I think Blizz is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to lore for dragons. They go back and forth with old lore making their breeding habits and love lifes more animalistic, but now, especially for Dragonflight, they want the dragons culture etc to look more human like so they can tell more compelling stories that resonant with us. They want their cake and to eat it too.
I vote they stick with animalistic, and have it be an interesting culture shock between non dragons and dragons. I could totally see non dragons being perplexed by how dragons can be intelligent and yet animalistic, and dragons are perplexed by aspects of non dragon culture. Like for example, a dragon could be humorously baffled by the fact the average human only has like...1 wife/husband.
It's either "They have old traditions because they're old" or "Times change, so too must they". Maybe it CAN be both, but the one who has old traditions must be old themselves and convey that.
Biologically he's Deathwing's direct grandson, but Deathwing is basically considered the "father" of the Black Dragonflight, which tends to be why Wrathion calls him that (plus, he's called Onyxia "auntie" and not "sister" as well, which if he was one of Deathwing's children specifically, it wouldn't make sense to call her that)
It's so stupid lol. It's like the writers went "Uh shit... this quest doesn't feel pointlessly dark enough. Quick, just have Wrathion order his man to break the guy's legs!" 'cause apparently that will help his messenger get his message to the red dragons quicker apparently.
Tldr: Grandfather; If Nyxondra mated with death wing she would have been either dead or like Sinestra, I believe he calls Death wing father since Deathwing was the first leader of the black dragonflight so he would be the sire of the black dragons in title alone; Sabellian, Onyxia, Nyxondra, and Nefarian are Deathwings direct and biological children. Should be noted that "Prince" doesn't have to mean you are a direct heir, it is a title like anything else.
TBH with everything provided, I feel like Wrathion is in fact Deathwing's biological son, and they just had a little game of thrones moment, as messed up as it is. I think something to note, is that dragons have always been depicted much more animalistic in the lore up until dragonflight, and perhaps dragon's just simply don't care/don't have the same biological drawbacks as humanoid races do. Or maybe it's simply that there was almost no black dragon's left, so Deathwing had to make do in his madness... Either way, there is way too many story points and canon events calling Wrathion "Deathwing's son" to really see it in another light imho. The focus is way too strong, to the point that it would outshine Deathing's confirmed biological children.
The easiest way to explain it is that the draconic family structures are different than human's. No matter who laid the eggs and fertilized them, you are the child of the patriarch/matriarch. Maybe you are an offspring of a specific breed like Senegos' group.
I believe Wrathion calls Deathwing 'Father' in a more metaphorical sense. Deathwing was the Aspect of the Black Dragonflight, and in a sense was seen as the father of all Black Dragons. Wrathion is his grandson as his mother, Nyxondra, was Deathwing's daughter. The confusion as to their family ties came mostly when Wrathion was first introduced and him refering to Deathwing as 'father' contradicted the lore behind Deathwing and his consorts, which told us all of them died when he attempted to mate with them with the exception of Sinestra who suffered permanent scars due to it. The confusion was so great that Blizzard came out to clear the fog and confirmed that Wrathion is in fact his grandson. Wrathion also refers to Onyxia as 'auntie' which further solidifies this.
an easy ret con here to true it up; there are many cases in the real world where children's parental figures are their grandparents. Maybe in Wrathions case, when he was an egg, maybe he heard about his mothers father. so the only "father" figure he is aware of was Deathwing.
Weirdly enough I kind of see the dragonflights like space marine chapters, where each space marine chapter has a primarch that they will call there dad or father even though there is no blood relation, but they all share in what is called the geneseed aka some genetic code that is specific with the primarch, which for space marines is put into them after birth. So all this would do, is just that every red dragon is a child of Alexstraza not necessarily blood related but rather uplifted from proto-drake to be a part of the red dragonflight. Wrathion would still be able to call himself the black prince just like any black dragon would be able to call themself the black prince/princess, since it would just be a title that they would have to stake their claim to, which Wrathion did quite heavily but hunting down and killing all other corrupt black dragons that he could find.
@apacalypsagon3758 *checks 30k lore* the lodges? Nope, they were used to influence the Legions. It been years since reading them, but a Dark Angel story says how a Legionarie was unable to refuse an order and his body started moving.
The circumstances of Wrathion's creation are indeed odd, vague, and very relevant to the discussion. He could have up to six biological parents, if you really think about it. However, nothing will ever kill my headcanon that Fahrad was Wrathion's biological father. It just makes too much sense, and adds another layer of tragedy to the story. Fahrad had been hiding among the rogues of Ravenholdt for who knows how long, presumably minding his own business and not letting anyone know he was a black dragon. Then, instead of seeking to destroy Wrathion's egg like the black flight in the Badlands did, he went to great lengths to rescue it. He stayed at the prince's side, helping him in his quest to exterminate the rest of the flight, knowing that would mean his own death, eventually. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make to ensure his son would live on, safe from the corruption. He would have kept the connection a secret from Wrathion, of course, so it still works for him not to know his actual lineage. I know it's not canon, but it's not NOT canon, either, so...yeah.
