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As we make our way into the Midnight prepatch and beyond, Matt, Joe, and Eric take the opportunity to recap the lore of The War Within. In case you missed it -- or maybe missed some of the signs leading up to it, or through it -- we have the story. It starts with a literal bang, and the destruction of Dalaran. The implications of that, from how it affects the plot all the way to how it affects the way the writers can shape the story forward, set the stage for all the The War Within, and perhaps beyond as we make our way back into Silvermoon City in Midnight, and then Northrend in The Last Titan. We'll talk about the hijinks of Xal'atath, and why the heck we ended up in Undermine, anyway.
All those detours and more on this episode of Lore Watch!
If you want even more background story, we also have a guide to every Warcraft book in chronological order (for those of you who prefer reading that way): https://blizzardwatch.com/warcraft-books/
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0:09
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch, a round table free form discussion about lore and your favorite media. I'm your host,
0:15
Joe Perez, one of several lore focused folks from Blizzard Watch. And I've got my stalwart companion with me today,
0:20
Matt Rossy. How you doing today, Matt? I found an old directory on my Google Drive of stuff I wrote and then emailed
0:28
to myself or to other people. And one of the things I found was the thing I wrote
0:33
for Wraith. That is some depressing beep, man. That
0:38
is that is I was reading that going, "Oh boy." So So right in line with Wraith.
0:44
Oh yeah. Yeah. It No, it's it is right there. Uh, but it was like I'm sitting there going, I I want to go back in time
0:50
and say, "Hey, do you need a hug?" And then I realized, yes, yes, he pretty much always, pretty much always. Uh, and
0:57
joining us today on our journey is a person who uh was kind enough to step in last week and spend some time with me
1:04
and you'll be seeing a lot more of in the near future. Another one of our lower focused folks or at least lore
1:10
enthusiast people, Eric ODay. Eric, how you doing? My directive is the podcast. Great to be
1:16
here, Joe. Yeah, Eric is uh turns out also a lore enthusiast, has written plenty of stuff
1:21
for the website revolving around that and has done some really great work. Highly recommend going to the website
1:27
and reading uh some of Eric's pieces as well as some of the stuff that, you know, Matt writes cuz out of the three
1:33
of us, they write. I don't anymore. Uh yeah, I write occasionally. Joe does
1:40
backend and and Eric actually s really does write for us. Yeah. Uh, today we're going to be not
1:46
answering your questions because, well, I'm chalk out of them for now, which means I'm going to beg you at this point
1:52
to send us questions or episodes that you want us to theme around. If you have an idea, uh, you can go ahead and send
1:59
those suggestions or questions into podcastwatch.com. We ask that you specify the show that it
2:05
is for and the subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name. If you want to hit us up on Discord, we
2:11
have the Qin podcast questions channel set aside for everybody to do so. Same rules apply. If you are a Patreon
2:18
subscriber, you get the access uh benefit to the uh patron Q and podcast
2:24
questions channel. Uh we tend to look there first. It's our extra way saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on. You can also send us messages
2:30
through Patreon uh and make Liz send them to us, which is always funny
2:35
because Liz always like just kind of sends them off like I found this for you. Uh and it makes me happy every time
2:41
that I get something from Patreon. Uh but today we don't really have a lot of
2:46
that to talk about. Instead, I figured with the timing of the pre- patch and with the War Within winding down, it
2:54
would be a good chance to sort of kind of review the story so far. Talk about
2:59
the things that have happened in The War Within, uh whether they pulled on something in the past and bring it into
3:05
the the current, uh or what they're kind of setting up for the next expansion in Midnight or beyond. uh because there's a
3:12
lot of stuff that has happened in what feels like a very short period of time if I'm being honest. So, the opening of
3:19
the expansion, and I'm just going to kind of start with the the beginning because that seems like a good place to begin, uh is with the visions of Azeroth
3:25
where people across Azeroth are starting to experience strange visions, uh and
3:30
hearing a song, the radiant song. uh several high uh ranking NPCs such as
3:38
Thrall, Jana Proudmore, Andrew, and Ren. Um they hear this song. They hear they
3:45
they receive these visions and they know instinctively that they're from Azeroth, which for Jana doesn't make a whole lot
3:52
of sense to me. Um I understand she's a very powerful mage, but it always seemed a little weird that she would understand
3:58
that it was immediately from Azeroth. Th makes perfect sense. At one point in time, he joined with the dragon aspects
4:03
to help forge the the new way to destroy Deathwing and and all that stuff. So, if you've ever read the book involving
4:10
that, he was absolutely connected to Azeroth and all those sorts of weird and wacky ways. Um,
4:15
my response to this is crude and so I'm not going to say it, but it's got
4:21
something to do with Jana's dating history, let's say. Yeah. I I Yeah, we're not going to talk
4:27
about that. Uh, and then there's Anduin Ren, who uh, you know, is at this point having a crisis of identity, hasn't
4:33
figured out who he is anymore, uh, after being driven around like the worst drone
4:38
in all of history in in Shadowlands. Uh, and then, you know, I Hey, I'm going to argue with you. He
4:45
was a great drone. He was extremely effective at everything the Jailer wanted him to do.
4:52
Yeah, that's that's fair. I can't I can't really argue with that. But they all go and they seek Magny out because
4:57
Magny is the speaker of Azeroth. He has been able to communicate with Azeroth's old world soul in the past. Uh and he's
5:04
been silent for several years at this point. Um he winds up getting injured uh
5:10
as they wind up as he tries to commune with Azeroth. Uh they relocate to the floating city of Doeron, home of the
5:16
Kantor mages, along with Magny's daughter, Moira, and her son, Dagran Theresian II, heir to all dwarven
5:24
thrones, minus really the Wild Hammer, but I'm sure he'll get married into that one. That'll be fun. Uh they consult Art
5:30
Mage Katgar uh and Yario Windrunner on how to proceed. Uh Magny awakens to explain that Azeroth warned him that
5:37
dark forces uh underneath the surface of uh Kazalgar are sort of forming and
5:43
causing this distress. And so we do whatever we do whenever there's a
5:48
problem and we happen to be in the middle of Dooran, we teleport it in the middle of whatever conflict we're going to cuz this makes perfect sense to the
5:55
heroes of Azeroth. Uh, I honestly feel like a lot of the time
6:00
nobody bothers to actually ask the quote unquote heroes of Azeroth. Um, they come
6:06
up with the plan and then they inform you that they're going to do it and then you're like, but and then next thing you
6:11
know, you've been transported to the middle of a bugfilled nightmare war. Um,
6:18
kudos to that to that guys. Uh, yeah. Involuntary road trip if you're in the city that's taking the road trip.
6:24
Yes, exactly. I feel like there's a lot of that amongst the uh you know the the higher mucky mucks of Azeroth is this
6:32
tendency like ah you know they'll figure it out. Let's we'll just get there and they'll just run out. They maybe there's
6:37
a pet somewhere they want to adopt. It'll be fine. Yeah. And then so we wind up going and and teleporting dollar. We
6:45
we we do the things that they ask us to do. We realign these wards uh that are going to reinforce Azeroth. We teleport
6:52
to the location that we've been given. Uh, and then all heck breaks loose. Uh,
6:57
you wind up seeing all the words fail. Uh, the arch mage Drenin turns out to
7:04
not actually be Drenin, but instead be Zotath in disguise cuz, as we called it years ago, Drenan was actually dead cuz
7:11
nobody had seen him for a while and then he just mysteriously shows back up. Nothing suspicious there at all. Clearly
7:17
uh the I can never remember cuz there are too many bug races. What was the one
7:23
that she was working with here? Matt, help me out or Eric. Help me out here. Rubians. They're the Rubians. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so they wind up assaulting the
7:30
city. Uh and then the resultant explosion of Doaron occurs. And this is our opening salvo uh into the war within
7:38
which I think all of this setup is actually relatively important to a lot of stuff that is going on in the past
7:46
and will happen in the future. We talked a little bit about it with uh you know the Kieran tour trying to rediscover who
7:53
they are and what they are which is uh profoundly uh calls to me in many many
7:58
different ways. Uh, but also it's the death of an icon without the death of an
8:04
icon, if that makes sense. A lot of times in Warcraft's history, if they
8:09
wanted to drive a point home, nine times out of 10, they killed an important NPC.
