The afterlife options are all bad.

[Soon-TM]

I have the feeling that having the SL suck so, SO hard is meant to give some weight to Sylvie's claim of undeath being not a curse, but a blessing instead. Or was that retconned too?

[Thage]

Bastion - everything you are is erased and your turned into soldier for that realm.

Not necessarily. You can choose to retain your identity and memories and join a different sect within the Kyrian, as shown in Bastion questing.

Maldraxxus - pretty much like the Scourge 2.0

Most of the people who wind up there are people who were perfectly hunky-dory with such a notion. As other posters mentioned, the afterlife you go to is the one you're least likely to be opposed to.

Ardenweald - your made into compost for the beings living there.

Is Ardenweald even open for questing? I would assume that like the others, you are liable to become one of them rather than just slated to be recycled and consumed.

Revendreth - made to suffer until you either agree to become an anima vampire or shoved off to one of the other horrible realms.

If you wound up in Revendreth it's because you fucked up. Revendreth is akin to Purgatory in Abrahamic faiths in that it's where people go to get their sins cleansed until they're ready for the afterlife proper. The Maw, on the other hand, is where those whose sins are too deep to be cleansed go, at least in theory--right now everyone is going there because fuckery doth be afoot.

Also, these aren't the only afterlives. They're just the ones relevant to the ongoing problems. Odyn, Bwonsamdi, and a few other entities came up with their own afterlives, so the odds are really good that when you die, you'll find yourself somewhere best fitting what you consider an ideal eternity to live in.

[Ardenaso]

That's a bit unclear, actually. We still don't know if the Shadowlands are meant to be a final destination for departed souls, so to speak, or more a kind of way station before moving on to said final destination. These are likely plot elements that Shadowlands itself will explore and clarify to some degree.

Well none of those seems to be a heaven for actually pure souls (like Tirion, Taretha), so yeah

[huth]

Well none of those seems to be a heaven for actually pure souls (like Tirion, Taretha), so yeah

Such a h(e)aven would be unlikely to have much for us to do, though, so we wouldn't have any reason to visit one.

[Syegfryed]

@Syegfryed

Yeah, if they do anything at all they'll pull some crap about how the nerubians, what with practicing necromancy even before then and being Old God spawn would have a link with the Shadowlands that inspired them to build shit like they did, but with more spiders on top and the Scourge were actually secondary plagiarists, but it'll be weak sauce and altogether unnecessary, done mostly to ensure Maldraxxus hits the 'memberberry quota. The kyrian thing makes the most sense out of these.

Odyn gave his eye to see into the Shadowlands and learn knowledge and something (presumably either the Maw or all the afterlives sucking dick and predating the titans) spooked him. From there he obtained the knowledge how to make his val'kyr and also how to shape his own realm on the model of Bastion and the Kyrian, which the LK later plagiarized. It's obtuse, but it holds together.

Icecrown and Torghast looking similar is neither here nor there, but that kind of villain architecture is a classic, so I've no issue with it.

kinda make a bit of sense since Odyn did check out the shadowlands, what pisses me off the most is the blatantly retcon of the spirit healers

this and the rest show how they give 2 shits about consistency and its everything about rule of cool

And this is just the beginning, i remember BfA having the same issues, at least, the factions will be left untouched, apparently, from the butchering

[LemonDemonGirl]

kinda make a bit of sense since Odyn did check out the shadowlands, what pisses me off the most is the blatantly retcon of the spirit healers

this and the rest show how they give 2 shits about consistency and its everything about rule of cool

And this is just the beginning, i remember BfA having the same issues, at least, the factions will be left untouched, apparently, from the butchering

I think when the Shadows Rising book comes out we'll have even more retcons.

And when Shadowlands comes out... oh boy

[Nathreim]

I think the Arbiter is why the afterlives are so terrible and will be the real villain in the end.

[EbaumsTipster]

kinda make a bit of sense since Odyn did check out the shadowlands, what pisses me off the most is the blatantly retcon of the spirit healers

this and the rest show how they give 2 shits about consistency and its everything about rule of cool

And this is just the beginning, i remember BfA having the same issues, at least, the factions will be left untouched, apparently, from the butchering

Why are Spirit Healers being retconned a bad thing? It was absolutely retarded that they existed in Outlands if they are just Valkyr, WHY would they have been there in the first place if they were Valkyr?

[matrix123mko]

Who said that afterlife needs to be better than life?

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There really is an overall feeling of apathy is all this, plus it feels like blizzard are just giving the middle finger to all the belief systems races held like tauren, night elves, humans and orcs all this time.

An immersive element. In reality, there are many religions that contradict eachother. Someone will get a middle finger after dying.

At least with the maw the spirits of characters we've known might still get to just remain who they are instead of being erased or processed into something else.

The best afterlife indeed.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the Arbiter is why the afterlives are so terrible and will be the real villain in the end.

Danuser said that Jailer is supposed to be the poster boy. However, we had some twists before.

