Random Musings and Reblogs

So, this got released as a part of a series of short animations to promote World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion, Battle for Azeroth, and I just CAN. NOT. STOP. WATCHING. The director, artists, and writer behind this short animation have basically created one of the most concise, yet immediately understandable character stories in their entire history (to an extent). It’s timed incredibly well, the lyrics aren’t filled with jargon beyond the two Named Locations (Kalimdor, the western continent and Theramore, a major city on said continent), and the symbolism fills in a LOT OF SUBTEXT that just makes this work. If you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading and go do that. Then watch it again while paying close attention to the lyrics and the imagery.

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Done now? Let’s walk through some of the initial understanding you probably have of this, even if you’ve never touched Warcraft. First, the daughter of the sea the song references is the woman the short focuses on (who is Jaina, by the way). Second, she stood aside and allowed her father to be killed, which estranged her from her family and her people. Third, the skeleton moving her boat is either a stand-in for her father or is her father. Finally, by the end of the short, she seems to be accepting what the song bestows on her, claiming the title of “Daughter of the Sea” who one should beware of.

And that’s what you can grab from the song lyrics alone. What about the imagery alone? We start the short in what appears to be a kind of graveyard, where Jaina picks up a pendant and gives it to the skeleton for passage. Throughout this ride, when we can see Jaina, she is withdrawn, hidden, and almost appears ashamed of something (we can guess this is in reference to  “The Admiral fell at Theramore because she left his side,” the last line Jaina herself sings). Following this, we get the ship graveyard, which along with the wisps and Jaina touching the water but avoiding the skull, seems to imply it’s connected to her shame. Then we get the story of the admiral, which I don’t really want to focus on, but then... OH THEN we get to some good stuff. For the first time since this has started, Jaina lifts her head out of her shame and her face is lit by sunlight after her father’s death fades out above her head. You don’t need any context, I think, to recognize a shift in perspective there. Jaina stands in sunlight, her shame behind her, facing the judgement of the sun. She also is facing judgement from the clouds that form faces, but let’s skip that for now. The judgement morphs then, as Jaina raises the very ship we saw earlier out of the waves, her father’s ship. The judgement she faced she turns into atonement by resurrecting what she allowed to die, or at least the symbol of it. Taking her place on the ship, which, since it’s her father’s, is indeed her ship now, the full claim of her title “Daughter of the Sea” is finished, and she no longer sees any need to be ashamed; she’s faced judgement for what she did and is atoning now.

Note, we have still not pulled any context from the game itself, and we still haven’t asked an important question when working in this type of art. How do the lyrics and imagery work together? There are plenty of properly timed moments in the lyrics which are surface-level. For example, the entirety of the second verse up to the line “And buried deep beneath the waves” does an excellent job of matching the story moments with the lyrics. There are three additional moments that I find excellent, though! First, when Jaina stops singing, and the sea shanty begins, notice that she’s surrounded by the ruins of several ships; the voices of the dead sailors that came with her father, the admiral, asking her “Why this? Why this? Oh Daughter of the Sea? Why this? Did you forget your seaside days?” reminding her that she didn’t just let her father die that day, but all the sailors he brought with him. Her choice did not just affect her father, and that is a part of the shame she carries, and must be a part of her judgement. Second, let’s go back to right after Jaina lifts her head out of shame. Remember how we skipped the clouds? That’s because the lyrics immediately tell you exactly who they are! “Betrayed by family!” While the lyric is clearly still speaking of the “Daughter of the Sea” betraying her father, the juxtaposition shows that at this moment, Jaina is facing the perceived judgement of her family, her people, the ones she betrayed by standing aside. Third, immediately after this we get the line “To his nation, with his last breath cried, Beware the Daughter of the Sea” right as Jaina’s eyes open and we see her use magic to raise her father’s ship from the sea. She’s not in shame anymore at this point, as we’ve already discussed; it’s something else now. While the lyric at the end of the short and her position on her father’s ship cement her complete acceptance of her title, you don’t really need those because of this moment right here. She already has accepted it, and raising her father’s ship from beneath the waves while her title rings out in the lyrics makes sure you know it before they make it even more obvious.

The only thing left that I haven’t really talked about is what prevents the “shame, judgement, atonement arc” from conflicting with the “Beware, beware the Daughter of the Sea. Beware, beware... of me“ line at the end. This is cleared up with the only spoken line in the whole short: “I’m listening now. Father.” In the past, she stood aside and let her father be killed; she’s listening now though, which implies she would not stand aside now. His enemies that she stood aside for are now her enemies. The final lines are not sung to caution her people, like the song itself is. They are sung to caution the “savage foes” that killed her father.

It’s beautiful, it’s concise, it’s well-timed, it’s got symbolism everywhere, and I note again that this didn’t require any in-game knowledge. Obviously there is more stuff that what I’ve written (hello, clear River of the Dead imagery), but this is what stuck out to me when I watched it. I just wanted to write this all out somewhere, so if you did decide to read this, thanks, and I hope the reading and the short itself resonates with you as it did with me!

Oh, and while I’m here, I should probably give at least a tiny bit of context:

Jaina had forged a peace with the orcs before her father arrived to “save his daughter’s life” and immediately started killing the orcs (for reasons that are understandable, though bad) without allowing Jaina to explain that peace was an option. To try and get that peace back, she helped a small force of orcs get to her father and they killed him. Thereafter, she was the primary force for peace between the two major powers of the world, the Horde (led by the orcs) and the Alliance (led by the humans). Eventually, the Horde got new leadership which was a bit more warmonger-y than the leader she had forged peace with, and so the Alliance got a bit more warmonger-y as well, stationing troops and military equipment in her city, which led to the Horde leader developing and deploying a weapon of total destruction on the city (the city was left a crater). Those wiped out included her lover and her apprentice, and the leader she had forged peace with had consistently ignored her pleas to restrain or remove the other leader from power prior to the bomb being deployed. From that point forward, she became increasingly anti-Horde, to the point where (as you see in the video) she understood her father’s decision to immediately kill the “savage foes.”