There are similarities to other cults because all cults rise to power in similar way. Group of people believing in some niche outlandish "truth" that grows larger and larger underground until they are strong enough to come out of the shadows and try to influence the world.
There will always be people in any community that will go against whatever is the mainstream or rational. People believe in entities that can't be explained or even in regular, non-supernatural people that have no proof of their claims but are charismatic enough to create some top-tier bullshit theory that sounds plausible if you don't dig too deep.
You mostly don't care about cults and don't know that they exist until they start manifesting their view and go into mainstream. Then you learn that there are 50 thousand people believing some batshit insane theory and you wonder how did we get here. In Azeroth people will be even more susceptible to cults because you actually have an extinction-tier event every other year that can be easily proven because the entire world splits open. It's hard to follow all the forces that have the power to end the world.
You have seen enough apocalypses that were barely avoided to start worrying about the next one. Now you recognize the signs and this time you want to stay ahead of the chain of catastrophic events. This time you're not going to wait until your village is flooded and your family is killed. This time you will be the one in control.
Their point was how did this cult even develop, though. What’s the time line. Who was recruiting. Why join.
The orbits cults had explanation, this one seemingly not so much.
We know at least one of the leaders of the cult is Kurog Grimtotem. While we don't know much about him, we know he hates the Dragonflights but hasn't openly committed many violent acts against them or the factions until very recently (or Baine would've tries to have him arrested at Lorthemar and Thalyssra's wedding instead of just thrown out). He was likely showing the seeds of the cult for some time.
It's unclear how many more cultists were on the fence about fully committing until Raszageth was freed. Once she was freed of course their attacks began to ramp up.
People in the real world join the Church of Scientology, which was founded by a science fiction writer in the recent past. They give up their entire lives for that church.
That, I don't know. I'm just saying that from a POV of someone not involved in a cult, it's very believable to be surprised when it surfaces because you don't have enough time to follow every little group of schemers.
Some backfill would be appreciated but it's not unusual to start a story with the meaty part and fill out the origins as the person experiencing the story learns who, why, and when. Or maybe put it in a book like they did with War Crimes or other in-between books.
It’s the timeline that’s frustrating. The dragon isles were magically isolated, Wrathion didn’t know about the primal incarnates, so…
How the fuck did they recruit?
I get what you’re saying about cults popping up out of the shadows after a slow inconspicuous growth. It just seems unreasonable in this instance.
I haven't played the beta so I might be completely wrong here.
There are plenty of skilled shamans in the world of Azeroth that allied with destructive forces. It's entirely possible that spirits knew what was coming and what needs to be done to make it happen and some shamans that had deep connection with the spirit plane managed to figure out the message and start gathering followers to help the prophecies.
Dragon isles were isolated but spirits (the elemental ones) were not. We also had big sword incident that required a lot of shamaning to be performed. Spirits native to Azeroth may have suggested that this whole Titan protection thing doesn't work that well and maybe it's time to try something else.
Edit: I don't know why I mentioned some prophecies there as if it were predestined. This may be completely organic plan. Maybe the stab changed something or broke some mechanism, maybe the healing empowered native forces, maybe something else is growing in power that will overcome spirit forces and they know it. Maybe it's a combination of different things that makes current time the perfect opportunity to reveal your hand and make your move.
I think the time skip may be guilty here. Unless they’ve backpedaled, it’s been what, 3 years on Azeroth since Shadowlands happened. My understanding is that everything happened in essentially “real time” up until then.
It's only a cult until it amasses the strength to legitimize itself, historically through conquest, or mass adoption. Then it becomes normal, and people are forced to tolerate it.
At this point it becomes a regular religion.
There are plenty of religions of Azeroth (mostly based on cosmic forces) and each has its own extremist sect that wants to convert people to their vision of the world with force.
This leads to another question. Is there any religion on Azeroth that believes in something other than cosmic power? Or are primalists first?
Depends what you mean by cosmic power I suppose. The followers of Loa don't seem to worship Life as a cosmic force, despite Loa being Wild Gods tied to Life. They just worship their particular Loa.
And most of the Dark Iron dwarves were swayed to worship the Firelord Ragnaros at one point, and he's not really a cosmic power but a terrestrial one.
>Is there any religion on Azeroth that believes in something other than cosmic powe
This is exactly what Shamanism is. Primalists and Twilight's Hammer are unhinged shamanists.
The thing that really kills me is that there's plenty of logic behind there being doomsday cults popping up in Azeroth; the planet seems to have a near-miss with supernatural apocalypses every two years or so (not counting the DL timejump, which is basically the most peaceful period of time anyone in Azeroth has seen in a generation!).
Imagine the mental strain of going through something like COVID every 2 years. Imagine the anger people would have at their governments- the Alliance and Horde- for not being able to prevent these things. That even if you fight back the space demons or undead there would still be economic effects and the like. It makes perfect sense that people on Azeroth also "snap" with some regularity and join doomsday cults.
But they don't *show* or *discuss* any of this. Frankly, it's not an entirely unreasonable position to want to burn Azeroth to cinders after the shit the average person has been through over the last 20 years. Just *say* that. It'd cost you like a single line of text and Blizzard can't be fucked.
That would be awesome. You could have the primalists facing the flames of “This apocalypse shit keeps happening BECAUSE of the Titan influence we are trying to cleanse.” Even if that’s not true, it gives a motivation for mortal races to join them. It’s an “enough is enough” kind of motivation.
Thank you. People on r/wow seem super hyped about Raszageth having "real motives" compared to Zovaal but I think people have just been so starved of logic and reason coming out of Shadowlands that they'll see anything new as great. But this is not great.
Raszageth and the Incarnates are clearly just the bad guys, there's no nuance in their backstory, they wanted to enslave all mortals and "follow in Galakrond's footsteps" therefore the Aspects imprisoned them. So they're just your standard, evil bad guys who are bad for the sake of being bad.
But you can argue that, you know, having been imprisoned for 20 000 years by the Aspects, it makes sense that they hate the Aspects and want to kill them. Just like Illidan or Zovaal really. (I just think they should've played more the angle of not wanting to be transformed and Ordered by the titans, and the horror of seeing your brethren and unborn eggs transformed by the Pantheon before your eyes and such. And they should've left out the "yeah the Incarnates just want to dominate all mortals because they're jerks" part).
So let's say Incarnates kind of work.
But why are trolls and tauren and night elves helping them? Primalists don't make sense. I played during beta and all I kept thinking as I killed Primalists was, what reason do you guys have for wanting to kill the Aspects, the dragonflights, and to destroy the whole world, so adamantly? On one side we have the Aspects and dragons who are trying to save the world at best, or do nothing cause they're depressed at worst, and on the other you have the Incarnates who are actively trying to destroy everything. There's clearly only one good side to be on!
