Up next in 10
In this week's show, Matt and Joe discuss the conflict between Alliance and Horde -- and more importantly, the lack of conflict some characters may feel when they're just out there adventuring. Even if their factions are opposed, we've had a ton of time collaborating and helping each other out on a personal level. Could a third, neutral faction be possible, and if so, what would it look like? Then, they deep dive on the question of the relationship between the various opposing forces controlling the WoW universe. Which are completely opposing forces, and which transition from one to the other easily? Would it be possible, for instance, for N'Zoth to become Holy, like we've seen with the Naaru?
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[Music]
0:09
hello and welcome to lore watch Round Table freeform discussion about lur and your favorite media I'm your host Joe
0:14
pre one of sever lore focused folks from blizzard watch and I've got my stupendous co-host with me today Matt
0:20
Rossy how you doing today Matt I am good well you know what is also good
0:27
questions from our listeners if you have questions for this or any of our
0:32
podcasts be sure to send those in to podcast blizzardwatch dcom specify the
0:38
show that it is for in the subject line as well as any special pronunciations of your name if you want to hit us up on
0:44
Discord we have a couple Channel set aside we have the Q and podcast questions Channel same rules apply it's open to everybody and if you happen to
0:52
be a patreon subscriber we have the patreon Q and podcast questions Channel set aside where we tend to look their
1:00
first as a way of saying thank you for our patreon subscribers for helping us keep the lights on you can also send us
1:05
messages through patreon and our fearless leaders will ensure that we get them uh without further Ado let's go
1:11
ahead and crack into these questions and the first one comes from Razer buug uh
1:17
who I sometimes call Razer BG we're never going to live that down because yeah that's a thing I do uh I'm a little
1:24
behind the curve so I've only just run into res renic the goblin operative we
1:30
find out he's working for si7 okay that makes sense he's on the take the money
1:35
is good si7 is Black Ops they bend the rules to get what they need to be done done but that got me thinking does this
1:41
pave the way for narratives of other groups troll tribes elves with differing philosophy or religious beliefs SE Mages
1:49
Goblin cartels Tor and tribal factions etc etc switching sides to further their
1:54
cause and or just for the money could this lead to blz homogenizing the racist classes
2:00
with factions races as primary but each faction having the other as Allied races
2:06
or perhaps more interestingly a loose collection of NPC players who identify
2:11
as mercenaries and operate for their own motivations afforded by the current Alliance hord truce thanks as always
2:18
Razer buug we've talked about like the idea of neutral factions and and neutral players for a while Matt do you think
2:26
that the fact that we're seeing more NPCs sort of drift into that space is an
2:31
indicator that they're looking at it more or that it just narratively makes more sense where we are in this in the
2:38
current story lines I definitely don't think they're looking at it anymore um but it it might be this you
2:46
know just good old fashioned Serendipity like you know we're in a place where the hord and Alliance are not each other's
2:51
biggest concern so it makes sense that there would be people who are like you know you're not you're not as
2:58
worried that if you did if you're a guy and you're you know deciding to work alongside Alliance people you're not as
3:04
worried that they're going to put someone's going to kill you for treason whereas if you know when when gash was
3:09
in charge of the horde yeah he's somebody would come to your house and blow it up um so I think that's part of
3:17
it I think it's also just the case of it's it's cool and interesting I mean I haven't gotten through the the resic
3:24
story they they put a an audio story up and I haven't finished it yet but
3:29
there's there's there's good good narrative to be to be found here it's an
3:35
interesting idea the idea of dealing with these mon these enormous powers that are themselves composed of like you
3:42
know multiple Allied Nations so there's there's a there's interesting Grist for
3:48
the mill in that but I don't think that they're looking at it anymore or thinking about it although I could be
3:54
wrong I mean I if you'd asked me last year hey Matt what are they going to do about player housing would have been
4:00
like the same thing they've done all forever nothing and then they were like here's player housing so you know who
4:05
knows maybe next up will be here's you know you can now play as an Orc and in
4:10
you know in Stormwind uh I don't know but I don't think that this let me put
4:17
it this way this does not serve to make me believe that is their focus it's
4:23
insufficient to convince me that that's the case yeah I certainly don't I'm not
4:29
we both know I'm not against it I I've argued in the past you've argued in the past about you know for the idea of you
4:37
know cross faction stuff um I think we've we've the Allied racing I think
4:42
one of us has literally said that I just don't remember which one I think it might have been you pretty sure no I'm pretty sure it was you but yeah it it's
4:50
it's not a topic we've shied away from but in terms of whether or not this
4:55
means that that's what they're doing or even what they're thinking about doing I don't think they're doing that any more
5:01
than they ever have I think there's always going to be an awareness that they could do
5:06
that but there's also always going to be an awareness of is that the most important thing for us to to dedicate
5:13
our limited resources especially you know in a time where game companies are laying people off it's you know the
5:19
narrative team has to focus on you know they have to serve the immediate story first then the future story so if it
5:27
serves the one of those two stories then will happen yeah and I think I think that's that's the point more than
5:33
anything is whether or not story leans more heavily into that way and this is a question i' I've seen from a bunch of
5:39
people especially from dragonflight onward right so in Dragon flight we were
5:45
very neutral we were brought there by the dragons uh to help with what they needed and told Point Blank don't fight
5:52
with each other I don't have time for your BS and that makes sense okay I'm cool I'm with that um
6:00
and with renzic being essentially maah Shaw's second in command which I believe is exactly what he is and has been for
6:07
Forever at this point um and then the founding of bth which we've talked about
6:13
with the elves and and uh pretty deep like we've gone pretty deep on that I
6:20
think there is more opportunities for stories in between and I think Matt and
6:26
I have talked about this at before before as well which is that tends to be the times where there's the at least to
6:33