I think Wrathion might actually believe, for whatever reason, that Deathwing is his literal father, whether that's the case or not. At least each of his quests about daddy issues had him getting actually emotional on the matter. Though obviously that's an issue of inconsistent storytelling, but it could be somewhat explainable within the plot without too much of a stretch. We literally see Deathwing in that quest about eggs, so we could assume he was visiting this place in Badlands where lots of breeding black dragons were hosted. And since that was after he annihilated most of his previous mates, it's not impossible that he considered doing something different to not melt them this time. For example... implementing some of Nefarian's research advancements on artificial dragon breeding. They definitely had enough technology and understanding of the process at least for very basic artificial insemination, considering what was going on in Blackwing Descent and other labs. But to me it always seemed kinda inevitable that dragons are deeply inbreed, since there were initially only aspects of each dragon color that were ascended from proto-dragons. So who exactly have they mated with to produce initial clutches? Doesn't seem like each other, considering there don't seem to be any kind of dominant/recessive color or their combination in lore or any indication that e.g. blue + red would give some combination of blue, red or... purple? spotted? Chromatic, etc artificial mutants aside, dragon breeds stay single-colored, so we may conclude they are different species and don't produce fertile offsprings (or any at all). And I doubt proto-dragons would be any better match. So what does that mean? To me that seems like they are all literal descendants of initial aspect and, at best, some of their close relatives that were alive at the moment of their creation. Then it's not particularly of any surprise that Deathwing would be Wrathion "father", since he'd be literally the pinnacle of his whole family tree. And no matter how many whelps of different black dragons were combined to create this chimera, each one's father/grandfather/etc would be Deathwing, most likely countless times through generations since they keep interbreeding between his descendants and no one else. May sound creepy but that's pretty much how just about any breed of any domesticated animal would look like if tracked far enough down the line, where at some point someone thought to mate cool looking kids of same couple or breed them with their parents for whatever trait they were looking for.
He his Grandfather. That’s confirmed. At the end of the MoP legendary cloak questline when he gets angry his plans didn’t work out he even says he should have infiltrated them secretly like ( *Auntie* ) Onyixa did. So he must know his mother was a daughter of Deathwing.
The recently released Dragonflight Codex, which is from Khadgar's POV, doesn't rule out that eggs can be conceived long before they hatch or that they can sit unhatched for a very long time (pg. 120): "While the incubation time from egg to whelp remains a secret of the dragonflights..." So it's possible if still unconfirmed. We've seen a lot of newly hatched whelps in DF. Wrathion acted a lot older just days out of the egg (Fangs of the Father Rogue-only Cata questline) though that could also be the experimentation process itself.
Personal fan theory is Fahrad fathered at least one of the whelplings (or eggs) involved in Wrathion's creation. Deathwing may or may not have fathered one of the other ones, or Nyxondra (will check her wowpedia quotes for this, some say she calls out for her 'father.')
I liked how Wrathion got all upset when Sabellion was dismissing some dragon creature or another as just a failed experiment - came at him with I'm just an experiment - at some point Wrathion learned or admitted that his conception was very messed up and not the straightforward Daddy produced an heir, and here I am! thing that he had been going on with.
I'm betting it was being setup as Deathwing mating with his own, but someone in PR probably said they couldn't do that. Dragons used to be so raw in Warcraft, but Dragonflight has softened them so much that I don't think they'll ever be looked at as beasts again.
That's not the point a little bit. Here, by analogy with the royal families. Wrathion is a direct offspring of Neltharion (one of the close ). It's not really a father-son system. There are more offspring kings here. Yes, he is not literally a son, as it is said even in DF, but of all possible applicants, he is on an equal footing with them.
In short, there's so much lore in the game that it's hard for the devs to keep it all straight and they painted themselves into a corner. It's not the first time.
He should’ve been the new leader of the black dragons. It was so stupid that they didn’t give it to him sure his end justifies the means approach was bad, but he was the only black dragon that was able to resist the corruption to stop the leader getting corrupted
I don't know about this bro , i see Warthion calling Deathwing his (biological Father) .. I'll just go along with the in game dialog and say they're definitely father and son
I've always taken it fairly similar to this- Wrathion views Deathwing as his father symbolically, as the Black Dragon Aspect Deathwing being symbolically the father of all Black Dragons because he was the first, but also as way of hyping his own importance. He's the Black Prince because he views himself as the one to inherit the flight from Deathwing, especially once the rest of the flight was gone (helped by a little assassination) But as you said, biologically anyway, he's a combination of multiple different eggs and a whelp corpse. We only know for sure that one came from Nyxondra, and we know the sire of that egg couldn't have been Deathwing himself. No one knows for the wild whelp or the wild black dragon egg- they could have been one of Sinestra's, or any of the other black dragons in the zone. Essentially the way I take it is he's a chimera with multiple different bloodlines at once, paired with his views of himself/legacy, it's just easier for him to say Deathwing was his dad.
