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The Ascension of Ansurek - 'Threads of Destiny' Cinematic Analysis
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Blizzard has released the first animated short for The War Within, titled Threads of Destiny. Here we break down the cinematic and what it means for the upcoming expansion.
Who Are the Nerubians?
The cinematic is narrated by Ansurek herself, beginning with an overview of their kingdom, Azj-Kahet. While her tale starts with recent events, the tale of the Nerubians begins long before the modern timeline.
Before they were Nerubians, the insectoid races of Azeroth existed as one people - the Aqir. Their species was molded into being by the Old Gods during the days when they ruled over Azeroth in the Black Empire, alongside the n'raqi (more commonly known as Faceless Ones). During that time, the aqir and n'raqi existed as slaves for the Old Gods and their underlings the C'thraxxi, forced into worship and servitude alike as they built the terrifying empire that their eldritch deities reveled in.
Aqir slaves constructing the Black Empire under the gaze of the C'thraxxi and their master, C'thun.
When the Titans and their Keepers descended upon Azeroth, however, the Black Empire was swiftly dismantled, and the servants of the Old Gods fled underground to escape destruction. While the Titans ordered the planet above, the aqir remained in hiding for thousands of years in the earth below. It wasn't until one of the C'thraxxi, a creature named Kith'ix, was approached in his slumbering form by the troll Zan'do that they would awaken once more.
Manipulated by the dagger known as Xal'atath, Zan'do believed Kith'ix to be a loa of immense power, and awoke the C'thrax from his sleep. While this act ended in Zan'do's demise, it inadvertently triggered a war between his people and the servants of the Old Gods. Once awakened, Kith'ix rallied the scattered aqir from their subterranean holdings and guided them into a war with the trolls of Azeroth. Faced with a threat that would bring ruin to the world, the troll tribes united into the Empire of Zul, and after many hard fought battles across centuries of war, they triumphed over Kith'ix, sending the aqir scattering to the winds once more.
The Qiraji and Mantid in their modern forms, seen in Ahn'Qiraj and Pandaria respectively.
It was then that the unified aqir split into three distinct groups - the Qiraji, the Mantid, and the Nerubians. The qiraji arose from aqir who coalesced in the western reaches of Kalimdor, warped by the energies of the Old God C'thun and hibernating beneath the depths of the titanforged facility of Ahn'Qiraj. The mantid, meanwhile, were drawn to the south by the whispers of the Old God Y'shaarj, and unlike their qiraji brethren, they engaged in open warfare against the inhabitants of what would later become known as Pandaria. What is most notable about these two races is that despite their losses and fracturing, they remain loyal to the Old Gods, and have awoken time and again in attempts to see their masters returned to their former glory.
The Nerubians, however, did not share the same loyalty to the Gods that once enslaved them. Rather than submit to Yogg-Saron, the Old God whose energies transformed them from aqir into the forms they have today, the Nerubians chose to reject their masters, breaking free from their control and burying the faceless ones beneath their holdings in the continent of Northrend.
Queen Neferess
From there the Nerubians forged their societies, splitting into two sister kingdoms; Azjol-Nerub in the north, and Azj-Kahet in the south. In the north, they would eventually come under the leadership of King Anub'arak, who would lead them against the Scourge in what was known as the War of the Spider. Desperate for aid, he sent word of his perils to his sister kingdom and its ruler, Queen Neferess.
Rather than answer his call, however, Neferess chose to collapse the underground tunnels that connected the two kingdoms, dooming Anub'arak's people to death and servitude, but saving her own from any threats that might come crawling down from the north.
It is that same pragmatic preservation of her kingdom that we see in the opening scene of this cinematic, with Neferess refusing the call of N'zoth during his bout for world domination during Battle for Azeroth. Just as they had in ages past, the Nerubian queen refused to serve their former masters, choosing instead to preserve her people just as they were -- an act that would ultimately spell doom for the queen.
While servitude to N'zoth would certainly have resulted in a much swifter ruination of her kingdom, her people seem to be suffering a slower death at the hands of stagnation in the modern day. As Ansurek says, Neferess sacrificed the allure of power to preserve her people as they were, and the image of the past that she revered now led to starvation and loss within her waning kingdom.
