Up next in 10
In the first of three questions we answered this week, a listener wanted to know some of the influences our hosts Joe and Matt see in WoW from literature, movies, and myth, and they talked about a slew of varied media, from 60s sci-fi (no, not that one, though yes, that one) through comics. There are a lot of cultural touchstones and homages to explore in WoW. They also sort of explored the opposite with a different question, discussing which idea or technology they'd bring from real life into WoW. That one is a bit tricky to answer, because in most fantasy the answer is obviously "a gun," but WoW has those already.
Plus, if you could bring back any character in WoW from the dead, which one would you pick and why? Everyone who didn't immediately say Tiffin Wrynn, I'm not mad, just disappointed.
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[Music]
0:10
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch, a round table free form discussion about learning your favorite media. I am your host Joe Perez, one of several low
0:17
focused folks from Blizzard Watch and I've got my marvelous co-host with me today, Matt Rossy. How you doing today, Matt?
0:24
I am doing okay. Sometimes that is all we can ask for.
0:30
Uh well friends today we are going to be going through some more questions that you our wonderful listeners have sent in
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to us. One thank you and you know keep doing it. Uh and if you want to send us
0:41
questions please send us more questions. Uh you can send those into podcastardwatch.com.
0:47
Uh we ask that you specify what show it is for in the subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name.
0:52
You can also hit us up on Discord. We have two channels set aside. We have the Q and podcast questions channel which is open to everybody. And uh we also have
0:59
the patron Q and podcast questions channel which is open for our Patreon
1:04
subscribers. It's a way of saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on. Again, same rules apply. Give us the the
1:12
show that it's for as well as any special pronunciation of your name. But we're going to get right into it. And this first one comes from Scribbly or
1:19
Scribblet. Uh, what literary or other artistic sources do you see while pulling from as
1:25
they tell the main story of the war within and midnight? What does it tell us about where the story might go next?
1:30
Like for real, what other great stories of sentient artifacts conspiring with and betraying horrible cosmic forces
1:37
should we be paying attention to? The one from Lord of the Rings feels like an obvious one here, but I'm sure we can look further a field. Seriously, Laura
1:45
Walking Zelat story actually made me chuckle to see a flipping sword taking on a dead night elf's body. Uh, it
1:52
combines a level of comical and spooky that we ought to as a society lean into more, but hey, that's just one purchase
1:59
righteous opinion. Uh, I definitely like the spooky stuff and when it comes to stuff like that to a point, um, it does
2:07
need to remain accessible for all players. But I mean, we've talked about this in the past, and I'll turn it over
2:12
to Matt here in a second and see if he's got any specific ideas. WoW as a medium
2:17
is it is a game built upon the muse of those building it, right? and it always
2:24
has been, whether the influences from Dn D or uh from Warhammer or or from any
2:30
number of dark8s fantasies and metal and and all sorts of other uh pieces that
2:35
you could possibly imagine, including Lord of the Rings, has played an influential part in the creation of
2:41
World of Warcraft. I mean, real world mythology included. Um, so I guess I'll
2:47
ask Matt, besides the one ring, what other literary pieces can we think of where a sentient artifact causes
2:52
ruination? Um, in the 1960s, we had a thing called
2:58
the British wave of science fiction. Sometimes it was called the British new wave of science fiction. Among the many
3:05
artists, uh, and writers from that time period is a a man named Michael Morco.
3:11
Uh, yes, that's his last name. Uh, don't you dare try and make fun of this man.
3:16
Um, he he's to to try and describe his effect on fiction. It would be like I
3:23
want you to imagine like characters who who kind of dominate science fiction or fantasy or like related fields like
3:31
comics like an Alen Moore or a Terry Patchet, they
3:37
carry his robe. And that's not to in in any way
3:42
denigrate them, but he is the figure from which they they draw. He is
3:50
he combined comedy and pathos and horror in his works. Um he created two things
3:57
that are basically the template for what World of Warcraft did with artifacts and
4:02
that is the sentient rune blades stormbringer and mourn
4:08
blade. M Stormbringer is Frostorn
4:13
except way cooler. Uh and for one thing in the series of books um called the
4:20
Eternal Champion Saga, one character Elrich of Melabonet
4:25
uses Stormbbringer to kill his cousin Yakun, who was wielding Mourblade at the
4:30
time. uh and in so doing leads Stormbringer to victory over Mourn Blade
4:37
because it turns out that the two blades were it basically locked in a conflict at the end of the story cycle.
4:45
Literally Elrich is attempting to recreate the universe because the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos
4:52
uh have and you know he's also a pretty big inspiration on Warhammer. Let's be upfront. Uh, a lot of the the the chaos
4:59
gods and all that stuff from Warhammer are cribed pretty directly up to the point where Ario, one of the main lords
5:06
of chaos in in Morco's work is basically like three like he's like Slenesh and
5:13
uh, oh god, I can't remember his name all of a sudden. The blood for the blood god, you know, skulls for the skull
5:20
throne. K. K. Yeah. So, both both Slenesh and Korn are kind of like like riffs on Aryokch.
5:26
uh like they're not ripoffs, but they they take inspiration from him. Uh Ari,
5:32
even Arioch is defeated in the end and Stormbringer kills Elrich, eats his soul, and becomes
5:39
the creator of the next universe, which is the universe we're in right now. Morco has actually said that in his
5:47
fictional creation, the god of of the Old Testament is Stormbringer.
5:54
So, it won. It killed everybody, destroyed the universe, and made a new one where it got to be the ultimate god.
6:02
So, yeah, that there's a there's a magical artifact for you that, you know, you look at WoW artifacts and you look
6:08
at Zalot, you look at Frostorn, this is where they come from. And this
6:14
is to the point where Stormbbrer is such a big deal um that it's even been in
6:20
like it's been in Dungeons and Dragons like they've written and Dragons people even more just straight up stole it like
6:28
not even like you know you didn't it's like Frostorn is not a one for one pastiche of Stormbringer. It's it's
6:33
inspired by it. Zalot isn't none nothing none of the ones from WoW are that close
6:39
but the one in world in Dn D uh Blackrazer is is a one for one pastiche
6:45
right up to the blade looking like a piece of knight with stars in it. It's like literally using a piece of the of
6:52
the night sky which is a direct riff on Stormbbrer. It's like it's very close.
