Could Xal'atath be Y'shaarj?

Community General Discussion
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Title.

All we know about Y’shaarj is it was an Old God pulled out of Azeroth by the Titans long ago (creating the Well of Eternity, a wound) and killed. In doing so, the breath exhaled by the corpse is what created the Sha.

However, when you take a look at Xal’atath, it’s heavily hinted she isn’t merely a minion of the Old Gods. It’s very much hinted she could very well be a full Old God. But the Chronicles Books were very clear that only 4 Old Gods ever landed on Azeroth.

Following back the lore we know about Xal’atath the Dagger - no one knows where it came from. It simply appeared one day. If you read about Xal’atath in the Priest Class Hall, you learn no one knows where it came from. The only rumors are that it’s a Claw of Y’shaarj or the remains of a forgotten Old God (which Chronicles establishes can’t be possible).

So, I throw out a theory - What if Xal’atath IS Y’shaarj? What if, when it felt itself being ripped out of Azeroth, it clung on, and sent its consciousness into its claw, then detached it, created the dagger known as Xal’atath?

Then the body the Titans killed was an empty husk, which is exactly why the way Y’shaarj died was completely different than C’thun and Yogg-Saron, who did not expel anything when they died (which have been confirmed dead in multiple interviews now). Instead of an Old God dying, the Titans only killed an empty husk, which is why the Sha were expelled.

It would also explain how Y’shaarj’s heart was still active so long after its death, if Xal’atath is still alive, then its heart would still have a power source. It wouldn’t need its heart to be alive, but it would still be powering it.

Y’shaarj was known as the most powerful and wicked of the Old Gods, so wouldn’t it go to reason it’d have a stronger sense of self preservation than the other Old Gods?

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WoW implies that Xal’atath is what remains of a fifth Old God that was consumed by the other four in the early days of the Black Empire.

In fact, the WoW Chronicle Old God art page has five Old Gods in it lol

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It says something about 5 Wicked Beings being locked underground. Not specifically old gods. Chronicles outright states the Void Lords threw out Old Gods into the Twisting Nether and only 4 ever hit Azeroth.

At this point, it’s pretty clear the 5th one is being referenced as G’huun.

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Actually it wasn’t. It doesn’t actually say how many landed on Azeroth, just how many Aggramar saw when he found the planet. The old lore had 5 old gods on Azeroth. In order of appearance in any Warcraft media.

C’thun (vanilla)
Yogg-saron (Wrath)
N’zoth (Cata - name is dropped by Warlord Zon’ozz)
Y’shaarj (MoP)
???

The WotA books also said that 3 old gods were involved in corrupting Deathwing. Chronicles also has this as well. So they were most likely C’thun, Yogg and N’zoth. Y’shaarj was already dead by that point and so the 5th one was most likely deceased as well (in a sense). So if we included the old lore having 5 old gods at some point on Azeroth, it means the unnamed 5th one was killed prior to the Pantheon coming to Azeroths aid. Which may or may not have been Xal’atath. As some of her own dialogue implies that she was one.

Just because something is not in chronicles does not make it non-canon. And again, Aggramar found 4, does not mean that only 4 landed.

From the shadow priest lore book, Xal’atath was already made and hosted the being known as Xal’atath since the days of the black empire. Even Xal says this as well.

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No. Chronicle doesn’t say that.

Chronicle Vol 1 states that “a group” of Old Gods hit Azeroth, and then a while after that it numbers four of them.

There could have had 109830983109813098109831 Old Gods hitting Azeroth as long as they kept eating each other and the final amount was four.

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Xal’atath’s MO is pretty different from Y’shaarj’s though.

Y’shaarj was all about drawing out the primal and negative emotions from his victims. Anger, Fear, Pride, Doubt, Hatred, Despair, Violence.

Xal’atath from what we’ve seen about it is far more subtle in their machinations. They much prefer manipulating others into accomplishing their own goal and then abandoning them (usually as they get killed) when they no longer serve their purpose.