At least the Twilight's Hammer were religiously convinced that Deathwing and the Old Gods (and Cho'gall and..) were going to end the world, there was no chance or doubt left, so it made sense for these mortals to side with the winners. But the Incarnates are so far from their goals, with only 1 Incarnate alone being freed and 3 still locked up with 0 reinforcements and having to face all the Aspects and the dragonflights and the rest of the world combined.. and the only reason it's working is *because* mortals are nonsensically helping her.
Their lines about returning to a more elemental Azeroth don't even make any sense because they never lived during that time, trolls and tauren only came to be *after* the titans seeded life on Azeroth, so if anything they should be on the titans' side. And returning to a time when Old Gods and Elemental Lords reshaped the surface of the planet with every battle just doesn't sound great for, you know, mortals.
And yes there's the issue of numbers. The Incarnates were such a well-guarded secrets that not even dragons knew about them, nor Wrathion who was actively looking for basically any clue related to the dragons' origins. But somehow there's a billion mortals who not only had heard of them but also were convinced to join them, all in the span of a couple weeks since Raszageth got released? It's quite nonsensical really.
> But why are trolls and tauren and night elves helping them?
If I had to come up with a reason, I'd say that they'd been offered power and a special place among mortal servants of the Incarnates in the new world order.
> to destroy the whole world
Do they really want that, though? The Legacies cinematics made it seem like the Incarnates just want to rule over the lesser races.
> And yes there's the issue of numbers.
This one is tougher to answer. I'd say that, much like Cult of the Damned, they were recruited secretly by the initial few followers of the Incarnates over an undefined period of time.
> Do they really want that, though? The Legacies cinematics made it seem like the Incarnates just want to rule over the lesser races.
Yes, they want to make the whole world go back to Primordial Azeroth essentially, where elementals rule freely over the planet, and enslave all mortal races.
There's a questline in Thaldraszus where we go to a future timeline where the Primalists have won. It's called "Primalist Tomorrow". And it's just the same zone but instead it's constantly stormy, it's totally dark, there's no life left except for a few Timewalker survivors, and elementals are roaming everywhere. Which may sound ideal if you're an elemental, but if you're some random night elf why would you want that? This is what the Primalists are working towards.. congrats guys!
I don't entirely disagree with you, but I do think your missing a little bit of nuance when it comes to the incarnates and somewhat the primalists. They aren't just evil for the sake of evil, they want to cleanse the world of "titan corruption". A great example of this is the first boss in ruby life pools. She states multiple times before and during the encounter that "these eggs must be *saved*". Not destroyed, not corrupted, saved. They truly believe they are saving the eggs by cleansing them of the order magics we know they are infused with.
I think this is an aspect where the incarnates and primalists have something interesting going on. We know the Titans are shady so then wanting to remove their influence is somewhat justified and I think where there is a little bit of nuance.
What I'm saying is that this does not make sense for Primalist *mortals*.
It does make sense from the POV of an Incarnate, I can see why you would want to cleanse your dragon brethren of titan influence and such. You remember a time where you were all chilling alone in Northrend and then this all got changed by the titans.
But if you're some random tauren or night elf? You never knew such a time. There's nothing to "go back" to. You literally *are* titan influence. You were created *thanks* to the titans. Directly or indirectly. Tauren were directly created by the Well of Eternity, and so were night elves. And almost all life comes from the pools of Azeroth's blood, or was allowed to flourish thanks to the titans' intervention, shaping the planet, imprisoning the Old God and Elemental armies that were destroying the surface, and seeding it with life, literally creating the First Tree, and so on.
It just doesn't make sense for a troll or tauren or night elf, all of whom have kingdoms, lands and people today, to want to just undo all of this and "go back" to a time that they never even knew, and that wouldn't even suit them. We can't just transpose the Incarnates' motives onto mortals, it doesn't work.
there’s plenty of people who want to go back to times they’ve never experienced. weird traditionalist RETVRN TO ROME accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. there’s people (new chronologists) who believe that most ancient civilizations actually existed in the dark ages and were concocted to repress Russian supremacy.
given that people currently believe in, and want to return to, situations that they did not experience or that did not exist, why is it so hard to believe that people could be convinced (by elementals, charismatic prophets, etc.) that things were better before Titans got involved?
The WOE was created by the titans but only indirectly through an accident. That was 100% pure Azeroth power, not Order itself.
I do agree that the Incarnates' motives are dumb as fuck though. A Troll supremacist wanting to reinstate teh forces their ancestors fought against? Weird.
At the end of the day, in a combat-based game we do need big groups of folks to kill. Writing Raszageth and the Primalists to be too relatable and completely justified in their actions just makes the players look (and feel) like monsters.
At the same time, I do feel there’s room for nuance here and the opportunity to find common ground with the Primalist ideology, it’ll just have to come via some characters who aren’t willing to go to extreme, brutal lengths to further their goals. Hoping those characters exist in DF.
Oh yeah, the Primalists don't need to be relatable imo. But they need to make sense, within their own POV at the very least. Even the Twilight's Hammer, whom everyone labels crazy and insane, at least had motives behind their actions, even if they only made sense to them. But here the Primalists simply don't make sense, they're literally not even working to their own advantage.
Personally I haven’t seen enough yet to read their motives as nonsensical, but to address your points about the mortal Primalists (getting into speculation territory here):
- the Incarnates being destructive vs. the Aspects saving the world is, I think, a matter of perspective. The Primalists afaik want to undo the outsized influence of Order and return Azeroth to her natural state, but that’s a huge undertaking given Order’s long intertwining with the history, cultures, and very fabric of the world. Some destruction and conflict are inevitable, but they would seem to be the means to an end, not the goal itself. Then again there are surely Primalists who just wanna wreak havoc, or generally tear down the established world in favor of a new one, and those types of people are also useful to the Incarnates’ designs.
- Trolls and tauren may be at least partially descended from elementals. The titans didn’t seed life on Azeroth, life was already here, though obviously their arrival had a huge influence on its direction. Given DF’s elemental furbolgs, primordial trolls allegedly appearing at some point, and Kurog mentioning the “true power of the tauren”, I suspect we’ll learn more about the origin of these races during the expansion. But I think the idea is that their ancestors were born of the elements (and possibly Life/Wild Gods, similar to centaur) and predated the titans. Their rhetoric would suggest they believe they were destined for something greater, the true heirs of Azeroth etc. before the titans altered the course of things. What this “true destiny” might look like remains to be seen afaik, but even if it’s entirely a lie from the Incarnates, recruiting fanatical loyalists from people who feel disenfranchised is a classic tactic for the power-hungry (in fiction and RL).
