What broke the machine of death, I think I solved it.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

If anyone want a quick reminder of how time works in Shadowlands then here's the interview:



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Also this interview about the Machine of Death:


All it says is "Legion timeframe" and that Sylvanus "recognized and had a hand in".

[Yayeet]

didnt we kill a titan?

A titan soul is probably a shitload of soul-energy. That would definitly upset the balance a bit too.

Actually they used the soul of Argus to bring back Sargeras, so they consumed it. It never got to the shadowlands to begin with.

Not to mention the titans are not mortal beings, they are immortal, they can lose their physical forms but they don't lose their essence (or eternal ish form).

[Crillam]

The Legion chronology needs to be cleared up a bit.

So we have Ysera arriving in Ardenweald as "one of the last souls" freshly as we quest through the zone.

At the same time we have Ursoc being there BEFORE the drought started but he also died AFTER Ysera in the actual game.
The only explanation for this would be that the Emerald Nightmare raid happened BEFORE the ending of the Val'sharah storyline, but that is simply impossible as Xavius had to be alive for Ysera's corruption and we deal with him in the raid, not to even mention that we see Ysera's "ghost" at the end of the raid in the Emerald Dream.

So Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald way before the drought even started simply does not make sense with the rest of the continuity.

Also, there needs to be an official confirmation about the order the Broken Shore zones happened in the actual story.
Did Stormheim happen before or after Ysera's death? Even if they happened at the same time, did the lantern break before or after her death?

The fact that the Broken Shore has no official chronology makes it impossible to theorize what exactly happeend that broke Death.

I think that in the Ardenweald main story they tell you that they have done pretty much everything to keep Yseras "egg" alive. Every anima they could spare they gave to her. She did arrive before Ursoc and was being kept alive while they sadly had to saccrefice Ursoc.

[Kokolums]

This thread just reminds me how mangled the lore is and how little I care about the Jailer, Arbiter or any character introduced in Shadowlands.

[Usernameforforums]

The Legion chronology needs to be cleared up a bit.

So we have Ysera arriving in Ardenweald as "one of the last souls" freshly as we quest through the zone.

At the same time we have Ursoc being there BEFORE the drought started but he also died AFTER Ysera in the actual game.
The only explanation for this would be that the Emerald Nightmare raid happened BEFORE the ending of the Val'sharah storyline, but that is simply impossible as Xavius had to be alive for Ysera's corruption and we deal with him in the raid, not to even mention that we see Ysera's "ghost" at the end of the raid in the Emerald Dream.

So Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald way before the drought even started simply does not make sense with the rest of the continuity.

Also, there needs to be an official confirmation about the order the Broken Shore zones happened in the actual story.
Did Stormheim happen before or after Ysera's death? Even if they happened at the same time, did the lantern break before or after her death?

The fact that the Broken Shore has no official chronology makes it impossible to theorize what exactly happeend that broke Death.

We found red shirt guy

[baskev]

I had a sudden thought after watching Afterlives: Ardenweald, and it would not get out of my head.

So I have spent the better part of then until now going over everything I could find to see if I was wrong, and I cannot disprove this, but it makes total sense.

What broke the machine of death? seeing Ursocs death narrows our timeline extremely, to the point where I think there is only one possible cause that lines up.

The Defeat of Helya.

What we know, is that Hellhiem and the Halls of Valor were made almost pocket dimensions. made by Helya herself as a place for the Vykrul souls to go after they die. those deemed worthy went to Odyn. Helya took the unworthy. effectively keeping all those souls, that Anima away from the shadowlands.

Sylvanas makes a deal with Helya, one we do not know the details of, but we know at that point she was working for the Jailer. from what we have seen in beta, the Maw has been effectively staved of any Anima, the reason being to keep the Jailer imprisoned.

Helya is defeated, what happens to all the souls she was keeping in Hellhiem? that energy, that Anima.... goes to the maw, effectively jump starting it, giving it the power to push and gain control. allowing the jailer to empower those working for him to act and put plans into motion.

Thoughts? comments? did I miss something? do you have something else to add?

i think the constant war on azoroth did. All the dead that the scourge brought overwhelmed the machine of death and broke a bit of the chains on the jailor.

Or....maybe. so crazy ass undead women threw herself to her death, but meets up with the jailor. who both want freedom, eternal life and brake free. So threw some deals in shadowland some of the many factions join the jailor and sent all the power to the jailor and by the time someone noticed it was to late. Because of the constant stream of death that over powered the jailor....oohhh wait the last part what has been said pretty much .


