Shadowlands Plothole?

[Super Dickmann]

Yeah, but during the Maldraxxus attack on the Bastion, at some point the Maldraxxi necromancer resurrects a bunch of Kyrians. WTF is he connecting to their bodies at that point?

It's a plot point later in that Kyrian abomination quest that unlike Maldraxxi the Kyrian maintain themselves and the soul stays in the body, which is why the abomination is happy to cooperate with you. The two goons in front of it argue about how they need to evict the Kyrian souls and put a Maldraxxi one and how the Kyrian use brainwashing, unlike upstanding necromancers like themselves.

[qwerty123456]

She legitimately could have prevented this. It didn't have to be this way.

That said it did contribute to the best bit of unintentional comedy after the pre-patch cinematic. It's the quest where you're supposed to check on the wards and while you're at it, Uther very, very slowly flies up, calls you names, blows up the ward and then very, very slowly flies off. All the while, since the robots are deactivated and the Blue Man Group has no peripheral vision nobody does anything to stop him. After about a minute, the gears in the head of that twink who's BiS for Kyrian finally begin turning and he says something to the effect of "Gee, champion, that sure is a shame. We better tell the cops." Abysmal scripting for a zone that's otherwise good about this, but it had me in stitches.

The Archon isn't really the problem imo. The Arbiter is sending souls who she deems Bastion is the best afterlife for them to her. The Arbiter shouldn't be sending anyone to them that could possibly fail.

I mean yeah its fucked up the way Bastion is set up with natural owl creatures who love to serve and magical golem/robots and yet you gotta mindwipe a soul into serving? You're telling me you couldn't make golems with wings or jets to ferry people? Or get Stewards to fly around on Larions and ferry souls and what not?

[Super Dickmann]

The Archon isn't really the problem imo. The Arbiter is sending souls who she deems Bastion is the best afterlife for them to her. The Arbiter shouldn't be sending anyone to them that could possibly fail.

I mean yeah its fucked up the way Bastion is set up with natural owl creatures who love to serve and magical golem/robots and yet you gotta mindwipe a soul into serving? You're telling me you couldn't make golems with wings or jets to ferry people? Or get Stewards to fly around on Larions and ferry souls and what not?

I don't mind the Stewards. They're basically just marketably shaped constructs that do book-keeping and they seem to have fun doing it. Hell, one of them is even in a major position manufacturing robots and even the Forsworn don't treat them badly. They quite literally grow out of the ground. And it's just when I got finished typing that I realized you were meaning it as a positive, nevermind, keeping it anyway since I like the stewards.

I don't think it's really beyond the pale for one's ideal afterlife to be continuing to help others or devoting themselves to their craft. Or that some'd prefer to set their trauma aside and basically spend time doing what they love forever. There's a whole class of Kyrians who're basically tasked with architecture, music etc. The ferrymen are only one of the three roles, with the third being the spirit healers. And a spirit healer has to make an ethical determination of who to bring back and what the right time is. Sure, they could all be substituted with robots, but if the Arbiter is able to mistake which souls to put where, having her also run the soul taxi and the spirit healing services would only make things worse.

[razorpax]

I'm not sure if we know the exact moment, but we do know if what after that, as they pointed out that when the Emerald Nightmare raid happened, and we killed Ursoc, it was still working.

I want to say the exact moment is Argus death but it’s still up in the air

According to muezala he turned Helya to the jailer’s side so it’s possible that it also happened after the raid with her.

[Feanoro]

They are not doing a good job explaining everything.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to change.

[qwerty123456]

I don't mind the Stewards. They're basically just marketably shaped constructs that do book-keeping and they seem to have fun doing it. Hell, one of them is even in a major position manufacturing robots and even the Forsworn don't treat them badly. They quite literally grow out of the ground. And it's just when I got finished typing that I realized you were meaning it as a positive, nevermind, keeping it anyway since I like the stewards.

I don't think it's really beyond the pale for one's ideal afterlife to be continuing to help others or devoting themselves to their craft. Or that some'd prefer to set their trauma aside and basically spend time doing what they love forever. There's a whole class of Kyrians who're basically tasked with architecture, music etc. The ferrymen are only one of the three roles, with the third being the spirit healers. And a spirit healer has to make an ethical determination of who to bring back and what the right time is. Sure, they could all be substituted with robots, but if the Arbiter is able to mistake which souls to put where, having her also run the soul taxi and the spirit healing services would only make things worse.