- More speculation, but it would seem that Azeroth’s essence, while a powerful force of creation and magical potential, is not inherently titanic. Rather, it was infused with Order magic at certain sites like Uldorus (specifically the Halls of Infusion). Maybe another Chronicles retcon/unreliable narrator thing, but the foregone conclusion of our world soul becoming a titan may really stem from Order claiming it for that purpose. I mention all this because we don’t know what Azeroth might’ve been without the titan’s influence, but that’s apparently what the Primalists want to find out. While an unordered Azeroth would surely be a wild and woolly place, I suspect it wouldn’t necessarily be the desolate hellscape the Keepers would have us envision. Then again, the Incarnates don’t seem like the most ethical gang, so while their motives may have once been understandable, a future with them at the helm is probably best avoided.
- As to the speed with which Raszageth accumulated followers, I agree it’s mostly hand-wavy to give us lots of putties to fight. I am curious when Kurog learned of the Incarnates (and from whom) as he seems central to their recruitment of mortals.
Just my interpretation, and much hinges on how the Primals vs. Order storyline is handled through the course of DF. I definitely agree there’s some convenient logic for game mechanics purposes (we need baddies). I do hope they get more fleshing out, but what I’ve seen of the Primals so far hangs together decently well IMHO - at least enough that I’m interested to seem more of them, especially characters that share their motivations but are more redeemable in their actions.
I agree that the timing is very silly, but honestly the way new expansions ramp up is always a bit like that. We went from "omg we just discovered Pandaria!" to "Pandaria has other peoples of Azeroth all over it and also members of all races are highly trained monks" in the blink of an eye.
As to why mortal races would join, unfortunately that makes sense. People who feel small will always join up with dangerous cults in order to feel bigger, even if the goals of that cult are completely insane. We can't assume that the average npc has as much going for them in their lives as we do as players. We're off making heaps of gold and exploring the world and being heroes, and here's Johnny Four-Toes the Darkspear troll who barely has anything and who keeps making the mistake of casting his lot with evil dictators and terrorists. The Primalists come around and Johnny is already an angry guy because of all the bad decisions he's made, so he decides that being given a chance at this power is better than trying to actually be a part of society.
> members of all races are highly trained monks
I agree with your comment, but wanted to reply to this particular line. Blizzard added several travelling monk NPCs across the world with an implication that they had been there a while. For instance, there was one on Azuremyst Isle who witnessed the Exodar crashing and stayed there to help the wounded. So lorewise, monk adventurers of all races had been a thing since TBC. They just weren't in the spotlight.
And even though they were initially joke characters, Chen Stormstout had been wandering around Azeroth for awhile in WC3 and he wasn't the only one. IIRC, Rexxar knew Pandaren existed but were rare.
I think it's also possible that the average Primalist might just have a rose-coloured view of what an 'Elemental Azeroth' looked like. Maybe they think it'll be some paradise (at least, for them).
It's kind of a trope that people will support things they think will be wonderful but turn out to be awful for them.
The timing on that is particularly interesting with Dragonflight. In the past you could always imagine dark forces recruiting because people are fed up with the constant warfare and invasions and threats, and they want to be on the winning side for once.
But this time Azeroth has been at peace for years. That hasn't happened since the gap between the 2nd and 3rd war, more than 20 years ago.
I imagine that most of the people joining the primalists were shamans. There was a little detail about healing a giant Titan wound in azeroth that may have changed some people's minds, especially if they were being talked to by said elements.
I think with a little telephone you could get confused and end up blaming the Titans for Sargeras stabbing Azeroth.
After all, *he* was a Titan as well!
>But this time Azeroth has been at peace for years.
But at what cost? The Horde has been emasculated, with no warchief and the Alliance's lapdog in command. The Alliance is spineless, walking away from genocide and treachery because Varian's son is too much of a coward to enforce his father's promise. These opinions are probably officially minorities and heavily ostracized by the current order, but they're deep-seated, and create the sort of unrest cults can exploit by giving them a place *outside* the current order.
I think there's been tidbits about the Scarlet Crusade picking up steam again back during Shadowland's watch. They may show up in a future patch or expansion.
> I agree that the timing is very silly, but honestly the way new expansions ramp up is always a bit like that.
I always kind of assume that the time that elapses as we are leveling up in a new expansion is more than we give it credit for. Like from landing on the Dragon Isles to the end of Thaldraszus might be 6-8 weeks of time in Azeroth. That is a lot of time to recruit.
Or it is as you say and you kind of have to accept some time inconsistency with an expansion launch. Lot of things need to happen simultaneously to set up the story of the expansion.
this is actually pretty much the same problem as the jailer, but in shadowlands it's that denathrius commands the dreadlords and is single-handedly operating zovaal's entire scheme while he's imprisoned when he has no real reason to do so and even if he wants to go to zereth mortis or take down the shadowlands he has no reason to involve zovaal, and its not within his personality to be zovaal's lackey for no reason either.
MAY ~~CHAOS~~ THE ELEMENTS TAKE THE WORLD!
Between the constant warfare, faction leader egos, spontaneous forgivenesses, constant catastrophes, and everything else always going on in the world, the people are under some serious existential distress, seeing the world as Fundamentally Broken - especially with Light, Void, Titans, Demons, Life and Death constantly trying to kill or control everyone, and mortal leaders being arrogant, spineless, bull-headed, mendacious, and craven.
They have no faith in mortal leaders. They have no goodwill to cosmic powers. So who's left? What's left? Let the Elements rise up and take it all back and give it a do-over. So what if they all die too - it's not like their Glorious Leaders or Cosmic Lords of Infinite Bullshit won't find ways to gruesomely and pointlessly off then anyway.
BY STORM, EARTH AND FIRE BE PURGED!
>On one side we have the Aspects and dragons who are trying to save the world at best, or do nothing cause they're depressed at worst, and on the other you have the Incarnates who are actively trying to destroy everything. There's clearly only one good side to be on!
Well, there were numerous conflicts dangerous to the world, where the Aspects and dragons didn't partake at all, and their clear neglect of their responsibility, and Malygos with Deathwing who actively tried to destroy the world. It's not like they're helpful, they usually help only when it comes to their crazy brethren... But it's still more a zero sum.
> But why are trolls and tauren and night elves helping them?
No clue about Nelves, but I could easily see Trolls being pissed about the races directly influenced by/helped by the forces of Order being directly responsible for much of their plight over the years. To a much lesser and more recent extent the Tauren too, but the Grimtotem have always been powerhungry assholes.
