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Join us as speculate on a possible connection between Elune and Xal’atath as well as Elune's dual nature and her ties to cosmic forces like the Naaru and the Winter Queen.
We also dive into the concept of godhood and if the Titans are actually gods imbued with divine power or just three kobolds in a trench coat using a really good voice changer.
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[Music]
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hello and welcome to latch round table for form discussion about learn your favorite media I'm your host Joe Perez
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one of several L Focus folks from Lizard watch and I've got my stupendous co-host with me today Matt Rossy how you doing
0:20
today Matt I will become a mytical force of stupendous that almost feels Dr
0:26
doomish and I'm okay with that I'm just going for that yeah if you could get away with just going
0:32
around constantly saying you know Perez has spoken 100% zero absolutely I would do
0:38
that I if I could do that in meetings I would be the happiest person in the world uh but we're noty would like you
0:44
to know this was a delicious sandwich Doom sees you yep anyway uh we're not
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here to talk about our world domination or mystical plots and they in or maybe we are I don't know we're going to see
0:55
where the questions take us today because we're going to be answering your questions are wonderful listeners so if
1:01
you have questions for this or any of our podcasts be sure to send those into to podcast blizzardwatch
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Discord we have the Q and podcast questions Channel which is open for everybody however if you are a patreon subscriber we have two special ways that
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would really appreciate it if you consider supporting us at patreon.com blizzardwatch but would thank you we
2:09
will all thank you uh but without further Ado we're going to go ahead and get started with some of our questions so this one comes from azeron uh is
2:16
there a is there Lord support an Anu tapet sort of thing between Alon and zotth is z the Skin of Evil shed by a
2:24
loon and discarded into the void Star Trek the Next Generation clip inspired this episode clip inspired this question
2:31
um thanks as always I I don't know that there is a relationship between Alon and zth but I will turn it over to Rossy and
2:38
see if he's got any tin foil to make a hat out of rossie does not think there is any such I I'm I'm gonna stop now I'm
2:44
gonna stop now it's too it's intoxicating it's intoxicating it's just you just want to
2:50
keep going I I don't think there's much established that actually links zotth
2:57
and Alon that doesn't mean they couldn't do it it if they wanted to I mean you know they could be you know right now
3:03
there could be some some people at the blizzard writing staff team de doing that if they wanted to I just don't see
3:10
a lot of it in the game as it currently stands um and by a lot of it I mean I
3:16
don't see any of yeah there's not there there's nothing there's nothing to really kind of support that idea however
3:21
this it's not that it's a bad idea um there's lots of interesting ways you could go with it and if they if they
3:27
wanted to do it uh by all means go ahead I'm just saying that you know looking at
3:32
the lore as it's currently established I wow I do not see any such connection at
3:39
this that said it did let me go down an interesting thought route that I'm kind of curious if you've ever had this
3:46
thought and part of it is because I just got finished leveling a light Forge Jenai Paladin and I really started
3:53
thinking about Naru and their light and dark cycle cuz we know they have one in
3:59
I'm curious what do you think would happen if there was a way to for the Naru to sort of split that cycle off of
4:06
themselves like if there was a way that there was like they could never have to go into their dark cycle they basically
4:12
take that Essence from them and split themselves right like they they shed it sort of like this what would that look
4:19
like what would that be um calium manathil interesting all right go with this I'm curious well here's the thing
4:27
that you were mentioning it so life cycle and you know pronunciation Jokes
4:33
Aside if I could be like a light cycle what is this Tron but as you were
4:38
talking about it the first thing that came to mind was calamy because calamy is does not have a dark cycle she is
4:45
just the light animating her dead body but living beings aren't just like we
4:52
don't have a force animating our bodies or more accurately we don't have just one and that's what got me thinking you
4:58
know we've we've talked a lot about the various forces in Balance throughout Azeroth and we are beings born of
5:04
Azeroth we are like fragments of Azeroth and so that's one of the things
5:11
I've been thinking about in terms of why humans and other you know other Mortal races of of Azeroth you know elves
5:17
dwarves trolls Orcs whatever why they can defy those cosmically calculated
5:23
odds algalon talked about so long ago because they they're nothing is alien to
5:28
them the their their FA is weird and destructive but it's not alien we touch
5:35
the twisting nether we we understand it we can be it can be a part of us all of
5:40
it is and that got me thinking about you're talking about you know taking a Naru which is a living thing anaru isn't
5:47
isn't a construct it's not a creation it's a living thing and that got me thinking about why do Naru have that
5:54
life cycle is that life cycle necessary for them to exist in our reality
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like why do they have it why is it there uh the creatures that come straight from
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the void don't have it yeah that's true the old gods don't have it they they do
6:10
not live they do not die they are outside the cycle but living and dying those are two
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of the fundamental forces of reality Life Death uh light you know dark uh
6:25
Order and Chaos you know Arcane and Fel if they're outside that cycle and their
6:30
pure fell a being of pure light would also be outside that cycle and therefore
6:35
would also be essentially an undead thing they're they're not Undead in the
6:41
in the state that they're not animated by death magic but they're Undead in the state in the sense that they are not
6:47
they don't die they do not live they do not die they are outside the cycle that's true of every fell creature I
6:54
mean not fell uh void but it's true of fell we're not talking about them it's true of every void creature that they
