Hello, this question is mainly for RP purposes, but I felt like it fit more into here.
My question is about Phoenixes in lore. We have seen several kinds of them so far through the game:
- Fire elemental phoenix, such as Al’ar.
- Firehawks, which are basically just a different kind of fire phoenix?
- Void “elemental?” phoenixes, such as Harbinger of Darkness.
- “Solar”?? phoenix, such as the Solar Spirehawk. (this is really just like the first one?)
- Storm elemental phoenixes, such as Stormwing and the new tameable pets on the Siren Islands.
Is it a stretch to think there would be phoenixes for other elements? Such as ice, air, water, earth, etc? We haven’t actually seen one of them as far as I know.
If there would be a frost elemental phoenix, what abilities would they have in your opinion?
If you mean elemental birds , than yea there are other types of elemental birds .
But they are not phoenixes .
A phoenix is a bird made of flame , that rebirths from it’s ashes .
Just like not everything that glitters is gold, so is not every elemental bird a phoenix .
Depends on the type, the Phoenix associated with Kaelthas seems to come closest to the western Phoenix which burns up on death and leaves an egg behind which it is reborn in.
The pandaran Phoenix is based on the Chinese Phoenix FengHuang which does not return after death and iirc we havent seen the same mechanics on those phoenix’ we saw on al’ar so on point of their real life inspiration.
Then there are fire hawks, they are basically just fire elemental birds, like stormhawks are air, no real relation and not regarded as a type of Phoenix by anything in game iirc.
WoDs Rukhmar (arrakoa sun god) encounter summons phoenixes that when defeated, spawn depleted variants of themselves to kill again.
The last type is the dragon Isle type and apparently, this one like the blood elf variant also is reborn, the process is just different; they dont leave an egg behind but a feather.
The void variant I would simply consider a corrupted version of whatever it is a void variant of.
Speculation/headcannon take:
So far all but Pandarias phoenixes (fire hawks are not phoenixes) seem to show signs of rebirth after death and for 3 of the the 4 phoenix they are associated loosely with the sun through belves and arrakoa, pandaran sun tie is based on its real life lore inspiration tho (FengHuang originated from the sun) and considering the sun in real life mythology has often been associated with a life and death cycle (sunset = death, sunrise = rebirth) maybe seeing them as sunbirds is a way to describe them and set them apart from firebirds when asking what is a phoenix, even if the rebirthing ones specifically are fire elementals.
The game doesnt play nice and give us a singular definition of phoenix, specifically the pandaran one doesnt play nice with the Al’ar/Rukhmar/Dragon Isle variants which all show signs of being tied to some type of fire and do rebirth but when you realise its because the pandaran Phoenix is the only phoenix from a different Mythos you’re going to get different opinions on how to classify them in game.
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Oh, thanks for the in depth answer!
So would it be stretch to think that there would be other types of elemental “hawks” if not phoenixes? Just as mentioned in the original post, elementals like: air, frost “phoenixes”? There is technically already a “Storm Phoenix” on the Siren Isles.