Foundations.

1. The Hallowfall Crystal is a splinter growth of Azeroth.
   The crystal and others like it are basically an involuntary shedding. A splinter growth. Something semi-independent from the original world soul. Let me put it this way: imagine a plant. Every leaf is part of the plant, right? But now imagine if you could cut one leaf off, and it didn’t wither — it just kept on living. Still needing water and sunlight, but forever just a leaf. It’ll never grow into a full plant, but it’s… alive. That’s what these splinters of a world soul are.

2. The Memories of Azeroth events exist within cannon.
   The creatures in these events are more like… hard light holograms. Spiritual recordings that Azeroth projects when she’s drifting more toward consciousness. Think ghosts, but ghosts on repeat. They act out the motions of the original event or entity, you can interact with them, they can interact with you, but at the end of the day, they’re not real. They’re records. When they have played out their event, their story, they vanish or start over from the beginning.

With those foundations established, we have two creations a world soul can make: Crystallizations and Memories.

I propose that Battle Pets are basically an unconscious mash-up of both of these foundations. They’re memories — but not ones Azeroth is deliberately playing back. They’re more like crystallizations of memory that the world soul generates unconsciously. The closest word we have for these sort of creatures is eidolons from Greek mythos. They can think, they can battle, they can bond with us, but they’ll never grow into anything more. And that’s why Battle Pets don’t have an evolution system like in other games. They’re stuck at the exact imprint the world soul made of them. A splinter can’t become a tree. A snapshot can’t suddenly develop into a new roll of film. They’re locked in the form they were created in, never evolving. These creatures are rare, thus why the champion would collect them and so many peoples would offer them as prizes for various activities.

Now you may say, “...but they level up, learn new abilities and gain stats! How can they be a locked form if they improve over time?” Let’s take a look to when a pet is challenged in a battle, that creature is forced to sharpen its memory of what it’s a mirror to. These creatures who are born from the shedding of a world soul, now exist independently. The moment a tamer steps in, the connection to themselves become something a bit more: a bridge between mortal intent and cosmic memory. The tamer teaches the echo how to remember. Each command, each battle, becomes a lesson in identity, shaping the Eidolon closer to the truth of what it was meant to reflect. Like an artist chipping away at an ice sculpture, every strike and counterstrike refines the blur from the world’s unconscious recollection, revealing a creature’s truest form beneath. The tamer doesn’t create something new; they uncover what was always there, buried under the fog of half-remembered existence. As the memory clarifies, the Eidolon becomes more resilient; its health, power, and speed are the precision of that memory. When a tamer battles with their pets, they are not only testing their skill or chasing a victory. The tamer is helping a fragment of the world remember itself clearly. Each experience is an act of restoration, learning again what it means to be...

Examples that help support this theory:

• Why have we never seen a battle pet perish permanently? Because they don’t function like ‘real life’ to begin with. They possess the capability to reset back to their stored memory state after some time.

• Why do critters spawn in certain places, and sometimes the same spawn will make a battle pet? Because the world's energy subconsciously says: ‘the ‘real’ species population has dipped and there should be life here,’ and fills in the gap with splinter memories.

• Why do they exist in so many lands? Because anywhere with strong enough world energy can accidentally shed these splinters.

• Rares often drop battle pets, this has never made much sense. Under this theory a Battle Pet would be indigestible if eaten by a large aggressive creature. Or kept as an eternal child by a creature mother who has watched many young leave the nest, but this one never seemed to grow up and move on.

With that established, I would like to extend this explanation for why K’aresh, Telogrus Rift and locations like it don’t have any battle pets on them, and why locations like Draenor which does not have a world soul still have battle pets reflective of the world. There is a ranking to world energies akin to a classification system. Not every planet is created equal. Every celestial body has some level of “world energy”. Think of it like power ratings. Some worlds barely register as if they were a candle flickering in the dark. Others burn bright, like full-blown suns. The strongest world energies of all are called world souls.

Azeroth sits right at the very top of this scale. In fact, she’s the most powerful known world soul in the cosmos. That’s why her splinters and memories are so vibrant and stable. Draenor, by comparison, doesn’t qualify as a full world soul, but it still has enough world energy to shed splinters. That’s why battle pets exist there too, even if Draenor’s energy was never strong enough to awaken into a true titan-like consciousness. Worlds like K’aresh are even weaker now. They are just embers of energy, barely holding together, which is why they can’t create new splinters anymore.

This lines up with how shamans work. On Azeroth, the world soul is strong enough that shamans hear its voice directly. On Draenor, though the energy was too weak, so orc shamans had to connect through ancestor spirits instead.