to us a lot more interesting storytelling uh when you have less of a
6:39
focus on I'm horde or I'm Alliance and more on the nuances of the gray area in between because the truth is most
6:47
characters most most NPCs fall in sort of a gray area they
6:52
don't necessarily hate everybody some of them do um but like even in the past
6:58
like you'd have folks that were yeah I can't stand gash and the Orcs they you
7:03
know did this and XYZ bad thing which there was a lot of them and then but
7:09
they would be like yeah but that Bane guy is pretty okay you know and then Bane dies and then the whole like whole
7:15
thing like falls apart you mean Karen dies or Karen excuse me Karen do not tell me Bane died man no I apologize
7:22
Hanging On by a thread I apologize try not kill Bane on
7:28
me apolog iies uh no I meant Karen uh but like there's all these respected
7:34
folks vulgan was respected for for quite a while uh before his death uh where
7:40
people would act you know want to go and talk with him and maybe not necessarily hold him to the the same levels of of
7:46
hatred that they did for other members of of The Horde and you see like you know varying degrees of that the other
7:52
way as well so you know I think there's more of an opportunity for them to do that now that we're not in the midst of
7:58
like an allout war between the factions and again grey has has has cooled his uh
8:04
Jets I think it's it's a time where we can start to think about more more
8:10
diverse stories than the you know than you know the other side sucks we hate them because ultimately we're all
8:16
playing this game you know it's what you're ending up doing is making half your player base antagonistic to the
8:23
other half of your player base and that's not not great for storytelling or
8:28
for just enjoyment the other thing about we talk a lot about Laura in terms of the narrative and the story but part of
8:34
it is the consumption of the story like how do people get the story where do they get it from how do they
8:42
know you know what's what's happening and when when everything's hostile all
8:47
the time it just becomes White Noise you don't no one's reading to see what that
8:53
is they're just like okay yeah sure the alliance hates The Horde that's why I think it's interesting that in uh
9:01
this expansion um and I don't know why I can't call it the war within for some reason I couldn't directly come that up with that but there's an interesting
9:07
moment where Teran and I think it's uh Gara like th's alternate sister are like
9:14
we're giving each other like real crap and you're basically your character stand and someone's like I'm really sorry you have to deal with this and
9:21
you're like it's it's fine uh I I know how to handle it and you're like sitting there thinking like Alliance and hord
9:27
players are both experiencing this mhm oras in in some expansions like battle
9:33
for Azeroth half of that expansion you don't get unless you play the other
9:38
faction and ultimately that keeps you from experiencing a lot of the story
9:43
because you know it's not easy some people can do it a lot but especially as you get older it's kind of hard to level
9:49
multiple max level characters in each faction to see everything you know so I
9:56
think that as as the story gets more diverse and you can experience it no matter what your faction is it's just
10:03
better for everybody yeah and I think maybe you you kind of hit the nail on the head there
10:09
it's battle for Azeroth was one of those things where again like you said players
10:15
experience half a story if they didn't play both factions and we've talked about this multiple times uh in fact
10:24
Matt and I many times over the course of battle for Azeroth when we're talking back and forth were explaining the story
10:31
from what we saw to the other one even off off microphone right uh in Guild in
10:38
Guild we were talking about the same thing where we had uh a couple players that would play both factions and then
10:44
have to explain what elements of the story were different or being experienced differently etc etc
10:51
and I think that functionally not just story-wise but like actual mechanically
10:58
wise like Matt said people don't have time for that anymore and it's not about
11:04
making sure that people spend a million hours in game anymore it's making sure that they have the option to jump in and
11:10
jump out which means you have to sort of cater your story to that that kind of
11:17
thinking so in other expansions like we're talking about like Dragon flight
11:22
Shadow lands and now are currently the war within and moving in the future midnight and the final or the last Titan
11:30
it's neutral ground so everybody experiences the same story that everybody else experiences you don't
11:38
have to retell it twice you don't have to invest the time in creating two Divergent story lines and then making
11:44
sure that the technology is there to support the two Divergent stories and you don't have to have that expectation
11:50
of your players of having to experience both sides to get the full gamut of the
11:55
story and then also you don't expect them to necessarily have to to catch up on it outside of game two which these
12:02
were all complaints that happened during battle for Azeroth and if you go back to a lot of the interviews surrounding it
12:09
uh and I think even when we had our talk with like Steve douser and and stuff like that uh it's it's something that
12:17
they thought about and made Corrections based thereon and also I think having a
12:23
more neutral ground for it to uh sort of flourish is good uh and the second part
12:30
of your question do we think it'll lead to more stories that deal with stuff like this no idea like right it's all
12:36
right for speculation we can say that yeah it will or no it won't and we won't know until it happens again look at
12:42
player housing we were wrong on that one I could argue that I think there is certainly what I can say for certain is
12:49
there is room for it there is now there's narrative space
12:55
to give to those kinds of ideas you can see them there's if you look at just the
13:01
game the way it is right now you could imagine them putting together something we haven't seen since the uh original
13:06
karaji War back in celus I could imagine them doing at some point a Joint Task
13:13
Force you know there's there's room in the story for it so will we get that I
13:19
have no idea but we could yeah and we we have room for other things too like the idea of having maybe room for story
13:25
where the dark Rangers are learning what it is to be elves again uh and learning how Elvin Society
13:32
functions now uh that they've been removed from it for so long cuz don't forget the dark Rangers are all banshees
13:37
Mo well most of them were banshees and yeah they were pulled away however long ago and Elvin Society has evolved and so
13:44
now that they were invited back to Bath we could do some followup on that we can have some neutral faction storytelling
13:50
between them where you know they're they're they're getting their groove back they're learning what it is to be an elf again even if they are Undead
