Why Teldrassil must burn ? A theory.

[Shakou]

I get that people are expecting Sylvannas to be the "bad guy" in this xpac, but that's the real rub. She's not. Probably #2 is the answer. And definitely not #1 or else there wouldn't be a mystery about it.

[Faerillis]

Sure, one of these. Still I cannot see Sylvie being so stupid in burning the less useful for her alliance land, doing garrosh 2.0 making the world all against her because, come on, a world tree burns, not Nordrassil ok, but still a world tree. What Cenarius and the other ancient guardians would do? And all the children of the forest/chimaera/faeri dragons/things? The Ancients (The tree ones) which remained neutral will surely be pissed. I mean, she knows (she said that in Tides of war) the alliance will retaliate on Lordaeron and she knows stormwind+ironforge are the ones having the main alliance armies. She cannot be that stupid.

In all fairness, Teldrassil is practically the only World Tree yet to fail in some way shape or form. So you know, maybe Blizz is just tired of trying to make them look good? :P

In all honesty I think it is either option 2 or option 4 from Steampunkette's post. I can still see absolutely no reason Sylvanas would burn down Teldrassil. The group I expect though is the Desolate Council and I don't expect it to be an intentional thing given their stance on Sylvanas with Eyir. I'm guessing that Sylvanas ends up at some kind of peace talk/council in Darnassus tied to Azerite, the Desolate Council manage to recruit some Night Elves alongside them to try and capture Sylvanas and the Azerite and something happens to trigger the substance's immense power and it starts the conflagration that destroys Teldrassil. The Alliance Members who escape see that it is Forsaken attacking and using the Azerite, the Horde see Forsaken Traitors. Vereesa somehow gets killed in the crossfire.

[Magistrate]

Or the orcs needed some log.

they that kind of orc?

[SirCowdog]

some dumbass goblin

I think this is the most I can agree with your post. xD

german spotted

Nope. Just a funny joke.

[Obelisk Kai]

It's as good a guess as any.

IF the Horde burned Teldrassil deliberately, it will be presented in such a way that Horde players think it was absolutely necessary or a regrettable accident.

IF the Horde didn't do it, then who did?

The one explanation I doubt the most is the most obvious, that the Horde burned Teldrassil out of sheer malice. There is definitely more happening here than we as yet know.

[anaxie]

Should've just gone to Moon Guard for that. Even half the women on that server can give those orcs some log!

More seriously:

I'm guessing it's going to be one of four things;

1) It has to fall. With Silithus getting the new World Wound, C'thun could awaken, or at least be affected. And if Teldrassil pulls a Nordrassil and burrows into his flesh it may need to be destroyed to keep the Nelves from going Old-God Mad. It may be that Sylvie burns the tree halfway through the evacuation, risking or even killing a portion of the Nelf populace, or the Alliance wants to find "Another Way" and Sylvie takes it on herself to destroy the tree, either way the Alliance has Casus Belli.

2) Framejob. Wrathion, Azshara, N'zoth, Jaina, or some other third party arranges for Sylvanas to be present before setting the tree on fire as a way to make it look like Sylvanas and the Horde did it. It would explain the "Surprised" stance in one of the two released images of Sylvanas before Teldrassil's flames.

3) Failed Peacetalks. Imagine Anduin gets Sylvanas to the negotiating table in Teldrassil since it's closer to Orgrimmar and allows her a position of relative power. She has her army outside just in case it's a trap and settles down to talk peace with Anduin. Genn, unwilling to accept peace, has the talks attacked by ambushers and assassins. Vereesa gets filled full of arrows trying to stop them, or protect Sylvanas, in the hopes that peace can still be reached. Outraged by the attack, the Horde Army goes to work destroying Teldrassil and Sylvanas grieves for her sister (And probably brings her back as undead).

4) Bait and Switch: The devs have been fairly careful, outside of a single interview in which it seems to have slipped out, of saying in which order the events happen. It may be that Teldrassil happens after Lordaeron and we're being allowed to run down the "Horde Starts It!" line for maximum surprise when the Book/Prepatch comes out.

If cthun wasnt dead im sure the huge sword shoved inside him finished the job

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Maybe Sylvanas did it to save Azeroth since the world trees are that way because their roots are quenching on the Titans Blood. With Azeroth bleeding out and dying Sylvanas and the horde did what had to be done.

