So I recently posted a theory on reddit claiming that Beledar might be Azeroth’s heart. It even came complete with a flow chart explaining my reasoning.
Admittedly, it was more than a little bit of a stretch which someone quickly pointed out. But that person also pointed out that in making the chart I had brought a lot of lore facts into frame which sets a better picture for what might be going on.
So I decided to salvage that insane flow chart by compiling the questions I asked and facts I collected into a list to help everyone with their own theories. I also put my personal theories at the end.
Questions:
What is the Coreway’s purpose?
What is Beledar?
Why is Beledar shifting?
What’s the connection between Beledar and azerite?
What is the Radiant Song?
What are the roots in Azj-Kahet?
Facts about the Coreway:
The titans constructed the Coreway.
The titans put great emphasis on protecting the Coreway when creating the edicts for the earthen in Khaz Algar.
A colossal construct was left behind by the titans to destroy the earthen of Khaz Algar should the edicts ever be broken.
There is no comparable failsafe against earthen independence at any other titan installation that we are aware of.
The Coreway is large enough to fit a keeper or possibly even a titan’s avatar through.
The Coreway ends at an opening to Hallowfall which is where Beledar is located.
Facts about Beledar:
Blizzard confirmed Beledar is NOT the tip of Sargeras’ sword.
Before the first shift, Beledar only emitted holy energy.
The Light crystals created by Beledar are similar to Azerite.
When Beledar shifts it emits Void energy.
When Beledar shifted for the first time, the Arathi called it the “Day of Darkness”.
The Day of Darkness happened at approximately the same time Sargeras’ sword struck Azeroth.
Facts about the Radiant Song:
Azeroth has been sending out the Radiant Song to alert the world that she is in danger.
The Radiant Song can manifest physical recreations of Azeroth’s memories that have the same coloration as Azerite.
The Radiant Song gets louder near Beledar.
Facts about shards of Light, the naaru, and Azerite:
Life in the universe began when shards of Light carrying the spark of life were scattered across reality.
World-souls were created from the spark of life carried by the shards of Light.
Naaru are created when shards of Light coalesce.
When naaru are damaged: They invert and become beings of Void called “void gods”.
Azerite can be considered Azeroth’s equivalent to blood.
Azerite feels similar to shards of naaru.
Facts about Azj-Kahet, world trees, and the Legend of Elune’Ahir:
There are large pools of old god blood in Azj-Kahet called “black blood”.
The world trees Teldrassil and Andrassil were once used to spread the influence of the old gods. The latter was corrupted by the Saronite which is the blood of the old god Yogg-Saron.
There is a legend of a world tree called “Elun’Ahir” that was torn out of the earth by Aman’Thul.
The details of the Legend of Elune’Ahir are canonically disputed and it may not even be based on a true story.
Personal Theories:
The Coreway is probably much more important than other titan installations if it warrants such a drastic failsafe.
The titans might have built the Coreway so they or the keepers could go down and observe something personally. Possibly Beledar.
If the titans wanted to observe Beledar, then it might be vital to Azeroth’s health.
Beledar could be shifting because it was damaged by Sargeras’ sword, similar to how naaru become void gods when they’re damaged.
Beledar might be one of the shards of Light that creates a world-soul.
The roots in Azj-Kahet might be the roots of the mythical Elun’Ahir.
If the roots did belong Elun’Ahir and had been allowed to continue growing it could have been corrupted by the black blood similar to how Andrassil was corrupted by Saronite.
If the Legend of Elun’Ahir is based in truth and Aman’Thul did uproot Elun’Ahir, it may have actually been because it was in danger of being corrupted by the black blood. Also it may have been too close to Beledar.
The Earthen said they hadn’t finished cleaning the Coreway and only cleaned up enough to get us to Ringing Deeps which means the Coreway goes deeper.
In otherwords the World Soul of Azeroth can’t be Beledar leaving us with another option: Beledar is K’aresh’s World Soul that Xal’atath and the Old Gods were chasing to finish corrupting!
This adds interesting implications for N’Zoth saying “Only I can save this world” despite knowing from our Time Travel that he is going to die. He hid Azeroth’s actual World Soul from Xal’atath expecting her to focus on K’aresh’s World Soul.
