This is pure speculation on my part I’ll admit but I have a suspicion and I want to get this down as a post before we move into Shadowlands.
I want to talk about The Old Gods plan to turn Azeroth into a Dark Titan and how it involves the Emerald Dream and the Shadowlands. The Old Gods arrived on Azeroth first andthey build an entire Back Empire with the intention to corrupt Azeroth in the womb and make her a Void Titan, they did this by trying to reach her in the womb through Azeroth’s crust. But we don’t actually know if the Old Gods knew about the Emerald Dream at this time, and this is really important because of what I’m going to say may change how we view the History of Azeroth.
What Chronicle shared with us was that the Titans stumbled upon Azeroth when she was being corrupted by the Old Gods, but they soon realized that although these Old Gods were imbedded into her crust they had not managed to corrupt the sleeping Titan in her womb. So they took it upon themselves to purge Azeroth of these Old Gods. Aman’thul tried to rip Y’shaarj from the planet’s crust by force but found that when they did that they actually wounded Azeroth and they created a hole in the planet. They could not jut kill the Old Gods to they set out to Imprison them. Which they are successful at.
I want to momentarily diverge from the topic to note that our history was written in Titan Perspective but with the lore implications of Battle for Azeroth and the Visions of N’Zoth we were privileged to collect a book of Old God Secrets for Wrathion which suggests an alternate history of how the Old Gods were native to this world and the Titans came here and inflicted a “Curse of Stone”on all the mortal inhabitants of this world which includes the originators of our races and Yogg-Saron by creating The Curse of the Flesh was simply freeing us from the Titans. This is mildly relevant to this post because you can either view the Titans as saviors or colonizers of Azeroth and whichever position you take on this history will color your opinion of the history. But since we do not know more about the Old Gods point of view we will continue with the Titan point of view as fact.
We find out pretty early in Titan lore that the planet was terraformed by Freya to stop the spread of the Old Gods corruption, by tapping into the dreams of the sleeping Titan.Since Life and Order are on the same Pillar of cosmic alignment this makes sense. Dreams shape reality. So Freya with the help of the Wild Gods, created what we know know to be the Emerald Dream, as long as the Emerald Dream remained a wild lush green garden of Life, thus Azeroth would grow to nurture life. The Dream shapes her reality, and that’s why it needs to be protected.
The early elves planted sacred World Trees to be able to tap into Azeroth’s dream to help shape and cultivate this idealistic paradise that they hoped Azeroth would become. This is evident in the Druid narrative. With the help of “the Wild Gods”, alien beings from other planets who correspond to the alignment of Life, helped Freya subdue the chaotic Elemental spirits who are native to Azeroth. In Azeroth’s conception she consumed too much of the element of ‘Spirit’ which lead to the unstable elements. Once these unstable elements were bound to their own planes, by a Titan witch named Helya the Titans could proceed with terra-forming Azeroth.
Once the Titans left and the Wild Gods were left in charge, the Old Gods, specifically Yogg-Saron began to realize that he was able to corrupt the Emerald Dream in small ways by corrupting the World Trees. When the Night Elves became aware of this corruption they asked the Dragonflights to protect them against the Old Gods by blessing their World Trees. But that did not stop the Old Gods, so eventually the Night Elves were forced to cut down. Ursoc explains this story in Legion when you are claiming the Claws of Ursoc, he takes you to Andrassil, the Tree which Yogg-Saron first corrupted the Emerald Nightmare and created the sliver of the Emerald Nightmare that we encountered in Legion.
“The vassal of Life disguises treachery” -Il’gynoth, This treachery is The Rift of Aln.
This rift is what connects The Emerald Dream to the Outter Cosmic universe, The Great Dark Beyond, The Twisting Nether and (although it has not been confirmed I think this ties to the Shadowlands as well.) This first is a doorway for anything to come through and potentially corrupt Azeroth’s Dream, thus corrupting her. Players enter the rift through Lake Elune'ara in the Emerald Dream’s counterpart of Moonglade.
“Gazing into it, Malfurion Stormrage saw it as a bottomless chasm which radiated with primeval energies that even he dared not investigate. Indeed, the very rift itself seemed half-dreamed, for it had a surreal quality to its expanse and to the archdruid now and then seemed to ripple as if ready to fade or change.” - Stormrage
At the end of the Emerald Nightmare raid we are lead to the rift of Aln by the soul of Y’sera and we are shown a tendril of the void taking root in the Emerald Dream. This is bad omen. What this means is that after so many years of trying to get into the Dream and being thwarted, the Void now has it’s ‘way in’ to corrupt Azeroth’s dreams. Outside of the Old Gods. Instead of Old Gods, actual Void Lords how have the power to bend Azeroth to their will.
