Sylvanas. Dev vs Dev on lore.

[Hitei]

Stormheim was set up as her plan to help her people out, plain and simple. Her pact with Helya, enslavement of Eyir (who I didn't give a shit about anyway) were all pragmatic and ruthless moves we'd expect from her since WC III, but didn't make her a full-blown "villain".

She literally abandons you, her people, to die two different times in Stormheim. Jesus, Sylvanas followers will excuse absolutely anything.

It's only in BfA when all those moments were recontextualized as Sylvanas always doing evil shit for evil shit's sake.

If you ignore all the shit she and the Forsaken did in Vanilla and Cata, sure.

[loras]

so after reading this thread.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...-suite/1171106

brief summary. Kosak vs Alex on lore related things. once Alex got in charge of lore he abused his power to get revenge my making crazy lore choices(like sylvanas being randomly evil by burning down the tree). it shocked even the voice actors and Metzen.

Well that clears shit up, never thought i'd be in favor of a purge but good on them that they cleaned them from their games and their company.

Sounds like a ripe target for some timey-wimey shenanigans to fix past mistakes too, and thankfully Nozdormu still has to become Murozond...

[Super Dickmann]

She literally abandons you, her people, to die two different times in Stormheim. Jesus, Sylvanas followers will excuse absolutely anything.



If you ignore all the shit she and the Forsaken did in Vanilla and Cata, sure.

Neither the Forsaken or Sylvanas were motivated by sending people to turbo hell at any stage prior to BFA and actively work against it. As for abandoning people, Sylvanas flat out tells you at the start she'll give you all the resources and she'll go off on her own to do her thing as regards the Val'kyr. She obviously doesn't give you those resources as said fleet is destroyed five minutes later by way of an Alliance attack.

That a group is consistently more morally bankrupt than its opposition says nothing about the degrees or the way the story frames that character. Tony Soprano and Dick Dastardly don't fill the same narrative role despite both being swindlers, 4. eg.

[Okacz]

She literally abandons you, her people, to die two different times in Stormheim. Jesus, Sylvanas followers will excuse absolutely anything.

Unless we, as players, wanted to dig extra deep in those occasions, it wasn't a malicious "abandonment". She never was a character of to babysit anyone, when she saw the player in Hell all she said was "cool, now get your ass out of hell, we'll have shit to do" (unless you were Alliance, in that case screw you). It wasn't a Bondesque "well well well, mr Player, I'm afraid you saw too much. Too bad your knowledge of the pact DIES WITH YOU, MUAHAHAHA".

If you ignore all the shit she and the Forsaken did in Vanilla and Cata, sure.

All the evil shit she did in those expansions was displayed as her attempts to make her faction - the Forsaken - prosper, alongside with the Horde. That's quite in contrast to BfA and later, where she only cares about "TEH PLAN", and the people she painstakingly lead from servitude to prosperity mean nothing to her.

[Super Dickmann]

All the evil shit she did in those expansions was displayed as her attempts to make her faction - the Forsaken - prosper, alongside with the Horde. That's quite in contrast to BfA and later, where she only cares about "TEH PLAN", and the people she painstakingly lead from servitude to prosperity mean nothing to her.

It doesn't even need theorizing, we're in Sylvanas's head, both in Edge of Night where she makes the transition from viewing the Forsaken as expendable to wanting to secure them long-term to ensure her immortality, to how she goes about it - encouraging a positive view of undeath and of their Lordaeronian heritage in Cataclysm, to her goal to eventually make them immortal as well within her own mind in BTS. She thinks to herself that she was going to make them all immortal through Eyir and she also believed at the time that they and she were going to hell. To not seize Eyir and ensure that they don't cook in hell would be a dereliction of her duty as a leader and of common sense.

[Hitei]

Neither the Forsaken or Sylvanas were motivated by sending people to turbo hell at any stage prior to BFA and actively work against it. As for abandoning people, Sylvanas flat out tells you at the start she'll give you all the resources and she'll go off on her own to do her thing as regards the Val'kyr. She obviously doesn't give you those resources as said fleet is destroyed five minutes later.

That a group is consistently more morally bankrupt than its opposition says nothing about the degrees or the way the story frames that character. Tony Soprano and Dick Dastardly don't fill the same narrative role despite both being swindlers, 4. eg.

