[Spoilers] Shadowlands: Afterlives Cinematic Discussion

[LemonDemonGirl]

ooh, you're right, Jakrazet sounds really probable. And as he was in cahoots with the Old God stuff and Zul maybe Bwon didn't even care to try and take him.

Yeah he probably 'felt' that he died and probably went 'Ew Old God stuff' and cringed

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

It's not Zul, he has longer tusks/ no beard

I was thinking it could be Jakrazet (the Sandfury troll who seemed to really hate our characters), since he got stabbed and jumped into an Old God pit. That might've cut him off from Bwonsamdi. I guess it could be a dark troll too, since they're pretty much extinct now, and Bwon boi was probably a baby back then

It could be Kel'vax from Nazmir. He has long tusks and could grow a beard in death. His last line implies that he was taken to the Shadowlands.

Kel'vax Deathwalker says: No! I can't see Bwonsamdi, I no want ta... please, STOP!

https://wow.gamepedia.com/The_Fall_of_Kel%27vax

[Trollokdamus]

Anima always takes on a different color color depending on the realm in question. Anima in Bastion is blue/white, in Ardenweald it is white/purple, in Maldraxxus is is green/black, and in Revendreth it is a crimson/white. In the Maw it is black/gray, and in Oribos it very similar to Bastion's color. Unsure of why this is the case and it may just be a kind of labeling mechanism, or it could be down to the wavelength of anima that is unique to each realm and its method of harvesting anima.

I see, though in the Ardenweald short anima is shown to be pure white when extracted and only becomes blue when coursing through the staves of local denizens (3:01, 5:20). I guess it's indeed just a labeling mechanism without too much thought put into it.

[Coconut]

Only if you believe that all speculation is made equally, which I do not. Speculation is subject to effective degrees of separation - in this case, how distant you are from existing characterization and/or current outcomes. I never considered a redemptive arc for Sylvanas to be within what I deem the "safe zone" of speculation, that is 1-2 degrees of separation from existing characterization or probable outcome(s). Generally speaking, whenever I hear about people talking about a redemption for Sylvanas it's generally a sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek comparison to what happened with Kerrigan in Starcraft 2 with her redemption. This isn't at all an "anti-speculation" argument or anything of the sort, it's just me saying that this redemption conjecture in conjunction with the newly-discovered Nathrezim missive is pretty far removed from the safe zone for speculation - like 4-5 degrees removed. It makes it, in my view, exceedingly unlikely.

Not to mention that Sylvanas has already been gulled by the Nathrezim, when Varimathras betrayed her and almost took the Undercity from her during WotLK. It took both the Alliance and Horde working together to return her to city to her. This, in conjunction with all the rest, makes me really doubt Sylvanas is even capable of playing "5-D Chess" with the Nathrezim.

Careful! What you deem a "safe zone"of speculation sounds more like a function of your own biases and preconceptions to me.

The Warcraft universe has always been filled with antiheroes, redemption arcs and sympathetic baddies. Metzen was a big fan of ASoIaF, and you can see this in the numerous references and borrowed concepts going back to Warcraft III, but also in the portrayal of the characters. TFT's roster was almost exclusively made up of antiheroes and villains, and even RoC was woefully short on heroes in the classical sense (the most prominent one was actually turned into the villain). Evil was defeated in the end, yes, but many protagonists - from Grom to Tyrande - and even entire groups also had their violent deeds swept under the rug while we were encouraged to cheer for them. WoW has evolved since Metzen, but it still retains a similar approach to storytelling, and most fans still enjoy these types of characters and stories. I mean, there was another thread in which players argued whether Arthas truly deserved the Maw, and many of them wanted a redemption story for him. If you're saying Sylvanas can't ever have that, it feels to me that you're the one going against the grain.

It's one thing to have preferences and stand by them - and it can be hard to tell, let alone prove, whether we think a certain narrative is good because we want it to happen or we want it to happen because we believe it is good - but that doesn't entitle you to position yourself as some sort of gatekeeper to what is or is not considered good speculation...

