Sargeras in The Last Titan

 Sargeras is the original Big Bad of the Warcraft Franchise.

As the mightiest warrior of the Titans, themselves godlike beings (the closest that WoW gets to a classical Olympian-style pantheon - they're literally called The Pantheon,) the story goes (after a retcon or two) that Sargeras, in the ancient past, was tasked with fighting demons across the cosmos. While any given demon was not much of a match for him, the problem was that they kept returning from death, reborn in the Twisting Nether.

So, Sargeras built Marduum, a prison-planet where, rather than killing the demons, he would bind them there so that they could not escape.

Notably, the Titans actually used demons for some of their purposes. As we learned in the Green Fire quests back in Mists of Pandaria, Doomguards were used to sniff out people performing sacrificial magic - essentially, taking demons that were particularly drawn to mortal sacrifices, the Titans could then track down mortals performing such heinous rites using the very creatures they were attempting to summon and bind to their will.

It was when Sargeras found the world of Telogrus (never officially confirmed, but implied to the point that I think it's more or less undeniable,) it was infected not with demons, but with its own version of the Old Gods, who had wormed their way into the planet's Worldsoul and corrupted it. A group of demons, the Nathrezim, had come there to take part in this corruption, or perhaps study it (or, perhaps they had led Sargeras there knowing the effect it would have on them. Look, the Revendreth-Nathrezim connection was a wild swing for Shadowlands, and I don't know how much Blizzard would prefer to sweep that under the rug, but it's canon until retconned away).

Sargeras determined that the Telogrus World Soul was beyond saving, and so slashed the planet it half, killing its world soul and horrifying the rest of the Pantheon.

(As a side note: if the death of Argus sundered the Arbiter and the Shadowlands, had something similar happened when Telogrus was killed? Or was the fact that Telogrus hadn't yet fully formed as a Titan or other equivalent entity enough to keep it from disrupting things? Presumably the Jailer had already fallen from grace by that point if he was sending the Nathrezim out there into the cosmos, so this wouldn't have been the start of his villainous journey.)

Now an outcast, Sargeras determined that he would need help if he was going to purge this void corruption from the cosmos, and so he destroyed his own demonic prison, unleashing the demons he had trapped and conscripting them into what would become the Burning Legion.

When the rest of the Pantheon confronted him, they told him how they had saved another world soul from void corruption - namely Azeroth. This didn't work out very well, as Sargeras' "destroy the entire universe to save it" plan had gone into full swing. He "killed" (they got better) the rest of the Pantheon and set out searching for Azeroth and looking for new recruits to join the Burning Legion, ultimately discovering the Eredar, a super-advanced civilization living in a seeming utopia, but whose curiosity to learn more about the cosmos would make them easily manipulated. As we know, most of the Eredar willingly joined the Legion, while some fled into exile as the Draenei (or fought in resistance as the Krokul).

Sargeras tried numerous times to invade Azeroth - the War of the Ancients was the first major attempt, while the invasion of the Horde was another notable one (though the Horde's defeat and the death of Gul'dan allowed the Orcs to break free of their Legion affiliations). Finally, we had the events of Legion, which ultimately led to the biggest blowback of one of these invasion attempts, as Illidan Stormrage opened a portal to Argus, and the heroes of Azeroth were able to strike a deadly blow to the heart of the Legion and free the Titans from their eons-long imprisonment.

The last we saw of Sargeras, the other Titans magically pulled him away from Azeroth, dragging him into the Seat of the Pantheon where he would be imprisoned and guarded by the other Titans along with Illidan.

Sargeras attempted one last parting blow, driving his sword into the heart of Azeroth, and as we've seen in the 12.2 preview images, got like, 20 feet away from hitting the World Soul itself (given this is a sword nearly the size of a planet, 20 feet is almost nothing).

But, as I noted in the end of Legion, it felt kind of strange that after all this time, and after an expansion called Legion, we didn't get to fight Sargeras himself (to be fair, the first expansion was Burning Crusade, which is practically synonymous with Legion. But we didn't have Demon Hunters yet!)

I'm still not sure we're going to kill Sargeras at the end of The Last Titan. Frankly, my money is on Iridikron acting as the expansion's big bad.

It was, after all, Iridikron's plan to lure the Titans to Azeroth and lay a trap for them.

But... look, we can't discount the fact that the Dark Titan himself is out there, and specifically, if the Titans themselves come to Azeroth... they've got to bring him with them, right?

Sargeras became the master of a universe-wide army of demons, but he's not actually a demon himself (though he looks way different than he did before destroying Marduum. Originally black-haired and rocking a vaguely Ancient Egyptian vibe, he's now fire-haired-and-beared and has big scary wings and such (and I think horns?)

Still, while Aman'thul is the ultimate patriarch of the Pantheon, occupying the Zeus/Odin role within it, I think Sargeras might represent the absolute worst impulses of the Titans, the need to control everything to the extent that he'll destroy that which he can't control. I can totally imagine a world where Aman'thul emerges as the villain of the story, to be sure.

But I do really wonder what role Sargeras will be playing. It's only been 8 or 9 years since the final raid of Legion, and even if it's a little longer in-universe because of the post-Shadowlands time skip, this is an infinitesimal amount of time for beings like the Titans. (Though to be fair, as Algalon said, he's seen entire worlds created in the space of a heartbeat, so maybe they can process a whole lot of information in a very short period of time.)

My guess is that if Sargeras is playing a major role in The Last Titan, it's something Blizzard will play pretty close to the vest.

Honestly, I think they have a marvelous opportunity here: The Jailer jumped into canon as this massive, Sargeras-level threat, but was written so simplistically and also had so little time to develop as a bad guy that he wound up falling flat.

Blizzard has shown that they can do villains, even if they are cartoonish and mustache-twirling, a lot better with Xal'atath, and while he hasn't had a ton of screen time, Iridikron also feels like a smarter, more strategic threat.

I would love to get some high-quality writing to give us a Sargeras that truly feels like the deserving Big Bad of Warcraft. I want to see him be both mighty and a genius. Let him feel august in his regal power, larger than life, but without spouting cliche lines like "pitiful mortal," as we had the Jailer do. (Sargeras wouldn't find mortals pitiful - that would require him to feel pity.)

And... don't kill him off. For a bad guy who I think has been part of the lore for 32 years, it's not like it'd be too early. But the thing is, we haven't actually gotten enough time with him to earn that catharsis. I know that part of the idea of ending the Worldsoul Saga is to move onto something new, but I think it would be great to actually see some classic villains get their due (and not in a half-assed Warlords of Draenor way).