SPOILER The Butterfly Tips the Scales: Overanalyzing Fruma’s Motifs

I’m a somewhat old Wynn player, not having played in years since Spellbound released, but after hearing about the Fruma ARG and finding much speculation about the many relatively ambiguous motifs involved in it, I, as someone also fairly interested in literary theory, decided to try and break things down as a brief thematic analysis exercise.

Obviously, there’s little actual information with the ARG not done, and I can’t exactly speak for perfect lore accuracy, but here’s my attempt, just using motifs and knowledge of current writing, to figure out the general direction this update’s storyline will take.


The Butterfly

Fruma’s central motif is seemingly going to be a butterfly - which, honestly, is a strange choice for the province that so far has been a domineering monarchy that exercises totalitarian control over its subjects. Butterflies are cultural symbols of spiritual self - in ancient China, which Fruma possibly takes some degree of inspiration from with some of its Asian design elements, as well as hope, which contrasts to quite an extent with how soul-crushingly hopeless Fruma actually is. I don’t particularly think there was much intentional symbolism for those first two themes, but if there was, my guess that it’s purposefully inverting - making mockery of self and individual identity with Fruma’s absolute national whole, and playing a satirical spin on hope through the lens of propaganda and disinformation that Fruma has been known to employ (there is no war, after all, within the Fruman walls). More importantly, though, butterflies are a symbol of transformation - they go through a metamorphosizing lifespan, transforming from an insignificant larval stage into a resplendent adult. This is definitely being invoked with Fruma, with the term ‘metamorphosis of the stage’ being used to literally describe a transition between phases of the ARG.

But transformation is somewhat unusual for a hermit kingdom that seals itself within its borders, hiding all traces of knowledge of it, and lives under an absolute monarchy that never changes. With Fruma, a seemingly perpetual nation, a transforming, short-lived butterfly doesn’t quite evoke the strength the Queen probably intends to project. In truth, I don’t think the butterfly really represents Fruma itself at all. We’ll get to that part, though, later.


The Scales

On Wynncraft’s official Twitter account, a cryptic message with butterfly and scale emojis was posted without further explanation. The first upholds our initial motif, and the latter is even more interesting.

Scales are a proper motif for the Fruman monarchy. They represent justice - one notable appropriate example is the ancient Egyptian myth of the Weighing of the Heart, in which a dead soul has their sins literally put on a scale and judged in front of a court of underworld gods, instantly finding out moral worth and determining their fate permanently. This is quite indicative of Fruma as well, where criminals have their identities utterly wiped and sent to Wynn without any trace of their former lives left, just like a passage into the afterlife, and a last judgement of the dead. They also are a symbol of balance - equilibrium is the ideal state for a scale to be in, and perhaps Fruma, like most repressive authoritarian states, seeks to maintain that perfect state of order, like a level scale. But at the same time, though, scales are not stable objects, and are very fragile even in equilibrium, where the very smallest of objects can upend them - something as small, even, as a butterfly. Once again, this presents a degree of contrast to the symbolism of Fruma’s monarchy - that while the Queen presents a face of absolute power, perhaps it is one that is far more fragile than visible on the surface, and maybe the very smallest of single factors can be enough to bring it down.



