What do you think pantheon of death and life are?

[Mace]

The beings who have the greatest quantity of and/or the strongest affinity to one of the 6 cosmic forces.

You see I don't think that is the case at all, affinity to the cosmic forces seems to be an entirely individual thing, regardless of what cosmic realm you are in charge of.

Being a pnatheon of the death cosmic realm, doens't mean you have the strongest affinity to death cosmic force .. you could actually be quite great at any cosmic force or all of them, as I would expect a near god like being to be. I mean if we can actually utislie several of the cosmic forces, surely they can.. and we have seen various pantheon members excell at different types - take the Titans, somelike Tyr excel at light, Eonar at life, Norgannon at arcane. etc

Elune seems to be largely arcane, with light and void - and likely commands all the cosmic forces, but likely has a specialty in those 3. I'm pretty sure the night elves get their nature affinity from Cenarius' early introduction, while their arcane comes from the Well and Elune.

Yes? I think "god like" is a pretty loose term here though. None of these beings are cosmic on a level that they're creating realities, or even traveling between them; they are bound to their force by the nature of their power.

Indeed, it seems like while we thought Elune was one of those, i think that is now the first ones.

Yes-ish. I doubt they all have formal pantheons of a specific number like Death and Order both happen to have, but maybe?

I would assume realms are more like specific functions and while there is a cosmic force that does indeed dominate or characterise that realm, it looks like you have many beings within it that can tap into all kind of cosmic forces, including the stewards over those realms. I mean they are intelligent beings like us, not shcakled to one mode or one cosmic force, however they are tied to that realm.


If the Titans are the Pantheon of Order, they don't exist in an "order" realm at all, they exist in the universe.. or maybe there is an order realm which is how they survived Sargeras' death.. order has a specific fucntion in the living world, it's how the cosmos is diesnged and follows certain rules that make matter etc. ofc the susbtance and order of a planet or space is not all that matters, you need Light, elements, and the spark of life which seems to be combination of light, arcane, chaos - death plays a role in the recycling of matter, but souls are operated differently. If we are light sparks, then why do we go to the shadowlands instead of the light on death, unless birth makes us something unique?

I don't really think having access to multiple sources of magic is a criteria or result of being of the level of power as the Eternals or the Titans.

Agreed, nor is being a Lord of a realm means you only have access to only the type of magic of that realm.. in fact the two seem to be unrelated or at least not tied to one specific cosmic force of the same name.. And perhaps the confusion comes when we think of the realm in relation to the magic of the name, rather than the function.

What does death mean? Except the other side of life as we know it. That is the death realm or shadowlands, yet death magic is something specific, - yet all types of magic can cause death or be used to take you to the shadowlands indefinitely. (by killing you)

The way I understand it is that we have three pairs of cosmic powers, each counterbalanced by their opposite. All 6 of their sources of power, their magic, are present all throughout the universe, but are particularly concentrated on Azeroth. The source of all 6 of those powers is a force, not a being. They do not think, act, look, or feel, anything like a sapient humanoid, they are extradimensional laws of existence. A balance is struck between light and void, order and chaos, and life and death, to form existence as we know it.

Exactly - They are forces that exsit in balance. That their are realms corresponding to the same name, doesn't mean it's a realm where that force originates form or creates that ofrce o r maybe it is.. but certain types of beings like us and the stewards aren't bound by any one cosmic force, and seem to be able to access any or all of them.

Beings within reality can learn to absorb, manipulate, and even generate all 6 of these forces, and use their power as fuel for magic. The "Pantheon" of each of these forces, are only the beings in the universe who can inhabit, manipulate, and/or generate the greatest quantity and/or quality of one of the 6 forces. The Titans aren't truly gods, but are the beings who contain the most power of Order in the universe. The Eternal Ones aren't truly gods, but are the beings who contain the most power of Death in the universe. It is possible that these beings were born from the forces, but it doesn't really matter, they are all physical, relatively mortal, beings, unlike the forces that they represent.

It's still confusing. THe Pantheon of each of these forces I postulate doesn't exist.. it's the pantheon of the realms that exist rather. They inhabit and manipulate those realms.. but it doesn't see that they particualrly generate the greatest quantity or quality of merely one of the 6 forces (i.e. the one they govern), no it seems they have no such limitations.

The way each realm is designed, it's more than just force... so the cosmic forces are just that forces. The relams are all made of a combination of every force.

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We both know this is a case where the explanation is pure Doyle, not Watson.

That would require them remembering or caring about past lore. They don't. They have outrighted stated that they think consistency and adhering to the canon is "constraining".

You're singing from my song book. It was nothing more than "here, shut up NElf fans, so Danuser can go back to wanking over Sylvie".

Pretty simple, the writers and devs are biased towards the Horde and have been for a very long time.

I don't beleive they were initially biased, not consciously anyway. I think in classic, because alliance numbers were so high, for game balance reasons, they took a decision to promote the horde, improve it's profile, substance, build it up well, to attract more players. I believe this was the entir emotivbation of the high elves going over as blood elves - to aid that, and thus began the "horde " dominance.

it worked, the horde was more attracitve, becuase it was pushed entirely and almost wholly, while the alliance races were downplayed. The night elves were the biggest victim of that because they were a great race piror to that as you can tell by WC3 and War of the Ancients trilogy - a faction level race for sure, not a minor member sub par to humans and certainly not the "go to victim" for tragedy scripts or power plays.