6:59
are not part of the cycle of life and death to divorce yourself from the cycle
7:05
of life and death in that way you would become Undead and the Naru are not Undead the
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Naru are alive and that means the Naru can be hurt they can die they they go
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from this one to the other and so I I I don't know like as I'm thinking about
7:24
this I started to think about the fact that that he wanted a connection between aoon and zotth and here's where I could
7:31
make one because aloon is obviously somehow involved with the Naru it's just
7:38
indisputable at this point that there is some connection between them the tiar of aloon activated a prime Naru for lack of
7:46
a better word and it's a it's a pillar of creation yes so Alon is here in in
7:53
the Naru Alon is part of them did in order for them to become part of
7:59
creation in order them to exist as living things with a light side and a dark side what do we we see when we look
8:05
at aloon aloon Cycles are more extreme than the narus we've seen that there is
8:12
a dark aspect to aloon we've seen it this is why I don't think zotth is
8:17
alon's dark shadow because Alon did definitely did not rip out her Darkness her darkness is there yeah and we see
8:24
dark warrior yeah I was going to say we see that with the night Warrior right yeah the night Warrior is the darkness of balloon and it's a powerful enough
8:31
darkness that it can kill an old God because she did it m mhm the first night
8:37
Warrior uh that we know of that we meet in the shadowlands did and when we see
8:44
uh tond giving into the night the dark the night Warrior I keep want to say the dark warrior it's the night Warrior
8:49
giving into the night Warrior inside the shadowlands Alon stops it and not
8:56
because she's trying to save anyone except that she is trying to save someone she's trying to save Tonda yeah
9:03
and directly Elon loves Tonda whisper wind as as a child doesn't want her to
9:09
die doesn't want her picked tond directly she directly manifested during
9:16
the the uh War of the Ancients and said no not myv myv is a would have been an
9:23
okay choice but no this one this is the most direct Act of any
9:30
you know yeah most direct Act of any of them we've ever seen until we saw Alon
9:37
directly change a Saturn into a night elf yeah like Aluna is really the only entity at that scale that we've really
9:43
seen directly interact because I I almost put a loon above Titans right
9:50
whatever aloon is it it's certainly I I keep going back to the fact people kept asking well if Alon is this entity like
9:56
this how come she keeps calling the uh the Winter Queen uh her sister and I
10:03
started thinking about that in terms of like what the Winter Queen actually is what they all are we seen them as
10:09
machines as constructs as blanks essentially that not that there wasn't them but it was the Prototype thems that
10:16
we saw yeah but they're more than that right they're mantles Powers their aspects but beyond all that what is the
10:24
Winter Queen if not death embracing life yeah death and rebirth a cycle and yes
10:31
she is not you know she is part of the cycle she has actually made herself it
10:36
seems like she's made herself part of the C she she's actually more of the cycle than the other uh the other pieces
10:43
of the shadowlands yeah exactly she's actually I'm thinking about it now that you're saying it and now that we're
10:48
saying it out loud she's the only active participant yeah like but look at what the other ones are do we have order yes
10:55
yeah uh he's good old uh yeah do we have have um death is everywhere it's it's a
11:01
shadowlands but but primarily malis yeah yeah but we've got Mal draxis the the
11:07
the uh the whole thing it's like the shadowlands is essentially we we kept
11:12
looking at it in terms of its role in The Cosmic Machinery but it's like think of it not as that but as a reflection
11:19
yeah as a a finite piece almost well not even that like literally think of like when we talk about a tesseract a
11:26
fourth-dimensional a threedimensional representation of a fourth dimensional object obviously we can't see all of it
11:32
because we are threedimensional beings right but if you think about the reason that the aary is is reversed when you're
11:38
looking in the Shadowland book is because that's the way that it appears
11:43
from the Shadowland when you're in the death realm it looks like this if you
11:49
look at it from another realm it would be altered to fit their perspective as
11:54
well because you can only see pieces of the whole Grand Design if that that's the case and if we have the winter queen
12:02
as one aspect of this W there could be another one in in the
12:09
emerald dream light life realm for lack of it a word there could be one in every
12:14
possible creation and then in this reality there's a loon and what a loon
12:20
does is personify all these different aspects because a loon can reach out and
12:26
tell an Undead yeah you still count you're still part of me because there's there's Undead nightl right now who are
12:33
reconnecting with Alon Alon did not abandon them yeah and even further on that right like this this is something
12:38
that I've been thinking about for a while that I think is actually fascinating about aloon is aoon is borderline omnipresent right like the
12:47
touch and the effect of aloon is very widespread and seems to be
12:52
simultaneously widespread and I don't know if that's because Alon has fragmented themselves into different
12:58
aspects over time in order to do that or if Alon is just an order of magnitude of that power that we just fully don't
13:05
understand here's another thing to think about when you're thinking about that though because that's a very good point Alon can make her manifestation
13:12
permanent in the area yeah she can just decide it's always night here and I'm
13:18
always here dark here and it just happened and it didn't go away and it
13:25
won't go away until Alon decides it should and again in terms of direct manifestations of
13:32
power like sargeras has never done anything like that none of the Titans have ever done anything like that yeah
13:39
and none of the old gods have ever done anything like that so it's a really good point not just to to talk about the
13:46
omnipresence of Alon but also to think about what it signifies um and and like
13:51
I said we've already seen that there is both a dark and a light side to Alon but
13:57
we also know there's a third side to her there's the you know the aloon as mother the Alon as the you know figure of
14:04
protection and you nurturing there's a loon as the warrior the Destroyer you know this needs to die and I will make
