Up next in 10
This week’s Lore Watch Podcast is a Q & A, but sometimes those questions can give us a chance to go off on a topic we love to discuss. For instance, why Odyn in World of Warcraft is just the worst. Maybe not the absolute worst given what horrors the setting has to offer, but he’s certainly getting coal from Greatfather Winter next December. Matt and Joe lay out the reasons why he’s a huge J-E-R-K, going back to Azeroth’s creation.
Then, speaking of Grandfather Winter, if he were suddenly unavailable for Winter Veil Eve, who would take up the mantle? Perhaps Santa Clause-style?
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[Music]
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hello and welcome to lore watch Round Table free Farm discussion about lore and your favorite media I'm your host
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Joe Perez one of several lore focused folks from blizzard watch and I've got my marvelous co-host with me today Matt
0:21
Rossy are you doing today Matt uh I'm doing well well we're going to see how
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we can uh push that boundaries because I think our first question from our listeners here is a about a person or an
0:32
fictional character that Matt and I famously do not like uh but if you want to ask us questions out there you can go
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ahead and send us questions uh we accept those through email at podcast blizzardwatch dcom we ask that you
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specify the show that it is for in the subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name uh and uh
0:53
basically just make sure you tell us what show it's for please CU there's a lot of them that it's like question for whatever no let us know where you want
1:00
us to answer cuz we go completely different areas when depending on which show it is uh if you want to hit us up on Discord we have the Q and podcast
1:07
questions Channel same rules apply if you are a patreon subscriber you have two methods to get in hold of us uh
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first is the patron q and podcast questions Channel we tend to look there first it's a way of saying thank you to
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our patrons for helping us keep the lights on uh and you can also send us messages directly on patreon in which
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the overlords of the site will ensure that we get those questions uh in a relatively timely manner again
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same rules apply but with uh that out of the way we'll go ahead and get started with uh this from sour waffles who is
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one of our newly minted patreon supporters thank you sour waffles uh I'd
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like to hear the backstory on Odin and I'd appreciate getting your perspectives on why you seem to genuinely dislike him
1:53
where to begin okay I'm going to run through a as
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close to a bones as I can for you to then come in and flesh out as you choose to Odin is one of several uh Titan
2:07
Watchers who was just basically created from the material of Azeroth to serve as
2:13
for lack of a better word surgical tools uh because the Titans couldn't just get
2:18
in there and jam their gigantic hands onto the planet without causing problems
2:24
because it's like they It's Like a Surgeon who just decides to stick his hand inside the patient and instead of
2:30
using scalpel and you know Scopes and so forth um there's only so much hand in the thing you can do so they realized
2:37
that the planet azaroth had all these horrible old God type things infesting throughout its body and they'd seen what
2:44
happened to One Planet when that was the case so actually I don't remember if they did see that because that sargeras
2:50
was by himself I don't think they did see it no that was sargeras but they when they came to it they're like okay
2:55
what do we do here how do we fix this this this planet is clearly going to be a Humdinger of a planet and we need to
3:02
do something so they made the they first made the Titan Watchers who then themselves made smaller Titan forged in
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order to serve as the armies to help fight the uh forces of the old gods which was intentional right the Titans
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created the facilities to help facilitate that with the keepers abely the keepers had to oversee the
3:21
production of that Army and the basically be generals of those armies yep and that's that's exactly what they
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meant to to do and whilst they were doing it first they had to to kind of
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they had to take the Servants of the old gods off the board before they could move on to fighting their direct minions
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and those servants were the elemental Lords uh you know ragnaros uh I can't remember his name
3:46
thund well no Thunder Ron's the son of the one he's the son of the one that he
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was fighting was alir yeah alakir alakir the WindSeeker yeah yeah alakir uh
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ragnaros I talked about her a billion times and now I'm having trouble remembering her name uh the Earth nepon
4:04
and thezan yeah Y thezan and and nepon thean and nepon these four each of them had like a powerful force of Elemental
4:10
minions and themselves were extremely powerful in fact it wasn't they weren't overpowered by the old gods that's
4:18
always worth pointing out it wasn't the elemental Lords were defeated due to the power of the old gods the old gods had
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access to some kind of magic that allowed them to control the four elements the four element of Lords in
4:30
particular um and that magic may have been similar to that which was used to summon ragnaros back to Azeroth which
4:37
would blew up you know back when Azeroth blew up the whole you know the mountains that are now the the burning steps and
4:43
the Blasted Lands uh but regardless the Elementals if you do the if you do the
4:48
time travel thing in Dragon flight you get to go back to the moment where they were actually fighting you could actually see the old gods and the
4:54
elemental Lords fighting and you'll notice that the elemental Lords weren't losing no they weren't they were not
5:00
getting their butts kicked so Elemental was very powerful they were under the Dominion of the old gods due to specific
5:06
magic that the old gods had access to not because of Any Roy power we and this is just a random aside here in a note
5:12
for later that we'll probably cover uh when you do go back you don't see all of the elemental Lords fighting just going
5:18
to throw that out there that's true but anyway so the uh first thing
5:24
that happened was the various Watchers and there's a whole bunch of them and I'm going to forget some but Master raw
5:31
also known as raw Den he was one um Odin's another tier's another Thor's
5:37
another mimiron's another lokan was another um I want to say Freya yeah