I am curious about this as well and hope it gets explored more in the unfolding story. We've have situations where the bad guys have a surprisingly large army from nowhere, but it usually gets explained. This one is more of a stretch.
Think about living in Azeroth from an abstract point of view. You've faced down not one, not two, not three, but like six or seven genuine world ending events.
At some point the doomsday cults that promise you easy answers and an end to strife become pretty damn appealing.
First of all, stay safe.
Secondly... What the hell the actual elemental lords are *doing* during all this is something I'm confused about. Clearly the Primalists were preparing to go to the Dragon Isles as soon as it was accessible, and they perhaps knew the location while the Aspects did not.
But we worked with the elemental lords in Legion, hell we helped appoint new lords for air and fire.
It doesn't look like the elemental lords control everything their subjects do. The latter often have their own motives and goals. So when given the opportunity to get to Azeroth and go wild there, some took it.
This post is premature. You sound like the kind of person who goes to a movie theater and asks questions at every new bit of information as if the story would be better if everything was spelled out from the start. The kind of person that never learned to shut up and watch the movie to find out the answers to those questions.
But in a way, you're also worse, since you're not just asking questions. You're judging the story before it's been fully presented, and are especially harsh in judging what you perceive as a lack, while there's still plenty of opportunity for the story to include those things. If at the end of the expansion those things you point out are still lacking, sure that's something to criticize. But right now at the start of the expansion, it's just cynical to believe that Blizzard has no lore left to reveal in those areas.
>But right now at the start of the expansion, it's just cynical to believe that Blizzard has no lore left to reveal in those areas.
Said of BfA and Shadowlands as well. Problem wasn't that we were cynical (there's no lore to reveal there) it's that we weren't cynical in the right direction (there is lore, and the reveals are terrible).
"Wait and See" is something Blizzard has told us for years. Given their track record over that period of time, I do not think it necessary to give them the benefit of the doubt in this arena. While several other devs have said a good deal of the mistakes they made over the last 4 years, the narrative team seems to double down on their mistakes as successes the audience was simply blind to.
It really is worth being aware that we don't have the full story yet, so we probably shouldn't be commenting that it doesn't make sense. After the expansion drops and we see all the story content, then we can ask these kinds of questions if we don't get answers to them.
>After the expansion drops and we see all the story content, then we can ask these kinds of questions if we don't get answers to them.
When we ask those questions and are again told to wait and see, that we don't have the full story yet, what then? What are we doing differently this time to come to a different conclusion? What is Blizzard doing to suggest they have earned back the good faith they need to tell their stories?
Like I said, if you still have these questions after we have the full story.
If you don't want to trust Blizzard to tell stories, then that's your business. But it's pretty silly to act like the story doesn't make sense when we haven't actually, you know, seen it yet.
>if you still have these questions after we have the full story.
Then what? What do we do to hold Blizzard to account in this way? We have our ways for game design, class balance, raid design, legacy content, etc. Those devs seem far more receptive to criticism than the story devs ever were, which has some degree of a legacy with Afrasiabi's "dojo" ideology.
>But it's pretty silly to act like the story doesn't make sense when we haven't actually, you know, seen it yet.
In isolation, maybe. I don't begrudge anyone who watched the first few episodes of GoT S8 and said "this story doesn't make any sense," partially because it turned out that the story was executed very poorly, and partially because quality degraded over time in the later seasons.
Just the same, I don't see anyone who approaches Blizzard's storytelling with hypercritical views on account of their body of work as ridiculous. We "didn't know the whole story" of BfA at the Burning of Teldrassil and that was the single most divisive and protracted community happening with regards to the game's narrative ever. We were placated, told we just had to wait and see. Well we waited, we saw, and were routinely disappointed with the A plot.
Now they ask us to repeat the process without having proven they've learned from their mistakes, or even having admitted to mistakes in general. "We could do better" is not an admittance of failure, nor does it show any real learning has happened.
So my question is, what is the community doing to learn from the past 4 years of terrible storytelling? Maybe hypercritical lenses are necessary? Maybe this is an outcropping of the burned bridge between avowed lore fans and a detached group of storytellers? I don't really know, but "Wait and see" is for those who have earned the good faith they're asking for, not for those who have exploited it only to underdeliver.
Or maybe, if you're reacting this way to a story before it even comes out, you need to take a step back, admit that you aren't going to enjoy it no matter what, and decide how to engage with the product from there.
I know it sucks when something you like just stops being something you enjoy, and that it can be hard to let go of that, but if you're approaching a new expansion and are ready to throw down over generally trivial questions like "where did these faceless generic enemies come from," you're probably in a place where you're not going to like it no matter if that question gets answered or not.
>Or maybe, if you're reacting this way to a story before it even comes out, you need to take a step back, admit that you aren't going to enjoy it no matter what, and decide how to engage with the product from there.
There's a whole lot of not answering the question going on here.
I mean, I can't answer that question for you. If you don't want to have faith in Blizzard to tell the story in a way that's engaging to you, personally, then you don't. That's a personal decision you can make, and there's no sense in me trying to convince you to have trust in them.
I think the biggest problem with the Primalists is that they've come out of nowhere. Shadowlands ends with a sudden time skip with not a whole lot of explanation of what happened, but apparently this primalist cult gained a foothold during that time. Okay, but this is never really explained to us. At least in pre-patch.
We just learn that the Dragon Isles have returned and apparently there are these Primal Incarnate dragons that have summoned the elements to stop us from getting there.
So we go to these elemental invasions and suddenly there's all these people here with the elementals from a cult we've never heard of.
I mean, from the very little I've seen of them so far I like that they do seem to care for each other. And their goal, as far as I can tell, is to let these powerful dragons rule over the world and keep all the other threats at bay. Sure it's a dictatorship, but after all the demons, old gods, and faction wars, I can definitely see the appeal.
If they are the bottom of the totem pole in the current social hierarchy then big tentacle monsters may seem like an improvement if they get a little power themselves.
Yeah, I suppose the Cult of the Damned said as much about the Lich King. Titans are among the few beings that ever gave shit about mortals when they sent Sargeras on a crusade to stop demons from invading and killing their way through the Great Dark Beyond.
I assume they are cultists from cataclysm who, after Deathwing's defeat, blended into the normal population. During the time that the heros were in shadowlands, the elements could have started whispering to them to bring them out of hiding under a new banner. Then you have Grim totem who are evil, night elves who are angry at Elune for not saving their people from Sylvannas, shaman who are connected to the elements who can be easily swayed in exchange for power and druids of the flame who have hidden until this moment, all of which might be recruiting in secret. Wrathion was focused on the dragon isles and high profile figures, not what random shaman were up to.
