World of Warcraft recently released Dragonflight, its new dragon-themed expansion. This new adventure takes players to the storied Dragon Isles, homeland of dragonkind. As they explore the incredible new zones of Dragonflight, World of Warcraft players have the chance to learn about the history of the dragons, as well as previously-unknown parts of their society, culture, and civilization. Most of the Aspects also received new models, ensuring the draconic leaders look sharp for their expansion pack.
However, in the process of showing off these new models, World of Warcraft has unwittingly blundered into a huge conundrum with the Aspects’ visage forms: they simply don’t make any sense with the game's lore. While this was true before World of Warcraft’s most recent expansion, in-game flashback sequences from Dragonflight have added even more confusion to their choice of humanoid forms. Dragonflight has accidentally taken a big question players had and made it even bigger.
The Aspects’ Visage Forms Don’t Fit World of Warcraft’s Lore
A dragon’s visage in World of Warcraft is its chosen humanoid form. While dragons can take whatever shapes they wish, a visage form is a dragon’s single preferred guise they default to. According to the “Visage Day” short story written by World of Warcraft narrative director Steve Danuser, choosing a visage is a major cultural milestone, and is considered to be a coming-of-age ceremony for young dragons.
As leaders of the five dragonflights, the Aspects are among the most well-known of the dragons. Their visage forms are iconic, and have been featured on much of the promotional material for Dragonflight. Of the original five Aspects, Alexstrasza, Malygos, and Nozdormu all feature high elf visages, Ysera uses the form of a night elf, and Neltharion was known to take the shape of a human.
However, there’s a huge problem with these chosen forms - most of the chosen races didn’t exist when the dragons first took their visages. According to World of Warcraft lore, humans were born to the giant-like vrykul about 15,000 years before the games took place. Likewise, high elves descended from the Highbourne mages who were exiled from Kalimdor about 7,000 years ago. Dragonflight has shown the Aspects taking their visages as early as 20,000 years ago, meaning they should have had no idea what humans and high elves were at the time.
The Aspects aren’t the only dragons to cause this confusion. Sindragosa, consort of Malygos and legendary frost wyrm from the Wrath of the Lich King trailer, makes an appearance in Dragonflight as a simulacrum - a magical copy made before the War of the Ancients. This simulacrum also takes the form of a high elf, despite being created before they existed.
As the Aspect of Time, one could assume Nozdormu was aware of the existence of the high elves by peering into the future, but the other three have no such excuse. Of the original Aspects, the night elven guise of Ysera, leader of the green dragonflight and Aspect of the Dream, is the only one that truly makes sense.
While World of Warcraft likely chose elven and human forms because they are recognizable and attractive, it doesn’t stop players from scratching their heads trying to make it make sense. If World of Warcraft wanted to be more lore-accurate, it could have shown the Aspects taking different forms in the past, and only changing to elves and humans in more recent history. Though doing so may have been more confusing for casual fans, it would have solved this conundrum and saved headaches for World of Warcraft lore hounds.
What the Dragon Aspects' Visage Forms Could Have Been
Another major problem with the visage forms of the Aspects in World of Warcraft is the group's lack of diversity. Four of the original five Aspects are elves. Though Ysera’s visage is technically a different kind of elf, it doesn’t prevent the cast of Aspects from feeling repetitive. Even recent Aspects and leaders - Kalecgos, Wrathion, Sabellian, and Merithra - have used human, elven, or half-elven forms. With dozens of interesting humanoid creatures on Azeroth, the dragons’ overuse of elves and humans is a bit disappointing.
As the black dragonflight Aspect of Earth, Neltharion’s visage form could have been any number of Titan-made creatures. A vrykul form would be the closest to his human guise, but a dwarven form could have been fitting as well. Alternatively, he could have taken the guise of the drogbar from Highmountain - especially since they live close to one of his largest lairs.
As one of the earliest natural-born races of Azeroth from which even elves descend, a troll guise would have been perfect for Nozdormu, Aspect of Time. Members of the bronze dragonflight are desert-dwellers by nature, and their mastery of time gives them a natural affinity for sand. This would have made a sand troll guise perfect for Nozdormu, though a Zandalari troll visage would have also worked, considering they are the oldest of all troll races.
Though the Kaldorei Empire did not exist when the dragons first chose their visage forms, the form of a Highbourne mage would have made much more sense than a high elf for Malygos, the blue dragonflight's Aspect of Magic. To be even more accurate to lore, Malygos could have also taken a troll visage, since they predate the Kaldorei and had a gift with magic.
Alexstrasza, the red dragonflight's Aspect of Life, is a nurturing character with a strong emphasis on motherhood and compassion. This would have made a tauren or pandaren form perfect for the Dragon Queen, as both cultures are peaceful, wise, and put great value on the importance of family.
Unfortunately, these alternative visages for the Dragon Aspects are little more than a pipe dream. These characters have been around for two decades now, and their chosen visage forms have become iconic in that time. While it would not be a great idea for World of Warcraft to change them at this stage, hopefully it will explain away this particular plot hole somewhere in Dragonflight.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is available now on PC.