Jailor made a deal with syllyundeadwomen
In shadowlands , pretty much each of the zones ( quests you can see so far) has a corrupt person in power or working against the zone and for the jailor.
on azoroth wars rage like no other. And keep feeding the machine of death. That because of the corruption send all the power to the jailor.

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The Legion chronology needs to be cleared up a bit.

So we have Ysera arriving in Ardenweald as "one of the last souls" freshly as we quest through the zone.

At the same time we have Ursoc being there BEFORE the drought started but he also died AFTER Ysera in the actual game.
The only explanation for this would be that the Emerald Nightmare raid happened BEFORE the ending of the Val'sharah storyline, but that is simply impossible as Xavius had to be alive for Ysera's corruption and we deal with him in the raid, not to even mention that we see Ysera's "ghost" at the end of the raid in the Emerald Dream.

So Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald way before the drought even started simply does not make sense with the rest of the continuity.

Also, there needs to be an official confirmation about the order the Broken Shore zones happened in the actual story.
Did Stormheim happen before or after Ysera's death? Even if they happened at the same time, did the lantern break before or after her death?

The fact that the Broken Shore has no official chronology makes it impossible to theorize what exactly happeend that broke Death.

On the ursoc part: You said it yourself...ysera was "one of the last soulds" . Not THE Last soul, or the VERY LAST soul. Just 1 of the last soulS as in multiple souls.


I think the zones happen in level order. So ysera's death was first, then the lantern.


And what broke death, hmmm if you look at the lore from beta streams. Many of the zones have corrupted people there who funnel anima to the jailor. Jailor worked with sylvannas since icc. And since icc there has been almost constant mass death.
a cataclysm, faction war in pandaria, all the klaxxi stuff and mogu stuff there. Then we got all the death on AU dreanor, legion killing masses of people. Including powerfull ones ( who i think are worth more anima?), legion dying on mass. The all the deaths in the 4th war.....So i think it broke because all the power went to 1 dude.

[Selastan]

I don't think it was necessarily something we have seen. Something happened with Sylvanas, Helya, and Odyn off-screen.

[enigma77]

It's a solid theory.

Personally I'm inclined to think it was the death of Argus.

Where do dead Titans go? The Shadowlands I suppose. And man a Titan's soul somehow ending up in the Maw might be bad news.

Keep in mind that the Jailer tells us he's after Azeroth too. So he obviously knows about the Titans and is interested in them.

[scrappybristol]

It's a solid theory.

Personally I'm inclined to think it was the death of Argus.

Where do dead Titans go? The Shadowlands I suppose. And man a Titan's soul somehow ending up in the Maw might be bad news.

Keep in mind that the Jailer tells us he's after Azeroth too. So he obviously knows about the Titans and is interested in them.

it's a nice theory and might be true but according to the wowpedia, the titans combined the last of Argus' power with theirs to imprison Sargeras.

I would bet that they also plucked his soul from the twisting nether to attempt to heal it.

Personally I bet whatever broke Death is something that happened off camera and revolves around whatever deal Sylvanas struck with Helya

[Very rare pepe]

I think Bolvar broke it, I think he figured something out at some point during legion or just before and decided to break the machine of death.
I can't really explain it as I suck at explaining it but I feel like it was him.

[Siraeyou]

A couple of things to keep in mind:

Time flows differently in the Shadowlands than it does on Azeroth, so when we look at things like Ysera & Ursoc dying, from a timeline perspective, it's not necessarily analogous to their specific events in Ardenweald. Also, in terms of the time between their deaths in our world, it doesn't necessarily have to be a long time in between; in terms of canon, the Emerald Nightmare could have taken place shortly after Ysera's death in Valsharah. Indeed, if your particular character finishes leveling in Valsharah, you could theoretically step right into EN (assuming I am not missing anything from the story, it's been 4 years since I ran it from the jump).