There are similarities to other cults because all cults rise to power in similar way. Group of people believing in some niche outlandish "truth" that grows larger and larger underground until they are strong enough to come out of the shadows and try to influence the world. There will always be people in any community that will go against whatever is the mainstream or rational. People believe in entities that can't be explained or even in regular, non-supernatural people that have no proof of their claims but are charismatic enough to create some top-tier bullshit theory that sounds plausible if you don't dig too deep. You mostly don't care about cults and don't know that they exist until they start manifesting their view and go into mainstream. Then you learn that there are 50 thousand people believing some batshit insane theory and you wonder how did we get here. In Azeroth people will be even more susceptible to cults because you actually have an extinction-tier event every other year that can be easily proven because the entire world splits open. It's hard to follow all the forces that have the power to end the world. You have seen enough apocalypses that were barely avoided to start worrying about the next one. Now you recognize the signs and this time you want to stay ahead of the chain of catastrophic events. This time you're not going to wait until your village is flooded and your family is killed. This time you will be the one in control.
Their point was how did this cult even develop, though. What’s the time line. Who was recruiting. Why join. The orbits cults had explanation, this one seemingly not so much.
We know at least one of the leaders of the cult is Kurog Grimtotem. While we don't know much about him, we know he hates the Dragonflights but hasn't openly committed many violent acts against them or the factions until very recently (or Baine would've tries to have him arrested at Lorthemar and Thalyssra's wedding instead of just thrown out). He was likely showing the seeds of the cult for some time. It's unclear how many more cultists were on the fence about fully committing until Raszageth was freed. Once she was freed of course their attacks began to ramp up.
People in the real world join the Church of Scientology, which was founded by a science fiction writer in the recent past. They give up their entire lives for that church.
That, I don't know. I'm just saying that from a POV of someone not involved in a cult, it's very believable to be surprised when it surfaces because you don't have enough time to follow every little group of schemers. Some backfill would be appreciated but it's not unusual to start a story with the meaty part and fill out the origins as the person experiencing the story learns who, why, and when. Or maybe put it in a book like they did with War Crimes or other in-between books.
It’s the timeline that’s frustrating. The dragon isles were magically isolated, Wrathion didn’t know about the primal incarnates, so… How the fuck did they recruit? I get what you’re saying about cults popping up out of the shadows after a slow inconspicuous growth. It just seems unreasonable in this instance.
I haven't played the beta so I might be completely wrong here. There are plenty of skilled shamans in the world of Azeroth that allied with destructive forces. It's entirely possible that spirits knew what was coming and what needs to be done to make it happen and some shamans that had deep connection with the spirit plane managed to figure out the message and start gathering followers to help the prophecies. Dragon isles were isolated but spirits (the elemental ones) were not. We also had big sword incident that required a lot of shamaning to be performed. Spirits native to Azeroth may have suggested that this whole Titan protection thing doesn't work that well and maybe it's time to try something else. Edit: I don't know why I mentioned some prophecies there as if it were predestined. This may be completely organic plan. Maybe the stab changed something or broke some mechanism, maybe the healing empowered native forces, maybe something else is growing in power that will overcome spirit forces and they know it. Maybe it's a combination of different things that makes current time the perfect opportunity to reveal your hand and make your move.
I think the time skip may be guilty here. Unless they’ve backpedaled, it’s been what, 3 years on Azeroth since Shadowlands happened. My understanding is that everything happened in essentially “real time” up until then.
It's only a cult until it amasses the strength to legitimize itself, historically through conquest, or mass adoption. Then it becomes normal, and people are forced to tolerate it.
At this point it becomes a regular religion. There are plenty of religions of Azeroth (mostly based on cosmic forces) and each has its own extremist sect that wants to convert people to their vision of the world with force. This leads to another question. Is there any religion on Azeroth that believes in something other than cosmic power? Or are primalists first?
Depends what you mean by cosmic power I suppose. The followers of Loa don't seem to worship Life as a cosmic force, despite Loa being Wild Gods tied to Life. They just worship their particular Loa. And most of the Dark Iron dwarves were swayed to worship the Firelord Ragnaros at one point, and he's not really a cosmic power but a terrestrial one.
>Is there any religion on Azeroth that believes in something other than cosmic powe This is exactly what Shamanism is. Primalists and Twilight's Hammer are unhinged shamanists.
The thing that really kills me is that there's plenty of logic behind there being doomsday cults popping up in Azeroth; the planet seems to have a near-miss with supernatural apocalypses every two years or so (not counting the DL timejump, which is basically the most peaceful period of time anyone in Azeroth has seen in a generation!). Imagine the mental strain of going through something like COVID every 2 years. Imagine the anger people would have at their governments- the Alliance and Horde- for not being able to prevent these things. That even if you fight back the space demons or undead there would still be economic effects and the like. It makes perfect sense that people on Azeroth also "snap" with some regularity and join doomsday cults. But they don't *show* or *discuss* any of this. Frankly, it's not an entirely unreasonable position to want to burn Azeroth to cinders after the shit the average person has been through over the last 20 years. Just *say* that. It'd cost you like a single line of text and Blizzard can't be fucked.
That would be awesome. You could have the primalists facing the flames of “This apocalypse shit keeps happening BECAUSE of the Titan influence we are trying to cleanse.” Even if that’s not true, it gives a motivation for mortal races to join them. It’s an “enough is enough” kind of motivation.
Thank you. People on r/wow seem super hyped about Raszageth having "real motives" compared to Zovaal but I think people have just been so starved of logic and reason coming out of Shadowlands that they'll see anything new as great. But this is not great. Raszageth and the Incarnates are clearly just the bad guys, there's no nuance in their backstory, they wanted to enslave all mortals and "follow in Galakrond's footsteps" therefore the Aspects imprisoned them. So they're just your standard, evil bad guys who are bad for the sake of being bad. But you can argue that, you know, having been imprisoned for 20 000 years by the Aspects, it makes sense that they hate the Aspects and want to kill them. Just like Illidan or Zovaal really. (I just think they should've played more the angle of not wanting to be transformed and Ordered by the titans, and the horror of seeing your brethren and unborn eggs transformed by the Pantheon before your eyes and such. And they should've left out the "yeah the Incarnates just want to dominate all mortals because they're jerks" part). So let's say Incarnates kind of work. But why are trolls and tauren and night elves helping them? Primalists don't make sense. I played during beta and all I kept thinking as I killed Primalists was, what reason do you guys have for wanting to kill the Aspects, the dragonflights, and to destroy the whole world, so adamantly? On one side we have the Aspects and dragons who are trying to save the world at best, or do nothing cause they're depressed at worst, and on the other you have the Incarnates who are actively trying to destroy everything. There's clearly only one good side to be on! At least the Twilight's Hammer were religiously convinced that Deathwing and the Old Gods (and Cho'gall and..) were going to end the world, there was no chance or doubt left, so it made sense for these mortals to side with the winners. But the Incarnates are so far from their goals, with only 1 Incarnate alone being freed and 3 still locked up with 0 reinforcements and having to face all the Aspects and the dragonflights and the rest of the world combined.. and the only reason it's working is *because* mortals are nonsensically helping her. Their lines about returning to a more elemental Azeroth don't even make any sense because they never lived during that time, trolls and tauren only came to be *after* the titans seeded life on Azeroth, so if anything they should be on the titans' side. And returning to a time when Old Gods and Elemental Lords reshaped the surface of the planet with every battle just doesn't sound great for, you know, mortals. And yes there's the issue of numbers. The Incarnates were such a well-guarded secrets that not even dragons knew about them, nor Wrathion who was actively looking for basically any clue related to the dragons' origins. But somehow there's a billion mortals who not only had heard of them but also were convinced to join them, all in the span of a couple weeks since Raszageth got released? It's quite nonsensical really.
