Legal/Public Status of Shadow Users

[Grakor456]

One of the most intensely frustrating things I find about WoW RP is how heavily fanon has taken over the priest class. A lot of assumptions are made that we just don't see in lore.

Shadow use being illegal is one of those. Warlockry is underground in Stormwind, yes, but I've seen no evidence that the same holds true for shadow priest magic. In fact, Anduin isn't even the first time we've seen a "holy priest" use shadow magic (Why hello Argent Confessor Paletress!)

How I've interpreted it, and how I always tell people when they ask me, is the following:

1. Religion has no impact on spec. You can worship the Holy Light and use shadow, and you can worship the Forgotten Shadow and use holy magic (the lore Q&A about how healing impacts Forsaken heavily implies this is the case.)

2. You aren't pigeon-holed into one or the other. Any priest can use both holy and shadow magic. Though obviously there is still specialization that occurs, much in the same way mages specialize in fire or ice.

3. There is no particular prejudice that we see in regards to priest shadow magic, just warlock magic.

[Thoradin]

Actually, Anduin using Shadow Magic is more thanks to his time in Pandaria. Pandaren have shadow priests as well, but see it more as a Balance thing. They use the shadow to balance out the Light, thus Anduin probably picked it up from them.

[Scout]

I will preface this by saying that my points below are directed toward the thoughts of shadow among cultures of the Alliance, not the Horde.

The main reason why I have so often said that Shadow is frowned upon in cultures like many of those in the Alliance primarily comes from the fact that Shadow is literally the opposite of Light. I'm probably the cause of a lot of the Shadow fanon, but it's not just coming from nowhere. The Light is such a heavily ingrained facet of human culture that it just makes logical sense for shadow to at least be highly taboo. You hear a lot of "Light be with you" and "for the Light!" coming from humans, but they never, ever mention shadow.

It may not ever be explicitly stated, but it's definitely implied that shadow is at least swept under the rug and ignored. I'm positive the common citizen of Stormwind or Lordaeron (before the Scourge, of course) would find the concept of shadow priests walking around to be very terrifying. Consider the way that Shadow operates, compared to the Light. It utilizes a lot of spells intended for pain, death and forced control, which are all things that are commonly associated with evil. The Light, on the other hand, is a very warm and fuzzy force that offers healing, resurrection, guidance and justice. This in and of itself seems like it has a lot of potential for conflict.

Another point is that almost every shadow caster seen in the game outside the Forsaken is portrayed in a villainous role. The Scourge, Twilight's Hammer and satyrs, to name a few, all utilize shadow intensively. We might as well include the Forsaken among those villains, considering who we're talking about, and that by itself gives four sources of apparent evil for the people of Stormwind, and no sources of apparent good, which I can only imagine just adds to the stigma.

So, yes, we may not have seen concrete evidence that Shadow is illegal, but we haven't seen anything in the Alliance (Argent Crusade doesn't count) that suggests that it's not illegal, either. Given all that we know about Shadow, it makes more sense to me that it would at least have to be kept quiet, or quite probably have correlations with malevolent forces, and therefore be heavily controlled or illegal.

[Grakor456]

The main reason why I have so often said that Shadow is frowned upon in cultures like many of those in the Alliance primarily comes from the fact that Shadow is literally the opposite of Light. I'm probably the cause of a lot of the Shadow fanon, but it's not just coming from nowhere. The Light is such a heavily ingrained facet of human culture that it just makes logical sense for shadow to at least be highly taboo. You hear a lot of "Light be with you" and "for the Light!" coming from humans, but they never, ever mention shadow.

I will point out that this is because of reference to the Holy Light as a religion, not a type of magic. "The Forgotten Shadow" as a religion and "shadow" as a type of magic are two separate things.