8:14
Somebody would die that was, you know, beloved, and that would get an emotional response. Here they destroy Doaron,
8:21
which did get an emotional response and is in many ways as much of a character as some of the other NPCs, but I thought
8:27
it was a really nice touch uh to blow up a city instead of killing off a
8:33
character. I know that seems like a weird thing to say, but I thought it set the perfect tone for this for the this
8:39
expansion. So, that was the the first part of it. What did you guys think or or did you have anything to add that I
8:45
missed? Eric, start with you. Yeah, knowing that a like Doran that we've
8:50
been to so much that has played a big part in a lot of different expansions isn't safe, doesn't have plot armor, can
8:56
be destroyed, not just like kind of destroyed or kidnapped, but like vaporized is like a really good start to
9:04
an expansion and a trilogy to to say you don't know what's going to happen and uh
9:10
nothing is safe. And we did get Khadgar also vaporized the same time. So, it was kind of a
9:16
one-two punch of Hadgar seemingly not being around anymore at the same time
9:22
that Deran was reduced to, you know, a couple of crystals and towers on the shore. I I' I'd argue that we saw Khadgar get
9:28
sucked into a magical artifact and not necessarily die. And one thing that I have learned from TVs, movies, books,
9:35
and video games, if there's no body, the current the kill is not confirmed. So, right, if we if we moved on a bit quick
9:41
and there was no, you know, stopping, then we pro we probably will not have heard the last of that character. It's
9:46
true. Yeah. Well, plus there's the old thing about even if you do have the body, are you sure it's not a clone?
9:52
Yeah. Is it an extradimensional copy? Let's let's, you know, let's run down the list, guys.
9:57
Well, one one one day when we talk about the lore of Lurin and Magic the Gathering, I get to tell a whole story about that. Anyway, please Matt, your
10:03
your take. Well, I mean, I don't if Eric had more to say, I don't want to stop it, so I'm going to say you were you
10:09
done, dude? Yep, that's it. Okay. Um, my take is actually uh
10:15
surprisingly non complicated. Uh, I think it is like
10:21
that meme where somebody's like, why would you do something so shocking and yet so brave? It it's this moment of,
10:29
you know, you like this city, right? You've been there a lot. You've gone to this city like multiple expansions now.
10:34
Boom, it's done. You're not having that city anymore. You get used to figuring out a new
10:40
city's, you know, geography cuz this one's not going to be it. And I say this
10:46
in a sarcastic manner, but I don't mean it that. Uh, I think it was a good choice both to do as as Eric said to set
10:53
up a new trilogy with a a feeling of there are some stakes, but also to give
11:01
a sort of a like a warning that you will not that when we go back to a place, it
11:06
does not mean that the place it's not going to just be a visit. Like we know in the in the next two expansions, we
11:13
are going back to places. We know this because we know, you know, we we know a
11:18
lot about the opening of Midnight now. We know we're going to be in Silver Moon and stuff is going to change in Silver
11:24
Moon. Uh the the entire forest, uh there's going to be changes. Things are going to
11:30
get altered. We don't know what comes after, but we do know that we're going to go see the Haroner at some point. So,
11:35
there's a lot of potential for new and and interesting changes. And we know
11:40
from leaks now uh that that Blizzard did. Blizzard did a video and they put it up uh they gave it to uh was it which
11:48
was it? Pez radar. I don't remember. No, he's not. He's he for one thing he doesn't even work there anymore. Um and he wasn't he was Diablo. Anyway, uh
11:55
there's a video of them working on stuff for Northr and so we know there will be something in Northrand. And yeah,
12:01
one of the things Yeah. One of the things they even said was that people's acceptance of things
12:08
in the war within specifically is what got them to think okay if if the opening
12:16
of of the war within can you know if shows us this we can then see what will happen in midnight and when people you
12:22
know look said oo silver moon that's great for for the war within it going into midnight that means people are now
12:30
even more open going into the third one to see something like Northride again. It's it was a way of setting up an
12:37
expectation of even the even the old familiar stuff is new now in my opinion.
12:43
That's one of the things it was doing. Agreed. I think those are all very good points for both the uh from here we are
12:49
then greeted after defending our way uh against the Narubians. Uh we are greeted
12:56
by a very skeptical group of earn. Uh this is the main uh initial I guess I
13:03
don't want to say conflict but developing personality trait of act one now that the prologue is done. Uh we are
13:11
brought into the city to talk with the the officials. Uh they saw us fighting off the Narubians. They know that we're
13:18
not necessarily enemies but we're not quite friends yet. Uh, and we are brought into uh, Kazgar and the aisle of
13:25
Dorne uh, where we get to meet uh, all of their leaders and learn about all of
13:31
their problems including the fact that they dogmatically follow teachings of the Titans. Um, and there are some weird
13:39
I don't want to say cultural, but I don't know a better way to phrase it. There are rituals that they partake in
13:45
that that seem odd and I think it's framed in such a way of being odd
13:52
intentionally and that plays into the story where like their bodies will give out and they will and I'm going to air
13:58
quote die but then their memory crystals a a a piece of them that contains their
14:03
personality and memory are committed essentially to a vast library and then other earn later. Uh there's an entire
14:11
system for this in one of their underground uh facilities that is a Titan facility that essentially produces
14:16
new Earth. Um you get to learn all about their society. You get to learn about
14:22
how some of them have actually uh given up on following the Titans. Uh these are
14:27
sort of outcasts and those outcasts live at like sort of the outskirts of uh the
14:34
the earthn society in these small villages sometimes near mining facil or
14:40
mining areas where they you know subside essentially cuz they don't eat food,
14:45
they eat rocks. So mining is essentially farming to them. Uh, and then you find out that one of those in exile is a
14:52
former leader of the council or one of the leaders of the on the council of the
14:58
earthn. One of the I I can't remember her name, but she's essentially their healer. Uh, she's the one.
15:04
Thank you. Um, so you you you meet her and you you understand some of the
15:09
struggles that some of them literally don't believe that following this this dogmatic set of rules is how they live.
15:18
it's not what they want. Uh, and I think that is really interesting and I really
15:24
it's a great way to have a conflict outside of a military conflict where it's not necessarily these people are
15:31
having a civil war. It's these people have a difference of ideology that has caused a schism. friends and lovers fall
15:38
on other sides of these this this big line uh where some will will maintain
15:44
their life in the city following whatever role they were chosen and some want to define themselves beyond that
15:50
role which I thought was really neat because it's not a concept that has been
15:55
explored very often in Warcraft really I want to say the nigh hold and and the
16:01
the night were really one of the first that really sort of did that in an in-your-face kind of way. So, I really
16:08
liked it. How did you guys feel about the introduction of the earn? Start with Matt. Am I going this first? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
16:14
Um, one of the things I liked about the Earth was the fact that their conflict was ideological rather than Marshall.
16:22
They they weren't enemies. Uh, they were they were competing points of view and
16:28
in some cases they'd hurt each other. like when Adelon and uh her Stormaller
16:34
ex-boyfriend and whose name is I mean not getting at the moment. Storm Bilgrim.
16:40
Thank you. When when Adelon and Bilgrim meet again, there's clearly tension between them, but it's not hate.
16:47
Yeah. No, it's not hate at all. Um and as Bill Gun sees what she's living like, he
16:55
starts to question. He's like, "Wait, wait a minute. You you can do this?" Because it's like to him it seemed
17:01
absurd. Like it was like saying, you know, we're going to stop letting gravity pull us to the ground. He's
17:08
like, what do you mean you're going to stop letting gravity pull you to the ground? That you can't. That's not that's what gravity does. Uh but the
17:14
here they are all walking on ceilings from his perspective. Um and I liked
17:19
that. I liked that it unfolded. I also like that over time you found out that even other members of the council
17:27
weren't necessarily as committed to the whole ideal. Um
17:32
like the one that led a dual life. Yeah. It was kind of interesting.
17:37
He was literally uh simultaneously the oldest member of the council of Dornagal. Uh he's Mars.