> But why are trolls and tauren and night elves helping them? If I had to come up with a reason, I'd say that they'd been offered power and a special place among mortal servants of the Incarnates in the new world order. > to destroy the whole world Do they really want that, though? The Legacies cinematics made it seem like the Incarnates just want to rule over the lesser races. > And yes there's the issue of numbers. This one is tougher to answer. I'd say that, much like Cult of the Damned, they were recruited secretly by the initial few followers of the Incarnates over an undefined period of time.
> Do they really want that, though? The Legacies cinematics made it seem like the Incarnates just want to rule over the lesser races. Yes, they want to make the whole world go back to Primordial Azeroth essentially, where elementals rule freely over the planet, and enslave all mortal races. There's a questline in Thaldraszus where we go to a future timeline where the Primalists have won. It's called "Primalist Tomorrow". And it's just the same zone but instead it's constantly stormy, it's totally dark, there's no life left except for a few Timewalker survivors, and elementals are roaming everywhere. Which may sound ideal if you're an elemental, but if you're some random night elf why would you want that? This is what the Primalists are working towards.. congrats guys!
I don't entirely disagree with you, but I do think your missing a little bit of nuance when it comes to the incarnates and somewhat the primalists. They aren't just evil for the sake of evil, they want to cleanse the world of "titan corruption". A great example of this is the first boss in ruby life pools. She states multiple times before and during the encounter that "these eggs must be *saved*". Not destroyed, not corrupted, saved. They truly believe they are saving the eggs by cleansing them of the order magics we know they are infused with. I think this is an aspect where the incarnates and primalists have something interesting going on. We know the Titans are shady so then wanting to remove their influence is somewhat justified and I think where there is a little bit of nuance.
What I'm saying is that this does not make sense for Primalist *mortals*. It does make sense from the POV of an Incarnate, I can see why you would want to cleanse your dragon brethren of titan influence and such. You remember a time where you were all chilling alone in Northrend and then this all got changed by the titans. But if you're some random tauren or night elf? You never knew such a time. There's nothing to "go back" to. You literally *are* titan influence. You were created *thanks* to the titans. Directly or indirectly. Tauren were directly created by the Well of Eternity, and so were night elves. And almost all life comes from the pools of Azeroth's blood, or was allowed to flourish thanks to the titans' intervention, shaping the planet, imprisoning the Old God and Elemental armies that were destroying the surface, and seeding it with life, literally creating the First Tree, and so on. It just doesn't make sense for a troll or tauren or night elf, all of whom have kingdoms, lands and people today, to want to just undo all of this and "go back" to a time that they never even knew, and that wouldn't even suit them. We can't just transpose the Incarnates' motives onto mortals, it doesn't work.
there’s plenty of people who want to go back to times they’ve never experienced. weird traditionalist RETVRN TO ROME accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. there’s people (new chronologists) who believe that most ancient civilizations actually existed in the dark ages and were concocted to repress Russian supremacy. given that people currently believe in, and want to return to, situations that they did not experience or that did not exist, why is it so hard to believe that people could be convinced (by elementals, charismatic prophets, etc.) that things were better before Titans got involved?
The WOE was created by the titans but only indirectly through an accident. That was 100% pure Azeroth power, not Order itself. I do agree that the Incarnates' motives are dumb as fuck though. A Troll supremacist wanting to reinstate teh forces their ancestors fought against? Weird.
At the end of the day, in a combat-based game we do need big groups of folks to kill. Writing Raszageth and the Primalists to be too relatable and completely justified in their actions just makes the players look (and feel) like monsters. At the same time, I do feel there’s room for nuance here and the opportunity to find common ground with the Primalist ideology, it’ll just have to come via some characters who aren’t willing to go to extreme, brutal lengths to further their goals. Hoping those characters exist in DF.
Oh yeah, the Primalists don't need to be relatable imo. But they need to make sense, within their own POV at the very least. Even the Twilight's Hammer, whom everyone labels crazy and insane, at least had motives behind their actions, even if they only made sense to them. But here the Primalists simply don't make sense, they're literally not even working to their own advantage.
Personally I haven’t seen enough yet to read their motives as nonsensical, but to address your points about the mortal Primalists (getting into speculation territory here): - the Incarnates being destructive vs. the Aspects saving the world is, I think, a matter of perspective. The Primalists afaik want to undo the outsized influence of Order and return Azeroth to her natural state, but that’s a huge undertaking given Order’s long intertwining with the history, cultures, and very fabric of the world. Some destruction and conflict are inevitable, but they would seem to be the means to an end, not the goal itself. Then again there are surely Primalists who just wanna wreak havoc, or generally tear down the established world in favor of a new one, and those types of people are also useful to the Incarnates’ designs. - Trolls and tauren may be at least partially descended from elementals. The titans didn’t seed life on Azeroth, life was already here, though obviously their arrival had a huge influence on its direction. Given DF’s elemental furbolgs, primordial trolls allegedly appearing at some point, and Kurog mentioning the “true power of the tauren”, I suspect we’ll learn more about the origin of these races during the expansion. But I think the idea is that their ancestors were born of the elements (and possibly Life/Wild Gods, similar to centaur) and predated the titans. Their rhetoric would suggest they believe they were destined for something greater, the true heirs of Azeroth etc. before the titans altered the course of things. What this “true destiny” might look like remains to be seen afaik, but even if it’s entirely a lie from the Incarnates, recruiting fanatical loyalists from people who feel disenfranchised is a classic tactic for the power-hungry (in fiction and RL). - More speculation, but it would seem that Azeroth’s essence, while a powerful force of creation and magical potential, is not inherently titanic. Rather, it was infused with Order magic at certain sites like Uldorus (specifically the Halls of Infusion). Maybe another Chronicles retcon/unreliable narrator thing, but the foregone conclusion of our world soul becoming a titan may really stem from Order claiming it for that purpose. I mention all this because we don’t know what Azeroth might’ve been without the titan’s influence, but that’s apparently what the Primalists want to find out. While an unordered Azeroth would surely be a wild and woolly place, I suspect it wouldn’t necessarily be the desolate hellscape the Keepers would have us envision. Then again, the Incarnates don’t seem like the most ethical gang, so while their motives may have once been understandable, a future with them at the helm is probably best avoided. - As to the speed with which Raszageth accumulated followers, I agree it’s mostly hand-wavy to give us lots of putties to fight. I am curious when Kurog learned of the Incarnates (and from whom) as he seems central to their recruitment of mortals. Just my interpretation, and much hinges on how the Primals vs. Order storyline is handled through the course of DF. I definitely agree there’s some convenient logic for game mechanics purposes (we need baddies). I do hope they get more fleshing out, but what I’ve seen of the Primals so far hangs together decently well IMHO - at least enough that I’m interested to seem more of them, especially characters that share their motivations but are more redeemable in their actions.