It may not ever be explicitly stated, but it's definitely implied that shadow is at least swept under the rug and ignored. I'm positive the common citizen of Stormwind or Lordaeron (before the Scourge, of course) would find the concept of shadow priests walking around to be very terrifying. Consider the way that Shadow operates, compared to the Light. It utilizes a lot of spells intended for pain, death and forced control, which are all things that are commonly associated with evil. The Light, on the other hand, is a very warm and fuzzy force that offers healing, resurrection, guidance and justice. This in and of itself seems like it has a lot of potential for conflict.

I don't see these implications. Please cite some, if you can.

Also, if spells that inflict pain, death, and forced control were illegal...well, you'd have to toss mages, druids, shamans, and even paladins under this blanket as well. Magic does damage, it's a thing.

Another point is that almost every shadow caster seen in the game outside the Forsaken is portrayed in a villainous role. The Scourge, Twilight's Hammer and satyrs, to name a few, all utilize shadow intensively. We might as well include the Forsaken among those villains, considering who we're talking about, and that by itself gives four sources of apparent evil for the people of Stormwind, and no sources of apparent good, which I can only imagine just adds to the stigma.

Not every shadow caster is a villain. Again, Confessor Paletress and Anduin both have used shadow magic in the game, and neither are villains. Troll priests, back during the stint of racial spells, had shadow-oriented priest spells, but I doubt you'd call the Darkspears evil.

So, yes, we may not have seen concrete evidence that Shadow is illegal, but we haven't seen anything in the Alliance (Argent Crusade doesn't count) that suggests that it's not illegal, either. Given all that we know about Shadow, it makes more sense to me that it would at least have to be kept quiet, or quite probably have correlations with malevolent forces, and therefore be heavily controlled or illegal.

"We don't have proof that I'm right, but we also don't have proof that I'm wrong" is a logical fallacy. All that means is that you can't prove your position. For that matter, why does Paletress "not count"? She clearly is a worshiper of the Light: her specific affiliation seems irrelevant unless you're implying she'd be a criminal in Stormwind.

This is all part of what I meant when I said "religion and spec are separate." If you do that as a thought experiment, and come to the conclusion that "Holy" and "Shadow" as priest talent trees/spell books do not correlate to actual religions (easy when you start to ask what such a correlation would mean for troll/tauren priests) then you can come to the conclusion that there's nothing suggesting that the two are inherently opposing.

To add on to that, consider that the Forgotten Shadow has a number of tenets remarkably similar to the Holy Light, and that the Forsaken preach about striking a balance between shadow and light. Sure, that's a Horde example, but it makes one point clear: if this is even a thing, it'd be specific to Stormwind. If it's specific to Stormwind, you'd think it would be explicitly mentioned at some point since it would be unusual and an exception, yet it hasn't been.

I don't see the point in creating an artificial limitation here. That goes back to CotH being too strict with its own interpretations of lore, and I don't think that's a direction we'd want to go in again.

[CappnRob]

Yeah, right so I don't usually get into these counter-quote debates on forums (anymore) but I'm making an exception here.

I will point out that this is because of reference to the Holy Light as a religion, not a type of magic. "The Forgotten Shadow" as a religion and "shadow" as a type of magic are two separate things.

And the religion is based around that magic. The philosophy and the spells reflect off one another. To completely disregard the religions, bare bones as they are, and focus on just the spellbook seems... irresponsible. I'm all in favor of herosparkle noblebright goodliness, but to think that there's no negative stigma at all for the Shadow and its users from those in the church of Holy Light is really naive. Warcraft is a hateful and bigoted world, after all.

I don't see these implications. Please cite some, if you can.

The implications come from the very nature of the spells (and the religions) themselves. The Church of Holy Light preaches compassion and good deeds; the Shadow preaches selfishness, social darwinism, power and those too weak to seek it. Shadow is heavily used by the Forsaken and the trolls; Forsaken being seen as undead abominations and trolls as savage psychotic monstermen (remember we are talking from the POV of the -Alliance- cultures here, not our OOC Meta-window). Voodoo, evil spirits, curses, hexes, words of pain, suffering, fear, terror, mind control and mind-flaying, these are all associated with Shadow, and its followers/users would be seen as evil or at least sick in the head by the masses. No the lore doesn't outright say that, but that's a between the line reading so strong it hardly counts as reading between the lines.

