so, the official animal jam instagram recently (on 1/27/2022) made a post about juno
it's nothing we don't know, though it's always nice to see juno again!
but the REALLY interesting thing is in the comments.
GUYS
JUNO IS NOT AN ALPHA!!!
now this is pretty huge. basically everyone, including me, thought juno was the arctic wolf alpha
but... this confirmation actually makes sense, and makes the animal jam lore a whole lot more cohesive!
did you know that there's actually a written out, detailed explanation of how the alphas came to be? it's an official animal jam chapter book called call of the alphas, and it's a lore goldmine! (there's also 3 other books in the series, which are not as lore heavy, but still good reads if you're into animal jam lore like me)
the book details how animal species of jamaa grew to distrust each other, and phantoms took advantage of that. eventually, the only 6 heartstones that weren't captured were the ones of the original six animals, and mira and zios were like "ok we need to do something". they track down an animal from each species that they deem fit to lead jamaa against the phantoms, and make them the alphas. it's pretty clear that the book is trying to say that these are the first alphas!
this book was released june 27, 2017; and balloosh was released february 15, 2018. juno, star, and fang being alphas contradicts the continuity established by the books- why would a land released less than a year after the books contradict them?
well, if juno, star, and fang aren't alphas, then the balloosh lore doesn't contradict the book lore at all!
(oh also i have a link to read the full book, but i don't have permission to post it
publicly. there's no private messaging option on blogger so i guess dm
me on discord if you want to read it? my username is "I II II L#0578")
an instagram comment isn't the most weighty confirmation, how do we know that's actually ajhq's intention?
well, we don't know if it was ajhq's intention from the start for juno to never be alpha, but i'm quite sure ever since the balloosh reveal, they were never supposed to be an alpha
you see, looking back at the jamaa journal entries from when juno was first revealed, they are never called an alpha! they're always an "ancient hero" or "warrior". in the temple of the ancients, the alphas never call juno another alpha, even when they discover who they are!
also, more modernly, on january 24, 2022, the aj instagram hosted an event where they asked jammers to submit posts about which alpha they are most like, from a list of alphas they provided. juno is not included in this list! and notably, tavie is, so this list isn't just the original six alphas
interestingly, animaljam did not correct this commenter
one counterargument is "why ajhq would let everyone think juno was an alpha for so long?"
my answer: idk!
it would be kinda weird to have a jamaa journal entry that's just like "you thought this character was an alpha? no lol", so i get why they didn't do that.
with the lack of continuation of balloosh lore, i guess they didn't think it was necessary to post about juno on social media until now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
now what does this mean for the "statue alphas"?
as you may or may not know, juno's actually existed in the game since 2014, through the bronze juno statue at the aj birthday party. that party contains statues of the main six alphas, along with statues of other characters, one for each animal- the assumption being that these other characters are alphas
but, with juno, star, and fang not being alphas, that leaves more room for interpretation on who these statue "alphas" are
however, i still think they're alphas. since we meet tavie in the ocean adventures, we have explicit confirmation that there are more than six alphas (and not to mention, tavie has a statue as well)
(honestly, my theory is that the juno statue was created to be an arctic wolf alpha, but when creating the balloosh arc, they decided to repurpose them into something else)
.... what was supposed to be a short post about an interesting discovery turned into a long, wordy analysis. oops!
well, bye lol
