"They were obviously not immortal because they could be killed in battle."

I keep seeing this logic. Are vampires not immortal if you can stake them in the heart? Are highlanders not immortal because of that whole head thing?

Most fictional characters who are considered "immortal" can be killed under the right circumstances. It usually just means that they will live forever -- or even just super, super long -- under normal circumstances.

Night elves were immortal, too, once.

i think they will be mortal in the NE sense, ie 10 thousand years before you see one wrinkle on Alexstrasza face.

Not that I didn't watch it. But lets not make the first post on the queue so spoilerific, K?

Immortal =/= Invincible

immortal means ageless, invincible means unkillable. There is a difference, i am surprised how many people playing a fantasy game dont know it.

By the way...all this talk lead to me discovering that there's a species of jellyfish, who could technically be immortal. In the real world...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula

Draenei are also immortal, there's even this one guy in the starting zone that used to live on Argus pre-Sargeras corruption. That's tens of thousands of years ago!

25,000 years ago or so, to be specific. And there's at least three Draenei who were around back then, that we know of. Velen himself, an NPC in Blood Watch, and an NPC in Wintergrasp. Draenei are either immortal or just INSANELY long-lived.

@(cutaia) Lobsters also don't die of old age. Although their deliciousness means they don't get to live forever.

I think the focus of this cinematic is being put in the wrong place. The Dragons have stated that the age of mortals has arrived. Its a torch passing more than anything else. The future of Azaroth is in our hands now, not theirs.

There's a difference between "immortal" and "invincible."

Immortal to me usually denotes long or "neverending" life, yet they can still be struck down by things like swords and stuff.

Invincible would be that someone just cannot be killed.

Biological immortality is not quite the same thing as physical immortality. I presume the Aspects had the former, meaning they were ageless, but subject to death through physical means. I also presume that the cinematic would have been less popular if it featured the subsequent 30-minute discussion of semantics between the Aspects and Thrall, plus pregnancy tips by Alexstrasza.

They can't be invincible either, because we can see them.

(Sorry about that)

Yeah I'm confused about this cinematic as well. And to be honest, it was very...meh. The LK one was very appropriate and set up future events as well as wrapping up Arthas' story. For this one, the only things that we know are: Deathwing is dead, Aggra is preggers, and the Aspects lost...something.

It's probably more in the sense that they aren't god-things with an innate connection to the thing they're an aspect of anymore.

Just big Dragons.

There are two more Draenei who came from Argus in the DK starting area, Valok the Argent Dawn member that the player kills, and the player him/herself. It's one of the things Valok tries to use to get the player to remember who they were.

To be fair to the OP, the definition of immortal has kind of shifted due to video games. Previously I understood "immortality" to be eternal life, like the greek gods; you could not be killed even if you were maimed in various terrible ways. Eternal /youth/ conferred extremely long life unless you were killed violently. But now immortal = eternal youth.

Eternal would be the correct word.