No, instead their motivation was "Kill literally anyone we want, whenever we want, for pretty much any reason we want"--and then after Arthas' death, Sylvanas motivation changed to kill anyone or get anyone (including allies and followers) killed for any reason I want AND ALSO to stay alive however possible. While they were also cooking up weapons for biological warfare and invading multiple non-hostile kingdoms where the casually murder non-combatants.

That you would try to play this off as "there are degrees of morally bankrupt" is nuts. There are degrees, and the Forsaken are very, very far down that dial. When the only group even remotely close to your tier of moral bankruptcy is effectively the demon army trying to wipe out all life in existence, and the guy trying to unmake existence, you are a villain, end of story.

All BfA did was give Sylvanas and the Forsaken enough power and influence that they no longer had to worry about morality forced from above, like Garrosh attempted to do in Silverpine and Gilneas. It's especially not a shift when you consider that her goal really didn't even change, she just went from "kill everyone so that I get whatever I want and don't die" to "kill everyone so that I get whatever I want and don't even have to worry about death anymore".

- - - Updated - - -

Unless we, as players, wanted to dig extra deep in those occasions, it wasn't a malicious "abandonment". She never was a character of to babysit anyone, when she saw the player in Hell all she said was "cool, now get your ass out of hell, we'll have shit to do" (unless you were Alliance, in that case screw you). It wasn't a Bondesque "well well well, mr Player, I'm afraid you saw too much. Too bad your knowledge of the pact DIES WITH YOU, MUAHAHAHA".

It doesn't need to be malicious to still show a complete and utter disregard for your value. Her prize was the Val'kyr (read: ensuring her own eternal safety), and she did not give a shit about an entire fleet going down in flames for it.

All the evil shit she did in those expansions was displayed as her attempts to make her faction - the Forsaken - prosper, alongside with the Horde. That's quite in contrast to BfA and later, where she only cares about "TEH PLAN", and the people she painstakingly lead from servitude to prosperity mean nothing to her.

It's sweet that you think that, but it's objectively, canonically not her reasoning even during Cata.

The Forsaken were truly a nation now: a fetid, gore-caked, hideous mass of lifeless husks, skilled in combat, devastating with the arcane arts, and unhindered by fetters of morality. They had been honed into the perfect weapon. Her weapon. And they had struck the killing blow for which she had built them. She cared nothing for their fate.

"Let them perish!" Sylvanas cried. "I am finished with them!"

[Super Dickmann]

No, instead their motivation was "Kill literally anyone we want, whenever we want, for pretty much any reason we want"--and then after Arthas' death, Sylvanas motivation changed to kill anyone or get anyone (including allies and followers) killed for any reason I want AND ALSO to stay alive however possible. While they were also cooking up weapons for biological warfare and invading multiple non-hostile kingdoms where the casually murder non-combatants.

If that's genuinely how you read the blindingly obvious motivation that the Forsaken state outright through all their questing zones, then I'm wasting my time, especially since you end your post with a quote prior to the actual ending of the story, which caps off with Sylvanas deciding that her fate is inextricably linked with the Forsaken and so she'll work to keep them alive as her 'bulwark against the infinite'. Further on in BTS her own internal monologue outright states what she meant to do through Eyir, which is make all of the Forsaken immortal. She seethes at the idea that anyone would be dumb enough to choose death, seeing as how hell is on the other side. Using the quote from the middle of the story before it actually concludes with her change of mind is like reading 1984 and deciding that what Winston's story really hinges upon is his willingness to throw acid in the faces of children. But for the benefit of anyone reading, I'll clarify anyway and cap it there.

The Forsaken's motivation in Vanilla has two prongs, go after Arthas and eliminate the living around it who were trying to wipe them out as well. In Cataclysm, they move towards a permanent existence that hinges rhetorically on them reclaiming their view of themselves as the citizens of Lordaeron and view undeath not as a curse but as a preferable transhumanist state. Their territorial actions hinge entirely around Lordaeron and Sylvanas states outright that her goal is to establish the bounds of the kingdom of Lordaeron. The Forsaken are ordered to go into Gilneas in her absence, which she doesn't care about, and when she is in her absence, she is the most vociferous voice against attacking Theramore - not because she gives two shits about the humans there, but because she and the undead have zero to gain from that territory and it would only provoke backlash. The Forsaken are predominantly occupied with the territory that was theirs in life while Sylvanas is predominantly interested in staying alive, neither of which lend themselves to outings in the ass end of nowhere.

