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Paratypal Connections with the Krokul and Argus
I believe the mutant krokul draenei to be a paratype of mine because of the many thematic similarities with the Nerazim protoss, or dark templar. My mind also seems to connect the draenei home world of Argus to Aiur. I feel connected to Argus because of its similarity to Aiur, making it a para hearth home. Even their crystalline technology and the shapes of their buildings have a very similar design to protoss structures.
Another interesting coincidence is that the name 'Draenei' directly translates to "Exiled Ones," while the word Nerazim in the protoss language roughly translates to "The Exiled." This theme surrounding exile might have been another reason that I related to them so much as someone with a Nerazim background. This was also before I knew where those feelings came from. It would have been another 10 years before I discovered the primary identity.
(Note: None of them were mutated krokul at the point of this escape from Argus, and not all draenei are krokul. As much as I like normal draenei, I don't relate to them as heavily as I do with the krokul.)
I've already mentioned some of these themes and what it means to be a dark templar in this essay, so it may help to read that first in order to get a better idea of what I'm talking about, especially if you're unfamiliar with Starcraft lore. I have no noemata about the krokul or Argus other than a few head canons I came up with for creative reasons. So all that I know is by what's shown and implied in game. These feelings are also explored through the role play of my krokul characters.
When it comes to the appearance of the krokul, they are somewhat similar of the way protoss look, with the narrow face, hair-like 'tendrils', and a lack of a nose, (but the krokul still had nostrils and mouths, so it's not an exact appearance). So when I see them, I think of them as long lost cousins in an almost otherhearted way. I almost feel like a krokul, and find them very relatable. And although I get zero noemata about them, I do sometimes get a cameo shift of their three back tendrils after roleplaying as one. This feels similar to a tail but it's higher up on the center of my back, which is neat.
Before I go into further detail about my connection with the krokul draenei and the planet Argus, I should start from the beginning, starting from 2007. When I first learned about the draenei back back during the Burning Crusade World of Warcraft expansion, I've always remember feeling a deep empathy for them and a great appreciation for their leader, Velen. The whole story of being forced off of their home world, chased by demons for thousands of years, and facing genocide multiple times stuck out to me. If you know anything about protoss, it's that they mirror this story almost exactly like this. And this is no coincidence, as both games were made by the same company. The draenei would be the traditional protoss, while the krokul draenei mirror the dark templar. And then just swap demons for the zerg, and Argus for Aiur. Although we wouldn't be chased off for thousands upon thousands of years.
Soon after, I read the short story Unbroken, which was about a former paladin turned shaman named Nobundo. He became mutated by demonic magic during a huge battle on the planet of Draenor, after the demons found the draenei again. It's through this demonic magic that they turned into krokul, without them actually becoming demons or turning 'evil'. The artwork of the short story just stuck out to me, for reasons I couldn't really verbalize at the time.
In it, he's staring into a pool of water, looking at the person he once was in the reflection. I also was just never content with being a human and had constant dysphoria all of my life, gender dysphoria included. My 12 year old self at the time couldn't really figure out why they felt like this. But now I know that seeing him staring at the reflection of his former self was a nod to my own unconscious feelings and experiences at the time. I think that I was unconsciously trying to remember all that I personally lost and changed by coming here, with who I truly am only seen through reflections of my mind.
His past was taken from him, forcefully. The crystalline mace you see in his reflection? He lacked the physical strength to carry it any more and it was eventually taken from him as well because the other, non-mutated draenei found him unworthy because of his inability to use Light magic. But this was through no fault of his own. Being mutated into a krokul cut them off from accessing the Light. And this sort of cutting off from holiness was always something that deeply resonated with me. I always felt unholy because of my dark templar upbringing and the way I was perceived by the mainstream khalai protoss. It was internalized and it bled over into this life.
The picture in question. I thought about this piece of artworks many, many times over the decades.
I also did hear about the protoss around the 2007 to 2010 era. I took one look at them and went, "they look like draenei. I should read more about them," and I eventually did, with the rest being history.
