The sad thing is, I honestly don’t like his model. Like his beard looks way too pointy to me. And the shining eyes don’t really fit. Also not huge on the armor design.
But yeah, Sabellian is just a model with orange eyes which probably didn’t require extra work.
Sebellion had good reason to stay on Outland until now.
N’zoth
Unlike Wrathion (whom was immune to old god corruption due to his unique creation), the other Black Dragons would be ripe for the taking. We see this with Ebonhorn the moment he left Highmountain. Where he attended a meeting with Baine and Malya. And then later when he journeyed to the Chamber of the Heat. Hoping the Chamber’s defenses would be enough to ward off the God of Corruption since he was away from his wards in Highmountain. Alas it did not. Hence why he searched for Wrathion and we found a cure instead.
Whenever I think of all the arguments in favor of Wrathion (I mean, there definitely are some), I remember this scene and in my mind it straight-up just disqualifies him as the leader of the Black Dragonflight.
I agree, I think that’s really what the debate boils down to. Personally this drives me to choose Sabellian, for the following reason : is the Dragonflights’ duty as protectors of Azeroth still that much of a thing ? We’ve still entered the Age of Mortals as far as I know. This never meant that the Dragonflight were doomed and would stop existing, it just means that the protection of Azeroth can now be handed to the mortal races. The way I see things, the overall point of Dragonflight as an expansion is really to establish the Flights as nations of Azeroth, willing to reclaim a place for themselves in the world, rather than reestablish them as the Titan agents and cosmic sentinels they have been for tens of thousands of years.
In that regard, if it’s really about who’s going to lead the Black, Sabellian seems more fit for the role.
You mean Fahrad?
Wrathion says: But you are a Black Dragon. And you share the corruption of all my brothers and sisters.
Fahrad yells: That’s - not true!
Wrathion says: Do you deny it? The dark visions? The voices in your head?
Fahrad says: No. No! I’m in control of the voices. They’re there to help me.
Wrathion says: And what are they telling you now, Fahrad? What do your dark masters whisper?
Fahrad yells: Kill… they want me to kill you now… oh, why did you have to go and anger them?
Fahrad takes on his black dragon form.Fahrad yells: You have proven too difficult to control!
Didn’t seem especially trustworthy to me on that front.
Liberalism has nothing to do with the idea of a hesitant ruler. Romans idealized men who didn’t want power and were given it to immediately give it up. From Cicero to George Washington. People have said for thousands of years that humans with selfish ambition are the worst to rule because they often become sociopathic rulers. People who don’t care how their actions affect their people.
I don’t disagree with the idea, but I do believe that people who seek to rule should be restrained in their ambition and not pursue power for its own sake. Wrathion is that type of person and assumes that because he’s claims it. People will just give it to him. He’s arrogant and can’t imagine why others don’t want him as aspect. That alone is enough to disqualify him. Understanding your opposition and yourself is what makes great rulers.
Thank you for pointing out the ancient heritage of the trope. It’s not new, it’s baked into the bones of how we perceive power.
The problem is the repetition. Blizzard is obsessed with it.
Baine didn’t want to lead the Tauren. Mayla didn’t think she was capable of leading the other Tauren. Thrall was an eager ruler in WCIII but gave up his mantle to Garrosh and resisted taking it back multiple times. Lor’themar hated politics and just wanted to be a ranger. At least half of the Forsaken Council was hesitant to be there.
And that’s just the Horde. It’s just so tired.
The other problem is that change and reformism can’t really flow from this kind of trepidatious rule. Systems are not made better by people who are so in awe of them that they’re afraid to put their hands on the wheel. This isn’t a huge problem in WoW because Blizzard is totally uninterested in displaying these societies as having realistic internal problems (the only internal conflicts we ever see are various infestations of evil cultists who need to be killed) but it still irks me.
I also think Blizzard “fixes” the player’s choice by showing Wrathion’s part in the story first. They are relying on the player’s familiarity with the character.
I think the idea being, newer players are going to naturally be drawn to wrathion as he’s a familiar character as far as BfA.
Older players, like myself, seem to be drawn to Sabellion. Not sure if that’s intentional or it just worked out that way.
There is definitely a huge gulf in terms of activity between the two characters.
Sabellian was involved in a black dragonflight chain in BC about finding whelps and slaying ogres.
Wrathion was involved in a rogue quest chain about rooting out and assassinating corrupted black dragons culminating in slaying Deathwing himself in Cata, crafted the players’ legendary cloaks in MoP while trying to manipulate the Alliance/Horde war, tried to create an infinite anti-Legion army but ended up causing the WoD invasion, which fed into the Legion invasion which caused great destruction and also the players finally defeating the Legion.
That is quite the discrepancy. Of course, it cuts both ways: Sabellian has a lot fewer appearances, and thus also a lot fewer failures.
My concern is that if the two choices are meant to be ‘equal’, then either Sabellian has to be portrayed as more like Wrathion (runs many schemes, several of which fail and cause major problems that the players have to solve), or Wrathion has to be portrayed as more like Sabellian (has fewer failures, but is much more limited to solving intra-dragonflight issues). Considering the expansion-level failures that Wrathion caused (WoD), I’m not sure how this parity could be established well within a side-plot of a single expansion.
