What the Hell is Sylvanas Doing with Xal'atath?

The following post has 8.1 spoilers. You have been warned.

At the What's Next panel today, Sylvanas, Saurfang, Jaina, and Anduin were featured in a slide about future stories for the remainder of BFA. But Sylvanas very interestingly had a very familiar dagger in hand. Holding Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire, it would seem that Sylvanas is drawing on the power of the void in some way.

Given that we're facing Azshara in 8.2 and heavily (ok, maybe technically subtly) implied to be going after N'zoth in 8.3, such a blade might raise a few eyebrows.

One thing that's a bit surprising about her wielding it is that in the past we've generally seen Sylvanas and undeath as an oppositional force to the Old Gods and the Void. The Lich King seemed to build Icecrown's fortifications out of Saronite as a kind of middle finger to the Old Gods, and his forces seemed immune to its corruption - like we saw in the Sarontie Mines of Ymirheim where we actually teamed up with a Faceless One to fight the Ymirjar.

In a recent comic, the mad void whispers that Alleria constantly hears warned her that Sylvanas served the "true enemy," so even if there has been some void-assisted necromancy in the past (like Ner'zhul B,) it seems as if these forces are somewhat in opposition to one another.

So is Sylvanas' journey into deep villainy actually being orchestrated by N'zoth? Has he cracked the code on the undead in order to gain some way of influencing them? That this war could be all at N'zoth's behest is something that has seemed quite plausible, but Sylvanas also doesn't need external corruption to be wicked the way she has been.

If BFA is heading for a big confrontation in Ny'alotha, might we pursue Sylvanas there? And what is her intention?

Having her get corrupted by N'zoth would be, I think, a bit of a let-down.

But let's think about why she might have that dagger.

In 8.1, in the quests that lead up to the Crucible of Storms raid, Xal'atath appears not as a dagger, but in a humanoid form of a Void Elf. It is heavily implied that she was actually a fifth Old God, or perhaps a lesser entity of the same nature. Like Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep, Xal'atath takes on a humanoid form. But if she is in this form, does that mean the knife was only ever her prison, imposed on her by N'zoth?

Let me toss some tin foil on my head and start the speculation engine a-running.

If the dagger itself is a prison rather than the Old God herself, and the dagger is now empty, could it contain the essence of a different Old God?

Sylvanas is merciless and cruel, but she does believe in one reasonably admirable value: survival. And the Old Gods are a huge threat to that.

What if Sylvanas is trying to trap N'zoth in the dagger?

I'm hesitant to give Sylvanas benign motivations. Whatever her end goals, she has done some horrific things, particularly in recent months. Making her a "secret good guy" could really ask too much of players' forgiveness. Much as Grom in Warlords never seemed to pay for his rather horrendous crimes, I don't want to see Sylvanas let off the hook just because she was working on a project that would help Azeroth as a whole.

But it would make things more complicated. We only found out in Legion that Illidan's actions in Burning Crusade had noble intentions - and I suspect that this was really more of a retcon than something they had been planning all along. Imagine, for example, that Saurfang has captured the hearts and minds of the Horde and that both factions are racing to bring Sylvanas to justice... only for her to warn us that we really don't want to stop her - at least not yet.

Like Y'Shaarj, there's a good chance that killing N'zoth outright would lead to catastrophic problems for the planet. Azeroth is already practically on life support right now, so the violent death of one of her horrible parasites could put her in an apocalyptic state of shock. Maybe we need to follow Sylvanas' plan if we are to prevent Azeroth's death - forcing us to delay the course of justice in the name of saving the world.

Sylvanas might be busy in her endeavor, but she'll almost certainly use this delay to ensure her eventual safety.

But given how important her work would be, we wouldn't really have a choice but to help her.