I was thinking about the twin consorts and their links to the celestial and the sha in throne of thunder a few days ago, and I came to the conclusion that creations like the divine bell, dark animus, and ultimately the consorts where a series of experiments to capture and control the essences of the spirits of harmony and war.

First we have the four celestials, each of these correspond to the six (I am excluding pride as I consider it the final head or main head) Sha.

Most of these are easy to collate, as the they are shown in game. The jade serpent counters doubt with wisdom, the red crane counters despair with hope, and finally the black ox counters fear with courage. These are all emotions of the higher mind, and are the products of solitude. They are naturally more colder then the the other three sha that represent fiery emotional states.

Which brings onto my next point, which is harder as this relationship is not shown that well in game.

Anger, Hate, and Violence are viewed together in the Shaohao film, and in my mind these are three forms of the same creature. I would also call them the lesser heads (emotions completely controlled by the lower mind).

These are all managed by Xuen the white tiger, who represents Strength. He acts as a counterbalance to the emotions which people falsely believe are strength and teaches how constraint is needed as well.



Now Lei Shen is shown to have experimented on draining the Celestials. I believe the purpose was to balance the power of harmony and war. Allowing him to harness the power, but not get overwhelmed by the Sha influence.

This is represented very well by the consorts.


Lul'lin is the mistress of solitude, she controls the emotions of fear, doubt, and despair.

Suen is the mistress of anger, is left to control the emotions of anger, hate, and violence.

They are in turn surrounded by the trapped essence of the celestials which stops these mogu constructs exploding from the raw power trapped within.


Lei Shen in my opinion was actively trying to combine Old God and Titan powers to create a new world, but his lifespan was not enough to complete it.

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not sure about the last line but it's a cool way to see it.

Interesting thought. I wish we had learned more about the Twins.

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Interesting, but weren't the six pools in the Vale supposed to counter the Sha, or something along those lines? To throw in the celestials as a counterbalance seems lore-redundant.

Also: my headcanon has always been that Tsulong is a celestial or at least related to them somehow, as his color scheme and art style match theirs perfectly. How would (s)he fit in this scheme?

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Cool read.

Not sure if the divide between primal and intellectual sha is correct or even needed though. I mean all sorts of animals feel fear, I bet each and every one of us has been gripped by fear on instinct (heights, insects, etc). Just throw out that part.

Though I like the idea of balancing the power of the sha with the power of the Celestials, that part feels convincing. However, why link the titans to this, is there indication that Celestials are related to them that I don't know about?

The fact that the Jade Serpent is esentially a construct leds me to think that maybe the Celestials are the Titan appointed keepers/guardians of all Pandaria, and specifically, the Pools.

But maybe they're just really weird Ancients.

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Counterpoint to pride, maybe?

In the real-life stories that inspired the celestials, there was occasionally a fifth guardian: The golden dragon of the center. Tsulong certainly fits that.

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This is just my headcanon, but I believe that the cloud serpents are titan-made. We know that the mogu are capable of creating stone cloud serpents, and there's the Engine of Nalak'sha to consider too. (Nalak probably means serpent in mogu or titan, according to Kosak.)

Now, if this is true, it is possible that all the Celestials, not just Yu'lon, are titan-made. Maybe all the Ancient Guardians, which seem to have appeared after the Titans visited Azeroth, are titan-made, unlike the other Loa, which predate the Titans. Of course, it could also be that they arose independently from the Titans and one of the nature spirits just happened to be one whose species had not evolved naturally on Azeroth.

The Ancient Guardians arose from Azeroth itself when the Titans imbued the Dragon Aspects, according to Wolfheart.

But I share your headcanon.

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Didn't remember that part, just that they came afterwards. Thanks for reminding me.

My personal speculation about the August Celestials is that they were turned from simple animals of the land into a sort of Ancients at the time of Y'Shaarj's death.

Simply speaking, Y'shaarj is the God of Emotion, all of which balance each other (mostly in form of the negatives being held together by the positives) and only It can master them all at Its will, subjugating many peoples with the breath of fear and despair, then ruling over them as the benevolent God-King.

