Shadowlands Afterlives: Ardenweald

[Darknessvamp]

You know, your own body will start to curtail bloodflow to your limbs when it begins dropping in temperature in order to save the critical organs.

What is happening in Ardenweald is the closest thing we can compare it to. Anima is the bloodflow of the Shadowlands. The caretakers of Ardenweald are literally constricting the flow of anima and allowing entities to die in order to conserve resources.

This isn't malicious. The INTENT, as you state, is to save Ardenweald and NOT to kill souls.

Except this isn't an apt comparison at all. Ardenweald is a country, Anima is more like rations in this case and the seeds and groves are considered a different group of people from the Caretakers in charge. The caretakers are literally deciding that the seeds are not worth the rations being assigned to them and are systematically choosing groves, taking or 'reclaiming' all the rations for themselves, destroying them in the process, in order to ensure they survive. They are purposely killing souls to ensure their survival. They may say they're "saving Ardenweald" but they're still purposely causing harm.

They clearly didn't desire to harm Ursoc. They were culling some groves to save others... Literally not malice...

Not others, themselves. They've already culled more than one grove and there is no indication that they're stopping at this one.

You can't ignore the last part of the definition.

Definition of malicious: having or showing a desire to cause harm to someone : given to, marked by, or arising from malice

Malice means:
the desire to harm someone; ill will.

Malicious acts aren't malicious because it's causing harm, it's because there is ill intent behind it.
Good intent aren't malicious but can still be wrong by other metrics.

There isn't ill intent in destroying someone else's existence/future in order to ensure the continuation of your own? Plus you can't say they're doing it in a friendly manner, there is a clear apathy expressed towards the groves with how easily they take to the task of ending the soul's germination and taking the Anima for themselves especially with the suggestion they've already culled multiple other groves.

[Army Dreamer]

A moral dilemma plus whole bunch of nothing. Is it hat bad?

[Kumorii]

There isn't ill intent in destroying someone else's existence/future in order to ensure the continuation of your own? Plus you can't say they're doing it in a friendly manner, there is a clear apathy expressed towards the groves with how easily they take to the task of ending the soul's germination and taking the Anima for themselves especially with the suggestion they've already culled multiple other groves.

No, there isn't ill intent, because they aren't doing it to destroy their existence. It's to save the rest. It's called for the greater good.
That's where morality and ethics comes and we can agree or disagree and what not on that matter since it's pretty personal. However, there wasn't ILL INTENT, with what they were doing. They didn't destroy Ursoc for that purpose alone.

Intent is crucial when determining something is malicious.

[Moozart]

So they're not openly causing harm to recovering souls and erasing them by turning them into resources cause they deem them of less worth than the big tree and forest they reside in? As much as you think they may feel "agony" over it they're not exactly expressing it by going "welp this grove of helpless souls next". Ara'lon might be the only one that actually shows some empathy but even he is quick to join the drain gang because his Queen is stood there and he thinks sacrificing groves for his home is better than allowing them a chance at having an after life. Just imagine if Ursoc had been deemed a little more courageous than natural Wild God that needed to be returned, he'd be alive and well as a skele-bear in Maldraxxus rather than erased and turned into plant food for a Court he didn't know even existed.

I mean let's be honest the after life kinda sucks:
Revendreth is corrupt, will punish you till you repent and will chuck you in the Maw if you don't meet their standards.
Bastion will brainwash you until you forget who are and then force you to do the same for others.
Ardenweald will farm you for your Anima or you'll end up in regeneration seed pods which they can arbitrary choose to end prematurely for harvesting.
Maldraxxus is a military state split into five houses and apparently suffers from infighting.
The Maw is torture and hell.
Arguably Maldraxxus seems like the best choice tbh even with the possibilities of countless other realms that apparently the Arbiter doesn't send people to.

Um no.... Souls started going to the maw AFTER most if not all of legion. We know Wrynn didnt go to the maw, or Ysera ect. The only major event that happened after ysera dying was us killing the titan of Death and him plunging his sword into Azeroth. The death of the Titan of Death seems like enough to fubar the machine.

[GreenJesus]

Damn, much better than Maldraxxus for sure. Bastion is still my favorite, but Ardenweald's Afterlives blew away my expectations. So gracefully and insightfully-written, why can't Night Elves be written like this? Instead we get whining, entitled, and spoiled do-nothing forest hippies and moon sluts.

*boob Bounce bounce* What you say about the Night elves? *boob bounce bounce*

[bagina]

Arguing about semantics is silly. I'm not blaming the Winter Queen cause she didn't cause the drought, however she did resolve that problem in a utilitarian way. Ursoc wasn't even aware of what was happening. Not asking for his consent or even making him aware of his fate was the thing I would be side eyeing the most in this situation.

