The Daughter of a Knight of Stormwind

Big Spoilers for a Character You Haven't Met Yet!

There is a new character we meet in Kul Tiras who appears as if she will be a recurring figure throughout the expansion, and perhaps beyond. We know her only as Taelia, and when we first arrive in Kul Tiras, she is amongst the people who help us begin to establish a foothold on the island.

Spoilers to follow:


Taelia hires Flynn Fairwind to break us out of Tol Dagor, and aids us in establishing something of an Alliance embassy within the Tradewinds Market, along with Flynn and her caretaker, Sir Cyrus (who is the harbormaster of Tradewinds.) While giving us a tour of the place, Taelia mentions that her mother died when she was young, and that her father was "a knight of Stormwind who died fighting the Lich King."

Now, if you saw that and bells didn't go off in your head saying "her dad is someone important" then you clearly don't pay much attention to the lore and probably find 95% of my posts here really boring.

As it turns out, we've gotten datamined dialogue that reveals who her father is. And it's the person you probably guessed:

Taelia's last name is Fordragon.

So Bolvar Fordragon has a daughter. He is, also, and has been for the last nine years (at least if we're going by real-time) the Lich King.

Unless Ner'zhul had some kids (and he was old enough to probably have been a grandfather before he was turned into the Lich King,) this is the first time we'll have had a direct descendant from a Lich King - though obviously she was born before Bolvar took the crown.

The Lich King has always been this odd dangling thread in Warcraft lore since the end of Wrath. We defeated Arthas, but we were forced, seemingly, to coronate someone else in his place lest the Scourge run rampant.

There's always been some real weird questions about the end of Wrath though:

1: How much worse could the Scourge get? It seems as if the Scourge was bad enough with a Lich King, and Arthas was aggressive and strategic. Would a leaderless Scourge actually be worse? It doesn't seem very likely - sure, you'd have an infectious zombie plague, but we already had that plus intelligent leadership.

2: The two figures who told us there needed to be a replacement for Arthas were ghosts, sure. Terenas appeared to Arthas in the Halls of Reflection (in the Fall of the Lich King patch trailer) and Uther appeared to us there as well. Now, maybe within the Halls, the spirits trapped in Frostmourne can come out and talk to us, which would account for Terenas (we only see him after the sword is shattered, so it's logical enough that he'd be able to escape at that point.) But for Uther, there's a probelm: in a pre-Cata quest in Western Plaguelands, Alliance players were sent to Uther's tomb to honor him while Horde players (BC and later, because the questgiver was a Blood Elf Paladin) were sent to desecrate it in protest of what he perceived as Uther's role in the devastation of Quel'thalas. In both quests, the spirit of Uther appeared to players, thanking Alliance players and attempting to reconcile with Horde players. Yet when we go to the Halls of Reflection, Uther seems bound to Frostmourne, unable to appear for more than a brief moment, which really seems like it would rule out his appearing in the plaguelands... unless it's not really Uther there.

3: Something I hadn't noticed until it was pointed out very recently: when Bolvar is crowned, Yogg-Saron's musical theme plays. Not to mention that the Lich King is in a fortress built of Saronite.

Now, I had always held to this notion that the Scourge was somehow immune to Old God influence - perhaps the demonic/Fel origin of their power granting protection against it. After all, we see the Scourge has chained up a Faceless One in the Saronite mines. But there's also plenty to suggest that the Scourge is, in fact, highly influenced by the Old Gods. Maybe that's even how they broke away from the Legion in the first place.

The point being:

Battle for Azeroth is shaping up to be a fairly Old God-centric expansion. We have Azshara showing up as an early raid boss, Uldir being very Old God themed, and references to the "Sunken City" showing up in abilities for some bosses (like the boss of Shrine of Storms.) I'm becoming more and more convinced as time goes on that N'zoth will be BFA's final boss.

But there's also a lot of reference to necromantic, Shadowlands-based magic. We encounter Bwonsamdi in Nazmir, and fight against Troll Liches who seem to derive their power and are loyal to G'huun, and are not at all related to the Scourge. We also see in Drustvar the use of death magic by the witches and the ancient Drust, which has a very Scourge-like blue color scheme.

And now that we have Bolvar's own daughter showing up, I really have to wonder if it's even possible that they're not gearing up for a Scourge-themed expansion after BFA.

With the Legion shattered, Blizzard needs to flesh out its cosmic threats, and a greater exploration of necromancy and death magic could be a good opportunity to do so. These things aren't tying together explicitly, but I really do have to wonder if this is all setting things up for the story down the road.