Shadowlands should've been the first Expansion?

[Shelly]

Don't really get what you are getting at, but I would have thought that WotLK should have been the first expansion. It would have built directly upon Naxxramas as the final raid of vanilla, and we could after that go to BC as a natural escalation dealing with the person above the lich king.

While I get what you're saying, please keep in mind Arthas beat Illidan like a redheaded stepchild. They've retconned the lore at this point quite a bit but when Illidan runs off to outland he's a whipped dog. He spends his entire time up on top of the Black Temple engaged in chewing over the cud of his loss to Arthas, cowering in fear of Kil'Jaeden and the people running the show for the Illidari are the Blood Elves.

As to the OP: Yeah, Sylvannas may have gone to Bastion for her devotion to Silvermoon, but she never got that far. She's unable to even ascend to the Afterlife until her suicide in Icecrown and has generally been playing the Horde since that moment. So while it seems that Denathrius doesn't wreck the Arbiter until about midway through the activities of Legion (since warbrave Ordo is in Bastion), Sylv has certainly been pumping a lot of souls into the Shadowlands by helping to stoke wars on Azeroth.

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Cinematic for her and wc3 confirms this. She had never seen the shadowlands till she impaled herself on the spikes of icecrown citadel and was sent to the shadowlands.

OT: she’s going to be pissed off if she ever finds out the jailer is responsible for her dying due to the minor influence he had on ner’zhul

Pretty sure she knows about it and agrees.

Her fight is against the full system of death itself. Of the cycle of life, building anima over that lifetime and then the semi-parasitic nature of Shadowlands itself as it removes that anima from the souls that are sent to the various realms of the afterlife.

If anything she longs for true death and it is denied to her by this system which imprisons us all in a cycle of rebirth.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Pretty sure she knows about it and agrees.

Her fight is against the full system of death itself. Of the cycle of life, building anima over that lifetime and then the semi-parasitic nature of Shadowlands itself as it removes that anima from the souls that are sent to the various realms of the afterlife.

If anything she longs for true death and it is denied to her by this system which imprisons us all in a cycle of rebirth.

Doubt it cause if she did find out would be 100% against the jailer

[Firefall]

Doubt it cause if she did find out would be 100% against the jailer

She also should be because of Kel'thezud. The writers forgot about her backstory and retconned her entire life as some scheme.

[AlmightyGerkin]

She also should be because of Kel'thezud. The writers forgot about her backstory and retconned her entire life as some scheme.

irritating when they retcon just for story wise

[vertigo12]

Actually she is trying to break the "order" which Amanthul have domain over thereby takes precedence on time, life and death.

Take note that Emerald Dreams was created as a blue print of the supposed structure and design of Azeroth.

Same with the order in the realm of death in Shadowlands.

[Razion]

Shadowlands was always referenced in things like odd books or quests but never actually explored beyond a couple mirror-like pocket instances.

Dedicating an expansion to it gave them the opportinity to explore this lore fully while giving them an opportunity to work on a whole new place rather than retreading old ground (ie not another Cata or not another island on Azeroth). It was a choice for creative freedom while also cleaning up and explaining old lore.

They may not have known enough or had thought enough about the SL to think it was a possible expansion setting until they actually did it. Now that it's here it may seem like an obvious way to have gone all this time, but going literally to Hell as it were was basically done in Wrath so doing it so soon after that would have maybe been too similar too soon even if the locale was different. Like Legion replicates themes of TBC, SL can be said to be taking on themes of Wrath. If we're being cynical.

[vertigo12]

Maybe if they did TBC and WotLK back to back and made it part 1 and part 2 respectively and bundled them together one after the other, the experience might have been entirely different.

If we take Uther's Bastion Afterlife clip as reference we know that a lot have happened within the Shadowlands beyond our knowledge one of them is directly linked to ICC raid and connected to Edge of the Night were both Sylvanas and Jaina along with the Ashen Verdict/Argent Tournament taking the fight and make Arthas pay for his crimes.

Naxxramas patch also tells about what happened to Kelthuzad after defeating him in the L60 version.

Also probably meeting the Venthyr would explain how San'layn were able to make it to the mortal realm if they are the predecessors since they became what they are after Illidan escape Northrend and fled to Outlands.

[Shelly]

Doubt it cause if she did find out would be 100% against the jailer

Her motivations now are the destruction of the cycle of death and rebirth. These motivations are from her realizations since being enslaved by Arthas and she is almost entirely disassociated with her prior "mortal" self.

She doesn't really give three heaps of steaming mouse crap about her death. She doesn't even view the prospect of death from the mortal lens as all that terrifying. She just wants to "free" us all from the cycle.

This isn't a retcon, this is literally character progression.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Her motivations now are the destruction of the cycle of death and rebirth. These motivations are from her realizations since being enslaved by Arthas and she is almost entirely disassociated with her prior "mortal" self.

She doesn't really give three heaps of steaming mouse crap about her death. She doesn't even view the prospect of death from the mortal lens as all that terrifying. She just wants to "free" us all from the cycle.

This isn't a retcon, this is literally character progression.

Sylvanas always hates how she was denied a clean death and that Arthas is turned her into a banshee. And Zovaal played a part in her death with the helmet and frostmourne. Which after Night's edge realized that upon death you don't get the choice in the shadowlands as its already predetermined by the arbiter

[vertigo12]

@AlmightyGerkin
That life and even life after death is not all about freedom and freedom of choice yet everything was too structured and deterministic. That Amanthul's ordering thru the influence of Time (DA Nozdormu) Life (DA Alestrasza/Ysodre) have everything in order and accordance to his will or design. It is too rigid and might even be totalitarian.

Arcane (order), Light (obedience, light's cause)

The story of Shadowlands even goes way beyond back WC as we know that Nerzhul became the 1st LK and was able to make Terron Gorefiend the 1st DK.

[AlmightyGerkin]

@AlmightyGerkin
That life and even life after death is all about freedom and freedom of choice yet everything was too structured and deterministic. That Amanthul's ordering thru the influence of Time (DA Nozdormu) Life (DA Alestrasza/Ysodre) have everything in order and accordance to his will or design. It is too rigid and might even be totalitarian.

Arcane (order), Light (obedience, light's cause)

The story of Shadowlands even goes way beyond back WC as we know that Nerzhul became the 1st LK and was able to make Terron Gorefiend the 1st DK.

That was MU Gul'dan who created the first Death Knights

[vertigo12]

Hopefully the one we are experiencing is not just a other timeline within the vast branching timelines within the WoW multiverse.