Until the game gives a reason to believe otherwise, yes. I am not going to hold expansive MMO world-building to the narrative expectations of movie script compactness.
This a culture that apparently split off a long time ago. There is no reason for me to expect a connection with figures of recent history. So now, by default, it’s making me imagine a longer, broader history behind the family/house name.
Tons of half-elves have memories of their time before the voyage. It’s a retcon.
I advise you to study genetic to realize why this is actually worse. Unless Blizzard wants to tell us that they got a Habsburg problem down underground, they were mostly half elves to begin with prior to the journey.
I know you may struggle with this but Draenei have only been on Azeroth for ~30 years. And yes, the first human paladin. Tyr’s Guard also breaks the lore, congratulations. You’d think someone would have mentioned this cadre of ultra-elite paladins that are even stronger than Uther.
People usually keep painstaking records of the lineage of royalty, both because they’ll need someone to take the throne when someone dies without a child but also to make sure people laying claims have valid claims.
In other words, Faelin is an imposter to the throne. She’s not actually a Lothar, she’s just some body. Which is fine- great, even! Some random orphan winds up on their magical airship adventure and rises to greatness is a much more compelling story than, “I was tollbooth royalty back home.”
Read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote. High Elves don’t like humans and as Sylvanas points out, her having relations with a human would have been seen as a massive taboo in Silvermoon. Alleria flees Azeroth because she knows her thing for Turalyon wouldn’t go over well. Veresa has been a cardboard cutout in Dalaran for decades at this point.
Three sisters who all have an odd fetish for human men isn’t exactly, “Half Elves are common!” And if the lore goes as it suggests, the Arathi in Warfin have a serious Habsburg problem. ~2600 years is almost the entirety of recorded human history. Their voyage probably started with around 500-1000 people, if I’m being very generous- consider for a moment that Pizzaro’s expedition only had about 170. You can only have a population of people that small living in complete isolation for so long before you start having genetic problems and your family tree starts looking like a potato.
Anduin Lothar and Faerin are not related in any meaningful way. 1200+ years ago, when the Arathi that formed the new Arathi Empire left the Eastern Kingdoms left, a Lothar was among their number. Consider it to be a brother of Anduin Lothar’s distant ancestor for simplicity’s sake.
Now both of those family lines continued. In the EK they ended with Anduin Lothar. But the other branch of the family continued. Faerin and Lothar would be like…50th cousins or something.
I have a friend in this exact same scenario. The family name is on an extremely prestigous weapons manufacturer and blacksmith in England. One of the brothers of that family had a fight with the rest of the family, got disowned, and left the country for Australia, more than 200 years ago. My friend is descended from that brother. Meanwhile there is a whole other branch of her family in England that she has never met.
Why is this situation so hard to understand? It happens in real life.
I myself am a direct descendant of a famous British noble that was born in the 1400’s. I look nothing like the paintings of him, and have no noble title etc. and that’s “only” more than 500 years ago, not 1200 years.
Exactly. I’m actually guessing on the 1200 year time frame. We only know the original Arathi Empire (referred to by these folks as Old Arathi) existed from 2800 BDP to 1200 BDP. Those people could’ve left any time during that period, so it could have been even more than 1200 years.
It’s honestly kinda surprising the Lothar family name still exists there. I suppose it’s possible, if they treated it as a noble family name and did their best to preserve it (as has happened here).
Mike Johnson and Josh Johnson.
I do think what is missing from the story here that would normally be present is that the name would morph over time. For example if a german person with a ü in their name moves to the united states, they might change their name from küpp to kuepp. I think 1200 years is a fair guess, and that’s a long time. “Lothar” could have changed over time to “Luthar” or “Loethar” etc.
Perhaps it does mean she is the child of royalty
That’s true but things like that would detract from the story IMO. It’s obvious they want us to know she’s from a different Lothar family branch. While your idea is more realistic, it would detract from the point they want to make.
I hope we get to see the Arathi Empire in person at some point. Rather than just their expeditionary force. None of us knew they existed until now…which granted made sense, as far as anyone in the original Arathor knew, those people left and were never heard from again.
She isn’t a direct descendant of Anduin Lothar, essentially, when the Arathi empire split, one group travelled to an island away from the Eastern Kingdoms, among them was a Lothar, a noble, probably a brother to the ancestor of Anduin Lothar, there they remained an empire and continued calling themselves Arathi.
