The Lore of PoldaranFollow

Some of you may have noticed that my characters often reference stuff from the real world, usually philosophy or fiction. In the latest chapter, a couple characters quote Nietsche(sp?), for instance, but handwave it as being "some philosopher from the Strom Era". I like making references to older works, as well as to some newer stuff. To that end, it's my belief that anything from the real world that can possibly be handwaved as being a fictional work in Azeroth is basically such.

In my vision of Azeroth, Dalaran alone has a thriving literature industry, meaning it would not be out of place for one of my characters to be reading a book on King Arthur or some Shakespearean(sp?) plays. The game itself supports me in some of these since Romeo and Juliet is a play in Karazhan, as is Wizard of Oz. As such, I'm taking this to its logical next step and asserting that just about anything is fair game as a reference.

There are some exceptions. Modern history for the most part I feel wouldn't flow properly. Talk of people like Einstein, Hitler, Gandhi, etc wouldn't flow right in my mind.

There are exceptions to this, but only in a certain way. In order to make some of Poldaran's references flow more naturally, I'm of the mind that manga is a popular style of literature in the world of Azeroth right now. It happened not unlike the whole Cthulu Mythos in which one or two guys got the ball rolling(in this case by writing about a "fictional world" which would become a setting for later works) and others built on it. To the point that Japanese is a language in Azeroth in much the same way that Elvish(Tolkien) or Klingon are languages here IRL. So with limited exception, just about anything in that style is acceptable as being literature the characters might have read. For instance, during chapter 7, when Poldaran says:

Spoiler"Oh pitiful shadow lost in darkness, Bringing torment and pain to others. Oh poor damned soul, wallowing in your sin..."Perhaps... it is time to die."

This isn't just a case of me referencing a work. This is a case of Poldaran directly quoting a work she has read.

Mostly, this is just my lazy way of allowing me to slip up and reference something from RL without having to go back and edit it. In a very real way, a wizardprinting press did it.

I started thinking about this when Shador brought up the etymology of a specific word we use in the English language that would have no meaning in Azeroth. Here's what I'm talking about:



My response:


I took it to a nearly obsessive further step, and here we are.