(As for the holy spells? They all have encouraging or optimistic names and natures. Hymns, holy words, healing; their offensive spells are attributed to sanctimonious punishment with words like "chastise" and "penance", compared to the very to-the-point shadow spells.)

Also, if spells that inflict pain, death, and forced control were illegal...well, you'd have to toss mages, druids, shamans, and even paladins under this blanket as well. Magic does damage, it's a thing.

Again, the difference is in the context. Arcane magic has ulterior uses besides murdering people; it creates portals, food, powers machinery and is a dignified science. Furthermore, lore HAS said that fire magic was traditionally associated with devilry and demonic powers due to its destructive nature; and furthermore than THAT arcane magic IS a dangerous and corrupting influence in the world and people acknowledge that, and the average citizen goer probably holds the arcane wizard in a high amount of superstition and wariness.

As for the other classes? Druids kill things with nature; the few offensive spells the have are mystical in their design (moonfire); nevermind druids in the Alliance are night elves (xenophobic and mysterious strangers who've only been exposed to the core Alliance people for 10 years) and Worgen, who are cursed to be terrible beastmen. Shamans are mystics; they kill also with the forces of nature, and paladins are like holy priests: their offensive powers are built around concepts of smiting evil and rebuking the wicked. "Crusade", "justice", "exorcise" are the themes. The only class with spells with similar name-theming to Shadow Priests are... Warlocks, who -also- use Shadow magic (debate over "divine" and "fel" shaodw nonwithstanding as that's unrelated and another argument -entirely-). Curses, corruption, banes, and all sorts of ugly-sounding unpleasantness.

Not every shadow caster is a villain. Again, Confessor Paletress and Anduin both have used shadow magic in the game, and neither are villains. Troll priests, back during the stint of racial spells, had shadow-oriented priest spells, but I doubt you'd call the Darkspears evil.

MOST are though. Paletress an Anduin are very rare and peculiar exceptions, not the rules; nevermind that Anduin is a teenage free-thinking rebel and Paletress is an Argent, who -define- pragmatic good. We as players wouldn't call darkspears evil, but from the perspective of the Alliance, especially church goers? Savage monsters who -eat people- and practice heathen arts. This is nevernminding the sheer abundance of enemy/evil shadow users in game, such as the Auchenai, the Twilight Hammers, the Darkirons pre-Cata, Forsaken, the Scourge/Cult of the Damned, every troll culture NOT the Darkspears... the list goes on. Paletress and Anduin are trailbreakers, not norms.

To add on to that, consider that the Forgotten Shadow has a number of tenets remarkably similar to the Holy Light, and that the Forsaken preach about striking a balance between shadow and light.

Actually while the tenets of Respect and Tenacity are present in both, the motivations for them are VERY different. Respect in Shadow is a form of humilty, to know there's always something better, more powerful, and to acknowledge their power; Respect in the Light is about showing love and kindness to those who deserve it. Tenacity in Shadow is about never-say-die, to overcome your weakness and crush it beneath you as per fitting the Forsaken culture on earning your spot in the world; Tenacity in the Light is about being a stalwart defender and protector of the weak and the Light's goodness.

Forsaken preach a balance of Light and Shadow specifically BECAUSE most Light followers think Shadow users are evil mustache twirling villains who want to melt their brains and therefore try to smite them all the time.

I don't see the point in creating an artificial limitation here. That goes back to CotH being too strict with its own interpretations of lore, and I don't think that's a direction we'd want to go in again.

