A different reading of Alexstrazsa

Over the past few months I have seen some criticism of how the Drakonids and Dragonspawn story was handled in Dragonflight, with claims that the questline in which this takes place is poorly made because it reeks of centrism and a hollow desire to be apolitical.

Seeing this, I want to raise a counterpoint, a different interpretation to Alexstrasza’s character in Dragonflight.

I not only do not think that this comes from a place of attempting to be centrist or apolitical, but rather, that the core issues here are actually fairly political in nature.

[The Interpretation]

Starting off with the conclusion and working backwards: I think that Alexstrasza, and by extension, many other Titan-aligned Dragons, can be read as a critique on religious fanaticism and the conflicts that come from extreme belief systems.

[The Parallels]

In the “Cause without a Rebel” quest chain, the conflict stems from the fact that while the Dragonflights have been absent from the Isles, the Drakonids and Dragonspawn that remained lived their own lives without the Aspects interference. Now that the Aspects have returned, they dislike the lack of agency they have been presented with.

The issues come in when the problem is resolved by Alexstrasza sending you to find out what the rebelling Drakonids and Dragonspawn want, with Alexstrasza legitimately not realizing how their treatment of these races was affecting them.

To many this reads as a hollow centrist “just ask for rights”. It can also be read as Alexstrasza literally not realizing this as a result of her strong pro-Titan beliefs.

The Titans created the Keepers, the Earthen, Vrykul, Mogu, etc. with the purpose of tending the world that they ordered in their absense. Similarly, the Flights created the Drakonid with the purpose of being loyal servants like the Titans before them.

So when the Drakonids and Dragonspawn start having dissenting opinions, Alexstrasza is taken off guard, this isn’t exactly how its supposed to go. With her view of the Titans, she likely sees the process in a very romanticized light and assumes that all beings made by the Titans willingly serve them.

This again ties to the themes of religious fanaticism, as the idea of a god-like being either creating or raising up a group of people to follow them should not be a foreign concept to most.

When this viewpoint is challenged, however, she is taken aback; she morally doesn’t want to force the Dragonkin and Dragonspawn to serve her, but also didn’t see this coming due to how her beliefs frame things.

Even this situation of someone’s morals and beliefs not aligning when placed under scrutiny, lines up with this interpretation, as there are many situations in a religion such as Christianity, where if you presented someone with a situation from the Bible but replaced the god that they believe in with something that they don’t, they would likely be morally against said narrative.

Alexstrasza makes these exceptions because her gods are the Titans, we can see this again in her interaction with Vyranoth.

Vyranoth says that Alexstrasza wouldn’t force the Titan’s will on them, but that she breached this agreement when the eggs were infused with Order by the Titans. Alexstrasza says she doesn’t agree with this having happened, but regardless, she still retains her belief in the Titans.

This again, lines up with her being an allegory for religious fanaticism, as even when her beliefs end up causing something that she personally disagrees with, she moves past the issue rather than addressing the systematic cause of it, that being the Titan’s will.

She shows regret that Vyranoth is no longer with her, but from Vyranoth’s perspective, she was the one abandoned. Even this lines up easily with this reading of Alexstrasza’s character, with her lamenting that these beliefs caused a wedge in their friendship, but not viewing the belief system as a whole as the issue that lead to it.

[Tying it all together]
Alexstrasza reads like a character whose faith in her extreme beliefs is being challenged from all angles, as the gods she looked up to turn out to not be as perfect as she believed that they were.

While threats like the Primalists themselves serve as something that she and the other dragons can look at and affirm to themselves that they are correct in their beliefs, situations such as the Drakonid/Dragonspawn Rebellion and her talk with Vyranoth challenge her views on a more fundamental level.

Even though in isolation she may heavily disagree with the extents that the Titans and their Order will go to, she doesn’t acknowledge this out of her faith and loyalty to the ideals of the Titans and their Keepers that rose her and her brethren up and aided them in defending Azeroth for thousands of years.

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Personally this is why I think only the Cult of the Damned offered valid political theory;

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Wonderful write up. As usual, I wish some of you guys were in charge of the story as opposed to Blizzard.

But there’s a very simple reason why I don’t think Blizzard thought this through nearly as much as you did. This may seem a little reductive, but follow me here:

The dialogue and characterizations are garbage.

I can’t even consider that any of this was thought out in light of how this story has been told. The last time I saw Alexstrasza she was talking about the power of friendship and giving us a sneak peek on the new world tree. Meanwhile, Fyrakk is still burninating the countryside.

Alexstrasza, more often than not, behaves like a lobotomite whose entire personality has been carved out and replaced with Saturday morning cartoon platitudes. I am unable to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt, here.

I hear the latest cutscenes have been much better, but it’s a little too late for me. As usual, Blizzard is playing catch-up.

Alexstraza just comes off as a child who can’t deal with her own outcomes of her own decisions. Almost every problem that has occurred in her life is because of her poor decision making. She doesn’t learn anything from anything from it either.

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I think the biggest issue with Alex is that while her intentions may be good, she often doesn’t think about how she and the other dragons go about solving them affects everyone and the world around them.

That and she still seems blind to her own fanatacism when it comes to the Titans and essentially turning the unborn baby proto drakes into titan slaves against their will. I hope the War of the Scaleborn novel coming out later this year gives us a better perspective on just how fanatical the Aspects are when it comes to following the titans will

No one is a slave to the titans they have never enforced their will over anyone even their keepers all had free will.