6:57
So yeah, that's one you I I think of whenever we do anything involving the
7:02
the whole deal. Like obviously the old gods from WoW are much more Lovecraft
7:08
inspired, but the idea of magical artifacts with their own mind and their own will.
7:14
That's that goes you look back and there are other other ideas for that. Like you could always mention Excalibur or
7:20
whatever, but in terms of like stuff like Zalot or Frostorn or what have you, Stormbringer, it's you it's so much
7:29
Stormbringer. So that's that's one I would mention. Um plus if if you want a protagonist who is not exactly the good
7:35
guy, uh wow, the Elro of Melabonet Tales right up there for you. I mean, he's
7:42
he's slightly more relatable than the rest of his people, but only because they're outright like monsters. Like,
7:49
they're evil evil people, and he's just kind of like this affected. Um, but yeah, no, I I would definitely go with
7:56
Stormburgger. I've been thinking about that since I saw this question, uh, quite frankly. I I want to I want to
8:02
take a a detour as I often do to comics because well comics and uh one that I
8:09
want to bring up because there's many that I could. I want to actually bring up Witchblade, which a lot of folks I I
8:15
think have written off as just sort of like a salacious comic, but at its core
8:21
is a a story about cosmic forces
8:26
battling each other, often through the proxy of sentient or immensely powerful
8:31
artifacts. The witchblade itself is a conscious thing uh born of the angelist
8:38
or sorry not of the angelist but born of the aspects of darkness and light the primordial progenitors of the universe
8:45
in this case. Um it is one of 13 items uh that all share similar things. The
8:52
Anggeles, the Darkness, the Ember Stone, the Glacier Stone, the Rapture, the Blood Sword, the Spear of Destiny, the
8:57
Queen of Solomon, the Heart Stone, Pandora's Box, and the Wheel of Shadows. Things you may have heard of from real
9:04
world mythologies, uh, not just the comic books. And it is a item that is
9:10
sentient, but also at odds with itself constantly. Uh, it is light and darkness
9:18
in one being vying for control. Uh, and in many cases we've seen instances where
9:24
uh too much of the dark side will take over and then uh I believe it was Sarah,
9:29
the original wielder of of the witch blade uh the one that most people would recognize as the the red-headed wielder,
9:34
the very first one um wound up falling closer to darkness and then the second
9:41
uh bearer of the witch blade uh Danielle Baptist had to actually battle her uh at
9:46
one point becoming host of the Angelus in order to fight the darkness and bring
9:51
it under control again. Um, it's it always reminds me of a lot of stuff
9:56
that's going on in WoW, particularly with what's happening in the current story line between the light and void or
10:04
light and shadow. Uh, but it also reminds me a lot of how the Naru are um
10:10
where there's definitely some inspiration taken there I think from maybe this uh maybe older, who knows?
10:17
Uh, it's definitely not a unique concept, but I believe the Witchblade comics started at a time where most of
10:25
the folks that were working on the story at the time probably would have been, if
10:30
they were comic readers, influenced by this. It's been around for a while. Um, and there's a lot of just weird
10:38
parallels between how the concept of light and darkness, the the concept of being a host to those
10:45
cosmic entities and sort of like the war unseen. Uh, so there's definitely
10:51
something there, I think. And then you can also make some other parallels to like Molir, Thor's hammer. Um, it is
10:58
sent although we got to point out that's from the comics. It is comic comics. Molner. Totally
11:03
correct. I'm saying is just yeah mythology moler is just a hammer correct it is just a hammer a big hammer
11:10
a powerful hammer um but just a hammer but in the comics it is a sentient being
11:16
it actually has a soul or a sentience trapped inside of it um and so when you
11:22
see things like the Donald Blake uh series where you know he was cursed to live as a human and then had to
11:28
transform into Thor and prove his worthiness that wasn't Odin casting a spell necessarily it it was to a degree
11:34
tree, but it was also Odin giving a command to Mjolnir. Uh, and then you see it later with Molir rebelling against uh
11:42
Thor because Thor did some stupid things, made really poor choices and uh
11:48
operated in a way not befitting of what he should be doing. And the hammer's like, "Yeah, I'm just not answering to
11:54
you anymore. You're gonna have to learn how to to deal with this stuff." uh or when Thor tried to sherk his
11:59
responsibility and the hammer literally followed him around throughout all of
12:04
reality until eventually uh Thor just decided to start trying to break the
12:10
hammer. Like there are so many sentient items and weapons that have been these
12:18
huge host of cosmic entities. I mean what are some other ones that you can think of off the top of your head? that
12:24
Cresa Moors uh the sword of Caesar which uh in in Celtic I don't want to call it
12:30
mythology exactly but uh in the in in uh historium Bratannier uh Jeffrey
12:36
Mammoth's the history of the kings of Britain he tells a story of how Caesar came to Britain uh and after you know
12:44
getting some of the tribes on his side got into a fight with another tribe of guy named Brenas and whilst he didn't
12:52
lose the fight he did lose the sword to Brenas. And uh when Brenas took the sword, he
12:58
became invincible because it was actually the sword of of Mars, the Roman war god. And the problem with Croamors
13:05
was that while you were unconquerable in battle, uh you would go mad like you you
13:12
everything became a war to you. You weren't he weren't you weren't capable of peace or peaceful negotiation or
13:20
diplomacy or anything else. So, you had that sword. It was like you just constantly wanted to fight and you saw
13:27
everything as a fight. Um, as a result, Bernie S's line ended up getting messed up as I recall. But, yeah, that's just
13:34
one of many. Like, the idea of a a magical device.