I would say it is when you're more or less gainsaying what the authors are literally conveying to the audience and then substituting it with your own theories, yes. And as I said previously, if you don't take the authors' words at face-value and instead interject or insert your own suppositions in place of them then the continuity of the story is already irrevocably broken for you. Basically like throwing up your hands and saying "well if they can't tell the story right then I'll just tell my own story."

I don't think I would call my speculation "lavish" by any means, but I'll accept the praise for what it is. As I said above, I prefer my avenues of speculation to be very close in terms of degree of separation - and I'll almost never buttress speculation by speaking of it as if it were objective fact. I will always prepend speculation with key phrases such as "it's likely," "most likely," or something along those lines. There's nothing wrong with well-reasoned speculation in the absence of confirmation or fact, I feel; but it does need to be well-reasoned and it does need to be explicitly pointed out for what it is.

I am not substituting anything. In the case of the Ardenweald cinematic, the message I extracted originally exists in the narrative regardless of the writers' intention, and there is no sign there that they didn't want us to read those thematic points in it and analyze them. After all, they have shown in the Revendreth clip that they can be subtle.

If you are referring to Sylvanas, again I am not substituting anything, because her story so far has been constructed as a puzzle that still has missing pieces. I view this as an invitation to speculate. It may be a vain one, much like our speculation about the reason for burning Teldrassil, but it seems to me like a sign of respect and confidence in the writers to believe that they have something planned that can lock in with the disjointed narrative in BFA and lock it into something more harmonious. I find it bizarre that you continue to "defend" the writers from this and regard my confidence and engagement in the story as some sort of trap, like a sad kitten who runs away from being petted.

It is not a trap. I didn't think they would be able to justify her playing 4-D chess in any believable way, but involving the Dreadlords makes it work for me. And I am genuinely excited for the possibility that the rebellion was manipulated into existence by Sylvanas herself for the purpose of stabilizing the Horde after her departure, because this fixes most if not all of the narrative issues I had with it, and might actually make it exciting to roll an alt and go through the story again to see the hints and how well it ties together. This wouldn't make her any less ruthless, mind you, she would have still used and killed people to achieve her goal, but it would make her smarter and - most importantly! - would make the narrative more coherent.

She was expecting Jaina, but she didn't count on her circumvent both her inhibitors and evade Hathorel as well. As for sending enough soldiers, well, she probably didn't have enough that she could trust explicitly with the duty of guarding the popular Baine as well as possibly having to contend with Saurfang and Thrall, both of whom are storied heroes of the Horde. Full Banshee Loyalists were a minority in the Horde, after all; and there was a multi-continent war being waged across the face of Azeroth.

Here's a good example of you diverging from lore and using your own contextualization as an argument.

The rebellion story doesn't paint Baine and Saurfang as the more popular side. On the contrary, it was said that they had very few supporters when they joined up with the Alliance in Dustwallow Marsh, and Baine had just been revealed a traitor in front of all the other Horde leaders, who didn't seem that eager to defend him at that time. Aside from that, you are trying to argue that Sylvanas's forces in Orgrimmar weren't strong enough to deal with an expected and planned infiltration from Saurfang, Jaina, Thrall and Mathias Shaw. This is clearly absurd, since there wouldn't have been any need for a military stand-off later if this was the case; just take one more to fill the Mythic+ group and clear the place out.

You can at best make the unfalsifiable claim that Sylvanas did not have the means to stop the escape, but this is not more convincing assumption, let alone a counter to the theory that Sylvanas didn't want the escape to fail.

That's where the suspension of disbelief actually comes into play, really. But there's still a wide gulf in allowing the story to lull you into feeling anxiety and danger for the story's characters, and literally believing that a villain victory is possible at the end (especially when the conditions of said victory implies cessation of existence or some such). Suspension is not complete and utter removal, after all.