K’aresh’s Light-corrupted World Soul got injured upon Sargeras stabbing Silithus which means that Sargeras noticed the similar energies to that of the Vindicaar and realized that the Light was about to get a World Soul and he needed to kill her fast therefore a quick stab of a Void Entity to ensure Beledar dies from Void-poisoning was necessary.
Azeroth wasn’t a priority to Sargeras as it had no corruption at all leaving Beledar as his primary target.
Beledar of course used Magni to get healed from Sargeras’s attack and get N’Zoth out of the way. Too bad Elun’Ahir’s roots are getting too close to the Black Blood and will finish Beledar off.
Azeroth’s own voice is so loud it knocked Magni unconscious both times it tried to contact him.
Xal’atath will get a rude awakening once she has finished drowning Beledar in Void for as N’Zoth says: “She is not the last but the first. Drown her and you will see.”
Cue 2-pronged attack on the World Soul: 1 attack coming from the Undermine and the 2nd weaker attack coming from the Coreway.
There will be 3 Zones for the Final Patch of War Within: Kezan, Undermine and Azeroth’s Core(as the Earthen call the final destination of the Coreway).
The Raid will be the Datamined Goblin Raid with the previous Patch involving Beledar featuring Elun’Ahir’s Root System around Beledar as a Zone with it’s Raid being the Datamined Ethereal Raid(as the Ethereal would put great importance in K’aresh’s World Soul).
My gut reaction is that Elun’Ahir will not be Old God corrupted. At worst, I would expect it to be Life unchecked, but I don’t even think that’s likely. As much as everyone is forecasting Eonar as being primed for a villainous turn, I expect Eonar to help us and ultimately supplant Aman’Thul when we end up going against the Titans. Put another way, I don’t think her undermining Aman’Thul when he ripped out Elun’Ahir was signaling Eonar as being duplicitous. Rather, I think that is signaling that she is the good guy who is trying to push back against Aman’Thul’s draconian methods as a prideful patriarch (which is a common thread in “Sky-Father” deities).
Something I will note is that Azerite seems to trump void energy. Not just with Magni awakening the Earthen, but any one who has Mining will probably notice that crystallized veins (Azerite) protect against weeping veins (Void).
I’m not sure what Beledar’s deal is, though. Could just be a Titan installed fail-safe against Void influence, since purging Old Gods directly was not a viable solution. The Light-Void cycle certainly points towards something naaru related. And as Thrall pointed out in the cinematic, Sargeras tried to stab it for a reason. I doubt that reason was so that the Void could corrupt Azeroth, and I’m not even sure I believe that it was meant to kill Azeroth either. Could just be the Titan’s method of ensuring a Light/Order process? Not a lot of information to really peg down something I’m confident about.
I don’t understand how they’re convincing people Life Light and/or Order would be opposed.
Especially after the whole “TiTaNs pErSpEcTiVe” Chronicle retcon since Chronicle explicitly depicts Light and Life as good things so clearly the titans like Light and Life.
Spores, genesaur, and Botani, basically. Life unchecked seems like it can get up to some pretty unsavory stuff that doesn’t seem to jive with Light or Order where it otherwise might.
I think people read way too much into that crystal, it’s probably just foreshadowing for what will happen to the sunwell. There are plenty of shiny crystals in the planet that one is just really big. One was used for Ashbringer
To add to this, in one of the books we found in Ulduman: Legacy of Tyr, it says that the Earthen we encounter in Khaz Algar (sector AR-938) were sent to investigate a “fissure”. Watcher Melenia speculates that exposure to the “anomaly” is why these Earthen were less affected by the curse of flesh compared to those who would end up as ‘Dwarfs’. The ‘anomaly’ could be Beledar.
It is possible that Beledar was what they were sent to investigate and the coreway was constructed to provide ease of access to it. Although if the Coreway was built by the Titans, then the ‘fissure’ would’ve occurred during the Ordering of Azeroth. Or it could be another case of Blizzard using Titans to mean the Keepers as they have often done.
I still reckon that the colossal construct was a failsafe Dornic made in case the Earthen went rogue. Which of course they did but with the blessing of “The keeper” (most likely Archaedas). Dornic probably expected the Earthen to destroy the edicts if they ever rebelled. But of course they did not until recently.
Well yeah, obviously, but there are no end to those cretins who exclusively get their lore from YouTube saying “OMG AMAN’THUL HATES LIFE” because Nobbel or Bellular made some low effort clickbait video about it.