13:39
I mean, heck, in the Lord of the Rings trilogies, the the rings themselves are only one of those things. The palunteers
13:46
are almost as bad. Like the re the reason Denithor in the books goes goes cuckoo for cocoa puffs
13:54
is because he's got that palunteer that he has to use to keep a breast of threats to his kingdom. You know, as the
14:01
steward of Gondor, he's he's almost addicted to the palunteer, but the palunteer only shows him doomed things
14:08
like, you know, only shows him negative things. It never shows him anything positive. And so the more he needs to
14:14
use it to keep ahead of threats, the more threats the thing shows him until
14:20
like when you see him in the movie and he's kind of a gibbering lunatic, that's the end result of him having this const
14:28
this device that constantly feeds him nothing but a terrible terrible news all the time. I want you to look at your
14:36
cell phone right now. Okay, now back to the Palunteer. Uh, it
14:42
it's one of those things that, you know, we don't really think too much about in the Lord of the Rings, but there's this
14:48
weird magical network of stuff that's all bound to the idea of enslaving,
14:55
you know, basically everybody who isn't on Morgoth's side. And again, I said
15:01
Morgoth, I didn't say Sauron. There's a reason for that. If you read the books, you know who Morgoth is. Um, but yeah,
15:08
that so that's just another example right off the top of my head is is the the palunteer. Palunteer are very
15:14
dangerous and you should probably never use them.
15:20
Yeah. I mean, we can keep going back to the well here as well for, you know, any of the comic stuff like we could talk
15:27
about the uh lantern court power rings of which there are many. Uh,
15:32
yeah. I I was gonna I I thought about talking about them, but then I'm like that probably that would get too far
15:38
into like that's almost like bringing the Titans into it. I mean, I don't know
15:43
how to put it. The Owens and then you have to look at Lensmen. Yeah. But do you remember do you remember the
15:49
'9s Spectre comics? Not the 70s or 80s ones, the ones that John Ostrander did in the '90s. I do actually.
15:55
Do you remember Do you remember the one where they decided the Spectre had to be stopped because he destroyed an entire
16:00
country? So they wanted to give Superman the spear of destiny, the spear of Lynginus, the Roman centurion who
16:06
stabbed Jesus on his cross to kill him so he wouldn't have to suffer anymore. And it turned out that since the spear
16:13
had been used by the Nazis in the 40s to keep superheroes from stopping them,
16:20
uh, as a result, the sort spear had the mind of Adolf Hitler in it and they gave it to Superman who's vulnerable to magic
16:29
and they're like, "Oh, oh no, oh no." Do you remember that storyline? Very, very vaguely. But yes,
16:35
that's there. You want to talk about a magical artifact that's got a serious downside.
16:41
That's one. Like, oh no. Oh lord. Oh no. Thankfully, Superman's a good person. So, he just said, "No, take this back. I
16:48
don't want it. I'm not going to use it." Um, but yeah, it was it was nuts. But
16:55
yeah, it's it's a the reason it's a common storyline. I don't want to say trope because it's like usually bigger
17:00
than a trope. I don't think I I wouldn't call it a trope either. Yeah. I think I think I think whether it's a it's a a thematic
17:06
inclusion routinely. Yeah. Like like you mentioned the Green Lantern Corps, the the ring the the ring
17:12
that they have, the power ring, literally that's what it's called. Um not only is it like capable of incredible feats, like it's been called
17:18
the most powerful weapon in the universe several times. But it's also it's emblematic of the person who gets one.
17:27
Like if you have any of the different colors of power rings at this point because Jeff Johns just loves himself colors. um
17:34
any of the rings, whether it's a red ring or a yellow ring or the one person who got an orange ring, uh they embody
17:42
something and they don't they don't embody it by like you literally becoming a cosmic force. They embody it because
17:48
it's just it's it's naturally who they are. Like similar to the way Molner had
17:55
the whole thing about proving thor you know you can only use me if I if you're worthy and the worth is determined by
18:01
the live the storm monster spirit thing that lives in the hammer. Um the power
18:07
rings can only be used by somebody who embodies those characteristics whether it's uh willpower or you know fear or
18:15
what have you. And there's there's a great scene in Green Lantern Rebirth where Green Arrow tries to use a power
18:22
ring and he just barely makes it work and then he almost passes out.
18:28
Like he's like I I felt like I was ripping off my arm. Does it always feel like that? And you know Kyle Rainers who
18:33
uses the ring with pretty much fluid ease is like yeah every time.
18:38
Yeah, it always feels like that. So it's it's another good example. Uh there's
18:45
there's even like Marvel we we didn't even talk about the cosmic cube. Yeah. Which if you've watched the movies, they
18:52
call it the tesseract in the movies and they made a whole they kind of they they mush together the reality stones and
18:58
other artifacts from Marvel that in the comics are separate things. In the comics, the cosmic cube basically is a
19:04
wishing rock. Like if you get it, you can say, you know, you can just make reality be
19:10
whatever you want it to be. The problem is is that it looks into you. It doesn't just wait for you to do
19:17
things. Same thing can be said about the cosmic bands, which I think are what was repurposed for uh Miss Marvel and uh the
19:25
the TV show and the nega bands. They're not the nega bands. The they're But I mean that does that that's what
19:31
they are in the comics though, isn't it? Or you talk No, no, you mean the ones that Quazar was using. They're correct. Okay. Different ones. Uh, so they've
19:37
been repurposed to be something with uh, Miss Marvel, which in the the live action stuff, which is interesting
19:43
because it also adds a level of um, I want to say genetic knowledge, I guess,
19:50
would be the best way to put it. It carries with it the memory of all those that came before it. Uh, sort of like a
19:57
knowledge or wisdom base, which I always think is rather interesting. To get to the other part of your question though, because I don't want to dwell on just
20:02
naming artifacts here because we could be here a while. what we could look at for inspiration
20:09
for what Zalat and what the story would be into Midnight. It's kind of a glorious thing because it's an
20:15
impossible question to answer. Yeah, there's a lot of different things that inspire different parts of it.
