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The Future of the Dwarves - "The Lilac and the Stone" Short Story Analysis
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The Lilac and the Stone
is a short story from the upcoming anthology book,
The Voices Within
. In this story by Catherynne Valente, we examine Moira Thaurissan's fraught past, and see how informs the future of her kingdom as well as her son.
Moira's Past
I am Moira Thaurissan, daughter of Magni Bronzebeard and his bride Eimear, princess of Ironforge, widow to the Dark Iron Emperor, mother to his heir Dagran II, and I have been angry since I was old enough to walk the path set before me.
Sometimes, I think my anger will outlive me. That they will close up the earth over my body, and long after I am forgotten, some brutal, black hardened jewel left from my rot will work its way up out of the moss, hissing and spitting and still scalding hot. Maybe they will use it to warm a village somewhere. An eternity of cozy hearths and ready stews fueled by this bitter fury I carried but could never fully satisfy.
I like the idea of that.
One of the core focuses of this short story is the examination of Moira's past tribulations. The Queen of the Dark Iron sits in a rather happy place in the current story as one of The War Within's upcoming protagonists, but that wasn't always the case. In expansions past, she's played a more antagonistic role in the story of Ironforge, and the path towards that position during Cataclysm is a tragic one.
Born as the first and only heir to King Magni Bronzebeard, Moira Bronzebeard's relationship with her father has been a tense one from the day she was born. In a society like Ironforge, centered around the exploits of men, Magni's hopes for a male heir left him disappointed in Moira's status as a woman. While he loved her despite this, their relationship hardened after the death of his wife and Moira's mother, Queen Eimear, at the hands of Khaz Modan's native Frostmane trolls. In her dying breath, Eimear wished for Magni to promise that no matter how hard it got, he would always be there for Moira.
Despite his wife's dying words, the loss he suffered and the one he feared he would suffer due to Moira's perceived weakness led him to train her not as a ruler, but as a warrior. In his eyes, he was training her to be equal to the men against which she would battle while seated on the throne of Ironforge, but for Moira, a resentment festered within her as her father forced her into something she was not meant to be.
It was this resentment against her father that eventually led her into the arms of her kingdom's greatest enemy: those of Emperor Dagran Thaurissan, leader of the Dark Iron clan. From an outside view, Thaurissan was a merciless ruler of his people, descended from a long line of tyrants that dated back to the War of the Three Hammers that split the once-unified dwarven kingdoms into three. It was this kind of tyrant that Magni feared his daughter lost to when she was kidnapped by him during the early days of World of Warcraft, and it was this tyrant that the player characters were ultimately sent to slay to win Moira her freedom from his clutches in Shadowforge City, the Dark Iron capitol nestled in the depths of Blackrock Mountain.
To Moira, however, Dagran Thaurissan was not a tyrant. In her eyes, Thaurissan was seeking to free his people from the grip of Ragnaros, the elemental lord to which his ancestor had enthralled his people in ages past. Though his actions looked cruel from the outside, Moira believed that her captor's actions were in the name of liberation, a liberation that he ultimately shared with Moira after falling in love with her. Eventually, the two were married, with Moira Bronzebeard becoming Moira Thaurissan.
It was in those days of love that Moira and Dagran spent their time in Quenchvessel Hall, a retreat within Shadowforge City where Moira was showered with gifts of admiration by her husband. One such gift was the gift of light; Quenchvessel Hall was buried within a volcano, and as such harbored no natural light. But for a wife who wished for a reminder of her homeland, Thaurissan devised a strip of the mountain ripped out to allow a single beam of moonlight to pour down into the cavern, and illuminate the woman he loved.
Moira during her days in Shadowforge City, from Hearthstone.
Unfortunately for Moira, those days of love would be short lived. In the end, Emperor Thaurissan's life was taken by the players, but not before he and Moira had managed to conceive a child; a child now left without a father. This loss for herself and her son-to-be lit anew the resentment and rage she felt towards her father, and lit a fire under her desires for freedom in turn.
While her father wrote off her despair as simply being mind controlled by the Sorcerer who abducted her, Moira chose to stay in Shadowforge City and lead her husband's people. It was her that spread rumors of Ragnaros' lair to heroes far and wide, and lured them with promise of treasure hidden within the Molten Core to orchestrate the death of the Firelord and liberation for the Dark Iron. For her actions, most of the Dark Iron pledged themselves to Moira's cause, and stood behind her as their new Queen.
Ironforge's Present
Despite winning liberation for her newfound people and a throne of her own, Moira would not return to her homeland until the events surrounding the Cataclysm. Amidst the growing instability of the planet, Magni had chosen to enact an ancient ritual to commune with the earth deep below Ironforge, and in the process, he petrified himself in solid diamond. Though he would later awaken as the planet's Speaker during Legion, the absence of a king on the throne led to turmoil at the time, a turmoil that Moira took advantage of.