Slippery slope fallacy there, Grakor. Furthermore, the limitation is IN the game. MOST shadow spells can't even be learned unless you -spec in shadow-, furthermore the iconic ability of Shadow priests, Shadowform, specifically FORBIDS using ANY holy spell at all. From a PvE/PvP perspective, its akin to riding the fence, or generalizing too much: if you dabble in both you'll never be good at either; a shadow priest who tries to dabble in holy spells or a holy priest who dabbles in shadow is ultimately going to suck at doing both.

Not ALL limitations are bad; boundaries exist so we can work with and around them. If I may cite a specific example, would Immy's "Light Casts a Shadow" storyline be ANYWHERE as good or well loved if Shadow was just assumed to be this totally cool and accepted thing in Alliance culture? No, it would not. Prejudices exist, and they're born out of fear and misunderstanding of the unkown. Light followers GENERALLY do not understand the Shadow, and therefore fear the Shadow and associate it with zombies and savage green monsters. The same applies today: you go out publically and profess to be a pagan or a satanist or whatever other taboo religion and look the role, MOST people are going to look at you funny and avoid you. Is it illegal? No, but it is frowned upon and looked at with suspiscion and disdain and I feel the same applies to the Shadow in the larger Alliance culture.

Is it still fanon? Technically, yes, but Fanon is not exclusively a bad thing.

[Loxmardin]

@CappnRob:

Like many things, this is something that will come down to individual preferences In-Character and your own personal beliefs, but it's not something we'll enforce using city guards or any kind of high officials because, as of now, there's no source expicitly stating that this kind of enforcement ought to exist. It's the same deal with Warlocks. The implications of people absolutely hating Warlocks because of how it was all introduced to humans in the first place...? Those are totally fine. It's totally fine that people are suspicious of Shadow users, as well. That all comes down to individual suspicion, however, and people can be as suspicious as they want. Just like they can be as racist as they want, ICly. This doesn't mean the Church is going to back you up in any way, or persecute anyone on your behalf, or chase Shadow users down in the streets because they flaunt their class spec. (No, this is not saying they can walk around in Shadowform or with Shadowfiends at their heels and get away with it, just as little as Warlocks get away with their demonic minions or Druids get away with Animal Form or Hunters get away with Animal Companions in public. In the streets, that is. I think people know what we imply by saying this, so don't take it too literally and apply it everywhere. This isn't a change to an existing policy; this is how we've puppeted guards in major cities for a very long time. Of course there are individual exceptions, but let's not get into that.)

[c0rzilla]

@CappnRob:

Like many things, this is something that will come down to individual preferences In-Character and your own personal beliefs, but it's not something we'll enforce using city guards or any kind of high officials because, as of now, there's no source expicitly stating that this kind of enforcement ought to exist. It's the same deal with Warlocks. The implications of people absolutely hating Warlocks because of how it was all introduced to humans in the first place...? Those are totally fine. It's totally fine that people are suspicious of Shadow users, as well. That all comes down to individual suspicion, however, and people can be as suspicious as they want. Just like they can be as racist as they want, ICly. This doesn't mean the Church is going to back you up in any way, or persecute anyone on your behalf, or chase Shadow users down in the streets because they flaunt their class spec.

...Actually, I remember Reigen enforcing just thing recently in the Stormwind Cathedral square.

I don't mean to call people out and go HAH, but this is a glaring inconsistency.

[CappnRob]

Again:

Is it illegal? No, but it is frowned upon and looked at with suspiscion and disdain and I feel the same applies to the Shadow in the larger Alliance culture.

I'm against making shadow "illegal" and using NPCs for witch hunts. (I get enough of that from Prologue and my goooood its annoying! You may as well not even RP a warlock/shadow priest there.)

However I think it stands reasonable that most NPCs, especially guards, are going to look at public displays of Shadow with disdain and disgust and probably tell you to knock it off.

Either way, my post wasn't to change server policy; it was a rebuttal to Grakor's post saying that "no lore means unsupported", which I heavily disagreed with.

[Reigen]

Considering I am mentioned here!