I wouldn’t imagine Xal’atath to be an old god, or anything nearly as powerful as them. Their goals simply aren’t there. They aren’t concerned with world domination through various means like what we’ve seen the other Old Gods attempt. The only self-serving Goal we’ve seen them actually have is when they tricked us into gathering powerful relics for N’zoth in exchange for their freedom from the blade. Everything else they’ve done has been in service of the Black Empire, or a specific Old God.

My money is that Xal’atath is a relatively minor, but extremely clever servant of the Void Lords.

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I don’t know. N’zoth seemed to know her and even commented about her getting a body again.

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I’m not saying that Xal’atath isn’t a significant figure, just nothing nearly as powerful as an Old God.

The relationship between her and N’zoth feels more like a favoured servant than her being anywhere near his equal.

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Not even the old gods were considered “equal” amongst each other. Y’shaarj was the strongest out of all of them. Hence why N’zoth waged wars against C’thun and Yogg-saron instead.

It is also why Y’shaarjs section of the black empire was the largest.

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And Xal’atath in her history has never been anywhere near as ambitious as the 4 that we know of.

Her entire history is basically manipulating people for the benefit of the Old Gods, by doing things like getting them to revive other powerful servants.

She’s obviously Old God, or Void related. She’s very much Team Old God even when she doesn’t have to be. But between her subservience, and interactions with N’zoth, she doesn’t strike me as anything more significant than a servant.

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it was more the benefit for herself. The reason why she gave N’zoth the 3 relics was mainly because she wanted to be free from her prison. Which only N’zoth could do. It was their bargain after all. The old gods were never a single team. Even against the titans and their armies. That said they did allow the others to play with their toys sometimes. Such as yogg allowing C’thun and N’zoth to play with the Emerald Nightmare. However, they did waged wars against each other, as mentioned in Warlords Zon’ozzs lore paragraph in the dungeon journal.

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I’m not just referring to that. Her history is basically a string of examples of her manipulating mortals into awakening servants of the old gods, starting wars and just in general serving the old gods needs, typically indirectly.

She herself doesn’t really benefit (apart from being freed from the blade by N’zoth) and she’s served more than one old god, with her awakening a favoured servant of Yogg as well as the more recent example of helping out N’zoth.

She acknowledges that only one Old God can remain to consume the world, but doesn’t really make any plays on her own.

Her goals and accomplishments don’t align with one specific Old God, nor do they benefit herself directly, since she doesn’t gain anything but the boons of actual old gods as a reward.

She’s kind of the inverse of the Old Gods in terms of motivation. They’re willing to work together, but the end goal is domination over the others. Xal’atath is willing to betray some of the Old Gods or their minions if it furthers the strength of the Black Empire. She doesn’t care who wins, so long as they do win.

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The old gods main purpose is to corrupt baby titans. That’s it. Anything they do in the meantime is up to them. Like N’zoth can just stay under water now and corrupt Azeroth without any trouble. As he is so far down that the pressure will kill us (that is an instant kill mechanic for Azshara’s fight for example). Instead he seeks to recreate the black empire. His own arrogance and ego will be his downfall as he is now open to attack via Ny’alotha

After she is freed, Xal’atath goes off world to do her own thing.

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Theory feels overly convoluted for no good reason. Xal’atath may be a being we don’t fully understand, but I don’t think it would add anything to the story for her/it to be secretly someone else who already know by another name.

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Is Kefka on top of that… structure?

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What’s a kefka?

The only thing on top of that structure is the Hammer of Twilight.

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I think he’s referring to Final Fantasy 6(?)'s villain Kefka… But I don’t see Kefka or anything remotely similar in that image you posted earlier. All I see is the hammer of Twilight. >_>

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A little bit of Mortis trivia here: I’ve never played any Final Fantasy ever.

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Crazy, dodgy, overly flamboyant personality, clown with a death wish

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An interesting thing to note is that it seems that the fifth Old God has/had something to do with death, given that it is depicted as being surrounded by skeletons.

Perhaps the fifth Old God will make an appearance in Shadowlands in some way, even if it’s just a subtle reference.