The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Makabreska]

?????
Because she wasn't endangered by void lord Dimensius before. Like duhh??

She was literally dying in BfA intro. We barely saved her in the Chamber of Heart.

[Raetary]

?????
Because she wasn't endangered by void lord Dimensius before. Like duhh??

Right.

Enrifs initial question was why she didn't reach out on her own before, when she was endangered by the Old Gods, Sargeras or satanic Squidward.
All of which where just as big of a threat as Xal and Dimensius are right now.

And my point was that she didn't because she couldn't, as she just now recovered and is awake enough to do so.

Maybe read the posts before replying to them next time?

[Civciv]

Right.

Enrifs initial question was why she didn't reach out on her own before, when she was endangered by the Old Gods, Sargeras or satanic Squidward.
All of which where just as big of a threat as Xal and Dimensius are right now.

And my point was that she didn't because she couldn't, as she just now recovered and is awake enough to do so.

Maybe read the posts before replying to them next time?

phsycian, heal thyself.

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I wonder if they're making sure that the hero talent fantasy is going to be future proof. Like, making sure they keep the fantasy intact even if they have to balance it in the future.

I sure do hope so. I'm still sad they removed perma water elementals because it wasn't popular as other talents.

[Woggmer]

The fact that there's no questioning Drenden is stupid. Think about it. If you were a mage of Dalaran, and this dude is just showing up for the first time since the THIRD war, wouldn't you have questions? Given everything that mages in Dalaran have seen, wouldn't you go into auto-sus mode?

Yeah, and he's also a throw-away character who hasn't appeared in-game and only in the books. So unless you're a lore person, you wouldn't know who this guy is.

Could've had the same effect with the other members of the Council of Six (except Khadgar).

[CasualFilth]

Well, she has a personality and is an established character.
That alone makes her not a Jailer 2.0.

So far she always seems to be at least 5 steps ahead in the story, it just doesn't feel natural or organic in any way. It really feels forced how she's pushing the plot forwards.

[Varodoc]

So far she always to be at least 5 steps ahead in the story, it just doesn't feel natural or organic in any way. It really feels forced how she's pushing the story forwards.

Except that Xal'atath was actually established and set-up before her actual arrival into the spotlight. She was associated with a popular and iconic artefact weapon from Legion and was established in Legion Artefact codex and Chronicles as a manipulator and a schemer.

She manipulated the Zandalari and caused the Aqir-Troll War to happen. She manipulated the Dark Irons and caused the corruption of Grim Batol. This is all Pre-TWW lore, this is all knowledge that we already know going into TWW.

What lore did the Jailer have Pre-Sl? No, seriously? What can you tell me about the Jailer that we already knew before 2019? The answer is: Nothing, as he did not exist.

This automatically makes Xal'atath a better villain than Jailer, which is neither a surprise nor a high bar.

[Vakir]

Y'know the starting questline for the Twilight Highlands in the Alliance where (the player) and Anduin investigate a coup in Stormwind? Originally that was supposed to be Benedictus's doing but for some reason, it was cut out before it could be finalized.

Yup. They transferred it to Thrall. The Varian lines were even found dummied out in the files. Instead they got Flintlocke without the best character in Flintlocke.

Also, people, the reason she didn't reach out in BFA when she was dying then is because the Radiant Song and Xal plot hadn't been made yet. I get Doylist explanations are copouts but this entire thing is explicitly a pivot.

[Viridiel]

There is a theory forming with this information. What if, Azeroths world soul is encapsuled? Like an egg? and the shell is a light based thing. Sargeras strike penetrated the shell, which caused azeroths arcane titan blood (blue) to wash out through the wounds and gather with it some of the light of the shell (gold), and forms the blue gold azerite we see in BfA. That the Beledar is falling to void after the stab, is because the shell is damaged. Knowing that it soon will fail completely, the light being of the Beledar might send out a call for help, the radiant song.

There's a description on one of the pets from the Radiant Chords event which says it's manifested using Light magic, so with all of the information together I think we can be fairly certain that Light magic is involved in azerite and the world soul in general. There has to be a reason the titans use Light magic so much.