I don't need to believe that the villain will be victorious in the end in order to consider them a threat. I only need to believe they can harm the heroes I care about. The narrative constantly paints Sylvanas as a threat to several lore figures throughout BFA: Tyrande, Malfurion, Jaina, Anduin, Baine, Bwonsamdi, Maiev, Thrall, etc., but she doesn't succeed in ending any one of them, or even lesser named characters for that matter. Aside from numerous nameless or random NPCs, she only killed Delaryn at the very start, then Zelig (both of them newly introduced), and then Saurfang, but Saurfang got exactly the death he wanted and his sacrifice brought victory to those who followed him, so it was hardly a high point for Sylvanas (quite the contrary, he explicitly characterized her as a failure during that fight).

When the foreshadowing requires you explore the nature of a shadow's shadow's shadow's shadow, where the third shadow may not even properly exist.

It boggles the mind that you find the concepts of foreshadowing and narrative parallels so arcane. To reference ASoIaF again, [spoiler]the wolf killed by the stag's antler at the start of AGoT foreshadows how Robert's downfall will also spell Ned's end. In the show, Jon betraying Ygritte and her subsequent death foreshadow, parallel and emotionally impact his ultimate decision to kill Dany.[/spoilers]. Likewise, the fight Saurfang and Nathanos had in Orgrimmar being a ruse would fit in place very well as foreshadowing and narrative parallel if it was revealed that the fight Saurfang and Sylvanas had in front of Orgrimmar was also a ruse. There is nothing complicated about it. Foreshadowing is a good device that writers can use so that they can go back an say: "Look, as far back as here, I knew the story was going this way and I gave you a hint". I never claimed it was proof, just a little something cool that aligns with the theory.

I also wouldn't call myself a staunch defender of Afrasiabi, Danuser, or Golden. There's a lot of stuff I like in the WoW story, and there's a lot of stuff I'm ambivalent to, and there's some stuff I detest or feel could be done better. What I find myself most opposed to is the sense that any given WoW writer is a totem for "everything that is wrong with WoW." I've seen Danuser and Golden, especially these days, basically serve as the Judas Goat for heaping scorn upon the franchise. I'm not a fan of that penchant in the fandom, that overriding need to burn specific people in effigy every time something happens in the story that doesn't work so well.

To be fair, they made some comments that even I disliked... That being said, I tend to root for the writers, not against them, because I'm happier when the story comes out well. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize. Criticism and discussion makes us all more informed, and it can certainly make them better if they are able to learn from it.

That a lot of the criticism around here is partisan and toxic, and not very informed in the manner of good storytelling, that's another matter. The writers want us to be engaged, and when they are engaged with the world and the story, people are entitled to express their opinions and it shouldn't surprise anyone that they will be vocal. I'm not going to pity them too much, because they have a highly enviable job that many of us would have probably loved to try our hands at.

Do you *really* think she was lying or being insincere about the command? For what reason would she do this? This sounds like another of those "5-D Chess" type things, where you're implying that Sylvanas knew ahead of time if she told Azshara to do X then Azshara would actually do Y, and she banked on that like a Batman gambit. I don't really buy it, especially since that even though she may have conceivably predicted Azshara doing something incredibly dumb, I don't think she could guess N'Zoth would also leave the heroes alive when he was freed from his prison. This is the kind of thing I'm referring to when I talk about degrees of separation in terms of the probable/possible.

That question on its own is irrelevant. If I had to answer it on its own, I would say that I don't know. The important thing to me is that it doesn't really clash with the long con theory. If the theory is incorrect, sure, she meant it, and it's yet another thing that didn't go her way (among at least a dozen or so). If the theory is true, it would be one of the many things said in order to maintain appearances, when it's easy for us to see how she wouldn't actually expect Azhara to do it.

[Aucald]

Careful! What you deem a "safe zone"of speculation sounds more like a function of your own biases and preconceptions to me.

Since I already defined it, you now have the means to make that determination whenever it's employed - assuming you are successful in your argumentation.