The guards never enforced anything on the subject. I was called in about the situation about how it may not be a good idea to be doing that right in front of the church. However a majority of this conversation was about leaving an RP when a guard is called, rather than about the shadow thing.

Edit: It was my intention to more have the guards in that situation sigh about being bothered, tell the person to respect the nobles and then walk about grumbling. That was all I was planning to do.

[Grakor456]

I don't feel the need to get into a giant quote war over this, so I'll try to keep things brief.

And the religion is based around that magic. <snip> Warcraft is a hateful and bigoted world, after all.

I'd say the magic is a result of the religious belief, not the other way around. That said, is Warcraft -really- a hateful and bigoted world? Because it's pretty noble-bright. Most of the racism and irrational hatred is just forced into lore figures for the purposes of forcing conflict, where we still see lots of mixed-race, even mixed-faction, organizations working just fine.

Voodoo, evil spirits, curses, hexes, words of pain, suffering, fear, terror, mind control and mind-flaying, these are all associated with Shadow, and its followers/users would be seen as evil or at least sick in the head by the masses. No the lore doesn't outright say that, but that's a between the line reading so strong it hardly counts as reading between the lines.

Keeping in mind we're talking about legality here, in a world where Stormwind willingly allows DKs to wander the streets...

Again, the difference is in the context. Arcane magic has ulterior uses besides murdering people; it creates portals, food, powers machinery and is a dignified science.

To be fair, priest-shadow is honestly not that grimdark, and has other uses beyond frying people's minds. Most of it (beyond shadow words and shadow fiends) are just mind-influencing spells...and, yes, some of them are even utilitarian and non-combative: Mind Soothe being the easiest example. From a lore perspective, I'd say shadow magic is more focused on the mind than "mwahaha I'm eeeevil." Compared to warlocks, certainly.

Paletress and Anduin are trailbreakers, not norms.

That's something you're choosing to interpret. That's really the difference between our two arguments here: you're saying that your personal interpretation is the ONE TRUE INTERPRETATION while I'm simply stating that there's nothing concrete and thus it's unenforceable.

Slippery slope fallacy there, Grakor.

Slippery slope fallacy is when someone warns against something by implying that worse things will inevitably follow. I said that making such an action would be something we might have done in the worse days of our past, but not now. Subtle distinction, there.

And, of course, you get plenty of shadow spells without speccing in it. I dunno where you're getting that.

A lot of this is subjective, but the point I'm wanting to make is that one can't take their view of lore and state that it is the one, true path. For a while, I knew some people who had interpreted the lore and characters such that they believed that confessors practicing shadow magic was the norm and totally acceptable. The question is if shadow magic is -illegal- and I was arguing on those grounds. People are free to RP prejudice as they are able with -any- kind of magic.

[CappnRob]

I'd say the magic is a result of the religious belief, not the other way around.

Unlikely. Humans discovered the Light before they built a faith around it; now HOW that magic was USED was certainly a result of the religion, the magic itself seems to have always been there.

That said, is Warcraft -really- a hateful and bigoted world?

Yes it is. It is a world defined by the past 30 years being full of devil worship, demonic invasion, genocide, slavery, torture, plague, racism, backstabbing, cold blooded murder, civil dispute, classism, and just out right war. Its called the Age of CHAOS.

Most of the racism and irrational hatred is just forced into lore figures for the purposes of forcing conflict, where we still see lots of mixed-race, even mixed-faction, organizations working just fine.

First of all, the lore figures are to a degree embodiments of their cultures and reflect their societies. This isn't new; it was happening as far back as WC3. Nextly, we see a TON of NPCs/nameless characters who equally and willfully support these bigoted points of view towards others. Mixed factions are a thing but they are a minority; the Argent Dawn/Crusade so far being one of the ONLY few cross-group factions that manage to keep itself together for a long period of time. The Guardians of Hyjal, the Might of Kalimdor, all those other alliances were short term and dissolved after their goal was accomplished. Hell, even within the Argents you know there's a tension in the air: Horde and Alliance are -segregated-, the Silver Covenant and Sunreavers talk crap behind each others' backs... hell, the Sunreavers had to pull an arm and a leg to even get ACCEPTED into Dalaran.