13:59
so there's there's stuff there there there could be things with uh other neutral factions we've seen it a lot
14:04
with goblins too like talking about the whole mercenary thing with the goblin cartels that's a story as old as wow has
14:09
been around right and we talked about this I highly encourage you to go back and listen to our episode about the goblin cartels in particular we go into
14:16
a lot of them uh and we talk about their interactions with both of the factions over the years because again the goblin
14:23
cartels they care about the money they'll go where the money is most of the time uh there's only one specific
14:30
cartel that is permanently aligned with the horde uh and the rest of them operate in sort of like a neutral space
14:37
sometimes antagonistically sometimes not so much so uh those have always been
14:42
around there could be things where we've seen Torin or at least uh yal which are
14:50
I I feel weird calling them protot Torin because they're not really protot Torin but they're like or like to it's
14:55
basically like if you think of the Shu Halo the Torin that we know in The Horde you think of them as one branch of a
15:00
hand like one finger coming off of a hand the uh the yal and the Tonk are other fingers yeah like the hand is the
15:08
original uh the ancestors to the Torin The yal the Tona I don't think there's
15:13
any current offshoots that we know of but I mean then once you you can also then say that the uh the Toren with the
15:20
antlers whose names I cannot remember High Mountain High Tor are basically just altered torrent they're
15:27
still on that finger they're just a little different because of a magical blessing wasn't the wasn't the wasn't
15:34
the yal though like weren't they wasn't that the original name for like the unified race I believe yeah I think so
15:39
but the yal that were there before the yal we have now are the ancestors to everybody and then the aangal we
15:47
currently have are are mou altered yeah that's fair and then the the Tonka are
15:52
apparently just evolved and the Toren there's some weird myths about um the
15:59
Sun and the Moon and the Earth mother doing stuff to them and there's like apparently a whole bunch of toring got
16:05
corrupted by what sounds like the old gods that we could get sucked into a whole Toren Story episode and we we
16:12
probably could and we probably should at some point because even like the Tonka the Tonka are like they're from storm
16:17
peaks I think right like that's where we found them or we interact with them really yeah MH and what happens to also
16:22
be in the storm peaks a bunch of Titan facilities Titan Watchers and that one time traveling torren was visiting there
16:28
yeah so I mean there could have been the current horn that we experience throughout the world including the the current y uh the current yangle that we
16:35
deal with that were very clearly enslaved and Modified by the mogu flesh Shapers the rest of them could have been
16:41
shaped by the uh Titan Watchers or Titan facilities as well or altered by it in the same way that aloon may have messed
16:47
with the torn uh that that had the the history with Ani right yeah but also and
16:53
this is something really worth thinking about there are troll
16:59
and Toren statues in alir yes and that implies that even if those species were
17:05
not created by the Titans the Titans did something to them yep or at least the
17:11
ones in alir did and since we already know that tonar in the storm peaks it is
17:18
possible maybe even probable that uh tier or somebody like him experimented
17:24
on them because we know tier was running around experimenting on things yeah what happens if I this with a stick ooh
17:29
that's that's cool I'm going to let those loose like so but again we we see
17:35
in the history of the storytelling that all of these things already have neutral factions or antagonistic factions that
17:42
don't align with the primary player race right we've talked about the defas and the humans right the defas originally
17:49
were a primarily a human and cartel with uh members of other races along them
17:55
they were essentially Pirates um that didn't get paid uh and so then brought a
18:01
whole bunch of people uh together that also didn't get paid and we like yeah you know what I'll help you build the
18:06
ship and we're going to go sell to the Stormwind and we're going to get our money uh you know you fight murlocs you
18:12
fight goblins you fight humans you fight Torin uh because Mr SME or Smite Mr
18:18
Smite is a a giant uh black Toren uh like we've seen a history of neutral
18:27
factions that have existed of the player races and one thing I do want to come back to is before we started the war
18:34
within Matt and I did an entire episode on avaloran right we talked about what the concept of avaloran is and we've had
18:40
many discussions since the the uh expansion has released of whether or not we are currently in avaloran and maybe
18:48
we are maybe we're not Matt has made the point that there may be other land masses that exist out there that are
18:53
avaloran or that even avaloran might be uh where the arrai have settled
18:59
uh and that might be the land mass where they are cuz we know that they are in a completely different section of the world that we have not experienced yet
19:06
yeah they had to actually come back through some kind of storm disturbance to even get to where they are now
19:12
underground in a oh what the heck I want to call it dunal Al hellar yeah so but I
19:20
mean like but yeah the island on top those are named uh dagal yeah d d dagal
19:26
is the city and it's uh the point being they had to get back to there via an
19:32
excruciating trip through like a horrible storm that they used magic to jump around and it wasn't even their
19:37
magic it was the magic of the crystal inside holif fall that brought them out of that storm and into the underground
19:44
of where they are now and that's like that doesn't give us a lot of you know exact pinpointing data on where they
19:52
were we just know they were somewhere else so but I mean they also represent
19:57
another faction which is is in this case human and high elf uh combined that are
20:03
neutral or or at least currently neutral they don't exist to serve the alliance or The Horde they have their own
20:09
motivations and they're going to have their own uh story at some point what we
20:15
interact with is such a small portion of the Empire because again they serve an emperor there's an Empire that was
20:22
founded uh that doesn't belong to either faction that is out there it it neutral
20:29
storytelling has has long been a part of the game in different aspects and it's
20:34
evolved over time so to say that things like renzic who's been along or been
20:41
around for a very long time and I think people are just realizing because of the
20:46
short story and because of the emphasis on the Goblins that we're going into right now I mean at one point in time he
20:52
was an NPC that would send Rogues to go deal with uh their Black Ops training
20:58
right he he was present at a lot of key moments alongside Maas Shaw because he's the second in command you can have those