The Warcraft universe has always been filled with antiheroes, redemption arcs and sympathetic baddies. Metzen was a big fan of ASoIaF, and you can see this in the numerous references and borrowed concepts going back to Warcraft III, but also in the portrayal of the characters. TFT's roster was almost exclusively made up of antiheroes and villains, and even RoC was woefully short on heroes in the classical sense (the most prominent one was actually turned into the villain). Evil was defeated in the end, yes, but many protagonists - from Grom to Tyrande - and even entire groups also had their violent deeds swept under the rug while we were encouraged to cheer for them. WoW has evolved since Metzen, but it still retains a similar approach to storytelling, and most fans still enjoy these types of characters and stories. I mean, there was another thread in which players argued whether Arthas truly deserved the Maw, and many of them wanted a redemption story for him. If you're saying Sylvanas can't ever have that, it feels to me that you're the one going against the grain.

It's one thing to have preferences and stand by them - and it can be hard to tell, let alone prove, whether we think a certain narrative is good because we want it to happen or we want it to happen because we believe it is good - but that doesn't entitle you to position yourself as some sort of gatekeeper to what is or is not considered good speculation...

I don't think anti-heroes are in any way fatalistic or overly grim, so that's fine on its face. I actually prefer anti-heroes to outright heroes myself, as I enjoy both moral complexity and depth of storytelling as concerns ethical ambiguity. But I do prefer "heroism" be implicit in the characterization, as opposed to villains with good publicity. Personally speaking, I think Sylvanas is too far gone for a redemption story, but I'm on record as saying it would be acceptable so long as it was done right. I feel the same about Arthas, generally speaking. That being said, this whole notion of every villain needing a redemption is kind of silly - some villains should remain villains.

As for "gatekeeping" speculation, that's neither my intent nor my desire. But I remain steadfast that all speculation, like all opinions, are not necessarily made equal. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" as the old aphorism goes, and so it goes in the realm of speculation - extraordinary speculation requires extraordinary grounding.

I am not substituting anything. In the case of the Ardenweald cinematic, the message I extracted originally exists in the narrative regardless of the writers' intention, and there is no sign there that they didn't want us to read those thematic points in it and analyze them. After all, they have shown in the Revendreth clip that they can be subtle.

That sounds awful close to trying to prove a negative claim: "well, it wasn't not there, so that doesn't positively discount what I'm referring to." The more you need to "read something in" apropos of nothing, the less grounding you're going to have. Subtle means delicate and precise enough to evade casual detection, but still definitively present. Something entirely absent categorically can't be subtle.

If you are referring to Sylvanas, again I am not substituting anything, because her story so far has been constructed as a puzzle that still has missing pieces. I view this as an invitation to speculate. It may be a vain one, much like our speculation about the reason for burning Teldrassil, but it seems to me like a sign of respect and confidence in the writers to believe that they have something planned that can lock in with the disjointed narrative in BFA and lock it into something more harmonious. I find it bizarre that you continue to "defend" the writers from this and regard my confidence and engagement in the story as some sort of trap, like a sad kitten who runs away from being petted.

You remain on this tangent despite my outright saying it's not the case, so I can't really dissuade you any further from this course. I'll just say you're incorrect in understanding my intention, and either can't or won't accept that and instead opt to continue down this mistaken line of argument. Speculate away if that's your wish - but if you can't successfully defend your argumentation without resorting to ad hominem style attacks I don't think you're going to convince anyone, especially not me. As for Sylvanas herself, I think the curtain has been more or less conclusively dropped in terms of what her ultimate storyline will be. Back in Cata, MoP, or even Legion there was ample room to speculate on Sylvanas' ultimate goals and rationale - but as of BfA and now Shadowlands, I think we've entered her arc of descent into outright villain status. There's little to no room now to reverse course.

It is not a trap. I didn't think they would be able to justify her playing 4-D chess in any believable way, but involving the Dreadlords makes it work for me. And I am genuinely excited for the possibility that the rebellion was manipulated into existence by Sylvanas herself for the purpose of stabilizing the Horde after her departure, because this fixes most if not all of the narrative issues I had with it, and might actually make it exciting to roll an alt and go through the story again to see the hints and how well it ties together. This wouldn't make her any less ruthless, mind you, she would have still used and killed people to achieve her goal, but it would make her smarter and - most importantly! - would make the narrative more coherent.

