Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Do we think Lightforged Gorehowl is anything, or just a prop with Netease?

Just a cool high fantasy design.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The idea that depth or complexity is the problem is also wrong, see Elden Ring or Morrowind. No, the issue is that the stories are simply not communicated in an interesting or evocative way and the elements underlying them vary from poor execution of excellent ideas at best to terrible execution of terrible ideas at worst.

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. The problem is that most of WoW's current mysteries are forced and are mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to natural results of good and compelling worldbuilding. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

[micwini]

The idea that depth or complexity is the problem is also wrong, see Elden Ring or Morrowind. No, the issue is that the stories are simply not communicated in an interesting or evocative way and the elements underlying them vary from poor execution of excellent ideas at best to terrible execution of terrible ideas at worst.

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. WoW's current mysteries are forced and mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to worldbuilding. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

Complexity and depth is only a problem because the writers are inept.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Complexity and depth is only a problem because the writers are inept.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to sell, though I might be reluctant to make judgments of character like "the writers are inept" in lieu of less character-focused statements like "the writing is inept".

[Cheezits]

A lightforged gorehowl just being a wacky coincidence is very funny. Come on.

[Houle]

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. The problem is that most of WoW's current mysteries are forced and are mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to natural results of good and compelling worldbuilding. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

Yeah thats what i meant with "mystery box"-style. Its not natural world-building mystery, its forced mystery for the sake of dangling it in front of the audiences face to keep them engaged. Its pretty often the sign of bad writing - if you cant find ways to keep the audience engaged naturally, just keep a few major plot points secret for no real reason so they want to find out what it is and keep consuming your product.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Its not natural world-building mystery, its forced mystery for the sake of dangling it in front of the audiences face to keep them engaged

I see, then you're very right about that.

[milkmustache]

A lightforged gorehowl just being a wacky coincidence is very funny. Come on.

I want to believe, but I think it's just as probable that it's a cool marketing image as it is hint at a Lightbound Garrosh. This replacing the old broken Gorehowl that was removed when the partnership dissolved is symbolic, yada yada.

I think the biggest part of it is that I'm not too sure the Lightbound are poised to stay in WoD or Mag'har scenario. I think we'll be seeing them very soon.

Please oh please give us back Garrosh.

Mystery is also not the problem; we need mystery. Master's Glaive before Cataclysm was an example of a good mystery. Whispering Forest was a good mystery. The old gods, prior to being totally demystified in Chronicles, were a mystery. The problem is that most of WoW's current mysteries are forced and are mainly matters of the narrative as opposed to natural results of good and compelling worldbuilding. Having major outlying mysteries in the lore is desirable, having the main villain's motive and personality being a mystery is not.

I think WoW's best current mystery is Elune. I love not really knowing what she is, but knowing she has a lot of sway with the higher powers we know.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I think WoW's best current mystery is Elune. I love not really knowing what she is, but knowing she has a lot of sway with the higher powers we know.

Correction: was. We now know she was 3d printed in the factory associated with a vaguely-defined Pokemon type just like the other personality-deprived shells that make up the cosmic pantheons.

[Jolly Roger]

That appears to me like the scene at the end of Sanctum where he drops the pretense and reveals to Sylv that he duped her this whole time.

See the pillars from the Arbiter's room in the corner.

he never duped her
thats why that scene makes no sense

- - - Updated - - -

Idk if you're implying Anduin or Faerin as the true heir, but that would be an insane turn to have Anduin go take over the Arathi empire. Not in a bad way at all, just very interesting lol.

But to add onto the Arthurian idea of Avaloren, Faerin's "A DRAGON?! You're just casually friends with a legendary beast known to scour lands and grant wishes?" feels like something in that realm.

i think if the arathi empire are just super into the light and only see it as like a great crusade then having Anduin the peace master go in and become the new ruler makes sense.

theres also the scarlet crusade angle

[Zardas]

Correction: was. We now know she was 3d printed in the factory associated with a vaguely-defined Pokemon type just like the other personality-deprived shells that make up the cosmic pantheons.

Source for that ? Because most clues point towards her being part of the pantheon of life, and we know for sure that she is not an Eternal.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Source for that ? Because most clues point towards her being part of the pantheon of life, and we know for sure that she is not an Eternal.

It’s pretty much the the winter queen calling her sister, I believe.

