Will Nathanos in the Shadowlands have his original human body?

[Sorrowseer]

Next thing you know is that we will meet him in 9.2 as a blue boi Kyrian participating killing Sylvanas later in 9.3 because he forgot who she is.

My oh my that would be soooo sweet to watch!

[Good ol Stroggylos]

In the end of the day Nathanos spent his life as living and forsaken being the absolute serving tool. It would be fitting for him to join the kyrians. Alas Arbiter not in order

[Dystemper]

He will redeem Sylvanas, turn her back to the light. Or she redeems him after we find out that she did all of this to save the world

[Klingers]

My personal theory is that Nathanos will be a middle-boss in the final expansion's raid or a narrative red-herring half-way through the expansion where he escapes/is liberated from The Maw and seeks revenge against Sylvanas for betraying him and letting him rot.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Rules are out the window anyway, they can pretty much pick their form. Actually it looks like they just form new bodies in the shadowlands to begin with, at least that is what is implied in the shadowlands' zones after you arrive. Only maldraxxus didn't seem to start people out as disembodied spirits, but then we only saw the great melee there which is probably not the initial experience for a soul; certainly not without picking a side first.

Not to mention his new body was created by merging with the one of his nephew via some "ebil magic" that left even a strong valkyr drained. For all we know it affected his soul and his new one is the representation of his soul now, even though it should look rather close to his original one to begin with. He won't be a rotten forsaken, that much is obvious. Maybe he gets the maw treatment and becomes a couple of disembodied pieces of metal.

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My personal theory is that Nathanos will be a middle-boss in the final expansion's raid or a narrative red-herring half-way through the expansion where he escapes/is liberated from The Maw and seeks revenge against Sylvanas for betraying him and letting him rot.

Him rebelling against her would require him to stop buying her bathwater first. Everything he ever did was just in her service, he full well expected to die for it. Getting a dreary cell in another damp dark place hardly is much of a downgrade for him - certainly not in the pitifully short time we will be in the shadowlands. It would require for Sylvanas to go out of her way to torture and humiliate him to make that a plausible character development. Short of the jailer boning her in front of him I just don't see that happening, but then I still assume that anyone at Blizzard wants to even write characters with internal consistency.

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Maybe once the Jailer is killed, she is burdened to spend all of eternity overseeing the Maw, and she willingly accepts this punishment, something like that? I dunno, I just hate seeing villains just immediately "killed" all the time.

Here is the thing though, imho that is not much of a punishment. A potentially endless realm that she can shape however she wants for all eternity. She'd be just another Denathrius at that point. Even if we chain her there, this is hardly a permanent solution as we've seen.

My money is on a Double Lich King, Bolvar on Azeroth and Arthas in the maw to start redeeming himself. We will definitely try to reforge the Helm either way, maybe we make it a pair and fix the hole in the sky that way.

[Varolyn]

He probably isn't going to have much of a large role in Shadowlands tbh. He'll either get sacrificed by the Jailer and Sylvanas, or Tyrande will finish him off for good and that's what leads her to going missing. The whole cinematic he got just screams red herring.

[Zakaryy]

If you think about it, it really gets down to it being his own choice. I assume for gameplay reasons blizzard will reuse his model, or give him a maw variant of his model.
It's like Lady Vashjr in Maldraxxus.

SPOILERS
There's some RP dialogue during a scene where she was asked when she had the choice of choosing her elven original form/appearance, why chose to stay as Naga in the Shadowlands?
It's because she felt she had more power as a naga.

[Zmagoslav]

Wasn't it pointed out in the short-story that the cousin whose body he uses look very much alike?
Outside of some color in his cheeks it wouldn't make a difference.

Additionally:
- considering his personality flaws and obsession with his queen he would probably want to stick to the current body (the one his queen provided)
- he'll probably be back and get a maw-inspired model, making him look even more undead

In the end of the day Nathanos spent his life as living and forsaken being the absolute serving tool. It would be fitting for him to join the kyrians. Alas Arbiter not in order

That is if the whole mechanism of death wasn't broken and he wasn't sent directly to the maw cause of it...
I don't think he'd be ready to forget about his owner.

[Swnem]

He will redeem Sylvanas, turn her back to the light. Or she redeems him after we find out that she did all of this to save the world

Or they both get eradicated, as they should.

[Selastan]

He really should, but I'll bet that

A: Most likely option, he won't, no one will address it.

B: He still keeps his cousin's undead body, but they give a halfhearted explanation as to why (undead spend enough time in their bodies, it becomes them)

C: He's going to be a boss, and gets some mutated huge anima form with lots of black swirlies and spikes

[erifwodahs]

Sylvanas kept her banshee looks, a bit on a visual upgrade tho.. so I guess being undead or maybe being evil fuck twists your soul in a way (Uther got his soul physically (?) damaged) and your body after death gets shaped in the image of your soul. I don't think it has been described how this works at all and SL made it weirder

[Saltysquidoon]

Betauser's not giving up the self-insert, that and blizzard's not going to redo a character they just redid so someone can self insert when we are 100% never going to see them again after SL.

It's going to be like deathwing showing up everywhere with his cata body.

[Claymore]

Rules are out the window anyway, they can pretty much pick their form. Actually it looks like they just form new bodies in the shadowlands to begin with, at least that is what is implied in the shadowlands' zones after you arrive. Only maldraxxus didn't seem to start people out as disembodied spirits, but then we only saw the great melee there which is probably not the initial experience for a soul; certainly not without picking a side first.

Not to mention his new body was created by merging with the one of his nephew via some "ebil magic" that left even a strong valkyr drained. For all we know it affected his soul and his new one is the representation of his soul now, even though it should look rather close to his original one to begin with. He won't be a rotten forsaken, that much is obvious. Maybe he gets the maw treatment and becomes a couple of disembodied pieces of metal.

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Him rebelling against her would require him to stop buying her bathwater first. Everything he ever did was just in her service, he full well expected to die for it. Getting a dreary cell in another damp dark place hardly is much of a downgrade for him - certainly not in the pitifully short time we will be in the shadowlands. It would require for Sylvanas to go out of her way to torture and humiliate him to make that a plausible character development. Short of the jailer boning her in front of him I just don't see that happening, but then I still assume that anyone at Blizzard wants to even write characters with internal consistency.

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Here is the thing though, imho that is not much of a punishment. A potentially endless realm that she can shape however she wants for all eternity. She'd be just another Denathrius at that point. Even if we chain her there, this is hardly a permanent solution as we've seen.

My money is on a Double Lich King, Bolvar on Azeroth and Arthas in the maw to start redeeming himself. We will definitely try to reforge the Helm either way, maybe we make it a pair and fix the hole in the sky that way.

Ah really interesting theory! Although I feel like Ner'zhul could potentially play some kind of role here, as well.

Given Garrosh was teased previously, though, I kind of suspect both he and Arthas may return from the Shadowlands, perhaps to aid us in the fight against the Void Lords? Given Ner'zhul was pretty much a "good guy" until the Legion screwed him over, I could see him taking the mantle of Jailer, maybe even reclaiming control over the Scourge, basically a becoming a "super Necromancer".