With the new ret-con of that the Titan created the shadowlands, do we think that possible the Titan created the version of the Shadowlands we see to capture the souls of the deceased, place them within the “ordered” realm of Shadowlands where the anima is used to fuel the world soul and create a world soul (basically combining billions of lifeforms into a singular entity). It fits perfectly into the narrative and makes the Shadowlands both meaningful and course corrects it, whilst completely retconning the shadowlands at the same time. It also makes sense why Argus perishing broke the Titan’s shadowlands because the machine they created to capture and re-allocate souls was not prepared for a Titan soul which broke the machine of death and temporarily left the world soul not being protected.
It doesn’t since then why it went there, and why pantheon did not went there when saergeras killed them?
It may explain only why player character souls stays on azeroth/draenor as they have purpose on us but meh, that’s a lazy and poor idea development
My theory of the titans origins is basically that they are an outcome of the functions of order ordering itself into consciousness. I would sooner argue that the collection of anima in this new retcon is more about powering titan machinery.
I prefer to think that the Shadowlands wasn’t made by the titans, but ordered by them, as in they found a way to breach the veil of death and then once in the afterlife started doing what titans do best: introduce hierarchy and order to everything they find.
This would then also feed into the existance of the devourers, which is then just the cosmic force of death trying to reset its own realm by consuming all the titans made.
Personally, I do not see them retconning the First Ones or the six cosmic forces of creation.
What I can see them doing and what the new [potential] revelations are hinting at is that death itself—true death—is something else entirely. And they kind of have wiggle room here, as there are still major question marks regarding what happens to someone that dies a second time in the Shadowlands. As far as we were told, you just disappear.
If a being of Death is killed on the mortal plane, their essence returns to the Shadowlands to be reformed, similar to how demons reform in the Twisting Nether.[13] However, if such a being—either the soul of a former mortal or a native being of the Shadowlands—is destroyed in the Shadowlands, they die permanently and their soul is lost forever. Their energy then disperses and joins the greater whole of the magic of Death.[77][84][85]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Shadowlands#Inhabitants
This leaves a major opportunity to create the -actual- afterlife and remedy the feelings echoed by the players surrounding the Shadowlands itself as kind of “Is this it?”. In my opinion, the creation of the Shadowlands and whichever plane of existence it is was a contingency. Some kind of fail safe for ‘mortal’ souls if they perished.
Likely for the First Ones themselves originally.
I would imagine that the actual mythos and cosmology of Warcraft goes like this:
The realm that we inhabit is the be all end all of creation itself, we inhabit the same realm that the First Ones are of and from. A realm of Spirit, which I would imagine or believe is what the First Ones are as well. For whatever reason, the First Ones began creating this cosmic order, infusing various cosmic forces into the universe. As for why this was done I can only speculate, but if we look to what the forces of Spirit does when unchecked and unbalanced [elements on Azeroth, furies on Draenor] it is exceedingly chaotic.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Spirit_(lore)
Why are elements tied to worlds, why are Worldsouls tied to worlds? To me, this screams of intervention.
They have been tethered as such.
Secondly, as mentioned, I believe the Shadowlands to have been a contingency.
It was created to allow themselves to survive if something happened to them, or others, from this ‘Realm of Spirit’ and allow safe-passage back. But it was far from perfect.
Name Magic Pantheon Plane Zereth Greater Powers Lesser Powers Death Necromantic Pantheon of Death Shadowlands Zereth Mortis Eternal Ones Undead Disorder Fel Unknown Twisting Nether Unnamed Unknown Demons Life Nature Pantheon of Life[23] Realms of Life[24] Unnamed Unknown Wild Gods Light Holy Unknown Unnamed plane Unnamed Unknown Naaru Order Arcane Pantheon of Order Unnamed plane Zereth Ordus[25] Titans Keepers Void Shadow Unknown Unnamed plane Unnamed Void lords Old Gods
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Magic#The_cosmic_forces
With all this said, my point is that I still believe that this chart above is mostly accurate.
The First Ones disappeared [somehow], and this cycle … became unbalanced. Unstructured.
