r/warcraftlore • u/Plus-Visit-764 • 1d ago
Question The Old Gods and Azeroth… Symbiotic?!
I was looking through the 12.1.7 Lorewalking and noticed something interesting…
The Titan machinery from WoTLK calls the old gods a “Parasitic symbiote”. While both of those words seem to contradict each other, let’s pretend they are symbiotic…
Does this mean Azeroth actually wants the old gods? What does this do to change our understanding of Azeroth? It almost sounds like Azeroth is keeping the old gods alive while they keep her alive. I’llgynoth did mention we “share a master”. For a while, I assumed he was talking about N’zoth, but could he be talking about Azeroth here?
It also makes me wonder about the curse of flesh. Is that part of this symbiotic relationship with the old gods, or did Azeroth herself give the old gods flesh.
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u/TheKrayTabbies 1d ago
Parasitic in that they have made themselves part of Azeroth to the point that removing could actually harm it. The Titans tried to destroy them but realised this so they contained them instead so they couldn't affect their creations and work on a way to remove them safety.
Unfortunately they didn't do a good enough job(as usual) and they were still able to affect things and ruin their plans.
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u/GrumpySatan Why use 1 sentence when 20 will do? 1d ago
People already addressed a bunch of the ancillary points. But I want to get to the core points:
First its important to understand in current canon the records of Ulduar were falsified by Loken. They aren't actually telling the truth about the old gods, and are included in this quest to talk about the curse of flesh - not the nature of the old gods.
But also symbiotic doesn't mean desired. What the machine is saying is that if the Old Gods are removed, the planet dies. The Worldsoul didn't exist as a concept yet when these lines were written. (This is why they made these records falsified, as we then killed the old gods).
We've openly seen Azeroth having negative reactions to the Old Gods and their rising power numerous times. When N'zoth was gaining strength, she began to have nightmares and freak out. These nightmares even manifested in forms we fought. She very much is anti-old god and anti-void.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
No, it means the Old Gods goal is the same as Xal'ataths: To Venom Azeroth.
This has been transparent since at least BFA when we saw N'zoth do exactly that to the World Soul in the 8.3 raid, but people seem to have started really struggling with it since TWW.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/aeidon1789 1d ago
Where did that theory come from, first time I'm hearing it. A lot has changed since Wrath I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard forgot about that one line of lore from a dungeon created almost 20 years ago.
It's been said again and again the Void Gods are pieces of Void thrown across the universe in a hopes of hitting a world-soul planet. A planet "birthing" old gods just doesn't make sense with any of the lore we know. And why would Azeroth help us to beat the Old Gods if she liked them so much.
The Old Gods can be parasites and symbiotic with Azeroth without them being good. It's more so talking about the fact that the Old Gods have ingrained themselves so deeply in the planet that their life force is tied to Azeroth's (kill the old gods kill the world-soul).
Also the curse of flesh was used to weaken the Titan armies, it's not a side effect of the relationship between Azeroth and the Old Gods, it's a curse crafted by Yogg-Saron to weaken the Titan creations for future conquest.If all this shit ended up getting retconned in last titan than oh well (would be really stupid to tho).
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u/Available-Pangolin12 1d ago
Could be as simple as the old gods being her children. Different flesh so technically parasitic but symbiotic because they couldn't rip them out without hurting Azeroth.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
Could be as simple as the old gods being her children.
They're not, we literally know they're on dozens if not hundreds of planets. They're not her children in any way.
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u/Available-Pangolin12 1d ago edited 1d ago
We don't know anything we are told stories and even so the titans never had problems destroying world souls with them like azeroth
Even the one the arakoa tried summoning was a cthun copy paste model for all we know they are grown from a master gene and every infestation is N'zoth yshaarj yogg and cthun clones
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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 1d ago
They don’t contradict each other. Symbiotic just means a relationship between two living things in close physical association. Parasitism is a form of symbiosis.