[ravenmoon]

Never much enjoyed the sacrifice the few to save the whole spiel. So nature get essentially two planes of the afterlife now, once when you die you go to emerald dream, but if you die in there you go to Ardenweld. Also wasn't Ursoc chilling in the emerald room (idk the end of the 1st legion raid) with all the others after that raid, almost reborn in the emerald dream uncorrupted again. Probably don't have my understandings right but oh well. Once again so many questions and clip was above average. Also what's up with seasonal periods in the afterlife, that's a left field concept?

It does ask more questions than it answers, though not a bad thing.

As far as I know, the The emerald dream wisps are a night elf thing only. Arden Weald is possible for ANY race (based on your previous life ofc). PReviously I assumed wild gods went directly tehre, this seems to be or suggest something different. For Night elves it isn't the same as they're mortals (even with immortality they had wihich wasn't true immortality, just indefinite extension of their lifespan through magical means like the arcane (pre-sundering and Highborne) or Nordrassil (long vigil group). There natural lifespans are very very long though.

I'll try to fill in the blanks, some of this is guess work based on knowledge, but educated guess work.
Ever since Cenarius bonded with these evolved trolls, impressed by their regard for life and their intelligence, that developed affinity and bond that has sent night elves to the Emerald dream (it has nothing to do with their arcane essence , talent or what they practiced in life as far as I know - it is part o their arcane - nature duality, the nature part developed presumably by Cenarius in them in their early stages is what yields this)- unless they become great enemies of nature ofc. Thalassians don't experience this because during their exile both Cenarius and Malfurion did something tot hem cutting them off from Nordrassil and the well (I presume to limit their capacity to ever use it for arcane and thus cause more trouble - but I don't know for sure - it's just an educated guess) more than that changed, their souls don't have that night elven level of arcane or nature - after the creation of the Sunwell, their arcane ability is boosted due tot eh infusion, but there is nothing that boosts their nature side. And while love for nature is evident in them, and Quel'thalas was evidence of a great appreciation and care of it, they have not recaptured what they lost due to the severing. Doesn't mean they can't learn it and that nature lovers amongst them won't go to Arden Weald. They just don't become wisps like their Night elven ancestors.


The Arden weald in general has souls from every race all over the universe come to it, that qualify.

The Nightmare druid I think died in the emerald dream there, (does this by-pass his wisp transformation and going straight to the afterlife? I dunno, is that even the correct order?)

I am still not clear if wisps go to the afterlife first then go to the Emerald dream or emerald dream then afterlife. The events of the story seem to suggest it's the former. For Night elf souls to be in the Maw, it means they haven't transitioned from shadowlands to go to the Emerald dream. And means they went directly to shadowlands on death, where they would have got a fair chance at one of the realms based on their lives, before going back to wisps - I would also assume that the individual chooses whether to go back to the Emerald dream as a wisp.

But I don't know for sure.

[Soulwind]

Arguing about semantics is silly. I'm not blaming the Winter Queen cause she didn't cause the drought, however she did resolve that problem in a utilitarian way. Ursoc wasn't even aware of what was happening. Not asking for his consent or even making him aware of his fate was the thing I would be side eyeing the most in this situation.

You're assuming that they can communicate with those sleeping souls.

[Kyphael]

*boob Bounce bounce* What you say about the Night elves? *boob bounce bounce*

LOL

/10 char

[kamuimac]

The Covenants are evil. The Pantheon of Death is evil.

The Shadowlands made Uther go mad with revenge.
Made Draka forget her heritage and self.
Denied Ursoc his rebirth.

Zovaal did nothing wrong. Sylvanas did nothing wrong.

well its pretty much obvious at this point that arbiter will be ultimately our main enemy in SL

and Sylvanas freeing jailor was a hero which is whyshe is not Garosh 2.0

seems that lore will be predicatble and booring like hell in 9.2 and 9.3

and then 10.0 will be light/void invading azeroth and we coming back like 50 years later with azeroth semi-destroyed.

[Sharnie786]

This has been the best one so far.

I'm not interested in human or orc lore so couldn't care less about that last 2. This one was definitely HIGH FANTASY and evocative for anyone with emotions.

[FossilFree]

Damn, now I want to reroll a new main from scratch to make an RP fitting hunter for Ardenweald.

[TigTone]

If you didn’t have a reason to hate the jailer now you do.

Ursoc!!!!!!!!

[Jastall]

That was... much better than I expected. If not for the Arthas and Uther feels this might be the best one yet. It concisely and effectively presents what Ardenweald is about and asks an interesting moral question to which the answer is not easy, and both the visuals and music are fantastic. Good job Blizzard, but I can't really believe that the same people are responsible for the far poorer Maldraxxus one.

[Daronokk]

I'm not interested in human or orc lore so couldn't care less about that last 2. This one was definitely HIGH FANTASY and evocative for anyone with emotions.

