[Spoiler]So....giant red ball which broke arbiter is....

[Revamp Man]

I will never not be disappointed about calling this

The writers act like they have some super secret plan with subtle hints…yet it’s all predicted by people who barely pay attention

[Varitok]

Its really complicated, I think we need professional opinion on the matter.

Lets ask David Lynch!

"What a heavy load Einstein must have had, fucking morons everywhere." - David Lynch (Lynch: One)

[Selah]

It would have been an interview or something around when SL was announced, don't remember which. But basically demons and elementals work the same way; if they're killed outside of their "plane" then their soul returns to their plane and reconstitutes over time. If they're killed within their plane than they die for real, and their soul breaks down into the base materials of creation again and may eventually become part of a new, different being. And that's essentially how anima works in the Shadowlands, too.

I want to believe you, that would be some consistency within the lore. The problem is it's too consistent with another function within the Warcraft universe, which is unlike most everything else in the game.

The Paladin in Northrend is an extremely rare example of someone's soul being taken to the realm of Light. But that whole questline was also made in tribute to a real person who died, so it's a special case I wouldn't necessarily expect to see repeated.

I am very deeply frustrated by this sort of answer (this isn't a dig at you personally but just the WoW lore in general). "Just don't look too closely at it." Except, in Wrath, that was the understanding of how the Naaru and the light worked. Even in the Shadowlands Afterlives: Bastion piece, the first words out of Uther's mouth in the cinematic are "light, save my soul" as he dies. The implication being that being a paladin of the light (and one of the most renown and virtuous ones at that) would be delivered until the afterlife of the light. This was the common belief throughout WoW up until the more recent years. Yet he found himself in the Shadowlands. Is the idea of an afterlife provided by the light a misconception? Is it true? Are there exceptions? Why are we not digging into that with an expansion based in the afterlife?

It's not just Shadowlands. It's all over the WoW lore. What's going on with the aspects? Don't look too closely.

How are the NE refugees dealing with the genocide just committed against their kind? Don't look too closely.

How are the BEs dealing with the mana addiction plaguing their society? Don't look too closely.

How is the Horde counsel progressing? Don't look too closely.

How are things with Lor'themar and Thalyssra, they're a couple now and all. Don't look too closely.

How is the Alliance dealing with the loss of Varian? Don't look too closely.

What is happening with the Order Halls? Don't look too closely.

What in the hell happened with the artifacts? Why did we let them just go? Don't look too closely.

Why were Zovaal's forces fighting with each other in War3? Don't look too closely.

What is happening with the massive sword sticking out of the planet that prompted all of Magni saying "THE WOUNDZ HERO, AZEROTH IS DYING"? Don't look too closely.

I'm not going to handwave so much stuff. There are so many things just floating around that need to be resolved. Instead of touching on any of these things Blizzard just blatantly ignores it. What kills me is there could be some really cool things going on right now. The cinematic with Sylvanas warring within herself could be a really interesting narrative moment... if anything in the game made sense, if Sylvanas made sense.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

"a world soul twisted by death"... um... isn't argus the TITAN of death? how can you twist death with death?

I think the implication is that at some point during the process of making Argus a tool of unmaking, he was turned into a Titan of Death. That wasn't his natural state, it was the result of interference by presumably the Dreadlords. I'd imagine Sargeras thought his minions were making a Fel Titan, or perhaps he took the standard warlock method of "any power will do" and chose death for variety's sake, that wouldn't be unprecedented. Gul'dan invented Death Knights after all.

[Eazy]

See above, but also include your "cool" comments. I mean I'm sure the people who love to hate me for exposing their hypocrisy are waiting in the wings for me to mention "DID YOU SEE THE CATACLYSM!" and moments like that. Ever since Blizzcon was a thing, so was trying to exploit cool that wasn't really cool. I mean even Illidan in WC3 was written to be "amg he so cool man!" when he was just a whiney little scumbag that wasn't cool in the least. As usual: If you think the writing now is garbage, you always hated it as nothing changed.

Not really. The Warcraf lore was much more coherent up to Wc3:Tft.

You cannot really say it's the same as it was before.

[Skildar]

Every single company I've worked at shares tasks but eventually one entity has responsibility for green lighting a project or stopping it. Danuser either oked this or worse, gave birth to it.

I get this and sure there is always a name you can draw that will be shown as responsible for managing/giving direction to the team but what I'm getting at here is that such stories and narratives are in the work for multiple years and have evolved under the responsibility of many

Just like the latest Star Wars trilogy is not the mess of a couple of individuals but have been validated by numerous more during various steps where no-one saying "let's not do this" were heard

[username993720]

Honestly none of this matters. The moment they made Sargeras planet sized any hope of coherent story was lost forever.

He was always planet-sized, i think.

[Kallisto]

Not really. The Warcraf lore was much more coherent up to Wc3:Tft.

You cannot really say it's the same as it was before.

That's mostly because WC 1&2 was like basically other 90 rts. Extremely lore light with just enough for each battle you're about to start.