And once unprotected, beings from the other planes began bleeding through.
For one, I reckon the Pantheon of Order—the Titans—invaded our realm from their plane; the Plane of Order. The Naaru invaded from their Plane of Light. The Void Lords invaded from their Plane of Void. And on and on it went.
I’ve returned to this topic after some kind of brainstorm at everything came on own places now.
As we know titans was overdoing their “ordering” of the world and creating a shadowlands for ordering the death is something logical to them, BUT, we know that other zereths exists, we know Elune exists and she was not created by titans(i hope they won’t retcon this) but some connections to her was not met well by Amantul, so why winter queen called Elune her sister if she itself is just a creation of titan machinery which…we actually had always seen on all titan places, mimiron, etc. What the actual cosmology is?
As mentioned, because more than likely the Titans have nothing to do with the Shadowlands beyond being a creation of the First Ones themselves as much as the Eternal Ones.
This is another example of the player base arguably running wild with no real semblance of the facts, much akin to the issues that cropped up during the Shadowlands expansion.
This is the quote:
Sylvanas Windrunner says: You have noticed, have you not? The Maw. The Shadowlands. All of it. The question that has plagued me since the Jailer’s demise.
Sylvanas Windrunner says: I know the truth of death better than most. This? It is too convenient. Too ordered.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/visions-of-a-shadowed-sun-questline-in-patch-11-2-7-rewards-and-playthrough-378852
For some reason, players are taking this and absolutely running with it as though it is confirmation that the Titans are somehow involved here. As per the revelations of the Shadowlands, of the Chronicle-series and the Grimoire of the Shadowlands; the First Ones created the Titans, created the Plane of Order [if there is one] and the force of Order.
Why would the word “ordered” here imply the Titans and not the First Ones?
This quote by Sylvanas arguably changes nothing of what we know of the cosmic forces beyond potentially setting up that the Shadowlands isn’t the actual afterlife but that there might be something else that is the real afterlife.
wiped by mistake
something something shadowlands always seemed more orderly then deadly and the quote preserved below by Sahaan
Devourers are likely a hint at what true death was supposed to be before they started taking the butchers knife of retcons to Shadowlands (a good thing actually)
“idk, why were any of them outside of the shadowlands in K’aresh? don’t they have covenants and duties to fulfill?”
The Brokers are dwellers of the Shadowlands and not judged souls, primarily living the In-Between.
While the K’areshi that fled Dimensius that went into the Twisting Nether became the Ethereals, those that fled into the In-Between [related to the Shadowlands] became Brokers. The reason the Brokers appear different is because they had to adapt their wraps. The In-Between in turn is the fabric between the realms of the Shadowlands. Tazavesh was never located in the Shadowlands itself but in this realm-between-realms. Additionally, as far as we’ve been told there are also many more barge cities like it that exist in the In-Between as well.
They are however independent from the cycle of the Covenants as they are not inhabitants of the Shadowlands in the sense that they were ferried there upon death in any way.
The K’areshi that we might presume died in the Devouring War would have.
But it’s an important distinction.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/K%27areshi
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Devouring_War
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Tazavesh,_the_Veiled_Market
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/In-Between
I’m moreso talking about their entourage of venthyr and other covenant races that were with them in K’aresh, but looking back I failed to specify that, my bad.
They didn’t have to include them, but they did, a grand example of why a lot of people struggle to take the story serious anymore.
I think brokers being ethereal all along made sense, as thats what many players theorized about them at the start.
The Brokers are not a covenant race, they’re a cartel that was active in the afterlife
(We love it when reply and edits mix up)
Would you suggest that players struggled similarly when demons came into Azeroth, Outland, Draenor etcetera willy-nilly throughout the years in the games? Because both are native residents of their respect plane.
One of Disorder, the other of Death.
Who have been explained to be able to move between them with impunity.