14:11
it die but there's also a loon as the psychopomp a loon as the for lack of at
14:16
a word the the trickster figure who can put her people in the shadowlands where
14:22
they're not supposed to go not that they're not supposed to go anywhere but like she directed them specifically to a
14:29
a region she had the power to uh bypass the Arbiter yes which means she has that
14:35
connection to the realm of death which would make her the sister to the Winter Queen because it's a reverse which makes
14:42
a lot of sense when you're talking about the moon right because the moon and dealing with the phases of it and if the
14:47
Loon is a manifestation of that it make it makes a certain amount of sense well plus I mean we see that a loon is a
14:54
creature of light but the moon reflects light of obviously we see that you know a loon is a creature creature who can
14:59
create death as the as the night Warrior but is also a creature empowered by darkness and which is the void well uh
15:07
We've also seen that a loon is a creature who can take beings to death they go as the shadow lands as a realm
15:15
but what about the fact that she could possibly be doing the same thing for other replaces as well yeah so because
15:21
go ahead I was going to say there's a couple things that I think are really fascinating with this too uh one is that
15:27
you know what is a the moon doesn't actually produce light right like a Celestial body it refle reflects it yes
15:36
um and what if aloon does that with everything yes in fact what if aloon is the mirror that you basically you use
15:44
you hold this mirror up to reflect back into all those places that can look into
15:49
this reality this is their connection back and forth this is the mirror of all
15:55
those things well you you're you're you're on the the same path right that I'm going here shut up now and So
16:02
you you're you're good but I mean I think it's interesting because Alon being a representation of the Moon and
16:07
being sort of like this being that is associated with something that only reflects light doesn't produce its own
16:13
light I think you're right and that's kind of where I was going is it does make her almost like the ultimate mirror
16:19
for the universe but also the ultimate mirror for the cosmic entities that exist in the universe it also is a
16:27
really great way to sort of understand maybe her power scale a little bit and
16:32
the reason I say that is because if all she's doing is reflecting every powerful
16:38
entity that exists reflects that life off of a loon it's why she can sit there
16:44
and have a relationship with um why can't I remember her name now uh in the
16:50
pantheon of the Titans help me out here oh ianr anr uh because she reflects that
16:55
sort of same energy that uh anr gives where it's this calm ordered uh nature
17:02
but not in the same way of the other aspects of the pantheon you know to anr's Wild Untamed Bri like unbridled
17:10
nature right like it's it's a perfect reflection they balance each other and look at the history of aoon too what is
17:18
even with a night Warrior even with everything we know about the aspects of uh night elf history basically all of it
17:27
is a is a force of balance and the one of the and that's why you look at the uh
17:34
Druids who are supposedly you know fully tied into the emerald dream in the
17:39
natural world they call upon aoon yeah because she is that she's that aspect of balance yeah and that's where the the
17:46
the wildkin come from the the boomkin for peoplein yeah moonin boomkin wildkin
17:52
all come from Alon they were her chosen they were they were elevated by her and
17:57
what Druid what Druid aspect is associated with that the balance aspect right which is the one that does both
18:04
damage you know it can it can heal you or it can kill you but it also it can
18:10
yeah but it it balances forces it keeps those those Powers uh calling it balance
18:15
it's like it's akin to watching a tight RPP performance and that's exactly well it's interesting you say that because mechanically that's what the spec wants
18:22
to do too which I think is absolutely fascinating and I think I think is kind of we have these weird moments where we
18:29
stumble across where the design of the class is reflected in the lore or vice
18:34
versa and this is definitely one of those cases because of the way that the uh the class works when it's balancing
18:41
between Sun and Moon you're literally moving a bar like you're you're you're balancing the aspects to to do what you
18:47
you want to do damage wise and I think that's absolutely fascinating because it is a perfect encapsulation of moonkin
18:55
being a force of balance for aoon I think that's absolutely wild yeah it certainly is something you can so I
19:02
think that basically I don't think that zotth and aloon are linked in the sense
19:07
of you know zotth is a part of a loon that got ripped out but I do think that
19:12
aoon has a connection to the void yes and I think that that means that zotth
19:18
could certainly be reflected by aloon in that way that what zotth is is something
19:25
that Alon could mirror could could show to zotth or to us um so yeah there's
19:32
there's a lot to it um I don't again I don't see a lot of direct Connection in the lore but I do think that there are
19:38
there's places you could certainly insert it yeah and I think and I think we're going to see more of it coming into uh midnight I think alon's probably
19:46
one I think alon's GNA be a little more present than she is right now and I think part of that is you know part of
19:53
it is because of the leadup to the Titans but I also think part of it is simply because I think Alon is Poss
19:58
possibly the only Cosmic force that could probably deal with whatever zotth
20:03
is actually doing and yeah and for that matter for we might find out that there are other beings like Alon uh that per
20:10
that do the opposite of what she does like there could be one that is the projection in the way that you know she
20:17
reflects everything maybe there's one that projects everything there's one that literally is like imagine a Naru that switched
20:23
between all like you know switched from light to void to fell to Arcane to life
20:30
to death there could be one that does that um we don't know we have no idea but there's an interesting way to look
20:37
at what alon's role has always been in wow and in Warcraft before that is
20:42
always Alon is always been like a direct I don't know how to
20:48
put it like there's a conduit role like more so than anything else Aluna is
20:53
about becoming and we've seen that with what happened with the the Saturn that
20:58
wanted to turn itself it wanted to be a night elf again and Lon allowed it to become one uh Toronto wanted Revenge but
21:07