21:06
neutral stories and look throughout history and see them and moving forward I don't know
21:13
like I said I don't know if Matt I think Matt's right that there might not be an exact like re-emphasis on it but that's
21:20
not to say that it hasn't always been there but the yeah exactly but the the
21:26
like I said I don't think they're looking at it any more than they are always have I think they've always been aware that it's possible I think they've
21:32
always had characters who skirted it but there's always going to be The Balancing Act of okay it's great that we have this
21:39
character but we're not going to do anything with them until we have a reason to because we have and that's why
21:45
you're hearing more about renig now there's more of a reason for him to be there and we're about to go to undermine
21:50
if you've got a a goblin in si7 you'd think he'd be involved you know it would
21:56
be weird if he wasn't and we've seen that in the past there have been a lot of times people like hey wait a minute why isn't X character involved in this
22:02
MH you know so there's always that Balancing Act that's always going to be there in the story team there is always
22:09
going to be a you know what what are we focusing on what's important for this story yeah so I mean and with the
22:16
expansions moving on moving into midnight and eventually the last Titan uh there are more opportunities for that
22:22
neutral storytelling even into this current expansion with us dealing with the goblins you're going to see plenty
22:27
of that neutral storytelling in as well as we deal with the goblin cartels and and make our alliances uh individually
22:33
like again that is a really good example of a system that we're all familiar with
22:39
uh that just looks like a different coat of paint because now we're looking at it through the lens of goblins right we're
22:44
going to be going into the undermine and we're choosing factions to Champion we're raising our reputation with them
22:53
uh and and working alongside them to further their goals in the undermine and those are a ostensibly neutral factions
23:00
right they have the the in so much as they don't care if your alliance are ho uh they just care that you're against
23:06
gwicks right so again just keep your eyes peeled you're going to see a lot
23:11
more of it I think to come just based off the nature of where the story is going not because there's a new renewed
23:17
effort on it all right we're going to move on to our next one which comes from our friend verree it's a bit of a long
23:23
one and I'm going to do my best to to read this one out so holy Nar reverse
23:29
the polarity of the old God flow dear Watchers I hope this founds finds you well I finally finished the grimoire and
23:35
something that struck me wasn't the author's description of the great cycle between life and death but the Lesser
23:41
pendulums swinging between light Shadow and order disorder putting it that way I got to thinking what is and isn't a
23:49
pendulum the pantheon of death who stay put in the realm no but the things hanging out in reality the Naru they go
23:56
back and forth possibly accepting Zara the old old gods and Titans minus araras both appear equally stuck in their
24:02
present ways but thinking about Nas's Twilight cult full of Paladin and Priests the Twilight damage spell school
24:10
is light and Shadow combined was nooth really just attempting to pull everyone
24:15
down to his level of instead SL also trying to pull himself into one
24:21
possibility seemingly out of the reach of the void's infinite possibilities up into the light an effort finally
24:27
achieved by the forge of origination energy giving the umph to flip Yours Truly R degree well I'm going to let
24:34
Matt go a little bit on this one I but I don't think nzo has become a light creature I think it's a lot more
24:39
Insidious than that yeah I think when we talked about at the time I think uh I
24:45
made a point that I I felt like what Nazo had done was essentially install himself as a virus onto the operating
24:52
code of the world like there's all these Titan machines that essentially are purpos is to defend and help Azeroth
24:59
regenerate itself and one of the things they do is regulate the flow of of azeroth's own power back into itself um
25:08
and by putting himself in a position where he could be involved in that he can essentially drive the car for lack
25:16
of better word um I think we've seen I think we've actually already seen in the war the war within some of that like the
25:24
whole deal with the earn feels to me like it could be in involved in that moment because you've
25:30
got this this like um I I don't know how to put zalot
25:36
essentially worms her way into the control of a Titan device that
25:42
was meant to create earthin it's not very different from the halls of stone or the halls of lightning where we see
25:50
those giant forges the earn obviously had one of their own underground it it's possible that that
25:57
um n off sacrificed himself in terms of his existence to create this fault in
26:05
the Titans minations like he he might not actually be alive in a way we would understand it
26:12
like we can't he doesn't he's not planning anything anymore he is the darkness in the system he is the
26:19
Fault um if you've ever had to reform out a hard drive you know that sometimes
26:24
the data just gets jumbled and the only thing you can do is erase it there's literally if you don't then this
26:30
thing is not going to work you can do nothing but erase it and write over it
26:35
that might be what he turned himself into there there's just a lot of possibility here I don't think we're
26:41
gonna see Nao show up as a being of light um for one thing I think that that would
26:47
make it you know the Naru become incredibly antagonistic to their own like everything they believe in when
26:53
they go dark yep like they they don't suddenly like yes now I'm now I'm dark
26:58
me no now once they do it they they've become inimical if he became a light
27:04
being he would become inimical to him his own existence like he would hate everything
27:09
about himself that he had been previously um I think the reason that we've seen that beings like uh larian
27:17
can can be light is that they're not turning themselves into the light they're in they're are accessing it
27:23
we've seen that the light can be controlled by beings that are not the usual people you would see controlling
27:29
it we've seen Undead doing it so zelc going back to all the way back to original a zelc is controlling the light
27:37
Because he believes he can because he always could and now why shouldn't he be able to now it doesn't
27:43
change the fact that he's completely under the thrall of the Lich King the L still does what he says so
27:52
there's I think if you're on the light Shadow you know light void axis is one thing but you can be on the light axis
28:00
and still be on like death whereas y I
28:05
mean nzo wasn't a death God or anything like that and he was a void being so
28:12
making him a the complete antithesis of of void is very different than having