5:43
Freya was another there may be more like we've seen some more down in like oldum and so
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forth but at least the ones I just mentioned and a few others were there yeah real quick just to go through them
5:55
uh the ones that we know are arcadius Freya hoder mimran Odin raw Thoren and
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oh that's leaving out the ones from uh the halls of origination though uh this is updated as far as that goes as being
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actual Watchers the other those are Watchers or sorry Keepers or whatever the uh the the high designates the other
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ones are not technically uh in that category they're basically sub them I think if you're if you're counting
6:21
arcades then you have to count them I'm sorry I don't know who wrote this um but I got a beef with you person who wrote this uh but anyway getting back to it
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those guys were involved in various fights against the elemental Lords to get them out of the way um and one of
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the things was uh we have raden for example who along with um Odin's quote
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unquote daughter um hell Helia created the elemental PLS as prisons for these
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various uh Elemental Lords that's where the fire lands the uh the the Temple of
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the WindSeeker I don't remember what the nepon is the Abyssal M right yes I don't remember what um the Zayn's deep it's
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deep home yeah deep home so those are the four Elemental planes that were created to imprison the elemental Lords
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once they were defeated Odin first dis quote unquote distinguishes himself in
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in battle him and uh tier together took on um ragnaros and if you ever wonder
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why alone why you know Odin has that flaming beard that's not a flamy beard
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that's the stuff of his face because ragnaros literally put an eternally melting fire on it so his face is
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continuously melting when he fought ragnaros ragnaros did that to it um whether or not that's why Odin is such a
7:39
j r k um yes I spelled jerk that's weird anyway that happened uh Odin therefore
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kind of always kind of gave tear this Gunk eye after that he was very much like you let that guy burn my face off
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I'm not entirely sure you didn't do that on purpose so I don't I don't trust you as much anymore tier but regardless the
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bunch of them succeeded in defeating the elemental Lords and imprisoning them thanks to Helia and and Master Ra's uh
8:07
Elemental prisons this then led up to the actual fight against the old gods which was nightmarishly hard uh the
8:14
elemental Lords they had a place to put them at least like once you get up to
8:20
the Lord and manage to subdue it they had a prison waiting for it they had nothing for the old gods they had to
8:27
make prisons for them they had to make prisons around them because the old gods could not be removed from where they
8:33
were because otherwise you get horrendous rents and and wounds in the world which they only found out by the
8:39
way this is the best part is they were fighting their way through the various old gods they got up to the the most
8:45
powerful of them yrj and when they got to yrj the fight was going so middling
8:51
for them that eventually uh Caz you know not Caz amanul was amanth thank you I
8:57
saying Caz uh amanul got tired of waiting and decided to just
9:03
reach down and Pop That pimple himself thinking well I'm super powerful so I'm
9:08
sure this will go fine and it didn't go fine it it did the opposite of going fine because the thing Joe just said I
9:15
wish I could have the ability to just make it go like wavy lines and you'd hear Joe say it again but actually Joe
9:20
say it again uh literally you get this horrendous rent and wound in the world that's exactly what they made that's
9:26
exactly what happened when he ripped out of the world he created the Sha he left
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you know rotting bits of old God all over Mo a big chunk of Azeroth at the
9:37
time kalor being one continent so across it the all these chunks of old God that
9:43
shouldn't be there just in general a real mess the other they they realized
9:48
oh we can't do that to the other old gods so they started you know frantically building emergency prisons
9:54
like kind of like you know tire locks when you want to like stop a car from like leaving so you can put a ticket on it and maybe impound it they had to put
10:00
like old God loocks on the old gods to keep them from doing anything else uh which of course they spent the next
10:07
however long because you know time time at this point is well beyond a scale and most mortal beings think of they spent
10:13
all that time trying to get out because that's they're the old gods they don't want to stay locked in these things so
10:19
all that aside you're wondering why necessarily is Odin such a jerk then what did he do that was so bad I'm like
10:25
all that stuff was fine because the old the the Titans were like right there supervising mhm when the Titans left
10:32
they put Odin in charge as the title of prime designate yes and when Odin became
10:39
Prime designate he immediately assumed that meant that everybody had to do what he said or else uh just some of the
10:46
greatest hits on the Odin parade his daughter Helia refused to reach into the
10:52
shadowlands for him and help him create an army of Undead things because she
10:57
didn't think it was a good idea so he killed her and did it to her which is after which is after uh he decided that
11:05
he knew better than the rest of the keepers who wanted to empower the dragon
11:11
flights uh in order to become Protectors of Azeroth alongside them let's let's
11:16
let's not skip that part these things that fought bravely against this horrible Terror galron which they made
11:22
by the way uh you know should should can't be trusted but I'm going to go
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make an undead Army essenti and you're going to go ahead and look into the shadowlands oh you don't want to do that
11:33
I'm sorry you're now the V Valkyrie number one enjoy this new lot in your
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unlife yeah first you're the first one uh as Joe pointed out not only did uh Odin not want to trust the dragons he
11:46
literally took his ball and went home except in this case his ball was his home like you know how there's a big
11:51
trench in front of alir that's because there was another Hall on it you know
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like the halls of stone the halls of lightning there was a Hall of Valor and Odin decided I don't want to be an oldo
