SPOILERS: Shadowlands Lore Thread

[Super Dickmann]

I find the criticism cliched and overwrought - I don't recall any specific arguments like this when we knew the leaders were captured months ago, so why is it a problem now when this little connective bit? I mean, is this really the hill to die on in light of the fact that we knew they were captured? There's nothing circular about it, this is just complaining about the means not meeting your expectations for reasons that I find inarticulate at best, and base grumbling at worst.

Dude, please, we were arguing about this the second that was datamined and I explained at length even then why this was unnecessary retardation, and I did this when the only aspect that was missing was the method, not the premise, hence why I won't bother with a new response to the first part of your reply, as I already answered it months ago. I attacked the premise even then and I attacked it knowing its conclusion - namely nothing. Here's a refresher:

...But rather, the abduction story is unnecessary and has problems that are more trouble to solve than they're worth - from how it's done, to why limit it to a few people if it's not mundane agents but the Jailor's people crossing over and of course - why not just kill them? If dead, they go to the Maw anyhow and give it resources and it's not like anyone outside would know the difference. The whole concept of needing bait after you've put a hole in reality is itself dubious. It's a whole lot of work for not much pay off, whereas if those mentioned were just the vanguard who went in first, you still have all the same pieces in play, you can hit all the general beats and you don't bury yourself in such unnecessary pablum.

I even proposed an alternative that would skip all this and accomplish the same beat of having them captured without requiring people to be morons:

Cutting the entire abduction bit is the best bet. In fact, cutting is really all you need to do - cut the Jailor's dialogue because it's unspeakably generic and downplays an otherwise menacing setting. You can keep Sylvanas gloating over Anduin if you really must. But the abduction thing makes little sense and you can accomplish the same goal + exposit over the time difference in our world and the Maw by having the ones we see in the questline like Baine, Thrall, Jaina etc. hop in first with a vanguard because they want to help stop the breach, then we get sidetracked by say, a dark ranger ambush or some shit, there's the whole argument with Calia and Tyrande and then everyone heads in, whereupon we find the status quo we see in the quests. Have someone ask "Wow, didn't you leave just an hour ago" and they can exposit about how in the Maw it's been a week. No loyalists with burlap sacks infiltrating Stormwind and capturing Jaina required.

Nothing has changed in the premise that has made it more worthwhile in the interim, so now we can add attacking the method to the roster. The method this is done is cheap and while definitely quite funny makes those people dumb, the villains for reasons already described. As for the heroes, are you seriously telling me that the King of Stormwind going completely unguarded or Jaina 'I can take on the guys who killed a Titan' Proudmoore can't take two guys? Because I can log to Stormwind right now and see the gryphons. This plot point was already poor and it failed to justify itself in its execution.

[Combatbulter]

As the Titan gets older and stronger, it becomes comparatively difficult for that power to be bled from her? I mean you can take your pick as to why - but it was evident when Azerite itself was introduced to the story. It was very obviously not in the Well of Eternity class of powerful.

Why should it?

Prior to Jaina freezing the Blight (itself something of a revelation), there is nothing to really deal with the Blight aside from gas masks. He likely didn't think Sylvanas would deploy it on her own home turf, as stated above - but I'd agree he probably should've had masks on hand to at least cover the possibility. Of course I don't know if that's technology the Alliance really has, though; as we never really see them field gas masks in any other engagement either. I imagine those masks aren't your normal kind of technology, and the means and method of their manufacture is probably a secret of the Forsaken and/or the Horde.

It is still sheer stupidity, especially since he had seen that she was more than willing to gundown her own people just a few weeks prior, attacking undercity without any kind of precaution against the blight is the epitome of incompetence, no matter how you look at it and no one would have made such a stupid move, if they didn't want to show off jelsa saving the day.

[Maljinwo]

The kidnapping is probably one of Sylvanas' galaxy brain master plan that NEVER backfire

[Aucald]

the chains didn't defeat bolvar, in fact bolvar broke a lot of those, so again, no, the chains are not that much powerful, they are actually easy to break, so those ones are apparently even more powerful that can silence and do what they wish

They definitely seemed to - they weakened him and eventually (over just a few moments of their formation) all he could really do was struggle to get free.

apparently this LK is weaker than Arthas, so not a problem here, besides, he didn't break with his own death-oriented skillset, he literally broke thn with his hammer, no death skillset, just raw strength, you are telling me a tauren or Anduin ith the light power can't do that?