Though after DF with the incarnates not being related in any way but using sister and brother the winter queen doing the same thing could mean nothing.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Source for that ? Because most clues point towards her being part of the pantheon of life, and we know for sure that she is not an Eternal.

Implicitly, the pantheon of life and the pantheon of death — especially given they're parallels — would both be made of Zerethbots. She'd be from another Zereth, but a Zereth nonetheless.

[Golden Yak]

The implication with all of the Zereths being connected was that each one is the heart of one of the cosmic realms, and therefore likely to be the birthplace of all the cosmic pantheons. It's all First Ones tech bullshit. They built the Zereths and the gods that each oversee a cosmic power. It's all part of one interconnected design.

Unless Blizzard decides that it's not, which they could.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

then having Anduin the peace master go in and become the new ruler makes sense.

Yes, let's have the golden child liberate another race from the chains of being too interesting.

[Zardas]

Implicitly, the pantheon of life and the pantheon of death — especially given they're parallels — would both be made of Zerethbots. She'd be from another Zereth, but a Zereth nonetheless.

First that's just a supposition. And second how do you have so much knowledge about how the Zereth of life functions ? Seems to me that you just have one point of data and use it to draw conclusion about the whole set.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

First that's just a supposition. And second how do you have so much knowledge about how the Zereth of life functions ? Seems to me that you just have one point of data and use it to draw conclusion about the whole set.

The presence of a Zereth and a parallel pantheon heavily indicates it. If we were talking about some kind of real-world scientific speculation, your point would be relevant, but we're not. We're talking about a piece of fiction where inference from parallels is perfectly acceptable. The fact the pantheons of life and death are so precisely measured against one another that members can be seen as siblings of one another due to their roles in the cosmology pretty heavily indicates they're of similarly parallel origins.

Believe me, I'd love for you to be right, but at the moment it looks like wishful thinking at best.

[Jolly Roger]

Yes, let's have the golden child liberate another race from the chains of being too interesting.

light zealots have been done
i prefer not having a bfa 2.0

[Makabreska]

light zealots have been done
i prefer not having a bfa 2.0

Light zealots will DEFINITELY return. We now have two sources of them, Lightbound and Arathi.

[hattahat]

I think Elune's identity is pretty much confirmed at this point. Elune is the pantheon of life, and is involved with other cosmic forces.
Elune approached and befriended the other cosmic powers purely out of a desire to see harmony and goodwill amongst all of them, and so one by one, she befriended the pantheons of the other powers and made deals with them.

The Winter Queen of the Death faction is said to be Elune's sister, and we don't know if that's really because they were created together by a single creator, a first one, or if it's more of a blood-sister thing, but it's definitely a close relationship.
And Elune and the Winter Queen made a deal of sorts, exchanging souls from their respective realms, creating a cycle of death and rebirth.

Eonar of the Order was also revealed to have a very close relationship with Elune, which clears up a long-standing mystery.
Emerald dream is not a realm "created" by the Titans or Freya, but rather an area that Eonar received from Elune.
Elune gave Eonar a portion of the Realm of Life that she was in charge of, and Eonar used her minions, Nymue, Freya, and others, to transform it into what it is today.

However, Elune is involved with other forces besides these two.
In fact, it was the Light's Heart that was mentioned before this in Legion.
It could be argued that Elune's tear was treated as the pillar of creation because of her dealings with Eonar, even though Elune herself is not a Titan, but we should also remember that Elune's tear reacted with Light's Heart to awaken Xe'ra.
This leads us to speculate that Elune was involved in the creation of Xe'ra through a deal with one of the Pantheon of Light.

The Void is more nuanced than this, with dark powers wielded by the Night Warriors, but can also be traced back to Xal'atath's quotes in the Legion.
Xal'atath referred to Elune then as an upstart goddess.
This is purely speculation, but I suspect that Elune also made a deal with the Void Lords and eventually realized that they were fundamentally incompatible and walked away.

That leaves the Disorder, but we don't even have a proper pantheon here to begin with, so this is the only thing we can really guess at right now.

In any case, this is how I suspect Elune, the Pantheon of Life, approached them, popping up here and there.
I don't know if the Nathrezim report's reference to the insidiousness of Life was meant to refer to Elune's behavior like this, but I think it's more likely that Elune genuinely wanted to be friends with everyone rather than have any nefarious intentions.
I think Elune is a character that embodies both the courage and naivety that are typical of Life.
It's also possible that another member of the pantheon of life, other than Elune, was actually up to something insidious in the first place.