[Mehrunes]

See above, but also include your "cool" comments. I mean I'm sure the people who love to hate me for exposing their hypocrisy are waiting in the wings for me to mention "DID YOU SEE THE CATACLYSM!" and moments like that. Ever since Blizzcon was a thing, so was trying to exploit cool that wasn't really cool. I mean even Illidan in WC3 was written to be "amg he so cool man!" when he was just a whiney little scumbag that wasn't cool in the least. As usual: If you think the writing now is garbage, you always hated it as nothing changed.

Given how you're literally incapable of ever substantiating this narrative about SL of yours whenevwr you're actually pressed on it, when have you ever "exposed anyone's hypocrisy" in regards to SL. And no, your fantasies don't count. Neither does your factually incorrect harping about Metzen being the one to make the claim about Old Gods' deaths leading to Cataclysm to "prove" how much better post-Metzen lore was, because it was actually made by your beloved post-Metzen Afrasiabi.

[Nathanyel]

Nice, but titan souls do not go to the shadowlands upon death, as they are not mortal. Danuser is still retconning everything.

Yes, it's almost like a powerful soul, borne of Arcane, but corrupted with Fel and Domination magic, sent to the wrong realm by Nathrezim intervention, had the potential to overwhelm a being (an artificial one even, that's basically a robot) that usually processes mortal souls.

And don't assume that just because we've seen the Jailer and his underlings influencing various events that everything was part of his "master plan".
He is merely an opportunist with great power and eternal life, able to start long-term plans that may or may not come to fruition.
We've seen plans fail, such as the Lich King resisting his domination or us escaping the Maw, and later rescuing 3 of the 4 "candidates" Sylvanas picked. Or wait, it was actually 5 candidates, right?

Especially this use of Argus's soul might be the pinnacle of going with the flow instead of planning it meticously. It could be that Argus was intended to be the World Soul that would be used for whatever the Jailer now wants to do to Azeroth, with the Dreadlords preparing it while also selling it to Sargeras as a means to revive demons faster. Likely, both World Souls were seen as candidates, but Argus was the unlucky one that fell into the Legion's and thus the Nathrezims' hands.
Or Argus was always intended to be used as a weapon to disable the Arbiter (or even destroy it, if given more time to corrupt the World Soul, to free Zovaal's essence and presumably return it to him) but the time of his demise was an unknown factor.
Either way, it seems more like the Legion's defeat was anticipated, seen as inevitable, but not outright orchestrated or even planned for this point in time.

My only issues is replacing the arbiter with pelagos. She’s probably as ancient as time itself then just gets replace by a no name.

Nope, the Arbiter we saw only was created after Zovaal's rebellion was struck down, to literally replace him as Arbiter. The new Arbiter could be compared to a powerful mech that needs a pilot. Pelagos, someone who not just Kyrian players interacted with again and again (so not a no-name) was in-lore the next best replacement after the original plan fell through thanks to the Nathrezim. Not the best option overall, but still someone worthy and compassionate enough for the job.
People focus on him failing to become a Kyrian, but that instead only strengthens his qualification for this new role. It's been mentioned in various places that not all souls sent to Bastion become Kyrian, it's more of a job recommendation, but if you can't manage it, or simply decide you don't want to continue this path, your soul is sent back to Oribos to be assigned to another Afterlife. (By association, this could also be true for the other realms, excluding Revendreth of course, there you have to atone for your sins first to get to go to another Afterlife)

You're not wrong. They, especially Danuser, run off the "Rule of Cool" way of making a story.

Not sure why you highlight Danuser, as this was always the mantra of Blizzard's writing, from the very beginning. Don't shit just on the current guy (who still has to sort through the dump the previous guy left on the way out)

[Gorsameth]

With the dreadlords working to "further" Sargeras's plan, it was never going to succeed.

Except it almost succeeded during the war of the ancients and it wasn't the dreadlords that stopped him.

And it was close to succeeding during wc3 and the dreadlords didn't stop that. (and certainly don't look at how the Jailers direct minion, the Lich King, was actively working against the Jailers pets, the dreadlords who were helping the Legion destroy Azeroth Oo)

And mind you his sword is still currently stuck inside Azeroth having almost done the job at the end of Legion so "it was never going to work" is being EXTREMELY generous and handwaving away basically the entire history of Warcraft.

[Super Dickmann]

Not really. The Warcraf lore was much more coherent up to Wc3:Tft.

You cannot really say it's the same as it was before.

There was far less material to contradict and most people hadn't played WC2. Back in the day you had a lot more people annoyed at how little the WC2 Alliance figured into the plot in spots like Scrolls of Lore and Spacebattles, but most of those players have moved on. I think starting with WC2 and Starcraft myself is the reason why I find much of the way certain elements of WC3 like the noble savage orcs are held up as some holy gospel to be passe. Same with treating SL as some mythical pile of plonkers being overwrought, when most of its narrative sins are the same Blizzard-associated products have done for ages, rather than being in any way unique.

[Dioporco]

from reddit

First things first, since everything to have happened in warcraft is essentially confirmed to be the jailer let's see how galaxy brain this man had to be for this to go down.

