Tomorrow the gates of Azshara’s fabulous Eternal Palace open, giving us a brand new raid, with loads of new boss butts to kick. And with it (hopefully) will come some answers as to the next part of the Battle for Azeroth story.

I for one am so pumped for this! I have some ideas about what could be cool to have happen, though I should say I’m pretty garbage at predictions, so this is all likely to be a load of crap, but it’s fun to think about!

PATCH 8.2 spoilers ahead – if you haven’t done any of the Nazjatar content, including watching the intro cinematic, and you don’t want to be spoiled, please turn back now!

My theory comes about from a different interpretation to the intro cinematic for Patch 8.2. Taliesen (from Taliesen & Evitel) did a really great overview of the intro cinematic that I strongly recommend you watch (here’s the link!)

One of the things Tali brought up in that video is Azshara’s vanity. She spends so much of that cinematic admiring herself in the reflection of the waterfall that it would appear she has a pretty high opinion of her appearance. But I can’t help but wonder if all that water gazing is for a different reason.

Taliesen made a great comment – for someone who’s palace is under the sea, why is her chamber not full of water? He argues that surely it’s far easier for her to move her tentacly body through water than it is to wriggle around the place, and he’s not wrong. His conclusion, though, is that the room is devoid of water so that Azshara can have her reflective waterfall-mirror, so she can gaze upon her beauty.

Here’s what I think.

Azshara was a hottie, and she knew it (why else would she have statues of herself everywhere, if not for everyone to bear witness to her beauty?). I can’t help but wonder what she thought about being turned in to the tentacled (albeit still disturbingly hot) monstrosity that she is now. Sure she has power and her life, but I can’t help but wonder if she was happy with the trade off. I personally think her chambers were not filled with water because she prefers to think of herself as she was, and looking like an elf. And I think she was staring at her reflection so long in the waterfall because she was saying to herself “soon you will be yourself again”. Because I think she’s going to screw over N’Zoth.

Ok ok it sounds lame putting that in words – to suggest Azshara has been waiting, plotting and planning for years just because she got ugly sounds pretty weak. But for someone who, for her first life, was fawned over for her beauty as much as her power, this would have been quite the shock. I mean, she’s popping up all over Nazjatar to taunt us with a wine glass in her hand! Clearly she has a drinking problem having turned to in a lush, pining over her lost youth like a quarterback who broke his leg before the big game and watched his life pass before his eyes…

But in all seriousness, it wasn’t just Azshara who was transformed like this, and really it’s got nothing to do with how she looks. It was that her people – almost every single one of them – were made into these hideous creatures against their will, trapped in their underwater tombs for years upon years. And yes, they survived, they live, but at what price? What kind of life is one hidden away in the deep dark depths of the ocean? Is that really a fair trade? Those who weren’t turned in to naga are ghosts who don’t even know they are dead – why do they linger if not to be saved as part of Azshara’s true plan?

See, I can’t help but wonder if the prisoner that’s going to be released at the end of this raid is not N’Zoth as he hopes, but Azshara and her people. Perhaps Azshara will come good for her people and help them rise to power again as themselves, and not these serpenty versions of themselves. Maybe she will make up for her past mistakes. I mean, we’re potentially pretty screwed if that does play out – Azshara at her full power and potential could be devastating to us all. (Though the alternative of N’Zoth being set free is undoubtedly worse). Or… maybe she’ll just want a quiet life with her city raised from the depths and everyone living happily ever after.

Maybe not.

Either way, I think someone is getting stabbed in the back tomorrow. And all we can do is be the stupid pawns we are, failing to stop anything from happening because we really are just far too daft for our own good.

Whatever happens, I hope everyone loves the new raid!

xo

PS: There will be some screenshot posts coming up in the future. I’ll be doing some of the new raid, but also Nazjatar as a whole and of Mechagon. My GPU died at the beginning of June and I had been running WoW on the built-in graphics card, which was absolute garbage. Everything looked crap, and it broke my heart. I ended up buying a replacement GPU while the old one was being fixed. Definitely the right call because now I can actually see the water in Nazjatar! But also, the old one is still going through the process of being fixed, and I couldn’t have raided without something in place. Anyway, expect some pictures in the near future!