Necromancy is Not Necessarily Death Magic.

[Th3Scourge]

Dude, the lore literally spells it out to you that what brought Calia back was necromancy. Necromancy is just a type of spell, not a type of magic.

No it's not, necromancy is an entire school of magic. You could say that necromancy is synonymous with death magic

[Relapses]

Using the same "logic" that's always used to dismiss new information as a "retcon".

Just remember: If the story goes somewhere you like it's because the writers are literal Gods and even Shakespeare can't hold a candle. Praise the Omnissiah, bless up! If the story goes anywhere remotely different than where you think it should, however, that is a retcon and the writers have absolutely no respect for the source material and you're embarrassed that they are tarnishing your precious source material with their inferior writing skills. (Of course you could do better but you don't want to give the bad writers any ideas.)

[mysticx]

No it's not, necromancy is an entire school of magic. You could say that necromancy is synonymous with death magic

Apparently, no, it's not.

What this lore does is make Necromancy a category of spells in the "Dungeons and Dragons"-sense, where you have things like conjuration (Summoning things, like warlock minions, shaman's fire/earth elemental or mage's water elemental), evocation (Creating from scratch, like damage spells), Abjuration (Shield spells and such), and so on, and necromancy is now a similar category which, like the examples i mentioned, isn't limited to one element (There are fire- and ice-bolts, frost shield and holy-based paladin protection spells, etc.), and now necromancy has the more broad definition "Spell dealing with dead people" rather than "Raise into undeath"

It's a tad counter-intuitive, since the word "Necromancy" strongly implies darkness, but that's the new lore.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Aegwynn even supposedly ressurected Medivh with what we assume is Arcane Magic.

Originally, each type of magic had a reason for being invoked by spellcasters. Arcane spellcasters could use other forms of magic to accomplish tasks, such as using Death magic to raise the dead. For instance, Kel'thuzad was a member of the Kirin Tor and began his experiments of undeath in Dalaran, but does this imply the undead rats he created were raised using Arcane magic? No, they were all clearly created with Death magic under the tutelage of Ner'zhul. Prior to this decision from the writing team, the dominant assumption was that spellcasters would understand several types of magic to perform the feats they do. This was clearly demonstrated in the actions of powerful characters like Ner'zhul, Kel'thuzad, Illidan, Medivh, and Archimonde, and most characters with longstanding histories in the franchise have demonstrated a multidisciplinary approach to magic to makeup for apparent shortcomings in some kinds of magic.

Taking this decision to the logical extreme silos each type of magic in a way that means you never have to rely on more than one type of magic. It essentially takes isolated instances of convergence, such as how portals can be formed by multiple kinds of magic (albeit, with some caveats for each kind), and makes the broader statement that these aren't the exception but the norm.

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Of course you could do better but you don't want to give the bad writers any ideas.

These comments which amount to, "don't complain, you couldn't do any better" are not particularly useful. You don't need to have published a bestselling fantasy novel in order to comment on WoW's story, all you need to have done is play the game (and if this is not enough, this is a failure on Blizzard's part). The gatekeeping to try and disqualify people's opinions on the story are effectively the same as demanding someone understand the process of sausage making because they asked the place they order food from to stop putting dingleberries on their pizza instead of hot sausage; you do not need to be highly qualified to criticize something made for general consumption.

[Darknessvamp]

I fail to see how this is a revelation when we've known Necromancy has been achievable without the strict use of Death Magic since as far back as the concept being introduced with the Death Knights of Warcraft 2 being risen by Orc Shamans and Warlocks even if not explained as clearly back then.

Additionally the issue with Calia was never that she was resurrected but the means through which she was and her constant appeal to thinking she had any commonality with the Forsaken as a means of 'understanding and leading' them. Even with Sin'dane's immensely obtuse statement of "Necromancy is Necromancy" in yet another attempt to handwave away the issue without actually addressing it, especially when followed up with the statement of there's no difference fam despite the experience clearly differing between Fel, Void, Death, Light and Nature necromancy all of which you'd think a supposed 'expert' on Necromancy would notice the nuances between, Calia's glaring issues with her current forced presence are still not resolved. Especially when the game and it's world continue to fail to even address the implications of her resurrection instead glossing over it and repeatedly trying to hamfist her as the new undead leader because she's also dead and a menethil.

[Akta]

I mean, would you then consider Holy Fire a form of pyromancy?

Like, if you're specifically describing necromancy as "animating the dead" through whatever means, I guess it's fair. It's just that necromancy literally means "death magic."

Nope necromancy does not mean death magic

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Ok that’s weird. When a priest resurrects you with holy magic then it’s also necromancy? It’s a bit different when your body is gone and someone just stitches it back from bones and flesh than when you just died and someone brings you back to life. But whatever.

[Th3Scourge]

Apparently, no, it's not.

What this lore does is make Necromancy a category of spells in the "Dungeons and Dragons"-sense, where you have things like conjuration (Summoning things, like warlock minions, shaman's fire/earth elemental or mage's water elemental), evocation (Creating from scratch, like damage spells), Abjuration (Shield spells and such), and so on, and necromancy is now a similar category which, like the examples i mentioned, isn't limited to one element (There are fire- and ice-bolts, frost shield and holy-based paladin protection spells, etc.), and now necromancy has the more broad definition "Spell dealing with dead people" rather than "Raise into undeath"

It's a tad counter-intuitive, since the word "Necromancy" strongly implies darkness, but that's the new lore.