I think in time, writing for the horde and focusing so much turned their affection entirely their, especially the blood elves. This is bad for adeveloper who shoudl remain neutral.

You could tell they weren't because eventually comments like "we find it hardt o write for the alliance" showed that actually the desire wasn't there, which means something had changed along the way.

i also think developers and writers had personal favourites, and did not have the discipline or love to write from a neutral perspective like an author or creator of the world would. A huge Sylvanas fan will eventually make hte story revolve around her - then waht about Tyrande or Jaina? . If you createdt his version of orcs, elves, Eredar etc.. you have a love of them all equally, they don't all play the same role equally ofc, but you don't get the sense they are sub par or neglected.

This is how it felt with the races that came up in WC3, yet in wow, over time you got the clear feeling some were neglected far more so than others, but not only that, were actually terrible or misued/abused for no reason than to facilitate a power trip for others - nso the story stops being balanced, and is forcing the narrative forward for one group and not the other.

This creates an imbalance, or an imbalanced feel to it all that isn't interesting or engaging ... as only part of your playerbase who likes one stuff receives the best of everything all the time, and the rest keep getting bones tossed their way, rather t han feeling an important part even if they aren't playign as major a role.

Take high elves in WC2, they weren't there much, or played a large role except for their little sectio, but from then on they always felt important and valuable, without being as major as humans, orcs, night elves or undead.. Then races were introduced for specific purposes, some were meant to be faction grade, some have other specific roles, that are less prominent, but are still equally unique, interesting and attractive too for what they represent and bring.


But then they scrap all that and just lopside their own balance - and is the new balance better ? Not so far, so far there is no balance - but this might be a restult o f not focusing enough of on the development of the races, and only ever telling single narratives. An expansion main storyline is good, but they still have a lot of things to establish and develop.

[Super Dickmann]

I'm comparing and contrasting real-world mythology, as in fictional stories historically told to explain events, and the mythology of a fictional world containing "real" fictional deities in its context, who exist within their given narrative and act on the world even in the modern age. These are not the same things at all, and shouldn't be treated as such. Neither Malorne, Elune, nor Cenarius are fictional entities within the narrative of the Warcraft universe - they're entities who can be seen, questioned, and the lore surrounding them can at least be somewhat confirmed. So relegating the origins of Cenarius to "it's mythical and probably never happened" doesn't really work in the context of the game universe, especially in light of things like Chronicle where the explicit origins of the universe are laid out, not even as mythology, but as a thing that occurred where literal progenitors are moving around shaping worlds and creating life. Your presentation of Elune in the Shadowlands sequence is also pretty far out in left field - Elune is regretful and uninformed specifically about the state of Death, but she's not really presented as "human" nor is she pleading for anyone else's acceptance or to correct what happened (not that anyone actually can help at that time). Elune is regretful that her action (or inaction in this case) has led to the suffering of her favored people because she wasn't aware that Death was broken, and further that what she intended to aid the Winter Queen both didn't actually do that and instead aided the Jailer, albeit through no actual fault of her own. Speaking through an intermediate, such as using Tyrande as a literal prophet or Metatron analog, is definitely in keeping with classical deity behavior.

I fully understand what you mean by myths and yes there's a distinct difference between what we see and what we're told. Elune's relationship with Malorne or stories about An'she and Mu'sha and so forth are second-hand accounts of things that we don't see and who's literal nature is unclear. Elune could've manifested and gotten porked by a deer, but it's extremely unlikely and the weight isn't on a physical act or a courting by her and the deer, it's on the favour that Malorne has by having received the attention of a goddess to the extent that he's the spiritual father of an entire race of people who the goddess cares about. The entire bit about Chronicle is the premise of my argument when we began pages ago - Elune's origin and actions were deliberately not clarified to maintain her aura of mystery, something not extended to other elements of the setting and Shadowlands subverted that. We've never had Elune speak before or be explicitly cast as wrong or ill-informed prior to Shadowlands or speak to an apparent equal, and it's in these regards that Shadowlands differs and sabotages what came before it when it comes to the portrayal. Everything else is finagling about how we choose to describe the same general course of events, while at the same time dodging making a substantive defence or argument in favour of the change.

We actually don't know if Elune cut off Tyrande's power at that point, either. Tyrande seems to think so, but she was also shown to be volatile and unstable well before that, so it may well have just been random chance that cut away her power at that point and she's just imputing divine providence on it (as a religious person is wont to do). Whether or not you agree with Elune's actions, or Tyrande's interpretation of them, doesn't really change the nature of WoW's mythology as one where the god-like beings are both fallible and more humanoid as opposed to impersonal or omniscient/omnipotent forces of nature. The Titans were always fallible, in that they were betrayed by one of their own whose actions they failed to predict (even pre-Chronicle). Similarly, the Wild Gods themselves are limited and fallible, with some of them even being corrupted, and others making both mistakes and errors in judgment. There's no real reason to hold Elune apart from these examples, especially in light of her previous characterization. As for Ysera, there's still no real reason to blame Elune for her circumstance, and beyond Tyrande or Malfurion believing that Ysera needs to be reborn there's no real call for Malfurion to sacrifice himself to do so. In point of fact, based on the data-mined info, Ysera explicitly doesn't want Malfurion to sacrifice himself, and pointedly isn't asking him to - it is something Malfurion wants, under the assumption Ysera is needed. That's not Elune's fault, and Elune isn't forcing anyone's hand to do anything to bring it about, either. I think the quibble about it not being dramatic is also kind of out of place, but not really material, either.