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anymore so he had he literally ripped the halls of Valor out of the rock made it float and then made his daughter put
12:10
it in another dimension because remember she she knew how to make Dimensions when she was hanging out with uh Master raah
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also at the same time while he was doing all this stuff which is bad enough he was direct directly making treaties with
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like you know creatures of the shadowlands which is how he ended up the you remember the eye that we used to see
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that all the time that was I was going to say the the eye that he doesn't have anymore the eye that he traded in order
12:37
for this information yeah it actually became a raid boss in in uh I want to
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say legion but it's not Legion my God why can't I thank you yeah it not Tor gas but the the shadowlands the the the
12:49
the expansion in question was shadowlands it was in shadowlands yeah it was in in our final assault on the uh
12:55
the home of the Jailer which that's tied in here too yes so the Jailer all the
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stuff the Jailer was doing he couldn't have done half of it if some Titan if some jumped up Titan servant hadn't
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offered his own eye in exchange for the ability to make Kon which is exactly
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what the valkyrie are they're Kon made by somebody other than the the one
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that's supposed to be making them they're they're Kean they're krian without free will yeah well then again
13:22
the krian are king without free will for a lot of the period of time Deb that's a whole that's a whole other topic yeah
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yeah that's point point being Odin do this did this kind of stuff all the time
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furthermore whilst he was Prime designate and then then he took himself and and went back to another dimension
13:39
he left the seat of prime designate basically empty and because he did that
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Logan managed to do all sorts of bad stuff including convince Helia that she
13:50
didn't want to be an undead monster serving Odin who was a a monster even
13:55
bigger in his own horrible way and thus she banished the halls of Valor and
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trapped Odin out making it possible for lokan to to usurp the role mean was well
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let's let's also not forget the part that at this time lokan who was one of the folks assigned to watch over uh the
14:16
prison alir which it is a prison built over the the you know body and head or
14:23
whatever you want to call it of yag Saron uh was being influenced by The Whispers of Y on because that's a thing
14:30
that you can't escape when you are literally there all day every day and since Odin wasn't there doing his job
14:37
there wasn't anybody who could stop him like and for every time anyone gives thorum grief for not being able to stop
14:44
lokin because he wasn't paying attention thorm at least had the loss of his wife you know he wasn't throwing a he wasn't
14:51
pitching a fit because people didn't like him and that's the thing ultimately all this comes down to is Odin being mad
14:56
that the other Watchers liked tear more than him and don't forget that tier is the one that brought the idea forward to
15:03
empower the dragon flights to become Protectors of Azeroth which just was an extra little wrinkle uh for him to
15:11
obsess over yep and again this is this is we're barely scratching the surface
15:16
so far there's so much more and heck I want to be completely upfront with you when you ask why I don't like Odin none
15:22
of this has anything to do with why I don't like I don't like Odin because I had to be in a freaking order Hall with
15:28
him for an entire expansion where he treated me like his Pokemon like and I had to prove myself worthy 12 times like
15:36
constantly proving myself worthy to a guy who's never actually been worthy in his life but I got to prove myself
15:42
worthy again but that's that's also part and paral with like his history right nobody was good enough nobody was worthy
15:50
enough unless it was his idea or he was the one that was making that ultimate decision it it was one of those things
15:56
where he also looked down upon on Mortal races the the folks that were um you
16:03
know constructed the Titan forged were okay they were soldiers they were chaff
16:08
they were they were cattle to to be slaughtered or be used as tools that I would say more Canon F than cattle yeah
16:16
okay that's fair Canon more more Canon fodder but they were Canon fodder to be spent and then you have us who succumbed
16:23
to the curse of Flesh you AKA what we I will always argue was the Natural State
16:29
and endgame for all of this from the very beginning uh you know we were weak and we were we shouldn't have been and
16:36
we've been corrupted uh and therefore we couldn't be trusted and the only ones that could be trusted were pure races
16:42
like the VRU who would then be turned into the Valar uh into his personal Army
16:47
where didn't matter how Noble the other Mortal races Souls were only these Souls would be turned into his warriors uh
16:55
yeah but it's worth noting that he didn't pick any Reich cool that were flesh it's true they were only the ones
17:00
that like iron ones or whatever iron or stone the the from the halls of stone or the the halls of iron like Halls of
17:06
lightning excuse me uh folks that were you know still still and I'm going to
17:12
air quote here pure and that's just his I mean it's his whole character shtick
17:18
like y that's his thing he is a obscenely I mean I'm just going to call a spade a spade he's basically like the
17:26
the prime racist of azero right well I mean look at the look at how he treated the uh storm dragons yeah who were
17:32
completely loyal to him by the way they they were right there doing what he said to do not arguing with him at all and he
17:40
still treated them like crap to the point where a dra a pro a Proto Dragon
17:46
essentially uh I can't remember her name f the The Ice lady the ice dragon lady
17:51
the the the one that became one of the uh the another pillars Vero Vero yeah Vero shows up and basically tells him to
17:58
his face that he's a jerk and it gets the dragons to like literally be like he is a jerk oh my God this whole time
18:05
we've been letting him be a jerk and they all just left you know that's this is the kind of guy Odin is Odin does the
18:13
problem with Odin is quite simply that he doesn't realize that just saying do
18:18
what I say because the Titan said I can tell you to do what I say doesn't work
18:23
because the Titans aren't here there's nobody there's nobody behind him backing
18:29
him when he says these things so he'd have to build consensus amongst his fellow Watchers but instead of doing
18:36
that he just took his ball and ran home he just yells at them and if they don't do what he wants if like if they decide
