World of Warcraft’s latest storyline is one of its most lore-heavy quests to date, and the revelations included within have left players scratching their heads trying to make sense of what all it means for Azeroth’s ancient history.
Spoilers for patch WoW 12.07 below!
A story prologue introduced in patch 12.07 meant to lead into the game’s major 12.1 content patch sees the haranir, the vaguely troll and elvish-looking playable allied race introduced in Midnight, invite the leaders of all the various troll and elf factions to their home to inform them about an important revelation–they are all related! According to a vision presented by haranir leader Elder Hagar, trolls and elves are directly descended from the haranir, thus making them all one big happy family who should get along.
Needless to say, the elves and trolls, who have a long bloody history in opposition to one another, don’t exactly see things that way. Many of the faction leaders have a hard time accepting the haranir’s lore dump. One of the Amani leaders, Zul’jan, storms away, looking to disprove the haranir’s claims and in the process stumbles upon an ancient evil he will seek to use to restore the Amani trolls to power in patch 12.1.
The “news” that trolls and elves are related doesn’t exactly feel like news at all to many in the WoW community. In-game hints and theories about the elves having descended from trolls go back nearly two decades, to WoW’s earliest days. These subtle hints were later confirmed in things like (as Wowhead points out) the official World of Warcraft: The Magazine and the World of Warcraft: Chronicle books, the latter of which serves as a comprehensive history of Blizzard’s Warcraft setting. According to those sources, it was a splinter group of underground dwelling trolls called the dark trolls who would eventually evolve into the night elves players know today.
The fact that the trolls and elves are blindsided by the news that they are ancient relatives is a little odd, since it doesn’t exactly seem like an in-universe secret. While some characters, like Zul’jan, may not be up-to-date on their studies, highly-educated characters who have lived for hundreds of years like First Arcanist Thalyssra, Vereesa Windrunner, Lor’themar, and Queen Talanji (who notes that Zandalar is home to the oldest library in Azeroth) also seemed shocked and confused by the very concept of being related to one another.
What is really throwing players for a loop is how exactly the haranir fit into all this. When the haranir were first revealed, many players assumed based on their appearance that they were a “missing link” of sorts between troll and night elf evolution. Elder Hagar’s vision, however, goes against that assumption, clearly stating and showing the haranir existing first before splintering off into two groups–one that lived underground and one that lived on the surface. These two groups then, over time, are shown to have evolved to become night elves and trolls respectively. She goes as far to call elves, trolls, and haranir “one people.”
This does make sense, but also seems to contradict previously established lore of elves descending from trolls. Instead, both races appear to have evolved from two different groups of haranir. It also doesn’t address the question of the dark trolls. Are the haranir actually dark trolls by a different name? Did the haranir evolve from dark trolls, or are dark trolls a step in between the evolution of haranir into night elves?
WoW content creators like Nobbel and Taliesin & Evitel have attempted to unravel the genealogy mystery, but so far Blizzard isn’t giving curious fans a definitive answer as to where the haranir or previously established lore of the dark trolls fit in.
Senior WoW quest designer Kieth Riley did, however, offer some additional context via X about Elder Hagar’s vision. He stated the vision is from the haranir’s point-of-view and one they believe to be true, but that it doesn’t necessarily represent Blizzard’s official stance on the matter.
“It is NOT ‘Blizzard’s presentation on the absolute truth of haranir/elf/troll genealogy’ (though I’m sure some of you would enjoy a BlizzCon panel titled as such),” Riley said.
Riley said while the visions “don’t lie,” they also may be missing some information or be inaccurate.
“There’s no incontrovertible proof either way so it’s up to debate,” Riley said.
For now, the actual truth of troll, elf, and haranir ancestry will remain up for debate until Blizzard clarifies for all the lorehounds out there. WoW: Midnight’s next patch, 12.1, may offen more clues but doesn’t not have a release date just yet. It’s expected to arrive in mid-August and will introduce a new troll-focused zone and raid to the MMORPG.