It's a distinction without difference. Tyrande could be cooking herself with power of her own volition and her vow to Elune before her empowerment to be just flavor. It could be Elune deliberately cutting the cord to arrange the meeting with the WQ due to precognition, it could be a quirk of timing or her trying to save Tyrande from death or she could have no hand at all in it and Tyrande's body could just be shutting down. None of this really has much effect on the ultimate position she's in where her choice is moot because choosing 'vengeance', i.e her justifiable grievances against those who have preyed upon her people for decades now would result in her death and so she only has one direction she can feasibly take.

The talk as regards how it's nothing new for Gods to be fallible in WoW or to be more human than ineffable is entirely true and indeed the premise of why I single out Elune in particular. I consider demystification and this kind of humanizing to be bad in general but the only one spared it in Chronicle or even before for the Titans was Elune, ergo, Shadowlands has to bear the cross for taking away one of the things that made Elune unique to all other divine figures and made the night elves special as a race and bringing her to the same level as any of the other higher powers. Even more so when, once again, there's no advantage taken of it. The fault of the naaru heavily ties into admittedly poor stories like Turalyon forgiving Illidan, the fallibility of the void to how people like Alleria or Garrosh turn it to their goals or the mantid are targeted by the remnants of their own divinity, the Titans' failures kick in constantly in raids and will be the premise of an honestly fairly promising idea in DF when it comes to the primals. Elune stands apart from all of those much like she did before, but this time it's because her fallibility is unexplored in the story that makes her such. Her becoming more human is a primarily destructive exercise that takes away her appeal and an element of her race but fills in nothing to go there. The situation with Tyrande now, much like Ysera's soon are places where the newly fallible and humanoid version of Elune acting through much lesser beings to achieve goals that are key to her but may be seen as personally cruel by the recipients could be explored, but aren't, and they're a failing of the narrative.

@Mace

Tyrande flipping out and accepting the power after losing her home, most of their land, their immortality, having her husband be critically injured etc. etc. is the closest both she and the race came to their WC3 version. The issue isn't why she's assmad, it's why when she's supposedly so furious, so hellbent on vengeance and empowered by a God does she accomplish fuck all and is she more moderate in temperament and action than when she mowed down the Wardens to free Illidan in the RTS.

[Niwes]

So we all know the Primus called the Eternal Ones in the Shadowlands the Pantheon of death, and eluded to Elune being the Winter queen's counter part in the pantheon of life. so what do you think this pantheon of death/life are?


1. God like beings over the realm of the living and the realm of the dead

i.e. existience is split into those that are "alive" and those that are "dead" - and Pantheon of death are the beings over those in the universe of the dead while the Pantheon of life are those governing those who are alive in the realm of the living.


2. Pantheon over death magic and life magic

i.e. they are the cosmic forces of death, and death magic's pantheon is what




Do the cosmic powers have pantheons? To me that doesn't make sense because they are powers - inert forces, that beings can command. Some beings may be great at one type, but like elements (i.e. air, fire, water, ) they are just powers. You can have beings spawned of them infused with them, but I don't think you have god's of cosmic powers.

As far as we know, both the Eternal ones, and every being considered a god has been able to use multiple sources of magic - Eternal ones use several kinds, the titans do too, even the loa, tied to the cycle of life and death, do not exclusively wield nature magic, in fact not many of them can.

Does the solution to this miystery reveal who the first ones are?

let me try to directly answer your title: some element of some horrible cheap shit story by the Danuser team.

[Aucald]

I fully understand what you mean by myths and yes there's a distinct difference between what we see and what we're told. Elune's relationship with Malorne or stories about An'she and Mu'sha and so forth are second-hand accounts of things that we don't see and who's literal nature is unclear. Elune could've manifested and gotten porked by a deer, but it's extremely unlikely and the weight isn't on a physical act or a courting by her and the deer, it's on the favour that Malorne has by having received the attention of a goddess to the extent that he's the spiritual father of an entire race of people who the goddess cares about. The entire bit about Chronicle is the premise of my argument when we began pages ago - Elune's origin and actions were deliberately not clarified to maintain her aura of mystery, something not extended to other elements of the setting and Shadowlands subverted that. We've never had Elune speak before or be explicitly cast as wrong or ill-informed prior to Shadowlands or speak to an apparent equal, and it's in these regards that Shadowlands differs and sabotages what came before it when it comes to the portrayal. Everything else is finagling about how we choose to describe the same general course of events, while at the same time dodging making a substantive defence or argument in favour of the change.

And again, the product of their union can be asked about his heritage directly - as he exists as a real person within the narrative universe, so it's not really a secondhand account in any real sense, either. Cenarius can just say "yes, Elune was my mother and Malore is my father," or he can say "I wasn't born in the manner that two organic beings bear progeny, but I consider them my parents" or what have you. Since the story related to us is that they are directly his parents in a more traditional sense, it would be wrongheaded to try to consign that narrative to "fanciful myth" in light that it's directly confirmable and not at all the abstract version you're claiming. And even now with Shadowlands having Elune communicate with us more or less directly, we *still* don't know anything of her origins or nature - even the notion that the other primordial realms have Zereth installations that may or may not be the origin of their denizens as is the case with Zereth Mortis remains pure supposition on our parts. Something being the case for Death doesn't mean it's equally so for Life, Light, Disorder, or what have you. Barring her first act of direct communication, Elune still has the vast majority of her mystique surrounding her. We don't know what she is, we don't know where she is, and we don't know if her connection with the Winter Queen is an actual sororal relationship, or if they just consider themselves "sisters" based on a shared role (any more than the Eternal Ones can be claimed to be brothers or sisters of anything, even one another, due to their nature as fabricated beings).