What Can Information can be gathered from Shadowlands that support this?
Order needs to have Order across all realms including Death. So it seems that very early on the Titans tapped into the realm of the Shadowlands and began ordering it to their will. They created four distinct realms which Mirror the great ordering of the Universe. Ardenweald is the realm of Life, Maldraxxrus is the Realm of Death, Bastion is the Realm of Order and Revendreth is the Realm of Disorder. You have Four rules of these realms who’s only purpose is to keep the Titanic Order in place. You have an Arbiter who’s entire duty is to simply equally disperse all souls to make sure that all of these realms are perfectly balanced.
And so it was for many many years. Until the Titans began to turn against one another, First with Sargeras turning on the Pantheon, when he learned the truth of the Void and the lengths the void had gone to to corrupt a world soul, to create ‘A Dark Titan’ again this is what the Titans want us to believe. Their singular goal is to maintain order at all costs. So for what purpose was the Shadowlands so ordered? simply to keep Disorder contained. Order and Disorder are duality an therefore are in conflict of one another.
It’s possible the Old Gods or the void thought they could use this as a means to shape Azeroth’s dreams and that ancient war resulted in the creation of the Maw and the Jailer. The Jailer and the essense of the Maw could simply be the Original force of Death and Disorder than the Titans hoped to order when they reordered the Shadowlands. This could be what the Legion under the force of Disorder was trying to release with the Dreadlords help by creating the Lich King.
Sacrifices to Maintain Order
“From the dawn of its reshaping by the mysterious titans, Azeroth had been guarded by beings who were tied to the world as no other creatures could be. The dragons had been empowered by the titans, but Azeroth itself gave rise to the spirits and demigods, creatures eternal in nature yet capable of ultimate sacrifice.” -Wolfheart
This line of dialogue hits harder after Ursoc’s sacrifice for Ardenweald.
I would like to point out that Azeroth isn’t just some fragment of the Universe, Azeroth IS the Universe, and through her dream can these forces shape the entire universe. World of Warcraft takes this idea from Indian mythology and the concept of “perusha”, In occult terms this is like the magician who awakens to the understanding that his thoughts shape the universe and thus any one person can shape the universe to their own will.
Again I’m going to throw back to a previous post I did about Forsaken religion The Cult of the Forgotten Shadow because it preaches exactly this and this isn’t a new belief in the World of Warfraft Mythology, this philosophy was something a human priest stole from the Cult of Shadow Orcs under the command of Gul’dan during the first War so this is fundamental mythology in the World of Warcraft universe. There is dialogue in both Ardenweald and Bastion that suggest that Shadowlands is simply a dream and each dreamer has a different experience and thus shapes their own universe differently. which could be a way to structurally add lore player agency without having to change story or game play to acknowledge this. We are all experiencing and shaping Azeroth in our own unique ways that is unique to our own experiences even if we are all experiencing one collective narrative.
“Still, we learned much from observing the link between their plane and Ardenweald, and we have high confidence that a vulnerability has been identified.” - Dreadlord book found in Shadowlands
What Shadowlands is, is a microcosm of the greater universe, and it will be amazing to see how it all plays out over the story telling within this next expansion.
When other popular lore Youtubers talk about ‘a War in the Shadowlands” how I interpret that is they understand that there is conflict on who gets to shape Azeroth’s will, be it the Shadow, the Light, the Titans, the Old Gods. but Azeroth is described as a Syzygy, she’s the cosmic alignment of all of these cosmic forces. This is what they are referring to when they talk about ‘The Balance’ in the narrative. Sylvanas, and the Jailer threaten this balance because they want to give one force (assuming it’s the Pillar of disorder and Death) the advantage to destory all life so that Azeroth can be re-shaped into something else, obviously that’s not what we want to happen we are invested in stopping the re-ordering of the Universe for our own survival, unless we personally have a hand in reshaping the universe and can reshape it to our own will.
I just wanted to really write on here to tell y'all some of the feelings I have right now.
Every day I literally wake up hoping that it’s gonna be the day that my life changes, but I know it doesn’t work that way.
So I just get on with doing me, going to the British Academy Of Music has been so good for me and being halfway through my year I have learnt so much.
Any person who actually cares about there life will ask the question “What if I don’t make it?” Making it might be having a family, being a star, having a nice home…we all have different visions of happiness.
My vision is just of one and only thing…music. I don’t even see relationships, it all kinda gets blocked out. Some days I just get angry cause I put so much pressure on myself to do well, but I guess it’s just because I care.
And sometimes I do have them days where I’m like shiiiit man what happens….if i don’t make it? and it’s scary man…but there has to be something for never giving up and working hard right?
