moment won't exactly endear this very visually boring cinematic to its intended audience or really any audience to speak of it.

[MrLachyG]

So.... she let people die in Teldrassil? What was she even thinking?

why did she let people die in the War of the Ancients? or the second and third Legion invasion? or the countless wars on Azeroth against the undead, the Black Empire etc

[geco]

If it turns out that it was not that she let them die but that she wanted to say something else and almost all of us understood that she let the Kaldorei die. So there are two good reasons to fire all writers.

Not only is her story bad but they don't know how to tell it.

[Lolites]

Her first words being the equivalent of "I tried to help my sister by sacrificing my chosen people" is anticlimactic at best.

thank god she didnt say that...
she said AFTER THEY DIED ("in wake of tragedy") instead of claiming them (turning them to wisps or whatever) she let them pass to shadowlands...

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it's just very poorly presented

i disagree on this, when its literaly said she sent them in wake of tragedy, its pretty obvious... but ofc, most people will not listen and give it zero thought and go straight to "its shit"

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Elune's exact level of power, awareness of the situation in Azeroth and the Shadowlands, the contents of the Winter Queen's message etc. are all unclear and unsaid by the narrative.

and unnecesary to get the big picture...

[Super Dickmann]

thank god she didnt say that...
she said AFTER THEY DIED ("in wake of tragedy") instead of claiming them (turning them to wisps or whatever) she let them pass to shadowlands...

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i disagree on this, when its literaly said she sent them in wake of tragedy, its pretty obvious... but ofc, most people will not listen and give it zero thought and go straight to "its shit"

It is shit in execution, because it fails in its expository goal and as said, it's visually uninteresting. It also fails in concept because as a plot point it boils down the destruction of a city's worth of people and Tyrande's grievance with the murderer into a dilemma where she's railroaded into a single decision and the whole thing becomes the object of a family drama. A family drama who's end purpose is to produce one out of four plot devices. It's an anticlimax to Elune's mystery, which is a can of worms you should never have opened without a goo idea, the burning of Teldrassil and Tyrande's vengeance arc.

[Lolites]

putting her champion into a false choice that she engineered by taking her powers away at a key moment

well, we dont know how that magic work so telling its "engineered choice" is kinda disingenuous...

[bagina]

Omg, this is golden. I legitimately kek'd out loud. Aw man, nelf fans are gonna freak. Know that I feel your pain.

In a better story, this would've been a wake up call for the characters pretending that cosmic gods are their friends and a realization that mortals are merely pawns to the big guys. Alas, they're gonna serve them all the same. Being a mortal in WoW is suffering.

Sucks that this also further drives the idea that mortal world means shit all in the grand scheme of things. People like to repeat that "it's not afterlife but a parallel plane of existence" but that's not true. The narrative wants to pretend that's the case but the story itself contradicts that. If it was true, Shadowlands guys wouldn't force their moral code onto mortals, much less would they abduct the souls of of the dead to their world and force them to stay there. Shadowlands can't be a realm equal to others while also ruling over the souls of the living at the same time.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Cool glowy animations. But why.
WHY.
Why are they so bad, there's being bad now and then then there's this kind of bad that feels like being bad on the purpose of ruining things.

[Lolites]

It is shit in execution

i disagre, i think its subtle, which is not preference of many people as they need the point served on silver plate, but personaly i like it this way much more...

[Super Dickmann]

well, we dont know how that magic work so telling its "engineered choice" is kinda disingenuous...

She implies in this cinematic that she can let Tyrande decide between 'vengeance' and 'renewal'. Disregarding how accurate either description is, Elune says outright that it's possible for Tyrande to choose to continue her grievance and keep her power. However, in the previous cinematic she withdraws her powers at the moment Tyrande is about to accomplish what she gained this power for in the first place and when we meet her in this questline she's ready to explode. Elune gives her a choice only once only one of these decisions is remotely feasible and after preventing her from walking the other option, the one she actually chose when she Superman'd her way into Sylvanas, to its conclusion.

@bagina

Elune as a machiavellian mastermind who screwed Tyrande over to put her into a position where she can do her equally divine sister a solid by giving her a barely relevant plot device is some proper classic Greek godly dickery, made even better by how it's not at all intended and how Tyrande seems to be happy with her lobotomy later.