With Y'Shaarj, for all intents and purposes, dead, Its component parts have gone wild and attained their own "will". The seven 'negative' ones represented Y'Shaarj's levers of spreading his power over people, and thus tried to haunt the very land itself and force anyone and everyone to succumb to their failure before the great Old God. Meanwhile, the prime 'positive' ones that held the negatives in check were the "ruling" aspects of Y'Shaarj, and thus tried to assume powerful, graceful and awe-inspiring forms, possessing and empowering the great animals of the land, intent on continuing to rule the peoples of Pandaria (which they, too, sort of did after Shaohao's sacrifice).

The Klaaxi despise the Sha, as it is only a misaimed, unworking part of their God, one that is meaningless without the Heart. If given form, however, the Heart will absorb the Sha and the Celestials' Energy in due time and will soon herald the return of the Old God.

Meanwhile, remember the rumors that started to spread when Shaohao's cartoon has ended, with him "forgetting to mention" the Pride and calling himself the Heart of Pandaria?

Well, now remember who were the beings that guided him on that quest of his. The very same beings who take the rulership of Pandaria in their claws, making Shaohao the last emperor.

Perhaps subconsciously, but both the Sha and the Celestials are trying to bring forward the Old God's return... And in the meantime are continuing their "program" as parts of it, suppressing each other and trying to conquer/rule Pandaria.

But because they ARE programmed to oppose each other, they can never unite without a mortal's help, a mortal that would be very proud and powerful enough to become the Old God's vessel on the path of resurrection. The first such candidate was Shaohao, the champion of the Celestials, who also subdued the Sha (except for one...); and now it is Garrosh, the champion of the Sha, who embodied the emotions represented by them so perfectly (and all at the same time) that he is able to use all of them as weapons.

All of this is mere speculation, of course.

I'm not sure you can blame the Celestials for Shaohao believing he was THE heart of Pandaria.

However, his pride ultimately saved the land.

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The celestials being a part of a full y'shaarj would explain why the klaxxi never destroyed the temple of niuzao.

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From Wolfheart:

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Yeah, I remembered something along those lines, but only remembered the time, so I tried to play it safe.
Thanks for providing the quote. Let's hope I remember it this time.

Yup! I'm glad you liked it!

They couldn't force him to do anything, just guide on a specific path. A very specific power trip, that made him "realize" just how much better, how much more godly he was than the others.

Indeed, didn't it? I like to think the Pride was a chess figure that slipped from Y'Shaarj hands... tentacles... you get it. It only needed Shaohao, the subduer of the Sha, to unite with the Dark Heart of Pandaria (to save his land, of course), but It never counted on him making a cool and unusual convoluted plan to save his people, one that effectively shut down and greatly weakened the half of Y'Shaarj's power.

You're so Machiavellian, Kir! I love this theory

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Thanks!

With Titan blood and Mogu steel, Lei Shen forged a golem that stood guard to his fortress. Cursed with the distillation of his anger, the creation was blessed with the name the Dark Animus.

The Divine bell was also forged with Titan flesh, and given voice of the sha.

Even the Consorts possess construct forms. Titan technology made as a container to store the ideas of the six sha. Kept in check by the celestials whom have had the essence chained to his fortress.

Going by these examples Lei Shen was surely trying forge a technology that united Old God and Titan, and with the intent to control it both.


I always considered in my headcannon that the pools are the purified blood of Y'shaarj.

As for Tsulong, we saw a mini him in the room before twins did we not.

I believe he was siphoning their energy to make his own celestial.

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We did? Huh, I'll have to pay more attention next time I'm in there.

I really like the idea that the celestials are essentially the other half of Y'shaarj. However, I get the impression that we'll never know; I had a bad feeling from the start in Mogu'shan vault that there would be a lot of questions that never get answered, because there are so many intricate consequences of things that Blizzard may not notice.

In the end, I think the most likely case is just that the celestials are ancients/loa, as boring as it is.

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The original lore for them was that they were created be Lei Shen to be the 2 sides of his personality and that's why they didn't get along.

To "Be" the two sides of his personality? Whut?

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What?

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I guess kinda like his advisors. A way to be able to talk with himself without sounding stupid.

where do you get these facts!?

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