This is the cause of friction within the Forsaken itself as Sylvanas doing things like not offing the entire Gilnean force despite having Crowley and Co at her mercy at the end of Silverpine, collecting both the dogtags and saving the soldiers on the front who've been stranded behind her lines are viewed as weakness by Godfrey, which is why he caps her in the head once she lets Crowley go. In turn, even her stance to use the Val'kyr are viewed and give undead any free will are seen as grounds for her overthrow by Stillwater. Far from being some monolith waging indiscriminate omnicide or oppressing everyone she takes over, the most consistent ones that kill hostile Forsaken are the playable Forsaken and the leader most consistently attempted to be overthrown is Sylvanas, almost invariably by undead who think she's too soft.

The entire point about invading multiple non-hostile kingdoms is laughable. The total kingdoms invaded by the Forsaken throughout the entirety of the game prior to BFA is one (1), that being Gilneas, which they were ordered to go after despite their disinterest. The only other they even operate in with the intent to control territory is Lordaeron, which they have a claim to as its actual denizens and where everyone else is actively trying to wipe them out. The Scarlet Crusade are the most explicit example, but prior to BTS, the Stormwind human position is that destroying the undead is a moral good and that the best thing you can do for them is kill them and burn their hearts in an altar. The war is a total one by default and the idea that there's anything morally repugnant about the Blight in a setting where a standard form of attack is burning someone alive with a fireball, an irl warcrime and a slightly less standard but still regular one is a warlock or shadow priest irrreparably damaging your eternal soul, neither the point about the Forsaken being omnicidal nor about them using some uniquely morally moot way to do so bears relation to reality.

The Forsaken are the most evil playable race, no doubt about that. No one in real life would want a nation composed of such as their neighbour and would be well justified to act against them. They are zombies with suppressed empathy after all. In the territories they do operate on, they're indiscriminate. But these territories are limited and their goal is as plain and based on basic geopolitics not on waging some kind of worldwide campaign of destruction which is never in evidence.

[Okacz]

It's sweet that you think that, but it's objectively, canonically not her reasoning even during Cata.

Aren't you quoting a passage from a story that serves to disprove your point? Edge of Night is about Sylvanas at first believing what you're saying, but finding new purpose in making her people prosper later on.

[Vandosq]

Taliesin seems to be growing more desperate.
He's spent an entire year defending Shadowlands insiting that the expansion and its lore is actually amazing, it's just that people "aren't getting it."
And now the perhaps most hated storyline is all because of on ex-employee acting out of spite.

So either T&E have realized that people aren't persuaded by their rhetoric and still thinks the lore is terrible and as a last ditch effort comes out with this (or at least parrots it from the mouth of Blizzard) or I guess he's here to thank Afrasiabi. My money's on the later. Indeed I wouldn't be suprised if a T&E video comes out any day now talking about how terrible Afrasiabi is and how the current lore team is (mostly) blameless.

Why does everyone here have such a hateboner for taliesin? He has quite literally done the opposite of defending the lore. His last video was largely a criticism of the jailor as a character.

[Accendor]

BFA actually had a lot of good ideas, it just was so half assed. It’s definitely not the worse expac.

The issues generally point more toward budget and time restraints.

With more time and people it likely would of been amazing. Sadly, it was pretty half assed.

And Blizzard management has a history of being dog shit. So it’s actually more likely their fault.

It 100% was the worst expansion, if only for 8.3 alone.

[Syegfryed]

Don't get me wrong, I too prefer the tribal theme of the Horde and would rather see one of the OG races sit on the Iron Throne. But the Broken Shore incident and its followup made perfect sense, and really felt like Horde under Sylvanas is going somewhere.

How a simple retreat makes perfect sense for someone take leadership of the entire horde...? like, she literally just saw shit coming down and hit the bial out button

Thats it, she sounded the retreat, anyone can do that, its not a merit to deserve warchief position, and in fact, it wasn't, cause the "spirits" somehow told vol'jin to do so, despite him not trusting her, and nowhere the "spirits" decided who is the leader, is obnoxious.

