Your Justice Point Gear is Named After Famous Poetry

Update: Added some references to “Prufrock,” removed a few tenuous ones, and explained several elaborate metaphors.

Someone at Blizzard really likes the poetry of Keats and Eliot–and expressed this by naming over 100 blues and starter epics after their most famous works.

Keats’ poetry has a monopoly on Justice Point items, while Eliot’s “The Waste Land” shows up in most reputation-related gear. It sounds crazy, but here’s a teaser from “Ode to a Nightingale.”









As I continued working on Wowhead’s transmog features yesterday, I remembered an early comment that I made about the Pauldrons of the High Requiem being a reference to “Ode to a Nightingale.” I thought it would be amusing to link to twitter, but while scrolling through more sets and browsing the poem, I noticed Vest of the Waking Dream (referring to the famous ending) and kept going. Originally I assumed there were just references to the one ode using ilvl 346 vendor gear, but Hamlet found a handful of references to Wordsworth and suggested I search reputation gear as well to see if there were more literary references. Turns out there was.

The end result: there’s four full poems by Keats, select parts from “The Waste Land,” and fragments by other famous poets. I’ve copied all the relevant poems I found here with links to the gear. You can mouseover the link to see the name of the gear inspired by a particular phrase, as well as click on the link to see the item in a new window. I’ve also included a list of items I haven’t found references for yet, if anyone wants to give that a try.

@gomatgo was curious about my thought process over at WoW Insider–I’ll try to explain it a bit better. As the Content Manager for Wowhead, I spent most of my day mucking around in the database, whether it’s finding outdated information, creating new matching armor sets for the transmog feature, or writing comprehensive guides for the site’s weekend content. Also a few months back, I manually sorted all the armor in the database into identical models–which taught me that Blizzard can create the strangest similarities and patterns. (It was kind of hellish, but I survived.)

Most gear is named following a theme–molten imagery for Firelands, Egyptian references in Halls of Origination, aquatic life in Throne of the Tides. To see so many strangely-worded items (even before I knew of their exact source) tied to gear vendors or bosses that had nothing to do with in-game lore was curious. I have a pretty good familiarity with items in the database so when I decided to seriously embark on this after noting references across armor types, some items popped out without me needing to consult Wowhead. I did approach it pretty methodically, making item filters for each type of gear, as well as noting what gear didn’t seem to fit into any poems. Some phrases also seemed suspicious–the Dragonmaw Clan would use a phrase like Aetherial Rumors? Err, no. Typing in distinctive phrases like that to google on a hunch brought up even more poems.

1. Keats

2. Eliot: “The Waste Land”

3. Fragments: Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Tennyson

4. Conclusion and Remaining Items

Keats

Keats’ poetry shows up most prevalently in Justice Point gear: ilvl 359 capes, rings, trinkets, boots, as well as most ilvl 346 blues. Several Cataclysm BoEs, Guardian of Hyjal rewards, and dungeon drops also reference Keats (he’s especially popular in Stonecore). Initially assuming that the references were limited to “Ode to a Nightingale,” I soon discovered there was a healthy amount also in “To Autumn,” “Bright Star,” and “To Sleep.” Most of the references are unchanged from the source poetry–however, there are a few that are more clever bits of wordplay. There are also a few items based on standalone words–numbless, sunburnt, vines, melodious, etc–that on their own wouldn’t stand out as being related to an item, but when most other items of that armor slot and ilvl have a distinctive reference, it makes sense that they’d follow suit.

“Ode to a Nightingale”









“To Autumn”

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.





“Bright Star”



Not in

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the



No—yet still

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death. Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,The moving waters at their priestlike taskOf pure ablution round earth’s human shores,Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—No—yet still stedfast , still unchangeable,Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,Awake for ever in a sweet unrest Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

(Notes: The Slippers of Moving Waters also matched–and were itemized well–for priest t11.

“Stedfast” is just one word, but the piece of JP gear is a chestpiece and the very next line talks about the steadfast love’s “ripening breast.”

I found “Fluid Death” to be a nice summary of the idea described in the last four lines–an ambiguous state where the narrator’s love interest hovers between life and death in the paradox of immortality.)

“To Sleep”







Eliot: The Waste Land

Eliot’s sprawling modernist poem is the basis for most Cataclysm reputation rewards. These references are not immediately apparent–they’re clever reconstructions of the source material. For example, it’s neat how “faces that sneer and snarl” is not only turned into an item that uses the word “snarl,” but one that references “faces” as well: Snarling Helm.