He broke them and it didn't matter, so again, meaningless distinction. I'm saying he was a creature of Death, and so he may have additional defense against whatever magic the chains use (presumably also Death). Anduin and the others are not, and so may not have had even the level of resistance Bolvar exhibited.

1- you don't call the clouds you can the air itself
2- those are not "powerful mawsworn" those are mere mobs that we will by the dozens, they are not abnormal powerful to be so much angerous, thats why i said you would need like 20 to make more believeble.
3- they literally say the skies darkening they saw shit was coming to then, unless they are morons

1.) Again, probably wouldn't have mattered. The Val'kyr aren't birds, and they probably don't use the air to stay aloft in the first place.
2.) You have no idea what they were or weren't, so who's to really say. I'm saying they're powerful based on what they do, you're saying they're nameless mooks based on... well, based on nothing. Either way, neither of us know how powerful they are.
3.) "Oh look the sky is darkening, this means dark angel-like beings are going to materialize any moment now to try to kidnap us." That's a silly argument and would require the expectation of omniscience on the part of the leaders in question.

he saw then comming and he had time to take out his sword, is enough time tor eact unless he was a dipshit, once again he is a light user, burst a explosion of light from itself and broke the chains like anyone would do

and pls, no with the chains of silence

Apparently not. I think your expectations here are unrealistic.

just because they were imprisoned in the past don't mean you can give a free pass to this ridiculous imprisonment, the imprison before had good reasons, or it made sense, the problem is never then being imprisoned, like you are trying to make it is, the problem is how stupid and pathetic it was

If I agreed with you that it was ridiculous, but I don't. You've yet to really provide a convincing argument beyond reiterating your opinion.

they didn't reform instantly.

Then we're apparently not talking about the same cinematic. The part you want is right here, he breaks the chain at 2:54 and it reforms at 2:55 - I'd call that pretty much instant, but I if you want to get technical we'll say it reforms in a second.

ah yes, more plot convient to explain more plot-holes, everyone just keep becoming strong when its needed

It's neither convenient nor a plot-hole, really. It's the story being told.

sometimes you just sit down read everything slowly and no matte how you spin it you now you are staring at a dumpster

I can't really help or hinder you there, your opinions are your own at the end of the day.

its top comedy cinematic

You can take a still of anyone in the act of speaking or shouting and make a funny image out of it, doesn't really change anything of note. Memes aren't facts, either; even if the image is hilarious it's also ripped entirely out of its context to make it funny.

- - - Updated - - -

Why should it?

Why wouldn't it?

It is still sheer stupidity, especially since he had seen that she was more than willing to gundown her own people just a few weeks prior, attacking undercity without any kind of precaution against the blight is the epitome of incompetence, no matter how you look at it and no one would have made such a stupid move, if they didn't want to show off jelsa saving the day.

Again, you have to assume there were precautions to take - and there might not have been. I'd agree it was rash, but Sylvanas had also just torched the home of the Night Elves and killed a majority of their kind, so some rashness is also probably understandable as well.

[Mehrunes]

I assume death extracts a toll regardless, though; and anima has be expended to return unhoused souls to a physical form - so why make the expenditure to do that when you can just abduct the targets and bring them straight to you as they are, strengths fully intact to be put to use later. I mean he's completely successful in doing that, so why go through the extra steps? Plus, you get the added bonus of implying to the rest of Azeroth: "hey, I'm powerful enough now to just take whatever and whoever I want right out from under you."

Given how Anduin didn't stream his own kidnapping on Twitch, your point is flat out nonsensical. Azerothians had no way of knowing whether Jailer just kidnapped them or kidnapped them and then killed them. As such, the Jailer already fulfilled his purpose of showing how he can kidnap whoever he pleases. Them being still alive after that point is completely immaterial to said purpose.

And please, the Jailer has numerous deities working for him. What the hell would he need Baine for at all, let alone spare a thought to the (completely unfounded) power loss he'd suffer on death? Especially since as the art book just told us a week ago, Jailer's armies are souls that were sent to the Maw that he broke and bent to his will.

