I highly doubt this. This woman has way too much plot armor to ever die at this point. She’ll probably become the next immortal neo-guardian like Aegwynn or something.
I hate this theory so much but Uther’s cinematic makes me think they might be going somewhere with that…
I actually like this a lot. It would be a good segue into the next expansion and then we could leave the irritating old wolf in the realm of the dead and move on as a species.
I personally don’t have too many predictions for Shadowlands itself. I just am putting all my chips on the Light war in the following expansion where it’s Turalyon/Calia/Velen/Liadrin etc who get brainwashed or something by the Light and characters like Lillian/Alleria/Rokhan etc lead a resistance to restore balance to the world or something like that.
Blizzard isn’t doing this. They like Sylvanas too much.
I went with Genn because I truly believe they plan to replace him with Tess since she got some developments in Legion and in BfA. It also lets his story end with Sylvanas and his son.
I think the Scourge will be a none issue after Shadowlands and the Helm will just be there to keep the Shadowlands sealed.
Yeah I figured Genn being killed and sent to the Shadowlands would make people like you happy because it would mean he is dead and not coming back to Azeroth. I think it is a good way to end his character with Tess’s development she got, and is a good way to setup the following expansion with the other characters in the Shadowlands being shocked to learn what happened.
So when we come back it is chaos with the Light followers being brainwashed and trying to “purge Azeroth”. I also like the idea of Genn’s death forcing Tess to step up to lead Gilneans and having them reclaim the Gilneas.
My final predictions is that we will discover in-game how beings of Death (turned morals or natives) in the Shadowlands are returned if killed in the mortal plane. It was revealed in an interview, but its something that should be conveyed in-game.
Plus it would help make a possible return of Herald Dalora make sense and not something Blizz pulled out of the butts.
You can still take her out from it if the situation requires it, like taking out Frieza from his personal hell
That would be nice but his daughter is just a human that recently did a questline about how Worgen are an outright downgrade from Human potential purity, so keeping the old wolf at least keeps the werewolf concept around. Unless they made Taelia change opinions as the werewolf power keeps her from being tainted by the light or void completely.
That could work if it’s made into a key but I prefer they don’t keep downplaying what once was one of the best villains in WoW
Don’t get me started on that. I made a whole thread already on how Gilneans/Worgen got screwed in BfA. Blizzard basically is trying to fade the Gilneans/worgen away is what it feels like after making us homeless, giving our themes to the Kul Tirans, and having the curse made out to be horrible and like it should go away after this generation of worgen die off.
But anyways! I think you meant Tess, Taelia is Bolvar’s daughter, but I would love for Genn’s death to make Tess change her mind, especially if it is because she wants the boons of being worgen to take on Turalyon and his Light fanatics. That would help undo the BS that was the Heritage Questline.
I think there is a chance we get an updated Silvermoon as a Horde hub for the next expansion, but I think the Exodar will be the Alliance hub in that case, and not only because it’s the other Burning Crusade capital that hasn’t been updated. If we get a big Light vs. Void cosmic war expansion following Shadowlands, it would make sense for both Silvermoon and the Exodar to be involved because of their strong connections to the Light via the Sunwell and the Naaru, so I think either they’ll be attacked and destroyed (I hope not), or (preferably) updated and fortified to serve as bulwarks against the Void and/or hostile Light forces in a fight-fire-with-fire way.
Back to Shadowlands, I think Calia will have some sort of reunion and closure with Arthas. Possibly Jaina will as well, but she did get a little character attention on that point in Wrath. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jaina meets Uther at some point. I think Arthas will be fished out of the Maw at some point and given his chance at atonement in Revendreth if only as a strategy to deny the Maw anima, but I don’t think we’ll see him redeemed or justified. Forgiven by a few individual characters depending on closure with them (Calia, Uther, Jaina), perhaps, but not justified.
Sylvanas…I don’t know. I think we’ll learn her reasoning for her actions pretty quickly, since we’ve had interviews indicating that, but that her reasoning won’t justify or excuse her actions, even if her reasoning makes her more sympathetic. At the moment she’s still undead, so we could kill her in a raid and still have her show up later as a character who’s just plain dead. Maybe Tyrande kills her to satisfy her vengeance, and then we lock her up in Revendreth/the Maw/a special Sylvanas prison pocket-dimension to keep her soul out of our way. I don’t think she’ll be justified, and she won’t be redeemed unless she’s completely obliterated in some sort of altruistic self-sacrifice (mirroring her fall in defense of Silvermoon), which seems rather unlikely given her current character trends. Also, if we stuff her away in the Phantom Zone, that leaves her available as a tool for future storytelling, even if she’s never used. Similar to Illidan at the moment; we don’t need to ever bring him back, but he’s “on the shelf” in case someone thinks up a new story that it would make sense for him to be in. One of the complaints about the storytelling in WoW we’ve had up to this point is that major lore characters keep getting “broken” so that they can’t be used later, and I think Shadowlands might be an opportunity to glue some of the pieces back together and carefully put characters back on the shelf, even if they just collect dust after that point.