You have a faction made up of survivors. The Horde

And a faction made up of self important high horse bigots. The Alliance

[Daevelian]

But attacking stormwind will mean tens (hundreds? whatever are the pop numbers in this game, the majority) of humans to resurrect. Cata states sylvie could resurrect en masse only humans. Attacking teldrassil is the stupidest thing ever. Is I said, why in the world Cenarius would not want to rooot out her nice ass, after that? And it's not cenarius only... Malorne, tortolla, aviana, goldrinn, ursol... they're almost all alive now. All the allies of nature will sure go against her. How Hamuul could accept that, and the other tauren druids? Burning a world tree is likely the only thing making malfurion going from almost neutral to hostile to the horde, and we all know he's depicted very stupid lately, but he's very very powerful. Really, I can't understand.

And teldrassil is too far to distract...

Stormwind houses a massive graveyard ripe for harvesting human remains, in particular after a war to save the planet. And hey, we do not yet know the fallout this will have with other factions.

Teldrassil is PERFECT for a distraction too, the distance especially. how better to distract an enemy navy than with an incident on the literal other side of the planet?

The only reason i doubt this, is mainly... why would Saurfang, baine and Lorthemar still follow her? (in the picture of Teldrassil -before the burning, you can see that she is with an Orc (most likely Saurfang), so if they just attacked the Alliance for the lols, why would he still go with her orders? or its there a stupidity virus that have affected everyone in the horde?)

While i cannot say for Baine and Lorthemar, we already know Saurfang is the kind of moron who froths at the mouth ready to fight at the mere mention of "for the horde". Sure, while he might be old and have a sense of honour, he is still at the end of the day an older generation of orc, a generation that was raised to believe war is everything they could ever want.

[Vynny]

I don't think that's plausible. Trust me, I don't want another story line where the horde are the aggressors in the situation either, but I feel like blizz wouldn't have a conflict start out of some necessary sacrifice for the world's survival, and I don't think that Anduin's character would knowingly go to war with the Horde for doing what had to be done in order to save Azeroth.

[Daevelian]

Cause if there is anything the trash devs are telling us, it's eastern kingdoms is the only place that matters for the Alliance. To hell with everything in Kalimdor.

I fail to see how that is related in any way. You just running off on a tangent or something?

[Chakah]

Because World Soul is absorbing life force of living creatures that die. That's how they grow. The sooner life evolves on the planet, the more living creatures live and die on it, the faster the World Soul grows and matures. More powerful creatures provide more life essence, that's why keepers like Odyn promote strength/power and reward those who die in battle.

Now lets get back to the present day. You have a wounded world / World Soul and a massive world tree housing thousands (if not millions) living beings, some of which have lived for centuries - night elves. Just commit small genocide and you can heal your wounded World Soul with that ammount of life force released !

I'm not sure if you have been watching too much Full Metal Alchemist - or too little.

[Octavius]

Stormwind houses a massive graveyard ripe for harvesting human remains, in particular after a war to save the planet. And hey, we do not yet know the fallout this will have with other factions.

Teldrassil is PERFECT for a distraction too, the distance especially. how better to distract an enemy navy than with an incident on the literal other side of the planet?



While i cannot say for Baine and Lorthemar, we already know Saurfang is the kind of moron who froths at the mouth ready to fight at the mere mention of "for the horde". Sure, while he might be old and have a sense of honour, he is still at the end of the day an older generation of orc, a generation that was raised to believe war is everything they could ever want.

But for a distraction you have to move swiftly too. If you attack with the horde main army teldrassil, how the hell you can think of reaching stormwind shortly after, with surprise effect, on the other side of the planet? The Alliance will immediatly on highest guard. Attacking it with the forsaken only from the EK? Sylvanas fears as fuck a direct confrontation with stormwind with her forsaken alone, makes no sense. Something else is going on here.

[Steampunkette]

But for a distraction you have to move swiftly too. If you attack with the horde main army teldrassil, how the hell you can think of reaching stormwind shortly after, with surprise effect, on the other side of the planet? The Alliance will immediatly on highest guard. Attacking it with the forsaken only from the EK? Sylvanas fears as fuck a direct confrontation with stormwind with her forsaken alone, makes no sense. Something else is going on here.

^This.

There's no way the Burning of Teldrassil is a "Distraction" for anything. For starters there's no way Saurfang, Baine, or Lorthemar would go along with an act of supreme aggression like that -unless- it was a retaliation or their hands were forced, completely. And there's no way they'd let Sylvanas force their hands because they'd be more likely to just cut hers off. None of them trust her as far as they can throw a Gronn.

