Sorry if the title comes across as incendiary. To balance that out a bit, I’d like to start by saying that from what I’ve seen of him, Pelagos is well-written and tastefully done, and a welcome inclusion to the story. The existence of a trans character in a game as large and influential as this one is something that would never have happened only a decade ago.
That being said, I have one concern over the broader issue of transitioning in the lore and setting of Warcraft, and how I believe it could incite a negative reaction in some players if not appropriately expanded upon.
Pelagos transitioned as a result of having died. It’s a really neat and endearing outcome of the afterlife that in dying, your soul manifests as the best reflection of yourself. However, one of the most soul-crushing parts of gender dysphoria is that it often makes you feel as though your lived experience will never accurately be reflected in the way in which you physically and socially present. In those moments, it can seem as though the only option to find relief from an emotionally traumatizing existence is through death or suicide. While in real life feelings of dysphoria can be alleviated to varying degrees – for some more successfully than others – this remains a thought both myself and others in the transgender community have contended with at some point in our lives, for various highly complicated reasons. Often it’s recurring.
In ESO, a trans woman gives a detailed account of how people go through the process of transitioning within the story. In WoW, for as tremendously beneficial as a precedent like this has the potential to be, there are no solid, concrete methods of transitioning for living people in the story that are referenced as such.
We have transmorphic tinctures, for instance, or illusion magic. But until these are given a solid reference in the story by those who may experience feelings of dysphoria, they remain to the majority of the playerbase a flavor item or a gimmicky gameplay mechanic.
The point of this is not to impugn Blizzard for anything I think they’ve done wrong, but rather to shed light on the idea that if I were living in the WoW universe and I met Pelagos and heard his story, I would come away from it thinking, “Wow, if I want to be my true self, suicide really is my best option.”
In a world where those who share experiences like mine are faced with similar thoughts every day, it seems appropriate for Blizzard to meaningfully address this, and how feelings of intense physiological and mental discomfort are handled by people in-universe. Otherwise, the story of Pelagos seems happy and heartwarming, but simultaneously incredibly bleak and depressing.
I understand that by virtue of this being an expansion about the afterlife, this is sort of just the most setting-appropriate story to have written on this subject. And like I said earlier, I quite like the concept! But because it touches on what I would personally consider to be very delicate ground, it would be really cool for Blizzard to expand on representation of the trans community a little more broadly. After all, the idea that transgender characters in the Warcraft setting are consigned to a miserable, hellish existence until the point at which they finally die is not what I would imagine to be the message Blizzard wants to get across here. Pelagos himself describes a lifelong struggle that was only finally alleviated in death, a feeling that has led many trans people to hurt or kill themselves in the real world.
As a final note, I’m well aware how contentious this subject may be, and that for a lot of people my concerns here may seem a little ridiculous. All I ask is that you try to contribute to the discussion in a healthy, respectful way, just as my criticisms here are intended.
. Gud. 
