The ultimate fight of The War Within, Dimensius is a hulking purple Void Lord, and several developer interviews have led us to believe he may be the last one. Or, at least, that's what two of our listeners asked about -- is he the last Void Lord? And if he is, what does that even mean? So Matt and Joe start off explaining the Void and Void Lords a bit, before making a turn -- in the way only Lore Watch can. If Dimensius is the last Void Lord, which weren't not sold on, what does that mean as we make our way toward the final expansion of the arc, which we already know is The Last Titan? Seems a bit convenient to have a whole bunch of "lasts" in one place, doesn't it.

And what might happen if the last Void Lord and the last Titan meet?

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This week we're having a throwback episode from the Archives. Over a hundred episodes ago, Matt and Joe discussed what they would like to see from an elf-centric expansion, which is more or less coming to fruition with Midnight. They begin by talking about the lore behind elves in general, their historical origins as an offshoot of the Trolls, through the Night Elf schism with the High Elves, then Blood Elves, and then everything that transpired from their various splinter factions. Their vision of a elf-centric expansion definitely includes a bit more unity for those factions -- but they're not sold on the idea of a happily ever after. Not for everyone, at least.

This dive into the Archives is both priming and prediction for Midnight.

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The topic of Forsaken Paladins is the meat in a three listener question sandwich this week. We start off with the idea of corruption, and just how the Old Gods managed to bend the kobolds eating Milly Osgood's grapes in Elwynn Forest to their will, being that they're generally not all that geographically adjacent. Besides which -- kobolds? Really? Then, the Forsaken Paladin discussion, which dives all the way back into a history lesson on how Paladins came to be in the first place. Lastly, why hasn't Lor'themar stepped up and become king of the Blood Elves already? It's been like 15 years since Kael'thas croaked twice in one expansion, dude, I don't think you're reagent-ing anymore. But why hasn't he made that formality a reality?

Disclaimer: management may not agree with the opinions expressed by Matt and Joe and therefore please don't yell at us about it.

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This week's show is devoted to two listener questions. The first asks what the Void fears, in reference to a line from our old pal Ve'nari who asserts that she knows what it is -- but doesn't let us in on the secret. Can Matt and Joe unravel the mystery posed by our Broker friend? They go down some twisting paths to discuss their way to the answer, including a lot of discussion of all the elves on Azeroth. Then, more Midnight discussion that goes into what we may see from magic (in a broad sense) as we go forward even further to The Last Titan.

Matt and Joe are firmly anti the suggestion that perhaps we could move Zereth Mortis the same way as the Kirin Tor have been tooling around in Dalaran. They're pretty sure something about it is load bearing, but there isn't even OSHA on Azeroth, and if you know a guy willing to take a few risks... well, maybe there's a reason Brann is getting replaced?

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Most people think of the 80s as a simple time full of big hair and scrunchies, but those of us who were into Dungeons and Dragons will remember the Satanic Panic, a period of time when parents were terrified that every piece of media was making their children evil. Our hosts Matt and Joe take a walk through a history they remember quite well, drawing from their own experiences as kids trying to get into D&D and comics.

A listener asked about the history and influence of the Satanic Panic, so Joe and Matt were more than happy to talk smack about Tipper Gore for an hour.

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Lore Watch this week explores three questions sent in by our listeners, all ending in answers we may see as we go forward into Midnight. First, they talk about the different types of magic -- specifically that Warlock magic stems from the Titans -- and why that knowledge didn't knock the socks clean off the Kirin Tor. Or maybe Xal'atath literally knocking those socks off also knocked some sense into them, and that's where we'll see them in Midnight. Then, we turn to the cry of Azeroth we saw in the teaser trailer for The War Within -- where did Anduin and Thrall go, by the way? Did everyone really hear the cries of Azeroth, or was that something else? Finally, on a scale from one to ten, just how elfy an expansion is Midnight going to be? Because we suspect pretty elfy (and when we say "pretty elfy" we're not just talking about Kael'thas).

As always, the answers to the questions posed lead to some interesting places.

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With the rigidity of the structure of the Kirin Tor and the Jedi Order, and their propensity for keeping secrets about power -- and sometimes that power for themselves -- there are a ton of parallels between these two organizations. Our hosts Matt and Joe dive deep into both the World of Warcraft universe and the Star Wars universe in order to compare and contrast the master light side wielders of the force and the best mages in Azeroth.

While this doesn't imply that, for instance, Rhonin is a Jedi, it doesn't not imply it, either.

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While we’re all excited about the new trailer for Midnight from gamescom, Matt and Joe took this opportunity to discuss what narrative threads we may see in Midnight as a whole. They recap some of our adventures on K’aresh, discuss the order of what might be coming, plus what the nature of the energy-based Ethereals have to do with Azeroth. It’s a multi-faceted lore deep dive on the story up to now, and some conjecture as to what we may see in the future as a result.

And we’d just like to disclaim that Matt and Joe recorded this on August 18, with absolutely no knowledge from the gamescom trailer. Just a lot of lore in their heads.

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This week's Lore Watch Podcast is just as majestic as the last, with even more discussion of the lore of Jurassic Park. This time, Joe, Matt, and special guest Eric O'Dea discuss the second set of Jurassic media, starting with Jurassic World. They give a rundown of the plots of the newer movies, then move into analysis. While scientific hubris clearly has its role to play, perhaps the true villain here is capitalism. But whatever the allegory or moral, I think we can all agree that dinosaurs are cool -- especially the ones InGen (or now, Masrani Global) made up along the way.

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This week, Matt, Joe, and special guest Eric O'Dea dove into one of the most influential series for the 90s kids in the audience: Jurassic Park. From Michael Crichton's groundbreaking novels to the movies, dinosaurs were inescapable -- pun intended. Our hosts discuss the first few works in the series, how the books and movies differed, and just how wrong the science was. Jurassic Park influenced a generation of kids to be really into that dino DNA and spawned a ton of our favorite memes.

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