what she needed was something else and Alon allowed her to pursue her revenge
21:12
but in the end allowed her to achieve something else allowed her to balance
21:18
herself and that's in order to balance things you have to you have to change
21:23
you know there's a there's a there's a kind of goes back to the psychopomp role you could could again look at it like
21:29
sort of like a trickster figure in order to achieve what you're trying to do sometimes you have to change change is a
21:35
big part of all this stuff we're talking about and that I think is what a loon really embodies yeah I mean phases yeah
21:43
I was just gonna say with the moon phases and being an aspect of the Moon it makes a a strange amount of sense I
21:48
think that that she would be the embodiment of change yeah chaos bringer and that's where the fell stuff might
21:54
come in you know because in order to make change in order to transform there has to be chaos things have to be they
22:01
can't be as ordered and order itself is a fascinating thing we require it it's
22:06
necessary for everything to exist but if there's too much of it nothing ever changes and there's no point to
22:13
existence so yeah I I there's a lot you could do with what Alon and her role
22:19
with with all sorts of things is uh not just zotth for that matter I'd really like to see some more straight up focus
22:25
on what zotth really is and I'd love to find out that it's not just some old God
22:31
fragment but its own unique kind of void thingy but we'll see we'll see what and
22:36
I was going to say I think we're going to get more of that I mean we're we're still at the beginning of the expansion we're just we're moving into the second
22:44
tier of rating uh right now which is while it is going to be focused more on goblins I'm very confident zotth will be
22:51
poking her nose around there at some point uh it's it's a thing that just never goes away um which is all going to
22:57
lead up to midnight so I think we're find out more about zotth but I think it's interesting uh just because and I I
23:04
I never really thought of of this before this question which is zotth is
23:10
ostensibly the Counterpoint to aloon in some regards where aloon is that
23:17
constant change but also balance zotth is pure inbalance every piece of history
23:24
about zotth everything that zotth has done has been pushing the teetering
23:29
point of balance just a little bit away from center right like all the stuff
23:34
when she was with Mod good or all the stuff of all the previous holders yeah I mean even the stuff right now like look
23:41
at with with um the the OD but the the void dis uh oh okay the void dis was
23:48
used for capturing power pure power which is how uh Kadar survive and why
23:54
would she need that if it wasn't just to capture that power and use it to push the balance further and it just it
24:01
reminds me of like a void cat just sitting on a shelf just very gently pushing that glass towards the edge um
24:07
and eventually that's going to that's going to hit a point where somebody's going to have to intervene uh and I have
24:13
a feeling that it will be possibly a loon or or a champion of aoon that will
24:19
step in but I don't know if there's much more to say about that we could probably spend an entire episode just tinfoil
24:24
hatting about zotth and other stuff which I'm sure you all would enjoy but I think we're g to move on to our next one
24:30
this one oh go ahead Matt I was just gonna say yeah that makes sense but then I'm like why do I need to say that he
24:37
knows all right this one comes from verdigre uh I was watching thor2 and
24:43
that MCU Odin straight up said we aren't Gods kind of a kill Joy I prefer the
24:48
magic theologically speaking do you consider the warcraft Titans Gods if
24:53
they're a Pantheon well that's a Theon right there in the name are closer to
24:58
your definition of a god than D and's ones because they aren't fueled by belief and fighting for hen he
25:06
henotheistic fans like sports teams and just exist whether anyone believes them or not uh well verree I'm going to throw
25:14
a grenade out here and just kind of let Matt go because I I have a feeling he's probably going to come to this anyway
25:20
but this reminds me more of the uh Jack Kirby's New Gods than it does actual
25:26
Deeds from D and D and I don't know if Matt agrees with me or not but I'm kind of curious to shake that and Let it Loose well thematically the Titans from
25:34
Wow are essentially taking two different Jack Kirby ideas and sort of eating them both at the same time it's it's kind of
25:41
like if you took his fourth world stuff and his Celestial stuff and were like
25:46
want to put your hands together because the Titans are very much like the celestials from Marvel in that they come
25:52
to a world and they're like oo let's play with it and then they just do all sorts of random stuff and then they take
25:59
off to see what happened um before the whole sargeras deal uh and then the sargeras thing is also very much like
26:05
the celestials and that there was the one the dreaming Celestial who went mad and they had to stop him and in so doing
26:12
they they made things worse infinitely worse for everybody involved including themselves um but it's also the the it's
26:19
also like the fourth world stuff because the Titans the Titans aren't Gods well
26:25
all right I'm just going to use this line it's from a game been playing a ton lately uh Joe will recognize it but it's
26:31
like you know in terms of their power compared to ours they are Gods
26:36
terrifying Gods it doesn't matter if they are gods or even what a God is in
26:43
terms of the scale of your interaction with them they are gods they are capable
26:49
of altering reshaping and channeling forces on levels we simply cannot even
26:56
comprehend doesn't mean that that but at the same time if they were really Gods
27:02
like beings that transcend all Concepts that we can conceive of then they're not
27:07
that because they can die they can change they can become other things in a
27:14
way that Gods simply don't seem able to do um but again this is all I mean I
27:19
could you could sit here and like pull apart actual real world mythology and say but look that this one dies in this myth and this happens and it's like yeah
27:27
that's true but but that's also part of the problem right we're trying to define something that is indefinable the nature
27:34
of what it is to be a God is in inherently and now I'm quoting another thing goes do you mean I have to die in
27:40
order to to have any kind of insight you to to understand your insights on death it's like the context isn't there we
27:47
don't know like it's like a bunch of Paris a bunch of amibas trying really
27:52
really hard to understand multicellular life forms you know it's not that