It's a distinction without difference. Tyrande could be cooking herself with power of her own volition and her vow to Elune before her empowerment to be just flavor. It could be Elune deliberately cutting the cord to arrange the meeting with the WQ due to precognition, it could be a quirk of timing or her trying to save Tyrande from death or she could have no hand at all in it and Tyrande's body could just be shutting down. None of this really has much effect on the ultimate position she's in where her choice is moot because choosing 'vengeance', i.e her justifiable grievances against those who have preyed upon her people for decades now would result in her death and so she only has one direction she can feasibly take.

It is a distinction without a difference, and it's not a distinction I originally made, either - you brought it up in an attempt to underline Elune's fallibility, and I merely mentioned that it's an unknown as to whether Elune caused it to happen, meaning it may or may not have any bearing on her.

The talk as regards how it's nothing new for Gods to be fallible in WoW or to be more human than ineffable is entirely true and indeed the premise of why I single out Elune in particular. I consider demystification and this kind of humanizing to be bad in general but the only one spared it in Chronicle or even before for the Titans was Elune, ergo, Shadowlands has to bear the cross for taking away one of the things that made Elune unique to all other divine figures and made the night elves special as a race and bringing her to the same level as any of the other higher powers. Even more so when, once again, there's no advantage taken of it. The fault of the naaru heavily ties into admittedly poor stories like Turalyon forgiving Illidan, the fallibility of the void to how people like Alleria or Garrosh turn it to their goals or the mantid are targeted by the remnants of their own divinity, the Titans' failures kick in constantly in raids and will be the premise of an honestly fairly promising idea in DF when it comes to the primals. Elune stands apart from all of those much like she did before, but this time it's because her fallibility is unexplored in the story that makes her such. Her becoming more human is a primarily destructive exercise that takes away her appeal and an element of her race but fills in nothing to go there. The situation with Tyrande now, much like Ysera's soon are places where the newly fallible and humanoid version of Elune acting through much lesser beings to achieve goals that are key to her but may be seen as personally cruel by the recipients could be explored, but aren't, and they're a failing of the narrative.

And I continue to point out that your premise is flawed, and the suppositions you're making based on it continue to be equally flawed. Having a mystique and being "humanized" and/or fallible aren't mutually exclusive, and one needn't imply the lack of the other. Shadowlands bears some responsibility for "de-mystifying" Elune in that it's the first time we've somewhat directly interacted with her - we still don't see her, of course, as she's speaking through her prophet Tyrande, but nonetheless it's the closest we've ever gotten. The chasm between that and her "becoming a veritable human" is super vast, though; and you're trying to imply it's non-existent here. So yes, some mystique has been stripped away, but a significant chunk remains. I have no doubt that in time we'll likely see her, maybe even interact her with directly as we do with the Winter Queen, but that has yet to happen - may well not happen depending on the story's direction (and since Shadowlands was poorly received, they may opt not to explore the other primordial realms so quickly). I also don't remember Turalyon ever forgiving Illidan in any real sense, either; he didn't kill him sure, but they never sat down and explored their feelings before Illidan sealed himself up in the Seat of the Pantheon. Ditto for the possible situation with Ysera, Malfurion, and Tyrande - since, as I've already pointed out, doesn't touch on Elune in any real sense beyond Elune's prior attempt to stash Ysera in Ardenweald to save her. If it's a failing at all, it's a failing of Malfurion wanting to do something neither Tyrande nor Ysera wants him to do - that's not a narrative issue, it's an interpersonal choice (and rather fitting for Malfurion, like it or not).

[Mace]

let me try to directly answer your title: some element of some horrible cheap shit story by the Danuser team.

It doesn't make much sense.. if you were going to do that approach, won't it make mores ense that the afterlife realm had boththe life realm and the death realm? making our universe like a physical construct that touches all dimensions, but unique in it's own way - like it was something new in creation where everything existed in balance.

The way it stands, the shadowlands of death is the "real life" cos presumably you spend eternity there, whereas the living realm you always die.. - if anything our realm should be the death realm, and the hadowlands the life realm.


I mean they have some logic in the way they've done things, but I'm not so sure if they get the bigger questions right.

[Nymrohd]

And again, the product of their union can be asked about his heritage directly - as he exists as a real person within the narrative universe, so it's not really a secondhand account in any real sense, either. Cenarius can just say "yes, Elune was my mother and Malore is my father," or he can say "I wasn't born in the manner that two organic beings bear progeny, but I consider them my parents" or what have you.

I am curious but how could he know? Who remembers their birth? Cenarius knows he is alive and presumable can remember a childhood but do we have any evidence of a superb mnemonic skill that would allow him to recount life from first breath or before? From what we know he was raised by neither Malorne (who never seems to actually communicate) or Elune; he was raised by Ysera. So what he knows he probably knows from Ysera.

So sure, ask him. All he can tell you is what Ysera told him.