Warcraft has its moments of glistening glorious heroism, but it is definitely a violent and hateful world. Just because it isn't a low-fantasy SoFaI ripoff covered with blood and dirt and has goofy colorful shoulderpads does not make it any less dark.

Keeping in mind we're talking about legality here, in a world where Stormwind willingly allows DKs to wander the streets...

Ahem...

3. There is no particular prejudice that we see in regards to priest shadow magic

Is it illegal? No, but it is frowned upon and looked at with suspiscion and disdain and I feel the same applies to the Shadow in the larger Alliance culture.

I'm against making shadow "illegal" and using NPCs for witch hunts. (I get enough of that from Prologue and my goooood its annoying! You may as well not even RP a warlock/shadow priest there.)

I'm opposed to shadow being illegal. However, you seem to suggest there should be no bias against the Shadow, which I disagree with.

Also, those DKs were allowed in, but Varian nearly cuts them down where they stand, and the whole city population is unfriendly and cowers before you during the quest chain.

To be fair, priest-shadow is honestly not that grimdark, and has other uses beyond frying people's minds. Most of it (beyond shadow words and shadow fiends) are just mind-influencing spells...and, yes, some of them are even utilitarian and non-combative: Mind Soothe being the easiest example. From a lore perspective, I'd say shadow magic is more focused on the mind than "mwahaha I'm eeeevil." Compared to warlocks, certainly.

I'm sorry but frying people's brains and afflicting them with visions of terror, fear, sucking the life out of them like an energy vampire, blasting them with words of literal pain and death, plaguing them, silencing their voice, controlling their mind and invasively seeing what they see isn't dark? They have a handful of beneficial/neutral spells (mind soothe, shadow ward, fade), but for the most part they're built around screwing with your mind with agony beams.

It IS focused on the mind, specifically -punishing- the mind. I never said shadow priests are "mweeheehee evil", I said they're likely to be PERCIEVED that way by the general populace. If not from their brain-melting terror beams then from the simple association that "undesirables" like trolls, undead and cultists all freely swing it around.

That's something you're choosing to interpret.

Perhaps, but the fact they are exceptions against an overwhelming majority is not. Most Shadow using NPCs are evil, or would be associated as such by the Alliance.

That's really the difference between our two arguments here: you're saying that your personal interpretation is the ONE TRUE INTERPRETATION while I'm simply stating that there's nothing concrete and thus it's unenforceable.

Except I'm not? I've said before its still fanon by the day's end, but it is fanon that makes sense. Nothing concrete in concrete lore ONLY, as I've cited MANY reasons why it would be safe to assume that yes, the holy-rolling goodwill giving holy society that comprises 5/6 of the Alliance would in fact hate/abhor/dislike/etc Shadow.

And, of course, you get plenty of shadow spells without speccing in it. I dunno where you're getting that.

I said MOST. Not all. Shadowform, Vampiric Embrace, Silence, Mind Flay, Shadow Orbs, Vampiric Touch, Psychic Horror, and Dispersion all require a shadow spec.

[Reigen]

I...I have this crazy idea.

Why don't we...

Hear me out guys...

Why don't we agree to disagree for now?

[Grakor456]

I'm opposed to shadow being illegal. However, you seem to suggest there should be no bias against the Shadow, which I disagree with.

I never said that. I never intended on implying that. See above on what my intended point was.

That's all I really want to say, since, as I said, I have no desire to get into a quote war.

[Xigo]

People in the Alliance generally like the Light better than the Shadow. The Light is good, the Shadow is evil. The Light heals, the Shadow harms.

Even if it's not illegal, expect to be treated roughly if you're being a scary shadow cultist floating in front of the bank whispering promises of end times.