From what I understand, the Titans could not kill the Old Gods because they were too ingrained in the world, and the Titans are too big and powerful and so incapable of the precision required to destroy them without destroying Azeroth. Mortal races, on the other hand, are small enough to get the job done, and have recently become powerful enough to do it.

Yeah, I had figured that at least C'thun was still alive, just with a few less tentacles and one less eyeball.

Yogg-saron, on the other hand, seems like the subject of a more direct attack than C'thun was. I'm not a regular raider so I never hit Yogg-saron in Ulduar, but I do recall an attack on Yogg-saron's brain... which would mean that he'd actually be dead, as opposed to just poking out one of C'thun's eyes.

It's because we're tiny. Both the C'Thun and Yogg-Saron fights have required us to go inside them and fight their innards. The Titans wouldn't fit.

Golganneth: You're all up in my space, bro!
Aman'Thul: Look man, this guy's brain is only so big. Chill out and start plucking nerve endings.
Eonar: AMG there's green stuff IN MY HAIR!

A guildie once summed it up quite nicely: The Old Gods are like a computer virus on your harddrive. The players are like an anti-virus program. The Titans answer is to throw the computer out a window.

Whether we (the players) actually killed old goods is a point of controversy in the lore community.

But the way I look at it, powerful beings in the WoW setting have more states of existence than just "alive" and "dead". And the more powerful you are, the more states of existence you have. So I tend to think that what we did with the old gods is push them several steps along the scale closer to dead. Thereby significantly reducing their ability to influence the world.

And in regards to the question about "why isn't the world falling apart after we killed the old gods", remember that we only, in lore time, killed Cthun two or three years ago, and Yogg less than a year. Titans work on very long timeframes. So when a titan says "killing old gods would destroy Azeroth", they might mean "... would destroy Azeroth in 1000 years".

It's because we are MORE POWERFUL THAN THE TITANS THEMSELVES RAAAWR!

Oooor they're not really dead, we only hurt them. Who knows.

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

I really don't think destroying the old gods is as simple as what we have accomplished so far.

I've never bought the argument that we are small and the titans are big. Even if the Titans were too big to properly engage with the Old Gods (who, lets face it are rather big once you dig them out of the ground), they have all these constructs which are much smaller than them which could do the job. Whole machines churnign out little constructs in fact. Plus they had empowered agents like Mimiron who can, y'know, change size!

Ultimately I think its nothing to do with size or practicality, I think its that the Old Gods simply can't die in the mortal sense. They are, after all, outside the cycle.

thebarrenschat.wordpress.com

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Cthulhu fhtagn! Cthulhu fhtagn!

On that topic, anyone get the feeling we may be seeing an old god in the expansion, especially as we're visiting a "sunken city?"

/Dr.Evilpinkie

I was under the impression that the Master's Glaive in Darkshore was where one of the titans HAD killed an Old God.

Lovecraft's fiction is all over the Old God lore. And in Lovecraft's fiction, one thing is always constant - the true cosmic evil is never fully present.

Eventually, we will open the gates of R'lyeh and see the great Cthulhu for ourselves. So shall be the lore of the Old Gods. When it does, well, Azeroth is screwed.

@ BubblePriest

What was killed at Master's Glaive is up for debate. It was definitely a powerful being of some sort and almost certainly related to the Old Gods. But I get the feeling it wasn't an actual Old God. I'd wager it was one of an Old God's servants, akin to Yogg-Saron's Faceless or C'thun's Qiraji. Perhaps it's related to the Old God whose presence is felt in Blackfathom Deeps.

Then again, I could be wrong.

So many awesome theories under one comment.

But, it bugs me how much people demean the true power of the 'Heroes' we play as. We're the guys that people like King Varian Wrynn, Lady Jaina Proudmoore, Warchief Thrall and even the almighty Highlord Tirion Fordring look to to fight off the evil. Yeah, we may not compare to them individually, but as the fighting force (or raid) we combine together, we're the best Azeroth has to offer. That is, presuming that previous bad-guy was kind enough to drop his shiny booties.

Actually, there is a good reason the Titans didn't kill the Old Gods.

Golganneth: "Hey, um... Aman... Shouldn't we, like, do something about these huge damn squid?"
Aman'Thul: "No... That's just what they EXPECT us to do..."
Gathered Titans: "???"

Kill Old gods? LOL whatever made you think we were doing that? DEFEAT them temporarily maybe but killing a god is like killing a soul, much harder that burning it or sticking a few holes in something.
My view is like the old D&D world. That major demon - yeah you can 'kill' it - but all you do it banish its essense back to its home plane. To ACTUALLY kill it you have to chase it down on its OWN plane where it is unbelieveably powerful, and kill it there. Even then these are GODS and hence very powerful and intelligent (one would assume at least). Hence im sure they would have worked out some 'contingency' plans at the very least, if not have several if not hundreds of plans/tricks etc to keep them alive.