Her decisions aren’t because of the titans influence she is just written as being stupid and naive.

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Than what do you call bathing unborn proto drake babies in order magic so they’re more willing to carry out the titans will then?

It’s ugly either way and forcing ones will upon unborn children is wrong

dragons inherently absorb any kind of magic whether it be elemental, titan, shadow or anything. EVen the primalist dragons are doing it to the unborn.

Secondly the titans didn’t infuse the eggs the dragons did that all on their own alongside Tyr. You know Odyn didn’t even want the dragons uplifted or made aspects remember?

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I’m aware but what Odyn wanted is irrelevant because the dragons were uplifted, it still doesn’t answer my question about what Alex and the others did to the unborn proto dragons by bathing them in the order pools so they would be more loyal to the titans and their will.

So, I’ll try asking again, what you call it

I really dont think this is a case of religious fanaticism at all, this questline reads more on issues with a caste system.
In fact I am 100% certain that was the idea behind this was to point out problems with social hierarchy instead of adhering to a belief system. While caste is a belief system, it does not have to be a religious one. The closest real-world relation to this would not be Christianity though as mentioned in the OP but Hinduism of India in history.

I do agree somewhat with the OP though that the issue is not too focused on Centrism (at least how most define it). The story is pretty straightforward about personal freedom despite being born what someone is. How its handled by Blizz and Alexstrazsa seems fine.

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I don’t think we have enough information to go off of.

For starters, while we know some of the benefits and drawbacks of the process and it’s results, we don’t know them all. How common were intelligent proto-drakes? From where I’m standing, until these Incarnates showed up, we’d never seen a single one. If a lack of sentience and intelligence was the norm for Proto-Drakes and the likes of the Incarnates and Aspects were the exception to the rule, I cannot in any way fault the Aspects for wanting to give those eggs a better future than being a wild animal. Conversely, if sentience is much more common (which would be weird since we don’t see any intelligent/sentient proto-drakes much in the game), then absolutely it feels like a violation.

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I get where you’re coming from, but to me, even if they were Wild animals, they were still intelligent beasts. Just because they don’t communicate like humans or the Aspects doesn’t make it any less horrible what Alex and the others forced upon those unborn proto drakes.

Infact, that makes it even worse in my opinion. For example, dogs are really intelligent, sure it’s Just an animal to some, but they can still express things like joy, love and fear. And I imagine the proto drakes/dragons are the same, just because they don’t communicate in ways we’re used to or aren’t as intelligent as everyone else, doesn’t make it right what was done to them

But that’s just me. I’m sucker/lover of animals so and the whole they’re just beasts/aren’t as intelligent as everyone else opens the door to justify some really horrible stuff. Again , that’s just my thoughts on it

Looking at modern proto-drakes, I can’t say I see it myself.

I don’t think we can equate proto-drakes to dogs. That said, most animals show signs of intelligent behavior, yes, but that does not mean they possess sentience or higher function.

Now, if the technology existed to give that to them, the big philosophical question would be, is that ethical? It’d be a big evolutionary leap, after all, and bring them into a world they may not necessarily be prepared for at all. On the other hand, if dogs could talk, would their treatment by others improve? To say their quality of life would improve would be an understatement. They’re feeling sick? You can take them to the vet and they can explain exactly what hurts or doesn’t feel right, and suddenly Vets can narrow down the diagnosis and improve treatment and recovery. Someone leaves their dog in a hot car in a parking lot, they could literally ask for help.

But, I don’t think dogs are the right comparison here. Rather, let us pretend for a moment that Neanderthals still exist today on planet Earth. We find the technology to make it so they can become sentient on a level equal to that of humans, improving their lives dramatically. A side effect of this is, they become super lawful. As in, they don’t go over the speeding limit, ever, or they’d never jaywalk. Kind of goes in line with the whole, ‘make the Titan’s goals more agreeable,’ angle.

Is it right or wrong to give them a better life? Should we let them continue to wallow in the mud and die at age 30 from preventable diseases, and live like animals? I don’t know if there is a right answer here.

And this entire line of discussion is based on something we do not know yet. Specifically, how common sentience/intelligence is among proto-drakes.

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Fair takes. I can see where you’re coming from. My biggest hope is that the War of the Scaleborn novel does answer or at least gives an idea on how exactly intelligent the proto drakes were, or were the Incarnates and the future aspects the outliers.

I’m excited to read it now and get some answers we been asking about for years now concerning the proto dragons :smiley_cat:

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I think it should be said that the people calling it “hollow centrism” are political extremists. Anything that doesn’t align with their viewpoints will be regarded as cowardly centrism.

I wouldn’t place my hope on the writing coming from wow these days. Probably going to be another Sylvanas situation where they need to retroactively try to justify a character’s stupid decisions. Last thing we needs her reasoning to boil down to is that she saw a pair of monkeys flinging poop made her decide this was a good idea.

Interesting comparison.

I didn’t consider looking at it through that perspective, as I was looking for an answer that tied both that event and the conversation with Vyranoth together in narratively satisfying way.

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I disliked alextrasa’s “violence is always bad stance” when violence is the literal only reason she was enlightened to them wanting rights

My whole thing is, did they TRY to use reason beforehand? I cant remember if this was said or not.
You attract more flies with honey than you do with fly swatters.

you’d assume so, given that tends to be how these things start out, no one immediately jumps to violence unless they feel there is no other route