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

[Xath]

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

That's not how this works. The people at the top will force through ideas that those under them object to. Those under them will either get in line or be moved on from.

[Skildar]

i dont want solutions! i want to be mad!

joking aside. I can sort of see what you are saying but I feel like many of these recent lore calls have been crazy weird. Like just imagine this for a second. Rewind back to MoP. Anduin confronts Garrosh by the Divine Bell. Now imagine if instead of just breaking some porcelain on him, Garrosh just cuts him down. No more Kingsmourne happening? Kind of crazy right that this crazy powerful dude who has manipulated the legion has hinged his plan on some wide eyed kid back in Azeroth.

It just feels so......stretched out. And you know, honestly id be fine in some cases with that. Heck i held on thru BfA! But what broke the camel's back is this agenda push. The whole "love conquers all. Revenge bad". This stopped being a story and became a sermon.

I feel that the abductions of the many leaders that opposed Sylvanas was not to have them tortured for the kink of it but rather to find the righteous vessel that could be used to fetch the different sigils.

At the start of the Shadowlands expansion, I was quite puzzled at what the jailer found to be interesting when Anduin defends us as we travel to Oribos for the first time. Was it Anduin's exploit or our mawalking gift? oO' And I think 9.1 answers that with Anduin being turned into a dominated knight.

I know this was just an example amongst many, though I feel most of them if not all could be explained (except for some warcraft 3 retcons with the dreadlords not on board with Arthas). The thing is that we have to focus too much on each bit we are given because of the pacing of the patches. Legion didn't have the greatest narration but the pacing was really good. The mere fact that we were given a new zone to explore between raid/season release was a golden idea.

[confety]

Yeah the thing about garrosh opening an alternate dimension so gul'dan can summon archimonde so he can toss gul'dan to our reality to get illidan so he can use the keystone so the mortals kill argus was the Jailers plan all along bois

[Htryrt5]

I dunno guys... The lore of this game so much fckdup

[Mehrunes]

Yeah the thing about garrosh opening an alternate dimension so gul'dan can summon archimonde so he can toss gul'dan to our reality to get illidan so he can use the keystone so the mortals kill argus was the Jailers plan all along bois

You're selling the Jailer short here. Jailer first planned for the Void Lords to corrupt the unnamed World Soul so that the Nathrezim could trick Sargeras into starting the Burning Crusade so that the Legion would go to Draenor 25000 years later (he no doubt also manipulated Velen and Kil'Jaeden so that Velen would reject Sargeras' offer and KJ would forever hunt him for that in revenge) so that Gul'dan would trick the Orcs so that Grom would be the first to drink Mannoroth's blood and doom the Orcs so that Garrosh would get depressed and develop a father figure-shaped hole in his heart, all the while the Orcs eventually invaded Azeroth.

He also manipulated the Alliance and the Horde so that the Alliance won the Second War and closed the Dark Portal so that Orcs would develop strong feelings of longing towards their lost homeworld in the years spent in captivity. He then tricked Mannoroth and Grom so that Grom could redeem himself, making him a hero in Thrall's eyes, so that when the Legion reopened the Dark Portal (after the Jailer manipulated them to do so, obviously) Thrall rushed at the chance to send the Horde to Outland, which would lead him to finding Garrosh and projecting his feelings towards Grom onto him, while Garrosh would find someone to fill the father figure-shaped hole in his heart.

All so that Garrosh could get ultimately disappointed and dejected by Thrall and his Horde, so that he'd go on the path of opening a portal to an AU Draenor that the Jailer prepared for him.

[Nerovar]

No-one cares about WoW lore anymore. Its completely broken.

It was already hard to salvage after Legion/BfA burned through most of the remaining established Warcraft canon at breakneck speed but Shadowlands is the killing blow for the setting. Hard to care about anything Warcraft related after they put out a story that pretty much subverts the setting in its entirety.

[Nathanyel]

joking aside. I can sort of see what you are saying but I feel like many of these recent lore calls have been crazy weird. Like just imagine this for a second. Rewind back to MoP. Anduin confronts Garrosh by the Divine Bell. Now imagine if instead of just breaking some porcelain on him, Garrosh just cuts him down. No more Kingsmourne happening? Kind of crazy right that this crazy powerful dude who has manipulated the legion has hinged his plan on some wide eyed kid back in Azeroth.

