Before watching the latest cinematic yesterday, I thought that Blizzard would finally reveal this grand backstory of who Xal’atath is and what her motivations were. Don’t know why I expected any of that because instead we got a whole lot of nothing. I am tired of pretending that Blizzard has some grand plan for this villain that they’re waiting to reveal to us. The truth is much more simple, Blizzard doesn’t know either.
We are 2 expansions into this story and Blizzard has yet to answer any of these questions:
What is Xalatath?
Where did she come from?
What is her motivation?
What does she want with Azeroth?
How did she find out about the dark heart?
What is the dark heart? And what does she plan to do with it?
Feels like these are some very basic questions that Blizzard could at least give some context on. Everything they give is just so vague that it could go in any direction. I feel like they keep hinting at potentials storylines, like the mural in Ansureks throne room, and then just never diving into it because they change their mind. (Like seriously what was that mural supposed to be).
I truly hope they don’t try and go for the sympathetic backstory approach, considering she killed an entire city worth of people, and is currently invading Azeroth and killing who knows how many people in the process. But that’s where my money is. I bet you her plan is to reunite with her “sister”/“mother” Azeroth and free her from the planet, and this is all just some 5D chess game where we’re all going to forgive her and become her ally. But I’m sure the writing team hasn’t gotten that far yet.
We aren’t. Midnight hasn’t started yet. If anything, I bet we will get most of our Xal’atath questions answered in Midnight, and The Last Titan will be how we deal with her.
My theory just based on the new cinematic: Xal’atath was a priest in the making on her home planet, maybe even had some crazy powers as a child, and her people worshipped the light. In some turn of events, the Light has betrayed her people, which makes her grow hatred towards it, and she succumbs to the void in an effort to create a massive void army to get revenge on the light. I’m just being imaginative is all.
Her backstory was never going to be in an opening cinematic. The opening cinematic is not intended to answer questions. It is intended to build hype and setup the start of the next chapter. If anything the goal would be to raise more questions in the cinematic (which it did).
They absolutely do. Just because they have not spoon fed it from the start doesn’t mean they don’t know.
No, we are 1 expac in and are about to start the next chapter.
Answer? No. Hint at? Yes.
But, the first chapter should not have all the answers.
Sympathetic is fine. Villains can be sympathetic, or at least start that way, and still be villains. That can add depth. They could absolutely go a route of showing her as originally sympathetic, just having since then turned into a monster.
The issue would be if they white washed her and made her ‘good.’ But, I really doubt that. Even in the team up part it was made pretty clear it was an alliance of desperation and everyone knew she was bad. I think that says volumes of how they see her. She is a villain and will remain a villain.
Thats it, they had literally nothing on her, she was nothing. They tried to build this such grand scheme plot that in the end will just be disappointing
She was going to be an old god, for sure, but people complained and they backtrack to be something different, a void entity that somehow tricked the old gods, and now obviously she was a mortal “saved” by the void.
the plot from now on will be the void trying to get azeroth world soul to protect themselves from the light who want to wipe them, but we will stop them when they are “just trying to survive” and you will get fake moral dramas about void and light, yipeee
Her being revealed as a silver surfer type entity was done ingame, this is just retelling it out of game, personally i think she was sent to azeroth to get the old gods to actually do their jobs instead of setting up empires and creating life.
Someone who clawed their way up to the top over a very long period of time.
Doesn’t really matter. One of countless planets consumed by the Void.
She states it pretty plainly. Autonomy. Not to be put in a vulnerable position ever again.
Power to achieve #3.
She’s pretty gd old. She probably passively watched it being constructed.
It’s a prototype for the Dragon Soul, something meant to contain and focus an immense amount of power. She already used it, she slurped up Dimmy with it.
Nope. Even in Legion she had some very important things to say. She implied even then what she was, and she implied a lot of things about how the universe works which turned out to be true. The scope of her importance, even as the dagger, always outstripped the scope of the other Class Halls and weapons. She was always positioned to be a decently big deal, people just weren’t paying attention. Blizz actually held back and kept it rather subtle (for Blizz anyway) with her at first.