17:43
Council council ward Mars. I went and looked it up. Um and at the same time he is like secretly doing things behind the
17:51
scenes to it's like we must you know keep to the ancient ways and they must keep working but since everything is
17:56
secretly broken I have to nudge it into the proper place. Yeah. And so there's a
18:02
whole wide variety of responses to this idea that we were created by the Titans
18:07
for a specific thing. Uh versus there is no evidence that there is any specific
18:14
mission for us anymore. There's no no orders are coming. Uh our our our
18:19
spirits are no longer being added to the repository. We we have no purpose. And
18:24
so should we just continue to follow directives that don't seem to apply anymore or should we keep going that
18:34
way? And it's like I said, it's a nice conflict. I think when uh when Bale dies
18:41
uh B not Belg Grim yeah when he dies I want to call him Belgum so bad.
18:46
Um when he dies his death and I feel like that might be a little bit of a spoiler. I'm sorry guys. We're talking
18:52
about the story so far, so we're I think we're good on that. He goes out saving everyone, especially
18:58
Elon. He's he's saving everyone, including surfacers, which is what they
19:03
call the the outcasts who who've left the uh the city and gone out into the
19:09
aisle of Dorne. He deliberately makes the point that it's for them, too. Uh
19:14
whether or not he agrees with what they're doing, they're still his people. They still need to be protected. So
19:20
yeah, there's a there's there's a lot of variety to it and there's a lot of nuance to it that I liked. And I mean,
19:26
it's kind of hard to say that you don't like big rock dwarfs. I mean, you know, it's it's just kind of kind of hard to
19:32
argue that they're not they're not fun. So yeah, I I I think that's basically it for me right now, at least in terms of
19:38
that response. I do wish we gotten to see more with them than just the opening
19:43
salvo of the expansion. There's a ton of stuff I want to know that I don't know, Eric. Yeah, I I agree that it's it first
19:51
it just seems it that they did not just do, hey, there's a new race. It's dwarves made out of rocks and we hadn't
19:56
seen them before because they're on this island that we didn't visit before. They have like an interesting story that
20:02
hooks into everything we've been doing for years. And then you talk to them and they're okay. Okay, they're robots. They
20:08
talk kind of weird, but it's like so much more than that. And they're having this sort of cold civil war, almost a
20:14
disagreement because they've been cut off for thousands of years since the Sundering. They have no connection to
20:21
the Titans or the Keepers. They're just on their own. And they've started to question what they're doing and started
20:27
to have these schisms of I think we should keep doing it even though we don't know if it's right. Well, I think we shouldn't do it cuz we don't know for
20:33
sure that it's right. And then having all these events happen really quickly and seeing them reunite and kind of go
20:40
forward um was a really it was really good to see like right away in the first
20:45
uh first act here. Um I thought it was really well done and I enjoyed it. From here we wind up working our way
20:51
through some of the other introductions. We learn about uh the the great causeway
20:57
uh or coreway, excuse me. Uh we help repair that. We reunite the underground
21:02
with the top of the uh of the surface world. Uh we bring uh all the speakers
21:08
essentially together. Uh after helping with their various trials and tribulation. Uh we meet the Algari
21:15
offensive uh or in this case the Iraqi uh we meet them uh fighting their own
21:22
war against the uh the Nubians rather vicious of vicious battle and
21:28
war. Uh, and we get to see Anduin interact with other people who wield the light in a new and interesting way with
21:35
a new perspective. Um, we joke a lot of times that this is the part of the expansion where Anduin gets his groove
21:41
back, but it kind of is because up to this point And as a character has lost faith in himself, uh, is not necessarily
21:50
calling upon the light. One, because he thinks he can't internally. Um, but also
21:55
he feels like he's not worthy, even though he's not really vocalizing it. And we've seen that his wounds have not
22:02
really begun to heal because all the people most important to him don't necessarily understand his perspective.
22:09
Jana can understand to a point. Uh, Terallion can understand to a point. Gen
22:16
Greymane can understand to a point. his father would have been the best to walk
22:21
him through this, but unfortunately his father is gone. Um, and so he's been
22:27
struggling with this identity self. He meets the Irath. He starts learning about their way of culture, how they
22:33
view the light. Uh, and then, uh, meeting uh, Feyen, I think it was um,
22:41
Fyen Fyen. Yeah. Fyen Roth Lothar. uh she is the
22:46
one that sort of breaks it down for him. It's the light doesn't abandon you. The light is the light. You choose whether
22:54
or not you open yourself to it and your scars are preventing you from opening
22:59
yourself. That's understandable. Every warrior bears wounds. And she says this
23:05
as she's sitting there with one arm and still bringing joy to children, still
23:12
preserving life, still ready to meet the front lines of battle, and still finding
23:18
that that the how to be human or I'm air quoting human here because uh Arafi are
23:24
uh essentially half elves. Yeah, the Arai in this game uh differ from the
23:29
original Arathy in that they are descendants of them but also of of you know high elves that left with them
23:36
and you see this this like light bulb moment with Anduin which then leads him
23:42
to get back in the fight essentially. Um, after all this is done, we wind up going back over to uh the the Earthn.
23:51
After a big long conversation about what's going on in the world, they decide that it's time to break their
23:57
isolation and reject the Titans uh dogmatic rules. There's a ceremonial
24:02
breaking of the disc uh which is where all these tablet this these rules and regulations sit. Uh and then in that
24:09
moment, a Titan construct of immense size tries to destroy all of the broke the disc. Someone broke the disc. Yeah,
24:16
it was very much like, you know, it was Oh, the Titan discarked on us, guys.
24:21
And and and these are two important set pieces. And the reason why I'm kind of not rushing, but kind of cramming them
24:26
together is on one hand, we and Matt and I have talked about this a lot in the past. The light is often given this sort
24:34
of like holier than thou this this big cosmic plus side and we don't really
24:41
talk about negatives any like people who follow it tend to be very uh I guess
24:47
very worshipful of it would be the best way to put it and the while they view the light in a positive light uh yeah I
24:55
know I said light a bunch there uh they're more practical in their approach to it they almost view it not as a
25:02
divine source of all things. So there is an element of that in their their hierarchy but it's a tool. It's
25:08
something that you can you call to it. It doesn't necessarily have a will of its own. Uh and then you have this where
25:15
you have uh the earth and break this this titanic hold that has given them
25:21
their directives that has dictated what their lives must be taking sort of that
25:27
free will back and then being assaulted for it. Uh, these are two really large
25:32
defining moments for two really large entities, the Light and the Titans, because the Titans have also been viewed
25:40
in sort of a a reverent way for so long. And we've gotten little bits and pieces,
25:46
especially with what happened with Tier and and the Watchers and learning that maybe everything wasn't all sunshine and
25:52
roses with them, but now this is confirmation of it. They literally built
25:57
a kill switch and we don't know which Titan did it, but Well, we don't even Yeah. The other
26:02
weirdest thing is we don't even know if it was one of the big Pantheon Titans. Yeah.
26:07
Uh we know from other stuff that we found during Dragonflight that Odin was
26:12
not was doing stuff involving other places with other Earthn who did not want to
26:19
conform to the way Odin was trying to run things in Northread. the prison island," air quote, the one the one that
26:25
we are currently on. Yeah. But the it's very clear that from the perspective of the Earth and on this
26:31
island, they weren't prisoners to anything. The Titans told them to come here. The Titans told them to do that.
26:37
Which leads me to the wondering of if Odin was somehow working against the
26:45
people that had sent them. And there's there's a lot of potential there. We don't know the answer to it, but it is
26:50
interesting in that it doesn't it doesn't jive with other things that we found, but we know in the past that
26:56
other things we found have been lies from time to time. So that's a thing to keep for in your mind going forward.
27:03
Also, I think one of the things that's really fascinating about the the dual
27:08
Titan and light revelations is there's this whole bit about, you
27:14
know, the Array are very, as you said, they're very practical. They're very pragmatic. They they view light as
27:21
metaphorical fire. And the the reason the thing about fire is obviously fire
27:26
is great for a lot of things. Keep your house warm. Light the darkness so you don't you can look outside and see
27:32
predators. Um a big old bonfire will keep the whole area nice and bug free.