Now that it's been basically confirmed that the arbiter going bye bye was argus no scoping her, what had to happen for that to occur?

Picture this, you are the jailer (terrible I know but bear with me) and you have been imprisoned by your college improv team. You have to convince one of the people that BANISHED YOU TO SUPER HELL to now be your friend. You know how prisoners casually convince the warden to start working for them, something like that.

Next you have to convince that warden to create the best spy industry ever to be created. Simple plan badabing badaboom done. Now use that spy system to convince beings of pure chaos and void to start spewing on to random planets. Then use them to corrupt a being of pure justice. All easy stuff.

This is where the jailers genius shines through. Have your army now working for the corrupted titan be strong enough to level entire galaxies except for this one random planet that has all the stuff for some reason. Now make this titan who doesn't know he's working for you just out of arms reach of his goal for millennium.

The fun part begins. Use the spy's to convince one of the titan guys allies to create a zombie guy with the express purpose of having a hat and killing/resurrecting one random elf that will become important later.

Make sure the humans win so the bad guys come back later then have hat guy die so elf lady predicability tries to re-unalive herself so she can see big bald man. Make a deal she can't refuse The Apprentice style and start controlling things in the background even more again.

Now this here is my favorite part. Make sure the Orc that has had few genocidal tendencies goes full sicko mode and must eventually stand trial in Pandaria. This is when you obviously travel time to another dimension so that a random other orc can come back to the main dimension and summon the titan you had on the back burner. Your super-mega-power-death-plan hinges on interdimensional time travel.

With this once dead orc back in the main timeline have the titan guy come to the planet he's just been chilling ignoring for some reason and have his army be good enough at killing but not too good to win. Now expect these random people on the planet to do a set of weird choices that has them teleport the main base of the badguy into their solar system. Since the base is right there they can fight the literal Titan of death and you now must hope they win.

Because they have obviously won the death titan breaks this random robot lady and the real game begins. All that other stuff was child's play. Make the elf lady sleeper agent all evil now and inevitably break that hat that you left on the planet for this EXACT moment.

Congratulations now you can pull a blonde boy into the DEATH ZONE and use him to get a shiney circle from one person and that's it, the mortals will give you the rest of them don't worry.

You've done it. You have all the Lego pieces you need to find where you left your super suit and remake/unmake/undo/redo/bless-you/gesundheit reality.

Was quite an easy plan when you think about it, took about a half hour to write---- plan I mean plan this was the plan from the beginning, duh.

[alejandroo]

I don't think the developers planned this all this far back. They saw the theories people had regarding Argus being responsible for it and just went with it.

[Varodoc]

The funny and ironic thing about the Janitor, as cunning and manipulative as he is said (by Blizzard) to be, is that in the end he too will be retconned into a pawn...

For instance, when there will be an expansion about the Void Lords, or the Light, or the First Ones, with all the new lore revelations that naturally come with any new expansion, they will 100% retcon the Janitor into not being the mastermind of everything, and he himself being just another pawn.

So really the Janitor's spotlight at the "top" of the "manipulation pyramid" is very limited, come the new expansion and he too will be downgraded into just another pawn for a greater evil.

The same happened to Kil'jaeden, Arthas, the Old Gods, Sargeras...

The only difference is that, while these other villains had other things going on for them on top of their manipulation skills, the Janitor only has that. So once he is downgraded into another pawn, he will literally be the most Average Random Joe Warcraft has ever seen... he'll have no character trait of any kind whatsoever.

In fact, do we know if Denathrius is really loyal to him? I'm pretty sure Denathrius is just using the Janitor, he is after all the creator of the Nathrezim, their whole point is manipulating and deceiving people... maybe the Janitor is already a pawn and he doesn't even know it.

[alejandroo]

Everything in Shadowlands is rehashed. The Jailer is just the Lich King behind the Lich King. The Kyrian are just the real Val'kyr. Maldraxxus is the real Scourge. Ardenweald is the blue Emerald Dream. Shadowlands pretended to want to show us the origin of things, but ended up just rehashing ideas.

[Selah]

LOL, I love it. Nothing better encapsulates the absurdity of the story than this.

[shoc]

It was obvious that it was Argus from the first day.

People believing in bullshit like 'Titans go to a Titans afterlife' is what happens when you get your lore from Dev Q&As and tweets. Stop doing that.

[The Stormbringer]

-SNIP-

As has been said before, this tidies things up and makes them a lot clearer, but wasn't presented in any meaningful way at all. That just makes it feel like a cop-out or a retcon, if it does wind up being the case.

Nice job connecting all the dots somehow, though?

- - - Updated - - -

from reddit
-SNIP-

LOL! Thank you for this, even if you were just grabbing it from Reddit.

[Kathranis]

Not really. The Warcraf lore was much more coherent up to Wc3:Tft.

You cannot really say it's the same as it was before.

WC3 massively retconned the core lore of the entire setting though. Like, they changed the cosmology completely from heaven and hell with angels and daemons to the Light and the Twisting Nether with the Burning Legion. Added 10,000 years of previously unknown history, added Kalimdor and Northrend as previously unexplored continents, etc.