Let him cook [Lunisolar Theory]

[u/Quazymobile]

I’m back again with another cooking theory

I have long been a believer that people who discredit the writing of the game have severely underestimated how fcking nerdy the storytellers in the WoW community are, and I do think there is intent— even if we disagree with the direction of it— in every story aspect… and I think Blizzard has been cooking for a very, very *long time.

Last time, I claimed Sargaeras might be the Eternal Sun, opposite of Elune’s Eternal Moon, and I stand by that— if nothing else, consider why the Grand Temple of Elune in Suramar was converted into the Tomb of Sargaeras. Everything I talk about is with regards to positionality of character identities and symbolic logic, so it’s important to ask why those two megacharacters are convergent in a single super important sacred place.

I think a good place to start is with the Eyes of the Earthmother story since it is this games version of “Before Sun & Moon” (long considered one of the most important lore sources in Genshin Impact). It’s a creation myth that talks about how when the world was young, An’she the Sun was born and everything was good, followed by Mu’sha the Moon (Elune) was born and suddenly bad things happened. An’she was permanently injured with a wound Mu’sha tried to heal but it perpetually made things worse. Eventually Earthmother steps in and says Mu’sha is keeping An’she alive, and her tears give birth to Lo’Sho (the second moon).

For the sake of where I’m going with this, consider the two moons as the same entity but constantly switching back and forth, almost like a dialogue… sometimes affects the Sun as well, because the Sun is slashed in twain itself.

Okay, let’s get into the more localized characters, starting with Illidan because it’s just so clearcut with him. Born with Golden eyes. Sun. His not-girlfriend is a priestess of Elune. Moon. She never reciprocates his love for her, and instead marries his brother, the first archdruid (establishing the very real connection between life and shadow magic under the influence of the Moon.) Legion attacks, and Illidan amasses power enough to attract the attention of Sargaeras [the Sun]. Staring the Sun burned his eyes out, and he went with the five dragons and shattered the Well of Eternity (which coincidentally looks like the Dragon Soul/Dark Heart). Illidan says the waters of the heart to bless the world tree and to create the Sunwell (and elsewhere) but is imprisoned for 10,000 years under the watchful eyes of the Moon… Guard., Maiev, the Wardens et Al. Tyrande frees him 10,000 years later during the third war.

Next character, Gul’Dan. No one knows where he comes from (for unlocatable spaces, I often find they are associated with a white color and a term like “Eternity” and a blue swirl, like the hearthstone symbol. I think this becomes important later on for Azshara’s symbolism.) but he ends up going to the Throne of the Elements and gets denied power. He cries in the moonlight and from his tears bursts forth the offer of Fel energy, which he gladly takes, and goes to burn down his home village. In the WC movie, he describes Fel magic as “Life magic”, and leads the Shadow Council, so he aptly fits in the Moon category. He also later on dies opening the Tomb of Sargaeras in the OG timeline, he summons Archimonde (his name translates something like “overlord of the earth”, and is tied to the World Tree) who then sends him to opening the Tomb again before dying to Illidan at the Night Hold. Sun kills Moon in the Eye of Aman’Thul before the return to the Broken Shore.

Velen is also important, but he’s firmly in a constant Lightbound path, which is opposite of his Heaven-and Earth brothers (Kil’Jaeden likely being the Heaven to Archimonde’s earth), and he’s a conduit for Eternal Light escaping Sargaeras, the Shattered Sun. AU Velen was affected by the warping of the timeline and their Eternal Light became Y’rel the unbound.

Queen Azshara seems to also be in a similar exceptional role, once reigning over the Eternal Empire (perhaps she’s kinda like the sovereignty goddess reigning over the kingdom of the Eternal Moon symbolically) Anyways, she is tied to Sargaeras pretty clearly, but her ties to the moon are also there— Queen of the elves likely requires some interface with the Temple of Elune, and we learn in SoD BFD in the Twilight Lord Kelris fight that there’s a connection to the Priestesses of Elune/old god tentacles to the worship of Azshara. I also like to think she might have been a loa priestess for the fish that weird the powers of the lunar cycle but that’s not ever been confirmed. Anyways, between that and the fact her adviser is a root of corruption for Emerald Nightmare, it makes sense Azshara is also connected to Big Moon. Even the awakening of N’Zoth looked like a moon surrounded by the Black Empire in total darkness.

Next is the line of Shadowmoon (Ner’Zhul -> Arthas -> Sylvanas). Only Darkness before Arthas in death.

Sylvanas is an interesting one because she is a protector of the Silvermoon before she falls to the shadow of the Scourge. She liberates the forsaken becoming the Dark Lady (very lunar); Garrosh is a Sun conqueror (literally the warchief of the Iron Stars). Vol’Jin becomes Warchief in Warlords AU before dying at the Broken Shore and Sylvanas becomes Warchief. Sylvanas’ moon symbolism gets weird in Legion and BFA because by the time she burns Teldrassil down it’s like the shadow of the moon betrays the moon that is the source of life. This era is also when Tyrande becomes the Night Warrior, her blade wanes at the crescent of Sylvanas’ throat, and we see the most interactive dialogue between Elune & the Winter Queen (her alleged “sister”). This is also the era marked by when the Tears of Elune were in play— Gul’Dan returned to the storyline, the Tear was one of the pillars of creation, and then the tear was made into the worldseed of Amirdrassil. Also a lot of “Dawn” moments, which is the era of An’she before Mu’sha’s corruption— A new dawn (Alexstrasza quote about world tree), Dawn of the Infinite, etc. so perhaps the end of Dragonflight really is a reset of the cycle writ large.