20:21
But not only that, it's ripe for any possibility as the void should be. Uh it
20:27
could be that she's trying to enslave the universe. It could be that she's
20:32
trying to become a void lord in in earnest. It could be that she's trying to save the universe. We don't know. The
20:40
problem is is, and we've talked about this before, Zealot falls into a weird
20:46
category of creatures that we assign
20:51
logic as if they were us routinely. And the characters in game do that, and we as the players do this quite a bit. And
20:58
while that's safe to assume with like, you know, they're human writers, obviously they're going to think about
21:04
themselves, the problem is a good writer puts themselves into the mindset of the
21:09
character as much as they can. It's not always 100% possible, but in this case, Zotath is an ancient cosmic force that
21:17
has an agenda that has been spanning millennia. We have no idea what she's doing or what
21:23
they're doing or what their endgame is. We only know what the immediate thing
21:28
is. And that's our problem with her. But that also means that she could be doing
21:35
it for any reason. It could be anything. She could be trying, like I said, she could be trying to become a voiler. She
21:41
could be trying to, I don't know, jumpstart the building of the last, you
21:47
know, bastion against unreality coming in. Because again, we've talked about this before. Devourers are bad for
21:53
business. Whether you're a void or here, things that consume and and destroy the universe probably not good. Especially
22:00
if you want, you know, maybe to rule the universe. In the word of George Carlin, hey, that's where I keep all my stuff.
22:06
Yeah, I make that joke a lot. And here it's applicable. So, we don't know. And we can make
22:12
educated guesses based on what the character has done so far. But the only
22:17
thing we know for certain, for concrete, is that she's amassing power.
22:25
And what the endgame for that is, we don't know. But it's an insane amount of power. Think about it. In her dark heart
22:32
currently, she has every bit of magic she consumed from Doaron, all of the
22:38
mages and items that she consumed, countless demons that she probably consumed as well. Uh any number of
22:44
artifacts that she would have consumed or the essence of Gacron, uh which you know, we still don't know what she did
22:50
with it or if it's even still in the the dark art. And in mild spoilers if you haven't done this yet, but we're at the
22:56
end of the expansion currently, so hopefully you understand. Uh, Dementius
23:02
is inside of it. Not dead, not just his
23:07
essence. Dementius is trapped inside of the dark heart, a nent reborn void lord.
23:16
And what's her first target in Midnight? She's going after the Sunwell. And what
23:22
is the Sunwell? An immense font of of energy, of power.
23:29
No clue what she is going to be doing with all of that. No clue. Also though, I don't think since we're
23:34
speculating the I think it's interesting that the the what the Sunwell
23:40
has a Naru in it and a Naru whose last concrete form was called a void demon or
23:46
a void lord. Mhm. So that's to be considered. I I think, you know, I I go as far as saying that
23:54
if you want to, like if you squint a little bit, um the stuff we're seeing in
23:59
The War Within and Midnight remind me a lot of Star Wars with the light and dark sides of the Force
24:04
a little bit. Yeah. Where they're both kind of balanced the same. They're the same thing, just two different facets of it.
24:11
Uh so it's just it's just instead of it being two-way, it's actually more like like eight or nine. But still, it is one
24:18
of those things that I keep thinking about. So, there's just a lot of different ways it could go and a lot of
24:23
different inspirations that it could be taking from or already is taking from. So, yep. And we will find out sooner
24:31
than later as we move closer into the alpha and from the alpha into the beta uh and then from the beta to release.
24:37
More details will become present uh relatively shortly. So, it'll be interesting to see what uh shape the
24:44
story of Zealot takes. I think we're going to move on to the next one, though. But hopefully that answers your question. This one comes from Dre. Uh
24:51
you've seen them on the site before. Uh they're a friend of ours and uh they have a question for us. You can bring
24:58
back one semi- major character that has died. Who are you bringing back? Matt,
25:05
what can we define semi- major here? I I need a little guidance on this one because there's characters I would bring back,
25:11
but I don't know if they count as major characters or not. Well, I guess I guess it's subjective,
25:16
right? So, let's broaden it up a little bit. Who would you bring back? And we'll just leave it at that.
25:22
Can I give you a top five? Yeah, there's at least there's actually hundreds, but we'll go with the the top five. Number five is Karen Blood Huff.
25:31
Don't like how he died. Never did. Uh, for one thing, you know, I just No, man.
25:40
I mean, on the one hand, I I like Bane. I like how Bane's Ben is leader. I like
25:45
that Bane like I Bane's a little bit more comfortable about showing off his immense power than Karen was. For one
25:54
thing, Bane's a lot younger, so he probably doesn't have as much. You know, when you're getting, as I can attest to
26:00
this, as you get older, things hurt more. You know, you don't necessarily want to use your full strength because, you
26:06
know, I'm going to throw my back out. Um, so Karen might have been like, you know, I'm I'm pretty up here. I don't
26:11
necessarily want to go like full boore on you. Uh but I also think his restraint was born out of having
26:18
witnessed so much and knowing that sometimes you you wanted restraint. You
26:23
didn't want to to just go full boore on people. But I yeah, I loved Karen. I
26:28
want Karen back. Um number four. Uh number four, I don't know if anybody
26:35
else would agree with this one or not. Um, but there's Gavin Rrad the Dire.
26:42
I I feel like for one of the major lead paladins, this dude has gone out like a chump every time we've seen him. And
26:50
it's just like what what is up with this? I I just I feel like they could have
26:56
done a lot more with Gavin Redd. I I am sort of keeping these a little bit on the more scarier side, but number three is gonna kind of blow that up. Uh,
27:03
Tiffen Ren, I knew you were going to say it. Yep. Yeah. Tiffen Ren. Well, what? You had a
27:11
chance to have a queen of Stormwind and actually have the queen of Stormwind
27:18
matter and you didn't use it twice. You've done it twice now. Uh you know,
27:24
um honorable mention for Varia who who also possibly um Anduin Lothar's
27:32
sister and we we you know practically nothing about her. She's never really come up. There's just Yeah, I'd like to
27:38
see tag Imagine how messed up it would be for Andy if his mom came back from the dead. Maybe she could be an undead.
27:44
I don't That'd be something for you, huh? What? Oh, imagine if Kali is trying to do a nice thing. So, she brings
27:50
Andrew and his mom back for like a birthday present or something like Oh, look. She's infused with the light now.
