SPOILER A Theory Regarding the Golden Avia

We all know these guys. But what do we know about them?

Well, they’re pretty annoying, that’s one thing. They drop Golden Avia Feathers, which are used at Uth shrines.

But why? Why Golden Avia feathers? And what even are they, really?

Today I’ll be answering those questions.



This isn’t too crazy of an insight, but I’ve never heard of anyone propose this theory, so here it goes: the Golden Avia are related to rune magic.

It may seem like a pretty boring theory, a pretty forgettable one, but what’s more ground-breaking are its consequences. It’s not about the Golden Avia; it’s about what the existence of the Golden Avia implies. But before we can get to the juicy stuff, we need to do some analysis of in-game details.

First, their appearance in-game: they have orange beaks and legs, as well as wings. The rest of their bodies, besides their eyes, are covered in golden armor. Thus their appearance very much resembles an Avos in a suit of armor.

Second, the Corkus Uth shrine is in the middle of the Avos Territory. It even involves thatching and wooden spikes, sharing a common style with Avos Territory huts. The Avos Territory shrine’s style is unlike the Aldorei shrine’s style of gray pillars, however; these two Uth shrines were created by different things, so the Uth shrines can’t just be a result of the rune magic or something.

The first aforementioned observation would suggest that the Golden Avia are somehow related to the Avos, if they’re not the Avos themselves. The second means that the Avos are connected to the Uth shrine, and it’s not just some coincidence that the shrine is in the Avos Territory. Thus we get a triangle relationship: the Avos, the Golden Avia, and Uth runes are all interconnected.



So, let’s connect the dots: the Avos have access to rune magic and used it to build the Golden Avia.

Whoa, that’s a bit of a leap there. But allow me to explain:

According to a past theory of mine, also regarding the Avos (you can read it here: https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/an-alternative-history-of-corkus-a-theory.306319/), the Avos were not just bird people living in huts on the cliffs; they had a complex kingdom that the Corkians inherited when the Avos Phoenix Prince decided to pull a quick one on his subjects and hid for the rest of eternity inside a cave. Those who stayed in the cliffs were the remaining Avos, now the minority group on the island, who fled from the Corkians and were forced to rebuild with only a fraction of the labor and resources that they used to have.

But they would have still had the knowledge from their good old days, or at least the knowledge that could be salvaged from the texts brought with them or passed down from practitioner to practitioner. So even if the Avos Territory looks primitive, they could have runes from when Avos civilization was at its peak.

So, the Avos created the Golden Avia, perhaps by using rune magic to reanimate Avos who had died in conflict with the Corkians (more on that later). Or, they were just runic golems or machines, that were created in the Avos’ image. Also, although it’s not confirmed, it’s a popular theory (at least at WynnTheory) that the Colossi were created using rune magic (theory credit to @DaCorruption https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/the-goliaths-and-the-colossis-true-nature.289141/). This means that the idea that golems or machines can be animated using rune magic isn’t out of the question.

Either way, they were imbued with rune magic, and their feathers contain this magic and so can be used to activate the Uth shrine. This would also make sense regarding why the Aldorei Uth shrine also uses Golden Avia feathers, even though there are no Golden Avia in Gavel; Golden Avia feathers aren’t some Avos “offering” to the shrine or a “key” designed by the Avos; they just have rune magic in them, universal between the civilizations.

The “how” is important, but perhaps more important is the “why.” They had the ability to create the Golden Avia, but what was their motivation? One key detail to this is that although today’s Avos are confined to the cliffs, the Golden Avia are not. They roam across the entirety of Corkus Island (or at least down south to where the Factory is). And they’re not just passive mobs. They attack any human (well, the player) that passes by them.

This is because the Golden Avia were created as weapons against the Corkian settlers, in a war or at least some sort of conflict with them. The Avos who stayed on the surface had retreated, but they hadn’t given up. They created runic machines to fight back against the Corkians, but eventually as Avos-Corkian relations thawed, and also because the Avos could not sustain constant attacks on the Corkians, the Avos stopped building Golden Avia, and the Golden Avia that we see today are just stray Golden Avia that haven’t been taken down and still wander Corkus.

This theory could potentially explain some other things as well. You may have noticed that I referred to the Golden Avia as runic machines- or should I feel the urge to use a word more familiar in the context of Corkus: mechs. I think it’s possible that the Corkians could have seen the Golden Avia, mimicked or at least tried to mimic them, and created electromagic during the process of trying to mimic rune magic. It doesn’t have to be mimicry, though; the creation of mechs could have instead been a reaction to the Golden Avia. If the Avos want to use Golden Avia, then the Corkians will use mechs.

Why else might have mechs become so widespread? Why did the Corkians have to build a factory just to produce mechs? There are so many other possibilities for electromagic; but the most widespread form of electromagic on Corkus Island is mechs, mechs that have pretty much just two main design purposes: mining for resources and killing (killing is the more common of the two), both of which involve destruction. Yeah, Antikythera's malfunction would have ramped up battle mech production, but still. It would be logical for the Corkians to use electromagic to build war machines if a war required such advanced weaponry.

Yeah, obviously this is not what the CT had in mind. But it’s always fun to think about how you could interpret lore details, no?



Thanks for reading.

 

tl;dr golden avias have rune magic feathers to power them and were built as weapons against corkus settlers.

 

ok

but how does this help with increasing gang violence in chicago?

 

I'm not much into lore so maybe I'm just being daft here, but I think that Golden Avias are a pretty recent invention. If the Avos retained any amount of magical know-how in their retreat to the mountains during conflict with the Corkians, I'd imagine that retaining military knowledge would be top-priority. Golden Avias could just as easily have been employed as a reactionary measure from the Corkians introducing mechs to the battlefield.

I'll point out that most of the mechs the player sees in the game have either or melee or limited-range attacks - Golden Avias would be the perfect battlefield counter to mechs with their long-range aerial attacks. I don't know how that lines up chronologically, i.e. did the truce happen long enough after the retreat to the mountains to make fielding Golden Avias feasible.

 

Honestly, I don't think there's really any established timeline for Corkus. The Relos Library is just like, "the Corkians arrived 350 years ago and now they're a technologically advanced nation." Most of this is just theorizing and less so hard evidence.

I think that the long range aerial attacks as a counter against Corkian mechs would make sense, and it could make even more sense than what I've laid out right now. I don't think they'd be super recent though, since by the player's time things have already calmed down. But alas, there's not too much to work with.

 

bump with over 10 chars