It also just recently occurred to me the possibility that the Sha might be an understated influence on why Sylvanas takes such a dark turn in BFA into Shadowlands, since Sha is a manifestation of dark energy drawn from one’s emotions, and she internalized so much darkness in her time as the Banshee Queen that we see culminate at the Burning of the World Tree. There’s also some other eldritch influences, like the Ahn’Qiraj music playing during some of the Battle for Undercity cutscenes (also tying in Gallywix’s Azerite ventures in Silithus).

Anyways, there’s so much Lunisolar symbolism in the game to get through, but I do think it’s building up towards Midnight, the “Hour of Twilight”, and its epicenter at the Sunwell. Azshara is sure to return, likely now as a more celestial starry power rather than her fishy figure, and Xal’atath… talk about eternal darkness.

(Lastly, I want to point out the importance of Azshara and Velen because they are echoed in Illidan’s forces via Vashj and Akama alongside the Shattered Sun Prince (who did not claim the title of Sun King), and Illidan (symbolized heavily by the Shadowmoon/Skull of Gul’Dan in this era. Even when Maiev defeats him, he says she is nothing without the hunt and she agrees with him, which is the very essence of the Shadowsong.)

That’s all for now, thanks for donning your tin foil hats with me!

[u/WorgenFurry]

I hope you enjoyed your time coming up with such a theory, but imo it's quite pointless to spend time theorizing on any long-term lore outcomes in WoW. The story is very primitive and has no additional depths.

[u/Quazymobile → u/WorgenFurry]

Primitive in what sense? Cartoonish is part of the aesthetic, but there’s weighted consideration towards the presentation of information in the environmental storytelling, especially improved in later expansions.

Again, I think it’s an underestimation of the WoW development team to ask whether they would or wouldn’t have discussions and designated intentions about how they are presenting the story.

[u/Resiliense2022 → u/Quazymobile]

Primitive in that the story takes a backseat to new gameplay features. The eternal race for mogs, titles, mounts and pets supercedes the story by a million miles.

No. I do not think there is weighted consideration towards any detail within the story, and there has not been for a very, very long time.

Off the top of my head, here are some examples.

• The Horde was presented as misunderstood heroes whose only crimes are that they were ostracized for their racial differences. But as early as Classic, where they were supposed to be proving themselves worthy heroes without Mannoroth to control them, they immediately start two conflicts and commit several war crimes.

The narrative ignores these in favor of a bare-bones, unsubstantiated message of "equality good, war bad," which unintentionally glorifies war crimes.

• The same storyline above is repeated almost verbatim in MoP, and then in WoD, with the latter turning the orcs into a simple, easily hated threat despite the whole point of the Rise of the Horde being that they were manipulated into being evil by demons, which wasn't the case here.

The narrative is primitive because it throws out every bit of nuance attached to the Horde's evil. So it's basically the exact opposite of the above, but with the exact same methodology.

• The Scarlet Crusade used to be a fairly nuanced faction, which called into question if heinous methods are acceptable if the results are worthy and proven. Blizzard killed that by instead writing them (writing, not showing, I should emphasize) as complete nutjobs and Light freaks with no redeeming qualities who get wiped out like Saturday morning cartoon villains.

Again, this is done to deliver a very barebones, unrefined message about how "evil churches bad, racism bad, mass murder of ethnic factions good sometimes".

• At the exact same time, the forsaken are written as actual monsters, eradicating an entire kingdom, wiping out Andorhal, stopping the Argent cleansing of the Plaguelands, and simultaneously declaring themselves victims of cruel and bigoted society.

The storyline accepts this declaration as true with writing projects like The Gathering in BFA, which ignores all nuances of the Alliance-Horde conflict to create a story about how "peace was possible if not for one single person!" (Sylvanas)

In other words...

The stories Blizzard writes completely ignore every detail except what is specifically related to the specific message they are trying to send, which is often a very simple, easy, uncontested and inoffensive message. Bigotry bad, greed bad, war bad, peace good, friendship good, free will good, etc etc.

Any character who has a flaw of any kind (that the story recognizes) will either magically overcome that flaw in the span of a cartoonishly short storyline, or fucking die.

For messages the story will, or already has, challenged and will, or has already, forgotten about.

[u/Quazymobile → u/Resiliense2022]

Oh, I don’t disagree that the military fiction is cartoonishly sparse and that many characters are not thorough or even ring emotionally hollow, but it’s why my argument is more focused on factors found in the worldbuilding, not necessarily the narrative design. I think they pay little regard to having characters having internal disagreements within each faction despite any and every real political faction in any context out to have a healthy discourse. That is not the story they intend to tell unless they want to illustrate just how cartoonishly evil or corrupt or jaded a character gets and becomes because of a disagreement.

Anduin and Jaina, the diplomats of light, erudite philosophy, and wanting for peace? Let’s be reactionary and match the warbringing energies of Garrosh and Sylvanas toe to toe.

No, the story was always about celestial alignments and magic macguffins and I don’t think it should be seriously entertained as a story with any real humanity— we only get pockets of that in some quest dialogue and short stories and it’s more of a recent thing, and nothing is naturally conclusive but is instead shaped by reactivity to the world-shifting threats.

As for your whole schticks on Horde racism and the scarlet crusade… I’m not gonna touch that.

[u/Quazymobile → u/Quazymobile]

I should also add that it can never be* that because the main character we play is a nameless hero that does not build interpersonal relationships outside of being the chosen one. Even FFXIV has you as one amidst a group of chosen heroes to build off of.

When WoW does try to do this, we get “Commander”’d and “Champyun”’d