It seems like the Arbiter literally melted when Zovaal took his orb back. So he was right about one thing, it did belong to him after all.
The Machine of Death is essentially non existent now, all souls damned to the Maw for all eternity, until we either restore the Arbiter or the First Ones make an entrance and they fix it somehow.
Zovaal seems to have headed for the Sepulcher. Wherever that is, his motives are pretty clear now. He wants to remake the Universe, some lore speculators think it’s going to be some reorigination of some kind.
The portal he entered through seems like a time portal or a Titan structure of some sort. Is it possible that he will travel back in time, where it all started?
I’m really trying to come up with something that could interest me in the least… And I’m coming up short. The universal reordering/reorigination thing sounds about right, though I really don’t understand why Blizz thinks it is a good idea not to just state it out loud. For that the Jailer seems to need to operate that sepulcher-thingie of the first ones so… yeah, more Oribos-style-stuff is coming, I guess.
Not necessarily in 9.2, though. They might just leave the Jailer-plot hangig for one patch, while closing up some open plot threads. Best case scenario I could think of? We co back to Azeroth, because that’s where we somehow get the power to stop the Jailer’s plans. Tie in some Norhend- and/or Lordaeron-stuff and we should habe some nice pieces of azerothian plots that might actually be halfway interesting.
But after that it’s off to a former stronghold of the First Ones, where we raid the sepulcher-thingie in the end to stop the Jailer, this time for realsies. Possibly with the help of a super team of cosmic beings we assemble allong the way. Jay, us. Eternals, Watchers, maybe Titans, Xal’atath, Loa, and who knows, maybe even N’zoth within the dagger uniting against the super-evil force of ultra-evil. Let’s not try to make too much sense of it, just give it enough pathos to feel right in the moment and be forgotten after. No character drama this time, please, leave that for annoying side-plots this time. Might b in the past, but I don’t see that mattering much.
No idea how to fit the Elune/Night Warrir stuff in there, but that might be because I really don’t want to.
Well, not exactly. While it certainly is their initial destination now, they can just be taken out by the covenants, who have the same access to the Maw that only the Maw Walker did before. The machine is broken, but manual labour can still approximate it with less efficiency.
I’m just saying that while the Jailer is in the way, we actually don’t necessarily need the Arbiter or First Ones for things to work out fine in the end.
Because suspense is always good… to make your players go insane and hate your story.
It’s actually what I think will happen as well.
This whole remaking of reality to me translates as destroying Azeroth, since on the cosmology map Reality is pretty much Azeroth, or so I understand.
Which, in addition to the prepatch questline, it makes sense. He’s coming for the soul of our world, which is none other than Azeroth herself.
I’m predicting that we will discover some sort of titan facilities on Azeroth that will be key in stopping him and restoring the order.
The question is, do the covenants have the ability to decide who goes where? Do they possess that kind of judgment? Won’t that create a whole new problem in itself?
Well, players have been pretty clear on findng the Shadowlands system flawed, haven’t they? Shadowlands ending with everyone landing in the same place at first and then maybe applying for the other realms, or something like that, doesn’t sound that bad, if the Maw isn’t essentially hell any longer. shrug
Actually, I’d prefer it, if we left the Shadowlands in a state of reorganization without fixing what the final outcome might be. Might put just a little bit of mystery back into death, from a character perspective.
would be nice to have an Azeroth centered plot, though not like what they did during BfA with “Egypt” and “China”. Hoping for something that will feel a little more meaningful.
On the one hand, we already did the timey whimey stuff in the end of cata, would be a bit lame to repeat the same solution. Makes everything meaningless, there will be no odds left if every time loose we get to go back in time and strangle baby Hitler in his crib.
On the other hand, I’m sure Blizzard would love to carry on copying Marvel’s Infinity Wars / Endgame scenario: mad bold dude, who turns out has been plotting evil actions all along, is collecting some magical McGuffins, gets powered up and kicks our asses because we failed to stop him. Now the only solution is save ourselves and the universe is to pull a time heist and fix history.
Unless… We do the time heist thing, but massively mess up the time ways. We literally erase Zovaal from history but accidentally blow up the caverns of time, causing all sorts of time related problems. Could set up a new world of warcraft 2, time boogaloo.
The player character so far hasn’t had an opinion of his own so I can’t answer that question. We, the people behind our characters, feel that way yes.
This is where they wrote themselves into a tough situation.
This is very much a question of morality. The real life religious scriptures say everyone should get what they deserve but go on the premise that God knows exactly what each person deserves and that the punishment is individually suited.
They tried to create a similar environment in Revendreth, which seems to be the actual hell for most mortals, as very few get to the Maw for their eternal torment. It seems like, excepting extreme cases, most mortals atone for their sins sooner than later.
The methods they use in Revendreth are, well, questionable but as realistic as they could be in a video game.
It doesn’t seem like any of them has the capacity to actually judge a mortal and that task alone falls on whoever possesses Zovaal’s orb. It seems to come with a mind of its own and the ability to see a mortal’s life and appreciate more objectively who and what fate deserves.
Mortals applying for a certain realm doesn’t sound feasible as nobody would pick certain realms, like Revendreth, no matter what sins they have. Because well, nobody likes to be tortured. Also they don’t have any info on all the realms of Shadowlands so they don’t have the capacity to choose either way.
