Monday, December 4, 2017

After the Fall of Sargeras, Who Threatens Us?

While we never get to fight him directly (something that I'll confess I'm a little frustrated about,) the end of the Antorus raid sees Sargeras defeated. Forced into his giant (as in, the size of a planet) humanoid form rather than the cloud of fel darkness encroaching on our world and drawn into the Seat of the Pantheon in a far smaller form, imprisoned by the other Titans with aid from Illidan (for, like, all eternity or at least until Blizzard decides they need him back as a villain,) Sargeras is no longer there to lead the Burning Legion, and with the engine of Antorus destroyed with the death of the Titan Argus (though how permanent that death is remains to be see - the other Titans were killed by Sargeras after all but seem relatively ok after the raid,) the Legion cannot regenerate at the same rate it used to (again, wish we'd get a less ambiguous explanation for what, exactly, Antorus did for them, as demons naturally resurrect in the Twisting Nether.)

So the Burning Legion, the most deadly force the Warcraft cosmos had ever seen, is scattered to the winds.

If the defeat of the Legion in the War of the Ancients put Azeroth's heroes on the map, this victory puts us at the center of it.

If the mighty Legion can fall before us, who could dare oppose us?

First, to step outside of the narrative for a second: Ultimately, nothing can stand against us because this is a game, and any instance of our failing to defeat the big bads (if they are indeed fightable as a boss) is rendered non-canon as soon as we take them down. There are games, of course, that end in defeat, but even in those, one usually triumphs against some big fundamental monster. Anything in WoW that can we set our murderous sights on is ultimately going to be defeated.

But to step back into the narrative:

What we're basically creating here is a list of villains. There is a lot of what I'd call "umbrella-ing," where some powerful foes fit within the context of a larger foe. However, if something feels different enough to be an independent expression, I'll list both. That includes two of the biggest, which I'll get too early in the list.

This list is also something that will continue, and must continue, to grow. Given that Warcraft as a setting is less a singular epic like Lord of the Rings and more of a diverse universe meant to be a setting for many stories, like the Marvel Universe, new threats and new heroes will always have a chance to rise up, and old enemies or even old allies will transform into things we're going to have to fight.

So, without further ado: The remaining villains of Warcraft:

Each Other:

While this would normally be the last entry on such a list, the "huh, makes you think" entry, given the nature of the upcoming Battle for Azeroth expansion, this threat is actually going to be center stage. It's all well and good that your Horde character has become nearly god-like in his or her power, but the Alliance has been keeping pace with you, meaning that a rivalry between mere mortals has ascended to mythic levels. Yes, you beat the Legion, but so did your counterpart on the other side.

This is also the villain that, for gameplay purposes, as well as meta-narrative purposes, can never truly be defeated or subdued. Blizzard could probably never tell half their players that they are the losers in this central conflict, which makes me very, very curious to see how Battle for Azeroth's plot resolves.

The Old Gods:

We know of four Old Gods to have infested Azeroth. There are probably many others out there in the cosmos, but they are not likely to be a direct threat to us, as the Old Gods seem to focus on whatever planet they have infected. There is a possibility that there was a fifth (or more,) but unless we get some big reveal and confirmation, right now we know of only Y'shaarj, Yogg-Saron, C'thun, and N'zoth.

Y'Shaarj is the most likely to be fully dead. Even the Sha, which cursed the land of Pandaria for eons, were considered only an echo of the Old God, and the Klaxxi, who were devout worshippers of Y'Shaarj, saw the Sha as abominations, which suggests that Y'Shaarj has truly been dead all this time. It is unlikely that it could be resurrected, as it seems the last of its essence was used to empower Garrosh Hellscream, who was still defeated.

C'thun was defeated in Ahn'Qiraj. After its death, it managed to possess Cho'gall, meaning that even in death, it was still powerful. Now the question is whether Cho'gall's death meant anything more serious for C'thun. There is one other major element here, though, which is that when Sargeras was imprisoned, he stabbed Azeroth with his massive sword directly into Silithus, meaning that the sword most likely hit C'thun's body. In my mind, this seems most likely to have done damage to the Old God, though it's also possible that doing so weakened C'thun's bindings, perhaps giving him greater freedom to escape (given Sargeras' opinion of the Old Gods, any help for C'thun was almost certainly unintentional, which makes me doubt that it did help the Old God. Sargeras may be evil, but he's no idiot.)

Yogg-Saron was defeated in Ulduar. The fact that we directly attacked its brain (which, interestingly, seemed to exist in a strange realm of memory and imagination or vision) suggest we must have done some real damage to it, but on the other hand, his servants pop up as we enter Ulduar to speak with Magni at the beginning of Legion. That means he's probably not totally out of the picture.

Finally, N'zoth remains at large. We woke him up, ending the Emerald Nightmare but in the process maybe freeing him. I'm also about 80% convinced that using the Pillars of Creation unlocked his prison in Ny'alotha. N'zoth has never been killed, so there's no reason to think anything is standing in his (its, sorry, defaulting to male pronouns) way other than his original (likely faulty and crumbling) Titanic restraints.