You seem to assume that the Jailer planned to use Anduin, specifically Anduin, long before he was actually born. Zovaal, and even the Dreadlords, are merely opportunists with an infinite lifespan, throwing out many lines that may or may not catch something. Sometimes a plan succeeds in some way, but probably more often than that, nothing comes from it.
Now, you could say that this hasn't been properly laid out in the story, and you're probably right.

But the hints are there, in just about everything we know about the Jailer.

Outcomes that can only be described as failures:
His original coup against the other Eternal Ones failed.
The Lich King, having already defied his on-the-record Legion masters, also defied Zovaal's influence, presumably due to the influence of Arthas and later Bolvar.

Even outcomes we see as victories for the Jailer probably didn't go according to some eternal plan:
Mortals defeating the Legion and killing Argus was definitely not planned, at most he anticipated the Legion's eventual fall. Given more time and death magic channelled into him, Argus was likely meant to immediately take over the Arbiter, instead of just disabling her.
Sylvanas was given the task to gather candidates for what eventually befell Anduin, she picked five, one outright killed her would-be captors, three more we rescued from Torghast, it was "luck" (dramaturgy) that we didn't find Anduin in time.

Anduin was picked by Sylvanas as a potential vessel (in the hope he could be made to join their cause willingly to let her justify her actions to herself, but that's another discussion) and he is a good pick, but Zovaal didn't realize that until he saw him call strongly to the Light deep in the Maw, to help us escape via the Waystone. Zovaal just thought "neat", and adjusted his plans accordingly.

I assume we'll learn more about Zovaal's plans up to Sylvanas turning on him either ingame from her, or from the upcoming book (yes, that wouldn't be optimal) just as we learned about Sargeras's motivations piece by piece.
Yes, he's essentially a one-expansion villain that was given connections to previous threats to increase the perceived danger, but I'm gonna wait before the entire story of Shadowlands is out instead of judging it just by what's out now.

[FelPlague]

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

Mortals do not go to the twisting nether upon death.
but pump them full of fel till they become demonic and they do.

titans do not go to the shadowlands upon death...
but do what the dreadlords did, and PUMP them full of death matgic, and they do.

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So much for Titans going to the realms of Order rofl

read above.

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Didn't the Titans use Argus to imprison Sargeras?
Why did Argus go to the shadowlands?
Why did Argus break the Arbiter?
How did Zovaal even know about Argus?
How did Zovaal corrupt Argus?
How did Sargeras not notice?
If Sargeras and Zovaal were working together, why? Sargeras wants to kill Azeroth to 'save' her soul from void corruption. Him winning would stop Zovaal from being able to remake reality with the universal 3d printer since he needs Azeroth's soul to power it.

Does any part of this actually make sense?

read above but

1- they used part of him yes
2- by overloading her
3-Because he is the big boss of the nathrezim
4- the nathrezim
5- because he was the one who overlooked it, but didnt know in the titans death it would be used by another
6- they were not, but zovaal simply sent the nathrezim in to infiltrate the legion and guide things to his goal.

yes it does make sense (mostly) if you read the lore funnily enough.

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also its weird how every single person here seems to think the jailer "planned for literally everything" no he planned for big key things to happen. Dude has literally all of eternity, infinite amount of years and lifetimes for something to happen he hoped would happen, he sent out many strings that did not work, and has hoped on a few that have. who knows how many countless ideas he has tried before this that didnt work, we are only seeing a couple of the ones that have.

He was imprisoned, and convinced the most corrupt of his jailers to join him. They created a force able to infiltrate the major powers, and from there nudged the powers into doing things that may end up in his favor. so far the only one that seems to have helped was the powers of death, with the arthas, which failed, but he did find this new helpful thing called sylvanas. and fel, which found a titan and began corrupting it, which he then had his followers fill with death magic, so if it eventually died, it would end up being able to take out the arbiter. A corrupt titan, one he can fill with death magic, to make sure when it inevitably goes unstable and dies, it will make its way right to the arbiter.


he did not plan for random person doing this, random other person doing that, random guy doing this thing, random other thing happening. What he planned for was specific key figures leading to something, and a couple did.

[Alanar]

Many speculated that it was Xavius as well or anyone who was evil and red for that matter

Yea indeed.