28:17
some Demon or some Undead person able to channel the light and I think that
28:23
that's important it doesn't mean that you couldn't have naah coming up with the weight to essentially make a Shadow
28:30
glove in order to touch the light without burning himself but I think that that's what he
28:36
did with the Twilight cult having the Twilights be the ones who were like Twilight paladins and Twilight priests
28:43
you noce they weren't they were still able to use the light but they weren't like calling on
28:49
it very often they used it when it suited them but then they were like okay back to void stuff because I don't want
28:55
to get my brain burned out so I I definitely don't think that it's as easy as now I'm you know I'm now
29:02
light lighten is off uh which feels an awful lot like some kind of like a magic the Gathering card sort of thing you
29:09
know tap three islands or something but regardless uh I yeah I definitely think
29:15
there's there's more to naath and to all of them really but I honestly find myself wondering if they've chosen to
29:22
die because in one in one way or another their deaths contribute to the the
29:27
ultimate goal that they they were set to when they were sent here and moreover they
29:33
get to leave like if they die they now get to go back to the void and they're not
29:41
stuck in existence anymore you know it it might be in the
29:47
words of Shakespeare a consummation devoutly to be wished if you're if you're one of the old gods maybe this is the best thing that can possibly happen
29:53
to you not only do you get to go back to the void but in your wake you leave chaos in Madness look what happened with
30:00
ISJ ISJ died and he left the Sha behind the Sha are are AR arguably worse than
30:08
yrj was as an old God they've done more to damage and destroy the world than he
30:15
did so yeah I I don't think it's as simple as you know just plugging yourself into a new power source but I
30:22
definitely think it's not it is there is something to be said for the idea of coming up with ways around limit in that
30:29
fashion yeah and and going on to the idea of the the pendulum side of it we've been talking about this for years
30:35
at this point everything in WoW operates a an a series of multitudes there is no
30:43
one aspect of anything even like we we talk about the Naru we talk about even
30:49
just like the undead right like talking about the Forsaken everything that is
30:55
living or everything that exists in reality contains multitudes with very
31:01
few exceptions and even the Titans the Titans contain multitudes as well and
31:07
the ability to change should they so allow it we've seen some that embrace
31:13
the idea of growth uh and change and for lack of a better term chaos not
31:20
necessarily fully adhering to order I'm looking at you anr uh you know the the
31:26
relationship that anr has with Alon is frowned upon by uh amanul because it
31:32
isn't order it is completely uh embracing the idea of change and pulse
31:37
and growth uh in a way that is not completely controlled so we know that in
31:43
even Beyond sargeras we know that they are capable of embracing that they just choose not to and even the pantheon of
31:50
death they are also a little bit of a pendulum while they are programmed and
31:56
stuck in where they are and I'm air quoting that here I mean look at the
32:02
adaptation I mean you can look at uh the Primus in particular and whether or not
32:08
you believe that the Primus is really the cause of all this problem which is a whole story for another time uh
32:13
otherwise we're just going to be here with an hour of Matt telling us how the Primus was the real evil all along and he may be right I'm not saying he's the
32:21
real evil I'm saying that the Primus knows a heck of a lot more than he admits I would agree with that that way
32:27
and I would agree with that but it's also one of those things where the Primus has also shown that he is capable of adaptation and change and growth
32:35
because even at the end of where we currently are he's adapting to what has happened as is uh kyria as is the Winter
32:44
Queen uh they're all adapting and changing and not necessarily violating their air quote programming but they're
32:52
realizing that things are different now and as such they must move things differently
32:58
and I think that's interesting and it's not as Extreme as Naru Naru sort of
33:03
operate as like the visual gold standard I guess I would say for uh shifting uh
33:11
the go like life and death and light and dark and how things you know can move
33:17
but everything sort of does that we do that we have the capability of it and we
33:22
talk about it all the time right another thing to talk about is the concept of Death Knight says that currently exist
33:28
in in World of Warcraft is very much balancing on that Razor Edge where you are you are alive most
33:36
most of them are alive they're not dead they're not Undead they're alive but
33:41
they're alive in a way that is suspended like they should be dead it's not
33:46
undeath it is life but it's life that is about to fail and they're held at that
33:52
knife Point by the power of the Lich King even now that he's gone essentially it's the it's the same power that the
33:58
Jailer had it's literally the power of the shadowlands that is holding them at that knife point and the the only way
34:04
they can keep doing it is to inflict suffering on other
34:09
people and that's to me that's a fascinating thing because they are literally trying to be
34:15
heroic and they're doing so by inflicting pain and suffering on others so they have to find the right people to
34:21
inflict pain and suffering on just so they get to keep existing and in a way it's worse than
34:28
undeath because undeath once you Embrace undeath once you are Undead you can kind
34:33
of count on being around forever you know what's gonna the only thing that will kill you would be
34:38
literally every part of you is destroyed and think about a whole hard that is to happen like you know Undead
34:45
can have body parts sewn on them if your jaw rotted off you can get a new one
34:50
whereas if you're a death knight you can die and you're constantly trying not to
34:58
so yeah there's there's a lot of pendulum status into that that life death balance thing there's a lot of
35:04
that in other classes like think about Druids Druids have to be able to contact
35:09
like you know Arcane power the power of azeroth's natur natural and world and
35:15
and reconcile those within all two mortal bodies and we could do this for every class we could do this for like people
35:21
who don't even have classes in the game yet there's a lot of different ways I think in a lot of ways you want to talk pendulums I think uh Joe you kind of
35:28
just said this but I think you want to look at the Mortal races yeah because they stand on this like teetering bar
35:34
between these things they're constantly balancing themselves between extremes yeah I mean that's it's kind of
35:41
what we do right uh and to mat point we can do this with basically every class Shaman included uh hell we could talk
35:49