Many beings in the Shadowlands are souls of deceased mortals, some of which have been transformed to serve a new purpose, such as the kyrian of Bastion. Other creatures—such as dredgers, faeries, and stewards—are endemic to the Shadowlands and are naturally born from the magic of Death to serve the different realms and help facilitate the process of the afterlife.[80][81]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Shadowlands#Inhabitants
The venthyr were created by Sire Denathrius in his own likeness. The first of them, Prince Renathal,[1] and other members of the original Court of Harvesters such as the Curator and the first Harvester of Wrath were willed into being by Denathrius.[2] Later venthyr—the first of which was the Stonewright[3]—were (and are) created from redeemed souls who are given a new name and taught the ways of Revendreth by a venthyr, who endorse and sire them in turn.[4]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Venthyr
If a being of Death is killed on the mortal plane, their essence returns to the Shadowlands to be reformed, similar to how demons reform in the Twisting Nether.[13] However, if such a being—either the soul of a former mortal or a native being of the Shadowlands—is destroyed in the Shadowlands, they die permanently and their soul is lost forever. Their energy then disperses and joins the greater whole of the magic of Death.[77][84][85]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Shadowlands#Inhabitants
The weird part is that they had the ‘covenants’ back home, now a covenant is like an agreement between you and authority, the covenant races are the covenant races because of that bond to their covenants. You come in as a soul of [xyz] race and are then transformed into one of the covenant ones should you be chosen for it and accept it
For demons, you can point at a warlock that summoned them here, a titan that forced a bunch of inherently chaotic creatures into a standing hierarchical army (technically soft ordering them which is a funny way to look at the legion and question just how much Sargeras has fallen away from order if he’s bringing order to creatures of chaos)
The Nathrezim were ‘made for it’ so to say, they were created with the intention of having a job to do outside of the shadowlands, the fallen kyrians whose name I forgot subverted their goals, subverted their own covenants in rebellion which gave them a reason to go out
It’s just these people have jobs to do in order to make sure the afterlife doesn’t poop in the bed so to say
I will admit that atleast 30% of it is shadowlands fatigue, personally I’m hoping for nathrezim retcon cause shadowlands lore made a total mess out of them, from agents of the Legion that were there to control the Scourge for the Legion to agents of the scourge pretending to be agents of the legion pretending to be agents of death but actually are agents of specifically Denathrius. Excuse me what the hell am I reading?
Though for me the issue isn’t that they can, the issue is that there at best is no reason for it, at worst strong reasons against it, hence my original ‘don’t they have duties to fulfill?’
TL;DR answering the actual question:
No because there’s enough variables to point at for my mind to go “that’s different tho”
Demons weren’t beholden to a covenant of guiding the dead/processing anima, which you really can only do in the shadowlands.
There’s a good reason why most RPers even if they acknowledge SL happened, still have a 0 tollerance response to it even being mentioned IC, because it was just that bad, the lore is just that undercooked.
It’s practically just flour on a cutting board.
Yet the Covenants are primarily shown to work that way for the adventurer.
If we take the venthyr and Revendreth, mortal souls arrive there for penance. The venthyr’s extraction of Anima and as a vampiric race is based on relieving burdened souls of their sins. The mortal souls do not join the Covenant in Oribos, go along increasing their Renown and setting up their Adventure Table hoping for a successful mission.
This general structure is true for most of the other Covenants as well in terms of story.
Not to mention there are many more afterlives [beyond Bastion, Revendreth, Ardenweald and Maldraxxus] found in the Shadowlands, and potentially more convenants or orders—albeit most likely of lesser importance.