Plus, she being the leader the horde would go nowhere. she is undead, "commanding" the living, things simple don't work, warchief isn't just the "dude who rage war", the warchief role is of a supreme leader, he have to manage horde races, their demands and needs, supplies, handle the civilians, etc etc, a foreign person simple can't deal with those things, Sylvanas, as ranger general, have no clue of how trolls, taurens and orcs live. There was much better suited people to lead the horde and the fight against the Legion, but the only logical solution was her to step down after Legion problem ended.

This is the problem with Blizzard these days, they completely neglet those kind of worldbuilding, when Garrosh took the position he took care of horde needs as a whole, he was not just a warmonger, thats why the people, loved him

Her speech was a huge threshold for her to cross, showing that everything she as a member of the Horde wasn't a waste, and she's popular enough to have everyone cheer for her leadership.

Her speech was just facade, Sylvanas don't care about the horde or their people, Let alone vol'jin, only herself and her forsaken, trying to force a cheesy way its just bad writing.

This is what she says at the end of SoO:

"Warchief Vol'jin." Does it sound absurd to you, <class>? I, for one, certainly won't be taking orders from a troll.

Stormheim was set up as her plan to help her people out, plain and simple. Her pact with Helya, enslavement of Eyir (who I didn't give a shit about anyway) were all pragmatic and ruthless moves we'd expect from her since WC III, but didn't make her a full-blown "villain".

She was hunting an ally against the legion to follow her own agenda, and made a pact to our enemy(Helya)

Like @Hitei said, she left us to die two different times, "maybe hoping that we escape", and when Gen took her lamp, she just stand there mad.

It's only in BfA when all those moments were recontextualized as Sylvanas always doing evil shit for evil shit's sake.

BfA follow the Legion path of her descending into villany, the problem is they did abruptly, and the bad writing in general since the end of mop.

[Okacz]

How a simple retreat makes perfect sense for someone take leadership of the entire horde...? like, she literally just saw shit coming down and hit the bial out button

Thats it, she sounded the retreat, anyone can do that

No one else did, that's how it's framed. It's difficult to argue stuff like that, but the cinematics convey more than pure information, we also see how each character emotes, how dire the situation is thanks to cinematography and music, stuff like that. The message behind Broken Shore cinematic, at least the one Blizzard wanted to convey to the players, was that thanks to Sylvanas and her quick thinking in a dire situation the Horde lives on - tho in a slightly dishonorable way, leaving their post.

Same with Vol'Jin cinematic, which is framed as a genuine suprise to Sylvanas, and is more about her new burden of being a leader (and brief uncertainty whether the Horde will want to follow her at all) than some sort of a MASTER PLAN.

Again, it's not easy to claim anything is certain, perhaps Blizzard was always planning to frame Sylvanas in a more positive light in those scenes only to pull rug from undeneath us in BfA. But that interpretation feels way more simple and logical to me than the whole insane scheming that was (in my opinion) retconned later on. Especially the part where Sylvanas had to make sure the right demon with the right poisoned weapon stabs Vol'Jin, and possibly no other named character, so she can call for retreat and be named a Warchief afterwards. Or, and that plan also hinges on the fact that the poison is actually weak enough for Vol'Jin to get some final words in at all.

[Darkeon]

Sounds like a very handy scapegoat.

[Syegfryed]

No one else did,

call the retreat? it doesn't matter, isn't something worthy warchief position.

that's how it's framed. It's difficult to argue stuff like that, but the cinematics convey more than pure information, we also see how each character emotes, how dire the situation is thanks to cinematography and music, stuff like that. The message behind Broken Shore cinematic, at least the one Blizzard wanted to convey to the players, was that thanks to Sylvanas and her quick thinking in a dire situation the Horde lives on - tho in a slightly dishonorable way, leaving their post.

It doesn't matter, because knowing how to retreat isn't enough to magically grant her the position of supreme leader of the horde, its just common sense as her being a racial leader.

The whole situation is completely "framed" to make her look cool and take the spotlight, just like she was in the airship with Varian and is the only one with the Horn to retreat, it was everything forced handled.

Same with Vol'Jin cinematic, which is framed as a genuine suprise to Sylvanas, and is more about her new burden of being a leader (and brief uncertainty whether the Horde will want to follow her at all) than some sort of a MASTER PLAN.

It doesn't matter if it she was surprised at first, she took as opportunity to use to her own bennefit.

