If souls can be destroyed, then why do they need the Maw?

[Reinhart11]

Because its new lore?

We need to give them wiggle room to add to existing lore without acting like dickheads

Yeah, we need to give them wiggle room so they're not bothered about consistency.

The thing is, telling stories on such a cosmic level they're trying only works if you keep it vague and mysterious and simply let the people speculate about it. These stories also depend on very solid world building and consistency, if these don't exist the story degenerates fast into a pile of nonsense, which can damage the whole fantasy universe than that it is helpful or interesting. Dungeons and Dragons does a decent job at this in my opinion, but they have better authors and even they keep a lot of stuff about the gods and their planes quite vague and mysterious. Blizzard, as with WoD and their idiotic take on time travel, is again biting off more than they can chew.

[Eapoe]

This contradicts the idea that the Maw is there to punish evil souls with eternal suffering. Which one is it, is the Maw there to show mercy or to torture?

Punishment is not evil. Torture might be, but punishment for ones sins is not. Even then, torture to those souls who are irredeemable might not even be considered evil as it is thought of as punishment for the sins and actions for what a soul did during its living days.
I’m not stating torture isn’t to be considered evil in most circumstances, but in others some people consider it justice.
More to the point, The Maw is to punish the worst souls. Punishment is to fit the crime. To some, said punishment might seem like torture.

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Yeah, we need to give them wiggle room so they're not bothered about consistency.

The thing is, telling stories on such a cosmic level they're trying only works if you keep it vague and mysterious and simply let the people speculate about it. These stories also depend on very solid world building and consistency, if these don't exist the story degenerates fast into a pile of nonsense, which can damage the whole fantasy universe than that it is helpful or interesting. Dungeons and Dragons does a decent job at this in my opinion, but they have better authors and even they keep a lot of stuff about the gods and their planes quite vague and mysterious. Blizzard, as with WoD and their idiotic take on time travel, is again biting off more than they can chew.

I‘ve also stated previously that lore is simply what we understand about something at any given time. New knowledge can change that. The Shadowlands would be considered new knowledge.

[Ursoc18]

Punishment is not evil.

I didn't say punishment was evil, I said that what you said contradicts the idea of the Maw being there to punish evil souls.

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Maybe some souls are just too powerful and would too much of a fight if you try to destroy them. It happens quite in warcraft that an enemy appears easier to contain than to destroy.

Then they wouldn't be able to imprison them in the Maw and keep them there.

[KainneAbsolute]

If the Jailer is the prisoner why he is called "the Jailer"?

[Eapoe]

I didn't say punishment was evil, I said that what you said contradicts the idea of the Maw being there to punish evil souls.

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Then they wouldn't be able to imprison them in the Maw and keep them there.

Well, I reread what I wrote and nothing there contradicts the other.
I literally put that it’s possible that to destroy a soul is considered evil, where the Maw is punishment. That does not contradict.
I also added that it’s possible that maybe there is a natural order to things and when that order is broken it could have catastrophic consequences. Then I added a sarcastic ending since that’s exactly what we’re now having to deal with. That does not contradict the previous statement as it’s an “or” to the first part.

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If the Jailer is the prisoner why he is called "the Jailer"?

Could be metaphorical or literal. He could literally be imprisoned there as well, unable to walk freely when he wants. He could also be more like Hades, where he is bound by his role in life as ruler over an area but never able to achieve more outside of that.

[DatToffer]

Then they wouldn't be able to imprison them in the Maw and keep them there.

According to that, there wouldn't be any creature in the Violet Hold. Nor in the Arcatraz. Elemental lords would have been slaughtered instead of put in elemental jail. But you know, we need bosses to fight.

I guess sometimes you just put away bad things until you find a way to actually end them.

So instead throw them in a place where the greatest threat to the current Shadowlands can feed on them.

Nobody said it was a good plan. It's just a classical. *shrugs*

[Benitora]

Could be that they are running on the same logic as in Bleach.
If they destroy souls, like what the Quincy did, they would eventually disrupt the balance between the living world and the world of the dead.

Maw is basically Bleach's version of Hell, where the absolute worst souls are sent. Though it seems like you have to do some seriously heinous stuff to get sent there.

Could be why the Legion was such a large threat, as Fel magic apparently can destroy souls. We will most definitely have a lot to do with the Dreadlords in Shadowlands I think.

[ClassicPeon]

We NEED to? How about they NEED to stop writing garbage since they are actualy paid for that.

Fair point. We dont need to. We can act like entitled little kids all we want. Its not gonna help anything. If we strike down hard on every tiny little insignificant thing we can find, do you know what that means for the impact it has when we then strike down on some of the larger things they could get "wrong" ??

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Yeah, we need to give them wiggle room so they're not bothered about consistency.

The thing is, telling stories on such a cosmic level they're trying only works if you keep it vague and mysterious and simply let the people speculate about it. These stories also depend on very solid world building and consistency, if these don't exist the story degenerates fast into a pile of nonsense, which can damage the whole fantasy universe than that it is helpful or interesting. Dungeons and Dragons does a decent job at this in my opinion, but they have better authors and even they keep a lot of stuff about the gods and their planes quite vague and mysterious. Blizzard, as with WoD and their idiotic take on time travel, is again biting off more than they can chew.

I dont know about you, but i've read some god awful D&D books. Plotholes exists all over in that universe but their viewerbase isnt as anal about them as we are.
You dont see people create massive hate threads about the distance between neverwinter and baldurs gate or neverwinter and luskan as an example

[Sialina]

When I started playing wow, it was because I really liked the world from WC3, and it would be amazing to explore it from inside. But the story took 1 too many dumb dumb turns for me with WoD and I simply stopped caring. In the process a huge chunk of my love for the universe was lost.