Four of the realms—Ardenweald, Bastion, Maldraxxus, and Revendreth—are especially vital to the functioning of the Shadowlands. Each is overseen by one of the immensely powerful Eternal Ones who together make up the Pantheon of Death.[10]
However, there could be infinite afterlives, some small and tailored to a single person, while others are vast and full of either splendor or torment. All interpretations of the afterlife held by mortal cultures are possible somewhere within the Shadowlands.[11][12][13][14] All of the realms of Death were created from the First Ones’ realm of Zereth Mortis, tucked away in the fabric of the Shadowlands itself.[15][16]
Because souls are constantly crossing over from the mortal plane, new afterlives are manifested by Zereth Mortis’ Forge of Afterlives to meet the needs of the Shadowlands.[17][15] Between each realm is a cloudy space known as the In-Between which was once rich with streams of anima connecting the different domains, but the anima drought once caused the realms to become cut off from one another, breeding fear and mistrust among the inhabitants.[11]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Shadowlands#Description
The Forge of Afterlives is a massive structure floating at the center of Zereth Mortis. As the name implies, it is responsible for creating new realms of the Shadowlands. When Maw Walkers arrive to Zereth Mortis, the Forge is in the process of putting together one such new afterlife.[1]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Forge_of_Afterlives
As is described in the quotes and their articles I referred to in my last reply, mortal souls bound to a particular afterlife can eventually elevate and become of status to be considered a resident. And we see this differentiation everywhere in the Shadowlands expansion. This is not new information, by any means.
If we take the Venthyr as an continued example in this reply:
The venthyr of Revendreth are vampiric punishers of the unworthy, charged with rehabilitating the sinful souls sent to them by the Arbiter. Souls who are successfully rehabilitated can then choose to be sent to another realm to serve for eternity, or become a venthyr themselves and continue the cycle as an instrument of repentance.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Venthyr
We also see plenty of native individuals that are mere residents in the Shadowlands.
They might contribute in one form or another, might just be slacking off, but not every single character that we comes across is shown to be some kind of worker bee for the purposes of the Covenants.
There are residents, there are travellers and so on.
I would suggest that if anything the recontextualizations in Shadowlands solved many of the issues that I personally had with the Burning Legion having anything at all to do with the Scourge. To contextualize it as though this narratively was for the demons to believe the Lich King was an instrument of Disorder and not Death is honestly the cherry on top.
Why is this entity and faction that is synonymous with Fel and the Twisting Nether suddenly the founding reason for the Scourge and the Lich King? And why wasn’t this then supposed power further carried over instead of the icy touch of all that unholiness? The two arguably does not compute, and arguably make for a messier story.
Why does [this] power over here suddenly have influence over [this] power over there?
To instead reveal that these influences were provided by an external hand that originates from the realm of Death cleans that up. Aesthetically, it provides the missing link in the chain. It describes how and why the Shadow Council originally were able to wield that power and subsequently explains its infusion into Kil’jaeden’s peripheral through the Nathrezim. Additionally, it provides a background and content for the runic magic that is used by Death Knights and the Scourge with the explanation of Domination magic originating from the Primus.
In the Great Dark Beyond, necromantic magic (or necrotic and death magic) is the manifestation of Death, and the main source of magic used to practice necromancy. This art of “animating unliving flesh” may also be empowered by the magic of any cosmic forces,[6] and can be used to reconstruct the flesh and bones of undead creatures, allowing them to function again even after the foul monsters have been destroyed.[7] The most common practitioners of necromancy are known as necromancers and others include death knights, necrolytes, necrolords, as well as the nathrezim.
In the Shadowlands, Maldraxxus is the birthplace of necromantic magic,[8] where necromancy was developed by the Primus. He is responsible for the creation of Maldraxxi rune magic, who devised this unique language of intricate symbols, each individually representing a specific word tied to the very foundations of Maldraxxus and the might of the five houses, from simple commands, to necromantic energy manipulation. In order to imprison his brother, Zovaal, the Primus invented an even more potent death runic language: Domination. Its sole purpose was to be the utter suppression of another.[9]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Necromancy
He is the creator of Maldraxxi rune magic, which serves to manipulate necromantic energy,[10] and its more powerful counterpart, Domination, which he made for the purpose of imprisoning his traitorous brother, Zovaal the Jailer.[11]
[…]
To further bolster the Maldraxxi, the Primus created a unique language of runes which individually represent a specific word tied to the foundations of Maldraxxus and the power of the five houses. Eons later, this same language would come to be used in the world of the living by Azerothian death knights to empower their runeblades with runeforging.[10]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Primus
The nathrezim originate from Revendreth, one of the infinite realms of the Shadowlands, the afterlife. They were created countless ages ago by Revendreth’s ruler Sire Denathrius […]
Having forged them to be the ultimate infiltrators, Denathrius tasked the nathrezim with infiltrating the realms of the other cosmic forces as well as mortal worlds in the physical universe in order to spread the influence of Death.[11] […]
- Order: Fracturing the titan Pantheon of Order by showing them a force that opposes their drive to impose structure on everything they see.
