The King & The Queen

"The King & The Queen" is the introductory cinematic opening theme for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. It depicts Sylvanas Windrunner challenging Bolvar Fordragon at the Frozen Throne. It was first shown at BlizzCon 2019.

Locations

 * Azeroth
 * Northrend
 * Icecrown
 * Icecrown Citadel
 * Frozen Throne
 * Shadowlands
 * Torghast, Tower of the Damned

Transcript
bossemote
 * Sylvanas Windrunner approaches the Icecrown Citadel. Two shambling skeletons ready their weapons but do not attack. As Sylvanas ascends the stairs to the front entrance, a number of skeletons slowly follow.

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 * Sylvanas enters the Citadel and makes her way to the Frozen Throne, where an army of skeletons waits.

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 * The Lich King Bolvar Fordragon rises from the Frozen Throne, a great hammer filled with flame in his hand. He breathes a sigh and his eyes turn cold blue. He then bares his hammer, infusing it with frost, which spreads down his arms and snuffs out the dragonsfire beneath his blackened skin. As the Lich King walks forward, the skeletons begin to rush Sylvanas. She smiles.

bossemote
 * Sylvanas dispatches the final skeleton with a black arrow to its skull. Bolvar, two arrows in his shoulder already, engages her with a downward slam of his hammer. She blocks with her bow and fires an arrow into Bolvar's chest, then leaps away when he swings again. He glares and uses magic to hurl three spires of saronite at her. Sylvanas dodges the first two, then splits the third in half with an arrow, which lands in the ice above the Throne.
 * The Lich King lifts his hammer in front of him and strikes its handle into the ground. Thick frost spews from its head, obscuring Sylvanas's vision in a supernatural blizzard. Though Sylvanas manages to dodge Bolvar's hammer attacks, she's taken by surprise when another saronite chunk flies out of the frost.
 * Bolvar drops the blizzard with a wave of his hand. Sylvanas has disappeared. As Bolvar looks around, black chains appear from the arrows in his skin and latch onto the ground, trapping him. A cloud of smoke forms back into Sylvanas, and a chain from the arrow above the Frozen Throne wraps itself around her hand. She pulls, bringing a huge chunk of ice crashing down on the Lich King. When the air clears, he tries to strike out at Sylvanas, but more chains pull him to his knees.

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 * Bolvar yells as Sylvanas lifts the Helm of Domination from his head. The frost magic is pulled from his body into the helm, and his eyes turn red with fire once more. Sylvanas gazes into the helm.

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 * Sylvanas lifts the helm closer to her—but instead of putting it on, she begins to pry it apart with her hands. Her eyes glow red, black smoke billows behind her, and she screams a banshee scream. As the helm cracks in two, a force erupts and the bleak Northrend sky breaks, revealing a stormy orange sky and an upside-down tower that mirrors Icecrown Citadel. The veil between the world of the living and the Shadowlands has been broken.
 * Half of the helm drops next to Bolvar, who turns to watch the rift, uncertainty in his eyes.

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Credits

 * Director: Brian Horn
 * Writing: Robert Brooks
 * Lighting and composition: Bryan Locantore
 * Models: Luciano Di Fede, Alexandra Reeves, Chunk Kan, Shannon Thomas, Aaron Hamman
 * Others: Taka Yasuda, David Satchwell, Fabio Zungrone, Christ Thunig, Jeff Chamberlain, Steven Chen, Phillip Hillenbrand, Carlos Larkin, Patty Mattson, Shannon Thomas, Aaron Hamman, Chung Kan, Jason Huang, Kenny Huang, Kenson Yu, Taso Gionis, Sengjoon Song, Chris Jennings, Luciano Di Fede, Laurent Pierlot, Sheng Jin, Enrique Munoz, Jason Fleming, Scott Trosclair, Mark Lai, David Luong, Erich Burchfield, Bryan Locantore, Kevin McDonald, Kyle Humphrey, Matthew Berenty, Mathew Thomas, Chris Rock, Hamoudi Moneimne, Brandon Harris, Michelle Sampior, Shu Fujita, Rebecca Lilienfeld, Hannah Dalrymple, Jake Patton, Anna Morgan, Paul Ingegneri, Alexandre Kumpel, Alvin Geno, Thomas Duong, Sada Namiki, Glenn Ramos, Jason Herschaft, Chris McCormick, Ronny Kim, Yohei Koike, Rini Sugianto, James Crowson, Michael Bomagat, Lih Chang, Tao Ye, Bobbak Sabet, Jared Mayberry, Brian Lee, Ricardo Biriba, Steeg Haskell, Brandy Stiles, Adrian Niu, Becca Baldwin, Hung Le, Drew Dobernecker, Nelson Wang, Shawn Liang, Susan Hatton, Steven Guevara, Ken Faiman, Solhee Ryu, Jorge Cereijo-Perez, Pete Megow, Scott Lange, Andrea Paulino, Suzi Little, Sean Burgoon, Travis Miller, Michael Sandrik, Sam Alicea, Pio Krawczyk, Alan Chan, Wey Wong, Dennis Bredow, Eddie Kim, Jongha Baik, Jiwon Park, Manlin Sun, James Ma, Sari Rodrig, Kilian Aulenbacher, Meg Higginbotham, Kristy Robinson, Sean Copeland, Justin Parker, Robert Brooks, Christie Golden, George Krstic, Ralph Sanchez, Timothy Loughran, Josh Tallman, Laurent Pierlot, Manuel Dischinger, Claver Knowick, Roman Kenney, Sean McNally, Stephane Belin, Sam Alicea, Dennis Bredow, James Ma, Michael Sandrik, Wey Wong, Piotrek Krawczyk, Mike Koizumi, Ted Boonthanakit, Mio Del Rosario, Jacob Rivera, Shannon Eric Denton, Vimanyu Jain, Hamoudi Moneimne, Nema Safvati, Seung Kim, Shuntaro Furukawa, John Lockwood, Josh Clos, Andy Gauvreau, Atsushi Ikarashi, Alex Lim, Brett Angelillis, Andrew Paules, Ashraf Ghoniem, Anna Pasz, Vince Lee, Jon Teer, Sarah White, Meg Morris, Lulu Simon, Joe Frayne, Cynthia Dickson, Michael Taranto, Chris Rock, Jami Levesque, Ryan Heniser, Evan Butler, Meg Morris, Lulu Simon, Cynthia Dickson, Michael Taranto, Sky Kovac, Allen Stetson, Joe Frayne, Caroline Hernandez, Ariel Wang, Brian Johnson, John Thomas, Chris Battaglia, Cody Flick, Isaac Hammons, David Farmer, Derek Duke, John Kurlander, Neal Acree, Andrea Toyias, Michael Roache, Gregg Barbanell, Gary Coppola, Gary Summers

Notes and trivia

 * The rocky spires that the Lich King threw at Sylvanas were saronite spires, which Sylvanas had tried to impale herself on years prior in Edge of Night.
 * The Scourge army in the cinematic are made up of repurposed Scourge models from the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic, and female undead archer models from the Battle for Azeroth cinematic. Their armor and texture was changed, and they were given weapons taken from Diablo III cinematics.
 * The undead in the opening shot is the exact same undead that was in the ending shot of the Wrath cinematic.
 * Pulling from the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic was difficult and almost did not work, due to tech changes over the years.


 * Shadows Rising's epilogue continues from the moment Sylvanas destroys the Helm of Domination.