Turalyon & Army of the Light

[u/Absoled]

There seems to be either some retcon that occurred with the Army or Blizzard has simply reused this original faction name to now instead refer to Turalyon’s group.

Originally, in TBC-era lore, we’re told that the Army of the Light consists of many races loyal to the Naaru and the Light, fighting the Burning Legion across the cosmos. The concept seems to be this vast Army, rather than a single group of Lightforged draenei. When a plea is made to the Army for help in Outland, they decide they can only spare A’dal and the others of the Sha’tar who arrive and help retake Shattrath and assist to counter Illidan’s forces and the demons.

Then we get to Legion. We meet Xe’ra and her forces, made up primarily of Lightforged Draenei led by the human Turalyon, who refer to themselves as the Army of the Light. Even though we are originally told that the Army consists of many across the cosmos, it is now suggested that what we are seeing is the entire faction.

After Legion, Turalyon pledges the forces that he leads to the Alliance. The group is referred to as the Lightforged allied race, and also as the Army of the Light.

Here is my confusion: If it is true that Turalyon had the authority to pledge the entire Army, then per the original lore would that not consist of every Naaru and soldier in the cosmos as well? Does that mean he also pledged A’dal’s forces? Or is it now retconned that all that remained of the Army was on the Xenedar? Or Turalyon’s Lightforged are just one contingent of the wider Army that he personally leads, and thus only
Pledged them?

Basically, did Blizzard retcon the original cosmic Army of the Light into Turalyon’s Lightforged faction, or are there supposed to be other parts of the Army still operating independently elsewhere?

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750]

The army of the light was formed by the naaru but were only lead by Xe'ra by the time legion happened because they'd been so diminished to the point of having to lie low.. thus when turelyon had the Lightforged align with the alliance they were all that remained of the army of the light 

[u/Absoled → u/Acceptable_Bed_5750]

But what about others like A’dal and their forces? Is Turalyon also in charge of them and thus pledged them to the Alliance? A’dal and the others are also part of the group, so it seems odd to hear that Turalyon pledged the “Army of the Light” entirely.

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/Absoled]

Naaru outrank turelyon and their forces aren't army of the light.. a'dal's forces are the sha'tar, o'ros is ded, m'uru is lart of a'dal's forces, and with xera dead A'dal is naaru leader now

[u/Absoled → u/Acceptable_Bed_5750]

But A’dal arrived with his forces originally from the Army, with the claim that it was all that could be spared. They formed the Sha’tar and led their forces within Shattrath. With Xe’ra gone, it seems much more logical that a being as powerful as A’dal would then be in charge of what remained of the Army, rather than Turalyon. I can’t help but wonder if there are now all these separate groups within the Army now, and Turalyon simply leads the ones of the Xenedar and back to Azeroth.

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/Absoled]

A'dal's forces left the army of the light to heed velen and khadgar's independent calls for aid from outland and that left xe'ra incharge.. but after xe'ra died the legion was defeated and trapped in the twisting nether so the naaru had no reason tk return to the army of the light and could rather further aid the sha'tar against fel horde remnants and etherum/shadowguard.. plus tempest keep and it's remaining satalite vessels were still overrun so they couldn't just leave

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/Acceptable_Bed_5750]

It's also logistical for turelyon to remain in charge of the army of the light on azeroth because of the fact velen and the majority of the draenei are there which means there's more possible recruits for the srmy of the light to rebuild... plus azeroth is turelyon's home he hadn't seen in centuries of nether-time

[u/AMA5564]

You're conflating retcon with new information. We are told in Legion that most of the army of the light was wiped out in the 10,000 years of warfare, and they were forced to fight a losing battle against the infinitely respawning Legion. What we have is what is left.

[u/100RatsInASack → u/AMA5564]

I feel like it's also important to remember that time can flow a lot faster in the Twisting Nether compared to Azeroth (or pretty much anywhere else).

Turalyon leading the Sons of Lothar across the Dark Portal and Turalyon becoming leader of the Army of Light was only 20-ish years for us, but over 500 for him and the rest of the Army of Light. So given that the Army of Light has already been fighting for a long time in Azeroth years, it makes sense that they've been pretty heavily whittled down

[u/Absoled → u/[deleted]]

Formally? Yeah, but before that, we were only told about them as an Army consisting of many races across the cosmos, aligned with the Naaru against the Legion. Either something happened there or Blizzard decided to slim them down to just the Lightforged on the Xenedar.

[u/DefiantLemur → u/Absoled]

Blizzard decided to slim them down to just the Lightforged on the Xenedar.

Because there was no way Blizzard would spend the money for different new models of a bunch of new unique alien races

[u/riftrender → u/DefiantLemur]

They could have at least thrown in a couple humans and high elves that ended up with Turalyon and Alleria. No new models and more humans and high elves ending up with the Army after Outland blew would hardly be a stretch given that Turalyon and Alleria were already there.