- Void: Taking advantage of the void lords’ vast reach to position them as a foil against the other forces.
- Light: Making the naaru believe that they’d successfully converted one of the infiltrators to their cause.
- Life: Studying the link between the plane of Life and Ardenweald to find a vulnerability and sending a female agent to gain the trust of an unspecified target.
- Disorder: Consuming fel energy (an unpleasant but necessary process) to infiltrate the plane of Disorder.[51]
[…]
After the destruction of Draenor, Kil’jaeden captured the orc shaman Ner’zhul in the Twisting Nether, intending to use him in a new attempt to conquer Azeroth. A group of dreadlords consisting of Tichondrius, Balnazzar, Detheroc, Mal’Ganis, and Varimathras took turns subjecting Ner’zhul’s body to horrific torture until he agreed to serve the Legion. Kil’jaeden passed the orc’s soul through death and transformed him into the spectral Lich King.[60]
At the same time, the Jailer intended to use the Lich King to herald his own reign on Azeroth,[61][62] and wanted to use the Helm of Domination and the runeblade Frostmourne in order to spread Death’s influence on the mortal plane. The nathrezim bore these vessels of Domination magic across the veil[63][64] and bound Ner’zhul’s spirit to them,[60][65] after which the orc’s spirit was imprisoned in a block of ice.[38][60] Tichondrius later falsely claimed that it was the dreadlords themselves who had forged Frostmourne.[66] The broker Ta’lora has concluded that, in this way, the nathrezim deceived the Legion into helping to spread the Jailer’s influence, making the demons believe that the Lich King was an instrument of Disorder instead of an instrument of Death.[67][68]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Nathrezim
This is partially why I insist on the importance and context of the six cosmic forces.
Because realising their importance at the centre, anything and everything can be traced back to having to know only these six fundamental pillars of this narrative seen to the greater mythos of Warcraft and its magical intrigues.
To continue with an example of the past few replies—I’d argue it is, thusly, hard not to remember or see why Denathrius was eager to potentially exploit the other five planes as an inherently vampiric being.
Addendum
Why would they? For the overwhelming majority of people on Azeroth, nothing changed.
Even after the war against the Jailer, the reality of Death is still an uncertainty to most citizens of Azeroth, as they didn’t come to the Shadowlands with the adventurers, and not everyone came back from the realm of the dead.[33]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Shadowlands#Description
Honestly, you could throw the whole chronicles book at me about shadowlands, I can acknowledge whats written, but it’ll never make me like it, or think that just not touching it at all and pretending it never happened isn’t just a way better alternative to trying to pick up this narrative turd to try and turn it into a cake.
Its still a turd.
I’ll admit that looking at some of these things, things do compute in this paradigm, but man do I hate that they do.
I guess I’ll jus thave to hope that they stay forever regulated to zones I’ll never visit again (shadowlands and k’aresh both)
The idea that things can just move back and forth between the afterlife and the living world is just goofy, if you can move freely between them, on a conceptual level if you strip away the lore and just look at the barebone suggestion here of an afterlife, a world of the living and free traffic being possible between them, what is death even but a suggestion? what weight does it have?
To which we come full circle in this topic … as that’s likely the very thing they’re hoping to remedy.
You’re naturally not alone to feel that way about how things were presented.
And I’d posit that is precisely why it makes sense that they’re potentially trying to diminish the impact that the Shadowlands expansion had by recontextualizing the existing framework we were given surrounding the First Ones by instead further clarifying how it was imposed upon the cosmos atop some kind of existing baseline.
The way I read this is that Sylvanas is suggesting that the realm and force of Death is … merely an ordered machination of an afterlife. That the cycle we know, the cycle as put in place by the First Ones as we’ve now been told recently, is merely a shadow of true death. That there is something else hiding under all that structure, something real.
