this just in, blizz continues to insult the intelligence of its playerbase, and they appear to deserve it. more at 11.
Aman’thul was likely jettisoned into the mortal plane by the Arcane Lords/Pantehon, just like the Void Lords shot the Old Gods in. Aman’thul then corrupted the other world souls one by one. It is likely that Aman’thul is the only “evil” titan in the sense that he’s a liar, and the other titans were likely pretty ignorant of the truth and therefore not guilty/responsible.
I’m also betting Eonar was almost fully Life-infused by the time Aman’thul found her, and he managed to just barely get to her in time to Arcane corrupt her across the finish line. But the Life touch lingered a bit.
Once again, Argus throws an enormous wrench into this theory. Sargeras pumps a Worldsoul full of Fel (while Dreadlords secretly pump it full of Death) and … it ends up looking roughly the same as the other Titans but with some palette swaps that might indicate the tampering (like Red/Fel, Blue/Death). All of the Worldsouls and Titans resemble constellations, with or without meddling.
I think the idea that Titans are influenced by the nature of their world sounds pretty feasible, though. It would be a very quick and easy way to explain why each member of the Pantheon had some sort of domain outside of just Arcane and Order (like Eonar with Life, or the Void Titan that Sargeras obliterated). Aman’Thul being a Titan with powers over Time might do a lot of legwork to explain why he was able to position himself as the leader and “The First”.
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I still do not understand why Arcane is the “Order” magic instead of Light.
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That’s because all this “morally grey” business was a retcon. In the sourcebook for Warcraft 3, that introduced the Titans to the setting, they are literally described as a benevolent pantheon.
Writer incompetence? A lot of people on the forums try to do the writers’ job for them.
Every portrayal of arcane magic in it’s raw, wild form from the Nether to the Spellslinger hero talents from this expansion have arcane being this chaotic and unstable power that people have to work and study hard to be able to control.
And then Blizzard is like “Yep, this is order.”
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Because arcane is suppose to represent knowledge/math/the fabric of the universe. That if one were to initially look at it, there wouldnt be a rhyme or reason to any of it but then realize that there are fundamental rules and “order” that lead to the universe being the way it is.
The truth is, Chronicle Volume 1 made some clear mistakes with its world building. Arcane should have been the “default” building block of magic that the six cosmic forces can influence into their own type rather than being Order.
So yeah, while the First Ones crap from Shadowlands was awful and simplified the setting’s origins to a brain dead degree(and I’m glad they’re seemingly being retconned to just being a Shadowlands thing), the Chronicle explanation has a lot of holes and doesn’t really explain many things. Like why Light is so order focused despite being raw creation. Where Life as a cosmic force came from. What the point of “the machine of death” known as the Shadowlands is other than sorting souls into afterlives and maintaining itself. Whether or not there’s an “arcane realm” or if the the great dark beyond/reality is the arcane realm. How exactly the Light and Void predate the universe. Etc. Etc.
It counters World Souls = Titans, doesn’t it?
If this statement is true, it is safe to conclude that Aman’thul’s origin is also a world soul. If it’s false, your assumption about an outside force is correct. This will likely lead us to the First Ones.
Expansions are planned several years ahead. And he was the lead narrative designer until the end of 2023, during DF. It’s more of a conclusion than a guess. Even if the idea came from a team member, he is ultimately accountable.
I have nothing against him personally. I don’t know him, after all. Perhaps he’s a cool guy in private. But I can evaluate his previous work and draw conclusions about what is to come. Especially when Metzen’s original Lore (world souls) is retconned, misinterpreted or recontextualized again in the same matter it happend with the jailer and the scourge/the legion. It’s the same pattern.
Furthermore, he was the one who declared Chronicle to be unreliable canon. That tells me he does not value consistency. He was also the person who tweeted Game of Thrones Season 8 was fantastic. That suggests he doesn’t value logic or character fidelity in storytelling.
So I’d call it a experience rather than prejudice.
Well. according to the cosmology chart, Arcane is a manifestation of Order. And Titans are manifestations of the Arcane. That’s why World Souls are composed of arcane magic. It’s not in her blood, it is her blood.
I mean, they retconned arcane being demonic to make that possible.
Which is essentially rewriting Metzen’s legacy and trolling the fanbase.
What’s to think of that?
So why should they promote life on planets at all if this is true?
