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A Light in the Dark - The War Within Campaign Finale Cinematic Analysis
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After falling into her traps time and again across Khaz Algar, Alleria and Anduin finally confront Xal'atath -- and themselves -- in the final chapter of The War Within's story. Here, we break down what that means for our protagonists, as well as the story ahead.
WARNING: Spoilers for The War Within Campaign Finale!
Alleria's Focus
After realizing her assault on the Aegis Wall was a ruse to distract us, we journey with Alleria, Faerin, and Anduin to find Xal'atath in the Priory of the Sacred Flame in Hallowfall, who is currently siphoning the energy of the darkened Beledar into the Dark Heart. While we finish things off outside, Alleria enters the cathedral first to confront Xal'atath head on.
Like her prior run-ins with Alleria, she seems unconcerned with the void ranger's approach. Their past encounters have shown Xal'atath to be effectively immune to Alleria's attacks, but she has nevertheless attempted time and again to strike Xal'atath down despite that.
In this moment, Xal'atath assumes the same ordeal will play out: Alleria will strike at her, she will fail, and Xal'atath will continue her plan unabated. As she boasts, mortals like Alleria have an extraordinary penchant for violence, especially against existential foes like Xal'atath. She sees Alleria as utterly predictable, but unfortunately for her, that is not the case.
What Xal'atath doesn't quite realize is that Alleria has turned away from her path of blind vengeance. During our leveling campaign, she wielded a singular focus against the Nerubians and Xal'atath, blaming herself for the fall of Dalaran and death of Khadgar, and believing that she would only be able to make up for it by slaughtering those responsible. Her time with Anduin recently has begun to teach her better, however. Despite his own crisis of faith, he was able to remind Alleria of who she is: someone willing to do anything to protect others.
Where Xal'atath assumes Alleria's target is herself, the ranger's true target is the Dark Heart. With a twist of her arrow, she adjusts her aim to shatter the central glass of the artifact, unleashing the power siphoned inside onto Xal'atath and causing her to vanish in a flash of void energy.
For years on end,
Alleria has chosen to stand alone in the darkness
, sacrificing the happiness of both herself and her loved ones in the name of her goals, selfish and selfless alike. In this moment, however Alleria instead chooses to heed Khadgar's last words to her and realize: this isn't the real fight.
Rather than continue the hunt for vengeance upon Xal'atath,damning the Arathi who rely on Beledar in the process, she chooses to prioritize the real fight and eliminates the means by which Xal'atath could cause further mayhem. It does not stop Xal'atath herself, and likely will not halt her future schemes, but it is a battle won without sacrificing others for the sake of the greater good, and for Alleria, she has at last begun to see value in that.
For her troubles, and her change of heart, Alleria is rewarded with the most unexpected gifts: Khadgar himself. Flying out from the fading remnant of the Dark Heart's power, Khadgar's raven form escapes the vessel he was trapped in, and transforms back into his true self at Alleria's feet.
Unfortunately for Alleria, the gift of her friend's return would be short lived, as Khadgar's life quickly begins to fade, but fortunately for both of them, they are not alone in the Priory as Anduin approaches just behind them.
Anduin's Faith
Throughout The War Within, Anduin has been grappling first and foremost with his faith in the Light. Though he was once a stalwart priest, his time spent dominated by the Jailer left him feeling as though he is no longer worthy of its grace, and Anduin has been unwilling to call upon it since he regained his freedom for fear that it would not answer.
As we journeyed through Hallowfall and Azj-Kahet, Anduin was forced to confront his relationship with the Light head on, not only through his interactions with Faerin and her stalwart faith, but in what kind of person he believes himself to be without the Light's power. Although Faerin begins to help him move on from his trauma from the Shadowlands, Anduin still struggles with the burdens of expectations that have weighed on him since his narrative debut in Cataclysm.
We saw at the end of Hallowfall that Anduin still grapples with the idea that he must live up to his father, Varian, and in contrast to Battle for Azeroth where he was able to put aside those expectations and embrace his calling, Anduin has only been able to see Varian in the sword he wields now, and mistakenly believed that living up to his father's sacrifice would 'earn' the Light's favor once again. Instead, he found himself in Azj-Kahet, with an opportunity to aid their people hands-on without limitations.
What Anduin had failed to realize the entire time was that the Light had not gone anywhere, he had simply been running from it. Ever since regaining his mind, he had simply been afraid of what might happen if the Light refused to answer him, but his time learning from Faerin and realizing what he is best at even without the Light has clearly done much to change his perspective, as we see here.
In the aftermath of Xal'atath's disappearance, the darkened Beledar once again shifts to the Light, and Anduin is given a singular resolve. Rather than shirk away out of fear of rejection, Anduin simply places his hand on Khadgar and
tries
, just as he has in the past. He reaches out and asks the Light for aid after years of running from it, and it answers, returning Khadgar from the brink of death.
Once the dust settles and our allies all return to Dornogal, we witness a
final conversation with Thrall and Anduin
where they discuss what happened. As Anduin describes it, the burden of living up to his father's legacy made him think that he had to become in, and in the process he had led the Alliance just as Varian did, through war and death and tragedy. What Anduin has come to realize, however, is that he does not have to live up to what his father was, and Varian himself never expected him to. In Thrall's words, he has " own strength, greater than any sword."
Thrall: You found your Light again.