27:57
there's the they're both life forms but one's up there and we're down here I I
28:03
don't I'm not trying to be like a slug I know no no you you you hit on something that I think is is kind of important
28:09
that I think really kind of nails this the direction of this question and I think really kind of defines it especially with the the Titans right
28:17
it's it's a comparison in scale of power and I think it's interesting because if
28:25
you go talk to a random farmer from you know the kingdom of storm with he's
28:31
never seen battle uh never like he's maybe seen like militia work or or
28:36
something like that uh and then you on your flying fire dragon swoops in all of
28:44
Blaze with the sun shining down on you with weapons pure like pouring pure
28:50
light and power and you walk over and you just resurrect his dead horse because you're feeling magnanimous in
28:56
that moment you're a God to that person in scale of power and then for you you
29:02
know what what does that scale to you and maybe that is the Titans at their full power but we've also beaten a Titan
29:09
so are Titans Gods to some people like a virus can absolutely kill a human yeah
29:17
100% but a human is still a human and a virus is still a virus it's just that you know the scale is so so off-kilter
29:25
that even as this tiny um not even fully a life formed thing can kill a human it
29:32
doesn't change the fact that the human is and was a human you know and it yeah
29:37
it is really weird to think about in terms of like trying to even Define what a God is in in World of Warcraft you
29:43
know the a God just seems to be a term someone can use to describe themselves
29:49
and at best you can argue with it but you can't really you can't prove them
29:55
wrong at a certain point it's it's a thing that I think media struggles with in general and the reason I say that is
30:02
is and I'm going to make a comparison here and I'm going to go back to comic books not just because of the new Gods but because of stuff that's currently
30:08
happening in Marvel's Universe there's a lot of weird stuff going on but one of the one of the the interesting
30:14
storylines uh was revolving around Venom and Carnage essentially becoming gods
30:21
and it was this whole thing with uh what is time what is what is power what does
30:26
that mean is there a py why does this repeat itself where Eddie Brock basically created a pocket Dimension
30:33
which she was all powerful as the king in black as the Lord of all symbiotes essentially um where he became this
30:40
being called Meridius and Meridius to all intents and purposes is a god of the Symbiotes has complete control over it
30:48
creates a Zombie Plague of Symbiotes again uh that are completely at his beck
30:53
and call and while he's doing this Carnage is traveling through the multi diverse killing aspects of Venoms to
31:02
absorb their strengths and eliminate his own weaknesses and even gets his hand on
31:08
uh the necro sword except it becomes the spear and so he can kill Meridius if he
31:14
so chooses and is as powerful but doesn't have that control over the Symbiotes in the same way just as none
31:21
of the uh the uh weaknesses therein and is so powerful in fact that the symbiot
31:27
itself self can reconstitute the human cells of Cletus Cassidy who's been dead
31:32
and turned to dust for ages by definition those are both Gods however
31:37
in Marvel's own Universe the celestials would just eat them alive uh and above the celestials the one above all and the
31:44
one below all would absolutely trounce them and there are like you're actually
31:49
skipping the Living Tribunal yeah I even touch the Living Tribunal but for that
31:54
matter galatis galatis is more powerful than the celestials he's been shown to be able to do that yet Galactus can be
31:59
defeated by a bunch of humans with a box a sufficiently powerful box can defeat
32:05
galatis it's it's a weird scale and I think I think the what I wanted to get to is I think Warcraft In general since
32:13
it's moved to Warcraft 3 in particular uh and moving into World of Warcraft and
32:19
Beyond has outside of the old gods does not really use the term God right even
32:26
with the calling them a Pantheon a Pantheon is just a conglomeration of power of you know essentially they're
32:33
all together in mind in in purpose essentially you could make a Pantheon of
32:39
Ark mes if you wanted to the yeah I mean the seven of do right yeah we don't want
32:44
to obscure the fact that Pantheon literally means uh pantheos all you know all gods yes most like pandemonium means
32:51
all all demons uh but at the same time we we hear all the time that you know the pantheon of these Sports Legends
32:58
it's like those sports legends aren't literally Gods yes you know Wayne bogs is not a deity not have to pray to him
33:05
you know to say because literally literally one of the modern day definitions of Pantheon is a group of particularly respected famous important
33:11
or powerful people right and it's it's it's power derives from the the fact
33:17
that it means all gods in Greek but it's used just to mean all these figures that
33:22
are of note or importance uh to this specific use uh and I do think also it's
33:29
worth considering that in the case of this like when we're talking about world of warcraftwarcraft there is always
33:37
another rung on the ladder and it seems very fractal like when the first ones were introduced we still don't know much
33:44
at all about them like we don't know like were they concrete physical beings did they did they like you know did they
33:51
just walk around it's theoretically possible the first ones could have been mortal beings that just had really
33:58
Advanced insight into the creation of a new existence I mean look at look at it in uh in terms of like Stargate right
34:05
what were what were the gods that that you know of the Egyptian uh Pantheon there they were alien beings of
34:12
incredible technological advancement and they were heralded as gods and even in
34:17
like the like going to the MCU and and talking about Thor and stuff like that in effect they are gods they don't plus
34:25
you got to be upfront with that too yes Odin says we're not Gods but at the same time at one point Thor goes to a
34:31
gigantic meeting of all the pantheons including the Greek gods and they're called gods and they call each other
34:38
gods you know so there I feel like it's similar to like when Superman tells people I'm not a God and someone I I
34:45
remember this is actually Batman who was like okay Clark um you can see everything happening on the world at
34:51
once if you want to you can move faster than light um your impossible to kill
34:59
remember remember that time remember that time Superman held up the world for Atlas so he could go to his daughter's wedding yeah or that time that time