[geco]

thank god she didnt say that...
she said AFTER THEY DIED ("in wake of tragedy") instead of claiming them (turning them to wisps or whatever) she let them pass to shadowlands...

I am not very good at English.
But the tragedy that he talks about is that of his sister.

Sister in the middle of your trageria I send you a cascade of souls.

More than her plan it is clearly useless if the Kaldorei did not die.

[Ninelives9]

I made an account just to reply to this, hah! (I mostly like to just read discussions).

However, no, she didn't give everyone the massive dose of anesthesia. A lot of Kaldorei suffered greatly before the end and only some were lulled to sleep to escape the very worst of it. However, make no mistake, a lot, LOT of people suffered greatly.

My personal gripe with this is that I already know what will happen now. A series of "forgiveness, happiness and ...forget everything" moments. Tyrande will forgive just about everyone, Night Elves will act as if nothing happened and at -BEST- blame only a certain Banshee because ...clearly during the fires everyone else was mindcontrolled. Same with the war that followed. xD (Not that I want Horde to suffer horribly or something, not at all! I merely dislike how these things are dealt with by blizzard.

[Lolites]

She implies in this cinematic that she can let Tyrande decide between 'vengeance' and 'renewal'. Disregarding how accurate either description is, Elune says outright that it's possible for Tyrande to choose to continue her grievance and keep her power. However, in the previous cinematic she withdraws her powers at the moment Tyrande is about to accomplish what she gained this power for in the first place and when we meet her in this questline she's ready to explode. Elune gives her a choice only once only one of these decisions is remotely feasible and after preventing her from walking the other option, the one she actually chose when she Superman'd her way into Sylvanas, to its conclusion.

and maybe for some reason Tyrande would die after having her vengeance so elune stoped her as she wanted her to know about the choice before actualy making it...

[Irian]

I almost lost it when Elune had that "oopsie" moment upon realizing that all the night elf souls she sent to the afterlife ended up going to the maw instead of Ardenweald.

Behold as Shadowlands even ruins the character of literal gods. Elune is a complete joke of a goddess now who apparently for some reason doesn't even have any knowledge of the souls that she chose to deliver to another plane.

[Kathranis]

I don't think this is saying she "let them die" but rather sent the cascade of souls from Teldrassil to the Shadowlands after hearing the Night Queen's plea for help, rather than transforming them into wisps. She didn't know they would be intercepted.

We know from Grimoire that denizens of the Shadowlands mistrust Elune, and wisps are a clear contravention of the Great Cycle, same as the undead.

Elune obviously isn't and never was omnipotent, nor omniscient, or else nothing bad would have ever happened to the night elves. Her intervention has always been fairly limited.

It's obvious that no "deities" in WoW are omnipotent or omniscient. They're just extremely powerful.


Personally, I like these wrinkles, because they show Elune to be aloof and fallible, perhaps even mercurial. That's the danger of putting all your faith in an unseen, unknowable deity. The night elves can't just rely on some deus ex luna to save them at every turn.

And if that means they have to grapple with their religion, so be it. That would actually be an interesting narrative. Hell, maybe a good opportunity for some of the night elves to start exploring different faiths, like the Light.

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

Isn't this exactly what happened, or am I misremembering? I could swear that Elune comforted them so they didn't feel any pain.

means she's below Bwonsamd in both power and awareness.

She's not of the realms of Death, so why would she hold any sway over that domain?

[Ninelives9]

That is really stretching it to be honest. >_> In the end this is just usual poor writing.

[Lolites]

Elune as a machiavellian mastermind who screwed Tyrande over to put her into a position where she can do her equally divine sister

right, lets ignore the fact we saved A LOT of night elf souls from maw and brought them to ardenweald, so by stoping ardenwealds "death" she also helps her people (not to mention those already there)... its all about winter queen, not the whole goddamn realm...

[Ninelives9]

Isn't this exactly what happened, or am I misremembering? I could swear that Elune comforted them so they didn't feel any pain.

Once more. It was the people towards the end that were lulled to sleep so that they could escape the worst of it (can't have a book where they write how children die screaming at the last pages). However, again, a lot of elves didn't have that luxury. They died screaming and even the survivors were pretty much scarred for life by the horror.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

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.

Yeah I think I did.