27:55
It's like that. Thanks, Kalia. That's that's great. That's You reanimated my
28:02
mother. That's wonderful. Uh, but I'm not saying I want that to happen. I'm just saying I think that they could have
28:08
done a lot more with Tiff and Ren and I wish she'd gotten that chance. Um, for
28:14
number two, uh, I am going to say, uh, not saying any of the people that that I
28:21
you people might think I'd be saying here, um, but I am definitely going to say Anisterian Sunstrider
28:30
because, well, his son's dead. Somebody should be
28:35
leading. And well, although to be fair, Loramar is doing a great job. Uh, I don't actually feel like we need
28:41
Anisterion back, but I think it would be wonderful if we found out that Anastion was trapped in some kind of pocket
28:47
dimension or something and whilst he couldn't go rousing about ruling or anything anymore, he could kind of be
28:52
like the the wise adviser because Anastion actually had his his stuff
28:58
together. You know what I mean? Like when he was in charge, the blood the high elves
29:04
never did anything too crazy. Uh, so I kind of would like to see Anastian
29:10
back. Uh, plus I'd like to see just, you know, we've only got little tiny pieces of what Asterion was like as a
29:16
character. So yeah, I'd like to see more of him. Uh, and I think
29:24
um I I I'm just going to say it's my number
29:29
one I want him back is Zjin. I love Zuljin.
29:36
I I love how angry he is. I love how much he wants to kill everybody, the elves, the humans, even the the Horde at
29:42
this point. Um I know he wouldn't come back. Like if he was if he was back, he
29:48
wouldn't be necessarily the same because he's been through the Shadowlands and stuff.
29:53
Mhm. Um but I think he could like we could have Zuljin as Aloa.
30:00
like he could he could kind of take the role that you know with Muisa now being gone and uh you know Baron Sami having
30:09
essentially taken his portfolio there's room in there for a more
30:15
straightforward but antagonistic Lowa. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean he can also take over like
30:21
the aspect of like the lowa of war at this point too. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like you know since Baron MD doesn't isn't really
30:28
going to be kind of like a gadfly anymore. more. He's too busy now. He's actually running, you know, he's he's
30:33
running the lowa aspect of death job full on. That that's his deal now. He's
30:38
he's displaced Misala that we need some we need a low who's not always going to be like helping us.
30:45
We can't necessarily trust has our best, you know, the best interests of everybody at heart. And I think Zoljing
30:52
would be really good at this because he's not ever going to let go what they did to him. You know that I just
30:59
remember Do you remember that that trailer for Zulgrub all those years ago? I do actually. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't Wasn't that something like
31:06
you you saw that and go like, "Oh, wow. Okay, this guy's mad." Oh, yeah. And you Yeah. And you didn't you didn't
31:11
even feel like he was wrong to be mad like, you know, they they they put out his eye, you know, just just just
31:19
because just to be jerks. So, yeah. I I I'm going to say Zjen is my ultimate.
31:24
I'd like to bring him back. So, those are the five I'm thinking of at the moment. I could keep going with this,
31:29
but I I have two that I'm going to throw in here. Uh because the there
31:37
surprisingly most of the deaths in Warcraft, or maybe not surprisingly, most of the deaths in
31:44
Warcraft are villains, right? They're not they're not good guys. They're not,
31:49
you know, folks that are, you know, supposed to live forever or, you know, they're ones that they're very few that
31:56
die like a really horrific death and then there are even a fewer that stay dead. Uh, looking at you, Vulg uh
32:03
technically dead, but you're coming back as Aloa, so I I think that counts. Um,
32:08
first on the list is going to be King Variian Ren. And that is a major character, but here's the reason why.
32:17
I don't think we really got to finish his story. I don't think he got to have
32:26
enough of a a tender moment with his son. And like
32:31
trying to think how to phrase this. I have strong feelings about when a dad character dies, as I'm sure many people
32:37
do, but watching what happened to Anduin afterwards
32:43
feels like it was too much.
32:48
Uh, and I kind of wish that if we could get Varian to come back, even if it's
32:53
just as like a ghost talking to Anduin. Uh, yeah, he like a force ghost. I I was
33:00
kind of I was questioning this until you said that. that I'm like, "Oh, no. I'm on board for that." Right. I don't I don't want Varian to come back
33:06
and displace Andowin from the life he's in. Sure. So much as I would like And to get to
33:12
say the things cuz, you know, I mean, that's it. That's what That's what broke him.
33:17
Yeah. He didn't There were so many things they wanted to say. And I understand that's a huge pivotal moment and and etc. And a character
33:24
defining moment. I get that. But like he's still a wash. like he's coming back
33:30
to handle the throne and like start taking care of things after he got air quote got his groove back a little bit
33:38
but he's still not him like he doesn't I I think having Varian like having them
33:45
give that closure would like do a lot to start to heal the character at least in my opinion
33:51
and a great deal I'm going to say this as somebody I' I've lost a parent I think you know I know Joe has um as you
33:59
grow older As you go from like the child who lost a parent into an adulthood,
34:04
there is a reckoning you have with with all that entails, there's a I'm not
34:12
saying it's, you know, I'm not saying I literally see a ghost and have conversations with it, but you do have
34:17
to kind of come to peace with what you did, what you said, what they did, what they said, and what you're
34:24
never going to get to do with what, you know, all the things that they're never going to
34:30
And you could do a good de you could use because World of Warcraft is a fantasy RPG. It can use devices to n to narrate
34:40
that that we don't normally have like for example having some kind of like anyone could go back to the Shadowlands
34:46
and talk to him. I mean he briefly talked to him in the Shadowlands. Technically it was actually Zerith
34:52
Mortise but you know there's that moment. you could have something where
34:58
they get to have a conversation and I think it is a conversation that we all
35:03
kind of do end up having when we lose our parents. Um there's there's that
35:10
even if it's just one you have with yourself. Uh it is something where you have to go okay uh I can't I I can't
35:16
just relate to you anymore. I have to be my own person. I think that's a conversation that
35:22
Andrew really needs to have. Yeah, I would agree about being his own person. So, yeah. And then the the other one that I really
35:31
it'll never ever happen now or at least it's been established that it can't happen was Gash.