about that for hours if we really wanted to uh but yeah and I think with Nao I
35:55
don't think it's a pendulum and I don't think it's a transformation and do anything with the light um I think we
36:01
haven't even begun to see what the plan was but I think it is again and I'll
36:07
agree with Matt on this way more Insidious uh than anything we've seen because again the whole point of it was
36:14
using a Titan reorigination device which was made to scour the surface of Azeroth
36:22
and reconstitute all of the organic material into a base value to start over
36:29
again and we use that on Nazo what that means we don't know yet but we do know
36:36
that Nazo is smarter than us and has planned a lot better than us because we went back in time and nzo saw us and we
36:44
happen to and we wore his hat and he knows what's going on so I mean I didn't
36:49
wear it but a lot of you did so I'm looking at I'm looking at you Corey I know you're still wearing the dang thing
36:54
um yeah a lot of people are and and that's the thing just think about that like when people time traveled back in time wearing this
37:02
crown that zth placed upon them that's like zth would know that was something he did even if he hadn't done it yet
37:09
it's not like the old gods are constrained by three-dimensional thinking you know time time is kind of a
37:15
suggestion to them they've how many times have they messed around with time
37:20
you know this entire novel series about them messing around with time they they the second we showed up with nath's like
37:26
beanie on our head heads the S be like ooo look at you look at you all Beanie
37:32
wearing I put that there which means I'm going to meet you which means all this other stuff you know in a second boom
37:40
that would all just have happened in his head so yeah it is that was one of my favorite quests of that entire expansion
37:46
I would agree now just just the moment where we ran into Nao I was like oh geez now and Matt's Matt's idea of nooth
37:54
being uh transformed into a virus that lives inside of Azeroth that's entirely
38:00
possible it's also entirely possible that this is going to come up in the last Titan which I have a feeling it
38:05
will um where nzo may have transformed into something other and transcended the
38:11
whole idea of old God old God might not be a thing it is anymore it may have I'm
38:20
trying to think how to phrase this one of the things that always stuck with me was when dealing with the nightmares of
38:26
Azeroth the nightmares of Azeroth all seem to be like reactions to old gods
38:33
being embedded in her shell right and again we don't know that
38:38
it's a shell I'm I'm making an assumption here because we don't necessarily know how uh planets
38:45
transform into Titans we we have ideas but none of them have ever been
38:50
confirmed um does trying to think out how to
38:55
phrase this does Nazo doing what he did Force Azeroth to
39:04
evolve in some into something greater than a Titan we've often talked about the idea
39:12
that the old gods wanted to infect uh Azeroth and take over and create a void
39:17
Titan but what if what if ultimately that
39:24
is what if that's part of the old the the first ones what if that's part of that that old
39:30
plan and I keep coming back and I'm I'm forming this in real time so bear with me folks I come back to my old argument
39:37
that Azeroth happens to be at the perfect epicenter of all of these Cosmic
39:42
forces right we have life we have Arcane order we have fire we have water we have
39:48
all the these elements we touch the shadowlands at a very specific point uh and Azeroth seems uniquely primed to be
39:56
in balance with all the these elements but the void is one of those things the void exists whether you like it or not
40:03
you cannot claim that it does not exist in our universe in some capacity it does
40:09
it's part of the storyline of the Void else it's part of the whole thing of them being on their little planet it's
40:16
part of the whole thing that Locust Walker talks about is that the void is a thing it's it it looks at everything and
40:22
sees all possibilities but it is a thing it exists and and that's part of the
40:28
reason why mortal races can do so much and defy fate and destiny is because
40:33
like the void we can see more than one possibility we're not just locked into something what if that is what nzo winds
40:41
up giving to Azeroth what if nooth is actually gone but not in the way we
40:47
think not back to the void what if it allows Azeroth to have the capacity on
40:53
like to sort of embrace what anr was sort of embracing but even more so
41:01
understand all of the infinite possibilities of the universe and creation and become the Ultimate Weapon
41:06
against the hungers and the things that are coming to Devour the universe we don't know that could be
41:12
that could be a thing as you're talking about it though something occurs to me what
41:19
does what does the void trying to help you know help us look like yeah like
41:25
think about this if the void was trying to do something you know it's an it's an alien
41:33
thing that it lives in a place we don't understand and ex and inherently changes
41:38
and corrupts things corrupt we corrupt and quotes for now by going near
41:44
them like I I don't know that there's but we've always talked about it the the part of that corruption is the fact that
41:49
it just shows it every possibility well yeah but like I'm just talking like purely just it's its effect
41:56
on physical structures like when it comes in and
42:01
gets near you know matter for lack of a better word matter twists and rides and forms these bodies for
42:08
them and we've seen what all God bodies look like but they didn't come with those they were void
42:15
things so when they entered physical reality physical reality changed and
42:20
warped to fit them because we know they're not actually supposed to be here that's why the Naru have to have both a
42:27
void and a light cycle because they neither neither are supposed to be
42:33
here can you know in this way if if a light being just shows up on Azeroth
42:38
things burn look what happened when it went to the shadowlands one Naru went to
42:43
the shadowlands and burned the place well it wasn't one it was a bunch that was a war yeah but they burned it just
42:50
by being there we don't know that they did anything to do that like there's like I I'm coming up this is from a
42:56
different game usually it's Joe doing this with Warhammer but it's going to be me doing this with Mass Effect for a second there's that old thing where he
43:02
goes a god a real God Is A Verb it doesn't have to think about doing things
43:09
it just does them they they happen because it's there if the void enters
43:15
our world the world changes because the void is there in much the same way that
43:21
if the light enters the world the world changes because the light is there and there's actually a lot of synergy
43:27
between the concept of here's every possibility and here's the one possibility you should take it's
43:35
ultimately still both processes of Revelation revealing everything and
43:41