18:43
to empower you know dragons and you'll notice that the Titans responded and gave each of these dragons a tiny slice
18:49
of their power so it's not like the Titans themselves weren't on board with this idea to the point where I actually
18:55
find myself wondering do you think maybe the Titans didn't name him Prime designate yeah I've often been wondering
19:02
that right like because it's one of those things and I'm sure we'll find out more about it as we go along because this is all going to be tied into the
19:09
next two expansions that are are coming right uh but we don't actually know if
19:15
he was named Prime designate or because he was created by amanul that he just
19:21
was like Yep this is my job now and uh nobody thought to question it because well he worked for Alan th right right
19:29
like well for that matter the thing that keeps coming to my mind is Logan managed to tell the basically managed to tell
19:35
all the stuff at at alir I'm Prime designate now and that implies to me that maybe there there was another thing
19:42
that reminds me this too that there was a way to get a new aspect yeah I think I
19:48
think that either there was never actually meant to be a prime designate
19:54
or that it was put in place to that who whoever was there at that time whoever
20:01
was in charge of that particular facility just happened to be uh
20:06
considered the prime designate for that facility right we don't know how that interacts everywhere else we don't know
20:12
how that interacted at the other facilities do we it just seems no not only do we not know that it just seems
20:17
really odd to me that both tier and master raw never seem to follow Odin's
20:25
directives in any way well don't for doesn't even stop for them well also
20:30
don't forget that tier uh who who empowered tier amanth yeah so they were
20:37
both Cut From the Same Cloth so to speak they were both empowered by the same entity so was Mr master raah and so was
20:43
Master raah the three of them I mean I find myself wondering if there was supposed to be some kind of triumvirate
20:49
and the other two went off doing things just understanding yeah the three of us are gonna handle this stuff and then
20:54
Odin decides well I'm the prime designate and they're like well whatever you can be the prime designate I guess I
21:00
don't know what that means but sure like it just the fact that lokan could convince everything that he was that
21:06
himself and that you know it just makes me think did did Logan figure out like
21:11
when when Odin took his ball and ran did he figure out that oh well if I seal away the halls of Valor into another
21:17
dimension the he's not no longer going to have operator access and since he doesn't have operator access I can just
21:24
make myself you know for lack of a word like you know the the primary guy on a
21:30
computer system who gets to tell the system what to do maybe he just put himself in there because there was nobody there was no one there anymore
21:36
since Odin had gone and huffed off there's just a lot of possibilities to this it it just feels weird that they
21:42
would leave Odin in charge not that Odin didn't accomplish a lot of stuff but he was always the worst at actually leading
21:49
people like it just seems odd but I I mean then again of course I don't like Odin so maybe I'm not I'm not giving him
21:57
his due but but there's a bit like when we found out in uh dragon flight that that Odin was deliberately obscuring the
22:04
knowledge of the first ones from pretty much everybody not only purposely obscuring the knowledge of the first ones but also purposely obscuring the
22:11
origins of galacon and purposely obscuring any number of of bits of
22:16
information that probably the other Keepers would have loved to have known
22:22
um we also I believe and wasn't Al deer a directive of Odin as as well I can't
22:29
remember with Mother resarch remember I remember it being directed I don't remember if it was actually if Odin has
22:35
ever specifically said to have said let's do this but I do know that Odin has specifically said to to like you
22:41
know essentially go after the the ones in avaloran who were quarantined for some reason they were prisoners or
22:47
something they escaped and he sent his people after them and they failed four
22:52
times MH and then like the last guy was like can we please not send any more people it's not working they just keep
22:58
coming back dead or they don't come back at all either way let's let's not do this anymore so yeah Odin's track record
23:05
as a leader is not good yeah I mean it's suspect at best but I mean the other
23:11
things to keep in mind here too is that all of his decisions directly contributed to either the pain points of
23:18
of several major events in azo's history or you know actively worked against the
23:24
best interest of Azeroth and its inhabitants for his own and you see that as you go through all
23:32
of the questing right like let's we can go on about all the other stuff in in the particulars about him uh like to the
23:40
point where the people that follow him or the vi vcil that followed him or wanted to be like him were Fanatics just
23:47
like they were trying to be uh in the Lich King's Army you can go back and compare those two things um which there
23:54
are a lot of similarities but as you go through Legion and as you meet Javi the
24:00
V cruel uh and learn more about it and realize that it is Odin none of it is good right A lot of it is you know
24:08
actively working against Helio horses which on the surface seems fine but then you start learning that he's the reason
24:15
Helia is there you learn that he's the reason the vure exist to begin with that
24:21
he's part of the problem that caused CU again had he not done this those V here never would have existed so never would
24:28
have had her nine those wouldn't have been there the lichking wouldn't have had his V here none of those would be
24:35
there he started this chain of events uh and then again he his blatant disregard
24:41
for all the rest of the Mortal races and even if he wasn't and I'm going to ear quote here trapped in his own Dimension
24:47
he wouldn't have lifted a hand to help us nothing indicates that he would have helped us at all he would have just
24:52
continued building his army in his little pocket Dimension until he felt that he could take the field and have a
24:59
decisive Victory however long that would be he didn't help us with the mogu he didn't help us with the remnance of
25:05
yashar and we know that he was active during that time because Javi was active during that time so he figured out a way
25:11
to Skirt the Rules uh or whatever was imposed upon him um we see him still
25:16
favoring and trying to empower uh the the the V cruel under his uh tutelage to
25:23
the point where even others are twisted by the fell energies of the Legion by
25:29
Promises of extra power because they can't either meet up to Odin standards they haven't been selected uh or they
25:36
want to show how powerful they are and they're swayed by This Promise of more power he actively actively caused that
25:42
to happen it's fascinating how this one
25:48
I don't even want to call him a a man a creature that was supposed to be built to protect the world has actively made
25:55
decisions that have harmed it Act ly harmed it so when we say we don't like