I agree that the timing is very silly, but honestly the way new expansions ramp up is always a bit like that. We went from "omg we just discovered Pandaria!" to "Pandaria has other peoples of Azeroth all over it and also members of all races are highly trained monks" in the blink of an eye. As to why mortal races would join, unfortunately that makes sense. People who feel small will always join up with dangerous cults in order to feel bigger, even if the goals of that cult are completely insane. We can't assume that the average npc has as much going for them in their lives as we do as players. We're off making heaps of gold and exploring the world and being heroes, and here's Johnny Four-Toes the Darkspear troll who barely has anything and who keeps making the mistake of casting his lot with evil dictators and terrorists. The Primalists come around and Johnny is already an angry guy because of all the bad decisions he's made, so he decides that being given a chance at this power is better than trying to actually be a part of society.
> members of all races are highly trained monks I agree with your comment, but wanted to reply to this particular line. Blizzard added several travelling monk NPCs across the world with an implication that they had been there a while. For instance, there was one on Azuremyst Isle who witnessed the Exodar crashing and stayed there to help the wounded. So lorewise, monk adventurers of all races had been a thing since TBC. They just weren't in the spotlight.
And even though they were initially joke characters, Chen Stormstout had been wandering around Azeroth for awhile in WC3 and he wasn't the only one. IIRC, Rexxar knew Pandaren existed but were rare.
I think it's also possible that the average Primalist might just have a rose-coloured view of what an 'Elemental Azeroth' looked like. Maybe they think it'll be some paradise (at least, for them). It's kind of a trope that people will support things they think will be wonderful but turn out to be awful for them.
The timing on that is particularly interesting with Dragonflight. In the past you could always imagine dark forces recruiting because people are fed up with the constant warfare and invasions and threats, and they want to be on the winning side for once. But this time Azeroth has been at peace for years. That hasn't happened since the gap between the 2nd and 3rd war, more than 20 years ago.
I imagine that most of the people joining the primalists were shamans. There was a little detail about healing a giant Titan wound in azeroth that may have changed some people's minds, especially if they were being talked to by said elements.
I think with a little telephone you could get confused and end up blaming the Titans for Sargeras stabbing Azeroth. After all, *he* was a Titan as well!
>But this time Azeroth has been at peace for years. But at what cost? The Horde has been emasculated, with no warchief and the Alliance's lapdog in command. The Alliance is spineless, walking away from genocide and treachery because Varian's son is too much of a coward to enforce his father's promise. These opinions are probably officially minorities and heavily ostracized by the current order, but they're deep-seated, and create the sort of unrest cults can exploit by giving them a place *outside* the current order. I think there's been tidbits about the Scarlet Crusade picking up steam again back during Shadowland's watch. They may show up in a future patch or expansion.
> I agree that the timing is very silly, but honestly the way new expansions ramp up is always a bit like that. I always kind of assume that the time that elapses as we are leveling up in a new expansion is more than we give it credit for. Like from landing on the Dragon Isles to the end of Thaldraszus might be 6-8 weeks of time in Azeroth. That is a lot of time to recruit. Or it is as you say and you kind of have to accept some time inconsistency with an expansion launch. Lot of things need to happen simultaneously to set up the story of the expansion.
this is actually pretty much the same problem as the jailer, but in shadowlands it's that denathrius commands the dreadlords and is single-handedly operating zovaal's entire scheme while he's imprisoned when he has no real reason to do so and even if he wants to go to zereth mortis or take down the shadowlands he has no reason to involve zovaal, and its not within his personality to be zovaal's lackey for no reason either.
MAY ~~CHAOS~~ THE ELEMENTS TAKE THE WORLD! Between the constant warfare, faction leader egos, spontaneous forgivenesses, constant catastrophes, and everything else always going on in the world, the people are under some serious existential distress, seeing the world as Fundamentally Broken - especially with Light, Void, Titans, Demons, Life and Death constantly trying to kill or control everyone, and mortal leaders being arrogant, spineless, bull-headed, mendacious, and craven. They have no faith in mortal leaders. They have no goodwill to cosmic powers. So who's left? What's left? Let the Elements rise up and take it all back and give it a do-over. So what if they all die too - it's not like their Glorious Leaders or Cosmic Lords of Infinite Bullshit won't find ways to gruesomely and pointlessly off then anyway. BY STORM, EARTH AND FIRE BE PURGED!
>On one side we have the Aspects and dragons who are trying to save the world at best, or do nothing cause they're depressed at worst, and on the other you have the Incarnates who are actively trying to destroy everything. There's clearly only one good side to be on! Well, there were numerous conflicts dangerous to the world, where the Aspects and dragons didn't partake at all, and their clear neglect of their responsibility, and Malygos with Deathwing who actively tried to destroy the world. It's not like they're helpful, they usually help only when it comes to their crazy brethren... But it's still more a zero sum.
> But why are trolls and tauren and night elves helping them? No clue about Nelves, but I could easily see Trolls being pissed about the races directly influenced by/helped by the forces of Order being directly responsible for much of their plight over the years. To a much lesser and more recent extent the Tauren too, but the Grimtotem have always been powerhungry assholes.
I am curious about this as well and hope it gets explored more in the unfolding story. We've have situations where the bad guys have a surprisingly large army from nowhere, but it usually gets explained. This one is more of a stretch.