I think Tyrande will eventually have to do something about the power of the Night Warrior before it kills her, and that there will be an attempt to share the power between several people who care about her in order to save her life. Think something like the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I’ll think she’ll survive, but she and whoever is with her might be altered by the experience and retain some vestige of the Night Warrior’s power. I think her lesson won’t be that she’s wrong to pursue justice for her people, but that she needs to accept the offered support of her loved ones in her quest rather than insisting on doing it alone. Not because she’s not powerful enough or incapable of doing it herself, but because it’s better for her well-being to share that burden if others are willing to stand with her.
I predict this split-Sylvanas fanon will be completely wrong, and nothing like it will show up. I think it’s a good idea, don’t get me wrong, but the lore community often gets stuck in these echo chambers where we take a good idea and it ends up being “basically canon” for a long time, until Blizzard conclusively disproves it. The truth is always the result that’s so horrifyingly simple that we refuse to believe it could be true, and it’s never these complicated and winding galaxy brain plots.
It is honestly funny how blizzard keeps forgetting that a character can be an antagonist without being a flat out villain. And yet they did exactly that with Battle for Dazar’alor. Rastakhan and Jaina are just antagonists for the alliance and horde respectively. So they can do it when they try. Honestly though, it did work for Garrosh as he was pissing everyone off in the Horde even during Wrath. As we saw in the Ulduar trailer, his dialogue with Saurfang (and how Garrosh sent us on a suicide mission). This continued in Cata by creating an antagonistic relationship with Vol’jin and Caine. Sending the forsaken to attack Gilneas, knowing it will be a pyrrhic victory. So there was going to be a point where the Horde would turn on Garrosh.
Honestly, the vindicaar would be a better hub for Alliance than the Exodar, since canonically, the remains of the Exodar were used to build the vindicaar. Plus the vindicaar can actually you know, fly.
The death of argus caused the souls to go to the maw. Not something else.
Emerald dream happened post stormheim etc, its endgame and raids take place when players are max lvl when players are max lvl the story zones lvling story is finished.¨
The death of argus caused the souls that the legion had in their banks to go to the shadowlands, putting the arbiter in a comatose state.
My biggest prediction: there’s no rug pull or twist. Blizzard just made Sylvanas completely evil for no reason. And she’ll be a raid boss while Lor’themar spouts more forced dialogue retconning old content to justify Blizzard’s terrible friggin’ writing.
Sigh … yeah. Its truly shocking they haven’t learned the basics on that, yet can oops their way into doing it once in a while. Like, for a Light Cosmology expac. Seriously, just combined a short timeskip, with the Lightbound showing up while we’re gone, and a catalyst to compel Turalyon and the Alliance to aggro action (like the assassination of Faol or Genn and framing the Horde) … and boom. Understandable means, motive, and opportunity to let the Alliance fall prey to years of grudges, pains, and wounds at the hands of a more subtle invading force.
Horde gets pushed to brink in the Peacenik’s absence. Alliance gets some nice overdue hits in. Then we all get back when the Horde is at its breaking point, and the Alliance’s new “ally” has started to go really sideways (and the forced conversions/bindings are going rampant).
Dreadmoore put an absolutely awful thought in my mind by a comment he made on here earlier and it seems exactly like the sort of inspired thing this team would do (like Kerrigan): Sylvanas is going to ascend to actual godhood as an aspect of death and all this time she was plotting to destroy this great evil that she had met on the other side, then usurp his spot.
That way, they don’t have to update the voice lines from “Victory for Sylvanas!” and “Dark Lady watch over you.”
This is likely to happen, but would be disgusting. It sends such a horrible message, it’s just as bad as if they had Arthas come back and stop Sylvanas and kill her.
I would actually be okay with that, as long as is wasn’t treated as an act of redemption but rather him staying a villain and just usurping her place as Zovyal’s right hand man.
My own predictions for Shadowlands is pretty light- the zones will be beautiful and fun to quest in; plenty of the leveling quests will introduce fun/interesting minor characters; and the overall storyline will make little to no sense without multiple retcons that will piss lots of us off.