35:38
If I could bring Gash back, I would because Gash was
35:45
a wo like he was a wonderfully complicated
35:50
monstrosity of a humanoid. Like he did what he did for, for lack of a better
35:58
term, at least in his mind, all of his all of the right reasons. There's a meme that goes around that says Gash was
36:04
right, right? or Gash wasn't wrong or whatever the case is. And we've talked about this on the show before. A lot of
36:10
the situations he was put into was because one, he's living in the shadow
36:15
of his father, which is a monumental task for the best of us.
36:24
He's living in the shadow of Thr who is literally and and and I know we
36:32
joke but like Thr for a lot of the Warcraft history has been like a Jesus
36:37
figure right trying to unite doing the the the preaching to this or Moses
36:43
leading his people Moses leading his people out out of you know out of bondage sort of thing. Yeah. Um, I would say too that with
36:49
Garage, the problem I always feel like for for for Gash, I almost said poor Garage. It's not that I think Garage
36:56
isn't, you know, isn't sometimes his own worst enemy. I do absolutely think that.
37:01
And I also think that Garage did a lot of things that were just mean-spirited and evil. But as one person, I think I
37:09
think it might have been even you, Joe, where you're talking about it and you made the point if it was you, and if it's not you, well, take credit for it
37:15
if you want to. Uh but the point was made that Gash was extremely good
37:21
at at one thing. He was a general. He was a very good general. He was a very good general and he was an
37:27
innovative general. He would come up with interesting new ideas. Uh the thing was is that he needed
37:33
somebody there to stop him when he went too far. when you had that like in
37:39
Northrren when you had counterbalancing elements like you had uh Sarfang there
37:45
you know keeping him in check and you had Sorfang the younger there as a counterbalance to Gash
37:52
and I've said it before it's because he was a child essentially needing that guidance to figure out what the right
37:58
things to do were where the limits were when you when you first meet Gash he is
38:04
broken inside he he is internal internalized the lesson that, you know,
38:10
being the the son of Hellcream, being on Hellscream makes you we broken and
38:16
you're always going to do the wrong thing and you can't be trusted and he won't act. Like when you go through in
38:22
the ground, you know, as a Horde character, you're basically, even as Alliance to a degree, you're basically
38:28
trying to get this guy to do something and he won't because he believes any
38:33
choice he makes is doomed to failure and he's cursed by what his father did. And
38:41
then TH shows up and basically throws this whole like look how heroic your
38:48
father truly was. He saved us ultimately from the blood curse. And imagine having
38:54
like spending your entire life thinking, "I'm broken. I'm worthless. I'm useless. I should have just died." Like everybody
39:00
said when I was a kid, and I was too sickly and weak. I should have just died. I I I'm not worth anything. And
39:06
you get told, "No, no, you're the way you are about everything is wrong. Uh your father was great." and the whiplash
39:14
of it. He goes from this broken, beaten,
39:19
self-hating thing to, "No, I was wrong. Everything about orcs and my father is
39:24
great." And the truth is just his father was a complicated and sometimes
39:30
contradictory person. Why would you expect the son to be any different?
39:36
You you you take him and you seesaw him between reject everything about yourself
39:42
to everything about yourself is the best ever. And then you literally leave him in charge of the entire horde while you
39:48
go off to talk to rocks. It's like he's not like you must guide
39:53
him Karen. He's not going to listen to me. I'm some cow person he never met
39:58
before. The only person around here who's got any influence on him is you. And I don't know if you noticed this.
40:04
despite the fact that he's older than you, he's out he lashes out at you like
40:09
a teenager trying to prove that you're not his real dad. Mhm. And that's the whole deal with Gash was
40:16
he he spent all of his time trying to prove he was his own man, but he wasn't
40:22
cuz he didn't know anything about himself. He didn't know what it meant. Right. No, no, not at all. You're completely
40:29
right on that. Right. like and and that's one of the things that I think is like the greatest tragedy with the character is before we
40:35
got a chance to do anything with that. Uh it is
40:43
he was just killed. It was just written off the island, right? um in like a big
40:49
jailbreak sequence and like he got to die and have like one her like I don't even want to say heroic but like one
40:57
real big moment of doubt casting in Thr's brain forcing Thr to and I'm going
41:04
to air quote forcing Thall uh to take his life with the elements and causing this whole big spiral for Thr. And at
41:10
the end of it it's like why why did that have to be the end of that character who
41:15
was so complicated? And I think one of the reasons that that character was so imprinted on is we could all relate to
41:22
it, right? Like not necessarily the vile things, but we've all I mean, but we've all lost our temper. I
41:29
I'll st say there are things I've done in my life that I look back on and go, "Oh boy." But but how many of those things were
41:35
were us figuring out where where the lines were and being plot better?
41:40
Yeah. I mean that's and that certainly is something that I mean one of the things that I I I don't think we have to
41:48
accept that he is gone first off because you can tell me over and over again
41:54
about how you know he destroyed his own to to to do that but I'm sorry this is
42:01
Gash Hellsgream a guy whose pure fury at how he was
42:07
treated was so great that he beat up the
42:14
greatest shaman who ever lived in a hand-to-hand fight. He was kicking
42:19
Thraw's butt in the Mora decidedly even Yeah. The only reason Thraw came
42:26
out of that was cuz he forced the elements to step in. He had to cheat.
42:34
I I'm I'm sorry. I can imagine like Gash forcing his way out of the
42:40
Shadowlands, forcing his way out of the supposed oblivion he's been cast to, especially since we've got things that
42:46
devour all existence coming, right? Where do they where do they live? What
42:53
where do they come from? Cuz that sounds like the kind of place that somebody who explosively annihilated their own soul
42:59
would end up. Can you imagine like like devourer garage showing up and he like you know
43:06
now he's like infused with this cosmic nega negative existence and he has to
43:12
figure out what that is and then he has to like and in the end he's never going to
43:18
actively choose to destroy his own people. That is Gash's line.