Anduin: Sort of. More like I stopped running from it.
Anduin: Before he died, my father wrote me a letter.
Anduin: He said that I had to fight for peace.
Anduin: I thought that I had to become him. Because the world still needed him.
Anduin: Because I still needed him.
Anduin: But taking up his sword only led to war and death.
Anduin: I made mistake after mistake. I felt...
Thrall: ...Unworthy.
Thrall: Varian Wrynn was a fierce, proud warrior. I respected his strength.
Thrall: But you, Anduin... you have your own strength, greater than any sword.
Anduin: I'm not my father...
Anduin: ...but he never expected me to be.
Anduin: That's why he wrote that letter.
Anduin: To remind me who I am.
Anduin: It was his final lesson. And his greatest gift.
What that means for Anduin's story going forward has many paths. While he has found the Light again, and finally put to rest the burden of living up to Varian's actions, the matter of his throne still remains. It has been many years since he has sat the throne of Stormwind, and in contrast to his own bloody reign, Turalyon's time as leader of the Alliance has been an era of unprecedented peace.
One of the lessons
Faerin imparts upon Anduin is that it is not the burden of any one individual to restore good to the world, and that others can carry the torch and continue the fight. Anduin's role as king is one irrevocably tied to the legacy of Varian, and there is no avoiding the expectations both himself and others would have of him if he were to take up that role once again. We see in Azj-Kahet that Anduin feels much more at home among new cultures, discovering new secrets and helping people with his own hands just as he did back in Mists of Pandaria when he was running from his father.
Perhaps the question ahead for Anduin is not when he will return to the throne, but if he even
wants
to at all. His calling as a priest has always put him at odds with the bloodshed required to be king, as far back as his stories during Cataclysm. We saw in the novel Shadows Rising that even before his kidnapping into the Shadowlands, Anduin struggled immensely with his position and the death he was required to inflict not only on his enemies, but on the people he ruled and commanded.
With the Light now returned to him, the question of what moral lines he is willing to cross will once again rear their head, perhaps more so now that he must
choose
to return to the position and take up such a bloody role. The times when Anduin has been happiest have not been sat on the throne commanding others, but when he is out in the world, using his gifts to heal and protect. With his newfound shedding of expectations to be like his father, perhaps the choice to return to the throne of Stormwind is not a simple matter of resigned obligation anymore.
Whatever Anduin's path ends up being, he has finally returned to his place under the Light's grace after an arduous journey, and his newly restored role as a healer, not a warrior, will surely define his decisions in the days to come.
Xal'atath's Future
While this cinematic concluded the arcs of The War Within's major characters, it leaves just as big of a lingering thread as to what to expect next. Xal'atath's plan to absorb Beledar's power into the Dark Heart may have failed, but we still don't know
why
she's been absorbing power into the relic, nor if it is even truly destroyed after Alleria's attack.
Equally, it is unclear where she has disappeared to after the relic's power overwhelmed her. She is certainly not dead, but whether she was returned to the Void, warped by its power backfiring into her, or merely forced to retreat elsewhere is a question to be answered in future patch stories.
What is clear, however, is that this is far from the end of Xal'atath's role in the story. Despite her words, she has certainly been set back in her plans with this failure, and the flippant nature with which she has been treating our heroes is likely to shift to a darker rage after ruining all her hard work in Khaz Algar.
One small detail is obscured amidst her blustering and taunting however, a detail that likely slipped the minds of even our heroes; the true nature of the Black Blood. As Alleria realizes, Xal'atath lured us here all for the sake of empowering the power of the Black Blood, which she refers to as "
my
power." This could simply mean that she is harnessing its energies for her uses, but the way in which she words it heavily implies that the source of the Black Blood is Xal'atath herself.
Whether that refers to a battle in eons past that caused her to bleed into the region, or an offering of her power in the present day, the power granted to the Nerubians is one that has more far-reaching consequences in the region than the conflict we thwarted with our recent campaign. The Black Blood has been affecting all manner of creatures across Khaz Algar; most notably that of the Great Roots guarded by the Haranir.
Despite being heavily marketing alongside prominent faces like Faerin, Orweyna and the Haranir are an incredibly small portion of The War Within's base story, but what little we do glean from them implies a much larger role in the expansion's patch stories. The Black Blood has infected the edges of the Great Roots that her people are sworn to protect, and despite our attempts to aid her, we fail in meaningfully stemming the corruption during our brief time with her in Azj-Kahet.
Given Xal'atath's disappearance, and the correlation between her schemes with the Black Blood still lingering with the Great Roots, it seems likely that future patch story will lead us to the homeland of the Haranir, and the source of their sacred roots. Many have speculated that these roots are the remnants of Elun'ahir, remnants of the first World Tree
originally mentioned in the Guardians of the Dream patch in Dragonflight
.
Regardless of Xal'atath's continued use of the Black Blood or its correlation to the Haranir, it is evident from this cinematic alone that our battle with the Harbinger is far from over. As mentioned by Chris Metzen in his
recent interview on the Worldsoul Saga
, we will be seeing Xal'atath throughout the Saga over the course of the next three expansions, uncovering truths about her eldritch nature and her motivations alike along the way.
The Harbinger herself is still shrouded in mystery just as much now as when we first began our conflict at the start of this expansion, and we can expect plenty more of Xal'atath in stories to come.
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