But I don't think the song is from the Beledar rather than Azeroth. The Beledar does seem surprisingly relevant for something in a third zone of an expansion, but I think it's much more likely that Magni was hearing from a titan machine or a titan-machine-filtered version of Azeroth's voice considering there's a titan word for the role of Speaker and the earthen are knowledgeable about it. I'm not surprised Azeroth decided to stop speaking to Magni once she partially woke up if she was being forced to speak to him.

I think that Light magic is a key component of time magic and it's what's being used to keep Azeroth in stasis, and that you're right that Sargeras disrupting the stasis shell has caused Light magic to mix with the world soul in the form of azerite, but that the Beledar is actually unrelated to all of this and just happens to be near the Coreway and serves the narrative role of explaining the role of the Light in azerite. The Beledar is creating something similar to azerite by combining Light magic with normal leyline magic, and I think Xal'atath/Dimensius has done something similar with the gems in Voidsong but with Void magic. Interestingly, that would mean that the crystallised energy of the Sunwell should also be something similar to azerite, and that the blood of the Old Gods should also be something similar to Void-infused azerite. That would definitely lay down a path forward through the entire Saga.

[Vakir]

There's a description on one of the pets from the Radiant Chords event which says it's manifested using Light magic, so with all of the information together I think we can be fairly certain that Light magic is involved in azerite and the world soul in general. There has to be a reason the titans use Light magic so much.

Which pet? Could just as easily be a description surrounding a pet derived from a Light themed memory.

Either way, the people fixating on it being anyone but Azeroth (not you) just deliberately choose to ignore that the subtitles say that the voice in the cinematic is explicitly the World Soul.

They're just doing their Endwalker, which is fine considering the alternative.

@Hitei

On that note, will get to a reply in full later, busy day - but Chris explicitly called the saga tying up the story threads from the last 20 years. Go rewatch the reveal keynote. Creation of the next 20 is a byproduct of concluding the story and creating interest off of it for the next parts. We're going to finish the conflict talked about including dating back to Chronicle Vol. 1 - back when it was meant to be a lore bible and not an unreliable Watsonian text.

They're not doing a 3 part story for us to have not tied up the loose ends for another 16-17 years after. This is explicitly marketed as a grand finale. They're already prepping lots of young blood legacy characters and sidelining old ones.

Literally "a culmination of the last two decades" to "set new foundations for Azeroth's future." So, both of us are technically right - but it's explicitly meant to be a culmination and payoff.

[Viridiel]

Which pet? Could just as easily be a description surrounding a pet derived from a Light themed memory.

https://www.wowhead.com/beta/npc=220...ered-construct

It's lowercase light, battle pet descriptions aren't exactly the most trustworthy source of information, and it could be a mistake to be fixed before Live, but it's there. I was very surprised because I don't think anything has ever really suggested a connection between the world soul and the Light outside of Chronicle.

[Eldryth]

https://www.wowhead.com/beta/npc=220...ered-construct

It's lowercase light, battle pet descriptions aren't exactly the most trustworthy source of information, and it could be a mistake to be fixed before Live, but it's there. I was very surprised because I don't think anything has ever really suggested a connection between the world soul and the Light outside of Chronicle.

To me, that sounds more like it means "a little bit of magic" than Light as the type of magic, but we'll see.

[Samin]

To me, that sounds more like it means "a little bit of magic" than Light as the type of magic, but we'll see.

It could also just refer to Light "necromancy" (think Calia Menethil) used to assemble the abomination.

Ultimately, none of the other similar pets from the event mention Light magic. There is just no bigger lore implication in that flavor text. Or next thing you know, somebody starts arguing that nostalgia magic is a real thing.

[Enrif]

There's a description on one of the pets from the Radiant Chords event which says it's manifested using Light magic, so with all of the information together I think we can be fairly certain that Light magic is involved in azerite and the world soul in general. There has to be a reason the titans use Light magic so much.

But I don't think the song is from the Beledar rather than Azeroth. The Beledar does seem surprisingly relevant for something in a third zone of an expansion, but I think it's much more likely that Magni was hearing from a titan machine or a titan-machine-filtered version of Azeroth's voice considering there's a titan word for the role of Speaker and the earthen are knowledgeable about it. I'm not surprised Azeroth decided to stop speaking to Magni once she partially woke up if she was being forced to speak to him.