I find the criticism cliched and overwrought - I don't recall any specific arguments like this when we knew the leaders were captured months ago, so why is it a problem now when this little connective bit? I mean, is this really the hill to die on in light of the fact that we knew they were captured? There's nothing circular about it, this is just complaining about the means not meeting your expectations for reasons that I find inarticulate at best, and base grumbling at worst. Do the Mawsworn Val'kyr need some kind of elaborate backstory to make it possible for them to abduct people? Does Sylvanas herself need to appear in every case to underscore her own threat? The point about the faction leaders walking around "defenseless" is especially silly - what, do you that they're on guard 24x7 or something in the safety of their own cities? I mean all of them appear to be in the capitols, basically doing their own thing. Baine's crossing a bridge in Thunder Bluff, and Anduin is visiting his father's memorial in the safety of Stormwind - it's obvious they don't expect winged foes to come out of nowhere and ensnare them in seconds (and who really would). There's nothing idiotic about it, really. The only real point of complaint here is that they weren't afforded the chance to put up a fight (except for Tyrande), but then that's also the point of the manner of their abduction. If the Mawsworn Val'kyr gave them a moment to fight the outcomes might've been very different, but it was a lightning attack meant to take them off guard, and it was entirely successful.

And here you're just making things up (and for some godforsaken reason still trying to pin it on how they were kidnapped even after it was hammered home how this isn't even the main idiocy of this whole setup). Because I most certainly recall arguments against Anduin et al's survival being a sad plot contrivance with no in-story logic behind it at least since the quests hit the beta.

[Varodoc]

So is no one going to point out the fact that Anduin Wrynn...

King of Stormwind

High King of the Alliance

Supreme Commander of all Alliance armies

... did not have a single bodyguard accompanying him?

Looks like the Alliance is truly desperate, they can't even afford royal guards. Turalyon and Alleria, please fix this mess that Anduin left behind!

[Combatbulter]

Why wouldn't it?

Because both is titan blood and minuscule amounts of it can create power batteries that pretty much never run out of power, when people hold Azerite in their hands they can feel overwhelming power, even believing they can ascend to something akin to godhood with it, yet when the stuff is actually used it is hardly more potent than black powder.

Again, you have to assume there were precautions to take - and there might not have been. I'd agree it was rash, but Sylvanas had also just torched the home of the Night Elves and killed a majority of their kind, so some rashness is also probably understandable as well.

You don't attack an enemy you know has a weapon that could potentially wipe out your entire army, unless you have a counter to it. It is just that simple, anything else is suicidal lunacy.

[Aucald]

Dude, please, we were arguing about this the second that was datamined and I explained at length even then why this was unnecessary retardation, and I did this when the only aspect that was missing was the method, not the premise, hence why I won't bother with a new response to the first part of your reply, as I already answered it months ago. I attacked the premise even then and I attacked it knowing its conclusion - namely nothing. Here's a refresher.

You kind of complain about everything, though; so that's not really going to stand out in any real sense. I do see I basically predicted a version of what actually happened though - a surprise attack by the Jailer's agents basically materializing out of nowhere. I just picked the wrong agents. The whole "why not just kill them" thing was already asked and answered, though.

Nothing has changed in the premise that has made it more worthwhile in the interim, so now we can add attacking the method to the roster. The method this is done is cheap and while definitely quite funny makes those people dumb, the villains for reasons already described. As for the heroes, are you seriously telling me that the King of Stormwind going completely unguarded or Jaina 'I can take on the guys who killed a Titan' Proudmoore can't take two guys? Because I can log to Stormwind right now and see the gryphons. This plot point was already poor and it failed to justify itself in its execution.

The gryphon thing's already been mentioned, and I really doubt the swiss-cheese gryphon defense (itself far from foolproof, as demonstrated by the Stormwind Extraction) is going to stop Mawsworn Val'kyr from doing what they'd come to do. Like I said above, I don't think Anduin is going to surround himself in a retinue of guards prepped for attack in the heart of his own city after peace with the Horde had just been achieved, especially not to visit his father's memorial. He had Genn with him, after all; though Genn's not going to be able to do much against an entirely unexpected enemy attacking from the air that was able to just materialize in the heart of Stormwind. So yes, I guess I am seriously telling you that? Not sure why I need to, though.

[Darknessvamp]

To be fair Anduin should really have been more guarded in Stormwind, this city has literally had a dragon come out of nowhere and burn it with no defense against that happening in the past before going on to fuck up the world just by flying. The idea that they have not even conceived or created some form of minor resistance to mitigate a similar or lesser aerial force attacking or such occurrence again is ludicrous. Not to mention Anduin should be well aware of things that can come flying down and fucking up your life cause of his history.

