Liadrin's Crisis of Faith
The Light guides my steps and illuminates my path. The Light flows through me, and by its grace am I made one with all that is sacred.
The Midnight cinematic opens with Lady Liadrin chanting this phrase before the Sunwell, the blood elves' font of power. Despite the repetition of the phrase, the Light that she prays to fails to come, and Liadrin is forced to leave her appeal to faith behind by her leader, Lor'themar Theron. Liadrin has a storied history with her faith in the Light, one that greatly informs her words throughout this cinematic.
Much of that storied history begins with the Sunwell itself. Like all elves in Quel'thalas, Liadrin was intimately connected to the arcane power that flowed through it prior to its desecration at the hands of Arthas and the Scourge. Before that destruction, Liadrin was a devout priestess of the Light, adopted by High Priest Vandellor after her parents were killed by Amani trolls.
Her intense faith in the Light lasted throughout most of her life, through run-ins with Amani trolls and the near-razing of Quel'thalas during the Second War, but that faith was shattered when Arthas invaded. While Liadrin herself was teleported to safety, she witnessed storied heroes like Sylvanas Windrunner, Anasterian Sunstrider, and her own father Vandellor fall at Arthas' hands, and with the Sunwell's destruction, she lost the composure needed to call upon the Light.
Wracked by guilt for her self-imposed failure to protect the Sunwell and her people, Liadrin isolated herself in the Ghostlands, becoming a hardened warrior who let out her grief and rage on the roaming Scourge. After five years of exile, she was eventually approached by the Magisters of the newly rebuilt Silvermoon with a gift: the captured naaru M'uru. Prince Kael'thas had sent the naaru back to Silvermoon from Outland to be drained of magic by his people, but Grand Magister Rommath and Astalor Bloodsworn had a different idea; they saw a way to harness the power of the Light directly.
Liadrin was given the opportunity to become the first to bond with M'uru's Light -- not through prayer or faith, but through force of will. She began to drain the Light from the naaru, infusing herself with it once more. Combining the martial prowess she had gained in recent years with her newly formed subjugation of the Light, she was reborn as the first blood elf paladin, and Matriarch of the Blood Knights.
Liadrin spent the next few years training her fellow blood elves to wield the Light, teaching the paladin trainees to see themselves not as servants of its power any longer, but instead as its masters. The Blood Knights became a spiteful organization, weaponizing their newfound power not only against the Scourge and the Legion, but against their rival paladins within the Alliance, going so far as to burn and defile sacred sites like Alonsus Chapel in Stratholme as proof of their authority over the Light.
It wasn't until her newfound source of power was stolen from her that Liadrin realized how far she had fallen. After being defeated in Tempest Keep, the crazed Prince Kael'thas returned to Silvermoon, stealing M'uru and using his power to transform the dormant Sunwell into a portal that would summon the Burning Legion to Azeroth. Liadrin witnessed this act directly, and without a source of power, she traveled to Outland to meet with Shattrath in search of a new source of power. There she met the naaru A'dal, who revealed to her that M'uru had undergone the torment inflicted upon him by the Blood Knights willingly with the knowledge that it would one day serve as the catalyst for her redemption -- and with her, the redemption of the blood elves.
Silvery moon, washed in blood,
Led astray into the night, armed with sword of broken Light.
Broken, then betrayed by one, standing there bestride the sun.
At darkest hour, redemption comes, in knightly lady sworn to blood.
Denouncing Kael'thas and the practices she had created as leader of the Blood Knights, Liadrin took up arms alongside the Shattered Sun Offensive against the Legion, aiding them in defeating the prince and preventing the arrival of the Burning Legion. In the midst of the fight to protect the Sunwell, one foe that stood in the Offensive's way was M'uru, warped into a being of Void energy thanks to the theft of his Light by the Blood Knights. Eventually transforming into a Void God, M'uru was defeated, and his core was all that remains of the once noble naaru.
Despite the belief that she would never atone for the sins she committed against M'uru, Liadrin's faith was renewed thanks to the aid of the Prophet Velen, who helped to purify M'uru's core into a state of pure Light and place it into the Sunwell. Combined with M'uru's power, the Sunwell was reborn as a font of holy energy, and with it Liadrin's faith in the Light was reborn as well.
Prophet Velen says: In time, the light and hope held within - will rebirth more than this mere fount of power... Mayhap, they will rebirth the soul of a nation.
Lady Liadrin says: Blessed ancestors! I feel it... so much love... so much grace... there are... no words... impossible to describe...
Prophet Velen says: Salvation, young one. It waits for us all.
Since the rebirth of the Sunwell, Liadrin has been a staunchly faithful advocate for the Light, reforming the Blood Knights into an order that served the Light instead of subjugating it and leading them in places like Draenor, Suramar, and even Argus. By all accounts, Liadrin is the epitome of a paladin in the modern day, driven by service to the Light and a moral compass renewed by her faith.