Your implication here is that the narrative was less than coherent previously, but I don't really buy into that - which may be the backbone of our basic disagreement. You may not like the story being told, but I think it's relatively easy to follow and flows from A, to B, to C in a relatively linear fashion. If Sylvanas wanted to reform the Horde to stabilize that she could've done it back in Legion if she were of a mind to - generating a genocide to prompt a bloody coup and insurrection was entirely unnecessarily. She could've just used her power as Warchief to create a Council, appoint heads of states from the various Horde client-states, and then abolish and abdicate the position of Warchief entirely - the Warchief has that kind of power, after all, as they are the supreme autocrat within the Horde. With that prosaic fact in mind, it stands to reason that her actions as Warchief manifestly weren't about reforming the Horde.

Here's a good example of you diverging from lore and using your own contextualization as an argument.

The rebellion story doesn't paint Baine and Saurfang as the more popular side. On the contrary, it was said that they had very few supporters when they joined up with the Alliance in Dustwallow Marsh, and Baine had just been revealed a traitor in front of all the other Horde leaders, who didn't seem that eager to defend him at that time. Aside from that, you are trying to argue that Sylvanas's forces in Orgrimmar weren't strong enough to deal with an expected and planned infiltration from Saurfang, Jaina, Thrall and Mathias Shaw. This is clearly absurd, since there wouldn't have been any need for a military stand-off later if this was the case; just take one more to fill the Mythic+ group and clear the place out.

You can at best make the unfalsifiable claim that Sylvanas did not have the means to stop the escape, but this is not more convincing assumption, let alone a counter to the theory that Sylvanas didn't want the escape to fail.

I would say we're looking at very different lore, then. When Baine is actually arrested at the Horde summit, there are only 2 Horde leaders who completely put their faith in Sylvanas: Gallywix and Geya'rah. The rest of them express sympathy for Baine, are aghast at Sylvanas' treatment of him, or confess alarm and concern for the state of the Horde in general. As for the rest, I'm saying that the number of loyalists Sylvanas could depend on to secure Baine were minimal, as they were a minority of the populace. Having popular support for a specific war does not mean she could trust anyone in the Horde with such a duty - not with enduring reminders such as Nazgrim (who allowed Saurfang and Thrall into Orgrimmar during Garrosh's tyrannical turn) and Eitrigg who could easily be swayed by Horde luminaries like Thrall or Saurfang. If you think Saurfang couldn't bluff himself past a few nameless grunts and into Baine's prison then I'd say you're quite mistaken. She needed people she could trust to fight two legends of the Horde if necessary, and *those* types of people would be in very short supply.

That is why the escape succeeded.

I don't need to believe that the villain will be victorious in the end in order to consider them a threat. I only need to believe they can harm the heroes I care about. The narrative constantly paints Sylvanas as a threat to several lore figures throughout BFA: Tyrande, Malfurion, Jaina, Anduin, Baine, Bwonsamdi, Maiev, Thrall, etc., but she doesn't succeed in ending any one of them, or even lesser named characters for that matter. Aside from numerous nameless or random NPCs, she only killed Delaryn at the very start, then Zelig (both of them newly introduced), and then Saurfang, but Saurfang got exactly the death he wanted and his sacrifice brought victory to those who followed him, so it was hardly a high point for Sylvanas (quite the contrary, he explicitly characterized her as a failure during that fight).

I am not sure how this long chain of depictions factors into suspension of disbelief, and Sylvanas being a threat to various characters wasn't really the disbelief I was talking about to begin with. I think any two characters within the same general tier of power (e.g. faction leaders) could conceivably kill the other with the right conditions and set-up. Sylvanas is certainly both dangerous and skilled enough to kill Tyrande, Malfurion, or Jaina - of course any of those three could also kill her under the right conditions (discounting her power-up by the Jailer as it were).