Fast forward to 2017, the draenei make it back to Argus to destroy the Burning Legion for good, which had since become the Legion's capital world. Going to Argus for the first time in game made me feel so many different things. The patch was released close to the same time I discovered about being a protoss. So I was already feeling a little sensitive from all of the emotions at the time, and my feelings still needed time to be processed. Taking my character to Argus, landing and seeing so many hurt and dying people the moment they landed really solidified the experience for me. Particularly, there were two npcs by the landing zone the moment you land there. One was dead, and the other was mourning them in their arms, saying that they went through such great lengths, only to see them die the second they landed. For one reason or another, this hit me, hard. I can't think of another time in-game when something so simple impacted me like this.
Along with the sound track, I felt extreme sadness and melancholy because of this connection I had with the draenei and Argus due to my direct experiences with missing certain planets, (a combination of my yearning for Shakuras and Aiur). The sadness I felt for the draenei was indistinguishable from the sadness I felt when I look into protoss lore and protoss tragedy. I wasn't born on Aiur, but after losing everything on Shakuras, I eventually went to Aiur, with the chance that I may die trying to retake it. I survived. But I lost a lot of people, then and over the next few centuries after the game 'ends'. I never got hit with such a profound sense of loss and melancholy as I do when visiting Argus and seeing all of the destruction. The feelings I get for Argus are comparable to the ones that I feel for Aiur and Shakuras because I am reminded of them. These are feelings that I don't think I'd have if I wasn't a protoss, making this a para hearth home. I also head canon that the water on Argus had a purplish tint to it, and I think this comes from my memories of Shakuras, again.
To this day, I get these same feelings whenever I take my character to Argus. It brings me to that moment of sorrow. I also want to emphasize that I've played since 2007, and the planet of Azeroth, (where 80% of everything takes place), doesn't even come close to these feelings as Argus does. There are even some places on Azeroth that remind me of my childhood because of the amount of time I spent there while playing the game. But it's not felt in an alterhuman way.
With Starcraft game play, you don't really get the benefit of seeing things in the first person, since the maps exist on a flat plane that you can edit and add things onto, while the camera takes on an overhead view. So you never really get the sense of being there in person, outside of cut scenes. In World of Warcraft, you see things in the first or second person, depending on how zoomed into your character you are. While first landing on Argus, I got hit with the high resolution graphics all at once, something I was unprepared for (this pun is accidental, sorry).
A couple of minutes later into Argus, we find a krokul asking for help and we eventually go into their hovel. (Note: that the krokul you saw up to this point in game were all from Draenor.) And it turns out that some of the draenei who didn't escape from Argus survived and became mutated there as well. They've fought for survival for thousands of years and had to rely on stealth to survive.
Upon entering the hovel, the stealthed krokul surround your character before promptly uncloaking. And these guys are a lot like the dark templar. They even have some of the same lines as dark templar do. In one of the quests, you are tasked with taking down a large demon with the help of a multiple krokul, some of them saying, "from the shadows, we strike," when you summon them, a direct echo of the "from the shadows, I come" line when summoning in a dark templar in game. You also meet the dark templar in a similar manner back in Starcraft 1. The moment you make a base on Shakuras, they surround you before introducing themselves. So I can't help but make these comparisons.
Although, it would be many years until I would actually role play a krokul shaman, I eventually started to around 2022. What really prevented me from role playing as one for so long was because there are no krokul customizations in game, and there still aren't. They were formerly a Light user and had to deal with forcibly being cut off from the Light and the ongoing body horror of becoming mutated. Even back then in 2007, the disconnection and the 'corruption' into something others view as evil without it actually being evil always resonated with me. I can make a direct line between this and the disconnection with the Khala and connecting with the Void. Even though the Void in WoW is different from the one in Starcraft, my character had moved onto shaman magic, as a nod to Nobundo's short story, which had always inspired me when it came to krokul lore.
And it's through this character that I can really explore these things from a new angle. Role playing as one allows me to deepen my appreciation with the draenei and their planet, Argus. A lot of the feelings and sentiments this character shares is a compressed version of my own exotrauma and memories. So it transforms role playing as an incredibly scarred, traumatized space-war veteran into a genuine thing. He was stranded on Argus and didn't expect to survive as long as he did, mirroring my own surprise that I lived for so long in my own life. I really don't pull my punches when I talk about the things my character has seen when it's prompted by others. I never would have discovered how much Argus continued to mean to me if it wasn't for this character.