Having heard of Magni's petrification, Moira chose to finally return to Ironforge with her newborn son, Dagran Thaurissan II, and declare herself Queen. Her resentment for the kingdom she was now ruling led her to lead with the same strokes of tyranny that her late husband was accused of. She locked off the city and took its people captive, including the then-Prince Anduin Wrynn, who despite his captivity managed to learn the root cause of her resentment and ill deeds.
His empathy managed to be a boon for Moira, as when Anduin's father King Varian Wrynn ultimately stormed the city with the intent to execute Moira, it was Anduin that stayed his hand, convincing his father that the future of the dwarves lay not with more bloodshed, but in an investment towards their future. Varian instead chose to form a council comprising leaders of all three dwarven clans, who promised to rule in stead of the kingdom's future heir, Moira's son Dagran.
Moira alongside her fellow council members in the art for Council of Three Hammers: Fire and Iron.
It was from that day that the Council of Three Hammers came to lead the dwarves, with Moira's uncle Muradin Bronzebeard acting as representative for her former clan, the High Thane Falstad representing the Wildhammer clan, and Moira herself acting as representative and Queen-Regent of the Dark Iron.
Though Moira continued to scheme for the supremacy of her clan in the years following their founding, she would ultimately see the value of unity between their clans during Mists of Pandaria. Where Falstad and Muradin were too distrustful to leave their kingdom unguarded to face a Frostmane troll threat at King Varian's behest, Moira ultimately chose to trust in the other two clans and offer her forces to Varian's command to prove her loyalty.
Rather than using the opportunity to shame her fellow dwarven rulers and gain more clout for her own clan, she used to teach them a lesson and rally the clans together. It was from that day that Moira began to rule in Ironforge not with a desire to usurp the other clans, but to hold them together while she raised her son to rule. One day, Dagran would not only be King of Ironforge, nor only Emperor of the Dark Iron clan, he would rule all three clans, and that burden he was born to carry was one that instilled fear in Moira.
Moira and Varian standing victorious over the Frostmane and their Zandalari allies.
Dagran's Future
In a twist of fate, Dagran Thaurissan II was rather the opposite of his mother. Where Moira was hardened and filled with rage befitting a dwarf, Dagran was kind and curious from the day he was born. Where Moira was trained from childhood to know the ways of violence and war, Dagran was trained in wisdom and knowledge. And where Moira was born a woman, always a step behind the inheritance she was expected to earn, Dagran was born a man, and given all the expectations of a typical dwarven ruler.
Dagran and Moira on the cover art for The Lilac and the Stone.
In
The Lilac and the Stone
, those contrasting qualities are put to the test for Dagran, as he is presented with a challenge by the men of his court. A recent expedition to the Badlands uncovered a relic of ages past: a dwarven shield, splattered with centuries-old dried blood, and bearing marks that could easily be attributed to any of the three major clans. In their squabble over ownership of the artifact, the opportunity was taken to test Dagran's worth as a leader, to see how he would settle the conflict between the clans.
When the representatives of each clan meet in their dining hall, Moira is faced with all her usual tribulations. She is underestimated by the men around her, and the son the clans have come to challenge is sat not at his seat, but sequestered away in Quenchvessel Hall's library. His absence serves to feed her fears that her son will not be able to muster the brute force necessary to corral the clan leaders, and as such she seems plenty willing to let Dagran seal himself away safe with his books.
It takes the prodding of her uncle Muradin to convince her that she needs to let him show his capacity for leadership, and that prodding convinces her to approach her son to inform him of the coming trial he will face. When she finds Dagran, he is not simply shirking his duties, however. Instead she finds him deep within his own work, with tomes and drawings scattered about as he works on uncovering the mystery of the excavated shield.
While Dagran enthusiastically explains his findings to his mother, his response to the news of his coming test is one of fear. He knows that he has lived a sheltered life, and in many ways he wishes he could continue to live it, with his mother ruling in his stead. Dagran does not wish to be a ruler like his grandfather Magni, nor a ruler like his own mother. He had read that Moira was a cruel leader, and he had no desire to live his life as such.
“No one gets what they want,” I snapped. “Only the scraps from fate’s table. Now, you’ve got to decide, and I cannot do it for you. The easy way or the hard way. Continue as one of three squabbling clans in the council or seize the throne of both your bloodlines and break it. But if you take the latter, you may pay for it in blood.”
Dagran frowned. He never showed anger on his face. Most thought he had none of it in him, but I knew. His frown is another man’s shriek.
