- Author: Luxrah
- Date: August 27, 2024
- Updated: August 27, 2024
- Expansion: World of Warcraft
Blizzard withheld a part of the Visions of Azeroth questline in the War Within Beta, perhaps hoping to save some key moments for everyone to experience together at launch. Among those key moments is the Guardian and the Harbinger cinematic, which players experience at the end of the introductory quests before arriving in Khaz Algar. The dramatic cinematic has players abuzz, wondering if Dalaran was really completely destroyed or if the most powerful in mage in Azeroth’s history could actually be dead.
The Guardian and the Harbinger Cinematic
There may be some clues to be found in the cinematic itself. Xal’atath tells Khadgar, “This city is home to such power, all squandered by the Kirin Tor. I’ll put it to much better use.” A little later, just before the apparent destruction happens, Khadgar tells Alleria, “This isn’t the real fight,” implying he knows a bit more about what’s happening than he’s letting on.
When the big moment comes, a lot is left open to interpretation. We see Xal’atath unleash powerful void magic from the Dark Heart relic she obtained at the end of Dragonflight. As its power expands, we see Khadgar’s hand appear to disintegrate, and then a mist of void energy envelops the city. Dalaran begins to crumble before disappearing in a supernova, leaving only a mass of broken rocks to rain down on the ground below.
The Aftermath
Following the cinematic, we land on the shores of the Isle of Dorn, where we climb out of the rubble to find evidence of the city’s destruction all around us. There are pieces of a tower, a sewer grate, and remnants of the beloved toy shop and pet shop.
It doesn’t look good, but it also doesn’t look like an entire city’s worth of wreckage – not by a long shot. Just a few bits and pieces.
Making Sense of It All
So, is Dalaran really gone for good? Is Khadgar dead? How does the Dark Heart even work?
During the Hunt for the Harbinger questline, we learned that the Dark Heart is capable of absorbing magic and converting it to shadow. It appears that this is exactly what happened, granting Xal’atath untold power in the process. But we don’t know what happens to the things that are absorbed by the relic. Perhaps they are destroyed in the process, disintegrating just as Khadgar’s hand appeared to do. That’s one possibility: a dramatic loss to spur us on toward an inevitable fight with Xal’atath. After all, we have lost major characters and cities before by similar means.
But it’s equally possible that Blizzard has other plans for Khadgar and Dalaran. If they were “absorbed” by the Dark Heart, maybe they still exist inside it, or somewhere inside the Void. It’s not difficult to imagine future content taking us into a void-touched version of the city to confront Xal’atath and her forces. If Khadgar were somehow manipulated or controlled by the Void, he could be a formidable future raid boss. Maybe we’d even see a new version of Atiesh, obtainable again in the game after almost 20 years.
There’s also the old narrative trope that a character is never really dead unless you see their dead body – and even then, it’s not guaranteed. It’s possible that Blizzard just wanted to get Khadgar out of the way for a while, leaving players and other, less overpowered characters to play the hero in his place.
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