Looking back at the Nathrezim, it’s possible not all of them are loyal to Denathrius despite Mal’ganis’ words. Given how scheming and manipulative the Nathrezim are, it makes you wonder if they’re all loyal to Denathrius. While many are, being made by him doesn’t guarantee that; Ren’thal was the first Ven’thyr and made by Denathrius’ own hand, but Ren’thal still turned against him. There are two major examples among Nathrezim; Ulthalesh and Lothraxion.
Ulthalesh was bound into the Warlock Artifact “Ulthalesh, the Deadwind Harvester” because he led a group of demons who refused to join the Burning Legion against Sargeras following Sargeras freeing them from Mardum. If Denathrius wanted Nathrezim among the Burning Legion’s rank to subvert it, why did Ulthalesh try to lead a movement against Sargeras before the Legion was even formed?
Then there’s the much bigger case of Lothraxion. In the story “A Thousand Years of War”, Lothraxion - having joined the Army of the Light - said he regretted what he did as part of the Burning Legion and wasn’t sure he could atone for it. Locus-Walker also had a vision of Lothraxion joining the Army of the Light while battling him, which is why the ethereal spared Lothraxion.
In the Army of the Light, Lothraxion served under Xe’ra, a hardliner Naaru who could read minds and - between the Burning Legion and Revendreth (if Xe’ra knew about Revendreth) - had plenty of experience with Nathrezim as enemies. This means I don’t think Lothraxion could’ve fooled Xe’ra if he wasn’t loyal to the Army of the Light. Yet also in “A Thousand Years of War”, during a disagreement between Turalyon and Xe’ra, Lothraxion sided with Turalyon, meaning Xe’ra wasn’t controlling Lothraxion.
So where they making mistakes, going rogue (maybe Ulthalesh didn’t approve of the Burning Legion and wanted them gone) or genuinely defecting (maybe Lothraxion considered Xe’ra a kinder master than Denathrius)?
The truth of it is that the Nathrezim’s allegiance to Denathrius was something that was clearly decided on the fly to artificially raise the stakes for Shadowlands, and they haven’t bothered to step back and think about the consequences of retconning motivations of characters like Lothraxion or Ulthalesh (I doubt that they even recall the latter). This thread alone has put more thought into the decision for the dreadlords’ motivations than Blizzard did when they decided to write for the 9.1 chapter.
I don’t say that to sound defeatist. It’s just a simple reality that there isn’t any forethought to the writing on this, or largely anything in the plot now.
Hard for there to be forethought when the head writers of WoW were fired for their crimes leaving new head writers to pick up the pieces in a hurry.
Denathrius was spared because his voice was that good. The Nathrezim being part of this was probably also added for this reason.
They have a brief outline left by the previous head writers yet due to how charismatic Denathrius they decided to add him to this plot which considering how sudden it was and how set in stone the plot was for this Expansion it was put in clumsily.
The new head writers need time and an Expansion with a general plot outline that they made themselves to get the writing stable.
But was this story arc the product of the writers who were fired, or the new ones? I’ve heard people say the story of WoW is planned out years in advance (that doesn’t mean it’s planned well, but still).
Besides, the people who committed those crimes deserve to be arrested, made to pay fines or get jail time, so why just fired?
According to Blizzard the Stories are planned 2 Expansions in advance.
Shadowlands and the Expansion after that’s story arc are the fired Writer Afrasiabi’s work(just as how MoP, WoD, Legion, BfA and Shadowlands had Kotick’s hand in their Story Arcs).
Just to note WoD was made on the fly due to Tom Chilton’s whims(which explains WoD’s problems) which meant that Kosak had lots of time to work on Legion and BfA’s plot before he switched to Hearthstone giving Afrasiabi the reigns upon which he did clumsy work on Sylvanas’s Plot that was blatantly noticeable.
Afrasiabi taking over had a crude effect on both Legion and BfA’s development. As Shadowlands was mostly his work(as Kosak switched to Hearthstone before Legion Launch) it probably would have been more stable if he hadn’t been fired(though as you said he should be arrested) sending the thing straight into chaos.
The Expansion after the Expansion following Shadowlands will be what Danuser can freely set up as he can.
The lesson to note: Shakeups in Writers or plans for Expansions derail Expansion quality. Story needs proper flow.
I think its heavily implied that Lothraxion is indeed a spy for the nathrezim in the army of the light. The book detailing nathrezim effort to infiltrate other cosmic force imply that infiltrating the light can be relatively easy. Quote from the in game book, enemy infiltration:
‘‘They savor nothing more than being proved right, so if they believe they have converted one of us to their precious Light, they will trust that agent implicitly.’’
Seem if Lothraxion is able to sound genuine to the naaru about his redemption and accept being infused by the light (which is easy for these magic vampire to do), it should be relatively easy for these master manipulator to basically join the light without need of hiding.
