Whoops, I realized I accidentally posted this in GD and not here, so I am asking here for you story folks! Also please don’t post spoilers here if you have played Beta, this is just fun speculation and predictions for what people will think will happen. Here are mine:
Anduin is going to come out of Shadowlands old, as we see in the Legion comic that came out. The Jailer will somehow age Anduin with his magic, stealing his lifeforce or something.
We will see Arthas again as part of a closure plot for Jaina. In that same vein I think Jaina will die in Shadowlands. She got closure with the Horde, she got closure with the stuff regarding her father, she fixed her relationship with her mother, all that is left is Arthas. She will get closure with Arthas and at some point die in Shadowlands.
Tyrande will die somehow, probably stopping the Jailer and Sylvanas.
We now know that the Arbiter can create new Death realms for unique cases with souls, which Blizzard says we will see… Well, you know what that means? Sylvanas’s soul definitely got split when Arthas killed her. The “good” part of her soul went to the Shadowlands (maybe taken by the Jailer and put in the Maw to use as a bargaining chip?) while the “bad” part of her soul is what became the current Sylvanas. We will end up killing the bad one or defeating her and her two soul pieces will merge and the Arbiter will create a special realm for Sylvanas. (I am thinking something with an updated Silvermoon, I’ll come back to this.)
At some point in a later patch we will get a quest to return to the Maw to meet a new soul who is a familiar face… Surprise! It is Genn Greymane, he will tell us Turalyon killed him. (this is setting up the Tyranny of Light plot for the expansion after Shadowlands where Turlayon is corrupted) Since Genn is dead and in the Shadowlands he will get closure with his son Liam as they will meet somehow.
Bolvar will become the new Jailer, and with the Helm of Domination reforged and used to close the veil to the Shadowlands Taelia Fordragon will become the first official Lich Queen to follow in her father’s footsteps and stay connected to him in the Shadowlands.
So yeah those are my predictions. Alliance will lose 3 leaders to appease the Horde who have wanted that to be fair, while setting up Turalyon as a villain. Sylvanas will end up in her own afterlife. Bolvar is the new Jailer, and Taelia is the new Lich Queen.
Also, Turalyon has comments in-game about wanting to capture old Alliance bastions… this makes me think Lordaeron, Gilneas, etc. So I am thinking he will move to Lordaeron and reclaim it especially with the new Scarlet presence we see there as of 8.3, you can find their pamphlets and books laying around… And with Genn Greymane dead, I think this will light a fire in Tess Greymane and she will rally the Gilneans, Lorna Crowley, and Darius Crowley and they will reclaim Gilneas and use it as a base of operations to take on Turalyon in Lordaeron, making Gilneas the Alliance hub.
Remember how I mentioned the updated Silvermoon in Sylvanas’ afterlife? Well I think that is the beginning of Blizzard actually updating Silvermoon on Azeroth. With Turaylon taking Lordaeron and what not, who is also a Light wielder? Lady Liadrin. I could see her either becoming corrupted or taking up the fight against Turalyon to stop his “misuse of the Light”, either way I could see this making Silvermoon updated to be the Horde hub for the following expansion, so after all these years we finally see it updated and brought to the current Azeroth map.
Don’t speak for Horde fans on this point. We don’t care that you have a healthy character roster, we care that we don’t; and despite that Blizz continues to neglect rebuilding it. Our issues with working with Alliance-Neutral/Alliance characters isn’t that working with them is a problem in of itself, but rather us being forced to do so has become synonymous with that aforementioned neglect.
We don’t so much care about the fates of your characters, we just want our roster fixed so they can stand alongside them in the story. Keep your Anduin & Keep your Tyrande. Turalyon taking on an antagonistic role is exclusively something that just seems to work well with the likely future Lightbound and Light Cosmology expansion. He doesn’t need to be a villain for that.
Sylvanas reveals that she wants to break the shadowlands system because the jailer tricked her into thinking that her destined afterlife was the maw… and gets redeemed because she can never do wrong. Then we’ll have to work for her, they will also be very careful to glorify Teldrassil as much as they possibly can
Tyrande dies to either Sylvanas, Nathanos or her own “powers” in a low quality ingame cutscene or offscreen
The Night Elf souls will end up being sacrificed or destroyed
Arthas and Garrosh will be treated as the worst beings to ever live while Sylvanas will be treated as the opposite.
More cinematics, but only about Sylvanas, the jailer, Bolvar and Anduin
My point was many Horde players, not all obviously, have stated they want to see Alliance leaders killed off to make it fair, and with Blizzard’s track record that is likely the route they will take instead of building up Horde characters which is MUCH needed.
Also please we (me really) don’t want to keep Anduin. Please take him from us! Hahahaha. And I agree, but I think Turalyon will end up a misguided villain, he will be corrupted and likely saved as he will have been under the influence of Yrel and her “Light Mother”.
I get the feeling that if he does go that likely route, his equivalent “saved” character will be AU Grom on the Horde side. The AU Mag’har need that added character boost, and I highly doubt they’ll be able to save their home. AU Draenor seems pretty doomed. So saving some of those who have been light dominated by the Lightbound seems likely; including Geya’rah’s mentor.
The compromise is appreciated, but I don’t think you or any other Alliance fans should have to give up prominent characters just to appease some particularly salty Horde fans.