The Void:

The creators of the Old Gods are mysterious. We're learning more and more about the Void as a source of magical power - one that is dangerous but not necessarily malevolent (though usually it is.) The Void Lords are really the only villains who could unseat Sargeras as the Biggest Bads of the Warcraft cosmos. But it's also possible that destroying them isn't even metaphysically possible. We're far more likely to encounter agents of the Void, including the Old Gods, than actually facing against them directly.

That's also assuming we haven't already. We've encountered plenty of relatively innocuous Void entities (some bearing the actual name of Void Lord) in our travels, and Warlocks even have them as minions. What if the Void Lords individually are actually no more powerful than any given Voidwalker, but that they are collectively an incredibly powerful force that could threaten even the Titans? In the void, what do power and even the individuality versus collective identity even mean?

The Scourge:

The end of Wrath very pointedly had us crowning a new Lich King. The Scourge is absolutely still around, but we ended its war against us and installed someone who would not act as a conqueror, but rather a "jailor of the damned." But Bolvar has been acting in disturbing ways lately, given the Death Knight quests in Legion. Even if his intentions are ultimately benevolent (in a greater good sort of way because those red dragons sure did not deserve what happened to them,) it's also possible that he does not have full control over the Scourge. There's no reason to believe that Kel'thuzad has not resurrected somewhere, as we never found his phylactery the second time we raided Naxxramas, and he could easily take command of legions of undead. There are also some splinter factions within the Scourge that might be small for now, but could wind up growing uncontrollably, you know, like a plague. The Cult of the Damned still exists.

Something From the Shadowlands:

I'm still holding on to my theory that the Lich King is not demonic in origin, but rather is a powerful entity of the Shadowlands that Kil'jaeden extracted and stuffed in a suit of armor. But even if he's not, the Shadowlands are clearly host to many undead threats, from Helya (who we did kill,) to the Drust spirits, Bwonsamdi, and whatever taught Odyn how to turn Helya into the first Val'kyr (if that's not my theoretical Lich King spirit.)

The Infinite Dragonflight:

Yes, we've killed its leader, but first of all, that was in a timeline that no longer happens and second of all, killing a time-traveling villain means next to nothing if you can't account for every moment it spent (according to its own personal timeline) between becoming that villain and dying. From Murozond's perspective, he might have spent twenty-five thousand years messing up the timeline between transforming from Nozdormu and when we caught up to him. Hell, if he can "fix" his death to that moment, maybe he's unkillable until that moment (I think it would be awesome to have a raid fight against him where we can't kill him - we can only try to prevent him from interfering with our killing him back at level 85.) Also, does the infinite dragonflight die with him? We know they certainly haven't been erased from the timeline, and they even aided in Garrosh's escape (which notably led to our contact with another timeline plus a demonic invasion that will probably have helped free the Old Gods, who serve the Void Lords, who exist in a state where there is no single true past or future...)

Demons:

We're probably going to get a good long break from demons after Legion, but just because its leadership is dissolved doesn't mean that demons as a thing no longer exist. And they're not known for being polite and helpful.

The Elements:

Much as the Alliance and Horde have historically set aside their differences to face larger threats, the only time you tend to see the Elemental Lords working with each other is to counter some external danger. The Shaman class campaign was all about navigating the politics of the Elemental Plains. But without the Legion threatening doom to everyone, and with Azeroth's soul in torment as she suffers from Sargeras' attack, I don't think that this cooperative peace is going to last very long.

Something We Thought Was Good:

X'era's vision for the universe is actually pretty terrifying. As a being of pure light, she pursued purity. And perfect purity means no life, because there would be no disparity. The Light is generally seen as benevolent, but if the ultimate goal is to make everything uniformly filled with light, that existence loses meaning just as much as the total annihilation of all things apparently sought by the Void. Now, I'd guess that not all Naaru are like this - many seem to have a nuanced enough view that they're happy to foster life and peace and just generally want people to be safe and happy. But an obsession with purity on the part of powerful beings of Light could prove a very dangerous threat indeed.

Similarly, the Titans and their creations are agents of Order. And while Order can generally mean safety and stability (which seems to be primarily what they sought to establish on Azeroth) it can also veer into tyranny and totalitarianism, as we saw with the Mogu, who were one of the Titanforged races. Odyn has been an ally in our fight against the Legion, but even if Helya's response to his behavior made her a villain, his actions toward her - imperiously forcing her into undeath to serve as his first Val'kyr, to then grant fallen Vrykul a form of undeath in eternal service to him - was pretty awful, and I can't say I blame Helya for being pissed at him.

Even Life in abundance can be villainous. The Botani and their ilk - the spawn of Draenor's massive Sporemounds - were so feral and all-consuming that they threatened to choke the planet like a cancer. And the ferocity of wild beasts, while revered by druids, is not always directed at the monstrous threats to our world. The Worgen struggle with the power of Goldrinn that has infected them like a disease, and the ferocious power of beasts can threaten to topple the safety and order of civilization, as it nearly did in Gilneas.

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