I wonder how this affects Tauren religion and cosmology, since An'she is said to be Elune's brother.
Oh, who am I kidding; no one on the current WoW creative team remembers An'she or the Sunwalkers, and even if they did they wouldn't do An'she justice.
I never got the Elune - Eonar connection. It was a theory that came out of nowhere simply because the moon showed up in Eonar's room in Antorus. Prior to that there had never been any overlap between Elune or the Titans in how either were presented or described.
And possibly Azeroth's sun? Since Elune is tied to the moon, and Elune's brother An'she is associated with the sun.
Elune and the Light. But once the Light was retconned from being a "yes really god" from WC3 through MoP into just being another elemental force like Fel or Arcane in WoD, it was only a matter of time before the creative hacks came after Elune and tore her down into just being another mundane super as well.
Also because no one on the current WoW team has an ounce of faith in their bones.
Sylvanas is already Kerrigan 2.0. Blizzard mind as well go all the way and have Sylvanas save the universe from a giant space slug by lasering it.
Because the writers have no imagination and don't have an ounce of faith in their bones.
Blizzard's writers seem to think that the game can't go on without introducing higher and higher powerlevel guys for us to fight. And since the writers are incapable of creating new things, they decide to look back at the lore Metzen painstakingly crafted, the stuff people are already invested in, and take that and retcon it to suit their narrative, hoping that the fandom's investment in Metzen's stuff will carry over.
Or the writers could, you know, just leave Elune alone and go make up new forces for us to fight? Why not have the player join an expedition to the other side of the world and go on some good 'ole fun adventuring, like we did in Pandaria? No need to have new end of the world threats or even MOAR POWERFUL big bads than the last.
They'd be a fool to think so.
Let's look at the eras of Warcraft lore over the years:
- WC1 lore was throwaway lines made up by the voice actor who was brought in to narrate the game while he was in the recording booth. WC2 lore had a little more effort put in but that was it.
- WC3 through Wrath lore (started with the novel "Of Blood and Honor" and the adventure game that was cancelled) was painstackingly crafted by Metzen.
- Cata through MoP: Metzen is still in charge but religion begins to be downplayed (probably by a mandate from Blizzard) but is still overall consistent with the lore since WC3.
- WoD: Metzen leaves. The new creative team takesover and immediately begins dismantling the Light, retconning it from being a "yes really god" in the setting to being "just another elemental force like Arcane or Fel". The new creative team also goes on a mass retcon spree (not that Metzen didn't retcon stuff but he never did it to this degree). At this point it is clear that the writers are making stuff up as they go along and have no respect for the work laid down by prior writers, and don't respect the intelligence of the fans.
Can't wait for 2 or 3 expansions from now when the next "higher tier" precursor race is introduced. "Who are the precursors who were around before The First Ones?"
Not to derail too much but it's obvious that FFXIV has been living rent free in Blizzard's head. Going by population metrics, FFXIV will soon overtake WoW in subscriber numbers in a couple years or less (likely with the release of the Endwalker expansion). Over the past couple years, Blizzard consistently tries to line up WoW patch cycles with FFXIV patch cycles. Just look at how Blizzard waiting until FFXIV's 5.5 patch date was announced to announce WoW's 9.1 PTR at the same time is no coincidence, trying to keep WoW players from jumping ship by teasing them new WoW stuff to try out (even if it is unfinished). And the Shadowlands expansion was blatantly named such to try to be conflated with the Shadowbringers expansion and get similar search results when people look up ShB.
Erm, what? An'she in the handful of NPC dialogue, quests, and the Bleeding Sun short story presented him as more of a passive Native American-esque "Great Spirit" watching silently in the sky. IIRC An'she didn't even anything to do with Dezco's kids being taken away; that was the August Celestials. The Light - since the first Warcraft novel by Metzen, "Of Blood and Honor", has been depicted as a Christian God and is shown to be active in events.
Furthermore, the way Dezco’s powers are described in Bleeding Sun have no overlap with the abilities that Paladin’s and Priests draw upon from the Light. It’s clear that Tauren Sunwalkers are NOT Paladins and do not draw upon the Light. They are classified as Paladins for game purposes only, because it’s impractical design an entire class that can only be used by one race for lore purposes when you can just slot that lore class into an existing gameplay class (like how Dark Rangers in lore are their own thing but in gameplay they’re just marksmanship hunters). I wish that Sunwalker Tauren had gotten unique spell effects, but alas.
Also, if An'she really is The Light or a Naaru…
Imagine Blizzard saying that. Actually, wait. I can.
Given how Blizzard dismantled the Light as an actual god after Metzen left, and they've just dismantled Elune, there is no way Blizzard is going to reintroduce another actual god. From now on everyone is going to be a greek-esque super you and kill if your powerlevel is high enough.
An'she, but thankfully it seems that he has been forgotten so at least he can't be ruined. At least we Sunwalkers can have the dignity of our lore not being run over by an 18-wheeler and thrown into a ditch.
Nailed it.
Some thing
shouldn't be "uncovered". Some things are perfectly fine - and work best - if left alone.
With the current WoW team you'll be disappointed. The Metzen days are seven years past.