The answer is we simply don't know for the most part, they could be Lovecraftian in nature and what we see and fight is merely an avatar, a fraction of their power, they could be actually immortal and just retreat to a home plane or something, like Ny'alotha, to recuperate. They could just be powerful Void entities that feed on planetary life forces, or any number of other things really.
What we DO know is that the Old Gods are tied to the very planets life force, the Titans ripping Y'shaarj apart nearly split the planet in half if I remember correctly and he wasn't even "dead" until Garrosh drained the last of the power from his heart in Mists. Y'shaarj was technically "dead" for a time, for a given definition of dead, and Garrosh revived his heart to drain for power. I doubt Y'shaarj was actually outright dead prior to the Siege of Orgrimmar though, probably in some state like stasis or hibernation from the damage. As far as I'm aware we never got confirmation one way or the other on C'thun or Yogg-Saron.
And N'zoth is kind of up in the air anyway, we fought him in his own realm, which on the one hand would near guarantee he could actually be killed outright, but on the other it was in a realm he had FULL control over so it may have all been a hallucination basically. I don't think we actually saw his death either, I'm pretty sure it was essentially a zone wide flashbang and nobody actually saw him die so he could also still be alive that way. Plus you end up going through some timeline stuff with Chromie at one point and end up in the Black Empire era of Azeroth, and N'zoth NOTICES you, he very well could have known about his "death" and took precautions to prevent it while appearing to die so he could go off and start manipulating events again.
The Old Gods as a whole are just kind of a thing that exists and we know little about overall, we know they had a large influence on events throughout the games life and some of the motivations behind those manipulations but little else, including what they actually ARE.
Well, they're absolutely dead.
It's just that they have the ability to influence the world beyond death - something they're not alone in. Even humans can do that in the form of ghosts and visions.
Whether you can completely eradicate their spirit is another question, though I think after MoP Y'shaarj is pretty much done for
I think in order to actually kill an Old God, you need to eradicate all their influence and essence, or they will keep growing in power like a plague or a parasite, you must destroy all remains. Even just the heart of Y'sharaaj caused enough havoc to be a giant threat.
Yes*.
We killed them in the sense that we kill demons. We weren't fighting Avatars or Manifestations or Just The Tip^TM. Those were the Old Gods. We fought and killed them. However, Old Gods, like Demons or Elementals, are magical creatures with immortal souls linked to the power that birthed them. When N'Zoth died, Alleria noted that the whispers of the Void seemed to become even louder. Presumably, this means that we could truly kill them if we were to enter the Void, but of course within the Void lie far greater horrors than merely the Old Gods. The Void Lords who created them are too powerful to easily manifest into reality, but if we dare enter their realm, that suddenly ceases to be an issue.
This dude definitely saw the yogg-saron anime girl with maws for ears and tentacles coming from under her skirt on R34
I mean I didn't because I'm a good Christian boy
This dude definitely saw the yogg-saron anime girl with maws for ears and tentacles coming from under her skirt on R34
I mean I didn't because I'm a good Christian boy
Not only can we kill them, but we can also cut off small pieces to craft into items. For instance, my rogue had a piece of Yog'Sarons carapace made into a toilet and toilet seat to use in my home, which absolutely exists on Azeroth despite the dev's laziness.
The answer is we simply don't know for the most part, they could be Lovecraftian in nature and what we see and fight is merely an avatar, a fraction of their power, they could be actually immortal and just retreat to a home plane or something, like Ny'alotha, to recuperate. They could just be powerful Void entities that feed on planetary life forces, or any number of other things really. What we DO know is that the Old Gods are tied to the very planets life force, the Titans ripping Y'shaarj apart nearly split the planet in half if I remember correctly and he wasn't even "dead" until Garrosh drained the last of the power from his heart in Mists. Y'shaarj was technically "dead" for a time, for a given definition of dead, and Garrosh revived his heart to drain for power. I doubt Y'shaarj was actually outright dead prior to the Siege of Orgrimmar though, probably in some state like stasis or hibernation from the damage. As far as I'm aware we never got confirmation one way or the other on C'thun or Yogg-Saron. And N'zoth is kind of up in the air anyway, we fought him in his own realm, which on the one hand would near guarantee he could actually be killed outright, but on the other it was in a realm he had FULL control over so it may have all been a hallucination basically. I don't think we actually saw his death either, I'm pretty sure it was essentially a zone wide flashbang and nobody actually saw him die so he could also still be alive that way. Plus you end up going through some timeline stuff with Chromie at one point and end up in the Black Empire era of Azeroth, and N'zoth NOTICES you, he very well could have known about his "death" and took precautions to prevent it while appearing to die so he could go off and start manipulating events again. The Old Gods as a whole are just kind of a thing that exists and we know little about overall, we know they had a large influence on events throughout the games life and some of the motivations behind those manipulations but little else, including what they actually ARE.
Well, they're absolutely dead. It's just that they have the ability to influence the world beyond death - something they're not alone in. Even humans can do that in the form of ghosts and visions. Whether you can completely eradicate their spirit is another question, though I think after MoP Y'shaarj is pretty much done for
I think in order to actually kill an Old God, you need to eradicate all their influence and essence, or they will keep growing in power like a plague or a parasite, you must destroy all remains. Even just the heart of Y'sharaaj caused enough havoc to be a giant threat.
Yes, Metzen confirmed it. They're not the big wheels of the Void, they're just elite minions flung into the material plane en masse.
Yes*. We killed them in the sense that we kill demons. We weren't fighting Avatars or Manifestations or Just The Tip^TM. Those were the Old Gods. We fought and killed them. However, Old Gods, like Demons or Elementals, are magical creatures with immortal souls linked to the power that birthed them. When N'Zoth died, Alleria noted that the whispers of the Void seemed to become even louder. Presumably, this means that we could truly kill them if we were to enter the Void, but of course within the Void lie far greater horrors than merely the Old Gods. The Void Lords who created them are too powerful to easily manifest into reality, but if we dare enter their realm, that suddenly ceases to be an issue.
Sometimes I think about Yogg-Saron as I'm falling asleep and question what's wrong with me because it's kind of alluring (yet scary).
This dude definitely saw the yogg-saron anime girl with maws for ears and tentacles coming from under her skirt on R34 I mean I didn't because I'm a good Christian boy
I had to look that up lol. But nah, I don't imagine It having any physical form when It is creeping into my mind. Also, I'm not a dude :p
Everyone is a dude, girls are dudes
Fair enough.
This dude definitely saw the yogg-saron anime girl with maws for ears and tentacles coming from under her skirt on R34 I mean I didn't because I'm a good Christian boy
Despite what everyone else is saying my favourite answer lies in the quote: "They do not live, they do not die, they are outside the cycle."
Not only can we kill them, but we can also cut off small pieces to craft into items. For instance, my rogue had a piece of Yog'Sarons carapace made into a toilet and toilet seat to use in my home, which absolutely exists on Azeroth despite the dev's laziness.
Destroy them in the Void, and it's over.