Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Bwonsamdi, The Loa and the Shadowlands

Several Azeroth cultures have powerful nature spirits that are practically gods as a key part of their cultures. In Chronicle Volume 1, we learned that these spirits fall under an umbrella term: Wild Gods.

The Night Elves have the Ancients, including figures like Goldrinn, Ursoc, Ursol, Ashamane, Malorne, Aviana, and Tortolla. We encountered many of these on Mount Hyjal, and they play key roles in Druidism. Ursoc is the basis for the Druid's bear form, as Ashamane is for cat form. The Druids of the Pack attempted to create a wolf form using Goldrinn, but they were unable to control the power, thus spawning the first Worgen.

Notably, the Orcs also worship Goldrinn, which is a really odd curiosity, given that Goldrinn is pretty firmly tied to Azeroth, and the Orc version is called Lo'gosh. Is it possible the Wild Gods transcend the outer space of the Great Dark Beyond? Or perhaps there was another powerful spirit called Lo'gosh that died when Draenor was ruptured, and the Orcs saw in Goldrinn the same proud ferocity of their own world's deity?

The Pandaren have the August Celestials - Chi-Ji, Nizuao, Yu'lon, and Xuen. Interestingly, the Celestials seem to be able to reincarnate into new bodies of previously lifeless material - in the Jade Forest, we see the new body being constructed for Yu'lon that is destroyed by Alliance/Horde conflict, thus delaying the Jade Serpent's renewal.

The Trolls have their own variant, known as the Loa.

On the surface, the Loa seem to really just be the same thing as the Ancients - only a different group that aren't as closely tied to the Night Elves. Perhaps they are Wild Gods who aren't as deeply connected to Elune, but retain the connection to the Emerald Dream and Keeper Freya.

But there's one figure amongst the Loa who doesn't really fit, and he's someone very important to the Darkspear Trolls. And he's going to be making an appearance in Battle for Azeroth:

Bwonsamdi.

Now, Bwonsamdi's name is presumably a reference to a real-world figure in Hatian Vodou, Baron Samedi. Baron Samedi (Samedi is French for Saturday, but I couldn't tell you why - I'll just throw this disclaimer that I'm a casual enthusiast of world religion and mythology, not an expert) is a Loa of the dead (Loa is also a term from Vodou,) and while he's known for debauchery and obscenity, he's ultimately a benign figure, as he's a sort of caretaker of the dead, ensuring that the dead rest in peace.

To what extent Bwonsamdi fits in with the real-world religion is an open question, but if we assume (I think safely) that Bwonsamdi is also a kind of lawful neutral or even lawful good death deity, that puts him in a really interesting place in the lore of Warcraft.

First off, we know he's going to show up in the swampy part of Zandalar known as Nazmir. There is a temple called the Necropolis (at least as of the Blizzcon demo) in which Horde players encounter him as a quest giver (also Zalazane, apparently, which is intriguing - Zalazane was the guy who usurped the Echo Isles from Vol'jin, and it was the blessing of Bwonsamdi that allowed us to take them back in the pre-Cataclysm events.)

I would hazard to guess that Bwonsamdi, as the patron of the Darkspear Tribe, would probably play a big part in the announced Vol'jin plotline - a plotline that surprised many of us, given that Vol'jin was killed at the beginning of Legion (way too soon.)

The thing is, there are two really big things that distinguish Bwonsamdi from the other Loa we've encountered.

First of all, aside from Bwonsamdi, all the other Loa have been animals, while Bwonsamdi appears as a ghostly troll (there's a really cool-looking new model in BFA.) Aside from the notion that humanoids are also animals (you know, like how we're technically apes,) and so perhaps Bwonsamdi was just a super-ancient troll that Freya took a liking to, this would seem to put him in a distinct category from the other Wild Gods.

Second of all, Bwonsamdi is closely tied to death (his temple in Nazmir is called the Necropolis, after all.) That suggests that, rather than being tied to the Emerald Dream, he's probably instead connected to the Shadowlands.

This reinforces a sense I'm getting about Battle for Azeroth: that the lore of the Shadowlands is going to be greatly expanded in the new expansion.

We've already seen some of it in Legion - the Shadowlands were first explicitly mentioned in Legion, with Death Knights' Wrath Walk ability referring to it and also the Val'kyr found in the Warrior class hall of Skyhold talk about how they "dwell in the Shadowlands." We can probably extrapolate that Helheim is in the Shadowlands, and that the various "death realms" from those that the Lich King presided over in Wrath (think the quests below Utgarde Keep for Alliance or the ones in Angmar's Hammer for Horde) were probably taking us into the Shadowlands. I'm also firmly convinced that we go there when we're in ghost form.

Now, we have the Drust spirits on Kul Tiras and Bwonsamdi on Zandalar showing up, all tying things to the Shadowlands.

With the Legion being eliminated (not to say that demons couldn't be a thing again,) Warcraft lore was in danger of having only one major cosmic villain in the form of the Void (which the Old Gods are only local expressions of.) But now, we seem to be seeing many facets of the Shadowlands.

And what's interesting is that they don't seem obviously connected to one another.

If we accept that Helheim was a part of the Shadowlands, and that the Lich King also has control over part of it, and that Bwonsamdi also has control of some of it, and the Drust have a piece of it, what does it all mean?

Don't get me wrong: if they want to retcon/"reveal new lore" about the Lich King to make it an entity independent of the Burning Legion that existed long before Kil'jaeden tore Ner'zhul apart, I'd be really excited about that as a lore development - knowing that the Lich King really did stand at or above the power level of figures like Yogg-Saron.

But the other possibility is that the Shadowlands are actually a diverse realm with no single ruler. And maybe even as monstrous entities emerge from it for us to beat back, there can always be other things hiding in the background, waiting for their turn to strike.

With its apparent "back to the basics" approach, Battle for Azeroth has the potential to really expand the lore of Warcraft in interesting ways. I'm super excited about that.

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