What do you think about [SPOILER] becoming the new Arbiter?

[Delever]

On one hand I m glad its not Sylvanas.
On the other hand I find it hard to care at this point. They do a terrible job with their narrative at this point so whoever became the arbiter would honestly have minimal effect. After SL they will likely never be shown or interacted with again.

[paris kills]

On one hand I m glad its not Sylvanas.
On the other hand I find it hard to care at this point. They do a terrible job with their narrative at this point so whoever became the arbiter would honestly have minimal effect. After SL they will likely never be shown or interacted with again.

Sylvanas will be an Azerite Elf, the new world soul and the Avatar of Azeroth.

[FelPlague]

Or make a new one. They made this one, if Pelagos can do it, it shouldn't be hard to create a new arbiter. Why did the firstborn even need Zoovals sigil if they could have literally chosen some random soul to do the job?

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But why not make a new one?

they are, pelagos. the whole thing is supposidly the arbiter needs a soul, so someone needs to sacrifice themselves to become the new arbiter. that is what pelagos is doing.

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A member of one covenant becoming arbiter goes against the whole point of the arbiter (dispassionate and unaligned with any faction). pretty dumb, not to mention out of the blue.

Smells like a last-minute swerve away from it being Sylvanas because of the negative reaction that idea got. Proof that no matter how off the rails something is, panicked decisionmaking can make it worse.

the whole point of the kyrian is for them to be unbiased, they are literally the people who HELP the arbiter, so one of them becoming the replacement makes perfect sense.

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I also dislike this because we quickly got to the point where you can easily side with Zovaal and think the afterlife system is flawed.

Pelagos as an Arbiter thus means one of two things :

He becomes the new robot Arbiter, all this struggle was pointless and the Eternal ones failed to question the system.

He becomes a new sort of Arbiter, with his own sensibility and stuff. And I really don't see what character would fit that role, but he doesn't look like a good candidate.

the shadowlands is flawed, but its better that then everyone going to literal hell.

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I'd have gone with the Primus, myself. Level-headed, already a leader. Smart. Ect.

except he is the leader of maldraxxus. so he would be biased, and also... hes already a leader...

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Why Pelagos? She's of total insignificance. The Arbiter was put in place, because Zovaal was deemed unfit for the task, because of his own subjective emotions towards the people he was supposed to judge. The Arbiter was a contruct and worked perfectly fine in that regard. It was merely shot to death. So why not just construct a new Arbiter? Why give the role to a being, that is just as flawed as Zovaal, when it comes to subjective emotions coming in the way, but is vastly inferior in power to someone like Zovaal, who was an Eternal.

who are you talking about? pelagos is a he.
also the whole point is an arbiter needs a soul, its not just some construct, its made using a soul.

[procne]

Maybe... maybe it's just Blizzard trolling dataminers?
One can only hope...

[Tommi]

who are you talking about? pelagos is a he.

Eh, depends how you look at it. Female in mortal life, male in afterlife....

[Veluren]

Seems like a hard swerve, like the original plan was Sylvanas but someone finally pulled Danuser's head out of her thong long enough to convince him the playerbase would hate that, so he grabbed the first Shadowlands NPC he could who wasn't too major but also wasn't a complete nobody to do it.

[Lolites]

Tyrande would have been the best choice. Seeing as how her people were condemned to enternal suffering in the Maw, she doesn't want to see that happening ever again.

well, shes not dead...
but if you mean kill her so she can become arbiter im in

[Blackmist]

His entire character arc is: "Hi Maw-walker, I'm Pelagos. I'm a little bit useless, and get this: I'm trans. I'm the arbiter now. Thanks for that."

Pretty much expected from the person that said "Well I thought it was brilliant" to the GoT ending...

[Delever]

His entire character arc is: "Hi Maw-walker, I'm Pelagos. I'm a little bit useless, and get this: I'm trans. I'm the arbiter now. Thanks for that."

Pretty much expected from the person that said "Well I thought it was brilliant" to the GoT ending...

Maybe this was their plan all along. For him to be the trans-mitter of souls to the afterlife.
Fuck me man I couldnt resist making this joke.

[Dead Moose Fandango]

To be honest, I was half-expecting a "council of Arbiters" to be the conclusion.

I can only imagine how that would lead to fighting between each group. Even if the council leader isn't a part of it.

"Hey, they keep getting allll the souls!" ect.

[Nemah]

A bland, dry character with little or not substance as I recall. I suppose that's the right personality for a neutral arbiter.

I'm glad it's not Sylv as well, while expectations are low at this point, that just wouldn't fit. The good news is, whatever they do with her isn't going to fit either.

[Zuben]

Guy feels like a hasty plan B Arbiter. Maybe plan A was someone of consequence, e.g. Sylv, but Blizzard realized everyone would hate it so toss in someone nobody cares about.

[Niwes]

Meaningless character become meaningless arbiter of meaningless shadowlands.

from a 10.0 point of view this is indeed completely standard, without sarcasm. as usual Blizz/wow will move on and SL is just a past xpac/zone that is simple finished. so it makes sense, for Blizzards default model, to do that. they keep most stuff from expansions in that expansions and move on. thats the default way it goes.