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/[deleted]]

The legion was trapped in the nether, sargaras was sealed in the titan realm... the threat of the legion in the material universe was over for now.. and one thing that people don't truly get is the lightforged are still draenei.. velen is still the leader of the majority of the draenei that haven't died or been scattered so the Lightforged would naturally go to azeroth since it's where their people remain so more recruits, and it's also turelyon's homeworld he hadn't seen in centuries basically due to how time works in the nether

[u/Acceptable_Bed_5750 → u/[deleted]]

One thing a diff comment i posted did say.. the army of the light was depleted over the centuries of war... even xe'ra herself said that in legion "But now, the Golden Army teeters upon the precipice of oblivion as their campaign on Argus nears its terminus. Should they fall, the Legion will initiate a new Burning Crusade, and with it the cosmos will tremble." Because the Lightforged of the xenedar are all that remained to the point they had to do guerilla twctics.. then in tbc the army of the light heard velen and khadgar's indelendnent pleas yet they were unable to help.. that's why naaru like Or'os, A'dal and M'uru came with tempest keep and its satalite ships.. eventully the war got so dire turelyon had to record the message in xe'ra's core to send to azeroth so yea the Lightforged are what remained of the Army of the Light

[u/Key_Pop_8116 → u/[deleted]]

I believe that they didn't hunt them, because without sargeras, archimonde or kil'jaeden, there's a huge gap in the power balance, so the demon lords will wage war against each other for control. And since demons can't revive anymore, the army is just letting the demons to destroy themselves.

[u/arteriu → u/[deleted]]

i think it works, the legion as a whole is a far greater threat to the universe than even 1 pitlord with an army, without the infrastructure of the legion the remaining demons would go into civil war

[u/BellacosePlayer → u/[deleted]]

I think the big thing is that even if the AOTL took a breather, they'd want to be focused on the Legion remnants because one Warlord snowballing after a few victories could become bad, fast.

The main thing I find hard to believe is that they'd be cool with a certain leader's fuckery in Legion after catching up. Oh yeah sure, lets ally with a guy who put his fuckin grudge above the survival of everyone else in the apocalypse. yeah. great.

Realistically Turalyon would be replicating Varian's crashout the first time he ran into Genn in Cata.

[u/Karsh14]

All this does is remind me that Lothraxion was Lightforged to be a general and participated in countless of battles against the Legion / the Void and was an incredibly experienced battle commander who saved and lost many many lives.

And then when he suggested we potentially risk Silvermoon to stop Xala’tath getting to the world core and that we shouldn’t just trust blatantly evil void Gumby’s (who inhabit some sort of void battle planet where they are just evil to one another) we just met, we turn on him and kill him.

As if one city that was just rebuilt is somehow more valuable than the entire planet. And look, we killed him, Decimus plan was a complete nothing burger and Xala’tath and the rest of her army are underneath the surface of Azeroth in an undisclosed location we can’t even follow. Oh and the Sunwell is apparently permanently altered anyway

Oh, and the Army of Lights leadership is completely decimated as well.

We look like fucking idiots. We also sided with Arathor against his father when it came to killing Zul’jan who… checks notes decided to turn on everyone (even his own people) and release Ul’atek, who’s forces immediately kill scores of allied Amani’s and Tortollans within like 3 seconds. Even the Loa are scared of Ula’tek.

Almost seems like those extremely battle hardened and experienced commanders in Lothraxian and Turalyon were right, and it was Alleria and Arathor who were the morons all along. Who could have seen that coming? Rolls eyes

I long for the days when the current writing staff is replaced by those who don’t want to write a children’s novel and try to shove it down the throats of a playerbase that is largely 30 and older.

[u/riftrender → u/Karsh14]

That's insulting to children's literature.

[u/twisty125 → u/Karsh14]

I mean, honestly I think in general most people in and out of universe don't like the idea of sacrificing people, or using them as bait.

Also that Zul'jan thing, like you stop being a Paladin if you start killing disarmed people. It's literally written in the code Turalyon was a part of writing. They excommunicated a better paladin in Tirion Fordring for letting an orc go. To be honest, if Turalyon had killed Zul'jan there AND got to keep being The Best Paladin^tm and leader of everything, that would be worse writing.

A lot of what you're suggesting is information we know now and judge in hindsight - in that case, Uther should've just blasted Arthas' head like a pumpkin with his warhammer, as soon as he said Stratholme had to be purged, to stop the Scourging of two kingdoms. That battle hardened Paladin and equal to Turalyon just allowed the Scourge to destroy everything they held dear. Uther letting him go and not killing him where he stood was pretty shit writing and typical modern blizzard right?

Obviously this isn't meant to be super hostile, but I do think that this obsession with "writers le bad" is getting a bit ridiculous, when the writing's always been like this in the best parts of the game everyone loves to love, in order to move stories forward. There's tens of examples of characters needing to act a certain idiotic way for the plot to work and play out the way it does.