This is the logic of having the name Smith means you are directly related to every Smith.
Star Wars has Captain Raymus Antilles and Wedge Antilles, who in official canon aren’t related to each other.
In WoW, there’s also Puzik Gallywix and Jastor Gallywix, with currently no known relation to each other.
In general, I don’t see any issue with characters in a work of fiction sharing a surname despite not being related so long as the characters can still be distinguished from each other. It does happen in real life. Unrelated people sharing a surname can happen a lot in real life, especially when they are occupational surnames such as Smith or surnames based on the name of a place.
So much this. Adding a little bit of hate for the fact she’s also missing an arm (disabled). And all of this uproar is hateful and disgusting and honestly really needs to stop. FWIW, I’m an old red-haired-going-blonde (we don’t go white-haired apparently) Wonderbread lady. I hope Anduin & she can uplift each other to surpass their respective “brokenness” & it would be neat to see a little one in the Keep. (Although hopefully not a babe in a bassinet for 14 years…)
We’ve BEEN telling them, they prefer to remain ignorant. (And trollishly “outraged”)
And Azeroth herself (herselves?)!
What part of "her branch of the family LEFT THE EASTERN KINGDOMS AND WERE NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN by those they left behind is so confusing for you? The records kept in the EK by those who remained have no information about those who left, aka Faerin’s ancestors after they left because they were never heard from again and assumed lost at sea. FFS give it up already.
This is a GAME. It is a work of FICTION. It is NOT REALITY. Seriously, I cannot even begin to comprehend why you MUST explain why Faerin cannot be who she has been explained to be. You’re ok with upright-walking, clear-speaking Bovine and Fox people? You’re ok with “Space Goats” that miraculously speak “Common”? Time travel is good? Shape-shifting dragons with amazing power that ALSO miraculously speak clearly when in their Dragon forms are A-OK? But OMG ROYAL PERSON OF COLOR WITH THE SAME NAME AS AN OLD WHITE GUY FROM THE RTS GAMES AAAAAAAHHHHHH is the hill you choose to die on? Because of RL genetics no less? In a FANTASY game? Really?
My own family may have this exact or a very similar situation. My great-grandfather is from Ireland, my maiden name is a well-known one in Dublin. The family is apparently quite famous for their -ahem- brewed beverages LOL. I’ve not yet been able to discover why he came to the U.S. from Ireland, but I am fairly certain he was not an indentured servant when he floated over. I need to spend some time working on the family tree, but I’ve never met anyone from the rest of his family & have no clue if any of them ever wondered what happened to him after he left.
And it falls in line with a quote from one of the devs, years ago, basically telling us that there was still A LOT of Azeroth the planet remaining to be discovered.
It’s not hard to understand the situation.
There is just a group of people that will willfully ignore it because they want to make up their own story so they can have a vaguely plausible reason to be mad about there being a black women with a distant connection to an old lore character.
The funny thing is, they aren’t even mad themselves about it. They don’t think for themselves. They’re mad because one of the talking heads they watch instructed them that they were to be “outraged”, and they obey.
you guys are way overthinking it. papa blizzard just thought a character named lothar would be cool in a story about arathis.
as for her importance, we’ll probably storm their island kingdom to depose the light emperor with the help of harrowfall & instate faerin as empress.
And another person who hasn’t paid attention to the lore.
Faerin is not directly related to Anduin Lothar the hero from Warcraft 1 and 2. She’s not his daughter, or niece etc etc.
They are, at best, distant cousins separated by thousands of years of family generations.
Assuming 1000 years (might be more but I’m lowballing it on purpose) and 25 years per generation (decent average), that would make Faerin, Anduin Lothar’s 40th cousin or so. While they may share a family name and trace their family tree back to a common ancestor, they aren’t practically related any more closely than any two random people on the street.
1240 years at a minimum, 2840 years, maximum.
We don’t know precisely when the humans and elves who would form the Arathi Empire left the Empire of Arathor to do so. But the Empire of Arathor formed 2800 years before the First War, and it broke up into what became the 7 kingdoms 1200 years before the First War.
Yes, I lowballed my numbers on purpose, just so I could say they are AT LEAST 40th’s cousins. Could be quite a bit higher.
Why do people not pay attention to the story and latch on to the name Lothar?
She has nothing to do with Anduin Lothar and comes from another branch of the family.