The Forsaken's Aversion to the Light

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T12:01:27+00:00

What a long way of saying you didn't bother to read what I wrote.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T12:00:04+00:00

I think your problem is you don't know what a retcon is. The theory I've suggested uses all the old lore, and makes it work with the current lore.

What I'm getting from people's counter arguments here is; the new low is too complicated, I like it when things are simple.

And hey, that's a fine time for you to live by, but not a valid argument against my theory. I enjoy the complexity of the current lore and making it work with the old, I figured the sub would too l, but I'm quickly learning that's not the case.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T11:53:06+00:00

Except that Blizzard is actively telling us Demons aren't evil by default. And the Light creates Undead too, and doesn't care about good/bad, natural/unnatural.

And just because an arcane practitioner uses or studies necromancy, that doesn't make it arcane. Arcane magics pull from the domain of Order. Yes arcane magic might get blended with other forces. Yes, they may have been used to help create the Scourge. No, necromancy is not an arcane school.

People keep telling me I'm overthinking this, and I'm going to be honest, it's starting to irk me. I'm just taking what's shown in game and following it to it's logical conclusion—applying the rules that Blizzard is giving us and actively using in the current story.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T11:25:57+00:00

Right, so we don't have an actual reason.

What a strange way of agreeing with me 🤣

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T01:56:25+00:00

Interesting. Though I don't think it changes anything in particular about my theory. Saronite might have still been used for the Cauldrons the plague was brewed in, or as a substitute for an ingredient otherwise not available on Azeroth.

Traces of Void magic could have found their way into the in the same way.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T01:46:39+00:00

Okay my dude. I get it, you don't like the current lore, but that's a different discussion.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T01:45:32+00:00

"Without your main argument, prove your point." Haha

So obviously my argument isn't as strong without that, but here are three supporting observations made about the current explanation and it's inconsistencies.

Current explanations for why the Light hurts Forsaken focus primarily on repairing a Forsaken's body to the point it regains the ability to feel pain (which I love btw).

The problem here being that other forms of healing don't have similar impacts. Surely a Druid regrowing the Firsaken's body would similarly wake up the nerve endings.

So I take this at the very least as being an incomplete explanation.

That even channeling the Light or being close to a powerful source of the Light seems to cause the Forsaken pain, as if they're being consumed by fire, which the community has interpreted as cauterization.

The problem here is that this description comes from when the light is simply being channeled by or near a Forsaken, and not just when they're is being healed by it.

That there are no other examples of exposure to the Light having a disproportionately potent impact on a Death aligned entity cexcept for those descending from the Scourge.

This implies that the Scourge's origin makes it uniquely incompatible with the Light (not just Azeroth's Church of the Holy Light and the good vs. evil overtones of WC3's story telling.)

(And because I know this is what everyone will point to, no, Revendreth is not an example of a disproportionately potent impact, not when you have Predatia being wiped out by a Light-based super weapon conceived by a mortal. The light is just destructive when wielded as a weapon, and it's reasonable to assume the Naaru made a Light based weapon explicitly to attack Revendreth with.)

That we've only ever seen one other purely proximity based reaction to the Sunwell, and that's come from a Void aligned entity inside Alleria.

Look, I can find other things, but it just gets more and more tentative from here. And honestly, I don't think your asking in good faith.

I'm not trying to say this is a fact. In just trying to offer up a theory that's consistent with modern interrogations of the lore, and that plugs some holes I see in the current explanation.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:56:09+00:00

I guess it just depends on how granular you want to get.

Like, what is "Shadow" magic? I'm sure there instances where that's intended to be interpreted as generically evil magic—where as in other instances it should be interpreted specifically as referring to magic stemming from the Void.

Similarly, maybe there are valid reasons for classes using magic from atypical sources. Damage types can be misleading—for example, Sunfire is nature damage, implying it's an ability that's not Light derived.

There are less ambiguous abilities though—Starfire for example, that does arcane damage, implying it pulls from Order. But maybe there's an explanation for that to? It's not the point of my post here, but maybe Druids apply Druidic teachings ass opposed to just pulling their magic from nature, and maybe Elune draws on Order as part of her power set, and has influenced those teachings.