26:01
Odin it's for a myriad of Reasons Matt because he didn't like being a Pokemon uh and me because again it's a character
26:08
that you're not supposed to like like yeah he he is he is not a pure innocent
26:15
person and to that effect tear isn't either none of them really are but Odin is so much worse keeping secrets not
26:23
letting everybody else know what's going on not doing anything but taking his ball and going home leading to uh Lan
26:31
taking over uh leading to uh the the essentially the old gods becoming free
26:38
and active again cuz again had he not left had he had actually done the self-appointed job do you think that yag
26:45
Saran would have always been free if they had all been paying attention and doing their tasks instead of being spun
26:51
off to do whatever they wanted to do on their own if he actually did his job of trying to unite them or his again
26:56
self-proclaimed job well I mean look to it something else that we haven't really talked about here but there's a point in
27:02
battle for Azeroth where you attempt to connect to all the Titan installations when you connect to alir mimran
27:09
immediately hangs up on you he disconnects alir from the network yep did he do that on his own because I mean
27:16
in the past I've gone up to Old I've gone up to alir and had mimran like you know help me save my dog from Death I
27:23
mean it's just you know mimran seems pretty okay with talking to people and the thing about that is after the trials
27:29
of Valor one of the things that Odin straight up says is that he's going to alir right that he should visit his
27:36
Watcher kin it's the first thing he says so so keep yeah keep in mind that that's
27:42
you know that right there he allowed um oh bloody hell God I'm getting old the
27:48
uh fish fish old God one that deal with aara nzo thank you he just allows Nao to
27:54
run free doesn't he's not he's not only not doing anything about it he's unwilling to help you do something about
28:00
it and there's also a whole deal in Legion where the legion just invades alir just straight up invades it it's
28:08
like while you know while you're there like while Odin sends you there to talk
28:13
to somebody I think it's a thorum and it gets invaded by the legion he doesn't say anything about that to you you know
28:19
he doesn't warn anybody like there's just so many in examples of this outside of my disliking the whole being treated
28:26
like a Pokemon thing is the fact that Odin is continuously trying to make everybody else prove their Worth to him
28:31
when he himself does not display a whole lot of worth worth proving well and there's more to it too like there's some
28:36
Shadowland stuff that I I just want to like cover real quickly that I think is interesting this all relates to the eye
28:42
too by the way well not not just the not just the eye but in shadowlands when we are Waging War against the Jailer right
28:49
uh Odin's valker go missing and we're part of our task is to go see if we can try to find them and it's turned out
28:57
that h is not dead uh she's actually still alive and she's actually corrupting the V here into mossor uh
29:04
with the eye the eye of the Jailer the eye of Odin uh that he gave up all that long ago and instead of helping us in
29:13
taking the fight to them which he could in theory do he has armies he could lend
29:19
us he he could say hey you're going to battle there you have a way to bring armies there I I have I have an army do
29:25
you need help you helped me let me help you no no no no no no no no no uh he's
29:31
going to go wage war himself right Odin declares that this is an insult that will not be stand uh he has us create
29:38
the uh the esah Horn uh to lure the eye to battle and then to asks us to recruit
29:45
a group of worthy valkir to accompany Dana the reclaimer into battle and
29:50
that's it that's what he's does and that's that's all he does and as soon as that is done what does he do nothing
29:58
nothing like it's it's that that same mentality I can do this I can do
30:03
whatever I want you're going to help me but I'm not helping you yeah that's why I I don't like I mean it's even more to
30:09
it like for example the fact that I mean essentially what he did to to Helia is I
30:15
mean it's beyond any kind of violation you can think of she said no so he
30:20
killed her and made her into the thing that she didn't want any part of helping him do M and then she made he made her
30:27
do it over and over again until finally lokan could awake her awaken her to what
30:32
was happening so he made her a slave so yeah it's just it's wild how how bad
30:38
Odin is and and a lot of it could be just it's it's not Odin is evil and
30:44
wants you know the world to fall in Fire and destroyed it's Odin is a is a my way
30:49
of the highway I'm not going to listen to anybody but myself I'm the prime designate me me me type it's not even
30:56
just selfishness it's flat out a refusal to to empathize with anybody else and
31:03
it's it's kind of astonishing to see this Titan creation who is flat out he
31:09
he seems to think he is the he is the Titans and it's kind of disturbing so yeah lots of reasons to this like Oden I
31:15
think we could talk more but we've probably got other stuff we should talk about say and maybe and maybe part of that is his defect from when the you
31:21
know essence of the Titans was slammed into the keepers cuz we don't we don't know if or or how much of of Aman thul's
31:30
Essence he got if any or we know that at least him and ra both got some yeah and
31:35
it definitely affected raw in a very specific way yeah raw pulled his out to keep it from driving him crazy and
31:41
eventually of course we know it got out because we've seen amul's Essence in a different dungeon we we've spoken with
31:48
it but what happens when you have all that amanth and we know amanth wasn't always super nice there's a whole bit
31:56
like in the end of dragonflight where find out athul was like real suspicious of Freya and really didn't like uh aloon
32:04
aloon yes thank you I was trying to say aowin for some reason like no no not a to tolken character but yeah no he he's
32:12
amul's like the most orderly manifestation of order and it feels like it's possible that being exposed to that
32:19
made Odin think I've got to make everything orderly and since I have to make it orderly I'm the best person to
32:25
decide what is orderly uh and combin that with the the other possibility which is that getting his face
32:31
permanently melted broke some stuff in his head yeah you know we've no one's ever seem to stop and think about that
32:37
one he's got a permanent burn on his face that is continuing to burn him
32:42
forever maybe get that looked at yeah it's it ain't
32:47
pretty hopefully that answers your question a little bit about uh Odin mean we could have done a whole show about
32:53
how terrible Odin is man but you know we do want to do other things we really could but I think we're we're going to move on to our next question and this
32:59
one comes from scribble Le the seasons comic was lovely to look at and the video version showcased the excellent
33:06
voice actors however I admit that I didn't see much new content from it we see a rehashing of underlying themes in
33:12
the war within about healing finding an appreciation an appreciating piece how do you feel it moved the needle for
