A lot of my own knowledge of the real world esoteric mythology of the Dark Sun in alchemy, there’s a lot of reading between the lines on my part, it’s true.
Zorvall chooses Light wielders because he lost his position as the God of Light and that whole reflected Symbolism of the Holy Paladin losing his hope and descending into darkness is a repetitive theme that cannot be ignored.
There’s also an interesting duality here to explore. The more the Sun goes towards the Shadow the more malevolent he becomes. The moon on the other hand becomes more malevolent the more she leans to the Light as evident in the story about how she usurped the Sun and became so hot she burned away all life in her wrath.
An’she and Mua’sha are the WoW equivalent of the “Alchemical Marriage” mythology.
Imo I think given the White Lady motif of Tyrande (woman seeking vengeance in white, and now in 9.1 her sorrow becomes a source of power), it’s clear Tyrande is essentially another Banshee.
In Irish folklore while there is one Banshee Queen (Cliodhna, who incidentally resembles Calia in her descriptions often) there is rivalry and even war between Banshees.
Tyrande, Sylvanas, and Calia are meant to be 3 Banshees in some capacity
But we don’t actually know Zovaal chose Anduin because he uses the Light.
Everything that we saw indicates he chose him because he was a Pure Soul: a perfect “Trojan Horse” that would be welcomed into Bastion without a hesitation.
Thrall, Baine and Jaina were deemed unworthy because they weren’t Pure. If it was just the ability to use the Light Zovaal was looking for, He would of only abducted light users.
And that also ties into some Religious concepts, where the Purer someone is, the harder their fall into corruption is. I’m too tired (haven’t had no Caffine this morning) to think of an apt example, so the only example that comes to mind is the story of Samson and Delilah. Admittedly, completely different situation.
I think Zovaals requirements was simply an appropriate vessel. The fact Anduin was able to resist his power albeit briefly meantt that he was a vessel strong enough to contain zovaals power.
I don’t think the banshee stuff is an intentional link, though. Calia herself wasn’t even planned for her current role until some WoW youtuber brought up the character.
it could be a reference to the tri Moon Goddess, Maiden, Mother and Crone (Wise Woman).
it’s a divine feminine central story for sure. There’s even some nods to the “Queen of Heaven” mythology with the “seventh covet what the six hold fast” seven is the sacred number of the divine feminine. In Egyptian Mythology there were Seven Heavenly Cows who represented the Seven afterlives.
Tyrande = Maiden (Adopted child, neither Mother nor Crone)
Calia = Mother (with lost child, neither Maiden nor Crone)
Sylvanas = Crone (neither Maiden nor Mother)
I’m not sure I follow any resemblance between Cliodhna and Calia. I think you may be confusing her with characters such as Medb, though the more apt comparison would be in contemporary literature, such as Tolkien’s Aragorn, who in turn was likely inspired by King Oswald of Northumbria. Calia represents the common trope of the ‘rightful ruler returned’, where as in southern Ireland Cliodhna has typically been portrayed as the guardian of those with the right to rule.
Again, I’m not sure where you are drawing this information from. Most folklore surrounding banshees, including Cliodhna, omit descriptions of physical appearance because they traditionally weren’t seen–their keening was simply heard. I’m not familiar with any folkloric record that describes Cliodhna as “porcelain skinned with blonde hair dressed in white”; I think you may be relying on contemporary artistic depictions of the Tuatha De Danann to draw this comparison, at which point I would argue the similarity is superficial at best.
I mean just cuz it’s modern doesn’t make it less “real”? Folklore belongs to the people.
I’ve seen lots of depictions and descriptions regarding her as such, and even a recurring specific description as “Fair Haired”.
But her physical appearance otherwise, of a ghostly beauty in a white dress, is common to Night Warrior Tyrande and both a likely derivations from modern associations of Woman In White motifs + Banshees.
It is relevant when you are trying to draw literary and artistic parallels to support an inference that Calia’s depictions have drawn inspiration from Cloidhna or any of the ben si; there’s no evidence to suggest that’s the case in the historiography of Cloidhna’s appearance. Even in the contemporary sphere, I can’t seem to find references to her as ‘fair-haired’–most of what I find is generic depictions of the fae, without any correlation to Cloidhna or the ben si. I would encourage you to draw a distinction between the folklore which belongs to the people for whom it may be a reality and those works of literature and art that are culturally appropriated from that folklore. I would also caution you from misrepresenting folkloric characters as thematically similar to characters in contemporary fiction when generic tropes, such as ‘good wears white,’ aptly suffice.
And so neither Cliodhna nor a banshee. Discussing Calia’s depiction as derivative of various lady in white legends is certainly a more legitimate course of inquiry; but, again, neither Cliodhna nor the banshee fall into that mythological motif simply because they may wear white–you are misinterpreting their role in Irish mythology and their relation to other folklore in comparative mythology.
The top results for this explicit search (those of which are not of real people, written documents or landscapes) depict women with red, auburn or brunette hair, neither blonde nor fair. Most of these images are also neither Cliodhna nor a banshee; in fact, the top results are Arthur and the Faerie Queen by Henry Fuseli and Faeries Away by Arthur Rackman (depicting Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The only one that “actually depicts Cliodhna” is from a DeviantArt page from 2011, also depicting her with red hair.
Relatedly, Anna Fanshawe’s memoirs is one of the few folkloric accounts to explicitly mention hair color for the banshee and she describes it as red.
? White Lady and Banshee myths are absolutely tied to eachother; Banshees are Ireland’s White Lady myths. And that dynamic has exacerbated in modern fiction due to Irish diaspora in American culture and passive syncretisms therein.
Much like “Skinwalkers” and “Were-monster” myths bleeding into eachother.
The top results of the search literally say Cliodhna is described as fair haired in some epithets lmao
And again:
Golden is not well read. Her tweets demonstrate that extensively (especially her recurring surprise at historical facts she didn’t know).
If Metzen had introduced Calia as we were given in BFA, I would agree literary sources would be important.
But this is Golden. She likely googled and read a few blogs/tumblrs for inspiration.
They are not–their correlation is ‘death’, but the ‘white lady’ is a subset of a greater category of death-associated folkloric figures, to which banshees belong to an different subset. They are related and there is always some overlap in comparative mythology, but the chief contrast here is between “victim” and “herald.” The white lady is most often depicted as a product of a tragedy: death through childbirth, through grief, or through personal sacrifice. The banshee isn’t a product of a tragic death; they most often herald death for the family with which they are associated with, including death as a result of old age or other natural causes. Their keening was not exclusive to the tragic, sudden death associated with various white lady myths.
Two things: 1) Your previous post’s point is that she was frequently depicted in media as blonde/fair-haired, but the image search you provided for me explicitly contradicted that upon examination beyond the superficial. 2) The only scholarly source that mentions anything about being ‘fair-haired’ is from Daithi O hOgain’s work The Lore of Ireland. And I’m afraid a single foot-noted mention of an epithet doesn’t constitute “lots of depictions and descriptions” or a “recurring specific description,” regardless of how many neopagan blogs link back to it.
And to the crux of this argument: I think it’s erroneous to presume that Golden’s inspiration for Calia has anything to do with Cliodhna or the ben si if the source of that inspiration comes from the generic amalgam of art found on new age blogs and witchy tumblrs. As I said before, you are far better off applying Calia’s character inspiration to more universal themes in folkloric literature. Trying to compare her to specific characters like Cliodhna when they lack similarity beyond the superficial is disingenuous.