Dumb Thoughts: 10.2, six Dragon Aspects and <REDACTED>

Ok, so we’re just gonna fill the screen here for a second so we don’t spoil stuff for folks who haven’t been in the data mines, digging for content.

Hell of a glow-up, wouldn’t you say?

Now, assuming we’ve filled enough space, something that occurred to me, and could spell disaster for the Dragon Flights of Azeroth, is that Amirdrassil is supposedly going to ‘bless’ Alexstraza, Ebyssian, Kalecgos, Nozdormu, Vyranoth and Merithra as its Aspects.

Not Titan Aspects, but Aspects of Azeroth as viewed through the lens of this new World Tree that has its roots in Life and Death.

And the Dragon Isles is basically one gigantic Titan Facility intended to reshape and re-inforce the Titanic control of Dragons and Proto-Drakes to the Ordering of Azeroth. We’re about to bring back Tyr, who actively experimented on Drakes to infuse them with Elemental power and may or may not be responsible for corrupting so many Proto-Drake Eggs into Dragons against the will of their parents and inhabitants, if not accidentally created Galakrond in the first place.

If he was doing this to try and weaponize them against Odyn, or to give them a fighting chance of survival in-case the Prime Designate decided to get his Titanium Tighty Whities in a bunch again over everything now bowing down and presenting at his slightest whim, or more concerningly, he might have been a quiet and subtle supporter of the rebels in Khaz’algarn, and when we consider that Tyr openly uses the Light, while the only other Titan Watcher/Keeper we encounter, in the Uldum Dungeon, is noted to have been specifically augmented to be able to draw upon that Primal Force.

Temple Keeper Anhuur actively uses the Light, and the damage from his attacks is registered as Light-based damage.

Yet Tyr wields the Light with ease, is a Keeper, the highest tier of Titan Servant under the Titans themselves, and does so even when separated from the facilities that presumably would have made him even more powerful. Light might be a force of Order, but the Titan Watchers and Keepers were quite clearly told to only talk about the Order of the Titans, of the Arcane, and to dismiss and diminish the works of the other Primal Powers, especially the Void, which is intrinsically linked to the Light.

Did Tyr always have access to the Light, or did he, like Eonar and her Keeper Freya, actively practice magic outside of the rigidly-defined boundaries that Aman’thul set in place for his ‘Perfect Ordering’ of the Universe? Is that why he and Odyn had such dire opinions of each other, because while they both pursued Order, Tyr was willing to work with other forces and was benevolent in his desire to bring order and justice to the world, while Odyn was a tyrannical leader whose grip on power was only surpassed by his paranoia and megalomania?

What happens to the thousands of Titan Servants on the Isles when the Dragons stop being members of the Titanic forces here on Azeroth? All those Dragon Eggs at the Ruby Life Pools, all those Titanic constructs attacking anything that isn’t a construct or bearing Titanic protections to render them passive, all this Order magic seeping into the ground and the water and the animals.

What happens when the Dragons choose their own fate, and their once-loyal friends follow their programming and lay into the Dragons as heretics and ‘intruders’ in a Titan facility?

Or will Amirdrassil rewrite them as well? Supposedly this World Tree will do great and terrible things to Azeroth, what happens when the surviving Titan Watchers and Keepers feel this sudden change to their charge? Ulduar will probably see this as a good thing, albeit they’ll be a little unsettled that they weren’t included, while Uldum won’t care so long as there’s no Old God influence involved. But what of the Titan Watchers and Keepers who value Order and authority above all else? Who see the Titans as literal Gods to be worshipped, or masters who must be served at all costs?

What will Odyn do when he’s still faffing about trying to get everyone to vote him to be Prime Designate again, only to feel that wretched ingrate Tyr pop back into being, or worse yet, feel the mingling chaotic and orderly energies of Life and Death from Amirdrassil ‘corrupting’ his world, and learning its those filthy Organics he despises so much doing this, especially his own Battlelords?