Saying we knew it was argus means you had confirmation on that before we all got that. Stop being rediculous lol.

[Trumpcat]

I'm tired of trying to pretend any of this Danuser-era lore is consistent

Very much this. I've spent hours speculating about grand plot designs and twists in the past. But the Danuser complete lack of consistency and apparent lack of understanding of their own lore rules have put me off. Besides on the one lore controversy question in the actors panel at the Blizzconline he said "let's not get into it". So I'm not getting into it.

[Mic_128]

I gotta ask, but where was it said that Titan souls don't go to the Shadowlands on death?

[Aucald]

I gotta ask, but where was it said that Titan souls don't go to the Shadowlands on death?

In the Kyrian dailies acquired from their Anima Conductor, there is a set of quests where you basically play "Bearer Trivia" and tell the NPC where specific souls in specific scenarios are to be sent for their afterlife. This is where the lore about which souls do and don't arrive at Oribos to be judged by the Arbiter is derived. Danuser mused on Titan souls specifically as concerns the Shadowlands in an interview with Taliesin and Evitel viewable here.

[Venziir]

Yea indeed.

Saying we knew it was argus means you had confirmation on that before we all got that. Stop being rediculous lol.

The confirmation being the fact, that it was beyond obvious.

[Ersula]

Danuser is having the Steven Moffat problem: He waited so long to do the reveal that Argus' death caused it, no one actually cares anymore.

[Alanar]

The confirmation being the fact, that it was beyond obvious.

Thats not how it works..

Anything red was speculated even xavius, so no.
Its as confirmed as it was when people though sire was father of dreadlords.. people 99% of their case, but the confirmation came later.. this is exactly the same.

Something saying afterwards..

[Aucald]

Nah it wasnt. Anything red was speculated even xavius.

Its easy saying afterwards.

As I recall thinking back to various theories, Argus was always the #1 pick for the culprit, with Xavius being a close #2. The issue with Argus was the question of why/how he was in the Shadowlands to even strike the Arbiter, and the issue with Xavius was that he really wasn't personally powerful enough to affect the Arbiter in the manner he did. I also recall Gul'dan being a possible culprit, that it was possible his "doubling" somehow confused the Arbiter and disrupted her function.

[Alanar]

As I recall thinking back to various theories, Argus was always the #1 pick for the culprit, with Xavius being a close #2. The issue with Argus was the question of why/how he was in the Shadowlands to even strike the Arbiter, and the issue with Xavius was that he really wasn't personally powerful enough to affect the Arbiter in the manner he did. I also recall Gul'dan being a possible culprit, that it was possible his "doubling" somehow confused the Arbiter and disrupted her function.

Exactly, but it was not a confirmation at that stage. It was still speculation. Even sire was mentioned.

[Aucald]

Exactly, but it was not a confirmation at that stage. It was still speculation. Even sire was mentioned.

I don't recall the Sire ever being a serious contender for what had happened until much later. I'm more referring to the speculation when the reveal that the Arbiter was offline became known.

[Alanar]

I don't recall the Sire ever being a serious contender for what had happened until much later. I'm more referring to the speculation when the reveal that the Arbiter was offline became known.

Yea it was this red ball from the sky. At that moment what ever is red and powerfull was considered cus we were touching in the dark pretty much. I even remember some one saying Argus and people instantly shouted hes a titan so its impossible cus they dont go to shadowlands etc etc.

Options I saw were indeed :Argus, sire and xavius. But ye.. these were options and speculations in here. But I dont count that as straight up confirmation. I dont recall it being so obvious every one though argus. With given info it wasnt the case.

[Aucald]

Yea it was this red ball from the sky. At that moment what ever is red and powerfull was considered cus we were touching in the dark pretty much.

Options I saw were indeed :Argus, sire and xavius. But ye.. these were options and speculations in here. But I dont count that as straight up confirmation. I dont recall ot being so obvious every one though argus.. that wasnt the case.

I was pretty certain it was ultimately going to prove to be Argus, personally speaking, but it was definitely still open to speculation and different possibilities. Argus fits the timing and the power-scale necessary, whereas Xavius and Gul'dan only fit the timing. But it was equally possible it could've been something entirely else, perhaps something not even native to the physical universe, such as an as-yet unrevealed weapon in the Jailer's arsenal.