Yeah stewards are great and seeing one of those lil guys riding a flying lion would be awesome. I doubt anyone would refuse to move to the shadowlands with one of them taking you instead of a giant blue guy grabbing you by your neck and dragging you off.

I don't think there is a problem with a mindwipe afterlife or serving people afterlife but an afterlife where you can fail and fall into darkness doesn't sound like a good system unless you love serving so much that you are willing to basically be leveling up experience for someone who didn't fail.

And what makes it even more fucked up is the whole 1 shadowlands for the multiverse thing. Like our Velen and Au Velen could be the kindest greatest priests in their realties but because because 9000 other versions of them are hillbilly Talbuk fuckers the 2 good ones get merged with the others and join the Kentucky afterlife? If there are 3 Pelagos that wanna be a blue mindwiped dude and 2 that wanna be butterflies in Ardenweld the 2 get fucked over and mind wiped for the 3??

Theres so much shit in Shadowlands they need to explain better like how did Denathrius steal from all the other covenants?

[Super Dickmann]

Yeah stewards are great and seeing one of those lil guys riding a flying lion would be awesome. I doubt anyone would refuse to move to the shadowlands with one of them taking you instead of a giant blue guy grabbing you by your neck and dragging you off.

I don't think there is a problem with a mindwipe afterlife or serving people afterlife but an afterlife where you can fail and fall into darkness doesn't sound like a good system unless you love serving so much that you are willing to basically be leveling up experience for someone who didn't fail.

And what makes it even more fucked up is the whole 1 shadowlands for the multiverse thing. Like our Velen and Au Velen could be the kindest greatest priests in their realties but because because 9000 other versions of them are hillbilly Talbuk fuckers the 2 good ones get merged with the others and join the Kentucky afterlife? If there are 3 Pelagos that wanna be a blue mindwiped dude and 2 that wanna be butterflies in Ardenweld the 2 get fucked over and mind wiped for the 3??

Theres so much shit in Shadowlands they need to explain better like how did Denathrius steal from all the other covenants?

The Steward riding around on the ooze in Maldraxxus really got a smile out of me. Ditto the two who escape on each other's shoulders from their cage.

As for those problems, I agree entirely, though the impression I get from the story is that the reason so many are left in ennui is because there's a limited amount of anima and for whatever reason the trials need that anima to function. So after failing once, they're left to stew with their negative memories and the feelings of betrayal and failure indefinitely. Mind, the fact that they even get assigned there in the first place and all emotions get removed plus that process being painful is pretty shifty.

The whole multiverse thing is completely retarded. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt and the writers were clearly making that shit as they went along, since there's an infinite amount of Talbuk fucker Velens and an equally infinite amount of timelines where Velen was a great guy or where he became a dentist or what have you. It's like the one Legion across all dimensions thing. It's stupid at first glance, but becomes even more stupid on close inspection.

As for the Denathrius business, I haven't actually played through all of Revendreth's side quests and it's not my Covenant, so most of this is winging it, but to my understanding isn't it that he's been deliberately hoarding what anima he has and keeping some people to torture for anima indefinitely rather than redeeming them. So it's not that he gets new souls and they don't, it's that he's purposefully gathering as much as possible and refuses to share. If there's something saying otherwise, feel free to send it my way.

[Ezyah]

I mean if you only see one plothole in this gigantic clownfiesta that is the lore in Shadowlands, prop to you xD

[Maljinwo]

Shadowlands was a mistake

[qwerty123456]

As for the Denathrius business, I haven't actually played through all of Revendreth's side quests and it's not my Covenant, so most of this is winging it, but to my understanding isn't it that he's been deliberately hoarding what anima he has and keeping some people to torture for anima indefinitely rather than redeeming them. So it's not that he gets new souls and they don't, it's that he's purposefully gathering as much as possible and refuses to share. If there's something saying otherwise, feel free to send it my way.

