Let’s make it short basically my theory is that it was Teldrassil, or more specifically all the souls that we burned together of Teldrassil.
here are my reasons for believing that:
There was a hint from Blizz regarding that silvannas had a hand in the events that led to all of this, and that it was AROUND Legion time. The burning of Teldrassil matchs this perfectly for it was shortly after Legion.
Also the entire Burning of Teldrassil did not make much sense for me. If the only reason was that Silvannas hated all living things that would have been other, more easy targets. Also why do the entire conquering thing when you burn the object to conquer at the end?
Third and last is the mechanics of the Arbiter herself.
I dont think a single sole, how wrap it may be, would be enough to do that much damage to a beeing that inspects the lives of millions of creatures in the blink of an eye. What made teldrassil different? Basically this was an event on the scale of a nuke. Thousends or even millions (if you take the animals trees and everything) of lives where lost in a very short period of time. And they died a misserable death at that.
What color would be more fitting for such an event then red, like in the red projectile that hit the arbiter?
One thing I do find suspicios: As far as I understood ALL Sools need to be broth to the shadowlands by the kyrians. So WHO did bring the reason for the arbiters failure? Could be either Uther or the Paragon of loyalty one would first think. But is it truly that simple?
I believe it is explained that for every soul that goes to the Maw, the Jailer, and thus Sylvanas, grows in power. So burning Teldrassil with all those still on it would have sent a pretty big powerboost into the Maw. That + the souls ending up in the Maw are used to make armour and weapons, so it’s a form of resources for the forces of the Jailer, too.
Burning Teldrassil makes sense from Sylvanas’ point of view because it would trigger a massive war with thousands of dead = thousands of souls fueled into the Maw and the Jailer’s warmachine.
I say this because I believe Blizzard has already confirmed that the machine of death was already broken by the time of the War of Thorns.
I don’t think that works, the arbiter receives the souls of infinite universe non stop. That’s an unquantifiable amount of souls coming through her every second. She wouldn’t even have noticed teldrassil.
Also, assuming it was true, would it be an interesting story/reveal? Would it make anything else makes sense, solve any other questions we have? I mean, it just comes down to “She shut down because she was overworked”, doesn’t it? A bit disappointing for something that was clearly set up as a mystery.
That would require the BfA pre-patch to be considered a part of Legion. And I am not sure that is the case.
I saw among the concept arts an image showing early idea of Shadowlands.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bKzVlm
with a comment
I explored a giant fortress that was larger than Icecrown Citadel, that looked over the Shadowlands. We wanted the world to feel like you weren’t on Azeroth. The floating fortress in the clouds to the right would become Bastion.
So, it is possible that this is how it all should’ve been working. But then something happened and up until recently Oribos server the role of redirecting the souls to other places instead. Just like the shape of Shadowlands might not be what it was like unspecified amount of time ago.
She burned the tree because she was angry that Malfurion got saved by Tyrande (her entire plan was to kill Malfurion whos anima would be potent, then take over Teldrassil/Darnassus and force the Kaldorei into submission)
The Arbiter was functional and sent souls from planets being destroyed (Eg: The planet of the previous Nightwariorr was attacked by an old god and millions died) I doubt Teldrassil was that massive by comparison.
And finally, the Arbiter was already malfunctioning during War of Thorns. Confirmed by Blizzard.
No Place for the Living Overseer Kah-Delen:
Every attendant in Oribos is taught that the Maw is unbreachable. That the malevolent souls within were sealed away for all eternity.
Shadowlands is not quite like it was at some point. There are hints at least when it comes to Ardenweald and Maldraxxus that they were at some point changed one way or another. That would not be too surprising in the Maw was not quite what it is currently.
Besides, the main part of the Maw seems to be Torghast, maybe something else nearby. Because land masses of the place are not “natural” to the Maw itself.
Not sure if info from interviews could be considered a spoiler, but just in case:
And one of the things we started talking about is this creature, the Jailer that is stuck inside of The Maw, he’s got plans, he is after something, he is looking for something. So he’s trying the best that he can given his limited abilities because he is effectively in prison to try and reach out and find whatever it is that he’s looking for and one of the ways he does that is sending these giant chains and harpoons out into the ambient space around his tower and trying basically to hook things and pull them in. So the bits of land and such that we see in the Maw are actually pieces of things that he’s been able to successfully grasp onto and then tie together and make use of.
So, it’s possible that before the events of this “betrayal” that Primus attributes to Zovaal, whoever that is (it’s the name of the Jailer’s model in game files, but not confirmed in the game so far), the whole system functioned somewhat differently and the flow of souls was not identical to the current one.
I said nothing about anything being “unbreachable”. I said things about it being for the worst of the worst, and to assume that everyone’s the worst of the worst if not judged otherwise is stupid.
Who knows if it’s for “worst of the worst”. Who knows how shadowlands worked before. That’s all I’m saying. The way it is presented now might not be how it alway was. So funtions, etc. might also not be always the same. Originally there were no mortal souls in Ardenweald. Yet here we are. But when it comes to the Maw - mostly just speculations for now, just like the true™ motivations of the Jailer and others.
Likely not, but it would still have been like this “long enough”. It’s not like anyone’s alluding to any recent changes in the last few “mortal lifetimes” worth of time; except for the one obvious crash.
It’s in fact very strongly suggested that this state of affairs along with whatever the Jailer’s scheme is has been going on so long it might, from our perspective and the perspective of the characters that are relevant here, be forever.
well when burning of teldrassil happen the Arbiter was already nocked out cold.
I do think there is a few candidates that could have been invovled
Jailer, he was involved that is for sure.
Sylvanas and Genn, whit the lantern, in some odd way.
Xavius when he died, the thing that hit the Arbiter was red, and his soul was red.
Ysera, her evil side broke the Arbiter.
Elune braking the Arbiter when she moved Yseras sould directly to Ardenweld buy passing the Arbiter, she might have nocked her out.