33:18
character and story so interestingly enough I don't know that it necessarily
33:24
moved the needle but I think it focused on a part that the needles have often
33:29
skipped from like an old record sometimes uh parts of it don't get hit
33:35
when you're running that need uh and some of the things and the themes here yes there is some rehashing we've done
33:41
this in a couple different places however really truly when did these characters ever really stop to accept
33:48
healing when did khadgar ever really look back and say okay I need to really
33:54
evaluate what I'm doing with my life my role in world and what I'm doing and
34:00
what I can do that will be the best benefit to those around me when did ayria do that when the tirion do when
34:06
did or um yeah when when have any of them really sat down to really have that
34:12
discussion and now you're seeing them forced to do that even Jana like with the stuff with the Kieran Tour doar on
34:19
is gone right I'm sorry spoilers Etc uh but dollon is no more and they actually
34:28
have to have for the first time in an extraordinarily long time an honest
34:33
conversation about what dollon was what dollon represented and if it is still
34:40
what the Kieran Tor are right the Kieran Tor moved away from their roots of being
34:45
research but and and for the betterment of everybody and coming together when
34:51
they were needed versus a machine of War because that's what dollon has become
34:57
since they ripped it out of the ground it was the staging point for our battle against the Lich King it was our staging
35:05
point for fighting against the legion and it was going to be our staging point
35:11
for what we're dealing with now whatever existential threat we knew was coming or
35:16
thought we were coming we were all but ready to just teleport Doon into the middle of that and use it as
35:24
such and that's not what it was originally created for that's not the Kier and tour were made for what that
35:29
organization was about and now the whole conversation is what do we do now how do
35:36
we move forward and I think that's the themes that while we've had them we've
35:41
never actually seen many of the NPCs really do this even Jana barely started
35:48
getting moving moved forward during battle for azero and to be honest this is a final thing of hers that was sort
35:54
of I don't want to say tying her down but but she was a member of the Kieran tour a senior member all things
36:01
considered one of the most powerful people looked to her for answers and she was still tied down to whatever the
36:08
Kieran tour was and now they finally get to have that conversation that talk at
36:13
least that's my opinion what do you think man pumpkin spice is really good in a
36:19
drink no all right I'll be serious um the way that this expansion is going in
36:25
terms of what it's how it's set up and what it's set up to do I think there's going to be more of this kind of there's
36:31
going to be more retrospective patches for lack of a better word I feel like this was a retrospective patch this was
36:37
a patch where they stop and go okay yeah we' we've handled the initial problem and we don't we're not going to Goblin
36:43
town yet so let's all sit back and look at the fact that dollarin fell out of
36:48
the freaking sky and even though we stopped um the power that had been
36:54
stolen from it from being used exactly as as zotth intended it we really didn't stop zotth in any meaningful way but we
37:02
don't know where she is or what she's doing so we're going to take some time and really think about what we've lost
37:07
here and I think that is important because that's something we don't get a lot of in World of Warcraft um if you
37:13
look back at every expansion ever you get to a certain point and then it ends
37:18
and then there's like a oh hey Elemental Invasion oh hey demon Invasion oh hey
37:24
Undead Invasion and we just jump into the next thing so having this moment where um I don't know how to put this
37:31
without sounding a little weird about it but having AIS Sun RAV and Jana proudmore standing next to each other on
37:37
the beach going wow yeah we got to do something else with our lives don't we it's actually a big deal because AA Sun
37:43
Reaver and Jana prore haven't been within five feet of each other in like
37:48
five expansions you know and there's that moment where you get the sense that
37:54
I don't think either AIS or Jana feel like they did the wrong thing but they've also realized that there is no
38:00
point in arguing about it anymore that it just it isn't worth doing and I think that that ju Just that scene of them get
38:08
Gathering Together things and and of all things Kadar and his floating wheelchair it it it isn't like it isn't attempting
38:15
to jump the story forward it's attempting to say okay and here's where we did things that people actually do
38:22
when stuff like this happens to them like when disaster strikes people don't
38:27
just immediately flip into the next thing they stop and and grieve They Mourn they think about what it means and
38:34
I think that that's where they were going with it I think it worked pretty well for that um but if you want the next story bit that's what the the more
38:41
the bigger patches in between are the ones that give you that this was never intended to be a big story patch this
38:47
was intended to be a bridge you know here's what's been going on you know while your character was desperately
38:54
trying to stop all the bad things from happening and now now we've got gotten this Memorial set up and we've we've said goodbye to dollarin it's quite
39:02
possible we'll get another dollarin at some point it just won't be that one well they I mean they've they've basically said in game the characters
39:08
don't want to create not what Dollar on was and instead we might get maybe places where they meet but it they they
39:15
flat out said that they don't want it to be like it was so if we get yeah but that's that but my point isn't that my
39:21
point is that you know there's that big crater back where dollarin used to be that people could live in if it was
39:26
fixed it doesn't have to be the Kieran tour's home anymore you know Darin was a Kieran tour's home for a very long time
39:32
but there were also people living there and there are people who need places to live all over Azeroth so we could see
39:40
whole new things like like a place in Darin that is not dollarin uh we could see the you know like the Outpost thing
39:47
you mentioned reer we could even just see that they don't they don't retrench as a nation organization cuz you know
39:56
they didn't really need to be one so yeah there's a lot of possibility there and and I do think that it's it's
40:02
interesting to set up that you know this is this is where we got to and this is how it ended in this I think that's
40:08
that's good I think that that should be something that we have more often in the game frankly yeah I tend to agree but
40:14
scribbly asked another question which I think uh we can talk about as well because I think this also kind of ties
40:19
into a little bit of the storytelling aspect of it uh which is I haven't kept close tabs in the blizzard story and
40:25
franchise development staff but I am a Ware of the recentish uh departures and that Christy
40:31