35:07
Superman stopped the Moon from being colliding with an evil Moon that someone
35:12
had made or when he beat up an angel while he didn't even have his powers
35:18
like he he had the lightning powers instead and he still figured out how to like whoop an angel's butt with them
35:24
there there was a there was a there was a a speaking of that too just remind me of this as well there was a a recent one
35:32
uh it was I think it was again Dark Knight Returns but it was later on in that that that line where Superman's
35:40
Superman had a daughter and a son with Wonder Woman and the the bottle City why
35:46
can't I remember the name of it I can't remember but there was a bottle city thank you bot city is Candor if you want
35:51
to know a Superman thing if I don't know it I will cry this is a reason why I love Matt because he remembers all the
35:57
stuff that I can about Superman and I'm the I'm the Spider-Man guy um but in
36:02
this in the Frank Miller Universe the bottle city of kandor is released and
36:08
they all become tyrants like they're all they all believe that they are gods and they come to Earth to cleanse it of
36:15
humanity unless they decide to serve them and it's this interesting thing
36:21
where it's like Batman who's old at this point needs to be thrown into a Lazarus Pit um because that's the thing that
36:28
happens to Batman regularly at this point uh when he's having this conversation with all those that are
36:33
fighting back against it he's like we can't fight them directly they are Gods however you know we can do this this
36:40
this and somebody and I think it's his Robin and I can't remember her name um Carrie Carrie thank you uh Carri Kelly
36:47
by the way Carrie Kelly goes you don't believe in God and he's like no but I believe in him and he they go and get
36:54
Superman cuz he's the only one that can deal with this because even on an order of magnitude
37:00
among kryptonians he's still a God yeah because it's it's not just about raw
37:05
power can another Kryptonian put give Superman a fight yes but they're not Gods the way he is because he embodies
37:12
something he's an icon he's an ideal he's a personification in a way that they just aren't uh it's one of the
37:18
things I always liked about the this whole idea going back to the the warcraft version in that you can have
37:25
there are religions in in this world that are all about worshiping things that we know aren't Gods except are they
37:32
would you say that an ancient is a God is is one of the August celestials a god
37:38
you certainly AR You could argue they're not yeah Lo is You could argue that they're not as powerful as other
37:44
entities but does that matter if you've got say the Jade serpent uh or um yeah
37:50
Ulan or what I'm trying to think of like the the two death Gods from the Lowa U muala and uh B blood thank you bon SDI
38:00
uh those two are you going to tell me that they're not Gods does it matter that muala worked for the Jailer matter
38:06
that bom work from Wala yeah and then obviously decided he wasn't doing that
38:12
anymore like it's not just about power it's about embodying a role yeah and and
38:19
I think that that's a big part of it too like I think you're absolutely right on that where like theologically speaking
38:25
even in even in like D and D right if we want to break this down because why the heck not we're here let's talk about it
38:32
it was part of your question it it's when you look at the pantheon even if you want to play balers
38:37
Gate 3 right and you look at it and you look at how people become Gods like
38:43
there's an there's an ending where Gail becomes a God not because people worship Gail but because Gail takes on a mantle
38:50
of power and then finds worshippers afterwards and that's true of all of the
38:56
D and D pantheons everything that you see there is a mantle it's a power it's an ideal it's a portfolio and there are
39:04
actual whole modules uh especially if you want to go through like the spell
39:09
Jammer stuff or the stuff with um uh bloody heck why can't I remember it now
39:15
torrent uh and you want to go through PL shap or plcape and look at like the
39:20
astral Sea and the fact that there are husks dead husks of gods that float
39:25
through the astral sea that if you find them you can take that power and assume
39:31
that mantle and portfolio yeah and that's actually really it's even in balers Gate 3 you go to those you at one
39:38
point you are on a dead God yeah and what's also interesting about that too
39:45
is like even entities that are not that are we know full fullbore straight up no
39:51
are not really Gods like the Lich Queen vth vlth is not a a deity Loth is a
39:59
being that had a mortal birth and did not Ascend to any other realm but in
40:04
terms of her power over her Society they wor might as well be a God yeah they worship her yeah they worship her and
40:10
she can grant them spells yeah you know and I'm gonna I'm gonna switch this over
40:17
to another game that I think has really good insights on what a God is uh and that's Dragon Age Veil guard the veil
40:23
guard because one of the things I love about this game is how how it simultaneously has people saying they're
40:29
not gods and yet calling them gods and yeah that's it's it's like I I go back
40:36
to that line I said earlier in terms of their power compared to ours they are
40:41
Gods wrathful terrifying gods and that's something I think is is worth
40:47
considering not just in terms of power but in terms of perspective in in the warcraft cosmology perspective is
40:54
another aspect of this this whole thing it's not just about how powerful you are it's about how much you see and interact
41:01
with yeah and and think about I was going to say think about that too like until shadowlands what was our view what
41:08
was what what was it that we actually and I'm going to air quote here new existed like our perception of reality
41:16
and our perception of how the the universe was and our perception of the power spheres that exist within that
41:23
Universal framework were proven immediately wrong as soon as shadowlands hit everything we had thought we had
41:29
known up to that point was shattered and it's like if you go to the shadowlands grimoire that's like the biggest point
41:35
that book has is that you are attempting to put context to systems and Powers you
41:42
do not understand with your limited understanding you are attempting to
41:47
essentially make sense in your brain of something that essentially doesn't make
41:53
sense yeah you are a flatlander trying to figure out what a threedimensional object stepping on flat landed like is
42:00
it round is it it's square wait it's changing shape it's not changing shape it's passing through the two dimensional
42:05