Perhaps the original concept was that Arcane, as a ‘language of order,’ controls and restrains inherently chaotic magic, whereas Fel, as a ‘language of chaos,’ only makes it more wild.
However, this only makes sense if the magic is the same as it was implied prior to Chronicle.
Arcane is wild, unstable, and chaotic. Mages learn out to control it, to bring order to it, but it is not orderly itself.
Just look at Azure Vaults, the wild arcane magic there was chaotic and had random effects because it was in its natural state and no longer controlled my the dragons. Or Netherstorm, or Bloodmyst.
Arcane magic in its pure state is easy to access but difficult to control. This does not mean, however, that its natural role in our reality is also chaotic.
In fact, it makes even more sense that it is chaotic magic when manipulated, as it would precisely be removed from its orderly role that it should naturally exercise. It’s as if she was fighting not to have her natural path altered.
To make matters much worse, Dragonflight absolutely threw a curve ball when they started referencing everything Titan-related as “Order magic.” Things would get infused with “Order” or “Order magic,” and I don’t remember seeing much reference to things being infused with anything arcane. I don’t really remember that term being used like that before, either. A lot of the fan sites seem to equate order magic with arcane, but the game very clearly doesn’t make them look like the same thing.
The art styles are very telling, too. They clearly intend to portray visual differences to all of these things. We already can see what an almost purely “arcane” environment looks like by looking at the Blue Dragons. It looks nothing like anything the Titans do. Also, Azeroth’s visuals are entirely unique in terms of all of the manifestations, whether it be Azerite or otherwise. I don’t think any Azerite related abilities are strictly classified in game as arcane only, either. Arcane and Order do seem related to a degree though, like math and physics. Arcane is very mathematical and geometric.
The biggest tell is the end of Dragonflight. The Dragons initially got their power from, again, “Order magic” and the Titans. When they regained them, it was distinctively NOT Titan related, but straight from Azeroth. They clearly made a distinction that they aren’t the same thing. And now, we see that Azeroth is literally rebelling against the Titan efforts to influence her.
Again, I cut some slack for the 20 year old game. The vision has clearly evolved over the years. Howeve,r I understand major retcons for things that could have never been predicted 20 years ago, but they should have some semblance of narrative direction at this point where they don’t have to retcon things from their own encyclopedia. It is what it is, though.
Plenty of crazy theories out there. I don’t think they can expand any further past the First Ones at this point. They’ve pretty much reached their outer limit on layers in the WoW world. That being said, I feel like the two big unknowns left are who are the First Ones, and what is Azeroth. As jumbled as it is, I’m still interested in finding out and will keep playing 
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Well, not exactly. Remember the World Souls = Titans largely just came from chronicles which was already declared only Titan view, practically at release.
Which means, the actual lore was: Titan’s believe World Souls are nascent Titans.
Doesn’t mean he was behind it. For all we know his only involvement was allowing it.
I really think you are approaching this backwards. Your comment would make sense if you were upset at him for allowing it to happen. But you seem to be upset at the story because he allowed it. That just doesn’t make any sense.
Those are all understandable reasons to say you don’t like his approach to stories.
But they don’t support you not liking a story because he might have written it, or maybe just approved it. That is backward.
That argument relies on an unsupported conclusion. For your argument to work only manifestations could have arcane. You are assuming that arcane can only equal Titans. And, while we know Titans are tied to order, and thus the Arcane. We don’t have any evidence that they are the only ones with access to Arcane.
And the fact that other, significant powers use arcane we can actually assume that conclusion is false. Not to mention that Titans themselves can use other schools of magic, even be heavily invested in them (Eonar with life, for example) indicates that you can’t assume Arcane being a significant part of an entity makes them automatically Titans.
Agree. Personally, I think Chronicles should just have been a history of Azeroth just locking in what happened. The most they should have added was things like ‘The Titan’s believed and so…’ I think it was a mistake to try and build a cosmology they way they did. I think it was someone’s idea, they rushed with it, and as it was going out someone realized the whole they had dug. Which is why it was almost immediately declared ‘Titan perspective.’
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Agree. It can be problematic when things are written, narratively, from an omniscient reader perspective. They could have also written it from the perspective of an in-universe character who set out to chronicle Azeroth’s history from all of the stories they’ve gathered to give it an air of authenticity while allowing flexibility. Not sure why they backtracked on some of its contents so quickly, whether it was rushed or just not presented in the greatest way.