golden in particular was among those that are known with the company I noticed that we also did not get a book with the war within but three short
40:38
stories I only started getting really interested in W lore in the last couple years so I'm not familiar with what we
40:43
should expect from story production what can you share about the state of the story team at blizzard and what do you expect from its current state uh to be
40:49
truthful we don't know the full extent of the story team aside from a couple people that we personally know that are
40:56
still there and still very much you know looking to make sure that good stories are made um that said there are some
41:03
things that I I think are worth noting here like one the lack of a book I think is something that a lot of people noticed I think I was surprised by this
41:12
uh we got a book at the end of dragon flight however uh which I think is still
41:17
sitting next to me actually uh so we did get a book it just wasn't directly with
41:23
the war within it was telling a story or a continuation of the story or finishing
41:29
of the story for Dragon flight and I think that's intentional and I think that's intentional because what we're at
41:35
is at the start of a Trilogy of Storytelling expansions essentially the
41:40
war within midnight and then the last Titan or the final Titan I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head right now um but these are all
41:46
interlined together which means their story is all interl together and in a lot of ways this first expansion is
41:54
taking the place of what would normally be done of a book B it's sort of the intro to the meat of the story because
42:00
if you think what we're doing in this expansion while it will likely be epic this is the the rise to the crescendo
42:08
this is you know leading up to whatever happens in Midnight which is that middle expansion which will probably be the
42:15
vast majority or meat of what the storytelling is in all of these expansions it's going to be dark
42:22
Revelations and what have you where all of this is setting that groundwork for it where we're learning a lot about
42:28
zotth we're learning about ourselves we're learning about the world beyond the borders of the Azeroth that we know
42:35
again before this expansion we had no idea that this this island existed we had inklings of it Matt and I talked
42:41
about this uh when we started talking about avaloran last expansion uh but we
42:47
didn't know how big it was and now we have more information of even more land masses there's an entire Empire of arrai
42:53
out there and if there's these there's probably more the world has essentially
42:59
grown exponentially from where we left it last time every expansion is adding more and making the world bigger than it
43:06
has been and this is just laying that groundwork for even more we didn't need necessarily a book leading into it and
43:13
to be fair the three short stories that we got here that's been pretty common for most expansions most expansions even
43:20
if they get a book there's going to be shorts or uh short stories or something
43:26
uh from either multiple characters perspectives or a very specific characters perspective leading into that
43:34
that expansion sort of setting up some of the character work as far as what I expect in the future is I expect that we
43:40
may get a midcycle exp uh novel I don't know who will write it I don't know if
43:47
we'll get one immediately but I think sometime either before during or after
43:52
midnight we may see another book and I think what that book will do if anything
43:58
is operate as a way to flesh out the little in between bits that are sort of lost during gameplay because again this
44:04
is an MMO there there's a game and you have to balance that gameplay with as much story as you put into it there has
44:10
to be a level of balance to it that doesn't mean they can't fill in those gaps and I'm sure they will but I do
44:16
expect that there's still a focus on story on telling a good story in making
44:22
sure that it is still cohesive and that's what I expect moving forward and I I think that's the best that I
44:30
could hope and now I'm going to shut up and let Matt talk I mean you pretty much said anything I might have said except that the simple fact is is we don't
44:37
really know what the effect of people leaving is because we aren't privy to
44:43
the way these things are made you know there's there's lots of stuff we don't know because just nobody talks about it
44:49
um and to be clear man I don't go asking for it either no no I don't I don't I
44:54
mean I I tell you up front I talk to Christy all the time on social media I've never once asked her what's the
44:59
deal with that cuz it's rude you know I wouldn't do that for anybody who lost their job you know however it happened
45:07
however amenable it was nothing I it's not my business um eventually they'll probably put out another book uh but I
45:14
have no idea who they're talking to I have no idea like it's very possible that they're moving away from outside
45:21
media for a while because of the continuous there's always been a push pull on the idea of outside media for
45:27
games um on the one hand it's it's a cash cow you know you can when a game is
45:32
popular enough you can put out books and you know sell books to people and get more money um on the other hand a lot of
45:39
times people get tired of stuff happening in books that then translate over into the g into the games and they
45:44
haven't read those books so they have no idea what's going on um I remember when the illen book came out which is one of
45:50
my favorite uh World of Warcraft novels uh really good book in my opinion people
45:55
got really mad that they had I know that ill knew about this web of stuff and I'm like going it it was a minor thing you
46:01
didn't really have to know that much about it honestly uh but but it was a good book I ultimately this stuff has G
46:09
come and gone all the time we've we've seen multiple books get written and
46:14
quite frankly uh Christy wrote books for them before she worked there it's quite
46:20
possible they could theoretically come to her and say Hey you know we know you don't work here anymore but would you
46:25
like to get paid to write a book and most writers are going to say yes unless they're really bitter about something a
46:32
writer as prolific as chrisy is might say yes because she just you know hey sure money to write about this thing I
46:37
used I used to be really involved in who knows I don't know but I will say that I
46:42
think at this point the World of Warcraft story is very big uh not just
46:48
broad not just complicated but straight up big there there's there's a lot of moving parts to it so I don't think we
46:54
can we can make any kind of real judgment as to how what's going on there or how important it's going to be simply
47:00
because it isn't really our wheelhouse I hopefully that's some kind of answer yeah well I think we might have time for
47:07
one more here and I think this is it's a little removed because it is no longer the holiday season but this also comes
47:14
from scriber Lee uh and uh I think we can spend a couple minutes answering it uh just who is greata winter what do we
47:21
know about him from lore bonus question if grandfather winter was incapacitated for season which wow character would
47:27