[ohwell]

I wouldn't really use the terms "pantheon" or "gods" for 3D printed robots with room temperature IQs.

Except that would be like a person who believes the bible calling mankind robots. Just because they were created and then imbued with life via the First Ones(hence the once we fight in the raid are not even nearly on par with the real ones) doesn't make them robots.

Also Winter Queen and Archon being fanatical doesn't make them have "room temperature IQ" as their actions are based on deeply embedded beliefs(even if said beliefs to us are ridiculous).

Then again this statement comes off as your typical "I hate SL even though I barely know the actual lore behind it because I'm either easily influenced or just think this is what people want to hear".

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It doesn't make much sense.. if you were going to do that approach, won't it make mores ense that the afterlife realm had boththe life realm and the death realm? making our universe like a physical construct that touches all dimensions, but unique in it's own way - like it was something new in creation where everything existed in balance.

The way it stands, the shadowlands of death is the "real life" cos presumably you spend eternity there, whereas the living realm you always die.. - if anything our realm should be the death realm, and the hadowlands the life realm.


I mean they have some logic in the way they've done things, but I'm not so sure if they get the bigger questions right.

Why bother even trying to articulate to someone that is clearly just blindly hating for no real reason other than ignorance or seeking clout?

[Aucald]

I am curious but how could he know? Who remembers their birth? Cenarius knows he is alive and presumable can remember a childhood but do we have any evidence of a superb mnemonic skill that would allow him to recount life from first breath or before? From what we know he was raised by neither Malorne (who never seems to actually communicate) or Elune; he was raised by Ysera. So what he knows he probably knows from Ysera.

So sure, ask him. All he can tell you is what Ysera told him.

Cenarius can simply ask his father, Malorne, who's also alive and in the world - and as per the quest "Communing with Malorne," is intelligent and capable of speech. Ysera, equally, is fully sentient and presumably knows the story of Cenarius' parentage since Malorne himself allowed her to adopt him, as neither he nor Elune were fully part of the physical world and able to raise him properly.

[Nerovar]

Except that would be like a person who believes the bible calling mankind robots. Just because they were created and then imbued with life via the First Ones(hence the once we fight in the raid are not even nearly on par with the real ones) doesn't make them robots.

They literally have prototypes, are built in a factory and reveal their robot metal frame when you defeat them.

Also Winter Queen and Archon being fanatical doesn't make them have "room temperature IQ" as their actions are based on deeply embedded beliefs(even if said beliefs to us are ridiculous).

And by deeply embedded beliefs you mean the base directives they were programmed to have? Doesn't make those characters any smarter or any less robotic. In fact, the story actually starts making more sense if you view these creatures as the retarded robots they are who only follow their inept programming to a tee.

Then again this statement comes off as your typical "I hate SL even though I barely know the actual lore behind it because I'm either easily influenced or just think this is what people want to hear".

You got me.

[Aucald]

They literally have prototypes, are built in a factory and reveal their robot metal frame when you defeat them.

And by deeply embedded beliefs you mean the base directives they were programmed to have? Doesn't make those characters any smarter or any less robotic. In fact, the story actually starts making more sense if you view these creatures as the retarded robots they are who only follow their inept programming to a tee.

That's more than a little reductive and simplistic - the Eternal Ones and other beings fabricated in Zereth Mortis aren't robots in any classical sense, they're not automatons like cyborgs or androids made in the likeness of living beings. The protoforms we see in Zereth Mortis are actually filled with spirit essences derived from anima, spiritual energy, and when these forms are invested with essence they take on both flesh and actual sentience. They're no more "programmed" than we are, really - they possess independent personalities and intelligence, and as shown by the new Arbiter, those can easily be based on the souls that empower them. In a real sense, the protoform vessels are basically skeletons, and anima later bestows them with actual substance and true life, and they become more traditional beings of flesh and blood.

[Nerovar]

That's more than a little reductive and simplistic - the Eternal Ones and other beings fabricated in Zereth Mortis aren't robots in any classical sense, they're not automatons like cyborgs or androids made in the likeness of living beings. The protoforms we see in Zereth Mortis are actually filled with spirit essences derived from anima, spiritual energy, and when these forms are invested with essence they take on both flesh and actual sentience. They're no more "programmed" than we are, really - they possess independent personalities and intelligence, and as shown by the new Arbiter, those can easily be based on the souls that empower them. In a real sense, the protoform vessels are basically skeletons, and anima later bestows them with actual substance and true life, and they become more traditional beings of flesh and blood.

Well, no one is really denying that they operate as real human beans in a naive sense. Calling them robots is just pointing out the absurdity of the fluff associated with their origin that really serves no purpose except cementing the novel idea that there's some bigger fish out there that can shit out mass produced Gods or throw them away like broken toys. Making up all that fluff about how they are filled with soul excrements i.e. anima (same as the Kyrian automatons who are literal robots btw.) doesn't change anything about their inorganic origin.
Also last time I checked the new Arbiter was filled with an actual soul of a mortal being (and not just anima) who was used as a sacrifice to animate the vessel prior to which the Arbiter was an actual robot who served as a glorified sorting algorithm until it got killed by malware.

[bloodmoth13]

its always posible that the demon pantheon is dead,either by titans or sargeras or some other faction,i dont see how else sargeras could amass such a large following of demons if they had their own big strong leaders

My headcanon is that demons abhor heirarchies and defacto wouldnt have any leader due to the nature of chaos. The reason sargeras was so dangerous is that he applied order to the chaos and turned the disorganized demonic legions into a driven combat force.
Kiljaedin and archimonde were both effectively parts of the demonic pantheon.

