Neltharion betrays the dragonflights

Full History

When the Burning Legion assaulted ancient Kalimdor, the dragons faced a threat that could not be ignored. The Aspects had inherited their duties from the titans, and the war threatened the ordered world those duties were meant to preserve. Neltharion, guardian of the earth, proposed a powerful weapon that could turn the conflict against the demons. The artifact would become known as the Dragon Soul, drawing significance from the participation of the other great dragonflights.

The weapon did not serve the common purpose for which the dragons expected to use it. Neltharion revealed his betrayal and turned its power against his own kind. The assault devastated the gathered flights, inflicting especially terrible losses upon the blue dragons. Malygos and his people were left with wounds that would endure for ages. The event shattered the assumption that the Aspects' shared origin and charge guaranteed their unity.

For the resistance against the Legion, the betrayal was another crisis in an already desperate war. Mortal and immortal defenders could no longer count upon an unbroken alliance among the dragons. The Dragon Soul itself remained entangled with the events surrounding the Well of Eternity, and its later history would connect the ancient conflict to the enslavement of Alexstrasza during the Second War. A creation intended to defend Azeroth proved capable of helping to ruin those sworn to protect it.

Neltharion survived under the dreaded name Deathwing, a figure whose later influence reached the politics and wars of mortal kingdoms. The dragonflights survived as well, but never recovered the simple trust that preceded the War of the Ancients. His treachery is therefore not a passing episode in a larger battle. It marks the fracture of Azeroth's oldest guardianship and explains why the dragons' subsequent interventions so often bore the weight of ancient mistrust.