I think the Prince said Denathrius was responsible for the drought in all of the regions when he shows up in his place during the leader meeting. I also think thats why we can suddenly start grabbing anima again we just can't get anymore from new souls.

[thottstation]

I don't get how a Wild God or centaur or Keeper of the Grove or a Naga who died doing their duty can become a Kyrian and be like "I'm okay being a bipedal humanoid because I now have no memory of being otherwise... but omg I'm so glad I'm male now because being born female was such a draaaag!"

It just voids what being a Kyrian is all about.

And the main storyline is about fighting those Kyrians who want to remember their old lives.

[kenn9530]

Souls aren't showing up because Arbiter is inactive and doesn't direct them to their proper realms. It has nothing to do with "souls not going to Shadowlands". Likewise, nothing has been said about Ysera being a new arrival. What was said is that she's one of the last arrivals prior to the drought. You know, the same drought that is constantly described as lasting for a while by the time we visit.

Souls would still be going to shadowlands just not the covenants, but plenty of souls dont go to the shadowlands with all the ghosts and stuff hanging around in every world/zone we have come across, so not every soul actually goes to the shadowlands as it could be by choice or whatever.

[Super Dickmann]

I think the Prince said Denathrius was responsible for the drought in all of the regions when he shows up in his place during the leader meeting. I also think thats why we can suddenly start grabbing anima again we just can't get anymore from new souls.

I know that part but it felt like such a non-sequitor. Figured it meant that it was because he was hoarding the anima. Does that mean there is no mystery and the red thing that shot the Arbiter was just some unexplained bs from Denathrius? If so, that's next level cheap.

@thottstation

The Kyrian really were the worst pick to do politicking. Really, if they wanted to do it they should've made them all be androgynous. If they're going to make you forget everything else they might as well forget whether you had a dick. Or if they wanted to maintain realism, involve Maldraxxian surgery.

[Soon-TM]

I don't get how a Wild God or centaur or Keeper of the Grove or a Naga who died doing their duty can become a Kyrian and be like "I'm okay being a bipedal humanoid because I now have no memory of being otherwise... but omg I'm so glad I'm male now because being born female was such a draaaag!"

It just voids what being a Kyrian is all about.

And the main storyline is about fighting those Kyrians who want to remember their old lives.

Tbf those should be NF material, in principle. But yeah, the entirety of Bastion story was mind!@#%ing boring, even the music.

[Maxilian]

I want to say the exact moment is Argus death but it’s still up in the air

According to muezala he turned Helya to the jailer’s side so it’s possible that it also happened after the raid with her.

Well we do know that Argus soul is unlikely to be in the Shadowlands, as the Titans are supposed to have their own afterlife, just like demons....

But i have heard people say that he was not a full titan so that may have affected its afterlife (i doubt it)

[Lord Pebbleton]

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to change.

I don't. The obvious solution for them would be to stop trying to explain concepts such as afterlife and time travel. Those are VERY hard things to explore for highly skilled story tellers, and more than impossible for a company that is famous for its retcons and corrections in hindsight.

[Krowth]

Shadowlands Plothole should be the full name of the expansion.

[Tripzzz]

If Danuser validates Slyvanus' claim that everyone's fate is predestined by someone else, how the fuck does that fit in to infinite alternate universes where the differences can be extremely small "blades of grass"?

[Feanoro]

If Danuser validates Slyvanus' claim that everyone's fate is predestined by someone else, how the fuck does that fit in to infinite alternate universes where the differences can be extremely small "blades of grass"?

She refuses even the concept of consequences.

[Ophenia]

It is official, look at this:

Thanks for the link. I guess he tried some sort of explanation but that doesn't work very well. I think he meant to say that you won't see 2 million Arthas popping in the Shadowlands when the Lich King is defeated because "they're all one" or whatever. But that also means... we should be able to see some lore figures who are not dead yet in our "reality", but who died in another timeline ?

Honestly I have no idea. Everytime they come up with things that are too complex and near impossible to do successfully, it seems they add even more inconsistencies.
They should have never dealt with things such as Time travel, alternate realities, or "planes" (Emerald Dream was okayish I guess, but with N'zoth it went completely too far imo, and Shadowlands doesn't help them writing a consistent storyline)...