I do get why some of you would prefer to lose Anduin in Shadowlands, though.
I think it’s more those characters stories are done.
Jaina- got closure with almost every part of her story except Arthas.
Genn- really just needs closure with his son and sylvanas, both of which I can see happening in Shadowlands.
Because both characters would get their stories wrapped up I could see Blizzard just killing them for shock value, and it would be a happy coincidence that it appeases those Horde players who want Alliance leaders dead.
But yes, if I could lose any leader in Shadowlands I would want it to be Anduin. He’s just… oof. He’s bad. He’s a narrative blackhole.
Meh, I think 30 years distance from the events of WoD & the likely idea that if he has survived that fade-to-black he is being super Light Tortured by the victims of those events should be sufficient enough to justify him joining the MU Horde Roster in the AU Mag’har. Plus, if you read Hellscream its pretty clear the guy was supposed to have a more nuanced presentation than what was present in the game. Like Yrel, he suffered from the entire center part of that narrative being gutted.
Arbiter and Jailer are split halves of the same entity, to parallel the soul-splitting of Frostmourne. As such, we’ll also see a “Good” Sylvanas who went to the Shadowlands as soon as she died in Quel’thalas.
We’ll kill the combined Jailer/Arbiter later in the patch as we’ll learn the Arbiter was a solution to removing all personal involvement in judging souls, with the Jailer being the resentment and bitterness of doing his job.
Soul-split Sylvanas will stay behind in the Shadowlands to inherit the new role of Arbiter and Jailer, thus removing her from the story without offing her.
I think a big part of why losing the characters sucked so much was that there was nobody properly built up and waiting in the wings to replace them. Thrall had to be yanked back out of retirement just to fill the void Saurfang left, Gazlowe wasn’t even officially part of the faction let alone the Bilgewater, and Voss was almost there but just had her progression bumped up to try to fill some really big shoes.
Granted, Tess isn’t even a worgen at the moment, but the very nature of her being Genn’s daughter had her in that backup position from the very beginning. Tyrande’s had her adopted daughter since forever, or Malfurion as backup / interim leader. Jaina seems like the odd one out as missing a proper replacement since her living brother isn’t even a mage to fully replace her role.
I’d want to bet that Jaina survives at the very least, since there’s no point in Blizzard trying to shove her back into her original role of peacekeeper if she doesn’t get the chance to try to reestablish peace with the horde again.
Oh wow. This is a really interesting prediction! I like it. So each part of Sylvanas soul becomes the Arbiter and Jailer. That’s interesting, not sure how that would work because she isn’t objective, she’s mortal and thus I would think would have some subjectivity to her judging of souls, which doesn’t seem fair.
But she’d add compassion to the role and evaluate fairly, rather than hypocritically like the Arbiter does.
The Arbiter condemns souls to Revendreth despite saying they’d go to the Maw otherwise, if only because their skill set is useful. And in some cases, people who’ve killed a few are sent to the Maw but people who wiped out their own planet are considered open for redemption.
Dying shouldn’t be treated as an employment opportunity by the afterlife bureau.
What exactly are you basing this off of? That Sylvanas was sent to the Maw in EoN? Because odds seem pretty damned high that she was dragged there despite the Arbiter system, no matter how much she may be blaming it atm. Everything we know about the setting so far suggests that the only way she could have ended up there was if a powerful enough death entity dragged her there; just like how Illidan ended up in Hel, Arthas by Uther, and Jin got abducted by Mueh.
As far as predictions, I think Anduin is going to go off with Locus Walker to study the Void, and other mysteries. Giving us all a break from him for a while.
Which could lead to internal Alliance strife, or an even more aggressive Alliance that will provoke the Horde - again. Or both.
As others have said, this statement is just a smidge off. I don’t want Alliance Characters to die just for the sake of tally marks. Even if I would relish the deaths of certain Alliance Characters, it would be hollow if the Horde is not involved.
Let Jaina have her closure… and then have Talanji use her spooky boogeywoman powers to kill her.
I don’t want Genn slain by Turalyon. I would rather he be drawn and quartered by the Forsaken, while Calia and Voss stand silent and aghast.
As far as Tyrande? I don’t mind her, too much. I don’t want her dead. If it happens, it would probably suck.
So it isn’t just about killing Alliance Characters. It depends on who gets killed, why they get killed, and how they die.
Interestingly enough the Alliance hasn’t killed any of the Horde leaders, other than Rastakhan, if you want to count him as being Horde at the time. All the other Horde leaders have been killed by Horde characters.
So really Talanji killing Jaina would make everything fair as far as Horde killing an Alliance character.
I’d love if actually it was Bwonsamdi taking his form and Rastakhan killing her, very far away to pass but honestly Jaina is the classical “villain with good rp” that deserves to get catched at the end just like Sylvanas
Very likely considering Shandris has been getting a lot of screen time
Just put her at a loop with infinite outcomes of her demise
I’d prefer if actually was Alleria and also a nice build up with the void as she admits most of her followers turned crazy and we’re going to face multiple wars at the near future
Honestly I just prefer both die and end the scourge instead of making it a joke as time goes and with Maldraxxus taking the jailer’s job as seem a pretty capable faction.