Souls divided [spoilers]

Lore Story
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This is somewhat of a discussion thread regarding the way souls behave when touched by a runeblade, specifically one imbued with domination magic. There is some inconsistency which goes to show how badly thought-out this whole lore is.

As we saw with Uther, when Shadownourne takes the soul of its victim, it actually cuts it in half and steals one half, with the other going to the Shadowlands as normal. By all accounts, the same should have happened to Sylvanas in WC3 when Arthas killed her.

The Sylvanas we’ve known for 15+ years is the part that was stolen by Shadowmourne. But what about the other part? The one that should have gone to the Shadowlands? We see Zovaal bring out a crystal containing her other soul, so this means that he’s had it with him all along. But how? How was he able to get his hands on that soul? Mind you, Sylvanas in life was an honorable, brave and even caring person, defending her homeland until the very end. There is no way her other soul went to the Maw. It most probably went to one of the 4 other zones. Most likely Maldraxxus or Bastion. So how does Zovaal acquire the soul crystal?

Furthermore, she and Uther are by far not the only ones that Shadowmourne consumed. So why have we not seen any of the other souls in the Shadowlands, like King Terenas, Falric and Marwyn, all the Lordaeron people, all the dead High Elves, etc.? Moreover, why has nothing of the soul division been addressed in game this expansion, even though it is a MAJOR plot point that can turn the whole fabric of the game on its head?

Reason being that, as seen with the way Sylvanas behaved after her death - all cold, uncaring, damn near malicious, it begs the question how the rofl domination magic rofl affects the personality of the deceased. This would explain the cold and evil nature of the Undead in warcraft.

Problem: not all Undead were victims of Shadowmourne so this wouldn’t fully explain the situation.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Can you wrap your heads around this new lore revelation?

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Because writers didn’t need us to interact with each and every person that Arthas killed. Only with those they chose to make key for the storyline they wanted to tell.

Even if plenty more were affected by the Shadowmourne, many could’ve simply ended entirely consumed by the Maw, or inducted into any of the covenants without them noticing the wound they carried.
Kyrians almost missed on Uther’s, and only noticed because he was particularly affected to the point it reigned back his own ascension as part of their creed.

I honestly do not see the difference with Undead Sylvanas beyond the token samples destined to showcase how twisted someone turns out to be when undead. And i honestly don’t see why having her soul whole would change her in any significant way.

All three Windrunner sisters were showcased as ferocious, mercilless with their enemies, and very protective regarding what they thought was theirs. And those are traits Sylvanas has carried onward as the Banshee Queen.

People take her quote about “Arrows in her quiver destined for their enemies” regarding the Forsaken as something particularly negative. Even when we have Alleria describing the Void elves as “Weapons in the war against the Horde”.

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But, all of Uther went to the Shadowlands. Arthas denied Sylvanas a true death and was made a banshee. So, presumably, the part that Frostmourne did not take has been the Forsaken’s Faction Leader all this time.

I think there may also be more information regarding the other fragments Frostmourne took, but I cannot find what I am thinking of so maybe I just dreamt it :stuck_out_tongue:

As an aside, I am becoming incresingly pessimistic about what this all means for the Forsaken as a race though. I fear this may be building up to a ‘fixing’ of them come the end of the Expac now. I know that basically none of the Forsaken were killed by Frostmourne, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a restoration of the race’s ‘humanity’ through some similar soul restoration shenanigans.

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It’s exactly what you think. They’re trying to fix them, humanize them.

With Calia around and now Sylvanas changed, I can see where it would go with Nathanos as well.

My guess, with the whole split soul thingy, the Jailer, in all this wisdom and glory, stole her other soul once Frostmourne was shattered, before it even reached SL. He had the means for it, his minions did the dirty work for him.

Then he waited for the moment she died so he grabbed her straight to the Maw and blackmailed her into submission with the promise of freedom for all mortals.

Rest is history.

Which pretty much means that the soul crystal he used to forge Shalamourne is also some character we know, maybe Arthas, maybe Nathanos, who knows.

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Doom scenario: “new” Sylvanas promoting Calia as the leader.

Might not happen though, supposedly Calia is not going to join the horde. Sort of going back and forth for now.