27:38
Uh there's lots of good reasons to have fire. Cook your food. Uh you know, help you make stuff. Like there's certain
27:44
things you can only make by heating them up and boom there fire is great for that. A lot of good reasons to have fire. But if you know you wake up and
27:51
your barn's on fire, suddenly fire isn't your friend anymore. And I think that that's kind of there's a a sense of that
27:58
is being in part of the Arai mindset towards the light. Like I think it I
28:05
would not be surprised to find out that at some point light worshippers fought light worshippers over there because
28:10
there's a sense of yes, the light is great, but you run the show. You cannot
28:15
let it run the show. And that kind of goes along not just with what you're talking about, but in other stuff we've
28:21
seen like say all the way back to I want to say yeah Battle for Azeroth when we s
28:27
first saw the Magar home world and how the army of light there was just complete fanatics. They were just
28:33
destroying the world to to save it. And it feels like that. And we've seen that
28:38
in Legion too with uh Zera, you know, trying to force Illan to become good by
28:44
just jamming him full of light. And you know, it it's the light is not the boss.
28:50
It you can't let a a cosmic force be your boss. And I think that's something that they're trying to incorporate here
28:58
because it's it's kind of easy with stuff like the void because the void's just so malevolently over the top that
29:04
you kind of it's not hard to convince people you probably shouldn't do what it says but to convince people yeah you
29:10
shouldn't do what the warm food maker does like what it tells you you should ignore that you should make your own
29:16
decisions like but it wants to make me food and I also want to make me food great make food but when it wants to
29:22
burn down your house Mhm. Mhm. Tell it. No. No. We're not burning down my house. I like my house. It's where I
29:29
keep my food. It reminds me reminds me of the joke of uh my my wife asked me why I kept the
29:34
gun next to the toaster. Uh and then I laughed about it and she laughed about it and then the toaster laughed about it
29:40
and I shot the toaster. Uh yeah, go ahead, Eric. that there's been a lot of
29:47
groundwork laid in lately about the light isn't necessarily good all the way
29:52
through or the Titans nor order and these kind of things to see uh that they
29:58
might have agendas that they might be hiding things that there might be like we talked about last week that Telion
30:05
and Artor have different ways of seeing the light and approaching the light and using the light and the Arathy kind of
30:12
fall more towards the Artor side. It's like is a tool to be used. It does it
30:17
have a mind of its own? Does it want something? Is it sentient? Like what could it be? So I I feel like that and
30:24
with what the Titans are doing, we their answers that we're going to have to get eventually to understand what's been
30:29
going on in these chapters that we're playing now. Yeah, agreed. Uh, and that's another
30:34
thing that that actually kind of feeds into the first raid tier and and what we wind up doing there as well because
30:40
we're actually wind up assaulting Ashkahet. Uh, which is the bug city
30:46
essentially. It's where the Narubians live in this hollowedout cave that I still maintain is where an old god was
30:53
ripped from the earth at some point. Uh, time will tell if I'm right about that or not. Perhaps one with seven heads. We don't
30:58
know. Yeah, per perhaps a weird tentacle from a seven-headed one. Um, but there
31:03
before you go on, I I got to say this. This is something I've wanted to say for a very long time. I think Queen Ansurak
31:09
deserves the award for most horribly tragic betrayal in World of Warcraft in
31:16
quite some time. Yeah, we're going to talk about that in a second. I just had to throw it out there. I I
31:22
felt like physically sick when I fig found out what had happened to Anerak. Uh, no, that was Queen.
31:27
Not Anarch, her mother. Nef. Yeah. Antsk is the evil one. Um, so
31:34
we we wind up going in and we wind up uh thinking that we're just going to assault the Narubians. Uh, but instead
31:40
we find that there is actually a resistance happening. Uh, not all Narubians believe in their new queen
31:47
Anurak's vision for the future. that the black blood as gifted by Zalat that has
31:53
become active as of recent uh will transcend them into new and more powerful forms so that they can rule the
31:59
world. No, they just want to not be involved in this. And so there is a
32:05
resistance fighting back against the queen and her minations and her alliance
32:10
with Zalat. And it's not just little folks. It's folks in prominent positions
32:16
of power, generals, um, masters of their spyom. Uh, you're talking about
32:22
essentially the top brass leadership of this like entire culture. And they're
32:28
like, "Yeah, we're different from you, but we don't want to serve an old god. We remember what happened when we served
32:34
them." And I tell you, it wasn't by choice that we did that. which I also think is interesting because that's
32:40
something up until this moment we've speculated, right? We've we've talked about it
32:46
especially because yeah, I remember you brought it up. I want to make sure Joey gets credit for this. I remember you brought it up during the time travel
32:52
stuff in Dragon Flight in particular. You were like, when we get to the war
32:57
between the elemental lords and the old gods during the Black Empire, there's a
33:03
lot of evidence that the old gods just compel everything all the time. And and you you made the specific point about
33:10
how this could mean that we have, you know, the fact that the the empire lasted for as long as it did.
33:16
Yeah. There were people in it doing obeying it there. It wasn't just a bunch of old gods sitting around, you know, yammering
33:22
at each other. They had nations at their disposal. So, yeah, it is one of those things that's I'm glad to see it getting
33:29
more of it. Absolutely. But but this was that confirmation moment. And so then we aid them, right?
33:35
We we help them break free of their their essentially tyrannical rule where we've learned that the queen has been
33:42
abducting citizens and experimenting on them with black blood trying to force evolution. we learned that this may
33:48
actually be where Faceless Ones come from, which I also thought was really interesting because Faceless ones have
33:54
been sort of this nebulous uh entity that we've always associated with the old gods, but now we kind of have an
34:00
idea why that these are mutated even further by using old god blood
34:07
essentially to make a perfect soldier, amping up their rage, uh basically
34:13
turning them into voidy uh the hulks, right? um but still controllable by the will of
34:18
the old god. We break them free. We find out that Nefar, the queen that uh is
34:25
mother to Ansurak, who was uh killed at the beginning uh with the assistance of
34:32
Zalataf because Ansarak is very very ambitious uh is not actually dead but
34:38
was one of the chief experiments might have been the actual first experiment uh because Nefar was not willing to work
34:45
with Zalot, wanted to not be involved in that. Uh, we wind up going to slay her
34:50
and Sarak reaches out and begs for for more power and for help and Zealot goes,
34:56
"Nope, you did what I needed you to do. I'm outies." uh leaves her to die at our
35:01
hands. And we free the Narubians uh from the control of both the black
35:07
blood infused horror of their queen Ansurak, but also Zalat is no longer
35:13
feeding them uh lies or, you know, her own manipulations.
35:18
And we effectively stop a war, right? It's one of the few times we can
35:24
honestly say we did something good without leaving it worse than we found it in the game, which I think is also
35:31
important. But again, it's that that concept of we might not actually know
35:37
everything about everything. And this started with Shadowlands. And a lot of people, while you didn't maybe didn't
35:43
care for that expansion, reading the grimoire and going through the actual themes of what's happening there, you
35:50
you you realize you don't know the universe quite like you think you do.
35:55
And this is even further confirmation of this. Uh, which I think is really
36:01
important. Uh, Eric, I don't know how you felt about this part of it. Yeah, I feel like the ongoing storyline of the
36:07
black blood and what it can do and and it being, you know, remnants of old gods is just it's the mirror of the old gods
36:15
trying to corrupt Azeroth and the Titans trying to, you know, use machines to
36:22
pump order into Azeroth. Like, they're really trying to influence it and claim it. and what we've learned about the
36:27
world soul. It was just really interesting to see through this whole chapter what the black blood can do, how
36:33
it can change and influence thing living things and how it's, you
36:40
know, we've been rid of, you know, quote, rid of the old gods for expansions and some of them for
36:45
thousands of years and their influence is still driving the events of World of
36:51
Warcraft. So, it's it's not like we we wiped them off and we've moved on. it's just still there. It's un underground
36:58
seeping through everything. Um, it can be used by someone who comes down with
37:03
that same kind of power to I mean make entire armies more powerful. So, I
37:08
thought that that was a a good thread through instead of just, you know, Zalot casts a magic spell and and makes them
37:14
more powerful that she was using part of Azeroth to empower them. Matt, did you have anything to add to that before I move on to the next
37:20
section? I don't know if it's adding it, but one of the things I really like thinking about when I'm thinking about
37:26
all this is Warcraft 3. Uh, specifically the first time we meet
37:32
the forgotten. The Forgotten One is a giant heap of tentacles in the middle of nowhere uh on
37:39
the way to Ice Crown Citadel, which at the time wasn't Ice Crown Citadel. It was just Ice Crown Glacier. Um, you see
37:47
Arthus and you know his buddy Anubarak, the traitor king. Uh, I love that part
37:53
of us. The traitor king. What? How do they know me? No, they're talking about me. Sorry, man. Uh, but on their way
37:59
through uh the Underdark, as it were. Uh, they run into the forgotten one. And
38:06
there may be more. uh we only know about the one that appeared in that game, but the forgotten one had a entire group of
38:14
faceless one. In fact, that's where we first started calling them faceless ones. It's in that game. And I remember
38:21
and I'm looking it up to make sure that I'm right at uh Anubra calls the
38:26
forgotten one an unfathomable horror of a longforgotten time. And between the
38:32
fact that it's got what we now know to be the Naraki aiding it and serving it,
38:38
uh Narraqi and the faceless ones are the same thing. It's it's the word that the old gods use for, you know, the black
38:45
empire used for these being. Um and that's that to me is interesting because
38:50
what is the forgotten one then? Is it an old god? We've we haven't actually it it
38:56
can't be Yag Seron because we we know where Nagaron was and he was actually
39:02
underneath most of Northrren. There's not like one pocket of him. The forgotten one is said to be its own
39:08
being. So that's interesting. Uh and it also has an Iraqi serving it which is
39:14
also interesting. And we know that Yog Seron had Nraki because uh both he sent
39:20
two um Zakajaz and Kithix I can't stop saying it Zakajaz I'm sorry um he sent
39:26
them after uh Tier's buddies and you know Tier and his friends his amazing
39:32
friends when they were on their way south uh this is before the cataclysm so it was
39:37
just south on the same continent but regardless all of that connects up and that's interesting but the fact that we
39:44
see an actual specific Naki. Um, the the Skull King, I
39:50
believe he's called. Uh, I can't remember. Nurak, is it Narak? Nural Aac.
