Okay so genuinely I thought up until recently they were interchangeable synonyms referring to outer space.
But apparently the Twisting Nether is the ethereal, astral space in between worlds and the Great Dark Beyond is the literal space between worlds. But they’re also referenced somewhat interchangeably and places like Outland and Argus are said to be located in both the Great Beyond and the Twisting Nether.
So yeah that’s not confusing.
So is the Twisting Nether a bit like 40k’s Warp? A sort of magical expressway full of raw energy and mystical creatures but presumably less grim-darkish?
I think that’s the case as the Draenei and Legion ships pop out’ve portals. But I’m genuinely not sure.
But then Observers are called demons but they’re apparently native to the Great Dark Beyond and perceive worlds through the Twisting Nether. Which they then go toward to, well, observe as what the hell else is there to do when you’re 80% eyeballs? I like to imagine they propel themselves a bit like the Voyager 1 satellite but instead of ions from the radioactive decay of a plutonium isotope they just fart.
So shouldn’t they be aberrations or whatever we file aliens under?
Who knows. No seriously- who knows? Am I missing something or is this just one of those lore topics that’s vague and confusing?
The Great Beyond and Twisting Nether are different. The Great Beyond is outer space, the Twisting Nether is the demon dimension. But there are parts of The Great Beyond that the Twisting Nether has bled into. It’s like someone spilling paint on a piece of paper.
The Twisting Nether is just very poorly defined honestly. It’s described as an ethereal dimension of raw chaotic energies ; yet it has physical objects such as planets. The laws of physics are said not to apply there ; yet it must be somewhat stable, since many sentient races (many of whom don’t look that alien at all honestly) were born and built civilizations and cultures of their own there.
The lore is definitely vague and contradictory on the Twisting Nether.
Being in both the Twisting Nether and Great Dark at the same time is a unique phenomenon to Outland, Argus and other planets that have been dragged from the latter partway into the former by magical means, be it a certain orcish shaman trying to open too many portals at once or the Burning Legion saturating conquered worlds with sufficient fel to “realign” their natures to the Disorder of the Nether and forcibly bring them there.
The laws of space/time apply in the Nether, but the rate and increments in which they can be measured is flexible and inconsistent. As in the Great Dark, Time always moves forward there, but in the Nether the rate of that progression is often unpredictable, which is how mere decades passed in the Great Dark while Turalyon and Alleria spent a thousand years fighting the Burning Legion on its conquered worlds. Physical distance also exists there, but constantly shifts around, a phenomenon that portals can take advantage of to bridge vast spans in normal space by crossing through and “grabbing onto” the variable nature of distance within the Twisting Nether. Draenei and Eredar/Legion dimension ships seem to do the same, as they don’t usually appear to use portals for interplanetary movement, but rather teleportation. One can see in the sky over Argus that rather than rocketing toward the vulnerable planet above, the Legion’s ships are slowly drifting toward Azeroth through the giant rift Illidan opened, indicating that while such vessels can use teleportation to instantly cross vast distances from Legion worlds to those under attack, when instead made to physically fly to a portal that’s hundreds of miles above their place of origin and then physically descend to a destination on the other side, they can’t just instantly “jump.” I.e. they can teleport between two worlds, but they can’t actually move between two points in physical space at FTL speed.
As the plane of Disorder, the Twisting Nether is also where fel naturally occurs; fel energy doesn’t technically “belong” in the more Orderly and stable plane of the Great Dark, which is why fel is so damaging to its surroundings there just by being around as it feeds on other energies - especially living energies - to break them down into more of itself.
Observers are currently demons but were native to the Great Dark, as prolonged exposure to the Nether’s fel energies over time changes creatures’ natures to that realm’s cosmic “alignment.” Though there may well be some baseline “true demons” out there, it’s also possible that most if not all of the demons we’ve encountered in the Burning Legion thus far may have originated as mortal races native to the Great Dark who were either deliberately or circumstantially turned into demons throughout the ages as they and/or their homeworlds were drawn into Twisting Nether and saturated with its fel energies. It arguably makes the most sense with the Observers because they’re supposed to be migratory creatures not necessarily anchored to any one world, meaning their eternal travels in search of knowledge and magic to devour could have caused any number of them to eventually travel to the Twisting Nether and become altered by its energies. Meaning theoretically there could be Observers out there who remain non-demonic or perhaps some who’ve even become transformed in nature by other cosmic planes from eons of traveling to them.
Demons in general are stated by Chronicle to have arisen along the “edges” where the Twisting Nether bleeds into the Great Dark, but the specific mechanism of that emergence remains unclear. It could mean their planets already existed partway in the Nether, where there was just enough Order present for organized life to evolve, or it may well be that they started out as mortal species on planets situated near the ethereal “border” of physical reality that eventually got dragged into the Nether as its Disorder naturally chewed away at their localized part of physical space and pulled their worlds into itself.
“The laws of space-time” almost certainly mean “what writers with no understanding of physics” think. Not sure that their “applying” means anything or will have any basis to what the writers do.
I remember some Scarlet Crusade memebers saying “Prepare to enter the Twisting Nether.” when they attack you. They believe that the Twisting Nether is the afterlife.
Originally, the Twisting Nether was synonymous with the Judaochristian concept of Hell. There’s still a lot of remaining bleed over, with Fel being a common substitution in phrases that we would use Hell, with the Nether being the source of Daemons/demons, and, perhaps logically, given the experience of the mortal races with the Burning Crusade, the location of damned souls.
Which one exists without an observer/experiencer? I’d say the twisting nether.
I think the dark beyond requires conscious noticing in order to exist, pun intended.
The way I view it is that these places exist within a rift between the two planes. Where you go to X you are in the great Dark, but go to Y and you are in the Nether. Netherstorm is an example of a zone that is stated to be in the Twisting Nether numerous times throughout the quests there. From the Manaforges sucking the raw arcane and fel energies in the Nether to the Goblins of Area 52 building a rocket to explore the Twisting Nether.
However during this time Blizzard didn’t have the lore down pat. Which is why you could see contradictions within or appear later. Such as a daily quest for our friendly ogres in Blades Edge saying that defeating demons simply returns them to the Nether… but Outland was designed to be located in the Nether. As flying away from Outland in any direction puts you into a zone called ‘The Twisting Nether’.
The way Blizzard lists NPC’s is always weird. For example Helya was listed as a humanoid even though she is undead. As she is a Val’kyr, which are undead. Regardless if they were the Lich Kings, Helya’s or Odyns. Which was why you could use that soul draining toy on her and shrink her body. Instead of changing Heyla to undead, blizzard disabled the toy in instanced content.
Voidwalkers are sometimes still referred to as demons but they are aberrations. As they are creatures of the void and Aberrations are now used to describe such creatures. Some Cloud Serpents are listed as beasts and others are listed as dragonkin. The battle pet cloud serpents are listed as dragonkin instead of beasts. They are based off eastern culture dragons so they should be dragonkin.
Blizzard is only consistent at being inconsistent.
This was why Chronicles being this be all end all for the lore was well received for the most part. We finally had something that was concrete. Until Danuser said, “it’s actually written from a Titan basis lawl” that is. Now all we have are half-truths or outright lies. And it is hard to tell which is which.
The problem though is, even with Chronicles, many of older quest text and lore still remain in game. Illidan is still characterized as the narcissist who couldn’t get over the fact he lost to Arthas, to the point of thinking he actually won in TBC content. Yet thanks to things like the Illidan novel and the DH starting experience, we know that wasn’t the case.