But I guess Shaw literally being too busy sucking to provide a proper guard is enough of a handwave. /s And he still keeps his position...

[Aucald]

Because both is titan blood and minuscule amounts of it can create power batteries that pretty much never run out of power, when people hold Azerite in their hands they can feel overwhelming power, even believing they can ascend to something akin to godhood with it, yet when the stuff is actually used it is hardly more potent than black powder.

It's manifestly not the same substance and doesn't have nearly the same power, so that's neither here nor there. As for the "why" of it I can't say, so I can only chalk it up to a quirk of Titan physiology of something. Beyond speculating, you could just go to Twitter and ask I suppose? I don't have an answer for that beyond "it's just not the same."

You don't attack an enemy you know has a weapon that could potentially wipe out your entire army, unless you have a counter to it. It is just that simply, anything else is suicidal lunacy.

It doesn't wipe their entire army out, though, it only forces a retreat from the field. Their army's just fine, as it ends up - and Jaina's arrival to the field allows them to resume their advance.

[Super Dickmann]

You kind of complain about everything, though; so that's not really going to stand out in any real sense. I do see I basically predicted a version of what actually happened though - a surprise attack by the Jailer's agents basically materializing out of nowhere. I just picked the wrong agents. The whole "why not just kill them" thing was already asked and answered, though.

Predicting the means doesn't make the means better. The 'why not just kill them' point has never been satisfactorily answered and can't be in a Watsonian sense - only from a plot perspective in the sense of us having to rescue them consequence free, having them seemingly raise the stakes earlier to not go there. I already provided a constructive alternative in that same topic that would preserve the core of the plot beat they're going for, so you can't even complain about the other posters, though I'm not surprised you've pivoted to a personal attack given how piss weak your position is, since as you can plainly see in this thread just about everyone else, regardless of factional bias have brought up virtually the same points as to why this is nonsense.

The gryphon thing's already been mentioned, and I really doubt the swiss-cheese gryphon defense (itself far from foolproof, as demonstrated by the Stormwind Extraction) is going to stop Mawsworn Val'kyr from doing what they'd come to do. Like I said above, I don't think Anduin is going to surround himself in a retinue of guards prepped for attack in the heart of his own city after peace with the Horde had just been achieved, especially not to visit his father's memorial. He had Genn with him, after all; though Genn's not going to be able to do much against an entirely unexpected enemy attacking from the air that was able to just materialize in the heart of Stormwind. So yes, I guess I am seriously telling you that? Not sure why I need to, though.

The President doesn't go anywhere without the secret service and he doesn't live in a world where people can quite literally go invisible and stab him and where the top prison has been broken out of and infiltrated every other year and the capital has been torched by a firebreathing dragon. The King of Stormwind being unguarded is not at all serious and ditto there being no one on alert in that very moment. It also isn't like this wouldn't be equally as easy to solve - just have a shot of the gryphons flying in only to be blasted by the Mawsworn or phased through or what have you, then we also get a cool visual and allay this issue. It isn't that hard. There's no reason to defend something mediocre when the means to not have it be so require barely any effort.

[Combatbulter]

It's manifestly not the same substance and doesn't have nearly the same power, so that's neither here nor there. As for the "why" of it I can't say, so I can only chalk it up to a quirk of Titan physiology of something. Beyond speculating, you could just go to Twitter and ask I suppose? I don't have an answer for that beyond "it's just not the same."

I can give you a definite answer, blizz did not clarify the whole thing as they should have done from the get go, why is this titan blood so weak nobody knows and nobody can know for certain, because the story never explained crucial details of the power-source pretty much the entire expansion revolved around, because blizz sucks incredibly with details.

It doesn't wipe their entire army out, though, it only forces a retreat from the field. Their army's just fine, as it ends up - and Jaina's arrival to the field allows them to resume their advance.

Doesn't matter in the slightest, it is the potential danger that is important. Jaina was not part of the plan and Anduin literally said jep it is game over, meaning his entire assault is a tactical joke and he had no way to deal with the blight, meaning the assault in that form should have never ever happened. If you cannot overcome the weapon of an enemy you do not throw people at it in the hopes it goes away, unless you have so many people your enemy will run out of munitions. You can either counter it or use a similar weapon, which might force both sides in a stalemate of mutual destruction.

[BaumanKing]

Turalyon and Alleria, please fix this mess that Anduin left behind!

These sadists will only make things worse. Expect a military dictatorship in Stormwind.