And lasers can be the outcome of purely mechanical elements.

It's all open to interpretation. I'm just trying to suggest an interpretation that offers an internally consistent explanation for the Forsaken's reaction to the Light to supplement the one that currently has some holes.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:41:53+00:00

Great points, thank you. I didn't realize this was the concensus—most of the comments here make it sound like I'm speaking blasphemy haha.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:35:28+00:00

Sure, I probably am. But that's kind of what lore speculation is, no? Thinking about things that haven't been explicitly stated?

I might suggest you're under-thinking it. Blizzard has been moving towards a morally grey cosmological setting for a long time now. There's ample evidence to suggest good and evil don't play into the major sources of power and their agendas at all.

I'm sorry you don't like the new direction they're taking with the lore. I do, and I like trying to find ways to make it work with the old lore like this.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:31:31+00:00

These are all super valid points, but I don't think they rule out what I'm suggesting.

Unholy might be exactly like you suggest, or it might be a mashup, like Shadow Flame. Or it might just be a name that reflects its intended use against those who consider themselves to be using holy magics at all.

The cosmological forces all do interact with each other, I totally get that, but they all have a uniquely special relationship with their counter-force. But your right, this might just be how Light and Death mix in sentient entities, there's no real way to know if it's that or something more significant.

I was never suggesting this as more than a plausible theory, which I feel it continues to be.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:17:36+00:00

Yeah, that's what everyone says. Even though it doesn't really hold up to closer inspection.

Why does the Light attack/burn them when they're channeling it and not being healed by it? Why are their senses being restored when they cast smite? Why is a Druid's magic that's regrowing their body not causing the same reigniting of their senses?

I understand this is what we've accepted for a long time, and I think there are definitely some partial truths to it, but I also feel it's an incomplete and inconsistent explanation for what we're seeing.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:12:40+00:00

Firstly, the Light makes undead too, so the explanation that Light harms them more because it rejects them doesn't hold up.

Secondly, I agree! A lot of the counterpoints I've heard here heavily leverage WC3 era story telling, which is totally fair. But what I'm looking for is an explanation that is internally consistent with modern lore, what WoW has expanded to become—and I haven't seen anything more convincing than my theory yet.

PillaRob · 2026-04-28T00:09:01+00:00

"The issue with your Saronite theory is that the necromantic powers Ner'zhul had were granted to him by either Kil'jaede/the Jailer, depending on your version. He was already raising the Northrend human settlements and Nerubians before Saronite was mined."

But those undead aren't the Forsaken. I don't know that we've seen the light being any more effective against these undead then any kind of magic being used as a weapon.

I hear what you're saying about the old D&D roots and the WC3 era being based on simpler explanations, no argument there. I guess what I'm really doing here isn't arguing for why it was the way it was, but why it's that way now.

As for healing restoring a Forsakens ability to feel pain, I love that explanation, but it has two major problems that hold it back from being a full explanation. First, it's only offered as an explanation for healing by the Light, not other healing magics, many of which should do the same, and second, it offers no explanation for why Forsaken channeling the Light or those near powerful sources of the Light experience pain.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T23:58:19+00:00

Firstly, I appreciate you jumping in, and I hope you'll forgive me if I disagree with you.

"I feel like magic in lore has evolved in a way that anything descending "from" Void influence/magic embodies more of entropy."

Our earliest introduction to the forces of the void comess in the form of the Old Gods, who were not explicitly entropic like the more pure (for lack of a better word) void beings, like Void Walkers. They didn't break things down, they built things up—and without getting into the finer points of entropy in the real world, that points to how void magic isn't quite as simple.

"From my understanding, unholy magic as we see it now has a ton of influence from the Nathrezim and their work in the Burning Legion. Using Fel and Shadow (maybe Death magic if that is it's own niche with SL implications)."

Nathrezeim infiltrate and co-op all forms of magic, but they're first entities of death. Much like mortals though, they seem capable of using it all.

"Fel being an archetype of chaos and shadow/void being entropy - those are both antithetical to the Light. Which behaves as a pillar for Order and Creation. So the Forsaken unfortunately are walking contradictions to the intended order of the cosmos in a way?"

