Fractals and Warcraft

It's been a few weeks of me returning to World of Warcraft, and the last few weeks have been a lot of fun learning new rotations, lore behind some of the hard-hitting stories, and leveling a few of my characters up to level 90. So far, I have Paladin, Shaman, and Mage at level 90, with my shaman as the most geared.

Outside of the amount of leveling I've done across several characters, I've dived into quite a few of the hard-hitting stories, a few zones I had zero knowledge about, and came away with so many more questions than answers.

An aspect of World of Warcraft that's always been what brought me back for over two decades was the main question of "what's next?". While there are some story beats that pale in comparison to others, I think I've quite liked the later patches of Shadowlands. I never finished the expansion, so I groaned getting into and finishing it, but those post base-game patches? Absolute bangers. Zereth Mortis might be one of my favorite zones.

And what do I do the second I start becoming more interested in stories? Videos. Lots of videos.

What are fractals?

Fractals are "a never-ending pattern" and "infinitely compelx patterns that are self-similar across different scales".^[1]

And according to the Warcraft Chronicles from 2015, Chris Metzen states that Warcraft is "Cycles within cycles", or even circles upon circles, which is a repeating pattern within the Warcraft universe. And as I write this, I find it increasingly interesting how fractals are so common in Warcraft, but are associated with "chaos" or even one of the major cosmic forces in the universe, Discord, and the titans are an antithesis to chaos. Order vs Chaos.

Anyway..

Patterns upon patterns

As you try to bring order, and understanding to everything, you really start noticing similarities between characters.

The stories behind Illidan Stormrage and Sargeras, the Fallen Titan, are very similar. Sargeras is described as trying to consume the energies from a pocket dimension he created to house demons, thus turning him into a fel version of himself. Similar to Illidan, who consumed the Skull of Gul'Dan and turned into the version we know today of him. And they look similar. Not a coincidence, in my mind.

There are even story similarities between characters like Odyn, the Prime Designate, who eventually isolated himself after he disagreed with empowering the dragons with their aspectral powers, and Fyrakk, one of the primal incarnates that rejected the keeper's gift and turned to the elements instead, who was driven by rage of being corrupted by shadow flame, turning against his bretheren, and went about to destroy the new World Tree, Amirdrassil. And what do all three of those have in common? Fire and a willingness to forsake what they were created to do.

And even more interesting is a statue in Korthia, which even references this exact story beat:

Hope. Betrayal. Sacrifice. Faces change. The tale does not.

Now is the truth told to us there? Who knows. But it's certainly something you can speculate about.

Twins, and the Sun and Moon

The concept of twins in the Warcraft universe is ever-present, and just another fractal we can discuss. We've got some important twins like Illidan and Malfurion, and even the Qiraji Twin Emperors, but we also have two celestial bodies floating around our world that, according to Tauren mythology, are the twins An'she, and Mu'sha, or the Sun and Moon.

There was a fun theory I read that postulated that the mythology of An'she and Mu'sha is the story of Elune and Sargeras, which could be yet another blog. The more I think about Chris Metzen's words about The Last Titan unvealing a massive titan conspiracy, I keep coming back to Sargeras and wondering whether the way his story was told was the "true" story or not.

I cannot for the life of me find where I read/watched anything on this theory, but it's stuck in my mind seeing Sargeras torn from Azeroth how he's shown as this large fiery being, and not some fel-infested creature that I've honestly come to expect after all these years knowing that he was the leader of the Burning Legion. And even more interesting is the fact that the original Temple of Elune is the Tomb of Sargeras.

And the reason I think that is because it's become increasingly obvious that all the information we have about the glories of the titans are only told from one side, and we keep finding out information that's been kept from lots of people. For instance, the Titans didn't even tell the dragon aspects about the worldsoul. Which is a huge omission on their part, and the whole point of them even intervening on Azeroth in the first place.

As we continue this story, I hope we're fed crumbs of what's to come, because it's honestly killing me not knowing the conclusion.

To me, I think the titan conspiracy revolves around not being told the truth about anything to do with our world and universe. Everything might be a bit too ordered.

What now?

As I was writing the above section I even made another fractal where the stories are essentially repeating themselves. We had the Sunwell Plateau raid, existing on Quel'Danas, and the whole timeframe of it was called "Battle for Quel'Danas." and in Midnight we have "March on Quel'Danas", and what are we doing in both? Fixing the Sunwell.

Then where are we going after Midnight and where we went after Burning Crusade?

Northrend.

It is extremely exciting to think we might finally learn what this is all for. Why everyone wants our world. Why countless stories all converge on the Worldsoul of Azeroth. What final stories we might see happen on the continent of Northrend.

In my mind, Azeroth is the seventh cosmic force: Willpower. And every other cosmic force is scared about it.