That’s the 2nd name of the current narrative direction. But no worries. Everything is “point of view”, so nothing is truly a retcon (© Danuser)

Maybe since the day Frostmourne was destroyed.

There are speculations about her being judged to be sent to Ardenweald or Bastion originally, before the interference.

There is always a way. We do not know the details of how the Arbiter “worked”. There is a vague notion that the souls that could be a danger for the Shadowlands are sent to the Maw, whatever that means. If she does not “serve” that might be the reason for her not to fit in the current order of the Shadowlands.

There are some soul shards visible while getting the Uther’s one. Including unnamed victim that should represent those who are not big named characters afaia.

What happened with their other parts? I guess that would be explained by “there are infinite afterlives”.

Becuase that supposed to be a plot twist, you supposed to be surprised, and eager to stay subbed to get more info about this story line, with no guarantee there would be anything other than vague promises.

It’s sort of explained by the imperfect connection of the souls to the body that makes senses dull and negative emotions, whatever they are, more common, while positive become rare or are gone completely.

It’s a feature in Maldraxxus where the body can be replaced / modified whenever, but a problem in the mortal plane which is not tailored to take advantage on the process, on only downsides remain.

Most of it is explained by “everything is PoV, so make sense out of it yourself” by the devs. If you want to do so, you can tailor some explanation. But the game does not bother explaining the story properly, and the players can arrive to the conclusions that make sence from a consistency perspective, but not from the surprise reveal of new lore perspective.

gl hf

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Not in the realm of decent storytelling where suspension of disbelief is involved.

Like, consider the dreadlords. They were working for the Legion but were actually working for the Jailer. Kel’Thuzad was also working for the Jailer while he was helping the Lich King, so basically they were working against one another and fought each other while they were on the same side. :man_shrugging:

And then you have Sylvanas helping Zovaal, the one who created the Scourge - and yeah, why she’d consider help him at all despite the obvious fact this guy is a Lich King 2.0 and she is supposed to be a cunning character is a bit “???”

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This actually happens in infiltration. Cops in deep cover are so deep they have to work against other cops to keep their cover intact.
Spies have to pretend attacking their own allies to not get cought.
Thats actually the least unrealistic part about this story.

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Keyword being pretend - the mourneblade nearly claimed Mal’Ganis’ soul, and if he survived it was not thanks to the Scourge
 and later Tichondrius was ambushed and killed thanks to Arthas, mostly because he was an enemy of the Scourge (Ner’zhul’s relationship with the Jailer is also unclear so far).

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I don’t think those two quotes can be compared at all. Sylvanas speaks of the Forsaken as arrows in her possession she can freely use and waste against her personal enemies, while Alleria is referring to Void Elves in general as a nice military advantage against the Horde. The former speaks from an egotistical perspective, not considering the Forsaken’s interests but her own only, whereas the latter puts the focus on Void Elves as a valuable asset in favor of the Alliance’s interests.

*Speaking of Void Elves, I’m leaving the Void Elf Discord server here in case anyone’s interested:
https://discord.gg/YX7p4KvZ

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Both view them as weapons to further some agenda (be the Alliance in general or the Forsaken in particular). Yes, it’s the same.

The connotations people riled against are the same: the fact that X person was apparently objectifying people as tools of war.

And this:

Seems like a personal interpretation of her words. Specially given we then spend several lenghty questlines in both Silverpine and Tirisfal, having Sylvanas proclaim that she is having the Forsaken fight for their right over their lands, while aiding them take it for themselves in a way that didn’t have them being used as cannon fodder by the likes of Garrosh.

For the record, i’m not arguing for or against the mindset displayed by the Windrunners. I’m just pointing out the fact that said “cold” take on the troops under her, is a trait that isn’t unique to Sylvanas.

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Check the wiki. According to her page she is already Horde. Derek too.

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Because it’s a copy of how D&D Shaodwlands work?

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As for Uther it would have been better if it really was the Light that have saved a fragment of his soul so that he wasn’t completely lost.

But nope, they had to come up with this nonsense runeblade mechanic because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to save Sylvanas too (or better, they didn’t come out with anything better and had to justify their poor writing).

Edit: Also it’s Frostmourne, not Shadowmourne. That’s the WotLK legendary axe.

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