39:56
Okay, I found it. Uh, Nural Aac the Skullking. And he's a big Naki who's getting summoned into the skittering
40:03
breach, which implies, as Joe pointed out, it implies that the Naraki are
40:09
created using the power of the Black Blood and they know how to use it to
40:15
make more. And it is in fact from them that Ansurak has been seeking knowledge of how to create her own powerful
40:23
abomination monsters. Uh which I think is I I feel like it's a really nice deep cut and and it could go a lot further
40:30
and I'd really like to see where it goes. So, I think we need an Azeroth genealogy episode where we talk about all the
40:37
races are connected and branched out and who came from what because and the idea that the, you know, with
40:42
the idea that the Black Empire, you know, the the Narubians were like, you know, we're kind of done. Thanks. We
40:48
we've we had the old gods, uh, we get it. We we know what that's about. We're kind of not really interested in in act
40:56
two. Uh, when you come back and it's all that again. Not not that that wasn't great, but it wasn't. We don't like it.
41:03
I I like that there's that to a certain degree. Going back again, this is another thing going back to Mr. Pandaria
41:09
with the with the manted. Your gods are not our gods. But here, the Nurubar is saying,
41:15
"Yeah, it's true that our gods are not their gods. That doesn't mean I need to pray to our gods. Our gods ain't great.
41:22
Uh I'm not going to go pray to their gods either, but I'm certainly not going to go pray to those guys." And I I just I
41:29
really like the idea that you could be an abomination created from a horror
41:35
from beyond reality itself and still be like, you know, I like having substance,
41:40
don't you? Come on, Tentas. You You like having a body, right? You know, I didn't
41:46
want to admit it, but it is very convenient for my collection of sashes. I have a lot of sashes on. I like them.
41:53
I like the ones I got wrapped around my tendrils, too. Those are some great tendril sashes, my man. Do we want to give up tendril sashes for Ubolax over
42:00
there? Nah. Nah, you're right. You're right. I don't I don't I don't want to do So, oobleax done for me lately.
42:06
Yeah. Whatever. Whatever did he do for us? He used to eat our young. He made our young just to eat them. The fact that we got
42:12
to exist at all was cuz he couldn't eat all of us. Yeah. Yeah. If Ubolax was fatter, we'd have been in trouble. Yeah,
42:19
you're right. You're right. I'm just not down for that guy. Yon. No, he wasn't good either.
42:24
Yeah. I mean, I think that's a really solid theme. Um, and I think it was very very
42:30
it was an interesting and eye- openening moment for a lot of players because I remember we got a lot of comments about people who had never considered, you
42:37
know, Narubians or, you know, other void cre or or old god created entities to be
42:44
good. And yet here we are where it's like they're not good or bad. They have the capacity for both just like we do.
42:50
And it's laid bare before them. which is another thing that's carried over into the next section where we find out that
42:58
uh Giwix, the trade prince in charge of essentially all of Undermine and all of
43:03
the goblins, uh has now been in league with Zalot because one of the things we
43:08
did was we broke her bobble and she needs to get it fixed and in exchange
43:13
for uh profitable weapons uh Gywix is supposed to fix it for her, which he
43:19
does. But we also wind up encountering goblin resistance which Glo and and
43:26
Resnik have been or Renzik, excuse me, have been sort of laying the groundwork for a while explaining, "Yeah, we were
43:34
not necessarily doing this willingly." And then you get scenes of Giwix
43:39
literally extorting the cartel leaders to follow his marching orders or else.
43:46
Uh, and that or else isn't necessarily just their own lives. When you get to undermine, you see that the people,
43:54
their cartels are not exactly living the best life. And if they go against the
43:59
grain, they get the clamps, so to speak. And so, again, we join this resistance
44:05
and we help free the cartels. We bring their people to safety, their family members out of wherever they're being
44:12
held uh as leverage from from Gywicks. And we go and overthrow Gywicks.
44:19
uh we essentially destroy him with his own mech and we do can his body is
44:24
underneath his mech at the end and it is at zero hit points. It is not at one hit point like Sylvanas was when we took her
44:29
out. Uh it is at zero. So in theory he is gone. Uh, and then we see that
44:35
Undermind starts to come back to a semblance of itself. And again, it's
44:40
that theme of breaking off the shackles of oppression to sort of find your own
44:47
destiny again. And even Gazzlo says that he's like, I don't know what we're going to be, but wherever it is, it's going to
44:52
be our choice, and that's all we can ask. Uh, which I thought was another really powerful moment. And a lot of
44:59
people were very upset that we went to Undermine instead of some other places, thinking that it didn't make sense. But
45:05
in the theming of the expansion, it made perfect sense and pulled on something
45:10
that has been in place or been building since Cataclysm, right? Undermine the
45:16
whole society. Everything that happened. Um the surge of power that Giwix seized
45:24
all happened during Cataclysm. Battle for Azeroth further cemented that when,
45:29
you know, Giwix started messing around with uh uh Blood of Azeroth, essentially
45:36
the same thing as Black Blood, just Titan uh adjacent instead of Old God adjacent. Uh more power, more knowledge,
45:44
more more pressure and leverage over his own people. So again, that that that
45:49
sort of refreshing of that free will, which was so important. Now, again, that
45:57
theme carries through. And I I liked the the the side quest here, I guess I'll
46:03
put it, the little side diversion, because it wasn't just about chasing Zath, although that was very important
46:08
and was part of it. It was about helping another group of people reclaiming
46:14
autonomy. And again, we left the place better than we found it. I love that
46:20
this is seems to be a theme of this expansion cuz man, do we fail at that every other time. What did you think about this, Matt?
46:26
Uh, I think for me the best part of this whole thing is getting to see Baron Rebel Gaz again. And indeed, the the
46:33
story of the politicking amongst the various trade princes and the you never know who's going to stab who in the
46:40
back. You never know what minations are up to, you know, in play. the fact that
46:45
I didn't respect uh Giwick's his acumen nearly enough. Like I thought I thought
46:51
of him as a clown. Yeah. Everybody thought he was a clown, but that was part of his power, right? Yeah. Uh I think to a certain degree he
46:58
was constantly underestimated which because he did ridiculous things. I mean, come on. The pleasure palace, the
47:03
the turning this Ashara into a horde symbol. I mean, you cannot defend these
47:09
decisions until you defend them as propaganda. for how dumb he is. And if
47:16
you keep people focused on how quote unquote dumb you are, they will think you're dumb and you'll keep on going.
47:24
Mhm. And it is it is I I really thought like the fact that you know I'm trying to
47:29
think of like the one who got murdered. Uh Renzik. Yeah, I think it was Renzick. Yeah,
47:35
it was it was it was Renzick. Renzick was murdered because that was a big a big emotional thing for both the Alliance and the Horde.