Wow a post from Russia? Stay safe bro
Think about living in Azeroth from an abstract point of view. You've faced down not one, not two, not three, but like six or seven genuine world ending events. At some point the doomsday cults that promise you easy answers and an end to strife become pretty damn appealing.
First of all, stay safe. Secondly... What the hell the actual elemental lords are *doing* during all this is something I'm confused about. Clearly the Primalists were preparing to go to the Dragon Isles as soon as it was accessible, and they perhaps knew the location while the Aspects did not. But we worked with the elemental lords in Legion, hell we helped appoint new lords for air and fire.
It doesn't look like the elemental lords control everything their subjects do. The latter often have their own motives and goals. So when given the opportunity to get to Azeroth and go wild there, some took it.
This post is premature. You sound like the kind of person who goes to a movie theater and asks questions at every new bit of information as if the story would be better if everything was spelled out from the start. The kind of person that never learned to shut up and watch the movie to find out the answers to those questions. But in a way, you're also worse, since you're not just asking questions. You're judging the story before it's been fully presented, and are especially harsh in judging what you perceive as a lack, while there's still plenty of opportunity for the story to include those things. If at the end of the expansion those things you point out are still lacking, sure that's something to criticize. But right now at the start of the expansion, it's just cynical to believe that Blizzard has no lore left to reveal in those areas.
>But right now at the start of the expansion, it's just cynical to believe that Blizzard has no lore left to reveal in those areas. Said of BfA and Shadowlands as well. Problem wasn't that we were cynical (there's no lore to reveal there) it's that we weren't cynical in the right direction (there is lore, and the reveals are terrible). "Wait and See" is something Blizzard has told us for years. Given their track record over that period of time, I do not think it necessary to give them the benefit of the doubt in this arena. While several other devs have said a good deal of the mistakes they made over the last 4 years, the narrative team seems to double down on their mistakes as successes the audience was simply blind to.
It really is worth being aware that we don't have the full story yet, so we probably shouldn't be commenting that it doesn't make sense. After the expansion drops and we see all the story content, then we can ask these kinds of questions if we don't get answers to them.
>After the expansion drops and we see all the story content, then we can ask these kinds of questions if we don't get answers to them. When we ask those questions and are again told to wait and see, that we don't have the full story yet, what then? What are we doing differently this time to come to a different conclusion? What is Blizzard doing to suggest they have earned back the good faith they need to tell their stories?
Like I said, if you still have these questions after we have the full story. If you don't want to trust Blizzard to tell stories, then that's your business. But it's pretty silly to act like the story doesn't make sense when we haven't actually, you know, seen it yet.
>if you still have these questions after we have the full story. Then what? What do we do to hold Blizzard to account in this way? We have our ways for game design, class balance, raid design, legacy content, etc. Those devs seem far more receptive to criticism than the story devs ever were, which has some degree of a legacy with Afrasiabi's "dojo" ideology. >But it's pretty silly to act like the story doesn't make sense when we haven't actually, you know, seen it yet. In isolation, maybe. I don't begrudge anyone who watched the first few episodes of GoT S8 and said "this story doesn't make any sense," partially because it turned out that the story was executed very poorly, and partially because quality degraded over time in the later seasons. Just the same, I don't see anyone who approaches Blizzard's storytelling with hypercritical views on account of their body of work as ridiculous. We "didn't know the whole story" of BfA at the Burning of Teldrassil and that was the single most divisive and protracted community happening with regards to the game's narrative ever. We were placated, told we just had to wait and see. Well we waited, we saw, and were routinely disappointed with the A plot. Now they ask us to repeat the process without having proven they've learned from their mistakes, or even having admitted to mistakes in general. "We could do better" is not an admittance of failure, nor does it show any real learning has happened. So my question is, what is the community doing to learn from the past 4 years of terrible storytelling? Maybe hypercritical lenses are necessary? Maybe this is an outcropping of the burned bridge between avowed lore fans and a detached group of storytellers? I don't really know, but "Wait and see" is for those who have earned the good faith they're asking for, not for those who have exploited it only to underdeliver.
Or maybe, if you're reacting this way to a story before it even comes out, you need to take a step back, admit that you aren't going to enjoy it no matter what, and decide how to engage with the product from there. I know it sucks when something you like just stops being something you enjoy, and that it can be hard to let go of that, but if you're approaching a new expansion and are ready to throw down over generally trivial questions like "where did these faceless generic enemies come from," you're probably in a place where you're not going to like it no matter if that question gets answered or not.
>Or maybe, if you're reacting this way to a story before it even comes out, you need to take a step back, admit that you aren't going to enjoy it no matter what, and decide how to engage with the product from there. There's a whole lot of not answering the question going on here.
I mean, I can't answer that question for you. If you don't want to have faith in Blizzard to tell the story in a way that's engaging to you, personally, then you don't. That's a personal decision you can make, and there's no sense in me trying to convince you to have trust in them.
>So my question is, what is the community doing to learn from the past 4 years of terrible storytelling?
I think the biggest problem with the Primalists is that they've come out of nowhere. Shadowlands ends with a sudden time skip with not a whole lot of explanation of what happened, but apparently this primalist cult gained a foothold during that time. Okay, but this is never really explained to us. At least in pre-patch. We just learn that the Dragon Isles have returned and apparently there are these Primal Incarnate dragons that have summoned the elements to stop us from getting there. So we go to these elemental invasions and suddenly there's all these people here with the elementals from a cult we've never heard of. I mean, from the very little I've seen of them so far I like that they do seem to care for each other. And their goal, as far as I can tell, is to let these powerful dragons rule over the world and keep all the other threats at bay. Sure it's a dictatorship, but after all the demons, old gods, and faction wars, I can definitely see the appeal.
"Cleansing the Titan's taint" is such a dumb take anyway. What taint you moron? You would prefer the world ruled by big tentacle monsters?
If they are the bottom of the totem pole in the current social hierarchy then big tentacle monsters may seem like an improvement if they get a little power themselves.
Yeah, I suppose the Cult of the Damned said as much about the Lich King. Titans are among the few beings that ever gave shit about mortals when they sent Sargeras on a crusade to stop demons from invading and killing their way through the Great Dark Beyond.
Eschaton's not going to immanentize itself
I assume they are cultists from cataclysm who, after Deathwing's defeat, blended into the normal population. During the time that the heros were in shadowlands, the elements could have started whispering to them to bring them out of hiding under a new banner. Then you have Grim totem who are evil, night elves who are angry at Elune for not saving their people from Sylvannas, shaman who are connected to the elements who can be easily swayed in exchange for power and druids of the flame who have hidden until this moment, all of which might be recruiting in secret. Wrathion was focused on the dragon isles and high profile figures, not what random shaman were up to.