If souls are stolen by the Shadowlands, what about wisps?

[Vampire Communism]

We see wisps in Night Elf zones, and they are the souls of dead Night Elves. How do they manage to stay behind on Azeroth?

[Pendragon]

Good question. I also wonder how Blizzard will explain all the other ghosts in the game.

[Temp name]

Elune probably captures them before they depart to the shadowlands, but I don't think we've gotten a lore explanation

[Kumorii]

Could just be the natural cycle of Night Elves... sort of like caterpillar -> cocoon -> butterfly.

Night Elf -> Wisp -> shadowlands.

[froschhure]

Wisps should be empowered by Elune.

[shuubu]

Look, a wizard did it. Ok?

[Dead Moose Fandango]

I figure wisps are the spirits with a stronger link to the living world. Same with ghosts. So they haven't been pulled to the shadowlands as of yet.

[Magicon]

Most ghosts of non elves are lingering in our world mostly because of curses.

[MeTaL GuArD]

Maybe Bastion is overworked and there's a "queue" of ghosts hanging around Azeroth until a Kyrian gets them. Position in queue: 9341

[Vampire Communism]

Maybe Bastion is overworked and there's a "queue" of ghosts hanging around Azeroth until a Kyrian gets them. Position in queue: 9341

Only for Night Elves?

[Bramickias]

Wisps were created in ancient times, by powerfull godlike beings, at the same time as the creation of Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos happenned.
They're remnants from a long forgotten time, before there was a Shadowland and therefore don't have to obey the same rules. But worry not my firend, as the Great Retcon will come for them at some point, as it does for every piece of lore.

[Krothar]

Honestly when Blizzard made Night Elves corpse run a Wisp I doubt they ever had any intention of their being a Shadowlands.

I imagine the explanation now will be along of the lines that not all Wisps are specifically dead Night Elves or some such.

We've seen spirits of other races remain on Azeroth but it is usually due to them being tormented before death or a strong desire to see a last objective completed so it might tie into that.

[McNeil]

I always found it funny that in WC3 you ''train'' these wisps from your Tree of Life and then force them to sacrifice themselves to make another building or to harvest gold and lumber. Even when they are dead they were still working for their people.

[Moromiro]

Great question. I think its wise not to think of all the crazy loopholes and time-travel paradoxes in this mess of a story.. just play and dont think������������������

[rayvio]

Elune probably captures them before they depart to the shadowlands, but I don't think we've gotten a lore explanation

it would certainly explain why we see so many more elf ghosts than any other race. we did that happen on Draenor after all with the orcs

[SoundOfGuns]

There are a lot of logical issues here. A lot of Ghosts show up at times the story implies they couldn't.

I also don't know what exactly is going on with Uther here. He is in the Shadowlands since his death but also in Frostmourne and also on his grave...

[Huntaer]

Looks like something for the red shirt guy

- - - Updated - - -

There are a lot of logical issues here. A lot of Ghosts show up at times the story implies they couldn't.

I also don't know what exactly is going on with Uther here. He is in the Shadowlands since his death but also in Frostmourne and also on his grave...

Well when Uther died, his soul was split in half. Look closely in the afterlife cinematic, you see it happening. One half goes to the shadowlands, the other half into frostmourne.

[Thundering]

world of random retcons

[Hitei]

world of random retcons

Not really a retcon, the shadowlands/spirit realm/etc. has existed since the start, and ghosts (read: wisps) have existed from the start. People die and either move on (Shadowlands) or don't (ghosts, spirits). The ghosts and spirits stick around until they finish whatever they are doing or they are killed as spirits, after which they move on. Just because the Shadowlands exist and are the eventual destination of the dead doesn't mean the dead go straight there.

The only difference between before and now is that we have a more expanded picture of what happens when the dead pass on or "physical" ghosts in our world are killed.

[Gaidax]

We get a Kyrian covenant quest showcasing the process on Azeroth, from which it's not hard to understand that this is not an automatic thing and souls may linger one way or another.

Even besides that - there is no shortage of various ghosts/souls/apparitions everywhere, so even without doing that Kyrian quest one can imagine that moving on is not exactly a smooth process. Once you move on - you move on and very likely to Shadowlands, but there is definitely a gap between death and moving on in Warcraft.

It's not difficult to imagine that in case of wisps there is also some conditional gap between demise and moving on. In case of Night Elves who died in Darnassus, they went to the maw right away, so whole wisp thing is no guarantee either.

It is also quite possible that the exact mechanism of whole "wisp" thing will be explored eventually when we inevitably get to meddle with Elune.

In Shadowlands we see that even someone relatively lowly like Bwonsamdi can intercept the souls and divert them from their intended course, so it would not be out of realm of possibility that Elune does the same for Night Elves, but it could very well be that her power is diminished/disrupted at the moment or she's occupied with something else now, so the process is not smooth/working - which a speculation floated around quite a bit/