My theory on what actually broke the engine was prompted by the Bastion short. Look at this timeline:

Before Uther's death, the Kyrians are unaware of any odd things happening.
Uther goes to Bastion, and after a while (the time between WC3TFT & WOTLK) at least one Kyrian realizes something is fishy.
Arthas dies, and is dumped into the Maw, sidestepping the normal flow of death. I am going to guess that this sparks an awakening in the Jailer; but to be honest I don't know how relevant a single soul is to either the Arbiter or the Jailer.
Sylvanas commits suicide, and experiences the Maw, or something akin to it. She is saved by the Valkyr, and they make her immortal.
Sometime between the Cataclysm and Legion, she strikes a deal with the Jailer, which leads to Vol'jin's vision and her rise to Warchief. She then begins her machinations that we see in Legion and BfA.

I am guessing that she is playing the Jailer; using him for her ends but making him believe they share a common goal.

*I am aware I may be wrong or missing/forgetting things.

I'm still almost entirely convinced they're gonna pull a Kerrigan with Sylvanas and use her to defeat and take on the role of a not intrinsically evil jailer, which to me is bullshit since she's spent the last couple expansion literally being the mustache twirling villain.

[formerShandalay]

I think something happened shortly before Odyn sent the players to kill Helya and that was the point I think things started to go seriously wrong.
During leveling we saw Helya had to comply with the 'rules' of the deal that kept Odyn confined to his Halls and kept her from taking the actually valorous souls that were as part of some unknown deal his. Rules that can be identified: Odyn can't leave his Halls (at least not in his actual form and not with his actual powers, which is why he has to resort to taking the form of a normal vrykul and can't do much apart from talking to the hero), Odyn gets the valorous souls, Helya gets the 'unworthy'.
We see that they are somewhat bound to this in the questline, when Helya intends to keep us and Ashild in Helheim, even though we passed her 'test' and she just can't, we get taken out of there.

But later, in patch 7.1 after the EN raid, we get sent on an investigation (a new questline in that patch) because something is up and we find out that Helya suddenly can even steal souls from Odyn that were already Valarjar. She does not have to comply with the rules anymore. This is the point were Odyn sends us to 'kill' her.
So something is already broken at that point, which makes this possible for Helya.

The timeline would be: Ysera dies in Val'sharah gets placed in Ardenweald directly by Elune (one of the last souls to get there, not the last soul to get there) -> Emerald Nightmare gets raided and Ursoc goes to Ardenweald -> machine of death breaks (for unknown reasons as of yet), Jailer starts gaining power -> Helya can start stealing Valarjar souls -> Helya gets killed, drought happens, Shadowlands start dying, Jailer gets more and more souls and gains more power, can now start sharing it with Sylvanas and... feedback loop. More power for Sylvanas, more deaths, even more power for the Jailer, more power for Sylvanas.... etc.


Or:
Val'sharah happens, Sylvanas and Helya work with the Jailer to get around the 'rules' placed upon Helya (their deal) -> EN raid happens (nice distraction for Sylvanas and Helya to snatch lots of souls from Odyn) -> Odyn finally catches on, Helya gets killed, machine of death breaks -> all souls go to the Jailer, Jailer gains power, Shadowlands suffer from drought, Jailer's allies get empowered..... etc.

[1know]

Yo mama broke it, her ass was so big it got stuck in Oribos and clogged the way

[Brash]

Did anyone stop to think that just because ysera was there first doesnt mean she has to wither away first? She could have been in the central grove that they were trying to save by consuming the other grove's anima.

[Edlarel]

Somebody here mentioned that Bwonsambdi was able to save souls from the Maw and place them in The Other Side later. Maybe Ysera didn't immediately go to Ardenweald? When Elune turned her into a constellation, she may have held onto the dragon's spirit until after the events of EN. That would line up well.

It was Elune who broke Death! Dun Dun Dun!

[Nachtigal]

The Legion chronology needs to be cleared up a bit.

So we have Ysera arriving in Ardenweald as "one of the last souls" freshly as we quest through the zone.

At the same time we have Ursoc being there BEFORE the drought started but he also died AFTER Ysera in the actual game.
The only explanation for this would be that the Emerald Nightmare raid happened BEFORE the ending of the Val'sharah storyline, but that is simply impossible as Xavius had to be alive for Ysera's corruption and we deal with him in the raid, not to even mention that we see Ysera's "ghost" at the end of the raid in the Emerald Dream.

So Ursoc arriving in Ardenweald way before the drought even started simply does not make sense with the rest of the continuity.

Also, there needs to be an official confirmation about the order the Broken Shore zones happened in the actual story.
Did Stormheim happen before or after Ysera's death? Even if they happened at the same time, did the lantern break before or after her death?