revealing just one thing is still it's basically the two steps on the same
43:46
Journey it's the the whole concept of you know illumination is revelation and
43:53
the void reveals things too so in in a weird sort of way it
43:59
might just be that we simply are not capable of understanding that while the void is inimical to life that doesn't
44:06
mean it it's actually trying to destroy the cosmos it might just be trying to preserve itself yeah and that's the
44:13
thing like I don't I don't know that necessarily that our understanding that the void is antithetical to life is
44:19
really true because it might be true in the sense that if you get exposed to the void it
44:26
could kill you in much the same way that if you get exposed to the light it could kill you yeah like because look at what
44:33
happens with you know um the ashbringer walks out and burns an entire Army of the undead to the ground yeah he just he
44:40
destroys demons just in incinerates them with the power of the light that's
44:46
dangerous well it's like it's like the it's it's the entire concept of fire as a human fire gives you life and light
44:52
and Cooks your food fire also destroys your home and raises Forest to the ground
44:57
and can kill you it doesn't mean that fire is antithetical to life but it is
45:03
dangerous and and I think that and I think saying that and and the reason I come back to this because the reason I
45:09
keep thinking about this and I've been thinking about this for a while or at least the Nugget of this is that the void exists this concept that the void
45:18
exists is something that I don't think we focus on enough yeah the void people often think
45:26
of the Void as you know like the opposite of existence but it's not but it isn't it is a kind of existence and
45:33
once you accept that the void is a kind of existence that the void has a material existence then you're faced to
45:40
to understand that the concept here is not the void as nothing it is the void
45:47
as undefined the void as potential yes like it could be anything because it's
45:54
not that doesn't make it nothing it reminds me a lot of and I've been playing a lot of of Teenage Ninja Turtle
45:59
stuff lately so bear with me here but it's like it's like the whole idea of the mutagenic ooze right uh it when
46:06
somebody comes in contact with it you can become anything it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to become
46:12
uh you know backster Stockman uh or that you're going to become one of the Ninja Turtles uh it means that you might
46:17
become a monstrosity that no longer has uh access to its mental faculties you could also just turn into a mutated mess
46:24
uh you could turn into any number of things because it is essentially bottled potential uh yeah if you haven't another
46:31
way to look at it if you haven't read them by the way I really recommend alings run on the Hulk yes um one of the
46:38
things he makes the point of is that there's the the one above all and the one below all and the one below all
46:44
who's often seen as a demon or devil figure and that's worked on with the whole devil Hulk thing it's it's in
46:50
there but the concept is that the one below all is not actually antithetical to life or evil the one below all is
46:58
God's Hulk yeah when when God decides he needs to smash something turns into the
47:04
one below all and it's two sides are creatures yeah there's creatures from Beyond existence that want to infect and
47:11
destroy it and the one below all is what fights them and that's kind of what I'm thinking here right this is kind of
47:17
where I'm going with it with this this nugget of an idea of going back to the devourers and and we know so precious
47:24
little about them aside from from the fact that they exist in between pockets of reality and consume reality that's it
47:32
that's really all we really know about them we don't know about their true Origins but we often make the Assumption
47:38
and I believe this is hinted at in the grimoire and I believe in the shadowlands this is something that is
47:43
talked about with uh the Brokers and and possibly even the ethereals know about
47:49
this because they know a whole bunch of stuff uh and I would suspect that it will probably come up at midnight
47:54
because of the Void elves and my assumption that midnight will be very void elf Centric uh because it seems to
48:00
be where we're leading with that particular branch of the story but they're going to consume
48:07
everything potentially not just us but all of the Realms of existence they can
48:13
they travel to the shadowlands they eat Ana right they evolve they move they they change shape what happens if they
48:20
get to the realm of life or the realm of order or the realm of light or the void
48:25
Realm if they can consume the shadowlands and they can consume the shadowlands it stands the reason that
48:32
they can consume the rest of existence and yes I could take this back to where Hammer 40k and the tyranids and the
48:38
great devour from there but at some level again the void exists the old gods
48:45
are a changed version of that void basically push into our section of the
48:52
universe morphed and with that infinite potential but all of them want to live
48:57
all of them want to be at some point that's the other weird thing too if we go back to another thing the I the
49:04
original con conception in chronicle when they're talking about the light and the void is the light was first yeah the
49:10
light things it's like there's darkness and then there's light no in this one the light was first and the Darkness
49:16
formed within it pockets of like less light became the darkness think about the idea that these
49:24
things are they are intertwined in a way that that is more akin to the DA than
49:30
know than anything else each contains within it the other like you have like
49:36
you know to to use like the concept of that you know that symbol the yin yangang symbol where there's a bit of
49:42
yan and ying and a bit of Yin and Yang that that they're interrelated these aren't opposing
49:49
forces except that the people that wield them make them
49:54
so it it's it's it's on the people using them like and and to a certain degree
50:01
it's understandable that it is because they's such alien mindsets like the forces we're talking
50:08
about are difficult for a mortal mind to grasp not not in a I can't understand
50:15
this and literally I can't hold this I am not a container for this yeah it it's
50:21
the whole idea of like when the the conscious of the Titans were slammed into their Watchers and they could not
50:27
contain it like they it was something that was driving them absolutely baddy
50:32
that's kind of us our capacity is limited our as far as Cosmic understanding goes and while we
50:38
understand a lot more than we did we only understand it in terms of morphing it to our mortal existence and at the
50:46
end of the day and we've argued this before the light and the void are are entities that are at their very core
50:54
unknowable to us in their pure forms we only understand them in context of
51:00
ourselves and our reality we don't know what their goals were we don't know if