The Hurricane

The logical concept of chaos theory has one very well-known allegory. Describing the interconnectedness of all factors, it claims that at the right place and the right time, the flapping of a butterfly can lead to a hurricane.
This, I think, is the real intent of Fruma’s motifs - not actually representing the Fruman monarchy itself, but the instability that will lead to the fall of the regime. Here, let’s finally bring back all the components of our storm.
Butterflies are a symbol of hope. Despite being fragile, they carry a certain degree of resilience in being alive nonetheless. Although the Fruman monarchy suppresses and controls its people, they nonetheless find ways, such as Espren’s resistance, to endure. Hope also is embodied in the War of the Realms at large, and our successes in freeing Orphion, and casting the Dern Beast’s eye off the Eldritch Outlook, and stopping Annihilation from breaching into Wynn.
Butterflies represent individuality. The Fruman conscripts sent to Wynn ultimately managed to nonetheless live new lives despite being thrust into a completely foreign landscape, with the threats of the Corruption and war and countless other dangers present. One recruit developed individuality like none else - who they are is literally your choice, and you, using builds and cosmetics and making choices, shape your player’s story all through your journey in the provinces.
And butterflies represent transformation - Fruman conscripts come from the most insignificant of backgrounds and turn into living legends - from larva to maturity. Although the scales of Fruma’s absolute control seem to be in authoritarian equilibrium, they are still scales, and in the right time, with the right conditions, a sole butterfly, one single soldier that got lucky, could easily tip them.
Here’s what I think our motifs truly mean. As the player, we are a butterfly that leads to a hurricane. We embody deterministic chaos in how we manage to be in the right place at every time, and through small actions eventually lead to what’ll likely be victory for the Light in the War of the Realms. Fruma’s butterfly motif was never about the Queen, or the monarchy, but us, the player, and how our actions will soon bring about the revolution to come.

 

Now THIS is a quality ether moment.

another interesting thing about scales and equilibrium is that the ideal state of the War of the Realms is also balanced between both sides. as Deusphage has pointed out a couple times, Light is not good at all for anyone except for the elves and other creatures of light who are used to it. The Dark life forms are also, from their perspective, helping the life giving side against an overpowering force that would destroy them and make it impossible to survive. The problems caused by the war of the realms are just that, caused by the war. If there was peace and stability, all life would prosper.

 

honestly i love that
especially considering how the butterfly was also the main symbol of Spellbound, an update caused a metamoprhosis for the capabilties of the players.

 

the butterflies
i cant believe i just realized...

 

Zoom in on the one above Aledar's hand

 

another thing i just realized
queen = monarch
butterfly = monarch

 

Okay

 

Very good post aside from this

You use it as an example of propaganda, when the dialogue was removed because it was purely just an avatar reference. This line of dialogue is not canon and was rightfully removed a good while ago now.

 

i feel like you really wanted this dialogue to be removed.

 

I did. I wasn't the one who decided to remove it or the one who removed it, though.
If my memory serves me correctly, basically everyone involved in lore wanted it removed.

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also. salted jumpscare.

 

salted jumpscare?

Anyway yeah, it makes a lot of sense to remove it. personally, i was so caught up in all the RtP changes that I did not notice it was gone, and im pretty sure OP meant it as a joke anyways.

 

Just came here to say that at end of the trailer a butterfly landed on the scales on the Wynncraft logo.

 

Kind of related, but I think that the butterfly in the trailer is a representation of fruman monarchy (their main flag is also a butterfly). The queen may be either working with or manipulated by some sort of dern entity into tipping the scale of balance between light and dark to maybe let forces of dark gain an edge in the cosmic war. It might be up to the player to stop the fruman monarchy (the butterfly) from tipping the scales.

 

Hopefully, she is manipulated by the light. It would be really cool to have to stop the light to bring balance for once.

 

RoL is required, so this seems cool and also likely

 

I have another theory. It's more... out there, but what if the queen somwhow is the dern beast? I mean, we know that the dern beast took out their eye to watch over everything, and the queen happens to be missing an eye.

 

Oh god please please please let this not be the case
Because then we would not get any unique fruma stuff and it would all be the same WotR lore we have seen a million times

 

Missing an eye? She just has homophobia in her eyes (she has heterochromia).

I guess you could argue that one of the two is a prosthetic eye?

 

was the queen walking up quiet footsteps supposed to resemble thragg or do i watch too much [TITLE CARD]

 

this is insane and ridiculous and actually maybe you're right

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you... you did watch the trailer, right? and read the whole page?
even if somehow all 13 parts of the questline pertain to Ne du Valeos du Ellach, there are still 8 side quests.
I also think it's very possible that Fruma is involved with the realms in some way, simply because the war of the realms is THE main conflict of the game.
whether that's just to the extent of monitoring the status of wynn's war or the queen is the dern beast, who knows