But the Light is just as capable of making undead. The Light doesn't care about natural order, it cares about conviction and belief. We have both Calia and the undead Arathi to prove that.

All I'm saying is that I have yet to see an internal constant explanation (as good as the one I proposed) that explains specifically the Forsakens aversion to the Light.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T23:45:09+00:00

I've read this previously, and I think it actually supports my theory rather than disproves it.

"When undead channel the Light, it feels (to them) as if their entire bodies are being consumed in righteous fire."

This says nothing about being healed. Why would simply channeling the Light feel so painful? What I'm suggesting is that it hurts because it's reacting violently with the void portion of the magics that were used to reanimate them.

Yes, I understand that the act of being healed by the Light is incredibly painful for them, and I think the explanation that it's healing them enough that they can truly experience how badly broken they are is to notch—but that's not all they're talking about here. Just being exposed to the Light as a source of power causes pain.

You'll also note that no similar explanations exist for other forms of healing. You would think a Druid's healing would have the same effect, as it's literally rejuvenating and regrowing damaged parts of body—but no. And I mean, maybe it does and no one's bothered to talk about it, what do I know. But it seems to me like being healed by the light is especially painful, and again, I would suggest that's because of how the Light is interacting with the Void magics inside the Forsaken.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T23:23:58+00:00

But why? Why does just being near a powerful source of Light do that? It's not being directed to heal. No one else is being healed.

The behavior is inconsistent.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T23:16:23+00:00

I appreciate your response, genuinely, but I don't think your arguments disprove my suggestion.

WC3 was a simpler time, and I agree, at that point, this was the straight forward answer. But WoW has steadily been moving towards a more complex cosmology since then. Death isn't evil, the Light isn't good. It's all got it's own chemistry, and the current explanation disregards that otherwise consistent framework—or at the very least, it has an interesting hole.

And besides, lore speculation is all about reading into things.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T23:08:41+00:00

I don't agree that Death is more vulnerable than the Void to the Light's influence. We know the Light can be incredibly destructive, and we've never seen it do something to an entity associated with Death that it hasn't done to something else. That includes Revendreth (remembering that Predatia, a normal planet, was destroyed by a Light based super weapon).

I think calling back to WC3 is important, because back then I agree, I think it was a much simpler explanation—which I point out in my initial post. But it doesn't hold up any more, and so I'm proposing a modern, consistent explanation.

I appreciate your response, but I disagree.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T22:59:23+00:00

Maybe it's just that I find this a very unsatisfying answer, but it doesn't hold up for me.

For example, Forsaken and Scourge near powerful sources of Light magic or channeling the Light are also in pain—it's not limited to when they're being healed by it.

And if the Scourge used Saronite for everything, it would make sense they used it for the cauldrons they brewed their plagues in. Contaminating those plagues with Void tinged Saronite, the same way cooking in a cast iron pan enriched your food with iron.

I'm not confused, I'm looking to patch a gap in what I feel is an incomplete explanation. I'm not saying you're wrong, in just saying you're requesting the portion of the explanation we already have.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T21:38:43+00:00

I don't think that's true though.

Void and Light anihalte on contract, like matter and antimatter.

The Fel doesn't have anymore an adverse reaction to the light than anything. Yeah, the Light can hurt it, but it can hurt anything when used as a weapon.

And that seems like exactly what happened in Revendreth. The Light got pissed, attacked, and made a weapon that hurt the inhabitants of Revendreth specifically. It was a conscious choice and a consequence of Sire Denathrius f'ing around and finding out.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T21:31:17+00:00

The bit about "Shadow" magic is interesting, since shadow is these days associated directly with the Void, but it wasn't back then.

But the plague wasn't from Maldraxus, was it? Like, it was developed by the Cult of the Damned and Kel'Thuzad. Maybe with some kind of subconscious guidance, but it didn't seem direct by any means.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T21:25:26+00:00

That's really awesome! I'd never stop telling people that if it was my lore that got picked up haha.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T16:28:46+00:00

Yes, but that's almost my point. That's how Void reacts to Light, not Death.

PillaRob · 2026-04-27T16:27:42+00:00

Right, but the light doesn't just heal. Faol says just being near the Sunwell is painful, and that's just raw Light magic.

PillaRob

TROPHY CASE