plane you know and you don't understand that because you are you know a triangle
42:11
it's it is that that this the concept of scale not just in terms of oh they're bigger than us but in the in the sense
42:19
of they're up they're perceiving from here this is their Vantage Point your Vantage Point is over here yep and it
42:26
does not see what they see so that is the perception aspect of it is really big in
42:32
Warcraft and it's fascinating that you get to the point where you actually have Cosmic forces that are inimical to each
42:39
other entirely just because of how they perceive reality like there's only one true way to go no every possibility is
42:45
real and and we're gonna fight over it yes but I will win oh and some of them you'll win others we win no it'll always
42:52
be me like you know these guys their fight is about how to view existence and
42:59
and that's the whole deal and that's the same for Fel versus Arcane go ahead I'm sorry I was going to say no no you're
43:05
fine I was going to say and think about this too in our limited and our very limited exposure to the universe and
43:12
Warcraft we have seen the emerald dream we have seen the shadowlands and that's
43:18
it right well we've been to we've been to pieces of the twisting nether so we've seen a little bit of the well and
43:24
again that depends on what the twisting nether is and that's that's a whole that's a that's a whole topic for our show by itself yeah that that's fair but
43:31
I mean also we have the chrisy Nether versus the Great Dark beyond my point is that we've have little tiny tiny tiny
43:38
tiny little pieces of other places shown to us too which just serves to actually
43:44
reinforce your point in that we all we know about these places now is how much
43:49
we don't know about these places yeah and I was going to say but even even beyond that there's certain aspects that we have not been exposed to that but we
43:55
know exist because of shadow lands now spheres of the Arcane spheres of spirit spheres of of Life spheres of death uh
44:03
spheres of Decay spheres of the basic primordial like elemental powers that
44:09
exist throughout the entirety of the universe we've seen little tiny aspects of them like a lot of people say that
44:15
well we went to the fire lands that's you know that's the realm of fire no that's the prison of fire that was
44:20
created specifically to house fire Elementals that wasn't the primordial
44:26
plane of fire that exists somewhere in the universe we haven't been to the
44:31
heart of Fel we haven't been to a lot of these places we haven't been to the heart of light the heart of disorder the
44:38
heart of like the void we might get to these places but inside of each of these
44:43
places are likely to be beings beyond our comprehension or powers or mantles
44:49
or aspects of powers that blow away the Titans or blow away everything we've
44:56
seen so far maybe not aloon and that's a throwback to the first one we don't know about that yet but we've never seen the
45:03
void Lords we don't know what their power scale is all we don't even know what their existence is like yeah
45:09
because the void Lords are entities that hate existence yeah they they don't like
45:15
the concept of okay this place is this the void Lords want to just it all
45:20
should be vague and up to the up to the Observer and there shouldn't be any concrete reality at all and the fact
45:26
that you keep trying to concrete reality hurts us and we don't like it and think about what that would mean for them in
45:32
terms of trying to meet them how do you meet a being that does not want to have
45:37
a singular fixed existence you know there's that's some do strange stuff
45:42
right there yeah that's right up there uh in terms of like of all things the end of the Doctor Strange original movie
45:49
not this not the sequel um the bit where he only he figures out oh I can I can
45:54
beat doramu by in meshing him in Concepts he does not want to he binds
46:00
him to time yeah which is something that doesn't exist for jamu so he doesn't
46:06
understand what is happening like why does this keep I killed you why are why
46:11
am why am I still here why you know everybody else who was in that time thing would not have been able to
46:17
recognize they were in it they would have just repeated like everybody else was repeating but doramu was outside of
46:24
time so doramu recognized immediately this is not supposed to be happening me this is not what I'm used to yeah and it
46:31
is that perspective that that fact that you can have beings that you you you
46:37
know in a cosmological you know urination contest who knows would win
46:42
they're not Pokemon no it it it's it's all that to say that again going back to the core concept the idea of godhood in
46:50
Warcraft and in in true and just media in general is malleable right it's all a
46:55
matter of perspective and where you are on that line of power and going back to the root of it I think Matt nailed it on
47:02
the head you know what is a what is an ant to a man what is a man to a god
47:08
right what what does that mean what are what are those those scales of power right yeah like you can look at ants and
47:13
say individually I am far more powerful and terrifying than any ant but get a
47:19
bunch of ants together and they can be a nightmare and they can absolutely kill people yep they have done so it's it's
47:26
like the old thing is an internet meme I've always found really amusing uh Joe's probably heard of it uh and he'll
47:31
probably remember it better but I'm still going to try and talk about it for a second because I think it is it's worth
47:36
considering if imagine you're just out going for a walk you're walking around your neighborhood and suddenly you know
47:43
you're you're passing by a tree and you hear a tiny tiny little voice go Joseph Perez and you're like what the am I in
47:51
trouble like why is someone using my full name I'm assuming they also use your middle names but I I don't think I know all of them and we're not put we're
47:57
not going to subscribe that to audio Yeah but so you stop and you look around and there's a tiny tiny little ant that
48:05
has put a circle around you a circle it's it's like in various kinds of
48:10
detritus that ants find really important now you could step right out of that Circle if you wanted to but you're
48:16
curious how does this ant know your name what does it want so you stop for a second you're like okay yeah that's me
48:24
what what what's going on and the Ant wants you to do things for it it wants
48:29
you to to you know I wish to be the most powerful ant in my hive so you're like
48:35
okay who's the current most powerful ant in your hive uh okay I just the queen so you you go up to an iron Hive and you
48:41