It also allows me to put my exotrauma into perspective with his backstory. So I didn't need to really expand it by much, since the trapped krokul on Argus were living in literal hell between 13,000 to 25,000 years, (the lore on the exact time period is a little shaky. But I spent much less time in survival mode than these krokul did. They also had to worry about their souls being used as fuel, something I thankfully didn't have to worry about in my source.) I heavily resonate with the survivor archetype, as someone who constantly feels that I need to fight through things in order to survive, whether that be because of physical or psychological threats in the form of severe anxiety.
This character has been directly compared to a dark templar before by friends out of character, even though I wasn't really consciously trying to make him like one. For one, he uses elemental powers and not shadow or Void magic, (although they have a healthy respect for the Forgotten Shadow religion, which preaches about tenacity and will power). He does have a scythe weapon, so that may be another reason why people remind him of one, as dark templar sometimes uses double bladed scythes.
One major difference if that after role playing my character, I began to take on an interest in elemental magic that I haven't really had before, and this interest developed separately from my own protoss experiences. But I understand where this interest comes from. I've always felt strongly about helping shattered worlds and environments because of my own personal past. Trying to help restore the damaged world was on of the first things I did after retaking Aiur. And my shaman character who has this strong connection to Argus, felt the need to protect it as well. Because it was all he had. He had the spirits of the elements to help him, while I worked with more mundane things.
You can take my krokul out of Argus, but you can't take Argus out of them. And this is a sentiment I share about Aiur and my protoss upbringing. It upsets me that Argus is forgotten, and it's not really a world all of the draenei can get back to, as it is breaking apart slowly and most of its surface is destroyed and corrupted by demon magic. This mirrors my feelings with the destruction of Shakuras and my inability to visit Aiur in the present day.
In conclusion, even though I've always had these feelings for the krokul and Argus. These paratypic connections became stronger when I engaged with it through role play. And I also developed a respect for elemental magic and animism that I otherwise would not have, just because of my past with environmental restoration.
As the draenei say, 'my life for Argus.'
No, really:
(If my characters sound familiar to you, no they aren't. Shhh)
Another interesting coincidence is that the name 'Draenei' directly translates to "Exiled Ones," while the word Nerazim in the protoss language roughly translates to "The Exiled." This theme surrounding exile might have been another reason that I related to them so much as someone with a Nerazim background. This was also before I knew where those feelings came from. It would have been another 10 years before I discovered the primary identity.
(Note: None of them were mutated krokul at the point of this escape from Argus, and not all draenei are krokul. As much as I like normal draenei, I don't relate to them as heavily as I do with the krokul.)
I've already mentioned some of these themes and what it means to be a dark templar in this essay, so it may help to read that first in order to get a better idea of what I'm talking about, especially if you're unfamiliar with Starcraft lore. I have no noemata about the krokul or Argus other than a few head canons I came up with for creative reasons. So all that I know is by what's shown and implied in game. These feelings are also explored through the role play of my krokul characters.
When it comes to the appearance of the krokul, they are somewhat similar of the way protoss look, with the narrow face, hair-like 'tendrils', and a lack of a nose, (but the krokul still had nostrils and mouths, so it's not an exact appearance). So when I see them, I think of them as long lost cousins in an almost otherhearted way. I almost feel like a krokul, and find them very relatable. And although I get zero noemata about them, I do sometimes get a cameo shift of their three back tendrils after roleplaying as one. This feels similar to a tail but it's higher up on the center of my back, which is neat.
Before I go into further detail about my connection with the krokul draenei and the planet Argus, I should start from the beginning, starting from 2007. When I first learned about the draenei back back during the Burning Crusade World of Warcraft expansion, I've always remember feeling a deep empathy for them and a great appreciation for their leader, Velen. The whole story of being forced off of their home world, chased by demons for thousands of years, and facing genocide multiple times stuck out to me. If you know anything about protoss, it's that they mirror this story almost exactly like this. And this is no coincidence, as both games were made by the same company. The draenei would be the traditional protoss, while the krokul draenei mirror the dark templar. And then just swap demons for the zerg, and Argus for Aiur. Although we wouldn't be chased off for thousands upon thousands of years.