most like be most likely to step into the shoes and save the Feast of Winterville and its many festivities
47:34
almost as if it was a holiday movie um we don't I don't know if we know a whole lot I think it's just a thing that was
47:39
created that kind of grew its own legs right I'm sorry when you said grew its own legs my brain went in weird
47:45
directions um so you gotta you got to tell me what you want me to say here like restated or
47:52
something my brain is just not working yeah so I mean okay grandfather winter we know is said to be uh oh okay now I
47:59
understand I didn't hear the greata winter part so you just started talking about things growing legs and I was like what over ders no grandfather winter is
48:05
is hoder it's in my opinion has always been in lore terms a cultural memory of
48:11
hoder just like the tier has that cultural memory of you know the silver all the various tear this tear hands
48:19
silver hands you know this order of the silver hand is there's a cultural remembrance of the Titan forged that
48:27
traced down into humans because humans come from cursed FR and that's that's to me in my opinion that lore of the game
48:34
is always been hinting that great father winter is hodir yeah like I'll just want to read this off real quick because I think I think Matt's I think that's on
48:41
the right track and I think that makes a lot of sense um so it it's the winter
48:46
the winter Veil is said to be is stemed from a supernatural being uh referred in many cultures as greata winter as he
48:52
would walk the land late in the Seasons Winter itself would be his billowing cloak in his wake was the blanketing of
48:59
the land in snow and thus it is said that greata winter would cast his wintry
49:04
Veil over the land as greata winter walked Azeroth it is said he would provide a bounty for those who welcomed
49:10
his presence those parts of Azeroth melee and snow it gives the land time for rebirth and renewal as such the idea
49:18
of feasting during the winter Vil would bring together communities as they shared whatever they had typically a
49:23
single day of Mart and feasting welcomed the chain all in anticipation of the land's renewal that does sound a whole
49:30
lot like hoder who is a winter keeper who when you go there what is his little
49:37
room all about snow and cold and looks like it's essentially a winter wonderland inside of there and if
49:44
keepers are roaming the the Earth the the world if especially if it's on that Titan built Highway uh the path of
49:51
Titans or or or whatever we got to call it at this point that we know physically existed we see elements of it if he went
49:58
from the north to the South to check on the different settlements and uh the different you know uh Titan forged
50:05
encampments and brought winter in his way because that seems to be what he would do because that's just what
50:10
happens around him yeah I could honestly see that becoming one of those things where over
50:16
time the depictions of him who essentially is a very tall VI rule that
50:22
could very easily be mistaken for a dwarf because of the beard uh and his stat and how he he stands and walks I
50:28
can absolutely see that eventually turning into what this memory of it is because we talk about this on the show a
50:35
lot right where oral tradition is always interesting in real world storytelling
50:40
and a lot of times you see that represented in game as well things change as time moves when people tell
50:48
the story the story will shift things will eventually morph into other things
50:54
informed by what the current reality is around them the story that they heard their own
51:00
perceptions uh you know all these things are factors to it and they change the way that that story is told and I could
51:08
easily see that being oh the the winter Veil is the time where hoder came to check on us and make sure that you know
51:15
we were doing what we were supposed to be doing or to you know make sure that the land got a a wintry blast so that it
51:22
would eventually thaw and then would feed water to the field so that there would be another cycle of rebirth uh for
51:27
azero I could see all of these things over the years morphing into yeah well he wasn't really that big he was only
51:35
you know 16 Hands tall you know or now he wasn't that big he was only 10 hands
51:41
tall or yeah he was just another dwarf who again the Earth and were probably one of the more common I think of the uh
51:49
the Titan forged that we know of I think they were the most one of the most prevalent I think that's even supported
51:54
when we go to the halls of uh why can't I think of the the halls of stone like the vast majority of we are
52:00
VI rule the vast majority of them are dwarves they also seem to have some of the most variation uh among the the ones
52:07
that we have met so it's entirely possible that as they started telling those stories it just became another
52:13
another earthin and then eventually another dwarf their great ancestor or whatever the case is so and I think it's
52:19
also interesting that even all the depictions uh and especially in the older stories uh he has often refer to
52:26
as a Titanic entity uh which could be taken any number of ways him just being
52:32
really really tall or really really big or he could literally be an entity created by the Titans so Matt may be on
52:38
to something greata winter may actually just have been hod here doing his job because I mean I we don't even know what
52:44
his job really was do we I mean no not really we've never really heard from any
52:50
of the stories about either hod deer or GFA winter you never hear anyone saying you know this is what he was put here to
52:57
um you was the father of the frost Giants right yeah and the frost Giants and Giants in general were created to
53:04
basically serve as Earth moving devices they were there to help reshape the world or totally after the yeah after
53:11
the Great War with the you know old gods and their Earth their Elemental minions which makes sense because he was he was
53:17
associated with ganth right yeah absolutely go ahead no that was it you pretty much got what I I was going for
53:23
yeah so who knows maybe maybe and I mean look at go back and I and I I want you to go and look at the in-game depiction
53:30
of hoder um and take a look at what he looks like in game and compare him to
53:35
what greata winter looks like there's a lot of similarities with the way the beard is braided the way the hair is
53:41
tied up into the top not uh like there there is a lot of similarities there so
53:47
I would not be surprised in the slightest uh if hoder was originally
53:53
greata winner and now that he's no longer stuck in alw war maybe grandfather winter will walk the land again that'd be great for winter Veil
54:00
that's G to add the winter Veil story of the time that grandfather winter was taken to the you know taken to the
54:05
twisting Nether and tortured by demons then then greata Winter's brother
54:10
greata Thunder showed up and got him out of there alongside greata some some
54:15
human Adventurer or whatever this orc Shaman they knew ah good times uh but I
54:22
think that's going to do it for today uh friends I do want to remind you that blizzard watch is made possible due to
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55:09
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