The fact that the Broken Shore has no official chronology makes it impossible to theorize what exactly happeend that broke Death.

Speaking of Ysera’s ghost, did we ever find out why she was walking towards the cave with the evil flower in it?

[formerShandalay]

Somebody here mentioned that Bwonsambdi was able to save souls from the Maw and place them in The Other Side later. Maybe Ysera didn't immediately go to Ardenweald? When Elune turned her into a constellation, she may have held onto the dragon's spirit until after the events of EN. That would line up well.

It was Elune who broke Death! Dun Dun Dun!

Honestly even though I'm a huge Nightelf fan and Elune fan myself, I have been thinking about this too.
My over-all theory about this is that the 'rules' of the cosmos were placed upon it, so the mightiest beings like Elune, like the Jailer et al., like maybe a Sun-God (I still think there must be one ^^), the void lords and all of this what-have-you, cannot simply impose their will upon the beings living within the cosmos. So some of them got together (not the Jailer, at least in my opinion he'd be more the kind of guy that wanted to hold on to his power, which is also why he says he was 'betrayed') and formed a cosmos that follows certain rules, ensuring that no power can run rampant in it, simply because it has the power to and the inhabitants get to actually act of their own free will. They also limited their own power within the cosmos by doing this, of course. All of the entities that exist outside actual reality need to act 'by proxy' if you so will, they can make deals with the inhabitants, granting them power or giving favors in exchange for ...something (personal sacrifice would be one such thing, like the priestess in Darnassus staying with her people and only asking for a merciful death, not rescue, which Elune granted), they can send avatars maybe (still with limited power, like the void lords sent the Old Gods), but they must never simply break the rules and use their power to circumvent the 'regulations' put in place (like the Arbiter, for example).
So... maybe taking Ysera directly to Ardenweald, bypassing the Arbiter and thus, breaking the 'rules', did actually break the machine.

But! Although I think my theory about limiting power in favor of granting free will is true, I think the timeline with breaking the machine doesn't add up and also I simply hope Elune isn't to blame

[Hitei]

Speaking of Ysera’s ghost, did we ever find out why she was walking towards the cave with the evil flower in it?

One would imagine it was a warning to make players aware that there were still lingering connections to the void.

[Shedaar]

A couple of things to keep in mind:

Time flows differently in the Shadowlands than it does on Azeroth, so when we look at things like Ysera & Ursoc dying, from a timeline perspective, it's not necessarily analogous to their specific events in Ardenweald. Also, in terms of the time between their deaths in our world, it doesn't necessarily have to be a long time in between; in terms of canon, the Emerald Nightmare could have taken place shortly after Ysera's death in Valsharah. Indeed, if your particular character finishes leveling in Valsharah, you could theoretically step right into EN (assuming I am not missing anything from the story, it's been 4 years since I ran it from the jump).

My theory on what actually broke the engine was prompted by the Bastion short. Look at this timeline:

Before Uther's death, the Kyrians are unaware of any odd things happening.
Uther goes to Bastion, and after a while (the time between WC3TFT & WOTLK) at least one Kyrian realizes something is fishy.
Arthas dies, and is dumped into the Maw, sidestepping the normal flow of death. I am going to guess that this sparks an awakening in the Jailer; but to be honest I don't know how relevant a single soul is to either the Arbiter or the Jailer.
Sylvanas commits suicide, and experiences the Maw, or something akin to it. She is saved by the Valkyr, and they make her immortal.
Sometime between the Cataclysm and Legion, she strikes a deal with the Jailer, which leads to Vol'jin's vision and her rise to Warchief. She then begins her machinations that we see in Legion and BfA.

I am guessing that she is playing the Jailer; using him for her ends but making him believe they share a common goal.

*I am aware I may be wrong or missing/forgetting things.

This is the first thing that actually makes sense for me
Too good and smart to be true tho, we all know blizz writers are far below this lvl

[Niwes]

is this one of those threads, when ppl unpack complex lore stuff and huge interpretation and speculation about the secret genius story behind next xpac, before they realize, its just another simple obvious standard story, bc Blizz is still the same conservative company and do ofc the same story things in the 8th xpac, they did 7 xpacs before ?

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This is the first thing that actually makes sense for me
Too good and smart to be true tho, we all know blizz writers are far below this lvl

ok, you were a bit more direct than me, with „far below this lvl“, but you hit the point.