A fan of World of Warcraft has discovered an exciting detail. This puts the story of the game in a whole new light.
The story of World of Warcraft is extremely complex and multi-layered. Because the game is constantly evolving, there are occasionally details that get changed – which can often lead to problems. Particularly the Jailer from Shadowlands, who has put many past events of WoW in a new context, has caused annoyance and eye rolls.
Now, a fan has noticed a small detail on a globe from World of Warcraft. A small detail that hinted years ago in which direction the story could go.
What was discovered? The player evil-turtle posted in the World of Warcraft subreddit. In it, he describes that he clicked through the wiki of World of Warcraft and also looked at objects that never made it into the finished game.
One of these objects is a globe of Azeroth. The globe is, like in many other representations, surrounded by three large rings that orbit the planet. These rings can also be seen repeatedly in the various logos of World of Warcraft – at least at the end of a cinematic. What is particularly special about this globe is that the sword of Sargeras can also be seen here. The sword was thrust into the planet in such a way that one of the three rings can no longer rotate – it has come to a standstill.
The object was originally created for “Battle for Azeroth”, but was not visible in the finished game:
What does this mean? The theory of evil-turtle, which also aligns with the current story in the game, is as follows: Azeroth is orbited by these three large rings, which are part of the prison built by the Titans. The prison not only ensures that the World Soul remains imprisoned and can exert little influence, but also that Azeroth remains largely hidden in the cosmos.
At the same time, the prison is part of the “Manifold”, which ensures that the World Soul is increasingly permeated by the order of the Titans.
When Sargeras thrust the sword into the planet at the end of “Legion”, it was possibly indeed to annihilate Azeroth. However, the side effect was that the prison lost one of its barriers. Since then, Azeroth has been able to exert influence on the planet – Azerite surfaces and since The War Within, selected inhabitants also hear the “Radiant Song”, which is most likely the voice of the planet itself.
Since then, Azeroth has been trying more and more to “break out”, to call the inhabitants of the world for help and to resist the Titan’s constraints. The liberation of the Earthen from their drab programming was also condemned by the Titans – a huge construct was supposed to annihilate the Earthen in that case.
What exactly is Azeroth? The opinion on what Azeroth really is has changed over the past few years. For almost “since forever”, the inhabitants of the world believed that Azeroth is a sleeping soul of a Titan. Eventually, this Titan would awaken and join the Pantheon of Titans. In this scenario, the Titans are the good ones – they want to protect the world and its inhabitants until Azeroth “hatches” and joins them.
But basically since “Wrath of the Lich King”, the Titans have been questioned from time to time. There was Algalon, who was supposed to cleanse the entire world of life if corruption was detected.
Now, in the latest expansion “The War Within”, it has become increasingly clear that Azeroth is most likely not a Titan, but a neutral, particularly powerful “World Soul”. The many facilities of the Titans on the world serve as a prison to hold Azeroth, observe it and simultaneously influence it with order (the magic of the Titans).
It is clear that the find of evil-turtle is quite interesting and could close a small gap in the story that narrative theory fans have previously been bothered by. However, one should not forget that Blizzard possibly never intended to bring the globe with the sword into the finished game. In any case, it is nice to see that the current lore is once again sparking so many lively discussions – this had somewhat died down with the disaster of Shadowlands: Those interested in the whole story of World of Warcraft can find a summary here.