I wouldn't say Deathwing was Wrathion's father. The only reason Wrathion went with that story was because he was the last black dragon alive (to his knowledge), and he saw it as his mission to restore his flight (in addition to keeping Azeroth safe). He is still disgusted by the things Deathwing did, and his biggest fear was always ending up like his "father". This became especially clear after the Aberrus raid, which is why he let go of his claim to become the new aspect of earth. It's really not uncommon for dragons of the five main flights to refer to their original aspect as their mother/father.
By that logic, if Sinestra's eggs that were in outland are direct descendents to Deathwind, than the netherwing are closer to the earth warder than wrathion.
I’ve always thought that it was because the aspects were the first of their flight that they became the mother and father of all their dragons. But at least, now we know that it wasn’t actually the case literally thanks to the book we now know that they magically ascended other dragons to populate their numbers. And it last we know what they meant by not being able to reproduce at the end of cata: that they had lost the magic to ascend primal dragons. Thrust increasing their ranks at a much faster rate.
I always took it as him being his father in a legacy sense, just like Christians, Muslims, and Jews are all "Sons of Abraham" or a specific tribe are the sons of [x] (Judah, Benjamin, etc) Given wow's extensive use of old testament metaphor it just fits very easily.
Would it have been the end of the world to have Wrathion be inbred? To have Wrathion - a monster - mate with his daughter? I think it would paint him as a better, eviler villain and would let Wrathion become a newly relatable character for some fans; Inbreeding exists in the real world.
I can see Neltharion being Wrathions dad, because how else would there be strong offsprings if not from Neltharion was the father. His ego and hubris making him see only he is fit to be the father of newer and stronger lineages of dragons.
I don’t think it really matters when it comes to the dragonflights. They are all grown in a lab basically. If anything Wrathion is just more so that. If you look at the primalists they all have a layer of rock or something, like earthen. I think the default life mode for Azeroth is living stone. Titan ordering ends up making flesh eventually.
Plot twist...he's the son of Iridikron, that's why Raszageth let him live😆and that would make Neltharion his great uncle...yeah I'm being sarcastic, purely cos (despite what the wiki says) there seems to be a disjoint in the storyline concerning lineage with Nyxondra, Rheastrasza, Onyxia....hell the whole ''Nyxondra was forced by Rheastrasza to lay eggs for the Black dragonflight'' thing (but not mention who fathered the eggs - IAW the wiki). However...despite it seeming to be disjointed, it does make for a good possible future storyline about ''Wrathion was lied to, his real father is....'' shock horror, Wrathion goes on a rampage. One thing is clear to me....he shows disdain for Alexstrasza and the Red Dragonflight because of it. To me...the only way an uncorrupted Black dragon egg could have been made was to NOT have any of Neltharion's bloodline be involved. So who does that leave?
Multiple problems with that, as you seem to be well aware. Nyxondria was of Neltharion's bloodline, as far as we know, so the madness wouldn't need to pass through Wrathion's father. Iridikron would have already been imprisoned for thousands of years before Wrathion's egg was laid. We don't know the outcome of an Ordered dragon and a primal dragon having an offspring; would it be primal, ordered, or a hybrid of some sort? Maybe we'll find out in the future, but we don't know now.
the only question we can ask for any answer that could solve this; how long can dragon eggs stay dormant before hatching. maybe some bronze dragon foolery happened that lead to black dragon eggs getting sent into the future. did the titan artifact imbue the eggs with death wings DNA so that it had the spark and power to be brought to life? are black dragons more like lion prides where one male gets to mate, and all children are his. why does wrathion keep calling him father, maybe its more of a title, all father perhaps. who knows, blizzard doesnt
According to the book Night of the Dragon, Sintharia/Sinestra, Deathwing's prime consort kept several eggs dormant in something called myatsis indefinitely. From all the different flights.
From which quest lines are the scenes you showed, specially the one where he said: “you will not break me as you did to my father” I know the first one though, it’s a rogue one in cataclysm. I’m just interested in watching the full scenes and I am curious since I’ve never seen the rest only the first one and the last one from dragonflight
I'm confused why at the start you answer the question with "Neither." Wrathion's biological father being unknown doesn't call into question that Deathwing is his maternal grandfather, regardless of who Nyxondra mated with to produce the egg.
I always thought that quest was more known that it seems. Wrath IS of Black Dragon Lineage but no "real father" . To be literal hes a construct no "real parent" at all.
Well it certainly doesn't help when he and every other black dragon refer to deathwing as thier father they denote him as a paternal figure. Not as the grand progenitor of the black dragonflight he actually is to them. They just refer to him as father to score sympathy points with the player with that not actually being the case. Quite literally wanting to have thier cake and eat it to.
![Is Deathwing Wrathion's Father or Grandfather?! [Warcraft Lore]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