I think that Light magic is a key component of time magic and it's what's being used to keep Azeroth in stasis, and that you're right that Sargeras disrupting the stasis shell has caused Light magic to mix with the world soul in the form of azerite, but that the Beledar is actually unrelated to all of this and just happens to be near the Coreway and serves the narrative role of explaining the role of the Light in azerite. The Beledar is creating something similar to azerite by combining Light magic with normal leyline magic, and I think Xal'atath/Dimensius has done something similar with the gems in Voidsong but with Void magic. Interestingly, that would mean that the crystallised energy of the Sunwell should also be something similar to azerite, and that the blood of the Old Gods should also be something similar to Void-infused azerite. That would definitely lay down a path forward through the entire Saga.

Considering how deliberate the story telling during the hallowfall zone seems to be, the Beledar just "happening to be there" doesn't sound plausible to me. I wish i had access to the alpha so i could snoop around Hallowfall.

[Samin]

Considering how deliberate the story telling during the hallowfall zone seems to be, the Beledar just "happening to be there" doesn't sound plausible to me. I wish i had access to the alpha so i could snoop around Hallowfall.

It didn't just "happen to be there". The Arathi didn't just randomly stumble into this cave system, they got teleported there, probably by Beledar itself.

[Makorus]

People are gonna overspeculate, it's gonna be the obvious explanation and then everyone is gonna call it shit writing when there was no hint that it was anything but the obvious explanation.

[Nymrohd]

So far she always seems to be at least 5 steps ahead in the story, it just doesn't feel natural or organic in any way. It really feels forced how she's pushing the plot forwards.

The reality is, we know nothing. Seriously, that has been consistently the problem in Warcraft; compared to the many villains of WoW, the civilizations of Azeroth, for all their power, know almost nothing about the bigger cosmic picture. Never mind that at multiple points in time we had sustained peace and significant arcane power to actually do the research required; the ancient elves still didn't know about an entire continent on the other side of their own planet or the workings of the Titans on Azeroth, let alone what the legion was (and if they did, why was that information completely lost given we have multiple of these near immortals still alive in Silvermoon for well over a thousand of years of relative peace). Azshara seems to know far more now than she did back when she courted Sargeras, probably through the Void.

Xal'atath knows shit. She knows cosmic history either because she predates Azeroth or through the Void itself and she has been continuously active and scheming on the planet.

[Enrif]

It didn't just "happen to be there". The Arathi didn't just randomly stumble into this cave system, they got teleported there, probably by Beledar itself.

That's what i'm saying. The Beledar is not something that "just happend to be there". The focus on it is very deliberate, from the reveal during blizzcon, from the stroyline in hallowfall, it is clear that the Beledar will be a major part of the TWW expansion.

[Nymrohd]

That's what i'm saying. The Beledar is not something that "just happend to be there". The focus on it is very deliberate, from the reveal during blizzcon, from the stroyline in hallowfall, it is clear that the Beledar will be a major part of the TWW expansion.

We also know how Dimensius was defeated in Karkora where he fully manifested. A Naaru banished him back to the void. Imo the idea that the Naaru have observation posts for all the World Souls is not far fetched. They were watching over Argus as well after all.
Maybe by the end of Midnight Anduin's connection to the Light fully returns and he goes supernova, saving the planet in front of the Arathi who then want to crown him Emperor.

[Lahis]

I still wonder what this image was about



based on the lore of the zone, Xalatath doesn't really ally with the Nerubians until later on, doesn't she? So it can't really be the pre-patch event.

Dalaran was downed in Nerubian attack. Webbed up an damaged Dalaran is perfect fit for the expansion intro scenario.

[Vakir]

People are gonna overspeculate, it's gonna be the obvious explanation and then everyone is gonna call it shit writing when there was no hint that it was anything but the obvious explanation.

The true Eternal Cycle.

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. I was very surprised because I don't think anything has ever really suggested a connection between the world soul and the Light outside of Chronicle.

Hell, even in Chronicle, the closest connection we have is just the nature of it being born of the primordial forces that are Light and Shadow.

Still think world souls are just something else entirely. Probably just raw human potential. And that the TLT grand conspiracy remains that the Titans have been enforcing Order on planets from the start. Azeroth is warning of both. Hence the prison logo and the gigantic obvious villain bat implied by Metzen's description.

World souls being capital-L Light really just heightens the overemphasizing of Light and Void at the expense of other characters of forces besides that one.