51:06
the old gods were truly sent by the void to disrupt or consume reality or if the
51:14
void saw what was coming saw that the end of all existence was a possibility
51:21
and needed to hedge its bets against it and again shotgunning a whole bunch of
51:28
void into the universe having it land on things seeing Titans going oh those are
51:33
powerful let's see if we can integrate with that let's form really weird Voltron and see if we can fight back
51:40
what's coming to destroy all existence because if everything goes I don't exist anymore and I kind of like existing
51:46
that's where all my stuff is maybe that's where be like you know they they might not even be thinking of
51:53
it in terms of existence but if the devourers have their way that is no potential left yeah because that that
51:59
then everything is everything then everything really is gone you can't have
52:04
anything when there's nothing it's the Skeletor H thing it's like oh H's going to wipe out all existence in the
52:10
universe and put it all under his rule well I don't like that that means I don't get to rule anything this is supposed to be my jam yeah I I want to
52:19
be you know I want the unlimited potential if there's no unlimited potential then what am I going to do
52:26
there's no it's it's one of the reasons why of all things every so often The Joker will team up with a good guy The
52:31
Joker Is Like Madness chaos and evil personified but he'll every so often team up because well the Nazis are
52:38
boring and they're just Nazis no I don't want that I don't want a rigid orderly
52:43
State that's insane no I want chaos you know they want chaos not nothing nothing
52:51
is not chaotic and the interesting thing is it means at at some point too and and
52:57
this is just kind of I know I'm sure somebody has mentioned this before elsewhere but if they didn't well here
53:02
you go the light sees one possibility and the light is so staunchly focused on
53:09
that various different perspectives coming to different points whatever but like looking at the Zera thing Zara
53:15
there's a great tragedy coming we need our Warrior to uh to be molded and to fight against it blah blah blah we
53:21
always thought that that was the legion what if it wasn't what if it was them seeing this entity this this you know
53:28
existence ending thing and a lot of people are like oh that's just the void what if it wasn't or what if they don't
53:34
even understand fully what they saw but they see something coming that is blinking everything out of existence or
53:41
consuming everything because we don't know what the devourers leave behind from where they are yet and if you're
53:49
the light and you're looking at things where the light completely goes out you might be misinterpreting that as void
53:57
and what if the void sees that as the possibility as well and maybe not the most likely but definitely sees it as a
54:03
possibility so you have these two opposite forces working towards the same goal from different angles and for
54:10
completely different reasons yeah I mean for that matter the
54:16
uh void might be looking at that possibility and thinking it's the light's Victory because it's one path
54:22
and everything else is gone not stopping to realize well yeah but it's also that one path is nothing mhm you know it's
54:30
not the one they want either you know there's and also we're kind of assuming that we know what the lloy light and the
54:36
void think like or if they even think like there there's the problem with a
54:42
fundamental Force like this is that it is kind of beond beyond our comprehension
54:48
so there's that to it too but yeah I definitely think that there's a there's
54:54
a lot of possibility for the void not necessarily being the the very fact that a shadow priest can exist and do what
55:00
they choose with it implies that the void is not in the driver's seat yeah or
55:05
the idea or the idea that like in going back to the whole void elf thing and going back to to Locust Walker and what
55:13
he's actually teaching windrunner uh which is the void itself isn't what
55:19
corrupts you it's the exposure to the infinite possibilities that you are now
55:24
able to see by wielding it that it can potentially drive you to Madness and we've seen that before and
55:31
we've seen that to lesser extent with the old God minions while some of them are absolutely Looney Tunes uh a lot of
55:38
them are not they believe in the cause and they they believe in the idea of infinite possibility and so well I mean
55:45
look at what we saw when when we went to the alternate storm wind where everybody
55:51
was dead and you know you know she was killing everyone m that's a possibility
55:57
and you saw it yeah imagine if you saw that and you saw yourself killing your husband and you saw yourself killing
56:04
your own child and you're like this is an actual possibility this could happen
56:09
that does not feel good that would not be something I'd want to face in my own
56:14
life and I'm I doubt anyone else would want to face that
56:20
yeah oh you got to love it it's one of those things where again we're we're
56:26
going to find out more specifically about this during midnight and the last Titan because all of these stories are
56:32
sort of they're all intertwined right they're they're all leading to the similar similar paths and again I don't
56:40
know that Nazo was necessarily uh switching into a light version or was a pendulum uh in that regard because
56:49
there's a possibility of it because essentially Nazo is alive or was alive
56:54
but we don't know what the end goal was because even old gods think in a way that we don't comprehend fully we think
57:00
we do we think we understand it the Titans think they understand it the Titan Watchers think they understand it
57:06
but we don't necessarily completely understand what they're doing or what their game plans were and Nao was
57:12
arguably the smartest of all of them the smallest but the smartest because you
57:17
have to be cunning uh when the others are brutal in order to survive uh and
57:22
that level of cunning is something that I mean think about it he's the only old
57:27
God that escaped right he's the only one whose
57:33
plans fully came to fruition as far as we know and I think that's absolutely
57:39
fascinating kathon got shut down yagan got shut down ya Yas saraj has been
57:47
exploded uh and even it's you know still influencing of the world got shut down
57:54
but naath didn't get shut down for all we know we helped Nal do exactly what it
57:59
wanted to do after we freed it from its prison because we freed it from its
58:05
prison the only old God that we know of that was truly freed from its prison and
58:11
I think that's absolutely fascinating at least to me it is but I hope that answers your question
58:18
I don't think we have time for anymore uh we're right up on the gun there so I
58:24
think we're going to end it there friends I do want to thank you for joining us and remind you that blizzard watch is made possible due to the
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next week [Music]
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