Line 19:





Line 343:

There is not even solitude in the mountains

From doors of mud-cracked houses





Line 366:

What is that sound high in the air

Murmur of maternal lamentation

Who are those hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains , stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only





Line 385:



In the faint moonlight, the

Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel

There is the empty chapel, only the

It has no windows, and the door swings,

Dry bones can harm no one.

Only a cock stood on the roof-tree

Co co rico co co rico

In a In this decayed hole among the mountainsIn the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapelThere is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home It has no windows, and the door swings,Dry bones can harm no one.Only a cock stood on the roof-treeCo co rico co co ricoIn a flash of lightning





Line 413:

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus





Fragments

There are a cluster of items with distinctive-sounding names that can be traced back to other great poems in the canon. Wordsworth has a few JP items, Shakespeare has a BoE relic, Tennyson has a shield. There’s also isolated references to other works by Keats, as well as an elegy written about Keats by one of Canada’s poet laureates. And as several people have pointed out, there’s a few references to another poem by Eliot–“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”



“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot

Line 4:

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent





Line 15:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15 The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,





Line 84 (this item also summons a ghost):





I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85 And in short, I was afraid.





“The Daffodills,” Wordsworth



Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee:

A Poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought: The waves beside them danced , but theyOut-did the sparkling leaves in glee:A Poet could not but be gay,In such a jocund company:I gazed—and gazed—but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:

In

They flash upon that

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils. For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.





“The Lady of Shallot,” Tennyson



Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott. Four grey walls, and four grey towers Overlook a space of flowers,And the silent isle imbowersThe Lady of Shalott.

A

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay. There she weaves by night and day magic web with colours gay.She has heard a whisper say,A curse is on her if she stay.





“Sonnet 73,” Shakespeare



That on the

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed whereon it must expireConsumed with that which it was nourish’d by.





“Ode to Psyche,” Keats



In some untrodden region of my mind,

Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a faneIn some untrodden region of my mind,Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:





“Ode on Melancholy,” Keats

(first draft–the more famous version substitutes ‘sadness’ for ‘anguish’)



Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;

His

And be among her cloudy trophies hung. Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongueCan burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;His soul shall taste the anguish of her might,And be among her cloudy trophies hung.





“By the Aurelian Wall: In Memory of John Keats,” Bliss Carman

Where the long shadows of the centuries fall

From Caius Cestius’ tomb

A weary mortal seeking rest found room

For quiet burial,

Conclusion

Speculation is fun. There’s a grey area of items that could possibly allude to famous poems if you squint the right way, and it’s enjoyable to find reasons to back this up. One could wonder if the nightingale roaming desert in “The Waste Land” is a reference to the Desert Walker Sandals. Is Sorrowsong is a reference to “Ode on Melancholy,” as it’s a synonym for both words in the title and every other dungeon has a Keats reference, or just a generic sounding trinket? Part IV of “The Waste Land” covers an restless youth that died at an early age (but doesn’t actually use the word “impatient”), while Boots of the Forked Road could allude to “The Road Not Taken.” And there’s still some JP pieces that I haven’t found poems for yet.

So, why these poems? Unsurprisingly, they mostly cover themes of death and destruction–“The Waste Land” especially is reminiscent of post-Shattering Azeroth. “Ode to a Nightingale” and “The Waste Land” both reference a nightingale singing–but not just any song, one that’s timeless and pure through the ages–to a narrator half-wanting to give up. But it could just be a staff member’s favorite list of poems (how do “Daffodils” fit into this doom and gloom? Perhaps another metaphor for hope coming from sadness.). It also makes the most sense to fool around with entry-level gear names because higher level gear will mostly likely receive a ‘theme’ relating to the lore of an instance.

On a more subjective note, finding this array of references was like seeing a familiar face in a crowd. It was easy to form a contrast between the helpless narrators and the ‘player-hero’ persona everyone is constantly bombarded with when logging into WoW–from easy questing, to zone-wide narratives celebrating every move you make, to accelerated raid nerfs and LFR ensuring all characters feel integral in defeating Deathwing. (Not to mention, with how gear is reset every tier–hardly anyone notices this gear anymore with ilvl 378 gear from JP and heroics available instead.) I’d much rather occupy a world where there’s a place for the nightingales and narrators of Keats and Eliot, than one where everyone is competing to be the Savior of Azeroth and Thrall’s best friend in every plot line.

Anyway, I won’t pontificate about LFR or Valor Points…for the moment. But I would find it fun if people wanted to share other literary allusions they’ve found in WoW or find a home for the remaining JP items 🙂 Thanks again to Blizzard for the awesome naming game!

Remaining JP Items (craftables/dungeon/quest gear isn’t listed):