Sauron vs Ysera

[MichaelC]

Sauron at his peak vs Alexstrasza

[Sharpandpointies]

My usual call for feats….

[Oswin]

am i seeing this wrong but arent these 2 different dragons? or did something spoilery happen that i don't know about O_O

[Postmania]

Wait is this Sauron the dinosaur guy or Sauron the Tolkier character?

[Oswin]

Alexstrasza the dragon queen is the dragon aspect of life, she can do things like create life, resurrect life, animate the dead that sort of thing... her power comes from the Titan Eanor, the entity that's the representation of all life and nature in the universe, planet sized beings that create planets and life "through the weaving of the arcane".
One of her siblings is the aspect of time, a guy who has mastery over time itself and can create various timelines and other fun stuff.
Another sibling is the very essence of all magic in the warcraft universe.
And one is the aspect of Nature (Ysera) basically a slightly lesser version of Alexstrasza.

Aside from that they are usually immortal (unless depowered or being hit with amazingly powerful artifacts like the Dragon Soul) and highly intelligent magic users

[Oswin]

A metric ton of lore from warcraft is heavily inspired (and sometimes blatantly ripped off ) by Tolkien's work. (also alot of lovecraft)

The titans are basically the valar, Sargeras is a cross between Melkor and Sauron ( the strongest titan that got corrupted and turned evil )

The Lich King is also inspised by Sauron and the Witch King of Angmar.

Fun fact is The Lich King fought Sauron on the youtube channel death battle and Sauron won

[Sharpandpointies]

How powerful magic users?

Sounding not-so-great for the Abhorrent One…

[MichaelC]

am i seeing this wrong but arent these 2 different dragons? or did something spoilery happen that i don't know about O_O

I remembered Alexstrasza's name wrong, and put Ysera in the title instead. Then when I edited it, it didn't change the thread title, even in "Go Advanced". Instead, all it did was put a little mini-title in the first post. Very annoying editing limitation on this site.

[Oswin]

How powerful magic users?

Well the most powerful mortal magic users in warcraft do things like mass teleport armies across huge swaths of land, time stop armies, or physically freeze armies in place (turning said army into blocks of ice) fiddle in other ways with time like putting groups of people in timeloops , or automatically reverse time every time they die , astral projection, communicating with other mages or people across continents, transmuting things into other things


Then there is the next level of magic users, these people are usually in the previous category but they are receiving additional power through an external source or relic or being. This could be the Well of Eternity, a large body of water with infinite arcane energies which later turns out was basically the blood of a Titan, one of those planet sized Valar-like beings that gave the Dragon aspects their power. Or the council of Tirisfal, a group of the current most powerful mages on the planet that would funnel their power into 1 of their own (usually the most talented and strongest) turning him/her into the guardian, “single mortal champion magically empowered by the council to secretly fight the burning legion ( a near infinite demonic army with various potent magic users and warlocks) and other demons wherever they might have appeared in the world.”

As a caveat i will say however, most ,if not all of these people are susceptible to mental attacks , in fact one of the strongest got possessed by the spirit of the fallen titan Sargeras (the Melkor clone) turning her future child (which would also turn into one of the strongest magi in warcraft history )to become a mind puppet for Sargeras. Now mind you, this was done by a guy that’s probably in the top 3 of strongest beings of the warcraft universe, but still..

These powerful mages I mentioned would not dare try and take on a fully powered dragon aspect, let alone the Dragon Queen herself. Fight would probably go something like this:

Powerful mage: Insta-cast Timestop
Alexstrasza: *Ignores*
Alexstrasza: *Casts Dragon’s Breath*
Powerful mage: Raises various potent magical shields *Turns into ash*
Alexstrasza: *Casts Dragon’s Breath*
Powerful mage: *Revived to full health*
Alexstrasza: *Snort* what was that about.
Powerful mage: *Gulp* Uhm, my apologies dragon queen, can I go now?

[Sharpandpointies]

I'm somewhat thin on Sauron being able to mentally enslave someone of that level of heft. I mean, there's a case to be made of 'no feats for resistance', but I'm always iffy on going with the idea of 'no feats means cosmic forces cannot defend themselves against lesser beings with telepathy'.

And outside of the potential for mental assault (I am in no way convinced of this), I see no way for Sauron to win.

[Oswin]

I agree with you Sharp, though mental assaults and possessing people and corrupting them is definitely a thing in warcraft as i mentioned above. It tends to not apply to the higher beings in warcraft (unless its done by a higher being then the one thats getting assaulted) Sargeras does get “corrupted” but its not by being mentally assaulted by someone, its more like him changing his mind willingly. .

How did Melkor get corrupted and become Morgoth? How would the one ring effect him?

[Sharpandpointies]

Melkor was never corrupted, so to speak; he was the source of said corruption in the universe.

Melkor became what he was because of his own choices and desires. He 'became' twisted and evil because of said choices and desires (and fairly rapidly), though it's worth noting that when he was booted out of the Valar club he lost something of what he was (the ability to change his form, as one). Fëanor named him 'Morgoth' after Melkor stole his Jewels and killed his dad, and the name stuck.

He then squandered much of his power twisting and creating things to rule and use, until some people argue that by the end he was weaker than Sauron (going by Tolkien's own words).

"Sauron was 'greater', effectively, in the Second Age than Morgoth at the end of the First. Why? Because, though he was far smaller by natural stature, he had not yet fallen so low. Eventually he also squandered his power (of being) in the endeavour to gain control of others. But he was not obliged to expend so much of himself. To gain domination over Arda, Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical constituents of the Earth - hence all things that were born on Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits, were liable to be 'stained'".

When it comes to this meaning Sauron being more powerful on a personal level, I don't have that opinion myself (note the word 'effectively'). I am in the camp that figures when Tokien notes that Sauron was 'greater' than Morgoth in the Second Age, he was talking about accomplishments, not personal power. In the more expanded ideas that Tolkien was working on, Melkor spent a chunk of that power corrupting the entire universe, making it flawed ('Arda marred') and bound to him in certain ways - it became his 'Ring', so to speak. He was operating on a scale of 'all of Arda' rather than 'taking over Middle Earth'.

What would the Ring have done for and to him?

Melkor would have found the Ring to be an amusing creation, very inventive, and an interesting and very focused take on his own corruption of Arda (Melkor wasn't exactly a deep thinker and innovator; he was more of a 'pull the wings off flies' kind of evil, and him corrupting all of Arda was basically him peeing all over everything to make it 'his'). But the Ring wouldn't have done much for or to him due to the disparity of power between it and himself (and Sauron and himself). Maybe it would have made him a little better at seizing control of people, or something along those lines, but that's all - he operated at a scale vastly above that of Sauron. Certainly he would have mastered the Ring in an instant and there would have been no contest between he and Sauron for control of the Ring.

Morgoth at the absolute dregs of his power? As a being of might he is still beyond Sauron (note that Sauron, for all of his ambition and drive, still serves him at this point in time) and would master the Ring and Sauron both.

[Jackalope89]

Yeah, the best way to describe them, would be that Melkor is Lucifer and Sauron is his right-hand man.