I mean, even sylvanas would not imagine this bs would rly happen.

Again, it's not easy to claim anything is certain, perhaps Blizzard was always planning to frame Sylvanas in a more positive light in those scenes only to pull rug from undeneath us in BfA. But that interpretation feels way more simple and logical to me than the whole insane scheming that was (in my opinion) retconned later on. .

Blizzard was already framing her in a negative light in Legion, she was using the horde to her own benefit with Helya and valkyr, then later to finish the alliance.

Especially the part where Sylvanas had to make sure the right demon with the right poisoned weapon stabs Vol'Jin, and possibly no other named character, so she can call for retreat and be named a Warchief afterwards. Or, and that plan also hinges on the fact that the poison is actually weak enough for Vol'Jin to get some final words in at all

what? that was only planned by the devs, who forced her into warchief, but it was not her and Zooval plan, it was supposed to be an convenient thing

Lets not fool ourselves, the one who made the Janitor the architect behind wow events since wtlk with her was Danuser, not Afrabiasi, for all we know, things were going in a direction of Sylvanas going evil because she wanted to, and thats why she made a pact with Helya, that could mean THERE she made some sort of contact with the Janitor

[Statius]

Why does everyone here have such a hateboner for taliesin? He has quite literally done the opposite of defending the lore. His last video was largely a criticism of the jailor as a character.

I don't hate Taliesin. I just think he's being disingenuous.

Prior to Shadowlands I actually liked watching his videos. I kind of thought of him as a cool levelheaded guy with a nuanced perspective on things. I didn't agree with him on everything, but that's fine. I still thought his videos funny and somewhat insightful.

And then I made the mistake of discovering his Twitter profile...

Let me give you a few of his greatest hits.

1. People who are upset about the lack of accountability for Sylvanas are people who come from countries that include the death penalty. In other words, if you want a coherent storyline in a fantasy world where things actually make sense (and where we've killed people for far less than what Sylvanas has done) then you're probably also supporting the death penalty irl.

2. People who don't find it plausible that Sylvanas would be dumb enough to believe that the guy who is literally called the Jailor, who has a fetish for chains and for tormenting souls, will bring freedom to the world tend to be males who because of their privilege are unable to understand just how gullible oppressed women really are. Mind you this was just after the Sanctum of Domination cinematic had been released and prior to the whole split soul narrative was introduced in game so it wasn't part of his argument.

3. If modern players (or at least players who are dissatisfied with the Shadowlands lore) had played Ulduar, they would've hated it. They would have said, "Who the hell are these Keepers? Who are these Old Gods? What's going on? I hate it" and stuff like that.

4. The reason Tyrande didn't kill Sylvanas when she was about to choke her was not actually because Elune withdrew her powers but rather because Tyrande made the choice not to kill her in order to choose renewal instead of vengeance. So the story actually made perfect sense, it's just that people didn't get it.

And so on and so on. If you look at the Twitter profile of Bellular or Nobbel87, they are all pretty chill people talking about the game (for better or worse). Taliesin's twitter profile on the other hand seems to be full of angry tweets labelled against his critics or half-arsed jokes trying to ridicule the same. He seems bent on creating division.

But yes, he does criticize Blizzard from time to time, but like 80% of his time, he's out there criticizing the community or telling them why they're wrong about their criticisms, usually using rhetoric similar to what I've listed in these four examples.

Anyway even before discovering his Twitter profile, I started noticing a pattern in his videos, one where he starts out mentioning the criticism labelled at Blizzard, somewhat agrees with it, but then as his videos progresses turns it on his head and eventually comes out (mostly) in favor of Blizzard and against the critics. This is a clever approach because then afterwards he can say, "Well I did say I disagreed with Blizz about x & y!" even as he spent the majority of the video defending them and attacking their critics.

The moment he finally lost me (and indeed I haven't watched any of his videos since) was during the whole turning women into fruit thing a couple of months ago, where he pretty much said that the people who had a hard time viewing these changes as nothing more than a PR stunt, were obviously #notbelievingsurvivors and therefore not actually supporting the victims of sexual abuse. And I'm like, "Blizzard were the ones doing the cube crawls. Blizzard are the ones being sued. I've never sexually abused anyone in my life!" To quote Michael Douglas from Falling Down, "Now I'm the bad guy? How the Hell did that happen?" :S

Also he seems to be in the habit of getting into fights and arguments with his fellow Youtubers. A couple of years back it was Asmongold, then Accolonn, then Bellular and recently he's even been at odds with Nobbel87, the most chill guy there is. Apparently he also hates mmo-champion and thinks everyone here just wants to rage against the game for seemingly no reason. He's also often rude on stream, gets angry when people don't agree with him and again rants about his fellow Youtubers.