Death is a cosmic force put into the cycle and structure by the First Ones, this is known [so far].
On the level, seemingly, of the rest of the five cosmic forces.
But what if it is truly a difference between Death and … death?
Why? I wager [as I’ve mentioned on these forums and in this topic before] that they were hoping to escape death. They imposed a structure, a failsafe, a contingency, that would allow them and all other beings of these forces to return to their point of origin upon death; their force of origin. Yet, if they were killed in their native plane? What then?
As we’ve been told, you just … disappear. Yet where to? Double death?
As I’ve presented on these forums before, three of the six forces and their planes have been shown to work the same way, thus a likely truth for all six:
My own personal hope is that the First Ones were mortal, to some degree.
They “forged” the Pantheon of Death and the Pantheon of Order—one in Zereth Mortis and the other in Zereth Ordus—meaning it’d be kinda strange if they themselves were created as such. It would make more sense, as I’d argue, for these First Ones to create new beings in their image. A tradition then carried by the Titans with their creations.
They did this because they are or were not constructs.
Hopefully, as my own opinions read, they’re beings of Spirit. Likely more elemental.
Which would explain its abundance in the Great Dark Beyond; why and how it is only found in the Great Dark; why it is outside of the cycle and only loosely related to the other forces. This is the “Plane of Spirit”, to put it simply.
Spirit energy, also called Spirit of Life or Spirit of the Wilds,[2][3] and referred to as Chi by monks,[4] is the fifth element,[5][6] the inner energy[7] inside all living beings.[8][9] It is the spark in their hearts that connects the mortals even to the elements.[8] Decay is the opposite of Spirit.[4] It is believed that both Spirit and Decay influence the soul’s creation of anima.[10]
Spirit brings balance to fire, earth, air, and water, and the reason that Azeroth’s elementals are so chaotic is because, as it developed, Azeroth’s unusually vast worldsoul consumed much of planet’s Spirit.[11] On worlds more plentiful in spirit like Draenor, the elementals are calmer and work in harmony.[12] In fact, Draenor had so much Spirit that it caused accelerated plant growth, giving rise to the Sporemounds.[13] Spirit has also shown the ability to turn stone into flesh over time. The magnaron were infused with spirit energy by the spores released upon the Sporemound Botaan’s death, turning them into flesh in the form of gronn, and then ogron, ogres, and orcs over thousands of years.[14]
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Spirit_(lore)
It is that uncomfortable mortal coil the First Ones possibly saw as their weakness.
And it alone was not enough for what could be, for how they could shed that mortality.
This contingency was a way to escape that inevitable fate, to sweep it under the rug with a universal rule that dictates their cosmos in which it is avoided at all costs. Mortal beings terrified of what lay beyond, same as most of us, and trying desperately to avoid their fate. All the planes were created this way, the pantheons we have yet to encounter.
But it wasn’t fool proof, it wasn’t perfect. Because you could still disappear.
Why did they [the First Ones] do this? The Titans made the Keepers and subsequently the Watchers and their titan-forged to do their work, ensure their work, in their absence.
… Could it be that simple? That they in turn are of the mortal plane? Merely absent?
That all these beings were created as custodians in their stead?
And why has all these forces potentially invaded our space?
The Titans, the Demons, the Naaru, the Void Lords.
Why aren’t they in their own planes of existence? The Plane of Order, the Plane of Light.
Why is this existence, this mortal plane, so lucrative?
I’ll be honest man, shadowlands didn’t show these entities outside of the shadowlands outside of entities that were outright rebelling against their original goals, meanwhile in their new hopefully improved shadowladns lore here’s kyrians in orgrimmar.
If anything it feels more like a doubling down of shadowlands, only with minor tweaks that were obvious low hanging fruit.
So I’m not sure if death no longer having any weight is something they even grasp when they’re dotting all these covenant races down outside of shadowlands zones moreso then shadowlands itself did, maybe thats me tho
Thats what it feels to me too, an attempt to seize control of the afterlife for whatever reasons, to redirect likely the souls into a mechanation that serves the timeline the titans wish to preserve and are working towards.