Dreadlords made great leutennants because they simply werent true demons, they secretly served death but their goals aligned with sargerases so they worked to organize demonic forces to serve the legion.

Thats just a guess though i could definitely see some jailer-esque asspull with a few more megademons... I hope blizz seeds them a lot better than they did with the jailer. Shadowlands suffered mostly from the lack of build up for the characters, it was hard to care for any of the pantheon because they were made up on the spot like the primus, winter queen and whatever the bastion one was. there were loose tie ins with the spirit healers and scourge aesthetics in maldraxxus which helped a bit but if there were some 'ancient texts' that name dropped some of the pantheon it would have gone down a lot better. Its not like that story arc wasnt being set up for years, there were so many points where sylvanas could have name dropped 'jailer' or zorval. Her arc was too random and made too little sense, if we knew she was working with a cosmic power her motives would have felt more natural and there would have been some hype to it.

The jailers first introduction to the story was that cinematic, and it just felt like blizz trying to asspull a new villian to outdo the last one. Then throw in some unsympathetic villian dialogue and generic villianness and you get the worst received villian in wows history.

Id be interested to see what the point of demons is, they are just awful creatures all around that serve no natural purpose, same with the void to a degree but they seem to at least have their own goals. demons are just intrinsically bad. Generally the good side of chaos is 'freedom' and the bad side to order is 'control' so it would be interesting to see some lore where titans were ordering a planet using domination magic (which suits 'order' a lot more than 'death') and some demon pantheon opposed them demanding that the species on the planet needed freedom and having the titans kill the demon in response.

[Aucald]

Well, no one is really denying that they operate as real human beans in a naive sense. Calling them robots is just pointing out the absurdity of the fluff associated with their origin that really serves no purpose except cementing the novel idea that there's some bigger fish out there that can shit out mass produced Gods or throw them away like broken toys. Making up all that fluff about how they are filled with soul excrements i.e. anima (same as the Kyrian automatons who are literal robots btw.) doesn't change anything about their inorganic origin.
Also last time I checked the new Arbiter was filled with an actual soul of a mortal being (and not just anima) who was used as a sacrifice to animate the vessel prior to which the Arbiter was an actual robot who served as a glorified sorting algorithm until it got killed by malware.

A lot of "life" in the Warcraft universe has the same "inorganic" origins you're talking about, so it's kind of a meaningless distinction to claim it's absurd of the denizens of Death for some reason. Humans in the Warcraft universe were originally automatons created by alien progenitor gods who were originally born from planets and became organic because they caught a flesh disease from yet another set of alien parasites from the Void. Ditto Dwarves and Gnomes, the latter of which were quite literally robots before catching the same flesh disease and becoming humanoid somehow. Having an inorganic origin means little to nothing in the Warcraft universe when it comes to discussing the final product of a process that bestows humanoid traits. Orcs were originally rock creatures created by the Titan Aggramar, and they became organic due to contamination with a manifestation of nature running amok on their world. The Eternal Ones have as much in common with Kyrian automatons as you or I have in common with a woodlouse - the protoform vessels we see in Zereth Mortis aren't automatons, they're just divine shells that serve as the receptacles for powerful forces. The Kyrian automatons are made to be precisely what they are by the Kyrians in the same way that Goblins and Gnomes create robot attendants and servants.

The original Arbiter was the Eternal One Zovaal, who we know is fully sentient and capable of having his own agenda (the reason why he was removed from his position and imprisoned in the Maw). The "new" Arbiter we encounter has less of a personality than Zovaal did by design, as the remaining Eternal Ones feared a repeat of their brother's plight, but even then, the former Arbiter is still far from an unthinking or unfeeling machine as the very act of doing its job (judging the souls of the dead) requires both a degree of emotional intelligence and the ability to empathize/sympathize, to understand why and how the souls it is judging behaved as they did. The newest Arbiter was made from the soul of Pelagos, but originally it was going to receive its soul from the ancient souls stored in Crypts of the Eternal until the Dreadlords sabotaged that process and Pelagos made his sacrifice to become the new Arbiter instead. The soul of Argus, tainted by both Fel and Death essences by the Dreadlords, is also a lot more than "malware" - it was a fundamental violation of the natural order of Death, and could well have done serious damage to *any* Arbiter that encountered it, not just the Arbiter that was impaneled at that time.

[Nerovar]

A lot of "life" in the Warcraft universe has the same "inorganic" origins you're talking about, so it's kind of a meaningless distinction to claim it's absurd of the denizens of Death for some reason. Humans in the Warcraft universe were originally automatons created by alien progenitor gods who were originally born from planets and became organic because they caught a flesh disease from yet another set of alien parasites from the Void. Ditto Dwarves and Gnomes, the latter of which were quite literally robots before catching the same flesh disease and becoming humanoid somehow. Having an inorganic origin means little to nothing in the Warcraft universe when it comes to discussing the final product of a process that bestows humanoid traits. Orcs were originally rock creatures created by the Titan Aggramar, and they became organic due to contamination with a manifestation of nature running amok on their world. The Eternal Ones have as much in common with Kyrian automatons as you or I have in common with a woodlouse - the protoform vessels we see in Zereth Mortis aren't automatons, they're just divine shells that serve as the receptacles for powerful forces. The Kyrian automatons are made to be precisely what they are by the Kyrians in the same way that Goblins and Gnomes create robot attendants and servants.

