Hello everyone!
When they anounced the shadowlands and explained that the machine of death got
broken... all the souls just going to the maw regardless of where they belong, a lot
of speculation started to happen. We then got the cutscene in Oribos which showed a bit more,
but not a diffinitive answer so I’ve been holding out on making this video. Waiting to see if any
more clues would pop up throughout our shadowlands adventure. If a clearcut answer would be given and
I’m still not entirely sure which is awesome. I love it when things are kept in the realm of
speculation. Personally I’m leaning more towards Sire Denathrius and Revendreth being responsible,
but lets not get ahead of ourselves... This is what they told us during a blizzcon interview:
But the process of all this has actually become you know, it changed and this happened kinda back
in the Legion time frame. This is part of what sylvanas recognised and had a hand in and so
that mechanism of the Arbiter sending souls to different covenants
hasn’t happened for a while. And everything is going into the maw.
And the Maw is litteraly becoming overloaded with souls and this is part of her plans.
This is from an interview by Warcraft radio which I’ll link the description
down below if you want to check out the full thing. The system changed somewhere
in the Legion timeframe and Sylvanas had a hand in it, it’s part of her plans.
Then the cutscene, this is what we got...
“Every mortal soul came before the arbiter. And she,
ever wise, experienced all that has shaped a soul in life.
With this knowledge, she consigned every soul to the afterlife it justly deserved. Until...
RED bAlL OF DOOM Arbiter shrieks
In that dread moment, our perfect order was shattered. And so it is that every soul,
kind and cruel alike, is denied its rightful afterlife,
and instead is damned to the inescapable torment of the Maw.
I’ve heard suggestions in the direction of a Ysera or a Xavius going to the Shadowlands,
some other powerful spirit that might have died. Ultimately I think there’s 2 mostly speculated
about that I can talk about the most. Could it be a ysera or a xavius, sure enough. Until we get it
outright stated that this thing caused the arbiter to crash, the realm of speculation remains open.
I’m just here to explain my thought process behind it, share in the glorious speculation.
While watching this on stream my mind immeditialy shot too ow cool
the death of Argus has something to do with this but then we thought a bit longer about it
and instead sire Denathrius seemed a more likely candidate.
Why argus? Well when thinking about the legion time period,
there are certain moments that stand out. Ysera’s death, Greymane shattering the soulcage, tearing
up reality between argus and azeroth, the death of the titan argus and sargeras stabbing the world.
To narrow it down a bit, we know it took place after the emerald nightmare raid since the spirit
of ursoc still ended up in Ardenweald. But that’s about how far the elimination goes.
Yet lets not forget that it wasn’t said to have been an event from legion itself,
rather sometime during the legion time period. Year 32 ish in Warcraft itself.
The red coloring of what ever hit the Arbiter does line up with Argus as his mythic fight
changes his model from blue to red. He wields a Scythe of the Unmaker while his spells are
labeled as deathtitan in the games database. Apperantly his Grasp of the Unmaker ability
was originally called Grasp of the Death Titan on the PTR and was renamed in a later build.
The freak out of the arbiter could be explained by experiencing what these souls have gone through
as fro mthe audio drama we learn that argus didn’t have the greatest of lives:
Then she had witnessed flashes of destiny, now she lived a history that surpassed the existence
of the universe. Blink.
It was energy spinning out into the cosmos blink
It found warmth near a sun and the world formed around it to protect it as it grew.
Blink Generations of life lived and died upon it.
Blink It was betrayed. It was
bound by something powerful. Blink
Pain. PAIN. It hurts so much. Its only sollace lay within its dream.
Blink They enslaved worlds.
They burned worlds. They used its strength to revive their fallen souls. It hurts so much.
Blink. They found
another. It was much more powerful. They wanted to claim it too. Then they would be unstoppable.
Blink It screamed into the cosmos for help.
Two children answered the call. 2 Bright lights. Blink
2 Bright lights from Azeroth, a world that was like Argus.
But what happens when a titan dies or in this case a semi-developed titan? Well in
an interview by Taliesin and evitel with lead narrative designer Steve Danuser, this was said:
‘As far as titans themselves, you will as you play shadowlands you’ll start understanding
that there are certain rules in place for the cosmos. And the Shadowlands is build specifically
as a place for mortal souls to go or souls that are of death magic in a way, in the same way that
demons when you killed them on Azeroth, they went back to disorder. To the twisting nether
to all of that. So these are some of the rules of our universe that we go by. And if you look
at those rules that we established before and that we are laying the ground work for here,
you can start kinda piecing some things together and maybe you might speculate about certain other
ways that these interact with. And how those beings of other cosmic forces uhm what might
happen to them when they’ve been killed. Are you saying titans wouldn’t be found
in the Shadowlands? They wouldn’t die and head there. They might have somewhere else.
So what I would say is that the nature of a being, of a magical being so I kinda do
two big distinctions between magical beings and mortal beings. Mortal beings are what we
see in the mortal realm where azeroth is and worlds like Draenor and other worlds that we
have either slightly visited or that could still be out there that we haven’t seen yet.
So there’s a set of rules for mortal beings and there’s a set of rules for magical beings. And
like I would say that the demons of the burning legion, the real demons, we’ve seen what happens
to them by those rules. And so maybe you would project upon that, what would happen to beings
of other cosmic influences when they have died. Maybe there are other places where they go. Again,
I want you to kind of explore and think about it and speculate about these kinds of things.”