[Alanar]

I mean, it makes sense. Personally I didn't want another arbiter at all, but w/e.

-It had to be a member of the Shadowlands

It really does, it just makes more sense for someone that actually has been part of the system to be the one to change it, so that does leave out any of the living characters.

-Makes sense it was a Kyrian

Kyrian had a campaign story where they actually addressed the flaws of their way of existence, and it ended with them redefining what their purpose was. They are the most primed to champion a new and improved system for all.

-Makes sense it was Pelagos

We really didn't delve into too many SL characters, and we really didn't influence them as deeply as we did with Pelagos. He had a story of being unsure of his purpose in the Afterlife, and we help him on his path to reach his potential and be ready for his next step. He is one of the characters more affected by Us, the PC.

Part of me wanted Uther because we also have that connection with him, but he still has unfinished business, and the duty to lead the Forsworn.

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How would that be any better than actually have an existing character take the role?

If the new Arbiter is literally a new character, it lacks any sort of connection to us, any sort of narrative impact.

Lets be honest... the guy is full of emotions, he constantly struggeling and unsure all the time and he still doesn't strike me as some one worthy of such heavy duty. I mean the emotions will just get in the way.. and it might even danger the progress if you think about it. Why thrust him with such a thing?
I agree on Uther, he has a pretty interesting duty, to make sure there is some one there to lead the newly added forsworn and it suits him.

I was one of the people who thought.. why try to fix that broken system and the arbiter was part of that.

[Coolface330]

The spoiler could be a carrot on a stick.

If Blizzard does go through with it, that is beyond lazy.

How many dead characters in Warcraft history from Warcraft 1 to Shadowlands? And the best you can use is Pelagos?

How lazy are you??? You literally shat gold for 20+ years and you wanna use a copper turd?

[Toppy]

It could have litterally been anyone, since it starts and stops having meaning all at the same time. He gets crowned, before we even fight the jailer, we will never revisit Shadowlands and it will never again be important, and he will be drowned out entirely by whatever big plot twist happens during the jailor fight.

They could have madei t murky and it would have the same narrative effect in the long term.

It is, ENTIRELY, meaningless and is just proof positive they have zero intention on ever touching SL again.

[Jotaux]

Honestly they could have left the job open and I wouldn't even question it. I find Pelagos a bit baffling, does he have more to do in the bastion campaign? It's the only one I have not done.

[Ikza]

We get a cinematic to introduce us to one of the most important entities. It explains us how crucial the arbitrer is to everyone in our reality.

25% of the players (Bastion) are introduced to one side character that is considered our follower, a sidekick that helps us on "minor" things. His power doesn't amount to anything, nor his relevance to the story

And then, out of the blue (pun intended), he becomes the new arbitrer, the new key-character in the Shadowlands.

This could have been written by a 12 year old that somehow got fixated and obsessed with him. What the hell.

I'm 100% confident that this horribly written plot filled with holes will be excused as WoD was. Even though it surely is a blatant lie, it will go down like this:
"The story we wanted to tell didnt fit in with your (players) reception to the expansion. In order to make Legion, we had to cut corners and the lore kinda suffered with it. This is why you saw Grom apparently being the hero after you killed Archimonde. This is no exception, we had something great planned for the new arbitrer, character development, influence and relevance were all perfectly written but we had to cut it short and skip all of the most important parts"

[Claymore]

Not saying anything bad about Pelagos specifically, but it's hard *not* to associate it with "well, Pelagos is literally a trans character, Blizzard making them the new Arbiter reads as a major social justice move".

[Shefu]

Meaningless character become meaningless arbiter of meaningless shadowlands.

This is the truest true in this whole damn thread.

I could personally care less for the most boring covenant in SL and their boring characters.

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Not saying anything bad about Pelagos specifically, but it's hard *not* to associate it with "well, Pelagos is literally a trans character, Blizzard making them the new Arbiter reads as a major social justice move".

And that's the problem here. All the attention this character got was because he was trans. Not an interesting story, nothing. Just hey, I'm trans....so yay.

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We get a cinematic to introduce us to one of the most important entities. It explains us how crucial the arbitrer is to everyone in our reality.

25% of the players (Bastion) are introduced to one side character that is considered our follower, a sidekick that helps us on "minor" things. His power doesn't amount to anything, nor his relevance to the story

And then, out of the blue (pun intended), he becomes the new arbitrer, the new key-character in the Shadowlands.

This could have been written by a 12 year old that somehow got fixated and obsessed with him. What the hell.

I'm 100% confident that this horribly written plot filled with holes will be excused as WoD was. Even though it surely is a blatant lie, it will go down like this:
"The story we wanted to tell didnt fit in with your (players) reception to the expansion. In order to make Legion, we had to cut corners and the lore kinda suffered with it. This is why you saw Grom apparently being the hero after you killed Archimonde. This is no exception, we had something great planned for the new arbitrer, character development, influence and relevance were all perfectly written but we had to cut it short and skip all of the most important parts"

To be fair Danuser's writing is like that of a 12 year old. If his story direction was questionable in BFA, it went full teenager in SL which is a God damn shame. 15+ of good lore down the drain.