Well, you've sort of said it yourself. Humans, Dwarfs and Orcs aren't "created" in the same sense these beings are. They are essentially golems that only became "real" beings through a lengthy series of extraneous factors.

The original Arbiter was the Eternal One Zovaal, who we know is fully sentient and capable of having his own agenda (the reason why he was removed from his position and imprisoned in the Maw). The "new" Arbiter we encounter has less of a personality than Zovaal did by design, as the remaining Eternal Ones feared a repeat of their brother's plight, but even then, the former Arbiter is still far from an unthinking or unfeeling machine as the very act of doing its job (judging the souls of the dead) requires both a degree of emotional intelligence and the ability to empathize/sympathize, to understand why and how the souls it is judging behaved as they did. The newest Arbiter was made from the soul of Pelagos, but originally it was going to receive its soul from the ancient souls stored in Crypts of the Eternal until the Dreadlords sabotaged that process and Pelagos made his sacrifice to become the new Arbiter instead. The soul of Argus, tainted by both Fel and Death essences by the Dreadlords, is also a lot more than "malware" - it was a fundamental violation of the natural order of Death, and could well have done serious damage to *any* Arbiter that encountered it, not just the Arbiter that was impaneled at that time.

And what exactly does it say about the Eternal Ones that they can just print out a new version of themselves and dial down the personality "to be devoid of will"?

[Aucald]

Well, you've sort of said it yourself. Humans, Dwarfs and Orcs aren't "created" in the same sense these beings are. They are essentially golems that only became "real" beings through a lengthy series of extraneous factors.

Golems that were created by external powers, yes. I'd say it's pretty nitpicky to base an argument of "legitimate being" on just how abstruse the factors are from being an automaton created by an alien god.

And what exactly does it say about the Eternal Ones that they can just print out a new version of themselves and dial down the personality "to be devoid of will"?

It basically says they're gods in their own right, fully capable of creating new life up to and including one of their own if need be. Also, the Arbiter isn't "devoid of will," as it both had and directed a retinue of servants in Oribos. It lacked the nuanced demeanor of Zovaal by design, sure; but again that's a far cry from being a computer. Being dispassionate, aloof, and uninvolved are traits actual people can possess and not the marks of a literal robot.

[Nerovar]

Golems that were created by external powers, yes. I'd say it's pretty nitpicky to base an argument of "legitimate being" on just how abstruse the factors are from being an automaton created by an alien god.

It matters since it doesn't just make humans subordinate beings with pre-ordained purpose. They exist in and of themselves unlike their original "perfect" Titan designs or the Eternal Ones.

It basically says they're gods in their own right, fully capable of creating new life up to and including one of their own if need be. Also, the Arbiter isn't "devoid of will," as it both had and directed a retinue of servants in Oribos. It lacked the nuanced demeanor of Zovaal by design, sure; but again that's a far cry from being a computer. Being dispassionate, aloof, and uninvolved are traits actual people can possess and not the marks of a literal robot.

That's a very far stretch. They are able to use the same factory they were made in to assemble another Eternal One and predetermine the actual (rather limited) personality of that version which is a pretty stark contrast to your initial claim that "they're no more "programmed" than we are, really". Clearly this is not the case. They needed an Eternal One so they printed it out, gave it the software it needed to be good at its job and installed it in Oribos. This isn't "creation" in any meaningful sense. It's just playing with pre-existing blueprints.

[Mace]

"If anything, our realm should be the Death realm and the Shadowlands should be the Life Realm"

What does this even mean???

Y'all haven't read a single thing regarding religion and the afterlife, and it shows...

Think about it, when you enter the shadowlands, you never die, you're pretty much eternal/mortal.. it's only in our world you die - you spend a few decades or tens of millennia (if night elven), and then you spend eternity "living" in the shadowlands - how is that the realm of death?


Imo, if the afterlife had a life realm and death realm - that would make more sense, it would mean our normal realm was something unique or different, touching all realms..

Look I'm trying to make sense of it, and I am obviously struggling.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

when you enter the shadowlands, you never die, you're pretty much eternal

Because they are dead already.

[Aucald]

It matters since it doesn't just make humans subordinate beings with pre-ordained purpose. They exist in and of themselves unlike their original "perfect" Titan designs or the Eternal Ones.

The same could be said for both the Titan-forged as well as the Eternal Ones. The Keepers proved quite susceptible to Yogg-Saron's corruption as a group, and the Eternal Ones had two of their number, Zovaal and Denathrius, betray their original purposes for ulterior agendas (Denathrius' being self-aggrandizement for its own sake). Automatons can't arbitrarily decide to disobey their programming, after all; not without true sentience.

That's a very far stretch. They are able to use the same factory they were made in to assemble another Eternal One and predetermine the actual (rather limited) personality of that version which is a pretty stark contrast to your initial claim that "they're no more "programmed" than we are, really". Clearly this is not the case. They needed an Eternal One so they printed it out, gave it the software it needed to be good at its job and installed it in Oribos. This isn't "creation" in any meaningful sense. It's just playing with pre-existing blueprints.