[Varodoc]

These sadists will only make things worse. Expect a military dictatorship in Stormwind.

The many should serve the few. Order, law, peace.

[masterjc]

tbh, I think, that Genn should have saved Anduin. Old Wolf regrets that his son sacrificed himself to save him, so he could have nice moment, sacrificing himself for Boy King, to him he has Fatherly feelings. He could have died in Toghast. and Anduin would change more for Fanaticism of Holy Light and Turalyon would serve as new advisor for him. not as same fatherly figure as Varian or Genn had been, and it would make him more depressed. idk

now he will be absurdly saved from Thorgast in Patch 9.1 (we all know how much Blizzard sucks at delivering good story in patches x.1 and x.2, with only exception MoP).

he will be horrified by what he saw there and wont remember it in a day or two

[tommyhil622]

Is it too much to ask to have like 4 or 5 mawsworn come in flank some guardsmen and then do the all powerful chain thing to capture Anduin?

Lets be honest here, the cinematic is silly and requires a great deal of extraneous explanation/headcanon to make it work.

In the end they didnt put enough effort in the cinematic to make it believeable.

Additionally

I did laugh at Greymane, he reminds me of some bad acting from the orginal resident evil 1 live action cinematic. When the helicopter pilot abandoned his teamates and one of them says "don't go!" Barely raises his arm in protest.

https://youtu.be/PlW-mJusq0g

[Aucald]

I can give you a definite answer, blizz did not clarify the whole thing as they should have done from the get go, why is this titan blood so weak nobody knows and nobody can know for certain, because the story never explained crucial details of the power-source pretty much the entire expansion revolved around, because blizz sucks incredibly with details.

Well, I'd argue we kind of moved on from the whole Azerite thing - it was the spark the started the war, but it's definitely not what it came to be about nor was it a salient factor for most of the fighting, it was a distant B-plot in BfA if anything. I always assumed that the Well of Eternity was a concentrated wound bleeding off what was the equivalent of Titanic stem cells - potent and primordial forces that were coalesced in a single point of overwhelming power. Azerite, by contrast, was more diffuse as evidenced by it popping up practically everywhere all at once. If the Well of Eternity was like the Titan's heart-blood, then Azerite was more akin to its flop sweat as Gorribal was killing it. Different stuff, different effects and power level. Make of that what you will.

Doesn't matter in the slightest, it is the potential danger that is important. Jaina was not part of the plan and Anduin literally said jep it is game over, meaning his entire assault is a tactical joke and he had no way to deal with the blight, meaning the assault in that form should have never ever happened. If you cannot overcome the weapon of an enemy you do not throw people at it in the hopes it goes away, unless you have so many people your enemy will run out of munitions. You can either counter it or use a similar weapon, which might force both sides in a stalemate of mutual destruction.

The Alliance has airships, if a ground assault failed because of the Blight Anduin could've just as easily called in the air support to bombard Undercity from above. Jaina showed up at the 11th hour and made that unnecessary, though. Again, the Blight didn't really kill the Alliance in any great numbers, either. Just forced a retreat from the field and ended their ground assault for a time. Could you call it a tactical blunder? Sure, I suppose; Anduin should've known that Sylvanas wouldn't care a whit for her own forces - but he's also naïve and idealistic, so that was realistic enough for him as a character. Anduin always underestimates what lengths tyrants and the truly evil are willing to go for power or victory, it's kind of what makes him Anduin.

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Predicting the means doesn't make the means better. The 'why not just kill them' point has never been satisfactorily answered and can't be in a Watsonian sense - only from a plot perspective in the sense of us having to rescue them consequence free, having them seemingly raise the stakes earlier to not go there. I already provided a constructive alternative in that same topic that would preserve the core of the plot beat they're going for, so you can't even complain about the other posters, though I'm not surprised you've pivoted to a personal attack given how piss weak your position is, since as you can plainly see in this thread just about everyone else, regardless of factional bias have brought up virtually the same points as to why this is nonsense.