Huh? That was exactly my point in my reply. Necromancy is a school of magic, not just the act of raising one into undeath.

They are just going and making a mess of things. Being raised with necromantic magic is different to being resurrected by holy magic. In Calia's case, it's also different because she was raised into undeath with light magic, preserving her in an alabaster-like state, whereas necromantic magics usually raise the body in a decomposed state.

[Super Dickmann]

This shit has been the case for years, we didn't even have Death-related necromancy until Shadowlands came along, before then nearly all undead we saw were done with fel magic by the Legion. Notwithstanding the void-raised undead in WoD and in BFA, the shamanic spirits, those lured in by the collapsing Naaru in Oshu'gun and the various holy ghosts etc, etc. This didn't use to be a problem before Chronicle in as much as necromancy was just a school of magic in the DND sense and fel and arcane were basically degrees of the same thing, along with there being a crossover between shamanism and warlocks, but when you added a Death cosmic force that wasn't used for any necromancy you ended up in this problem. Of course, the means of necromancy changes the result, see how the animated void remains are just energies puppeting dead bodies.

As @Darknessvamp says, this is in any case beside the point. The purpose of this dialogue is just to tell Calia and by extension us the audience that no, really, because she was raised she really is like the Forsaken. But it isn't and she isn't, because she still has none of the drawbacks of undeath and the game itself backs off on it since it has Belmont point it out verbatim how her and their state isn't the same as one of the reasons for mistrusting her.

[Enter Name Here]

i like that they separate the source from the intention* but that dialogue really felt forced in order to put an end to some discussion

*like many healing specs are called restoration - not dictating what school of magic is being used

[Frozenbeef]

I think looking at the opposite end of the spectrum helps with the understanding... Life/healing can be done by more than just droods, even panda mist can heal/ rezz someone

[Peacemoon]

I really REALLY dislike them continuing to blend together the faculties of the different magical schools like this. If Fel, Arcane, Light, Void, Life and Death spells can all accomplish the exact same things, what point is there in differentiating between them?

Like hell if I'm going to be okay with people referring to my priest as a "necromancer" just because they have the ability to revive the dead

Words and language being what they are, it’s possible for ‘necromancy’ magic and ‘necromancer’ to mean different things.

Necromancers are almost always seen as skeleton/zombie raising bad guys.

Necromancy as a school of magic (healing wounds, etc.) is less morally defined.

It probably works better for DnD then Warcraft though, because in Warcraft magic is often defined by it’s element rather than it’s purpose

[Nathanyel]

(Of course you could do better but you don't want to give the bad writers any ideas.)

If I had video editing skills, I could come up with a hare-brained conspiracy theory and talk about it for 20 minutes only to end it with "fake, but still better than WoW's story,".

[LordVargK]

So basically every character that can revive is a necromancer.

[Iain]

So basically every character that can revive is a necromancer.

Including engineers.

What Blizzard basically did was to detach 'necromancy' of any meaning. Margrave Sin'Dane is making an entirely semantic point.

The real question is, why though? Are they preparing a Necromancer class that can chose various forms of Necromancy? And if so, if Necromancy is purely confined to bringing life to the dead, then what else would such a class be offering? The definition is quite limited in a games ense. Seems like such a weird thing to inject into the lore.

[LordVargK]

Including engineers.

What Blizzard basically did was to detach 'necromancy' of any meaning. Margrave Sin'Dane is making an entirely semantic point.

The real question is, why though? Are they preparing a Necromancer class that can chose various forms of Necromancy? And if so, if Necromancy is purely confined to bringing life to the dead, then what else would such a class be offering? The definition is quite limited in a games ense. Seems like such a weird thing to inject into the lore.

I think it's to reconnect Forsaken with the Living again. Since what really is the difference between an undead and a living if any form of ressurcetion, be it on Azeroth or in the Shadowlands, be it a dragon being reborn or people saved by the red dragonflight, is considered necromancy?

[Ardenaso]

there's Umbric doing weird shit to the Zandalari dinosaurs, dunno if that counts as necromancy as I think it's disputed

[Varodoc]

Magister Umbric and his arcanists were able to animate fallen dinosaur bones using the Void.

The Void can be used for necromancy too, Magister Umbric discovered the secret truth.

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there's Umbric doing weird shit to the Zandalari dinosaurs, dunno if that counts as necromancy as I think it's disputed

It's not as taboo as what the Scourge does, since he didn't actually pull their souls out of Ardenweald and back into their bodies, he was just puppeteering their bones, like a master puppeteer performing a show.

Hence why no one accused Magister Umbric of anything.

[loras]

So, doing the new quests in 9.2.5 there is an interesting lore tidbit that separates "necromancy" and "death magic":



So, the lore is that necromancy is not the equivalent of death magic, and can be performed by other magic types, such as the Light and also by other magic types. I wonder how that will affect things in the long run. What are you guys' take on this?

We already knew this, fel has a long history of raising the dead, as has void magic. Naturally death magic can do it too, and evidently light can now do it as well. I seem to recall that even arcane has known ways to do it, what with Dalaran's outlawing of necromancy.

I imagine life magic "necromancy" would just return a character to actual life - or perhaps this is what happened to Bolvar?

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Resurrection is not the same thing as reanimation.