Now with Thalyssra immediately heading to Ashenvale in the wake of the Seething Shore/Silithus events that are post-stabbing of Azeroth, -there- is an opportunity. If Tyrande attacked her, Sylvanas could use Lorthemar's clear connection with Thalyssra as a leverage point to go two-to-two with Baine and Saurfang, which at the very -least- creates a stalemate between the "Let's attack!" and "Let's not!" sides. But since they attacked a Horde Leader or at least the New Horde Leader's people, Sylvanas could -probably- use Honor, Duty, and "For the Horde" Loyalty to get Saurfang to grudgingly agree to a massive counterattack that secures Kalimdor for the Horde.

And then everything goes down, possibly with Thalyssra fucking with Ley-Line magic and popping the Nelfy Azerite deposits to destroy the tree itself.

But as a diversion? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

[Octavius]

^This.

There's no way the Burning of Teldrassil is a "Distraction" for anything. For starters there's no way Saurfang, Baine, or Lorthemar would go along with an act of supreme aggression like that -unless- it was a retaliation or their hands were forced, completely. And there's no way they'd let Sylvanas force their hands because they'd be more likely to just cut hers off. None of them trust her as far as they can throw a Gronn.

Now with Thalyssra immediately heading to Ashenvale in the wake of the Seething Shore/Silithus events that are post-stabbing of Azeroth, -there- is an opportunity. If Tyrande attacked her, Sylvanas could use Lorthemar's clear connection with Thalyssra as a leverage point to go two-to-two with Baine and Saurfang, which at the very -least- creates a stalemate between the "Let's attack!" and "Let's not!" sides. But since they attacked a Horde Leader or at least the New Horde Leader's people, Sylvanas could -probably- use Honor, Duty, and "For the Horde" Loyalty to get Saurfang to grudgingly agree to a massive counterattack that secures Kalimdor for the Horde.

And then everything goes down, possibly with Thalyssra fucking with Ley-Line magic and popping the Nelfy Azerite deposits to destroy the tree itself.

But as a diversion? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

100 agreed.
Dunno how, but the thing is complex. Don't know if there's some intricated military operation and counter operation which lead to the burning, or a third party exploiting the conflict... I like how they're keeping everything unclear.

[Zeidia]

Without making any spoilers.

For those who have killed argus and have done the "illidan end story" quest, if you see what illidan say and read what malfurion and tyrande say in return, it's pretty obvious that every single person in the world would want to burn that fuckers and his shitty treehouse to the ashes.

[Polybius]

I'm thinking C'thunite!

Reminds me of a theory that the World Trees reinforce the prisons of the Old Gods.

But the other theories are a lot stronger. The World Tree gaining strength from dead spirits explains why the Old Gods would want to form a Void Titan. It also explains the wisps and the Emerald Dream locations.

@rad586 In one of Lovecraft's stories (which Blizzard has borrowed from), there is a 'dream' where benevolent beings would go after they die.

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.

You have a faction made up of survivors. The Horde

And a faction made up of self important high horse bigots. The Alliance

Alliance aren't the only bigots but nice try. Killing the roots would also mean getting rid of the Nightwell and Sunwell.

[Khaza-R]

Reposting from an older thread I made a while back, but this is the real reason:

Truth. I bet they could actually make it look like the art with the modern tech

[cfStatic]

But attacking stormwind will mean tens (hundreds? whatever are the pop numbers in this game, the majority) of humans to resurrect. Cata states sylvie could resurrect en masse only humans. Attacking teldrassil is the stupidest thing ever. Is I said, why in the world Cenarius would not want to rooot out her nice ass, after that? And it's not cenarius only... Malorne, tortolla, aviana, goldrinn, ursol... they're almost all alive now. All the allies of nature will sure go against her. How Hamuul could accept that, and the other tauren druids? Burning a world tree is likely the only thing making malfurion going from almost neutral to hostile to the horde, and we all know he's depicted very stupid lately, but he's very very powerful. Really, I can't understand.

And teldrassil is too far to distract...

She wants to attack Stormwind, but can't. So she attacks and burns down Teldrassil to draw out the Alliance armies. Surely there'd be a bunch of dead humans about to raise then?

I wouldn't put it past Blizzard.

[Polybius]

Truth. I bet they could actually make it look like the art with the modern tech

Didn't they show a updated Teldrassil in the announcement trailer?

[Deleted]

The Alliance should retaliate by destroying the Sunwell.

[Octavius]

The Alliance should retaliate by destroying the Sunwell.

Sadly it will be probably the reason (lorewise) silvermoon will still stand.