And yeah, devourers, I feel are obviously a ‘response’ of true death to ordered death.
I think everything otherwise is just raw anima, it is the ordering of it that made it give shape to regions and devourers trying to devourer the shadowlands is really just true death trying to convert ordered death back into itself, or atleast thats how I always interpreted it.
One of the things I genuinely hope they’ll change, because from my top down player perspective that just sounds like a writer trying to squash any form of interesting complexity. Its the type of thinking that leads to ‘necromancy is necromancy’ raises you into undeath with the light (hallowfall did it so much better where it was more like puppeteering corpses with it)
Hmm idk about first ones being mortals once, I prefer the titans gaslight route
The Zerith’s are also goofy, conceptually. It would imply all forces have already been ordered and Order has already won, considering it was implied all zeriths had this meta 5d consciousness printer there.
And its all still sounds as just worse then going yeah the jailer was just full of it and then never touching it again, yes the SL story was bad, but atleast it was resolved to a point where we’d never have to look back again.
Pretty much, a lot of shadowlands advertising also just feels completely out of touch with the aesthetics chosen to represent it.
Remember when these, at best, keeper level pantheon of death members were touted to be more powerful then the titans once?
Something that should mean Anduin should’ve been just been disenchanted on the spot by the archon as soon as he even twitched a finger with malicious intent
Which does funnily answer the follow up sentance directly, I think these pantheons of death are keeper level at best, because they are the shadowlands equivalent of keepers. The same way they left the keepers behind on Azeroth to look over things, they did so with the pantheon of Death for the shadowlands.
My headcanon: all these forces want to recreate all of creation in their own image, but only Azeroth is capable of true creation, the others can only change whats there to match what they are, therefor Azeroth is everyones prize.
It does assume the Azeroth is the creator god theory of this universe.
And probably also because this mortal plane is the central plane all others kind of are attached too, the mortal plane has often been described as some unknown configuration of all forces as well as the accents between them.
All that said tho they should stop trying to improve the shadowlands lore by making it worse, it feels like every expansion past shadowlands has tried to actively remind you that shadowlands happened and honestly I’m tired of it.
Also I often quote small parts of a text to save on post space so know that if I quote a sentance I also read everything around it
The primary question I always return to is—how does that square being a video game narrative?
[This is going to be kind of a tangent to wrap up alongside the topic.]
The overarching story of World of Warcraft does not exist in a vacuum. As I’ve made references to prior, the story is arguably built around the game and not the other way around.
While you disagree and dislike the elements we discussed earlier, are we potentially in agreement as for how it could be motivated to make for a better game?
Now, that’s not to say that it is better. The question is—is it more easily marketed, is it more easily understood for new players, is it more easily applied to story material.
And so on. To which I would suggest it absolutely does, that it absoutely is.
Media Gallery - World of Warcraft
Warcraft Timeline - World of Warcraft
This universal cohesion and application arguably makes the story and world far more approachable. These forces are easily grasped to understand the Races, the Classes, the mythos on a surface level. Let us imagine these aspects of the story you suggest be compiled in additional entries in the pages linked above here on the site, or in the Chronicle series … then these suggested developments of complexity would arguably make for a more disjointed narrative.
It is simplified, by all means. As you say, I have no doubt they’re willingly trading complexity for this new [post Shadowlands] direction. For better or for worse, as I usually say.
But for the purposes of streamlining a universe of two decades in a PEGI 12 game, there’s few things they could likely do to make it as simple while adhering to what we’ve seen and know.
The trick is whether they’ll support it enough that we just don’t end up focusing too much surface level. Because I have no issues with this structure given that there are rich stories that are allowed to branch from it. The intrigues of the Earthen and Khaz Algar following up on Dragonflight is good example, in my book.
Yet all your questions and answers here, in my opinion, would make for a messier story.
The recontextualizations of the past few years have—as I’d suggest—done the opposite.
As you said yourself …