I don't think it ever could be satisfactorily answered for you, but that's neither here nor there really. I mean your construction is fine, don't get me wrong, it's just not necessary and you still haven't satisfactorily explained to me *why* the current one is bad outside of repeatedly saying things like "I don't like it" or "it's piss-weak" without any form of elaboration. And that's pretty much the same refrain that been repeated over and over in this thread - "it's lame," or "it's weak," or variations of "I hate it" without any real substance, like repeating the refrain will somehow make it truer than it is. I've explained multiple times now how it could happen, and why it happened, and also rationalized all the points where it is supposedly "impossible." So it all hinges on the question of why they were taken alive, and I don't have an answer to that yet, because it remains to be told (if it's going to be told). You're damning an entire story on its preamble here - and I'm telling you to get past at least the first chapter before pronouncing it dead. I guess we'll see how it ultimately pans out. Although I suspect you've already come to a conclusion here, and aren't really going to give it a chance either way - you'll be elated if it fails, and sulk if it doesn't.

The President doesn't go anywhere without the secret service and he doesn't live in a world where people can quite literally go invisible and stab him and where the top prison has been broken out of and infiltrated every other year and the capital has been torched by a firebreathing dragon. The King of Stormwind being unguarded is not at all serious and ditto there being no one on alert in that very moment. It also isn't like this wouldn't be equally as easy to solve - just have a shot of the gryphons flying in only to be blasted by the Mawsworn or phased through or what have you, then we also get a cool visual and allay this issue. It isn't that hard. There's no reason to defend something mediocre when the means to not have it be so require barely any effort.

Neither the Horde nor the Alliance have ever had a secret service analogue, so why would they suddenly have one now - that's a terrible comparison and relies on something that hasn't existed beforehand. Genn was also with Anduin, even though Anduin was obviously on a personal visit to his father's memorial. Not to mention that in Shadows Rising Anduin already has a predilection for sneaking off without guards of any kind. I'd agree having the Mawsworn dispose of a few gryphons would've also been cool, but again, it's not strictly necessary - it's a sketched sequence in any case. If this were some kind of major cinematic I might grumble as well, but it's really not and I think you're putting *way* more weight on it than is strictly necessary. Not the hill I'm going to die on, though - it wasn't a great cutscene, either.

[Ilyiana]

why does this forum NEED to make everything sylvanas does now into a problem? why was it not an issue when taran zhu survived an axe clean into his chest for hours? why was it not an issue when genn survived that poisoned arrow to the heart? why was it not an issue when bolvar fordragon survived getting totally smoked by alexstrasza? why was it not an issue when muradin was suddenly alive after all? but two guys from the literal afterlife using ancient death magic that's capable of insta-killing saurfang show up, kidnap anduin in a matter of seconds because it's a surprise attack, and THAT'S the straw that breaks the camel's back?

i don't remember seeing hundreds of pages of forum tirades against any of these total inconsistencies with power level/time/character survival. none. this is embarrassing at this point. and if you're still going to whine about her being a mary sue, i'm sorry, her path to power is almost identical to arthas. if you're going to criticize her path to power, you must criticize arthas's as well. character finds a powerful relic/val'kyr placed there by a person more powerful than they. character betrays allies. character kills a ton of people and steals their souls for power. character reveals ultimate betrayal of homeland. character teams up/fuses with powerful deity. character proceeds to wreak havoc. it's literally the same trajectory. if it wasn't a problem for you that the scourge snuck plagued grain into capitals completely unchecked before wrath, it can't be an issue for you that two flying *dudes from the afterlife* are able to kidnap someone in a matter of seconds. they're both surprise attacks, they're both covert ops, they both succeed. be consistent.

edit: also i'm going to add that people getting wildly powerful just is warcraft. like, i enjoy the sylvanas character, but i'm happy to acknowledge she got super silly buff in a short amount of time. that's just warcraft. there's a silly power creep in this franchise for every single character. it's been like that since wc2 and it's definitely like that in wc3. you either accept that about the franchise or you don't. to only get mad about it once it starts happening to sylvanas is a bit silly. every character in the head cast of wow is guilty of this.

[bagina]

I spent 1000 hours on this

...

I blame Christie Golden and that cursed, abominable quote from BtS:

In fact, until Vol’jin, all warchiefs had been orcs. And until Sylvanas, they all had been members of the original founding races. And male. Sylvanas had changed all that, and she was proud of it

This made some people think Sylvanas is some exercise in girl power and feminism, it became an easy excuse for complaining about Sylvanas and calling her writer's pet or a Mary Sue...