WoW has consistently treated existing storylines or characterizations as obstacles to be removed. It is why breadcrumbs clearly pointing to something just … don’t. I don’t know if they think people following the clues correctly is a bad thing, but it kinda seems like it.
Basically, who knows? The answer today will probably be a completely different answer by the time we get to TLT. Adopt the object permanence of a cat, I guess.
Blizzard has been forthright about the fact they did not have plans for Xal’atath. Her popularity during Legion made them start thinking about her. The never pretended otherwise.
Blizzard never told us, put anything in game, or otherwise indicated she was an Old God. The Xal’atath being an old god was never anything more than players theorizing. So there was no back tracking needed.
Look, we know they didn’t have plans for her during Legion. They told us that much. During Legion the player response to her, and yes that includes the memes, got them thinking about her. And they started planning. After that there is no evidence of any change in direction for her.
In a different thread I provided a quote from Xal’atath indicating that she was an Old God. As she uses “us” when comparing N’zoth to the others (Y’shaarj, C’thun and Yogg-saron). There is also a passage in the Xal’atath lore section of the Priest Artifact weapon in game book where there is “an insane theory” that she might be an Old God.
The more outlandish claim that it is all that remains of a forgotten Old God who was consumed by its kin in the early days of the Black Empire.
It is ironic that the weakest of us may be the ultimate victor. C’Thun, Yogg-Saron, Y’Shaarj, and… well. Only one would remain to consume the world, that was always meant to be.
Take this in the context of the movie: Thor Love and Thunder…..
Xal is Gorr…same pretext..a priest(ess) on a dying world…. Desperate for something…meets the Gods…instead of taking up the necrosword, she became the dagger…to destroy gods…
She is now a harbinger, like Gorr. A destroyer.
Just because she represents the void, doesn’t mean she is aligned with thier plans. It’s just where her power comes from.
She’s already aligned with Iridikron( to eventually betray), consumed Dimensious, and is controlling the Saladbar…
She wants to reach the source like the Thor movie to gain the power to change her fate and gain ultimate power (the worldsoul).
She is literally killing all the “void” leaders to gain her desire.
What does she want with the sunwell? That is a very interesting question. I feel the answer is the power of corruption. Who does she want to corrupt???
She doesn’t want the sunwell.
She could’ve taken it.
She wasted time and smiled as Lor’themar and the Alliance arrived to defend it.
I think she’s only doing sunwell/quelthalas stuff to annoy alleria into going super void being and dying so she can steal alleria’s body. her current body is a nobody nothing normie.
It is things like that which led to the player theory. But that doesn’t mean she was ever an Old God. The word ‘us’ can mean same species/race/type. But it doesn’t have to. It could mean shared group, experience, or purpose. For example, I have used the word “us” to describe me and my bird. Like when my AC went out, I said “I did everything I could to keep us cool.” It doesn’t make my bird human, it just means a something is shared. In this case the “us” might simply mean void creature. Or even more vague, the “us” could just be ‘those trying to consume the world soul.’
While the Xal’atath is an Old God was a reasonable theory for a while, it was never anything more than a player theory.
Again, theory. That theory does not mean Blizzard intended her to actually be that. Especially when it refers to it as a “outlandish claim.”
The danger is a form confirmation bias. When you already believe something it is easy to take anything that might support that believe as concrete evidence. For a long time the idea that she was an Old God was a reasonable theory. We didn’t have much information, and the information we had left that open. That doesn’t mean that was the actual plan, or even that during legion there was an actual plan.
The Alliance did not arrive. The reinforcements in the cinematic have been repeatedly confirmed to be the Army of Light. Which is not a part of the Alliance.
IT’s unbelievable the amount of cope and trust people have in blizzard “writing” after they done so much crap over the years, i guess itrs true loyalty no matter what