I referenced it in my other thread, but I think the key narrative direction was finally set up in Shadowlands with Firim’s character, where he wrote:
But if his scheme was thwarted, then why is my mind so ill at ease?
Because I have seen how fragile the pattern is. How delicate the scales that keep the six forces in balance.
And if the Jailer, in his act of malevolence, left behind but the most imperceptible of cracks in that pattern, then I fear what is tiny now will only grow, until the balance itself is prone to be shattered by another force applying relentless pressure.
I pray that the First Ones anticipated such an eventuality. That they would leave measures in place to preserve their grand design.
Unless…
Unless their design was never meant to endure.
And that… that is the possibility that haunts me.
That kind of set up the direction that the Titans aren’t really benevolent beings. The six forces need “balanced,” so the Titans gaining influence isn’t a good thing. And, every single force (except I guess I still don’t know how Life fits into that) has now been shown to want Azeroth for bolstering their own cosmological side of things. It seems to be the key to gaining the advantage, and Firim thinks any one side winning would be disaster. And so, the Titans (like the Jailer, or the Burning Legion, or the Void Lords, etc.) should not be allowed to upset the balance.
It is possible to do an omniscient view so long as you are thoughtful about what information you give. The history of Azeroth could have been done that way. They could have told what happened on Azeroth since the Black Empire. They would just have had to be careful about which details they shared. They could have resolved a lot of open questions about who did what, what actually happened, etc. I think they got into trouble when they tried to create the whole cosmology and history of the entire universe.
That also would have been a better option than what they did.
Obviously I cannot say with certainty, as I am not them. But it felt to me like around the time of release someone high up enough realized just how much they painted themselves into a corner. It might have just been someone pitching what they thought was a really good idea and then realizing it would conflict with Chronicle. But it felt a lot like an ‘Oh crap, we messed up’ moment that happened just a bit to late to really fix.
I am not sure that is exactly accurate. Benevolent is just well meaning. It doesn’t mean they are actually doing the best thing. Meaning well doesn’t mean you know what is the good choice.
To me it looks likely the Titans believe they are doing the best for the universe and those in it. They are well meaning. It is just some of the things they believe are good are things we, and Azeroth, wont agree are good.
Huh? No, this is not true. Chronicle was sold on Amazon as Hard Canon by Metzen (2016). Danuser stated in 2019 that it’s solely the Titans’ point of view (=unrelieable narrator), but Danuser is not an author of Chronicle. He retroactively changed it when he became lead narrative director. (Y’know, to justify his stuff).
Yes it does? The Lead Narrative Designer is primarily responsible for developing the storyline of expansions, patches, and major events.
It supports the thick part you cut out for some reason.
And yes, I blame the boss. Of course I blame the boss.
That argument is based on a chart of an offical lore source.
It’s supported by arcane being retconned into a force of order (was demonic before).
I’m not sure why the existence of an Arcane manifestation should imply that only these manifestations can have Arcane. Naaru are manifestations of light, and paladins can still use holy magic. Or, what do you mean by having access to it?
Ironically, this lore predates the idea that Titans were manifestations of the Arcane. (Pre-Chronicle). But again, I don’t see the problem. The undead can do that too. I think some demons have access to void magic.
I would not be too attached to previous information that only existed as information, when lore has been changing since maybe even warcraft 3 or 2.
The fact Is, Danuser hasn’t been on Blizzard for a long time, we have some implications that DF was cut short of its original purpose, so What we are seeing now might be Metzen mixing the concepts Danuser and the writers introduced in his absence with his own Ideas and trying to tie into old information.
Where as previously world Souls were Titans before birth, now Worldsouls have the potential to become Titans if atuned to it, Aman’thul probably is the one behind the titanfication of every other world soul so far. So how is Argus a titan when he was being dumped Fel and Death magic? Simple, the main structure around him was still a Titan structure kept by Sargeras, Sargeras probably used what he knew how to use, Titan stuff, so even corrupted, Sargeras still followed a distorted version of the Titan agenda, which is a concept that also has been explored before.
While there are changes to previous concepts, it also works in favor of what has been stablished.
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By that logic Azeroth is still a Titan.
Even beyond that, if their approach to the setting is to continue discarding things at their convenience, the lore is hot garbage and deserves to be mocked.
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Azeroth isn’t born yet. We don’t know if the damage is permanent.
Also Argus had its birth forced by the Titans, another reason he might be a titan.
Titans bad yes.