47:41
Yeah. And plus, I mean, Renzik was trying to like, you know, basically get the, you know, to get the goblins to
47:47
realize we don't need to be subservient. We we you know, we can be into people
47:54
and that means even from our own trade princes. For for for context, Ren Renzik was the
48:00
goblin member of the covert alliance uh intelligence faction SI7. the only one
48:06
just throw like again going against the grain until you know the midnight when they become playable.
48:13
No, I'm kidding. I don't know anything like that. But I just thought there was a lot of really good moments. I liked
48:18
getting to see uh Rebel Gas again. I I felt kind of bad that his his cow got kidnapped because you don't want you
48:25
don't want to steal a man's cow. Uh I shouldn't be saying that he was a torren and a very very fierce warrior. Uh but
48:30
just there's there's just like a a lot of interesting stuff. Rebel Gaz even
48:36
tried to like you know deal with Renzik and Glo somewhat fairly and I don't know
48:43
I I always liked Renz Renzik so and then when he died uh while he was protecting
48:49
Glo um we get to see his family no it was Renzik who died sorry no we get to
48:56
see Rebel Ga Rebel Gaz and the others you know we we get to see the goblins
49:01
actually come together which is not something I ever thought I would say in my life. Um, and they don't come
49:08
together out of greed. This is not look how greedy we are. This is they all
49:13
like, you know what? No, no, this ain't not us. This whatever we are, we are not toadies. We do not lick boot. We do not,
49:20
you know, we are not so greedy that we will let you debase us. And I liked that, too. I mean, that's a good story
49:27
element. Uh, I'm not sure what's happening with with Giwa's daughter. Um, I I I know that she got murdered. So,
49:35
uh, I I don't really know what's going to happen next. You They say that that she, you know, I I don't know. I don't
49:41
know what's going to be happening. So, and that's also kind of like what Joe was talking about before. We see over
49:47
and over again in this expansion that stuff happens that you might not have thought could happen. Like Glo.
49:54
Uh, not Gazzlo, sorry. Gazzo's still alive. Sorry guys, I didn't mean to freak out. Giwix is dead. his daughter
50:00
died. I didn't even had a daughter. Was she his daughter or his cousin or what? What was she? I I don't remember, but it's not
50:06
necessarily relevant. But, you know, we we see uh a lot of people died and almost died. Just a lot
50:14
going on here. Yeah. So, yeah. Eric, did you have thoughts on that? Yeah. I just real quick, the the whole
50:21
chapter here was awesome. I loved Undermine. I loved the vibe. I loved that it didn't really seem like too much
50:28
of a side quest because it was still chasing after Zalat and the dark heart.
50:33
And I like that it kind of took Zalat back a peg that she was kind of uh her
50:39
footing because Yria was able to damage the dark heart and she couldn't fix it
50:44
on her own. Like up to this point, she's been one of those all powerful like has an answer for everything.
50:50
Step ahead type. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. like, "Ah, by by everything you've done this expansion is exactly what I wanted you to do. You've
50:57
been playing into my hands the whole time." Um, destroys Deleran in 5 minutes. Um, and then to have her not be
51:05
able to repair the dark heart to need to go to the goblins and see that, you
51:10
know, they originally helped uh Narion make it and so she has to go to the source. I really like that. the the the
51:17
fact that she couldn't just be like, "Haha," and snap her fingers and and continue using it. Um, and that drove
51:23
the story about that since you said that. Um, they outmaneuver her. She
51:29
straight up loses the dark heart to other people because of them. Another faction comes in and sees an
51:35
opportunity and Yeah. does that and and she isn't ahead of them and she doesn't
51:40
even count them in. She she gets betrayed by them, right? Yeah. She agree. Yeah, which which I
51:47
think is important and I think we should move along to the the last section here which is uh the ghost of cares because
51:53
as we the hunt for the the dark heart is now on as uh void etherealss have
52:01
consume uh have in service to dementia uh a void lord and I'm going to air
52:07
quote there because we don't we don't necessarily know everything about dementia at this point. We know a bit
52:13
more than we did before. Uh but we then chase give chase to to Caresh or the
52:19
remnants therein. Uh this is the world of the Atherealss that was blown up. Uh and we come to find out that the
52:26
Athereals's home world was blown up on purpose to try to stop Dementius. And it did
52:34
because Dementius was feeding on the world when it was blown up. feeding on the world soul of Caresh, which is our
52:42
first and only time we've been having any sort of a confirmation that Caresh was a world soul. Uh, which is
52:50
interesting in of itself. But again, there are themes here as we go through where we begrudgingly start to work with
52:58
Zalot because she knows we find out that she was involved as was Locust Walker in
53:03
what happened to Caresh as well as the air quote saving of the people, giving
53:08
the Atherealss the the power and method to turn themselves into the Atherealss so that they could survive what was to
53:15
come. uh and then also essentially moved the plan ahead to try to destroy
53:20
Dementius because she was essentially a a herald of Dementius at some point uh
53:25
and didn't really like that gig which seems to also be a theme with her as well. Um we learn that the oaths of the
53:34
the Atherealss hold power in this moment. Uh we learn about their history
53:40
and their the the such like the wastelanders being uh formerly devout
53:45
priests of the world soul of Kesh. Uh the elite guard that served their kings
53:52
uh and the upper crescent elite and how their vows even now in this moment can
53:57
twist them and force them to do stuff that they necessarily wouldn't do. We
54:03
wind up getting betrayed by some that we bring into the fold. Uh, which we kind of expected to happen, but not in the
54:08
way that it happened. The ones that wanted to bring Kesh back to life are now siding with the void etherealss
54:18
because the king uh which I can always call him Saladar, but it's Saladar. Um,
54:24
yeah, it says Saladar. Uh but Saladar has become void infused is a servant of
54:31
Dementius and starts twisting the oa they made to him to then force them to
54:38
do dark bidding. Uh and it's an interesting exercise in how far that
54:44
control that those compulsion magic essentially works because as Matt pointed out and I'd like to give Matt
54:50
credit for this as well. This is very similar to domination magic in those O's where they are binding contracts of
54:57
magic that essentially are able to compel somebody to do something against their will. Uh which was a very
55:04
interesting parallel. Uh or at least I thought so. Everyone come on group hug.
55:10
Yeah, I love you guys. Even you Eric and I just really only met you a couple months ago.
55:16
Um we wind up going through we have this big plan to destroy Dementius. We going
55:22
to get the dark heart back. We siege the mana forge. We work with the etherealss to make this happen. We work with
55:27
Zalath. Uh we free them. We give them their hope back. Zalot double crosses us
55:33
exactly as we thought she would. Makes off with the dark heart as well as Dementia is sucked into the dark heart.
55:39
Uh which I think is also fascinating and I'm sure will not come back to bite us in the butt. uh Saladar is sucked into
55:46
it as well as all a bunch of the other void etherealss uh and other void entities amassing in
55:53
this power that Zalot is gathering. We in the cool down from it, we've given
55:59
the Keshi people hope. Uh we work with uh why can I not remember her name from
56:05
the MA? Venari. Thank you. Uh we help Venari with her revitalization project and there is
56:12
actual hope that the world soul can be reformed and regrown and that Kuresh can be reformed around it giving the people
56:20
of Kesh the Keshi people a real home again and again they get to choose their
56:26
own fate. They're not beholden to anything. Um and in this moment we also
56:31
learn the Brokers and the Atherealss are two parts of the same people. Uh, which
56:36
is also fascinating learning that Venari uh, and the Brokers and all the cartels
56:42
are just like the Atherealss. They just happen to dawn a different suit, still made out of pure energy, still using
56:47
science and magic to to get where they need to go. But everything they were doing, including that whole dealing with
56:53
live animals that we were kind of curious why uh, brokers in Shadowlands were going after all these different
57:00
entities from all these different plains of existence and different realms. Now we know they were looking to essentially
57:07
rebuild and repopulate Caresh, which was really cool eye- openening moment for me
57:14
and a really cool story beat because we always thought Venari and the brokers were on the like the the shadier side of
57:20
things and they are uh but there's this weird almost altruistic movement behind
57:27
it where it's like yeah, we're going to rebuild our world and uh we need this stuff to make it happen including bees.