43:26
He'll never take a choice that he believes will destroy his people. He might take a choice that will destroy
43:32
his people, but not one that he thinks will do that.
43:37
He will he'll do awful things involving old gods or what have you to make his people strong enough to to have the
43:44
future he thinks they should have. But would would he kill them? No. Never.
43:50
So, if you tell me like this cosmic force that wants to eat the universe shows up at some point, even if it was
43:56
using Gahash like a puppet, he would turn on it. Yeah. Because there's no way he's going to let
44:02
you kill the orcs. It's not going to happen.
44:07
I just Yeah. I mean, talking about Karen, too, and the way Karen went out like Garish
44:15
hated that Gar wanted to win the fight. and he wanted to win it fairly and he
44:21
didn't want to kill Karen. He respected Karen like he didn't understand him but he he
44:30
respected him. He he especially respected him after he nearly got killed by him. He was like you know he was powerful. He
44:36
was a he was a true warrior and you cheated me of my victory. Like now I won't I'll never know if I
44:43
would have won. Like that's that's not what I want. There's just so many aspects to Gash
44:49
that yeah, I have to agree. I'd like to see him come back. Uh him I could actually totally see I could be would be
44:54
totally okay with him physically coming back. Whereas with with Vyarian, I feel like Vyian's physical death is
45:01
fine. Like a really good moment to go out on, but I believe you're totally correct that he it does leave him and
45:07
Anduin in a place where there should have been more. Yeah, I absolutely agree on that one. And
45:12
maybe it says something about me that both of the characters that I zero in on are, you know, going around the whole daddy issues thing. Uh,
45:20
but like in both cases, I feel like it's just that it's that moment of closure, that moment of of substance or something
45:28
like But yeah, Gash, I would absolutely love to like even if it's like an alternate timeline, Gash, cuz that's the
45:35
other thing that we could do here, too. Um, yeah, it's true. like dealing with Remix and Legion and Mists and now that we're
45:43
friends with the infinite dragon flight, punching a hole in reality and pulling another another Gash through maybe not
45:48
so farfetched. Well, think about this. We we were told that Gash didn't exist in the world of
45:55
Dr. timeline because his mother died. Mhm. What if she died in childbirth?
46:00
Yeah. And the the ogres took Gash and raised him somewhere. And then of
46:06
course, you know, all that stuff happened and the planet gets blown up. Imagine at some point this this Gash
46:11
like covered in or in ogre armor comes out of a portal and is like the ogres have to be stopped, you know? I mean,
46:18
you could totally just do all sorts of different stuff with him. I'd love to see uh an alternate version of Garash
46:24
show up. Yeah. Maybe when there's a shaman. Yeah. Well, you like
46:29
just to really mess with everybody. You could do so much with it and I I would absolutely be here for it. Uh so I guess
46:36
we're going to have time for one more probably here, but hopefully that answers your question, Dre. Uh this one
46:42
comes from Momen. Uh what one idea, concept, or object that's somehow
46:48
reproducible there would you bring to Azeroth if you could if you could to utterly cause chaos and or make you
46:55
powerful rich? What what would you do, Matt? What would
47:00
you I don't care about being I don't care about being powerful rich uh in a video game. Um that doesn't that's not really
47:08
the thing I'm particularly interested in. Uh all my characters are plenty powerful enough just by the end of a of
47:14
an expansion anyway. Um I mean seriously, I've killed the gods at this point. It's just okay. Yeah, whatever.
47:22
Um, but I I do think what I would really
47:27
like to see in Azeroth is less like a in terms of concepts, I'd
47:36
like to see I don't know how to put this. Um,
47:42
I would like to see them actually start working on diplomacy. Like we've talked before about how it would be nice to
47:48
have like a common meeting area like a city somewhere on Azeroth where every
47:53
faction sends people to and there's like negotiation and skull duggery and so forth. I'd love to see that kind of free
48:00
city that doesn't belong to anybody that everybody can go to and then instead of just everyone going there and using it
48:06
as a way station to go to raids and stuff, there's actual storyline stuff in that city about the machinations,
48:13
uh, people jockeying for power and influence, kind of cold war spy type stuff. I'd like to see that kind of
48:20
thing. I like to see like an actual um spy thriller type city in in World of
48:27
Warcraft where you could go and instead of you know trying to kill each other,
48:32
you you you jockey for position, you you score points. Also, you kind of socialize with the other the other
48:39
factions. Like imagine like the Horde and the Alliance pretty much don't fight anymore and that's fine. But imagine if
48:46
you you basically like you have this storyline where you've got the Horde ambassador and the alliance the alliance
48:51
uh like secondary plan of potentiary minister and they're having an affair
48:57
and and each side has different ideas about this and other organizations are
49:03
like you know the Knights of the Evan Blade for some reason are really offended about this and it turns out that the reason they're offended about
49:09
this is that the the all the alliance mister is in fact now a death knight.
49:15
uh didn't tell anybody that they died and were, you know, raised as a warrior at one point uh for the Lich King. And
49:23
there's like this whole you're supposed to be doing, you know, death knight stuff. You're not supposed to be like seducing an orc. Uh just I'd like to see
49:31
more like stories that aren't all about just crushing the latest giant threat.
49:37
I'd like to see any like more stories where it's about creating something new, maintaining the new world that you're
49:43
trying to create. Um trying to learn how to get along with people that aren't necessarily your friends, but you don't
49:49
want to be enemies with anymore. Um so yeah, that's that's one thing I'd
49:54
like to see. Kind of like spies spies and power jockeying in in in Azeroth.
50:01
Yeah, I I can definitely see that concept being something that that would be interesting to bring back. Me
50:07
personally, I have a funny answer and then I have a real answer. Um, funny
50:13
answer is I would bring Magic the Gathering to Azeroth. And the only reason I would do that is because two people would be too busy uh trying to
50:19
collect those ultra rare cards to, you know, be mad at each other. Um, that's the joke. Now, you've just created you've just
50:26
created like a Hearthstone Magic the Gathering war. Why not? Where they like No, I'm I'm not saying
50:32
it's a bad idea. I'm just saying imagine like all the basically all the cards are fighting.