I agree regarding Danuser but personally I doubt Kotick had a hand in it at all. The man had outright said in the past that the goal of games isn’t to have fun, but to keep people playing and make money. He’s a businessman through and through and I doubt he cares what works story is like. I suspect all he cares about is deadlines and such
So, to clarify, my understanding of what you’re saying is;
MoP, Wod, Legion, BfA and Shadowlands were the work of Kotick originally.
Then WoD was changed into the product of Tom Chilton’s whims.
Then Kotick moved to Hearthstone, and Afrasaiabi took over the story of Legion, BfA and Shadowlands, crudely reworking some of Kotick’s ideas especially where Sylvanas was concerned.
Afrasaiabi is also the main guy responsible for the story of Shadowlands and whatever was originally intended to come next (either “Lifelands” or “Scarlet Crusade 2: Electric Boogaloo”).
Did I get that right?
I wouldn’t say relatively easy, since the Light’s agents - perhaps naaru themselves - were the first ones to ferret out Nathrezim infiltrators; that’s why the retaliatory strike against Revendreth happened which created the Ember Ward.
This is especially true given the information I said about Xe’ra - a mind-reading hardliner with experince against Nathrezim; I’ve heard people accuse that naaru of a lot of things, but not gullibility. Then again Z’rali wasn’t able to catch those Nathrezim posing as dredgers around Deny’s sword, so are Nathrezim that good… or is it just bad “writing the story for the scenes, instead of scenes for the story” type writing?
I’m sure any instances where a Dreadlord’s appeared to be working against the others or against the plans of Zovaal will be hand waved away as a 5-D chess move meant to fool the enemies of Death and keep them guessing about the Nathrezim’s true allegiances.
The fact of the matter is that it’s an obvious retcon but one they can get away with because of the Dreadlord’s reputation as liars and deceivers.
In Enemy Infiltration - Preface, the book ends with:
I remain, as always, your faithful servant.
The way this is written implies that Dreadlords cannot be trusted. As that is their nature.
Denathrius himself may not trust them, or at least be smart enough to factor in a chance of betrayal.
To say “I remain, as always,” is a sense of reaffirmation, They are deliberately reminding the reader that they are remaining loyal, suggesting that loyalty hasn’t always been kept.
Ulthalesh was the ruler of Mardum…and not a particularly kind one. And he wasn’t the only dreadlord who opposed their Jailer to be their new leader…And b/c they were stuck on Mardum could be the reason why they opposed Sargeras as they didn’t know the plan/intentions. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t loyal to Denathrius.
Don’t forget about what the book, Enemy Infiltration - Preface.
"Similar to the titans, the naaru and their keepers are singular in purpose. Their adherence to a linear path is an obvious shortcoming.
They savor nothing more than being proved right, so if they believe they have converted one of us to their precious Light, they will trust that agent implicitly."
What you have to understand is that Dreadlords are master spies and at sabotage…so it would be hard to see “loyalty” from the outside lookin in.
the Infiltrator Preface says that the nathrazim sent agents out to infiltrate all the cosmic forces. I wouldn’t count Lothraxxion as someone who isn’t loyal to Denathrius, in fact he’s probably the most successful example of a Dreadlord who was able to infiltrate the Light. The Preface says the Light is blinded by hubris.
I’ve come to see him fighting Balnazzar at the Netherlight Temple as staged fight to fully prove himself to the Light’s cause. I may be wrong but I suspect that Boros questioning if Lothraxxion can really be trusted is supposed seed doubt in the player. I may be totally wrong about this but this is my theorycraft tied into the Ashbringer plot.
The only one that I see who actually did defect, was Varimathras. We seems to have sided himself completely with the Legion and even tried to summon Sargeras to Azeroth himself to presumably stop the jailer.
And yet the naaru glassed the Ember Ward because they found out they’d been infiltrated. Playing the long game to ensure their trust or genuine turncoat?
The Ember Ward was blasted in the acient war, we still don’t know why the Cosmic forces attacked the zones a long time ago, they only explain that the Light didn’t agree with Denathrius’ “experimentation.” It’s all too vauge.
Either way the Preface says that the Light is the easiest cosmic force to infiltrate besides Disorder. Life is the only cosmic force they have yet to break into and that’s because their very nature as beings of Death make it hard to cross into that realm.
The Preface suggests that the successfully infiltrated the Light, so Lothraxxion is potentially not benevolent and is spying for the Dreadlords.
Ignoring the quality of the story, I believe you are reading too much into this. Denathrius is a narcissist. These are his creations, and as we’ve seen from several of the venthyr, they worship him. That line is likely them stroking their master’s ego out of affection.
Remebember that this inherits the writing style that was common 20 years ago when TSR first than WOTC were literally color coding races by alignment. And it’s only recently that their successors are making real changes such as Paizo having a good elf reincarnate into a drow and R. A. Salvatore putting in a big massive retcon into his whole drow construction, and Eberron having the lead druid race being orcs… led by an Awakened oak tree.