Is Deathwing Wrathion's Father or Grandfather?! [Warcraft Lore]

One of those questions I get asked a lot. Is Deathwing Wrathion's father or grandfather? The answer is...neither! Lets talk about it. I hope you'll enjoy ^_^

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#Worldofwarcraft #Lore #Story #WoW

[WenderPottery]

I forgot wrathion is a bunch of kid corpses we shoved into an egg and shocked to life with titan magic

[elweese]

I love the way he's so nonchalantly says "and Farad, break his legs".

[SeathThePawn]

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)

[BloodhawkAHS]

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.

[jeffreyarnold]

he is basically a lab created entity. i've always thought despite where his egg originated, riastraza is his parent/creator.

[Lupinemancer]

I mean was this ever really a question?
Wrathion's mom, Nyxondra, was a daugther of Neltharion, making him Wrathion's grandfather.

[SuperGamefreak]

seeing how the player had a hand in making wraithon's egg in a sense the champion of azeroth IS Wraithion's parent

[draevian]

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.

[wesmcinerny]

From what I've heard, Deathwing is Wrathion's maternal grandfather.

[TuberoseKisser]

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.

[Xerocoo]

That sweet home Alabama moment .... I died

[elegantlolii]

I think since wrathion probably has no idea who his true father is, he just sees death wing as a father.

[Sara-itse]

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.

[Mahons]

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.

[therethan-family]

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.

[Joshua.M.S.]

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.

[steffen]

that skynyrd insert got me. i was not expecting it

[StormsparkPegasus]

Also, keep in mind that Wrathion is composed of parts of several different eggs the Titan device had to use.

[watergirl]

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.

[LoneIrbis]

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.