[Syegfryed]

Why are Spirit Healers being retconned a bad thing? It was absolutely retarded that they existed in Outlands if they are just Valkyr, WHY would they have been there in the first place if they were Valkyr?

why they would not be there? shadowlands is the land of death anywhere, any place, they were death people who control spirits and the death, they left odyn and helya thing and start acting on their own, helping adventures anywhere.

why the kyrian would be helping random adventures to return to their bodies tough? when they could, i dunno, bring then to their covenant and brainwash and make new kyrians?

also, this is besides the point, i was talking about a blatantly retcon not much after the confirmation of something, that is absolutely retarded

[HCLM]

After seeing how each plain of the afterlife in shadowlands operates, honestly for all of them, the maw seems like the only one I'd consider fair.

Bastion - everything you are is erased and your turned into soldier for that realm.

Maldraxxus - pretty much like the Scourge 2.0

Ardenweald - your made into compost for the beings living there.

Revendreth - made to suffer until you either agree to become an anima vampire or shoved off to one of the other horrible realms.

These are all horrible, and more then that, it all is a piss take against the races we've been playing as all this time and their own beliefs in the afterlife.

There really is an overall feeling of apathy is all this, plus it feels like blizzard are just giving the middle finger to all the belief systems races held like tauren, night elves, humans and orcs all this time.

At least with the maw the spirits of characters we've known might still get to just remain who they are instead of being erased or processed into something else.

Shadowlands is more of a purgatory for the souls than 'heaven'.

You got these convenants only if your actions while u were alive fit any of them. Otherwise like u have othe realms, Loa realms, Elune etc...

[plz delete account]

kinda make a bit of sense since Odyn did check out the shadowlands, what pisses me off the most is the blatantly retcon of the spirit healers

this and the rest show how they give 2 shits about consistency and its everything about rule of cool

And this is just the beginning, i remember BfA having the same issues, at least, the factions will be left untouched, apparently, from the butchering

Cant butcher what BFA already did
:ModernproblemsModernSolutions:

[huth]

why they would not be there? shadowlands is the land of death anywhere, any place, they were death people who control spirits and the death, they left odyn and helya thing and start acting on their own, helping adventures anywhere.

That's the point. It makes sense for Kyrians. It makes no sense for Val'kyr, who are Azeroth-native.

[Combatbutler]

That's a bit unclear, actually. We still don't know if the Shadowlands are meant to be a final destination for departed souls, so to speak, or more a kind of way station before moving on to said final destination. These are likely plot elements that Shadowlands itself will explore and clarify to some degree.

Where else are they supposed to go though? We don't really have planes left that could qualify for the afterlife, if the shadowlands aren't the final destination.

[The Butt Witch]

Well duh! If the afterlife was any good, people would check out early.

[Aucald]

Where else are they supposed to go though? We don't really have planes left that could qualify for the afterlife, if the shadowlands aren't the final destination.

Elsewhere in the metacosm? The Shadowlands may radiate out from Oribos in ever-distant rings, some of the furthest may no longer even qualify as the "afterlife" explicitly and could be their own thing - different orders of existence, so to speak. Perhaps they journey toward the more rarefied or concentrated realms of existence like the Light, the Void, the realms of Death, Order. etc etc. The Shadowlands themselves are only one dimension, after all; there are others.

[TickTickTick]

This isn't all of the afterlives, and souls go to realms that suit them. If you wind up in Bastion, chances are you'd like being a Kyrian and will appreciate their lifestyle of service and self transformation.

Well, the "this isn't all of Shadowlands" is as much valuable as "it isn't the whole of Draenor", which is null cause who cares about realms that aren't even there. In case of SL it's even worse, because none of the supposed afterlives believed in by our races is there. The closest is basically Ardenweald, but it shits on Emerald Dream.

Who cares how many countless Shadowlands realms are there if 1). they aren't in game and 2). not a single race's afterlife beliefs are represented in there?

[Ardenaso]

Well duh! If the afterlife was any good, people would check out early.

maybe because suicide is also a mortal sin in the Church of the Holy Light?

[Tithorious]

They are not all bad. It's just that some people might do not like em.

And you present as a case that "Afterlife sucks" because you dont really have options to become "something" well .... I guess that's afterlife. You dont get a cookie and a medal for being there you have to redeem yourself for all the bad that you did in life or just assist higher beings (like you always do anyway) with the task to restore the Shadowlands.

To be honest I am not really sure which is the case here OP. You dont really give an explanation on why you are troubled.

[Combatbutler]

Elsewhere in the metacosm? The Shadowlands may radiate out from Oribos in ever-distant rings, some of the furthest may no longer even qualify as the "afterlife" explicitly and could be their own thing - different orders of existence, so to speak. Perhaps they journey toward the more rarefied or concentrated realms of existence like the Light, the Void, the realms of Death, Order. etc etc. The Shadowlands themselves are only one dimension, after all; there are others.

The other realms have no real ties to death though, pretty much all souls we know go to the shadowlands with very few exceptions, I for one would find it hilarious if the defacto realm of death , set as the afterlife for pretty much the entire setting is suddenly just a limbo of sorts.