I think many people that "don't care about story" simply don't care because it's too badly written, too inconsistent, too dumb.

Shadowlands is just the newest retard ball added to the big pile of retard balls that make up the warcraft universe. Why not simply make shadowlands a new place, hint that it's some other places afterlife, and skip the cameos? That way you avoid all the problems. But nooo, they had to bring back Uther and the Lich king, and I'm sure we will all remember the lich king fondly after Shadowlands, not like a big giant pile of dumb.

[valky94]

What's the point of that?

because endless torture is a worse fate than death?

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Isn't he resting in the Dream along with all the other powerful beings from there until he's reborn like Cenarius was?

ursoc died in the real world, went into the dream, he died in the dream, went into ardenweald where he was going to ressurect and go back, but instead he was converted into anima to fuel ardenweald

[Rafoel]

Mind that some the following is headcanon, but it fits with what we know about WoW lore:

Mortals, for all reasons and purposes, can be considered as "death elementals". Fire elemental can inhabit "normal" world similarly to a mortal, and while fire elemental's "essence" returns to its "main" realm (Firelands) after being destroyed, a mortal's essence (soul) returns to Shadowlands after death.

It is also implied that in the same way as fire elementals, which are destroyed permanently when killed in Firelands, mortal souls are destroyed permanently when killed in the Shadowlands.

Is it really permanent, though?

From the storyline of Ragnaros we learn that existence of ruler of Firelands is a natural part of its order, and after death of Ragnaros eventually another elemental will take his place, equal in position and power. It is similar for other elementals. You can roam Firelands for all eternity destroying them left and right, yet their number would not drop. That's because elementals are mere manifestations of the power of their plane. This power will remain no matter what you do, and will spawn new elementals to replace the ones you destroyed. There will always be a Firelord, and there will always be his underlings.

Now, it is highly possible similar rules apply to Shadowlands. Souls are a constant, the manifestations of power of Shadowlands, which enter the physical world with creation of new living beings, and then return to Shadowlands upon their deaths. Destroying these souls inside Shadowlands would surely destroy their structure, but it wouldn't do anything to their "essence", which would find a way to manifest in some way again.

Nevertheless, it's obvious the "leaders" of Shadowlands didn't want souls that represent all thats the worst to re-manifest in any shape or form. By trapping such "anomalies" inside the Maw, you prevent them from influencing the rest of Shadowlands forever, and make it possible to introduce order and structure to this realm. I'm sure this will be one of main plot points of the expansion. It was already explained that Shadowlands did not always look like they look now, and they changed because of schemes of the current "leaders".

[Magnagarde]

Throwing the most irredeemable of souls into the Maw could be what further chains the Jailer for all we know, sort of like an everlasting burden of irredeemability. Arthas' soul seems to be the most powerful and first soul to be wrongly thrown in there without judgement, resulting in the Jailer's first freeing.

[Garymorilix]

My theory about this is that the Maw used to work the other way around.

The other parts of the Shadowlands used to drain anima from the Maw.
Presumably that is why it is so run down and deserted at the moment.
I would say the biggest villains of the universe probably have a shitload of anima also.

So what they did was imprison the Jailer and started to drain his domain because they were the "bad guys anyway".

[Magnagarde]

My theory about this is that the Maw used to work the other way around.

The other parts of the Shadowlands used to drain anima from the Maw.
Presumably that is why it is so run down and deserted at the moment.
I would say the biggest villains of the universe probably have a shitload of anima also.

So what they did was imprison the Jailer and started to drain his domain because they were the "bad guys anyway".

This makes sense.

[Verdugo]

because endless torture is a worse fate than death?

But thats not the point, point is to lock up any threat to shadowlands, not punish evil people.

[javierdsv]

The only one and true answer for this topic is:

Because we need a villain, and the villain must have a place where it resides and where bad things happen so our fake hero can go and kill things to do heroic deeds.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Because, if all souls were meant to just be destroyed, what is the point of even having an afterlife?


You die and your soul goes into the afterlife to be dealt with. How it is dealt with is based on the soul. You either need to be punished, live in paradise, or somewhere in between. That is what the basis of the Shadowlands is.


So you add the threat of something preventing this process from happening. Now it needs to be fixed or dealt with.


Or else... we wouldn't have a Shadowlands expansion.

[Ursoc18]

because endless torture is a worse fate than death?

That doesn't answer the question. Why do they care about inflicting suffering? Endless torture sounds more cruel than anything that person could've possibly done to deserve that in the first place.

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According to that, there wouldn't be any creature in the Violet Hold. Nor in the Arcatraz. Elemental lords would have been slaughtered instead of put in elemental jail. But you know, we need bosses to fight.

I guess sometimes you just put away bad things until you find a way to actually end them.

You assume the mages of Dalaran were not able to kill their prisoners, and that assumption is wrong.

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Well, I reread what I wrote and nothing there contradicts the other.
I literally put that it’s possible that to destroy a soul is considered evil, where the Maw is punishment. That does not contradict.
I also added that it’s possible that maybe there is a natural order to things and when that order is broken it could have catastrophic consequences. Then I added a sarcastic ending since that’s exactly what we’re now having to deal with. That does not contradict the previous statement as it’s an “or” to the first part.

I don't think you understood what you wrote then.

[ClassicPeon]

But thats not the point, point is to lock up any threat to shadowlands, not punish evil people.

Where are you getting that from?

I havent heard that anywhere

[Zarc]

Because its new lore?

We need to give them wiggle room to add to existing lore without acting like dickheads

And we need to be able to ask questions about the lore on a forum dedicated to discussion about the game without people acting like dickheads.