The Shadowlands is for mortal souls, something elso repeated in the Arbiter cutscene.
Souls of azeroth, draenor, other worlds we haven’t visited yet.
While beings of the cosmic chart, Order, Disorder, LIght, Void, Life and Death,
they got their own thing going on. They’ve used the example of being unable to slay demons on
our world, they need to be taken out in the twisting nether to truly be gone
and they want us to think about what would happen to other magical souls if we take them out.
An old god might return to the domain of the void. A naaru might return to the domain of light
and a titan might return to the domain of order but not the Shadowlands so Argus wouldn’t end
up there....exceot they did make the distinction of mortal souls or souls that are of death magic
and in the case of Argus, that seems to line up. He seems very much connected
to death and unmaking yet there’s one thing that I then have to wonder about.
Sylvanas is said to have had a hand in disrupting the machine of death, yet as far as I recall,
her rol during Legion was extremely minimal. If we trace back the steps that lead to the
defeat and death of argus, we’re looking at velen and the Draenei repairing their ship,
Illidan opening up the rift between Azeroth and Argus, Kil’jaeden following the orders of
Sargeras and sending their forces through the gateway at the tomb of sargeras,
a gateway opened up by alternate Gul’dan. The thing that the banshee queen did during that
expansion was join the strike team at the broken shore and deal with Helya and Eyir in Stormheim.
You might argue that as warchief of the horde they pledged their aid in
the battle against theb urning legion but at the end of the day they’d done that anyways
so iIf there’s a connection there that I’m missing by all means let me know.
Theres one connecting that i thought of while editing but its a bit flimsy. Theres
a book in revendreth that you can pick up which pitches the idea that the domain of death has
infiltrated the other domains on the cosmic chart. So if the domain of death has infiltrated
the domain of order. They turned sargeras on the path of becoming the leader of the
burning legion so to gowards disorder. Then i nturn sargeras was pushed to enslave argus
and then that whole storyline played out. Argus enslaved, the worst kind of life,
the death that eventually followed. IF you have that build up and thats speculation on its own,
then you could make the argument that since sylvanas is allied to the jailer. Perhapos that
is what they meant, she had a hand in this. But i would argue that her allegiance with the jailer
didnt happen until the end of wrath of the lich king, i wouldnt find this the strongest argument.
So then Sire Denathrius, why was he the second name to jump to mind.
The attack is colored red and they’ve provided the different animas of the
shadowlands with their own unique colors. The maw is black, bastion is white,
ardenweald is blue, maldraxxus rocks the green while Revendreth is a clear red.
We know that Sire Denathrius has allied himself with the jailer and been squeezing his people for
every last drop of anima. Pushing the venthyr and the souls in their care far beyond their limits.
Corrupting and perverting their ancient rituals meant to help these souls,
not abuse them. All that to get as much anima as he could
while the people were told that there wasn’t enough to go around.
“Unfortunately, of late the flow of such hubris written souls has virtually seized. As a result,
anima, our most precious resource, is in dwindling supply. Even we,
the faithful who extract the anima have not been spared the effect of this MYSTERIOUS drought. “
He’s full of shit during this speech, lieing about not having enough anima and calling it
a mysterious drought. There are those that can see the hidden truth, the sinfall rebellion,
who time and time again blame the sire not just for the drought in Revendreth,
but in all of the Shadowlands. You could explain that by saying that he is creating this drought
because he’s holding on to the anima that they got. Not sharing the resources gathered from
the souls they have, but then the system of the Shadowlands was a selfsustaining one. Why would
he be held responsible for a drought across all the Shadowlands by not sharing what they have.
So this anima is dropped down into the Maw by Denathrius. He’s on board with
his plans. Ready for Death to dominate the cosmic war that’s been going on in Warcraft.
Anima and souls to make his friend strong, to help him break out, similar to how the arbiter
is now sending all those poor souls down regardless on how they lived their lives.
“My kind are called from the stone to defend Revendreth. It sickens me to see
our loyalty twisted by the one we once served.” “The stoneborn were not the only ones manipulated
and deceived, my friend. I daresay even the Arbiter herself has been made a pawn. The time
has come to dethrone our former master. What we do next, we do for the sake of all the Shadowlands!”
Sylvanas is said to have had a hand in disrupting the machine of death, and the Maw is litteraly
becoming overloaded with souls and this is part of her plans. A lot of what’s been going on between
Sylvanas and the Jailer prior to the Shadowlands has been kept in the Shadows. We didn’t even
know the jailer was a thing until the expansion was anounced, but now we do. And she’s not the
only one that decided to join his side. Devos, Helya, Mueh’zala, more to be revealed, he has a
whole team that chose his covenant. Probably has some sweet transmog or something and Denathrius
is part of that team. I think it’s easier to imagine a connection between Jailer, Sylvanas,
Denathrius rather then Jailer, Sylvanas, Argus. The timeframe of legion, again, does not mean it
had to be an event from Legion, rather that the machine of death recently got broken.
That’s what I have to say about what broke the Arbiter.
Similar to who’s the winter queen’s sister or where is the missing Primus, it’s not a
clear cut answer and I’m really enjoying that . By all means let me know what you think happened
in the comments down below and for now thank you very much for watching everyone! Subscribe if you
like my videos, leave a like if you enjoyed this one aaand until next time...see ya!