take a stick and you jam it in there and you have to kill like 30 or 40 ants per Jam but eventually you get the queen and
48:48
you're like okay yeah you're the most powerful ant in your hive now I guess because you got me to do that and none of the other ants could get me to do
48:54
that and from the perspective of the ant you are a horrifying terrible occult
48:59
force that has you know but from the perspective of humans you're kind of a a little bit of a jerk you just wanted to
49:05
see what would happen now imagine other one's like some things are easy like the answer like we bring us sugar like okay
49:12
okay here's a box of sugar Dump Dump Dump but one time the ant's like I want I want this ant to love me and you're
49:18
like okay so you kill every other ant around now she's got no choice but to
49:24
love you it's just you and her and the like oh what did I do what have I done I
49:29
didn't understand and you know it's it's like yeah yeah think of it from that
49:36
perspective is the human a God no but might he might not the human might as
49:42
well be a God to those ants absolutely could an army of army ants still kill that human yes uh and and think and
49:49
think about it in terms of like in Warcraft terms too like we we've beaten Titans but that doesn't mean the Titans
49:55
aren't Titans correct and and like if somebody worships the Titans as deities and sees us whoop them does that mean
50:02
they start worshiping us as deities cuz we just punch their gods maybe because we're that powerful to them that's the
50:08
way they view us are we Gods no probably not we wouldn't consider ourselves Gods
50:13
I don't some of you might in your RP I don't know yall y yall make those choices that's up to you whatever you do
50:19
in your your own game but again if you were to ask like the pantheon if if if there were no other beings in the
50:25
universe and they when you ask them are are they gods they probably wouldn't have any idea what that
50:32
is or if they did they wouldn't consider themselves Gods because they know there's things more powerful than they
50:37
are that's and that matter there are things that are not even more powerful than they are but which they respect and
50:43
and they don't consider themselves Superior to those beings and is it is again a lot of it is perception both the
50:50
perception of the worshipper and the perceptions of the worship yeah and I think and I think that's I think that's
50:55
why it's very important to note uh that again Warcraft if you go back and look
51:01
at the writing especially after Warcraft 3 uh well starting with Warcraft 3 so
51:06
after Warcraft 2 there isn't a whole lot of God like I'm not like I'm air quoting
51:12
that while there are there are vestages of it there these are words that can be used interchangeably again like Pantheon
51:18
Pantheon doesn't necessarily just mean Gods even in modern day language and so when they say it they're not just saying
51:24
Gods the only thing that still has a god moniker really are the old gods even
51:31
though Alon and and the aloon as a goddess and the wild gods and I'm air
51:37
quoting the wild Gods yeah but for that matter you might be air quoting aloon too because we if there's no sign that a
51:42
loon has ever told anyone that that they are a God yeah and or demanded worship or whatever the case is that worship
51:48
just happened right I mean it's it's an interesting thing to to consider and as
51:53
you're making your way through the rest of this expansion and as we move into midnight I'd say keep that in mind and
51:59
and again you it's really hard to compare to something like D and D where a God is just something that carries the
52:06
portfolio and even then it doesn't necessarily have to be worshiped yeah and depending on which uh D and we're
52:13
talking about you can even have Gods die and be replaced by somebody else entirely who then becomes that God
52:20
looking at you mistra yeah there's been like four mistas yeah uh it's just it's like you know it's one of the reasons
52:27
why it's not as crazy there's been like seven AOS yeah yeah it's just okay so
52:33
yeah there's a lot I mean I want you to think of it for a second just imagine that aoon is not this omnipresent Divine
52:39
Force but is this being that one day wandered by a planet and the weird looking little tiny things on it just
52:46
loved the heck out of her and she was like huh I mean I am pretty let's see what they're up to like you know we
52:52
don't know how they view US yeah and we never had a direct conversation with
52:57
aloon the closest that we've ever gotten to it was Tonda and even then it wasn't
53:03
a direct conversation no it was Tonda who was kind of like plugged into a Lon juice at that point yeah yeah so like
53:10
and so it's again just something to keep in mind that in Warcraft God doesn't
53:16
necessarily mean uppercase G type of God uh it it may just mean sufficiently
53:22
powerful being that deserves your respect or it might sit on you I'm going to throw this one out there because in
53:28
honor of Liz who is not actually here but in Mass Effect 2 we get the line a God isn't some weird old dude who lives
53:34
in the sky God is an idea it's a verb and it it doesn't have to want to
53:40
do these things it just does it and that's something to consider when you're talking about beings like that the
53:45
Titans maybe don't have to consider doing things so much as those things
53:50
happen because the Titans are there and that's that's something to think about especially with the void God void Lords
53:56
and the old old gods old gods in particular are very much I don't have to necessarily do anything this stuff just
54:02
happens cuz I'm here they can be like a gravity well into except instead of gravity it's Insanity they're an
54:09
insanity well you get close enough you get pulled in so there's a lot of back and forth up and down all sorts of stuff
54:16
to talk about in this stuff but I think the the best possible analogy we can use
54:21
is that in Marvel Universe the one above all is literally Jack Kirby yeah 100%
54:27
the creative god of the entire universe and His Dark Shadow are both just Jack
54:32
Kirby they're both they're just both aspects with Jack Kirby yeah so keep that in mind I think that's a good place
54:39
to end it though uh friends I do want to thank you and remind you that blizzard watch is made possible due to the
54:45
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54:51
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55:34
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55:41
messages and Dan orz will ensure that we get them uh but with that folks we'll
55:47
see you next week where we're going to probably be talking about some goblins because I think it's Goblin season Rosy
55:52
requests it [Music]
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