[Super Dickmann]

I don't think it ever could be satisfactorily answered for you, but that's neither here nor there really. I mean your construction is fine, don't get me wrong, it's just not necessary and you still haven't satisfactorily explained to me *why* the current one is bad outside of repeatedly saying things like "I don't like it" or "it's piss-weak" without any form of elaboration. And that's pretty much the same refrain that been repeated over and over in this thread - "it's lame," or "it's weak," or variations of "I hate it" without any real substance, like repeating the refrain will somehow make it truer than it is. I've explained multiple times now how it could happen, and why it happened, and also rationalized all the points where it is supposedly "impossible." So it all hinges on the question of why they were taken alive, and I don't have an answer to that yet, because it remains to be told (if it's going to be told). You're damning an entire story on its preamble here - and I'm telling you to get past at least the first chapter before pronouncing it dead. I guess we'll see how it ultimately pans out. Although I suspect you've already come to a conclusion here, and aren't really going to give it a chance either way - you'll be elated if it fails, and sulk if it doesn't.

The faultiness of the premise has been explained to you multiple times by just about every poster in this thread after the cinematic came out and several in the topic I linked well before. I'll do it once more because of my crippling addiction to wasting my own time and then leave it at that, because all minutiae has already been covered by just about everyone who's engaged you on this up to now or by you and I - here or in the previous thread. Here's how it fails, step by step :

1. The abduction as a whole is useless no matter how you look at it. On a Watsonian level, the purpose of baiting the Horde and Alliance into the Shadowlands, then the giant hole in the sky should be grounds enough for them to do so as Bolvar would rally them regardless of the abductions. From a Doylist level, you could still get these characters into the Shadowlands by simply having them be part of the vanguard, this also makes them proactive and heroic in going after the problem after sensing it rather than being damsels. But...

2. Suppose the abduction wasn't useless and was in fact necessary. On a Watsonian level, the Jailor's whole MO is the conversion of souls into being his tools through torture and he has full control of the afterlife, anyone killed can go there. Furthermore, no one can observe whether after being taken, those abducted are alive or dead - Sylvanas isn't streaming hostage videos. Ergo, assuming abduction was necessary, abducting them visibly and then killing them secures the most benefit for the villains and is the most logical course of action and they are in-story discredited. It's up to the out of universe reasoning to make it pay off. On a Doylist level, this is done to raise the stakes and give us a personal reason to go to the Shadowlands because it is assumed we want to get Anduin because we're masochists. It also builds up the villain as powerful for abducting these characters, ergo, for it to work both the method must check out and the plotline produced must have pay off, hence why the following two are solely Doylist.

3. The abduction is what gets us onto the story. I will say that it was a very funny cinematic, but as we can tell from just about every platform where it's discussed where that's also the opinion it doesn't convincingly make us think that the villain is threatening. This is because the villain's victory is extremely quick and unearned and the characters either have their abduction take place off-screen (understandable so you don't repeat the same sequence over and over) or for the one on-screen example we do see, put up no resistance despite the protection they should have and their combat prowess. Instead of showing the villain as competent and dangerous and the heroes as heroic, it shows the villain's success as unearned and the heroes as dopes. This isn't a dealbreaker by itself, because as you note, it could lead into other stories, which gets us into the last point.

4. There is no actual follow-up to this that required the abduction. Contrary to what you say, the first time we discussed this we already knew how this would go ergo that we would free the named characters from the Maw in the base release, before any expansions. This compounds every issue up to now on top of creating its own - it compounds the illogic of the baddies and makes them look stupid when they could have easily solved this issue for themselves yet didn't do so for no reason, the figleaf of them having a plan which is why they do it is gone, as the story has now concluded and no plan or explanation has materialized. It retroactively nullifies the impact of the abduction itself by making it be consequence-free for all participants save for Anduin, and when it comes to Anduin, it makes his capture even more cheap because it was clearly the only one that was meant to last longer and given the tete-a-tete with the Jailor we'll get soon, I struggle to believe they couldn't have got him there some other way.

In closing, for the effort of ignoring all the issues up to this point, we've not ended up with anything meaningful - you could cut their journey to the Maw entirely and have them instead show up at Oribos and lose nothing in terms of characterization while making the Maw appear far more threatening by not having Jaina be only delayed because of a Sisyphus trap or both Thrall and Baine bravely able to take scores of them in their home turf.

P.S: Since I didn't cover it earlier - Sylvanas has Dark Rangers, the Warchiefs traditionally have Kor'kron they travel with, Stormwind not only has aerial forces on hand, but Anduin himself is meant to be watched by SI:7 and Genn is right there with him. The second to last part at least gets a shout out from Shaw though, so I'll let that slide.

@bagina

You have greatly improved my life with that picture.