Soon after, I read the short story Unbroken, which was about a former paladin turned shaman named Nobundo. He became mutated by demonic magic during a huge battle on the planet of Draenor, after the demons found the draenei again. It's through this demonic magic that they turned into krokul, without them actually becoming demons or turning 'evil'. The artwork of the short story just stuck out to me, for reasons I couldn't really verbalize at the time.
In it, he's staring into a pool of water, looking at the person he once was in the reflection. I also was just never content with being a human and had constant dysphoria all of my life, gender dysphoria included. My 12 year old self at the time couldn't really figure out why they felt like this. But now I know that seeing him staring at the reflection of his former self was a nod to my own unconscious feelings and experiences at the time. I think that I was unconsciously trying to remember all that I personally lost and changed by coming here, with who I truly am only seen through reflections of my mind.
His past was taken from him, forcefully. The crystalline mace you see in his reflection? He lacked the physical strength to carry it any more and it was eventually taken from him as well because the other, non-mutated draenei found him unworthy because of his inability to use Light magic. But this was through no fault of his own. Being mutated into a krokul cut them off from accessing the Light. And this sort of cutting off from holiness was always something that deeply resonated with me. I always felt unholy because of my dark templar upbringing and the way I was perceived by the mainstream khalai protoss. It was internalized and it bled over into this life.
The picture in question. I thought about this piece of artworks many, many times over the decades.
I also did hear about the protoss around the 2007 to 2010 era. I took one look at them and went, "they look like draenei. I should read more about them," and I eventually did, with the rest being history.
Fast forward to 2017, the draenei make it back to Argus to destroy the Burning Legion for good, which had since become the Legion's capital world. Going to Argus for the first time in game made me feel so many different things. The patch was released close to the same time I discovered about being a protoss. So I was already feeling a little sensitive from all of the emotions at the time, and my feelings still needed time to be processed. Taking my character to Argus, landing and seeing so many hurt and dying people the moment they landed really solidified the experience for me. Particularly, there were two npcs by the landing zone the moment you land there. One was dead, and the other was mourning them in their arms, saying that they went through such great lengths, only to see them die the second they landed. For one reason or another, this hit me, hard. I can't think of another time in-game when something so simple impacted me like this.
Along with the sound track, I felt extreme sadness and melancholy because of this connection I had with the draenei and Argus due to my direct experiences with missing certain planets, (a combination of my yearning for Shakuras and Aiur). The sadness I felt for the draenei was indistinguishable from the sadness I felt when I look into protoss lore and protoss tragedy. I wasn't born on Aiur, but after losing everything on Shakuras, I eventually went to Aiur, with the chance that I may die trying to retake it. I survived. But I lost a lot of people, then and over the next few centuries after the game 'ends'. I never got hit with such a profound sense of loss and melancholy as I do when visiting Argus and seeing all of the destruction. The feelings I get for Argus are comparable to the ones that I feel for Aiur and Shakuras because I am reminded of them. These are feelings that I don't think I'd have if I wasn't a protoss, making this a para hearth home. I also head canon that the water on Argus had a purplish tint to it, and I think this comes from my memories of Shakuras, again.
To this day, I get these same feelings whenever I take my character to Argus. It brings me to that moment of sorrow. I also want to emphasize that I've played since 2007, and the planet of Azeroth, (where 80% of everything takes place), doesn't even come close to these feelings as Argus does. There are even some places on Azeroth that remind me of my childhood because of the amount of time I spent there while playing the game. But it's not felt in an alterhuman way.
With Starcraft game play, you don't really get the benefit of seeing things in the first person, since the maps exist on a flat plane that you can edit and add things onto, while the camera takes on an overhead view. So you never really get the sense of being there in person, outside of cut scenes. In World of Warcraft, you see things in the first or second person, depending on how zoomed into your character you are. While first landing on Argus, I got hit with the high resolution graphics all at once, something I was unprepared for (this pun is accidental, sorry).