Despite the protests of her daughter, Neferess remains adamant in her path -- even as she is approached by Xal'atath, the very Harbinger of the Empire that once was, and offered a return to the power they once held. Neferess is shown visions of the power that lay beneath her feet -- the blood of the now-dead Old Gods, able to transform her people and grant Neferess an infinite reign. We see images of Nerubians not as we know them, insectoid creatures with spider-like bodies and numerous limbs, but standing upright like humanoids. They are powerful, ascendant -- and bereft of what makes the Nerubians unique as a people.
In her words, "Greatness is fleeting. What we must do now is endure." Neferess sees the folly in Xal'atath's offer -- like with N'zoth, the allure of power was tempting, but the threat of losing her people was too great to accept the bargain... at least, for Neferess.
Ansurek's Ascension
For the Queen's daughter, her views on their kingdom are much different. In her youth, it seems like Ansurek has a much smaller scope of her people's history compared to her mother. In her eyes, the rejection of power led to suffering for Azj-Kahet, and it is her mother that bears the blame. Neferess rejects the offers of power, despite its capability of delivering her people from their squalor and into greater glory.
Neferess believed Xal'atath to be a ghost that only she saw, and the temptation of her whispers to be burden of leadership she alone bore. What she didn't realize is that the Harbinger's schemes were far craftier than whispers to a single ruler. Xal'atath is well known as a master manipulator, having orchestrated the very war that bore the Nerubian people into existence, and numerous conflicts since then even while trapped in the form of a dagger. Nowadays, however, she is freed from her prison, and is taking ample advantage of the more direct manipulation a humanoid form offers her.
We see that advantage put to use in her manipulation of both Nerubian leaders here. It seems much easier to accept the visions of a voice whose form matches her prophetic promises of destiny, and those whispers worked amply upon Neferess' daughter. To Ansurek, Neferess' ideals were chains that bound their kingdom to the past, and the bargain that Xal'atath offers allows Azj-Kahet to be "unbound", as she says, free to conquer and claim the destiny promised to her.
In truth, of course, Xal'atath's bargain only chains them to a new master. Rather than being bound by the past as she believed her mother was, Ansurek is bound by the future, enslaving her people to the will of the void for the sake of
potential
glory. That difference in their bindings is shown not only in their words or even their deeds, but in their forms as well.
Assimilation: The Price of Ascension
The Nerubians hold a rather iconic set of forms across Warcraft, first showing up in Warcraft 3 as Scourge units with distinct spider-taur bodies. In a world filled with bipedal humanoids, the Nerubians stood out as an intelligent race with uniquely inhuman bodies alongside their many-eyed faces that lacked explicitly human characteristics.
Likewise, the culture of the Nerubians draws significant inspiration from real life Egyptian and African culture, not only in their architecture with their obelisks and necropoli, but in their physical forms as well. We can see on both Ansurek and Neferess the headpieces inspired by Egyptian pharaohs, and the tendrils sprouting from their head mimicking locs of hair.
That distinction is made much less clear on the 'Ascended' Nerubians we see here. Instead of spider-taur bodies, the armies gifted to Ansurek are bipedal, sporting the same silhouette as a humanoid save for their two sets of arms. Likewise, their many-eyed, spider-like faces are replaced with distinctly personable ones, sporting two eyes along with a clear mouth and nose.
This change is evident even in Ansurek herself, who may continue to sport their spider-taur body, but has lost many defining aspects of her culture amidst her Ascension. Compared to her face prior, she now presents with a distinctly human visage, and where she once sported locs that mirrored the Nerubian's real life cultural inspirations, her head now lays bare save the crown atop her head.
It is clear that while Xal'atath's ascension via the blood of the Old Gods offers great power, it also comes with a heavy price. The chance to become conquerors seemingly requires assimilation as well, with the unique aspects of their culture being stripped away into a uniformly humanoid shape.
In the leveling campaign of Azj-Kahet itself, players will discover the importance of Nerubian pheremones to their culture, a method by which their people find kinship and association -- and a capability that the Ascended lack entirely. More than just visually, the Ascended lack the material connection to their culture as they give in to the powers of the void, and the loss of what makes them unique will lead Azj-Kahet to ruin far more than the stagnation they suffered under Neferess.
Ansurek's dark bargain with Xal'atath has certainly borne fruit, but it remains to be seen just how willingly the Queen's people will accept such a drastic change. During our adventures in Khaz Algar, it would be wise to keep an eye out for the motivations of the Nerubians we are fighting against, and an even sharper eye for those who may resist Ansurek's call to Ascension.
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