...And yet here in Midnight, her faith seems to falter. Faith not in the Light, but in herself. Despite her words to Lor'themar that "only the Light can save us now", she is unable to muster its strength as the Void encroaches for its invasion -- an invasion all too similar to the last fall of Quel'thalas, with the ultimate object of desire being the power of the Sunwell.
When Xal'atath finally arrives and bids them to flee, it looks on the surface as though Liadrin listens; and perhaps in some regards, she does listen. The trauma inflicted upon Liadrin by the Scourge invasion is not dispelled lightly, and with her faith in the Light tied to the Sunwell even more than before, the idea of its loss is one for she would rather die than suffer again.
Retreating towards the Sunwell, Liadrin begins her repetitive chant once more. Words of faith, perhaps comforting at other times, are empty in this moment when Liadrin lacks faith in her own worthiness to wield its grace and power. Even after the redemption she was offered by the Sunwell's restoration, and the years of service across numerous wars that threatened Azeroth, Liadrin still seems to believe herself unworthy after all she did to disgrace the Light.
Instead, she gives up on her routinely repeated prayer, and beseeches the Light from the desperation in her heart. The redemption promised by A'dal and Velen was not one solely granted to Liadrin herself, but a redemption of the elven people as a whole. Just as Liadrin had indulged in dark sadism against M'uru, the blood elves had resorted to draining living creatures of magic to feed their addiction, an addiction sated by the restoration of the Sunwell. Salvation from darkness was not just the gift given to the Blood Knights, it was the gift given to Quel'thalas -- a gift now in danger of being consumed by the Void.
I know that I am unworthy. I don't know if I deserve your help, but I know my people do. Please, give them strength.
This Darkness comes to devour everything, and when it is finished, there will be no more Light. Without your aid, we will perish.
I beg you, help us.
In response to her plea, an army of holy Paladins steps out of the Sunwell, infused with power and primed to fight off Xal'atath and her army of Void spawn. In the end, it is not the routine, doubt-filled prayers to the Light that grants salvation to Liadrin, but her fervent desire to protect her people.
Lor'themar's Hesitation
...At least, it seems as though Liadrin's desperation to save her people is what finally summoned the Light. For someone like Lor'themar, the answer to that question may be quite different.
Despite his place as the leader of the blood elves in their current era, Lor'themar has never been a man of particularly strong faith. That sentiment is echoed in this cinematic, where he eschews Liadrin's prayers in favor of a -- perhaps hopeless -- clash of arms against Xal'atath's forces.
Lor'themar tries to put up a good fight, spitting at Xal'atath's feet and declaring her too weak to subjugate him, but he is proven wrong as she exerts her power to begin torturing the minds of the elves around her. He ultimately is saved by Liadrin and the army of paladins she summoned from the Sunwell, but was he perhaps right to doubt her prayers?
While Liadrin prays, she beseeches the Light not only to save her people, but to fend off the Darkness that will devour everything. The Light has shown compassion at many turns with naaru like A'dal, but it has likewise shown a pragmatic fixation on the ultimate conflict against the Void, as seen with naaru like Xe'ra during Legion. Perhaps it was that pragmatic call to arms against the Void that it ultimately answered, and not Liadrin's pleas to save her people.
Similarly, while the paladins Liadrin conjures look mostly like generic male human paladins (of which there is certainly an army of), it's also possibly that she summoned not humans, but half-elven Arathi. According to their prophecies, the Arathi Empire from across the sea waits for the day that they will join the final conflict between Light and Void that they call 'Renilash'.
With how all-consuming Xal'atath's threat to Light and life on Azeroth is shaping up to be, there is no better candidate to be considered Renilash than the events of Midnight, and the Arathi would be more than worthy candidates for the Light to summon to fend off the Darkness.
We've also been given hints that the Void might not be the only threat we face in Midnight, with the expansion being described as one of 'contrasts'.
Midnight is an expansion of contrasts. On one hand, we’re facing the terrifying rise of Xal’atath and the encroaching Void contrasted with the forces of the Light and their willingness to do whatever it takes. On the other, the assault on the Sunwell brings the threat of chaos and destruction while at the same time, we’re introducing a feature players have dreamed about for years—Housing. It’s this duality that defines the Midnight expansion: darkness and light, destruction and creation.
The base story of Midnight is shaping up to be an ultimate confrontation against the Void, with our final zone being inside the Void itself, and our raids including Xal'atath's strongold as well as a final assault on the Sunwell -- one that promises to reshape the skies above the Sunwell to "never be the same".
Perhaps the patch stories of Midnight will deal with a fight not against the Void, but the armies of the Light we have summoned to Azeroth in our most desperate hour -- all started by a prayer for salvation by Lady Liadrin. Only time will tell, but for now, it seems Liadrin has quite the path ahead to regain faith in herself during Midnight.
