It seems to be just another world where people do things and then die. Can someone explain this concept to me and explain how the after-life is different than just plain old life?
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You die and then go to the shadowlands get recycled or jailed forever, that is it.
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When you die in the Shadowlands… You die for good. It’s just black for you… Like you never existed.
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You didn’t get anything wrong. Blizzard writers are punching way above their weight class by trying to tackle such a deep issue.
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Because, as I suspect it will be revealed later… The Shadowlands are not the after-life, but a parasite dimension that harvests souls for their own power/life/purpose.
We know that there is incredible power in Souls, and the Legion harvested worlds to harness that power and use it to power their Burning Crusade. So much so, that the Draenei built crystalline structures capable of capturing the souls of their dead to prevent them from being used or found by the Legion.
In the chart of WoW’s magical pantheon, the Shadowlands are held as equal and opposite of the Emerald Dream, and we know that those attuned with Druidic magic always travel to the Emerald Dream in death… So if Shadowlands is the Afterlife, why does Cenarius go to the Emerald Dream every-time a green rage boy shows up on Kalimdor?
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Tartarus. Blizzard’s version of Tartarus.
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I dunno. Other than the Maw, it doesn’t really feel very afterlife-y to me.
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Yeah, I too struggle to grasp the concept they are writing here. If you can die in death, does that make you double dead? I don’t get it all.
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We’ve all had the same thought. But then again, how does anyone die in WoW anyway? Doesn’t everyone just rez at a rez shrine?
I mean, suspension of disbelief is kind of a core element of the game. The idea seems to be that you get two lives – one prior to Shadowlands and one there, but you are never really “immortal” (kind of makes the use of the word “mortal” for your character a bit odd, I agree).
Anyway, as I say, we’re probably thinking too hard. It’s obviously not intended to be a comprehensive, well-developed, and well-defended metaphysical system Blizzard is describing here … it’s a bit of backstory for a video game.
No. It’s not. They’ve just been writing it for 15 years. Written countless books on it. Given lore deep-dives for hundreds of hours online. No, not a fully fleshed out and realized world they created AT ALL. This just very much a thing that you’re supposed to read and be like “OK, lets play”
It’s worth considering most of the “Afterlives” we see are ones with a specific function.
The majority of souls are probably sorted into their own private afterlives by the Arbiter where there’s no risk of randomly getting eaten by some anima-spawned monster or whatever.
If you die in death, your soul become loose anima and you fade into oblivion.
It’s a true death, you cease to exist in any capacity. Your soul doesn’t go on anywhere from there.
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Life is a proving ground for after-life. Depending on how you past the test, they have different use of you in after-life. Or, just think of real life as virtual reality video game for souls in shadowlands to be rated on.
There is no dying in WoW you just get transported around.
Ancient ones decided to snatch dead souls to power themselves up. It’s so easy a toddler would understand
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What’s confusing about souls being used as an energy source for the Death plane?
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That’s most religions
Honestly, unless it turns out that the shadowlands is not the real after-life but some prison made by the jailer, the lore seems pretty dumb. I do love the venthyr zone though.
Its like a version of Valhalla or the Elysian Fields but without the feasting and wenching.
Isn’t it wild how we come into the afterlife as mortals and just kill a bunch of beings that have probably been existing for hundreds or thousands of years?
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