Not really very far at all - and calling it a "factory" is pretty much more reduction, given that it's really an inscrutable system of anomalous magical elements that could even scarcely be called a "machine" by terms we understand. The Titans too are able to create autonomous constructs and endow their creations with both the spark of life and intelligence, such as they did with the Keepers - so again, the Eternal Ones and the complex systems of Zereth Mortis are really no different from the Forge of Wills or the Forge of Origination that can be seen on Azeroth, only more elaborate and orders of magnitude more powerful. I'm not saying that the Arbiter wasn't created, either; all of the Eternal Ones were fabricated into being at some point and instilled with both power and life by the First Ones, but the process that created them is really no different than the process that created Titan-forged, or for that matter, the Titans themselves. It's a distinction without a difference.

[Super Dickmann]

And again, the product of their union can be asked about his heritage directly - as he exists as a real person within the narrative universe, so it's not really a secondhand account in any real sense, either. Cenarius can just say "yes, Elune was my mother and Malore is my father," or he can say "I wasn't born in the manner that two organic beings bear progeny, but I consider them my parents" or what have you. Since the story related to us is that they are directly his parents in a more traditional sense, it would be wrongheaded to try to consign that narrative to "fanciful myth" in light that it's directly confirmable and not at all the abstract version you're claiming. And even now with Shadowlands having Elune communicate with us more or less directly, we *still* don't know anything of her origins or nature - even the notion that the other primordial realms have Zereth installations that may or may not be the origin of their denizens as is the case with Zereth Mortis remains pure supposition on our parts. Something being the case for Death doesn't mean it's equally so for Life, Light, Disorder, or what have you. Barring her first act of direct communication, Elune still has the vast majority of her mystique surrounding her. We don't know what she is, we don't know where she is, and we don't know if her connection with the Winter Queen is an actual sororal relationship, or if they just consider themselves "sisters" based on a shared role (any more than the Eternal Ones can be claimed to be brothers or sisters of anything, even one another, due to their nature as fabricated beings).

It could be, purely hypothetically, but it isn't, which is the point. The game doesn't show the act but describe the act secondarily, nor literalize it. We don't have deer on celestial body action, the entire portion is more elevated, with the ambience of it being an immaculate conception, not a physical thing. The idea that SL doesn't demystify Elune compared to what came before is farcical. First because you already agreed that she had to be demystified eventually, but secondly because you then go on to list questions we'd have no way of asking if not for the information put in this expansion. In fact, to ask questions at all regarding whether the WQ is her actual sister or if they're in the same 'tier' would be mostly willfully ignoring what the writers are telling us and the meat of the story presented to us. That they're roughly equivalent, parallel beings, down to Elune being a 'counterpart' of the WQ is the premise of the story set forth. A character that talks is ipso fact less mysterious than one that doesn't. The only argument to be had is whether that's good or bad and its extent. To, four pages in, pivot to whether it's happening at all is ridiculous.

And I continue to point out that your premise is flawed, and the suppositions you're making based on it continue to be equally flawed. Having a mystique and being "humanized" and/or fallible aren't mutually exclusive, and one needn't imply the lack of the other. Shadowlands bears some responsibility for "de-mystifying" Elune in that it's the first time we've somewhat directly interacted with her - we still don't see her, of course, as she's speaking through her prophet Tyrande, but nonetheless it's the closest we've ever gotten. The chasm between that and her "becoming a veritable human" is super vast, though; and you're trying to imply it's non-existent here. So yes, some mystique has been stripped away, but a significant chunk remains. I have no doubt that in time we'll likely see her, maybe even interact her with directly as we do with the Winter Queen, but that has yet to happen - may well not happen depending on the story's direction (and since Shadowlands was poorly received, they may opt not to explore the other primordial realms so quickly). I also don't remember Turalyon ever forgiving Illidan in any real sense, either; he didn't kill him sure, but they never sat down and explored their feelings before Illidan sealed himself up in the Seat of the Pantheon. Ditto for the possible situation with Ysera, Malfurion, and Tyrande - since, as I've already pointed out, doesn't touch on Elune in any real sense beyond Elune's prior attempt to stash Ysera in Ardenweald to save her. If it's a failing at all, it's a failing of Malfurion wanting to do something neither Tyrande nor Ysera wants him to do - that's not a narrative issue, it's an interpersonal choice (and rather fitting for Malfurion, like it or not).

The less human a divine figure is, the more mystique it has. It can still be divine afterwards, still recognizable as apart from a person, but it won't be obscure. Zeus isn't just a dude, but he is much closer to one than were he not to go around boning random mortals. Elune doesn't need to be fully, analogously human to be humanized and ergo to be removed from the mystique that defined that character. Not only do I never say 'veritable human' in the paragraph you cite, but your exaggeration doesn't even help you dispute my point. What you're arguing in the quoted bit is that yes, Elune is demystified (unlike the prior paragraph but never you mind), but she could be demystified more. You don't dispute that little has been done to explore this in the most important point of time, being its introduction as a massive change to her as an in-game concept, or say that what was done was good, so much as argue the degree of it. A story that recasts Elune as a Zeus-style figure, speaking through an oracle to resolve a familial issue and misunderstanding and the two being largely happy about it while her chosen people fret about the sacrifice of their leader to see her chosen Aspect through has dramatic value. But this story isn't told. As I said in the topic about it, I don't give a fuck about Malfurion's death and find it better than previous resurrections in terms of needing a sacrifice, but an enormous part of the backlash is based around the destruction of a major element of the night elf identity, then not acknowledging it, then basing plots on it.