Orc lore? Draka is there just for the token female hero part, there's nothing Orcish about it.

Anyway, the cinematic was quite poor. They're sacrificing lives to save lives, which is idiotic. They're counterproductive in their twisted views.

Also, bit off topic but if your deeds in life create anima then killing off Sargeras should reap a shitload of Anima for the Shadowlands. Problem of draught solved right there. And no, Sargeras isn't a demon, he's a living being so he should go to the Shadowlands upon death, no?

[Jastall]

Orc lore? Draka is there just for the token female hero part, there's nothing Orcish about it.

Anyway, the cinematic was quite poor. They're sacrificing lives to save lives, which is idiotic. They're counterproductive in their twisted views.

Also, bit off topic but if your deeds in life create anima then killing off Sargeras should reap a shitload of Anima for the Shadowlands. Problem of draught solved right there. And no, Sargeras isn't a demon, he's a living being so he should go to the Shadowlands upon death, no?

Eh? Sargeras is imprisoned, not dead, and given that he's a weird Fel Titan thingie there's no guarantee he even ends up in the Shadowlands, and if he did he would have been automatically tossed into the Maw which would have been very, very bad news had the Jailer been able to harness his power.

[Darknessvamp]

No, there isn't ill intent, because they aren't doing it to destroy their existence. It's to save the rest. It's called for the greater good.
That's where morality and ethics comes and we can agree or disagree and what not on that matter since it's pretty personal. However, there wasn't ILL INTENT, with what they were doing. They didn't destroy Ursoc for that purpose alone.

Intent is crucial when determining something is malicious.

Even if that wasn't their only purpose their thinking is still "we must destroy these souls so that we might survive", there is clear communication of opposition and disregard from one party towards the other, not to mention an idea of superiority and inferiority considering they are caretakers who are deciding which of their charges lives or dies seemingly by worth, which is facilitating their desire to harm others which sounds pretty malicious to me. Although as you said they dress up their motivations as "The Greater Good" and "Saving the whole" which could then become an argument about what is morally wrong and right and whether that justifies their actions as lacking in malice but considering the Shadowlands largely paints itself as amoral I believe that would be a wasted discussion to have. Perhaps my issue is more with the fact that the Night Fae are assuming the fates of the souls and deciding for them rather than allowing them to consent to the fate of their Afterlife. After all "we have decided you must be destroyed so that we can live" sounds far more malicious than "we will give ourselves up for the sake of Ardenweald".

Um no.... Souls started going to the maw AFTER most if not all of legion. We know Wrynn didnt go to the maw, or Ysera ect. The only major event that happened after ysera dying was us killing the titan of Death and him plunging his sword into Azeroth. The death of the Titan of Death seems like enough to fubar the machine.

I'm not sure what you're responding to in my post but there's a character in Revendreth who says if a soul fails their tasks for repentance or does not meet their standards they have a tendency to drop those souls into the Maw. Not to mention apparently there's a judgment by the Arbiter where they consider a soul dangerous enough to the Shadowlands that they drop them in the Maw instead of assigning them to one of the covenants.

You're assuming that they can communicate with those sleeping souls.

I believe there's a quest in Ardenweald where Dreamweaver has you do just that whilst taking part in grove tending.

[iperson]

Except this isn't an apt comparison at all. Ardenweald is a country, Anima is more like rations in this case and the seeds and groves are considered a different group of people from the Caretakers in charge. The caretakers are literally deciding that the seeds are not worth the rations being assigned to them and are systematically choosing groves, taking or 'reclaiming' all the rations for themselves, destroying them in the process, in order to ensure they survive. They are purposely killing souls to ensure their survival. They may say they're "saving Ardenweald" but they're still purposely causing harm.



Not others, themselves. They've already culled more than one grove and there is no indication that they're stopping at this one.



There isn't ill intent in destroying someone else's existence/future in order to ensure the continuation of your own? Plus you can't say they're doing it in a friendly manner, there is a clear apathy expressed towards the groves with how easily they take to the task of ending the soul's germination and taking the Anima for themselves especially with the suggestion they've already culled multiple other groves.

At this point I honestly can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse or there's a genuine language barrier. To anyone watching the same cinematic I did it was clearly a difficult choice to cull the grove. That is literally the opposite of malice. Enjoy being wrong I guess...

[TigTone]

At this point I honestly can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse or there's a genuine language barrier. To anyone watching the same cinematic I did it was clearly a difficult choice to cull the grove. That is literally the opposite of malice. Enjoy being wrong I guess...

Person doesn’t understand that if they don’t act ALL the groves die.

[bagina]

If you didn’t have a reason to hate the jailer now you do.

Ursoc!!!!!!!!

Mission accomplished by Blizzard. Cheap emotional tricks and superficial pathos work like charm every time.