It boggles the mind that you find the concepts of foreshadowing and narrative parallels so arcane. To reference ASoIaF again, [spoiler]the wolf killed by the stag's antler at the start of AGoT foreshadows how Robert's downfall will also spell Ned's end. In the show, Jon betraying Ygritte and her subsequent death foreshadow, parallel and emotionally impact his ultimate decision to kill Dany.[/spoilers]. Likewise, the fight Saurfang and Nathanos had in Orgrimmar being a ruse would fit in place very well as foreshadowing and narrative parallel if it was revealed that the fight Saurfang and Sylvanas had in front of Orgrimmar was also a ruse. There is nothing complicated about it. Foreshadowing is a good device that writers can use so that they can go back an say: "Look, as far back as here, I knew the story was going this way and I gave you a hint". I never claimed it was proof, just a little something cool that aligns with the theory.

It probably boggles your mind because you're mistaken, as I understand both the concepts of foreshadowing and narrative parallels pretty clearly. The main crux here is that something you feel is foreshadowing is something I don't think is foreshadowing, for the aforementioned reasons. As I'm disputing the speculative conclusion you've arrived at that said instance is meant to foreshadow, it logically follows that I don't think it's actually foreshadowing (since it has nothing proceeding it as its "shadow" so to speak). I don't think Saurfang's Mak'gora with Sylvanas was a ruse in the manner you do, hence I don't think Nathanos and Saurfang's disagreement prior to the War of Thorns was foreshadowing it. Hopefully that helps clear up your confusion.

To be fair, they made some comments that even I disliked... That being said, I tend to root for the writers, not against them, because I'm happier when the story comes out well. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize. Criticism and discussion makes us all more informed, and it can certainly make them better if they are able to learn from it.

Agreed.

That a lot of the criticism around here is partisan and toxic, and not very informed in the manner of good storytelling, that's another matter. The writers want us to be engaged, and when they are engaged with the world and the story, people are entitled to express their opinions and it shouldn't surprise anyone that they will be vocal. I'm not going to pity them too much, because they have a highly enviable job that many of us would have probably loved to try our hands at.

I don't think criticism should stem from professional jealousy, as that seems to be what you're implying above. It's also not a matter of pity or praise in my view.

That question on its own is irrelevant. If I had to answer it on its own, I would say that I don't know. The important thing to me is that it doesn't really clash with the long con theory. If the theory is incorrect, sure, she meant it, and it's yet another thing that didn't go her way (among at least a dozen or so). If the theory is true, it would be one of the many things said in order to maintain appearances, when it's easy for us to see how she wouldn't actually expect Azhara to do it.

And again, that completely discounts that she'd not only have to predict Azshara's actions, but also the newly-freed N'Zoth's. Sylvanas is smart, sure, but she's not that smart, nor do I think she'd make such a rash gamble on any number of unforeseeable outcomes for something so critically important to her. I also think the question is very relevant - as it is at the heart of both her characterization and rationale for most of BfA's rising action.

I think we're just an an impasse here, with little to no ground to be gained and these exchanges have gotten a bit too time-consuming for the both of us in all likelihood. I'll make this my closing argument, so to speak - feel free to riposte if you wish to.

[Coconut]

I think we're just an an impasse here, with little to no ground to be gained and these exchanges have gotten a bit too time-consuming for the both of us in all likelihood. I'll make this my closing argument, so to speak - feel free to riposte if you wish to.

I guess you are correct. We have different artistic preferences and different perspectives on the story, so we keep yelling past each other or splitting hairs to the N-th degree trying to convince one another of things that are ultimately open to interpretation. And while I am fairly confident in my assessment of BFA's story when taken at face value, neither of us has a solid footing without seeing the climax to Sylvanas's arc in Shadowlands.

Needless to say, I think a few of your arguments are fallacious, but deconstructing them would look like I'm challenging you again or like I'm taking unfair advantage of you ceding me the last word, so I'll just say you also bring some fair points, and let the readers sort it out for themselves... if anyone else has the time and inclination to follow this gargantuan debate, that is.