A couple of minutes later into Argus, we find a krokul asking for help and we eventually go into their hovel. (Note: that the krokul you saw up to this point in game were all from Draenor.) And it turns out that some of the draenei who didn't escape from Argus survived and became mutated there as well. They've fought for survival for thousands of years and had to rely on stealth to survive.
Upon entering the hovel, the stealthed krokul surround your character before promptly uncloaking. And these guys are a lot like the dark templar. They even have some of the same lines as dark templar do. In one of the quests, you are tasked with taking down a large demon with the help of a multiple krokul, some of them saying, "from the shadows, we strike," when you summon them, a direct echo of the "from the shadows, I come" line when summoning in a dark templar in game. You also meet the dark templar in a similar manner back in Starcraft 1. The moment you make a base on Shakuras, they surround you before introducing themselves. So I can't help but make these comparisons.
Although, it would be many years until I would actually role play a krokul shaman, I eventually started to around 2022. What really prevented me from role playing as one for so long was because there are no krokul customizations in game, and there still aren't. They were formerly a Light user and had to deal with forcibly being cut off from the Light and the ongoing body horror of becoming mutated. Even back then in 2007, the disconnection and the 'corruption' into something others view as evil without it actually being evil always resonated with me. I can make a direct line between this and the disconnection with the Khala and connecting with the Void. Even though the Void in WoW is different from the one in Starcraft, my character had moved onto shaman magic, as a nod to Nobundo's short story, which had always inspired me when it came to krokul lore.
And it's through this character that I can really explore these things from a new angle. Role playing as one allows me to deepen my appreciation with the draenei and their planet, Argus. A lot of the feelings and sentiments this character shares is a compressed version of my own exotrauma and memories. So it transforms role playing as an incredibly scarred, traumatized space-war veteran into a genuine thing. He was stranded on Argus and didn't expect to survive as long as he did, mirroring my own surprise that I lived for so long in my own life. I really don't pull my punches when I talk about the things my character has seen when it's prompted by others. I never would have discovered how much Argus continued to mean to me if it wasn't for this character.
It also allows me to put my exotrauma into perspective with his backstory. So I didn't need to really expand it by much, since the trapped krokul on Argus were living in literal hell between 13,000 to 25,000 years, (the lore on the exact time period is a little shaky. But I spent much less time in survival mode than these krokul did. They also had to worry about their souls being used as fuel, something I thankfully didn't have to worry about in my source.) I heavily resonate with the survivor archetype, as someone who constantly feels that I need to fight through things in order to survive, whether that be because of physical or psychological threats in the form of severe anxiety.
This character has been directly compared to a dark templar before by friends out of character, even though I wasn't really consciously trying to make him like one. For one, he uses elemental powers and not shadow or Void magic, (although they have a healthy respect for the Forgotten Shadow religion, which preaches about tenacity and will power). He does have a scythe weapon, so that may be another reason why people remind him of one, as dark templar sometimes uses double bladed scythes.
One major difference if that after role playing my character, I began to take on an interest in elemental magic that I haven't really had before, and this interest developed separately from my own protoss experiences. But I understand where this interest comes from. I've always felt strongly about helping shattered worlds and environments because of my own personal past. Trying to help restore the damaged world was on of the first things I did after retaking Aiur. And my shaman character who has this strong connection to Argus, felt the need to protect it as well. Because it was all he had. He had the spirits of the elements to help him, while I worked with more mundane things.
You can take my krokul out of Argus, but you can't take Argus out of them. And this is a sentiment I share about Aiur and my protoss upbringing. It upsets me that Argus is forgotten, and it's not really a world all of the draenei can get back to, as it is breaking apart slowly and most of its surface is destroyed and corrupted by demon magic. This mirrors my feelings with the destruction of Shakuras and my inability to visit Aiur in the present day.
In conclusion, even though I've always had these feelings for the krokul and Argus. These paratypic connections became stronger when I engaged with it through role play. And I also developed a respect for elemental magic and animism that I otherwise would not have, just because of my past with environmental restoration.
As the draenei say, 'my life for Argus.'
No, really:
(If my characters sound familiar to you, no they aren't. Shhh)