57:34
Go get us bees. Uh, which it was just a really interesting moment. And while I I
57:39
know a lot of people were upset that we went to Kesh now, me being one of them, the story theming was still in line with
57:46
everything else, which is breaking people's from the shackles of oppression
57:51
to give them hope for a future. And again, a rare instance occurs, maybe not
57:56
so rare these days, where we leave a place better than we found it. As the oasis begins to flourish, we can only
58:04
assume that the ecodome that surrounds it will get bigger and bigger and bigger as more land is reclaimed and
58:11
revitalized uh throughout the process of cares healing. uh which I thought was an
58:17
interesting way to end the expansion, a a sort of ray of hope uh as we go into
58:23
potentially one of the darkest moments that we're probably going to be facing. And Eric, I don't know, what did you what did you think of the third act or
58:29
the final act here in this this expansion? Feel like we learned a lot and we got a
58:35
lot of development on a lot of different fronts. Um with the brokers coming back
58:40
in and finding out that they're also from Caresh. The biggest one for me was just finding
58:46
out that the world soul is still there and it's still alive and we don't know what will become of it. Will it become
58:52
something that lots of cosmic forces descend on to try to claim or is that only Azeroth because Azeroth is super
59:00
special and Caresh is now damaged or now almost dead or wasn't worth it in the
59:06
first place? Dimensionous was just having a snack on his way by like what I I wonder how much as we move on to other
59:11
places we'll get development on what becomes of that world soul. Like how often will we go back to visit it? Will
59:17
we have to wait years? Will we get some story here and there? Um so that was that was
59:24
the the biggest one for me. The the betrayal of Zelat say, you know, coming out of the raid and saying just kidding.
59:31
I'm going to be your enemy again. Thanks for working with me. I was 10 steps ahead of you the whole time. That was,
59:36
you know, we all saw that one coming, but I I just liked a lot of the big
59:41
story steps forward and the the tying together of things that seemed completely disconnected for a while, you
59:47
know? I mean, we heard about Caresh how many years ago? 17 years ago. If you if
59:52
I emailed you from now to 17 years ago and said, "Hey, we're going to go there in 2025." Would you have believed it?
59:58
Like I like those kind of things where you you finally follow up on a tidbit that becomes a whole entire patch.
1:00:05
Matt, uh I have several things I wanted to say. Uh the first of those is I want you to imagine Zalat and Venari staring at
1:00:14
each other across a warehouse and Zalot going, "Come join me, Venari. We're both
1:00:20
we're both uh somewhat against the current order." and Venari going, "Hey, I may be a criminal lunatic, but I'm a
1:00:28
Keshi criminal lunatic." Because that's the vibe I got from Venari throughout
1:00:34
her appearance in this expansion. Uh, just yes, she's she's ruthless. Yes, she
1:00:40
will take advantage of anyone she has to to get what she's trying to get, but she's she's like in it for what to her
1:00:47
mind the right reason. And I just I really adored her. Like, you know, go work with that thing and then when it,
1:00:54
you know, finally shows its true colors, please kill it. Uh, you know, you get get go do what you're going to do, but
1:01:00
remember when it when it turns its back on you, stab it. Uh, so that there right
1:01:05
there, Vanary A++ chef's kiss would would adventure alongside getting bees
1:01:11
again. Uh, maybe not. Maybe next time we we could do something other than bees. I
1:01:16
I don't know. There there's lots of things we could get. Venari, I I know you know this. Uh so that's right up
1:01:21
front. Two, uh Nexus Walker, worst mentor ever in a series that has no
1:01:30
Walker. Oh, sorry. Yes, Lucas Walker. My bad. Sorry, Nexus Walker. Uh Locust Walker
1:01:36
in in an a series that has no end of terrible mentors or even good mentors
1:01:42
who screw up at a at a key moment. He is he is like chef's kiss bad. I like thank
1:01:48
you for destroying Ayria's you know belief that we should stop Zalatath. That's great. That's great that you've
1:01:54
confused everyone. Wonderful job. Um as for Dementius, I have no doubt that he
1:02:00
is a void lord. And the reason I have no doubt is that I don't think that the thing we fought is even close to all of
1:02:07
Dementius. By definition, it can't be. Yes. Moreover, I don't think the thing
1:02:13
that we fought was all of Dementius before they destroyed Caresh to shatter
1:02:18
him into a billion billion billion pieces. One of which we fought. Agreed. Because there's there's a
1:02:24
there's a moment that I just real interject for those at home. The part of the reason is we have been
1:02:31
told and maybe this is incorrect, maybe this will be recconed, uh, but that void lords cannot exist in the prime material
1:02:38
plane. And when they do put bits of themselves into the prime material plane, they become old gods. You know,
1:02:43
in terms of this, I think the case is that he got he was attempting to get around the manifestation by just eating
1:02:49
a a world soul. Yeah. Because we've seen before, world souls can kind of break the rules. You can
1:02:55
send a world soul to a universe where it shouldn't be able to go. World souls can do a lot of things. It's they're sort of
1:03:00
like uh the Infinity Stones if they could grow up to be really smug about things. Which would also feed into why the the
1:03:07
void lords are so obsessed with like Azeroth and other Titan planets and why we've seen that in the past is
1:03:14
because that's how they get there, right? That makes a lot of sense. And it would also be interesting in the
1:03:20
whole idea that we know Aloon at one point killed one or at least she had she gave somebody the power to kill one
1:03:25
which would arguably be that her power is capable of destroying them. Yeah. But all of that comes around to
1:03:31
the fact that what what I really think is fascinating about all of this when it's all said and done is that yes, we
1:03:37
leave Kesh better than we found it. Uh although it it would been hard to leave it worse than we found it. It it wasn't
1:03:45
doing well and and we have given them hope, but it is still like I don't expect the next time we see Kesh
1:03:51
everything's going to be sunshines and in lollipops. I mean this is this is a long-term project they are engaging in.