I thank you for the conversation, and I'm happy you think my speculations are extraordinary.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Ok, I know this is going to sound weird/dumb, but what's the font called that Blizzard used for the Afterlives title?

[Icelin]

Why do people keep mentioning Dreadlords lately? The Nathrezim didn't have anything to do with the Lick King helmet from what I recall. (The helm of domination)

That was all Kil'Jaeden (the Deceiver) and torment of Ner'zhul.(soul torn apart) Ner'zhul manipulated Arthas. Not that Nathrezim.

Why is everyone idolizing and talking about Dreadlords lately? There must be some retcon I am unaware of or maybe something else..? Don't tell me Sargeras was heavily influenced by Nathrezim. Sargeras was a big boy titan. I am pretty sure he could make up his own mind. Not only that I would imagine the Void would overpower any type of manipulation a Nathrezim could throw at them. Seriously. Sargeras came to his own demise trying to address the Void.

Edit: Does this all stem from the Dreadlord that was beside Sylvanas for many years? Varimathras. I thought they already did something with his character in one of my favorite retired quest lines, "The battle for Undercity."

Still to me it was Ner'zhul for the helm. Not dreadlords. I guess we are going to be getting a lot of Dreadlord push.

[Feanoro]

As for "gatekeeping" speculation, that's neither my intent nor my desire.

*snicker*

But I remain steadfast that all speculation, like all opinions, are not necessarily made equal..

Yes, some animals are more equal than others. We know.

All I'm going to say.

[Aucald]

*snicker*

Yes, some animals are more equal than others. We know.

All I'm going to say.

That is both an unworthy and profoundly silly comparison, and I think you know it.

[Frontenac]

Why do people keep mentioning Dreadlords lately?

Several clues hint that the Nathrezim are involved in the Shadowlands, especially with Denathrius and Revendreth, and that they may have been serving another master than Sargeras.

https://fr.wowhead.com/news=317833.3...on-written-by-

The Nathrezim didn't have anything to do with the Lick King helmet from what I recall. (The helm of domination)

The original lore was that they forged it, along with the armour and Frostmourne. We now know that they merely robbed them from the Maw and that they are linked with the Jailer.

That was all Kil'Jaeden (the Deceiver) and torment of Ner'zhul.(soul torn apart) Ner'zhul manipulated Arthas. Not that Nathrezim.

Your forgot about Mal'ganis. And Tichondrius. But, yes, Ner'zhul played his part.

Why is everyone idolizing and talking about Dreadlords lately? There must be some retcon I am unaware of or maybe something else..?

Not retcon. Lore development.

Don't tell me Sargeras was heavily influenced by Nathrezim. Sargeras was a big boy titan. I am pretty sure he could make up his own mind.

Uh, no. The original lore was that Sargeras was lead into a deep depression seeing the corruption of the Eredar and the Nathrezim. Since they changed the Eredar's origin and the Draenei, the Nathrezim were directly responsible for the fall of Sargeras.

Not only that I would imagine the Void would overpower any type of manipulation a Nathrezim could throw at them. Seriously. Sargeras came to his own demise trying to address the Void.

From the previous link: "The void lords all but welcome us with open arms. They are so preoccupied with their thousand truths that they ignore the lies we sow in their very midst.

I believe we can leverage their vast reach to position them as a foil against our other rivals.

We remain wary, though. Since they are observant of multiple outcomes, it is conceivable they could anticipate our coming."


And: "In many ways, the titans will be the easiest to manipulate. Their singular goal is to impose structure upon everything they see.

Show them a force that opposes their drive for Order, and they will be consumed by their urge to eradicate it.

Their pantheon, so seemingly united in purpose, is vulnerable to fracturing."

Edit: Does this all stem from the Dreadlord that was beside Sylvanas for many years? Varimathras. I thought they already did something with his character in one of my favorite retired quest lines, "The battle for Undercity."

Still to me it was Ner'zhul for the helm. Not dreadlords. I guess we are going to be getting a lot of Dreadlord push.

What's wrong with that?