Here's a fine example of Taliesin outright saying that the reason people watch Belluar is not because they like him as a content creator but rather because they like how he shits on WoW: https://files.catbox.moe/cx0tb8.mp4 - apparently he also gets into a fight with some guy in the second half. Bellular has, to the best of my knowledge, never said anything similar about Taliesin or his viewers.

And the problem is once you've seen all of this, you can't really unsee it. Suddenly his bubbly nice-guy attitude on Youtube becomes fake and downright toxic. And for the record I don't dislike Taliesin because I think he's some woke twitter warrior or whatever threatening my vulnerable toxic masculinity and MAGA cap. I'm pretty far left on most issues (and from a country where the death penalty has been abolished for more than a century) and indeed I'd probably agree with Taliesin on a lot of things irl. It's just his personality and his chip on the shoulder attitude and all of the things that I've already described that gets in the way of things.

But, of course, this is just my perspective. If someone watches his videos and likes them (again like I used to do until recently) then more power to them. Again, Taliesin claims that people only watch Bellular for a fix of WoW hate, just as Aucald below me claims that content creators gives their audience what they think their audience want. I'll make no such claim.

[Aucald]

I don't hate Taliesin. I just think he's being disingenuous.

I wouldn't say that's just true of Taliesin, it's pretty much true of all of the most popular or viewed streamers. Tends to be the fated arc of descent for any profession based on popularity or viewership - it promotes a kind of disingenuousness, a penchant for giving a cultivated audience what you think they want, and then being trapped by their expectations until your career implodes on you or the zeitgeist moves on to the next big thing. Your Bellulars, Asmongolds, and Taliesins all have carefully crafted facades that tend to belie their true thoughts and feelings, and sometimes those same thoughts and feelings leak out in a manner that causes dissonance for the audience.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

You are seriously questioning how 1 person can do all this after learning Blizzard is a toxic place to work for people?

You didn't read my entire post. Odd... because you quoted the entire thing.

[guro-tchai]

Here's a fine example of Taliesin outright saying that the reason people watch Belluar is not because they like him as a content creator but rather because they like how he shits on WoW: https://files.catbox.moe/cx0tb8.mp4 - apparently he also gets into a fight with some guy in the second half. Bellular has, to the best of my knowledge, never said anything similar about Taliesin or his viewers.

holy shit. i thought he was just unpleasant, but this looks like mental illness.

[Tarba]

so after reading this thread.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...-suite/1171106

brief summary. Kosak vs Alex on lore related things. once Alex got in charge of lore he abused his power to get revenge my making crazy lore choices(like sylvanas being randomly evil by burning down the tree). it shocked even the voice actors and Metzen.

What a garbage post.
Wow' story has allways been garbage. BC still being the worst lore expansion ever by far.
Sylvanas has allways been pretty evil. She mind controlled everything she could in war3 to use it as meat wall. She had no problem torturing everything she had her hand on since vanilla. Burning the tree was not particulary weird. Ogrim did way more damages. And did ten times more horrible things than her. Still, he is considered an awesome guy.

the sudden marginalization of female characters

what the fuck that guy is talking about ? BFA was all about female characters like Sylvanas, Jaina or Anduin.

So yeah... garbage post.

Wow lore writers have all been absolutely bad. The ones today are not worse than the ones before. In my opinon I can even say that the ones before were so bad that the ones now are still better.

[Wonderment2]

So yeah even if internal spat caused Slyvannas to become just awful. That doesn't really doesn't change much?

Like they still killed Vol'Jin after making him leader for a single expansion pack where he did fuck all. They still wasted N'zoth and threw him down the well to make Azshara look more powerful. They still seem to be pushing the storyline that a massacred people should forgive the person who literally did it. The Jailer was still retconed to be behind the curtain for ever moment in lore. The soul of Argus still broke the Arbiter despite that still contradicting an interview done for this expansion pack.