And this theory even stretches into places like the Maw, Zereth Mortis, and K’aresh. When Argus got dragged into the Maw, afterwards The Maw started pumping out splinters(battle pets) shaped like corpses and Korthian creatures. K’aresh, on the other hand, doesn’t have enough juice anymore. Its energy flickers too weakly to form anything new,  so the only pets there are leftovers from when it was still functional. Exchanged among ethereals for aoens, like photographs of what their world once was. No wonder the Brokers treat them like curiosities to trade away. Only creatures that have traveled the great dark to attack exist on K’aresh, but without a world energy strong enough to create an Eidolon of those attacking creatures, the only creatures we see anywhere in the world of K’aresh are critters.

What about if we take a look back to the First Ones? They definitely knew about this phenomenon. Zereth Mortis is basically their lab, where they studied these splinter-beings: how big they could get, what forces could influence them, whether void or titan energies could twist them. Battle Pets coming from Zerith Mortis weren’t an accident to the First Ones — they were a case study.

More celestial beings even seem to understand this phenomenon. Algalon himself says, "I have been amassing my collection, scouring the stars for tiny beings of cosmic power.’" To him, these creatures aren’t curiosities, they’re microcosms. Smaller reflections of the same forces that Titans study and worlds emanate. He goes on to say, ‘"May it remind you of the watchers that watch over us all.’" Perhaps what he is trying to tell us is that these pets are not just splinters of life, but they are also tiny reminders. Proof that the spark of creation repeats at every scale.

Among mortal peoples, one is shown to grasp the stories told through battles deeply, the Pandaren. To them, a battle is never just a contest, it’s a retelling. A story that is passed down from one generation to the next. As they say, "Pandaren pass these stories on to their cubs — stories of the cricket and the hawk, or the slow-moving turtle — to teach them lessons that they will find useful in life. What few cubs know is that these creatures exist, here, in Pandaria!’" The stories they speak of are not parables. They are reenactments, lessons of battles that Azeroth herself once splintered into being. When a trainer calls forth their pet to face another, they aren’t just testing strength. They’re performing a story, one as old as their world’s memory. Each clash, each tactic, each victory or defeat… is a verse in a living poem to the trainers and the people they perform with. The slow turtle endures, the hawk strikes swiftly, the cricket sings through struggle, every pet embodies a lesson, and every battle is the retelling.

But why make them fight each other?

With what we've said in mind,  it’s rather simple why any person, anywhere mortal, immortal, or otherwise, would take a creature like this under their wing and use it to battle others. In each culture in every realm, to understand life you should also understand conflict. These creatures are echoes of life, so really by using them to spar, or to teach, a culture is teaching life lessons; that makes sense.

In locations like Stormwind or Orgrimmar, it’s a way to settle smaller arguments without bloodshed. You can teach your young about strategy, aggression, resiliency, patience, and how to think three steps ahead; oftentimes training with the same battle pet your father used to teach you. ‘Grand Master Hyuna’, a trainer we encounter says "It will strengthen me to better protect the sacred sites of my people." To her, pet battles aren’t sport, they are sacred practice, a communion with the land’s energy. In Pandaria training with battle pets is a spiritual practice to understand all forms of life which is done as much as it is a game for learning. In farmlands or smaller villages a well-trained battle pet can scare off bigger predators. On Dreanor, taming and training a creature born from the land’s own memory is a way of bonding with the land itself, a way of proving your worth to the spirit worlds. The shadowlands trainers use them as a tool for souls to work through echoes of their former lives.

We have many examples of characters we find that support this idea. One such character is Lydia Accoste who we find as a ghost just outside Kharazaan in Deadwind Pass. She understands the teaching nature of battle pets and their longevity instinctively when she says “I have an eternity to train. I will defeat you!’" This illustrates that to her, eternity isn’t a curse, but just another cycle of learning. Even the Val’kyr acknowledge the strange resilience of these unique creatures. In Stormheim there exist one such Val’kyr referenced as ‘The Envoy of the Hunt’ they say ‘"Your beasts are not yet destined to join our ranks. They are destined to enjoy many more glorious battles.’" This statement serves to make known that even death doesn’t claim them. They are quite literally preserved eidolons.

Whether it’s a noble pastime, a teaching tool, or a way to commune with the echoes of creation, battle pets give the people of Azeroth and beyond a mirror to themselves, a smaller reflection of what it means to struggle and overcome. So as long as the concept of battle exists in World of Warcraft so too should battle pets.

If there are any errors or faults in my logic please let me know. This theory has taken me a while to craft and I am very proud to present it to the community. What do you think?



*For fun, we can call this the Preserved Eidolon Theory (P.E.T.) and the creatures can be Preserved Eidolon Tames (P.E.T.)