And we have the whole anima issue at play. In order for a realm to function properly, it needs the anima battery to continue. We saw what starvation of anima does to the realms of Shadowlands, it’s not pretty.
So this situation is pretty much, crap. If we are to continue Shadowlands’ existence as we know it, we would need to restore a Judge that will equally distribute souls to all realms.
The whole “Sylvanas will be the new Arbiter” sounds more and more realistic at this point.
It’s pretty awesome so it won’t happen.
Yes, it feels like the world is pretty much a complete chaos at this point. Reality is messed up, Shadowlands is messed up.
Mortality is in big trouble. A time travel might just fix everything, but at what cost?
So what? Why do we have to solve that? That’s not even what our characters came there to do. Leave that to the denizens of the Shadowlands. Let’s go deal with our own problems, while leaving our fate after death… gasp uncertain!
That would be extremely unsatisfying and would defeat the whole purpose of us being in the Shadowlands in the first place. Can’t leave SL in this state, it’s just lame.
The whole death realm has to be sorted out somehow by the end of all this.
I beg to differ. The big names there telling us that they will try to do better and then closing the hole in the sky, and thus our access to the Shadowlands, without explaining what exactly would happen now, would be the most satisfying thing I can think of to end Shadowlands.
The less we know about our fate after death by the end of this, the better, if you ask me. The bad influences that made death worse than it had to be are cleaned up, the rest is for the denizens of death to figure out.
Well, I guess that’s subjective. I, personally, want to see a resolution. Yes, it gives me some sort of virtual peace of mind that eternity is somewhat in order now. I’m a religious person in real life and the idea that I don’t know where I’m going and what’s going to happen, you know, for all eternity, triggers me.
Yes, I want to secure that afterlife for us and I want to leave SL in a better state than I found it when I came.
It’s all a matter of personal preference I guess but I’m almost certain that SL WILL get fixed by the end of the expansion.
I meant that I need to see SL fixed in some way, not necessarily the way it was until now. Maybe allow the souls to go to their own respective cosmic forces, which is what it probably should happen.
My theory of what SL should be is: dismantle the covenants and have everyone go to a restored, normal Maw (assuming there was a non hellish, normal death realm), then allow souls to transcend to a new dimension according to the cosmic force they served in life.
I don’t know, it’s just an idea, but a chaotic SL can’t be a good thing for the cosmic balance or giving the mortals their rightful place in the afterlife. I guess I’m a Titan loving freak who likes to have everything ordered in some way xD
Someone will have to step in to become the new “judge” for all souls coming into the Shadowlands.
Zovaal may have filled said space in the past, but it’s obvious that at some point he overstepped his duties and now is bent on breaking them further.
So yeah, a new Arbiter/Jailer will probably step in to help fix stuff.
We don’t know yet, but given how instrumental and hyped his character was, maybe the Primus will take the role.
It would certainly bring back some of the core aspects that anyone would automatically label a death realm with.
It would be hilarious is the Jailer gets jailed again and the Arbiter reinstated after his defeat.
I mean it looks like it could go that way. They are already reforging the sigils. Can’t see why the Arbiter couldn’t be remade.
Would it be lame? Yeah and also very risky. Zovaal is too dangerous to be left alive, he has proven that even when stripped of his powers, he can find allies to aid his cause.
I honestly don’t have a potential candidate for his job. If the Primus could take the Arbiter’s spot, I legit can’t think of anyone being the Jailer other than Zovaal himself. The Sylvanas suggestion seems rather ridiculous to me, especially now when she’s a regular mortal, with her soul complete.
…doesn’t come close to the fact that we would proclaim someone who isn’t exactly a morally great person, even by azerothian standards, to be the final judge of worthiness… I think I’d prefer even Odyn…
It’s too late for that. Even if the covenant system was torn down and replaced with something totally different unknown to us, more important problem will remain - True Death.
The single most important aspect of any afterlife is immortality and blizz for sake of cheap dramaturgy removed it. So regardless who judges us and where we go, eventually we will all end up non-existing. All it takes is some random event - devouvers, your realm wildlife, some crazy power hungry maniac from other realm and so on. Even if chances of it are super slim and it takes 1000 eons it’s bound to happen eventually in an infinite time span.
Sure Shadowlands themselves might be eternal and there will be constant stream of new souls but from single entity pointy od view existence in WarCraft universe is pointless.
Would a proper/fixed afterlife require a Jailer? It feels as if the role was artificially created because of Zovaals actions.
In a setting that had the souls managed differently, maybe the Maw itself isn’t necessary.
Or if it is, it requires a minimum maintenance that can be covered with the current covenants with a joint guard.
I guess it depends on how devoted those guards would be. There’s many scenarios that could come up and apparently even the immortal beings are prone to betrayal and power hungry.
Considering Torghast contains the worst of souls in the entire universe and these souls find a way to escape, they could cause serious damage. A jailer to hold the leash seems necessary, in such circumstances.
But then again, it’s a bunch of ifs and the possibilities are endless no matter how the plot is resolved.
I’m guessing the expansion will end with Zovaal imprisoned again or someone else taking his place and all the ways out of the Maw will be closed.
