Forgive me if I'm wrong, but didn't this whole "Hakkar = Old God?" debate begin purely because Hakkar is "The Faceless One", coincidentally sharing the name with the minions of the Old God beneath Northrend as seen in WC3 and The Old Kingdom?

I'd say this is just coincidence and nothing more; after all, Hakkar also happens to share the name of a Houndmaster of the Burning Legion. Hakkar seems to be loosely based on the mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, who was portrayed as a feathered serpent. Given that much of the trollish architecture is based upon Aztec/Mayan culture, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Hakkar is just some sort of old trollish god, rather than an Old (trollish) God.

That was my point exactly. The Old Gods didn't promise him any additional power, because he was powerful already. They took what was already in him, making him see the destruction of his "Earth" as a result of other's failures, be it Night Elves, Kaldorei/Highborne, other Dragon Aspects, or Demons.

You could say the Old Gods "opened his eyes" (we would say twisted his perception) to make Neltharion himself do what they wanted done. Neltharion became Deathwing willingly, and not as a part of a trade-off agreement. The current result might not have been what Neltharion or the Old Gods had in mind, but that is besides the point.

edit; Thank you for digging into your copy of the novel by the way.

I don't know, in the War of the Ancients when he actually used the Demon Soul and betrayed the flights Alexstraza tried to talk sense into him, but I think Malyagos' flight attacked and he went back into a fit of rage and wiped them out. I don't remember it exactly, but he definitely hesitated and showed remorse/confusion.

I think it was more started by the fact the RPG source book says Brann Bronzebeard thinks Hakkar is either an Old God himself, or the son of one. Also several sources state that the corruption in the nightmare is an Old God's doing, the corruption of Eranikus is Hakkar's doing, and that Eranikus' corruption was part of the cause of, or caused by the nightmare.

I mean he probably isn't an actual old god, but I think too many people are clinging to silly reasons like "His model doesn't look like C'thun/artists interpretations of Lovecraftian creatures)" or your architecture comment (the architecture comes from the trolls, not from the Gods. Whilst it is sure that he was in fact based on Quetzalcoatl there's no reason it can't just be a manifestation of an old god or one of his servants/sons created to deceive and destroy the trolls, the main enemy of the Aqir at that time). I mean Cthulu himself looks nothing like C'thun really, and Lovecraft gods do not have a common theme for their frame. Some are humanoid, other are amorphous blobs, others are indescribable.

The tie in with the Emerald Dream and Green Dragons through the temple for me is what makes him my favourite to be either part of the nightmare or the cause of it. I don't think it is a coincidence that Eranikus was corrupted whilst sleeping within feet of Hakkar's remains/spirit. Given how rife the corruption theme is in WoW I simply cannot believe that Eranikus corruption is unrelated to being in the same temple as Hakkar's defeat and being in the temple with his spirit afterwards, and by extension Hakkar is something to do with the nightmare (maybe due to his proximity to Eranikus is how his spirit gained entity/spawned whatever the nightmare is). Dark Factions RPG source book states Eranikus was driven mad shortly after entering the Sunken Temple and defeating Hakkar's physical form.

Were he just a Loa spirit why would Ysera take such direct action (Whilst she is known for rarely waking) against him when there are quite a number of corrupted/changed animal spirits/loa in Azeroth?


From Itharus text once you have the Chained Essence of Eranikus:
The god that the Atal'ai trolls had brought forth is to blame for this. We destroyed the god's physical manifestation and sunk the temple but the god was so much stronger than even we had anticipated. Its seed of corruption ran deep twisting everything in its path. Eranikus was charged to watch over the sunken temple to ensure that neither the simple Atal'ai no their god would rise again. He was an unwitting victim of this corruption, and we in underestimating its potency.


From another RPG source (Lands of Conflict):
The origins of the Emerald Nightmare are not entirely clear, although it is certain that it is connected to the Old Gods. While some believe that the Nightmare is born of the Old Gods themselves, others believe that the powerful deity Hakkar the Soulflayer, the ancient Gurubashi Blood God, is the evil power behind the Emerald Nightmare. Hakkar is an old god to the trolls.

Now maybe he doesn't fit the theme any more of the relatively newly introduced Old God's but I think he was the original plan for the corruption and I don't think it would be too hard to retcon it too be an agent of C'thun, YS or one of the yet unknown Old Gods.

The hound master thing as I said earlier was publicly apologised for by Metzen as he had reused the name without realising where he'd heard it. I'm also positive it is the same with the Faceless One name.

Concerning Hakkar.

1) The trolls are one of the oldest humanoid race of Azeroth
2) Almost all Troll Gods are in fact animal aspects, the kind of animal depends of the location of the troll tribe

Based on these 2 facts, Hakkar is a very old entity which is not an animal obviously.

In the oldest troll times, surnatural beings lurking on Azeroth were very few :
Demons are not an option, the Legion did not heard of Azeroth.
Titans have been around but we can barely link Hakkar to Titans.
Remain Old Gods.

It's not even sure that Old Gods had minions at this time, so if Hakkar is related to Old Gods, it may probably be an Old God itself.

Okay we kill him in Zul'Gurub but this version of Hakkar is freshly reborn one, we collected its essence at lvl 50 and killed him at 60. Not a long period between both events.

The only strange point I see with Hakkar is its ability to mimic part of High Priest abilities. Perhaps it is due to the parasithic behaviour of Old Gods.

Hakkar is an animal though -- he's a wind serpent. That rounds out the menagerie in ZG, which has high priests for the gods of the tigers, snakes, spiders, bats, and panthers; we don't get a Wind Serpent high priest, but that god itself is present.

What's wrong with Hakkar just being ordinary troll deity turned Old God's agent (like Loken did)?

Oh wow, now you have me wanting "Caverns of Time: Fall of the Amani Empire". If they're going to add Yet Another Troll Raid some time soon (or, okay, ever), let's hope it's this.

But, based on what I can see, I have to weigh in with the folks who think he was just a wind serpent god who got corrupted. It looks to me like troll gods are a class of Eternals much like Malorne, Agamaggan, Aviana, and Ursoc. Same kind of being. They're as old, they seem to have similar relationships to the world, and they seem to be similar personifications of primal animal or animal-like forces.

The impression that I get is that Hakkar was originally meant to be a primary agent of the corruption of the Emerald Dream, but that got changed (not exactly retconned, since we only have hints anyway) as they developed the Z'G and A'Q storylines. I would expect him to be resurrected as a major agent in the Emerald Dream expansion, but not as the driving force he was meant to be originally.

Hehe, that's exactly what I was thinking of.

But yes, I agree that it is much more likely that he was just corrupted, there's no doubt about that, it's just me personally wishing there was a more malignant and direct approach/plan behind him. It's sad really that we have so little information about pre-corruption Hakkar, because the troll deities of the other animal aspects (for instance those in Zul'Drak) are quite interesting in their relationship to nature, and also their regard for punishing those that defy them.

If any of you are familiar with the concept of an avatar, Hakkar could of been the avatar of another god.

I think its worth pointing out because some people tend to corrupt the original meaning of avatar. But it's possible for one god to have multiple mortal incarnations (aka avatar). Death of an avatar does not kill the god itself. It is also therefore possible (and likely imo) that the C'thun we fought was also an avatar or small portion of his real self.