1:03:57
But I, as much as I did love Caresh much more than you did, I have been convinced
1:04:04
that story-wise it was a real swerve. And ultimately, it's just because it
1:04:10
feels it feels like it belongs in the saga, but it doesn't necessarily like it
1:04:16
it kind of feels a little bit like it just we went there to go there. Yeah. I
1:04:21
because that's that's where we ended up going. They they didn't really give us a real strong hook to connect it. Zalatas
1:04:27
there. Oh, now we're working with Zalot. What? You know, I I feel like there could have been some more work done on
1:04:33
that. Yeah. Which is one of the reasons, and I'm not I'm not going to belleaguer the point because I I want to take a couple moments because we are we're definitely
1:04:39
overtime, but I do want to finish the thoughts of I always felt like this would have been a Caresh would have been
1:04:45
a better opening salvo to Midnight. Um because it starts The problem was that they didn't have
1:04:51
anything else ready to go. Yeah. And I think that's right too because I mean one of the things and and
1:04:57
this is where we're going to talk like loose threads from this expansion and what's going forward is sort of the lead
1:05:03
into that and we know that we're going to deal with some of this stuff like the black blood is a loose end and it's a
1:05:09
pretty major one. Um it's we are
1:05:14
supposedly we were going to go back and deal with the Hariner uh Orina. we're going to we're going to meet up with
1:05:19
them and she was going to go back and talk with the elders and and get them to talk with us so that we could figure out what's going on with it so we can get it
1:05:25
to be dormant again or solve that problem which to me would have been a logical climax uh to the end of the
1:05:33
expansion because it follows that that thread through and it also is that thread through of uh you know Arena is
1:05:40
sort of the outcast because she does things that her elders tell her not to do. they hold a very traditional line
1:05:46
and this is where we're supposed to be. This is what we're supposed to do. And she sort of throws that out the window
1:05:52
and and chooses her own path. Um, but I we we know that we're going there. We know that we're going to deal with the
1:05:58
heraneer. Uh, we're going to bring them into the fold and we're going to deal with the black blood because that is
1:06:04
their primary concern. So, we are going to get uh that sort of resolved. Uh we
1:06:10
know that we're going to be dealing with Zalat uh in a lot of ways in the very first act. I don't think that we're
1:06:18
going to be done with her in the first act of Midnight. Uh she is far too
1:06:23
clever a villain and far too important uh to sort of get done in the
1:06:30
first act. Plus, I think what she is is not necessarily purely a villain because
1:06:38
again, between time walking or sorry, between lore walking and what we've seen and heard from her in the past, Zalot
1:06:46
doesn't lie. She's ruthless, but she doesn't need to lie. At no point in time
1:06:51
did she say she wants existence to be non non-existing. She doesn't want it to be gone. In fact, a lot of the things
1:06:57
she's doing seems to be counter of the void lords be against them. And we don't
1:07:03
know why yet. And I think that's what we're going to start to find out as we start going through this war between the
1:07:10
void and the light because that's what the opening cate the opening salvo of Midnight really is. the true uh essence
1:07:18
of the light and the true essence of the void and these two opposing opposing
1:07:24
forces and everything that's caught in between. Uh and Eric and I talked about this a little bit when we talked about
1:07:29
the uh the novel last week when we talked about uh uh Blood Ties. highly
1:07:34
recommend you go back and listen to that episode and highly recommend you go and listen and or either listen to or read the book because it sets this up as
1:07:41
well. And that that sort of power struggle and everything that gets caught in between it is the backdrop of the
1:07:49
opening to midnight. And we're going to explore those relationships. We're going to explore that and it's going to pull
1:07:55
on these threads that we've not just seen started here but have been in place since Burning Crusade that got revisited
1:08:03
in Battle for Azeroth a little bit that got revisited in the Shadowlands because there was a lot of theming around that
1:08:08
that was sort of a not not even a secondary story like a tertiary story an undercurrent between the void and the
1:08:14
light as well. Uh and then we we saw pulled on desperately
1:08:19
uh in, you know, the the basically everything we did up to this point that
1:08:25
we're going to get these payoffs potentially of stuff that's been happening forever, including like Matt
1:08:31
said earlier, we know we're going to Silver Moon City. We know we're going back to the Sunwell. The Sunwell was an
1:08:38
incredibly important part of an entire expansion uh and an entirely important
1:08:44
storyline dealing with the blood elves that you know bringing them the redemption, bringing them into the fold
1:08:52
and what happened afterwards. And all of this is prime setup for it which I guess
1:08:57
you would kind of expect from the opening portion or the opening expansion of a trilogy. Uh I'll toss it over to
1:09:05
Eric. your thoughts. Yeah, I I am interested to see basically
1:09:11
what we've been chasing is Zalot and what she's up to. You know, she's been empowering the dark heart. She's had
1:09:17
setbacks and now she's got dementious inside of it, the power of the the essence, whatever she absorbed. And what
1:09:24
we know about her motivation comes from Iriticron all the way back at the end of Dragon Flight when the dark heart was
1:09:31
first being empowered. He just looks at us and says, "With this, Zealot is going
1:09:36
to claim Azeroth and the Titans will show up to defend it or reclaim it or or
1:09:42
something." And then he walks away. We haven't heard from him since. So, what about the Sunwell is going to let Zalat
1:09:50
either claim or get closer to claiming Azeroth? And the other really interesting thing that happened right at
1:09:56
the end in the in the epilogue in the leadin quest is that she summons voidstorm which we know is a zone we're
1:10:02
going to in midnight and it seems like she just uses all the power in the dark art and then drops it on the ground and
1:10:08
it's drained and was that was that what she needed all that power for all the
1:10:13
expansion and a half of gathering the power just to summon the void storm and now she can really move on to her next
1:10:20
step in her plan or is she going to suck the void storm back into the dark part with the power of the Sun. Well, like
1:10:25
what's what's going on here? So, that's that's what I'm thinking of heading into Midnight. Matt,
1:10:31
the Black Blood is definitely something that needs to be dealt with and and explored more as a storyline, but I have
1:10:38
some questions that I that I've been thinking about. The first one is this. Did you know that
1:10:44
with simple Kajaka, you can stabilize Black Blood so you can make weapons out
1:10:50
of it? Tell me more, Matt. I will. uh kashakola otherwise known as other other
1:10:56
azerite question mark. Yeah, kajimite uh in the kajakahola stabilizes the black blood and we know
1:11:03
that it directly it tends to boost intelligence or even just straight up
1:11:09
pop ideas into your head. Like you if you hang out around kajumite a lot, inhale it or drink it or what have you,
1:11:16
you'll start having all sorts of ideas you didn't have before, which is where most of goblin technology came from. And
1:11:24
what's interesting to me is Jastaster Gywix, you all remember him, we left him crushed under his own robot in act two
1:11:30
of this whole thing, had a big old piece of Azerite on his staff before
1:11:37
Mhm. the Cataclysm before any of it had gotten to the surface. That makes me
1:11:44
think Azerite is essentially similar to the Black Blood but for Titan. Is
1:11:50
Kajamite really kajamite? Like is we're calling it Azerite because it seems to
1:11:56
draw upon the power of the world soul. But if that makes if it's Azerite
1:12:02
because it draws on the power of the world soul. Is Kazmite Titan blood? Because we know titans died in that war.
1:12:10
Remember the master's glaive? Mhm. There was a big old god, but a titan
1:12:16
died putting him down. And we've heard that multiple times. There's like that
1:12:22
whole deal in if you go back to the Silith in the original game, that whole bit about, you know, Titan met an old
1:12:29
god in battle and the Titan fell. And I'm not just referencing one of my favorite video games, guys. I I I I
1:12:35
really do feel like there's a possibility that kajumite is the order
1:12:40
affixive and that's one of the reasons maybe that's why it does what it does. Why does it make people smarter? Because
1:12:45
it gives them ideas. Why does it give them ideas? Because it's a fixative.
1:12:51
Mhm. And if you use it, you can glue things to this reality like that. You make the
1:12:57
the cat you make the black blood more stable. Could you use it on Azerite? And if you did, what would it do to it? Cuz
1:13:04
Azerite doesn't need to be more stable. Would it make it less stable? Does it change its, for lack of a better word,
1:13:11
equilibrium? This is just all like the fact that there's a whole bit where the the the goblins are out there
1:13:17
maggyvering the black blood with soda. And that's how they're fixing the dark
1:13:23
heart this whole time. They fixed it with soda. And that's not a joke. And
1:13:28
nor is it funny. It's actually really concerning. I I just I I want to see
1:13:34
more about this. I'm I'm interested in Hariner, but I don't One of the things I'm hoping they don't do, which they so
1:13:39
far haven't done, is they haven't forgotten all the people in places that were already involved in thing. And I
1:13:45
want to I like that streak to continue. I want to see the full breath of of, you know, the whole night elf, you know,
1:13:54
whole blood elf starting zone, all of that stuff. I want to see all of it. See where it goes. And then I want to see
1:14:00
what we have after because you gotta admit the war within really changed between acts like it it it act one and
1:14:08
act two barely connected. Act three it's on a different planet. So I I am curious
1:14:14
to see how the through the throughput to new acts works for Midnight. Yeah. And it's going to be an
1:14:20
interesting ride. Uh I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes. We're not going to talk uh we're going to try
1:14:27
to avoid spoilers in the future until people get a chance to actually, you know, play because we several of us have
1:14:34
been playing the beta and the story definitely develops quickly and I definitely have strong feelings about a
1:14:39
lot of it. Um we're going to try to be chill as much as we can. Uh but I think
1:14:46
that's going to do it for us today. Uh friends, I do want to thank you for joining us again. Blu uh Lorewatch and
1:14:53
all of our stuff at Blizzardwatch is only made possible due to your generous contributions and support at
1:14:58
patreon.com/blizzardwatch. That support allows us to do shows like this as well as to continue to develop
1:15:04
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1:15:11
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1:15:18
you also get direct access to us in a lot of ways to ask us questions and get
1:15:23
priority on those questions or themes of things you want us to cover. Uh and again if you do have questions or themes
1:15:29
for this podcast there are several ways to send it in. You can send them in at podcast blizzardwatch.com specify the
1:15:34
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1:15:40
which is the Q and podcast questions channel open to everybody. Same rules apply. And then we have the patron Q and
1:15:46
podcast questions channel set aside for our Patreon subscribers as a little extra thank you for helping us keep the lights on. Uh again friends, thank you
1:15:53
for your continued support. Eric, thank you for joining us on this journey. You all will be hearing more from Eric as he
1:15:59
is joining our team here and I'm looking forward to what the future will bring.
1:16:05
But that friends, we'll catch you next week.