There’s gonna be a fight and I’m not sure we’re ready for a war against the Titan Servants of Azeroth, not when they can churn out soldiers in the thousands from their processing facilities and aren’t being mind-****ed into stupidity by an Old God to keep them out of the way.

Whenever there’s anti-Titan sentiment to be said, why is it always you?

Not so much, the Titans are bad, but more their goals are so vast and all-encompassing that we’re quite literally ants to them.

You don’t mind ants in your garden, but when they’re in your house? Entirely different response. And more and more, we’re learning the Titans are not this monolithic organisation, but entities who have very different views.

The Titan Watchers of Ulduar love and cherish their followers, organic and inorganic alike. The Titan Watchers of Uldum seek only to preserve their facility and care little for their organic descendants. The Titan Watchers of Zandalar seem ambivalent towards the locals unless they display Old God corruption. Tyr actively cherished and protected his followers, even when they became entities of Flesh. Odyn despised and reviled the organics and went to absurd lengths and betrayed even those closest to him to try and reverse the process to create his Storm-Forged.

We learn in 10.2 from several tomes that Aman’thul did immense damage to Azeroth by ripping G’Hanir out of the planet after Eonar planted it, insisting it was ‘Chaos, not Order’ and actively tore the Life-Binder a new one, but in contrast, Eonar found the Chaos of life entrancing and specifically ordered Freya, her greatest agent on Azeroth, to secretly guard the still-living roots of G’Hanir and obscure their existence from everyone else, Titan and Watcher alike.

Its less “BOO TITANS BOO!” and more the story-beats seem to be leading us to an inevitable fight against the hardline/conservative factions amongst the Titans and their servants, while the more empathic and open-minded factions seem to see Order as guidelines to a better future, rather than an inflexible doctrine that must be obeyed at all costs.

Heck, the oldest example of the Titan faction caring about mortals is Algalon the Observer, a servant of the Titans who is absolutely devastated because fighting us opened his eyes to just how badly the Titan Protocols for how to handle worlds that drifted outside those rigid rules and ‘acceptable levels’ had messed up, and given that it was likely that Algalon had rarely had to deal with the Mortals it was condemning to extinction, quite literally tearing apart their solar-system and then rebuilding it, atom by atom. Instead, he showed up, plugged in, pushed a button and nuked everything.

Algalon the Observer yells:

I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers’ flames, their denizens fading without as much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart devoid of emotion… of empathy. I. Have. Felt. Nothing. A million-million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do?

And then we get this little pearler.

I’ve rearranged the reply code - your planet will be spared. I cannot be certain of my own calculations anymore.

The Titans and their Keepers and Watchers are not mindless automatons. They think, they feel, they have dreams and aspirations and different opinions on how Order should best be deployed. They fall in love with each other, and even other entities outside of their own Faction, they experience loss and fear, madness and jealousy, regret and overwhelming despair.

And yet despite all that, of all the Primal Powers, they also seem to be one of the few amongst them who give Mortals a choice. So long as we fit within their boundaries, we’re free to live out our lives as we please, while the Void turns us into gibbering piles of ever-mutating flesh and ichor, the Light would turn us all into mindlessly devoted zealots, Death used to just slot us into place like lego-bricks to fill the gaps or fuel for the Great Cycle. We have no idea what Life does, but considering what we’ve seen of the Time Rifts, they take the Papa Nurgle approach where it doesn’t matter what life is there, they’ll love and support it even as existence turns into a darwinian hellscape of survival of the fittest at all costs.

Perhaps, but i fully support thew head piece mog Odyn drops when we loot him being his giant lava beard

I mean…

Odyn’s severed head with a pair of turbines mounted on his temples would be a hell of a World First mount to chase.

I’ve figured you out, Gentarn.

All this anti-titan rhetoric, you’re a Primalist spy!

That means like half of the game’s players are Primalist spies following Blizz just making Odyn shadier and shadier.

Spy! Infiltrator! Saboteur!

I’ve seen through your honeyed words and know the game you play, rogue!