50:37
Yeah. Just I just think like Hearthstone, this is a magical game where the pieces come to life and tell a story on this magical board and then
50:43
there's warriors over here is like I don't like magic. This one just says numbers. I push sideways. This is great.
50:50
Like just something dead simple like that would be absolutely hysterical to me. Um the
50:56
other one is to to Matt's uh thing where he saw talked about the the idea of
51:01
diplomacy. One is the concept of a magically enforced neutral zone where
51:08
and this has been done in fiction and this has been done in sci-fi. This has been done uh everywhere that that that
51:14
was done in Berlin in in the actual world that we live in Berlin in the in the 50s and 70s. But I mean something
51:21
that actually functions uh um that's fair
51:26
in which when you are there when you are present there no violence or minations
51:33
to commit violence can be done and that are magically enforced like if you go and hit somebody that damage is not
51:40
dealt to them it's inflicted upon you or something along that line. something that enforces true neutrality for
51:48
meeting and discussions in the diplomacy. Because one of the big problems that we've seen in in Warcraft over the years is almost every single
51:56
time you get a group of people together for doing something diplomatic or to discuss something, there's going to be
52:03
violence. Like it is just tempers are going to flare. Somebody's going to swing a fist or a weapon. uh assassins
52:09
are going to come in from the sidelines like uh you know Zatas is going to pop out of the long dead mage's body like
52:16
you're going to have something go sideways and I would like there to be this this actually like mutually agreed
52:24
upon somehow anciently enforced neutral ground like I think that would be very
52:31
very interesting. The other thing that I would if I could would be the concept of
52:36
long range communication without mages. Whether this is done via, you know,
52:43
messengers or something like that like it is or currently is debatable, but I mean something like an instant
52:49
communication style like the mechanome or mechagon PA system, right? But think
52:56
longer term. Radios, actual frequencies, something that allows ships at sea to
53:02
not necessarily have to have a mage or somebody to like use magic to communicate back with where they're
53:09
going or where they're from. Something that lets it be more of an any man's
53:15
world. And I kind of like that concept. And we saw bits and pieces of it. Like don't me wrong, magic is very cool and I
53:23
like magic. But there's also this idea of replicating magic with practical
53:29
technology that I think could be explored more in WoW, right? Like we
53:35
have automatons that are purely mechanical. We have wondrous things that
53:40
are purely mechanical. I'd like to lean into that more. I'd like to see things that replicate magical effects that are
53:47
are just purely science-based. And I think that would be an interesting
53:53
wrinkle, right? Because then you have you're talking about causing chaos.
53:59
It's kind of like the the Kora thing, right? The the legend the the Avatar Last Air Bender Legend of Kora
54:06
bending was like the way that everybody knew how to do everything. But then all of a sudden technology starts springing
54:13
ahead and you can replicate a lot of the things you could do with bending with technology whether it was locomotion or
54:20
you know heating cooling things like that. You could do that without having to have a bender present. And it opened
54:27
up all of that possibility for people that weren't gifted with that. Think about how many people in Azeroth are not
54:33
gifted with magic or don't have, you know, an innate ability. How many people are footmen or soldiers or farmers,
54:41
right? They don't have any magical ability whatsoever. They don't have any special skills whatsoever. They're essentially just fodder. Now, imagine if
54:50
you could give them something that I don't know, let's say they wanted to have like a stun gun. Mages. Yeah, we
54:55
can cast lightning bolt. Shaman can cast lightning bolt. Farmer. Now, the farmer can cast lightning bolt. Like, I'd love
55:02
to see stuff like that. And then you'd have that that that friction between mages and and magic
55:09
wielders and non-magic wielders. And I just think that would be funny. Like I think it would be absolutely
55:14
hysterical. Joe wants to bring Arcanum of Steamworks and Magic Obscura to Azeroth. And quite
55:21
frankly, it it's a good game, so he should bring it there. Yeah, that's uh that's my my my concepts
55:29
or objects that I would bring back. I mean, there's so many things you could like, is there anything else you would
55:34
consider bringing, Matt? I mean, not gonna say no to Spider-Man.
55:42
Yeah, Spider-Man show up, but I don't care which one, you know, could be all of them. The entire Web Warriors thing,
55:49
it could be Miles. It could be whatever. I don't care. Just Spider-Man. Spider-Man's cool. Um, I mean we, this
55:55
isn't Azeroth, but I remember this this bit very, for like a long time from the
56:01
original Dragon Age when you find the star metal that you can make the star
56:06
metal sword out of, which is like the best sword you can get in Awakenings. Um, it it's the whole story about how it
56:13
was this weird cosmic egg that came to the planet and these farmers found a
56:18
child in it and took the child away and left the star metal there. And you never hear again anything about that.
56:26
And that's always made me think like, wait, is there a Kryptonian? Like, please don't let the Kryptonian get the
56:31
blight. Please, no. Uh, but you know, you could you could do that, too, for that matter.
56:38
Um, yeah. No, I'm I'm just going to go with Spider-Man.
56:44
All right. Well, friends, I think that's good. I get bit by a lot of spiders, man. There's a lot of spiders on Azeroth that
56:50
could bite you. Okay. Well friends, I think that's going to do it for us today. Uh, we do want to thank
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you for joining us and remind you that Blizzard is made possible due to the generous contributions at patreon.com/b
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blizzardwatch. Your continued support means that this podcasting community is able to thrive and grow. Blizzard watch
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supporters exclusive benefits like early access to the podcast. Better having your question answered on our podcast or the Q&A ads free site experience. Again,
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friends, if you have questions for this or any of our podcast, be sure to send those in to podcasterwatch.com.
57:21
specify the show that it is for in the subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name. You can also
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hit us on Discord. We have the Q and podcast questions channel set aside for everybody. Same rules apply. And if
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you're a Patreon subscriber, you can go ahead and put those questions or topics in the Patreon Q and podcast questions
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channel. We tend to look there first as a way of saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on. So, thank you very
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much, friends. We'll see you next week. [Music]