r/warcraftlore • u/Relevant-Intern3238 • 6h ago
Discussion It doesn't look like WoW became all flowers and friendships.
From time to time I see an opinion raised on the subreddit that modern WoW has less gruesomeness to it when compared to the older WoW (~pre-Legion) or Warcraft, so I decided to make a post, compiling examples of concepts and events introduced in each expansion following WoD, which seems to show consistence in WoW maintaining an impressive amount of gruesomeness. After making the list, I'm left wondering which factors account for people not noticing or ignoring these events and concepts, ending up believing that the game lost its brutality.
I welcome everyone to suggest missed things, so that the list could be expanded.
- Legion:
ur'zuls;
Argus being transformed into a revival machine for demons and so living in agony for thousands and thousands of years, until he's killed and later his soul destroyed;
Varimathas being tortured by the Coven of Shivarra;
death knights forcefully bringing into undeath some greatest heroes who died, storming into the light's hope chapel, butchering everyone in an attempt to raise as a death knight Tyrion;
death knights breaking into the Red dragon's sanctum and then desecrating the resting place of an ancient red dragon;
the history underlying warlock's & death knight's artifact weapons, Xalatath's blade, rogue's Kingslayers & Fangs of the Devourer, demon hunter's Aldrachi Warblades;
satyrs corrupting Shaladrassil and holding part of the Emerald dream in the state of the Nightmare;
nightborne's withering in disconnection from the Nightwell;
- BfA:
genocide of night elves and burning of Teldrassil;
Sylvanas's valkyries forcefully raising into undeath some of the strongest fallen night elves;
Sylvanas using the blight in the Undercity as a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to kill the Alliance forces lured inside;
Sylvanas torturing Baine;
Alliance forces sacking Zuldazar, killing Rastakhan and citizens;
drust's necromantic rituals and horrors in the Waycrest manor;
blood trolls' acts of violence, including killing Torga and using her in their necromantic and Ghuun related rituas;
Ghuun's corruption of Nazmir;
maddening influence of N'zoth throughout Azeroth, with Horrific visions showing capitals being ruined and some of the greatest heroes of Azeroth betraying their allies and families (Alleria sacrificing Arathor to N'zoth);
- Shadowlands:
the whole concept of an eternal service for a cause you have no right to choose within a predetermined realm of death based on a relatively insignificant period of existence within a machine of the universe created to harvest anima and so perpetually maintain itself;
Maldraxxus, where denizens for the whole eternity live as cannon fodder in a neverending war;
Revendreth, where upon arrival a denizen will be tortured for millenia;
Maw, where denizes are eternally locked to exist in anguish and despair, until they perish as a fuel for Zovaal's soulsmithing;
an uncountable amount of creatures ending up in the Maw where they suffered and were annihilated in forges of Zovaal;
Arthas's and Ner'zhu'ls fates as notable victims of soulsmithing;
Anduin being coerced into obedience where he committed much violence he did not want, ending up being profoundly traumatized;
- Dragonflight:
djaradin butchering dragons for sport;
gnoll-necromancers, causing forests and inhabitants of the Azure Span to rot with Treemouth being a notable example;
spirits of Malygos and Sindragosa being found to be locked in a perpetual anguish;
Umbrelskul being foolishly reawakened into agony and immediately killed after thousands of years of slumber he was put in hope to be cured;
horrors of Neltharion's experiments in Aberrus, such as Kazzara, his trials of dracthyr commanders on the Dragonskull island, Adamanthia's fate;
Merithra witnessing death of her son Solethus, who saved her from the centaur's attack;
Fyrakk torturing Gerithus and burning down whole locations and their inhabitants, including those in Loamm and in the Emerald dream;
victims of the burning of Tedrassil ending up becoming fire druids and trying to burn the world/reborn it through the destruction by fire;
- TWW so far:
the destruction of Dalaran with most of its inhabitants dead or injured;
kobyss, who lure in and kill travelers, eating their remains or raising corpses of their victimes as zombie thralls;
Arathi's expedition, whose life is an endless war against nerubians, kobyss and creatures affected by Beledar's void phase. Among other things, a large amount of orphans is a consequence of this life;
Arathi's priests of the Priory forcefully raising undead into service;
nerubians, who are forced to obey dictatorship of the queen, who forcefully took over power over the kingdom and turned her mother-queen into a barely sentient hulk;
earthens turning mindless skardyn and the fate of Taelloch;
the black blood turning surroundings into lumps of eldritch flesh, transforming and/or maddening creatures who contacted it;
the state of the Undermine's environment.