“And how am I to rule? Am I to be like Gran’da?” He turned the page of a tome. “My books say he is the reason Father was slain. Or am I to be like you?” He gestured at an open book. “This says you were cruel. And hasty. And merciless. Is that what you want me to be?”
Moira could not better explain the role she felt her son would be forced to play. In her eyes, his time as a tome-smitten student was over, and his time as a decisive ruler had come. Dagran vehemently disagreed. In his eyes, "the time for learning is
never
over."
What Moira finds the next morning is a man ready to lead, but in none of the ways she expected. In place of the hall's steward, Dagran himself has set the table for his guests, food and all. Once the clan leaders are settled, he starts by calling them all fools, not in anger but in honesty. He implores his guests to look at the shield beyond the right they believed they had over it, and instead at the mystery that lay atop it.
Dagran then explains that the intricacy of the shield, in all its jewels and symbols and markings that could fit either clan, prove it to be a shield built for ceremony, not for war. The shield bears the marks befitting multiple clans because it was built with the symbols of all of them in tandem, unified under a queen's crown and a builder's hammer made for crafting, not for combat. The runes set upon it spelled out a message, and a spell - "We are all fools. But fools no further." The blood acted as catalyst for the message, splattered across the clan's symbols to show the price of their dissonance.
The shield acted as a warning for the very squabbling that the clans were now facing. Even over something as minor as a single ancient weapon, the clans would throw themselves at each other for supremacy rather than determine the truth together, and Dagran would have no part in that.
“Will you be fools, then?” Dagran said in a voice I did not even know he possessed. He brought his fist down on the shield with such might it cracked beneath his strength. “Or will you be brothers? If it is the latter, I welcome you. If it is the former, I have no time for your games when there is so much to build.”
“Stand in my way or do not,” he continued. “It makes no difference to me. Blood speaks true. Those are our ancestors. Our fathers, our mothers, the actual people who lived and died only to become memories, symbols, the seals on your cups and the food on your plate. They spent untold fortunes to craft a message that would last beyond eras, only to tell their foolish sons that they are family. If you wish to disrespect their honor, leave this hall and let it be your own affair. I will not. I will stay. I will work. I will build. With whoever is strong enough to hold a real hammer.”
Dagran tossed the excavation tools on the broken shield and strode out of the room.
The squabble over the shield was emblematic of the flaws of the dwarves, laid bare for all to see. Rather than look to their future, they spent their time squabbling over wars past, making new wars in the name of age-old grievances and traditions they uphold in the name of tradition itself. For Dagran, however, history was not justification for war. To him, history was a lesson.
Moira had feared that her delicate flower would be crushed among the rocks that were the expectations placed on him by the clans. For a sensitive, quiet person like Dagran, she worried that the sheltered childhood she gave him would prove a weakness to be exploited. Instead, it proves to be Dagran's greatest strength, one that allows him to look beyond the puffed-out posturing of his typical dwarven brethren and see things for what they truly are.
In some ways though, that proves to be further fuel for Moira's turmoil. Her son's strength was in allowing his delicate nature to show to others, a luxury she was never afforded as a woman attempting to wrangle a throne built for men. His was a strength she never had - one she was never allowed to have. In the final moments of this story, we see that, after all her years aspiring to be the son Magni wished her to be, she finally became like her father. Rather than the child, she was now the parent, watching her son grasp towards a future that she would never be able to revel in.
I was wrong about him. We all were, only they have yet to discover it. He was always my flower, my lilac growing in the most difficult way—but maybe we all are. Flowers beneath the stone. Maybe we all tangle inside. Maybe we scream and charge and stomp and frown because we know if the armor over our true hearts slips even once, this world will eat our petals whole. After all, the lilac is no less of the earth and earthen than we, no less than the petrified rock on which it must grow. But only Dagran ever stood bare before horrors and told them all he was both at once and would rule them anyway.
He is stronger than any of us who lived. Even me. I was never strong enough to stay soft.
And as I watch him turn back to a room he would own forever the moment he entered, a room not one single lord had dared to leave, I became my father at last. Hard as a diamond, barely able to move for the weight of my own history, watching the future slip in between the cracks before anyone realized it was already here.
As we move into The War Within, both Moira and Dagran take center stage as two of its main protagonists while we interact with the newly discovered Earthen of Khaz Algar. The upcoming expansion may take them away from their kingdom and into an undiscovered land free from their politics, but the lessons they have learned will likely prove a boon to our new allies and the similar strife they face.
With Magni joining us as well, perhaps our journey into Azeroth's depths will offer lessons of their own to the dwarven rulers in turn. While this story serves to dutifully codify Moira's longstanding inner turmoil, it is only the first step in what promises to be an intriguing future for Dagran Thaurissan II, the lilac amidst the stone.
Read the short story
The Lilac and the Stone
here.
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