I worry that in trying to make Wrathion and Sabellian equal choices, the story is going to either minimize or play up certain traits with the (unintended) end result of making them blander characters.
I don’t think your average WoW player those days, whose at best first experience with WoW was WotLK, knows who Sabellian is in the first place. TBC is really old content. It doesn’t help that he hasn’t done anything big in the meantime. Maybe Ebyssian will step in for the predictable third option, but so far the deck is heavily stacked in Wrathion’s favor.
Yeah. I don’t think that pitting Sabellian vs. Wrathion is good for either character.
Sabellian, as mentioned, doesn’t have the screen time and number of player interactions to be anywhere near as memorable as Wrathion, for good and for ill. I think he needed a little more introduction than his single egg-transporting scheme and a handful of accolades from his followers before the game told the player to vote in the popularity contest.
Wrathion has a voluminous and checkered past with the player character, by comparison. But his ‘kid/teenager trying to act and scheme like what he thinks an underworld boss should be’ theme worked well when he was essentially the only non-corrupted black dragon in Azeroth - when it was a choice between him acting with limited knowledge and flaws vs doing nothing at all, and the player was free to think him a total idiot or a blowhard who at least gets some results, depending on how far they want to stretch his culpability for consequences and successes.
I liked Wrathion as a character who was born into a legacy he felt solely responsible for and entitled to, who was way over his head every step of the way and made a lot of mistakes, who was too proud and stubborn to give up despite those mistakes and kept forging forward and ignoring or deflecting criticism of his mistakes. A very flawed character, but one I had fun watching where they went. Throwing in a contender with a few notable successes and zero notable failures undermines Wrathion’s whole theme… and making Wrathion more successful in his schemes to make him comparable also undermines Wrathion’s theme.
If regaining Aspect-hood wasn’t a big theme of the expansion, I’d rather the black dragonflight not pick a new Aspect at all, because I think there’s way more fun drama to be had over the competition for it than from anyone winning that competition.
So I dont know if it is a theme they will use, but one of the reasons that Neltharion defected to the old gods was because he came to see the gifts of the black aspect a burden and curse as the weight of the entire world was forever crushing down on him at all times. It was such pressure he felt as if his spirit itself was going to unravel from the strain, but he refused to ask for help out of pride. But if so… Perhaps the crushing weight of the black aspect’s charge needs to be shouldered by several people at once.
I like that both are depicted as having ego problems. Dragons (especially black ones) should at least have the hint of the Draconic about them.
I’d say there’s a 5% chance Sab takes the throne, a 20% chance he and Wrathion both prove inept and Ebyssian steps in as a compromise candidate, and a 75% chance the claimant without the unique models, official artwork, and a decade’s steady build up is sacrificed to hasten his rival’s painfully inevitable ascension.
I will also say I’m curious on what’s going on with Sabellion and his brood’s corruption status. They claim to be uncorrupted but like…how? It’s not really mentioned from what I’ve seen, and it’s not exactly confirmed past their own claims. And sorry to say, I’m not taking them at their word on this one tbh.
IMO Sabellion will be rejected. Based on how the blue aspect was chosen in the last ceremony… i think he will be rejected for deficiency of character.
God please no lmao
I mean, Sabellian even brought some Whelps. I doubt Whelps could fake being uncorrupted tbh
Also, Shaw had spies watching Sab on Outland by the time of Exploring EK, and he specified he wasn’t an immediate threat. If Sab and his flight were secretly corrupted I think Shaw would have heard about it
I assume not being on Azeroth and being exposed to the Nether uncorrupted them. Similarly, how some dragons became Netherwing dragons. The Black dragons that didn’t change fully by the destruction of Draenor had their old god influenced purged or weakened. Though this is only conjecture. We have no idea how and we can only guess… maybe they discovered a similar potion that Wrathion did for Ebyssian.
We probably won’t know how, but only that they are uncorrupted. To what degrees it is unknown, but Wrathion doesn’t immediately call for their deaths for being corrupted and the other dragonflights especially the Red, are willing to tolerate them. If Queen Alexstrasza is willing to let their eggs remain in the pool. Then we can assume they’re cured. If not the parents who laid them, but by being in the arcane waters.
Maybe I’m missing here, but how would we just know they’re corrupted? Deathwing’s own fellow aspects didn’t know what was going on with him until he launched his coup. And I’m not even saying their corruption is active like Deathwing was at the end, but just that they’re susceptible still - like Ebyssian was before Wrathion saved him.
Personally, I’m just a bit slow to trust the random black dragon that he’s perfectly uncorrupted even though the only times we’ve seen it happen was specifically unique situations. It’s entirely possible Blizz just handwaved the problem away, but idk. We’ll see, possibly.
I think Alexstrasza allowing his presence is enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Wrathion also doesn’t question his claims of being uncorrupted, and he has a sixth sense in detecting corrupt members especially if they’re close by. In Cata the only reason he missed Sabellian was because the old dragon remained on Outland. We won’t know and they haven’t told us, but I really wish they expanded on what happened. Honestly, I want Sabellian to pull out an ace card with Netherwing dragons or something that would throw the rest of the dragonflights into an uproar. Especially the Blue if he showed he had more members to his flight who would defend the elder dragon.