I’m a bit late to the party party with this but I only just played these quest lines yesrterday.
So with the final chapter of EoN we finally get the new leader of the Black flight revealed, aaaand its Ebyssian (totally called it long ago). My issue with this is with a line from Alexstrazsa delivered shortly after Ebonhorn takes his seat.
“For the first time in over 10 000 years, 5 aspects united” (or something like that).
What do you mean 5? You are still 3. Ebyssian and Merithra do not have aspect powers (and you can tell that by their size alone), yes they were chosen as the leaders of their respective flights but they are still not imbued with the power of an Aspect which could potentially never happen. When Kalegos was made the leader of the blues we had a quest line in which he had to confinse the entire blue flight to imbue him with Malygos’ power, also that questline further confirmed that the size of a dragon is a valid indicathor if they are an aspect or not, Kaleg was regular sized before and only grew as he was imbued with the power.
I hope we do get some simmilar quests for Ebbysian and Merithra where they get empowered and become proper aspects before the end of DF, because if we end up winning with only 3 aspects due to Blizzards negligence of tje lore this whole “we have to restore tje Aspects story” is pointless.
Yeah
Blizzard kind of forgot the Embrace, the extraordinary celestial event when Azeroth’s two moons — the White Lady and Blue Child — are in an extremely rare conjunction, happening approximately once every four hundred and thirty years.
According to legend, the Dragon Aspects were first created during an occurrence of the Embrace
As the blue dragonflight debated how to appoint a new Aspect of Magic to replace Malygos, one popular theory espoused that this celestial event was important to that task.
Some felt it was crucial to the proper working of the magic necessary to facilitate the alteration of a normal blue dragon into an Aspect.
Others simply deemed it good timing. Arygos argued that the ability to become an Aspect may be in the blood.
It turned out that neither bloodline nor intellect was important to the process.
During the following Embrace, Arygos acted with brashness and arrogance, while Kalecgos simply beheld the beauty of the Embrace with the other dragons. The wonderment of the Embrace came from grace and rarity rather than the offering of dominance or power. Its light shown down on those gathered at the Nexus, causing them to glow with magic. As the radiance faded from them, it intensified around Kalecgos, bestowing him with the powers of an Aspect.
In the same vein as the name of the celestial phenomenon, the ritual was about the heart of the blue dragonflight and what they felt
Neither Dawn of the Aspects nor Chronicle Volume 1 mention the Embrace event. The legend may be a part of the cover in which the Dragon Aspects decided to hide the truth about Galakrond and the creation of the Aspects. However, the fact that Kalec did indeed get his Aspect powers during the Embrace may mean there is some truth to it, even if the detail was not mentioned in Dawn of the Aspects or Chronicle.
Well, Dawn of the Aspects has been written before the Danuser Era. Dragonflight has been developped without any intervention of the old guard, including Metzen that just got back in the team after DF launched. So this story was already written, probably without any lore nerd behind their back to say that they’re actually doing shady stuff, like many incoherence around DF, the presence of Centaurs on the Isles being the very first example as their very own existence came after the isles got concealed, Maruuks being a big Retcon of Centaur’s lore.
But Legion is a masterpiece in terms of Lore in most players opinion, so DF is not that wrong to retcon Wow lore after all.
Frankly, I didn’t, until you mentioned it. Considering it’s supposed to help against the Incarnates, it seems to be of surprisingly low priority to do something about it. Do we know why the Oathstones are granting Aspect powers now, or are they just the covenant sigils of DF, artificially slowing the plot to a pace that better fits the development time?
From what I gather/recall. They basically represents aspects charges and tie them to their powers. Hence black oathstone was shattered when deathwing broke his oath. Kinda like a failsafe if you will.
We were kinda caught up in a lot of stuff tbh. Each flight’s been quite busy stroyline.
Reds now have BUNCH of eggs.
Greens are protecting the gardens/world tree
Blues are trying to mend back their flight
Blacks are low in numbers and just managed to tie in a new aspect
Bronze’s have been dealing with Murozond.
Yes, they always have, since they were invented 5 minutes ago, to give us some busywork.
Now, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if they actually manage to make them feel like an interesting addition to the lore, instead of just the contriveance they are created to be… I’m just not seeing that, yet.
Tbh it’s a good concept but as you said it lacks in debth. If they only added a bit of lore and meaning behind it.
You know like, saying something along the lines of. Each stone ties the flight to a member of the pantheon and they were crafted by the titanforged. And that’s why they are the main source of their aspectral powers.
Kinda like how in lore eye of amanthul was tied to amanthul, and that’s why nightborne were good at chronomancy and carried bits of titan essences x)
And the Incarnates trying to subvert that connection, to kill the Titans with backlash from their own powers, could have been a much more relatable plan for them.
Alas, that didn’t happen, and if they introduce it now it’ll be too late to have us feel the buildup, so it would probably be wasted effort.
…yeah
But Neltherion retained his “aspectral” powers after the stone shattered and his Flight not lost their earthbending powers either
Originally the Titans gave them a powerboost through the Keepers, gave them a tiny portion of their power snd when they “died” that power not died with them either
Now we “appoint” aspects left and right, and power is… somewhere
It is missing like consistency in the lore and/or logic
Expanding the lore is one thing, good thing, even minor retcons could be benefical in some cases but ignoring/forgeting it and totally rewrite? Thats another (and less welcomed)
None of the flights lost their powers once they lost aspectral powers. Reds still had control over life, blues were still seeing ley lines etc.
And yeah retcons happen a lot, oc flight blessing lore came from the books first (dawn of the aspects) then was played over in cata during kalec’s ceremony. Stuff changes a lot sadly. Though while I dislike retcons long as it is still internally…making sense I can swallow it.
Much prefer it over to, helm of domination was made by an ancient titan ++ death god.
