I will argue that the Shadowlands could have been great … if Blizzard stopped trying to continually jump the shark.
The Pantheon of Death is not a new, even more powerful version of the Titans from the Realm of Death.
They’re the Original members of the Titan Pantheon that Aman’thul either got rid of because his future-sight allowed him to see they would be threats to his vision of ‘Order’, or they went rogue and had to be brought down.
This all happened well, well before the current Pantheon of Order/Titans we know of, and it explains why Aman’thul looks so much older than the rest of the Pantheon of Order. He’s not just Time itself, he’s from the ‘Before Time’ period, before Light and Void shattered into two separate but intrinsically interlinked forces, and he’s carefully curated the known history of the Titans to ensure he remains the High Father, and that the universe is ordered as he sees fit.
Bastion is the proverbial ‘lock’ to this extra-dimensional prison and the Arbiter is the Jailer of these banished and forgotten Titans. Souls are funnelled to this world by the Titan facilities on worlds that produce sentient life, to be repurposed and remade to serve ‘The Purpose’, which is to keep the Fallen Titans contained and maintain the delicate engines that draw power from the Outer Planes to keep those bonds secure … stealing these souls from their Afterlives and provoking the actual Shadowlands, who have formed beachheads in this pocket dimension called ‘Covenants’, working alongside the ‘natives’ of the pocket dimension to find a way to permanently seal away these Fallen Titans and thus reduce the drain of energy from their realm and allow the flow of souls from Titan-forged worlds to return to their natural path to their Afterlives.
Zoval is the brother of Aman’thul, and is the Titan of Space, much as Time and Space are interlinked forces in our universe. It was Zoval’s power that allowed the Titans to create and re-create at will, and his imprisonment was also intended to siphon the Titan’s power for Aman’thul to continue to use, and also the one weak link in the prison, allowing Zoval to send his thoughts out into the wider world to try and find allies to free him.
Originally a noble being who thought Aman’thul was going too far and taking away the free will of their creations, millions of years being imprisoned and drained relentlessly took its toll and Zoval has come to believe that everything must be unmade, then remade, without his brother’s all-pervading, cruelly dominating touch. There is no Covenant here, for Zoval’s release has either destroyed or enslaved them all to his dark ambitions.
Denathrius is the first Dark Titan, a Titan of Death who became seduced by the Void and was sealed away as a result. Revendreth is a realm where the Titanic Races and Watchers fight endlessly against a suave and urbane Dark Titan whose powers are shackled, and whose graceful ways and soothing words give way to raging arrogance and overwhelming brutality once he doesn’t get his way, and Aman’thul cut a deal with the Naaru, but not the Light, to have them stand watch over his corrupted brother. Here, we also learn that a Titan can fall to Void and it is indeed terrible, but the ‘Dark Titan’ that Sargeras feared so much must be born that way, not turned, hence why the Void goes so hard to try and turn Azeroth despite failure after failure.
The Covenant here strives, through guile and intrigue, to turn the many sycophants drawn to Denathrius’s side against each other and their master while simultaneously aiding the Light, an unlikely combination of bed-fellows, the Undying of the Shadowlands and the Naaru of the Light.
Bastion is ironically the reverse of Revendreth, a Titan whose dogmatic approach unnerved even Aman’thul’s obsession with Order, and whose share of souls coming to her realm are mind-wiped and forced to obey a dogma that has no purpose since the Titan and her followers are trapped in the pocket dimension and may only try to push their dogma upon the other domains within the pocket dimension.
The Covenant here is composed of the Undying, Kyrians who managed to fight off the mind-wiping effects (to various degrees) and Titan Constructs trying to keep the Titan in check while also appealing to the Undying that they need those souls for reinforcements, or The Archon will remake the universe to serve her vision of perfection, and nothing will be allowed to die without her permission.
Maldraxxus is ironically the only Domain in the pocket dimension that isn’t in a state of Cold War with the Shadowlands and the Undying, being the home of the first Titan of War, the ancient and venerable Titan known as Primus. During the battle to subdue Denathrius, Primus was cursed into Undeath and rather than risk infecting the rest of the Pantheon (of that time), Primus willingly chose to go into exile with his prisoner and still serves Aman’thul as a friend and confidant, and is heartbroken to learn of all that has transpired … once we free him from Zoval, of course. The curse that infected Primus was so potent it affected even his Domain, and his servants, trapping them in a cycle of decay and being rebuilt from the eternally-regrowing matter of the Domain of Primus.
The Five Houses and the Undying served to keep the other Domains in check and to bolster the other Covenants, until several powerful Margraves and Warlords decided they wanted to conquer the rest of reality instead of fighting the same wars over and over again, and threw in with Zoval, betraying their master in the process.
Ardenweald is a strange Domain where the former Titan of Life dwells in exile, having secretly communicated with her replacement, Eonar, ironically blazing the path that Zoval would use to both subvert the Dreadlords to his will from their service to Denathrius, and to use them in turn to communicate with Sargeras, informing him of the danger of a ‘Void’ Titan to encourage Sargeras into conflict with the Pantheon and to eventually allow Zoval to break free of his prison.
Much to Aman’thul’s frustration, the partnership of Eonar and the Winter Queen stymied his political aspirations, since Eonar was second only to Aman’thul in the Pantheon and had the respect and admiration of many of the other Titans. Trying to strike her down would be political suicide and drive the rest of the Pantheon to tear him down in turn. Instead, the Winter Queen struck a bargain, allowing her agents, the Wild Gods, to be reborn again and again through a pact between herself and Eonar, and in exchange Aman’thul would uphold his promise to her to protect and uplift mortal life in return for both Eonar and the Winter Queen keeping his betrayal of the First Pantheon a secret to all.
The Covenant here focuses on pushing back the Devourers, twisted aspects created by the Titanic engines that drag souls away from the Shadowlands, and in turn draw things normally trapped in the Un-Space between the Planes into the Pocket Dimension, as well as fighting rogue agents of Nature and Life that are likewise drawn in by the engines, the Drust amongst them, as well as Druids of Flame and similarly corrupted groups and individuals.
The Shadowlands are still out of reach but we’re given a reason for everything without going to the Realm of Death, we’re given justification for Sylvanas’s actions as she’s come to realise all of reality is a broken, twisted thing caused by Aman’thul’s godly hubris and ambition, and that the only freedom to be had is to unmake everything and remake it all without the influence of such arrogance and obsession with control, and we aren’t doing that most awful of things:
JUMPING THE SHARK SIMPLY FOR THE HELL OF IT.
The Pantheon of Death isn’t some new threat pulled out of somebody’s butt, they’re simply more Titans, openly antagonistic Titans who were sealed away millions of years ago, and the deeper we dive into the Domains of these Titans, we uncover more and more of the ancient pre-history of the universe, not just the sterilized, carefully curated fables that Aman’thul had told to his new, much younger Pantheon of Order, and are given insight into the Afterlives as something that both exists … and so inimical to life that if we even go near the Plane of Death without being actually dead, we’ll be killed and dragged into it with no hope of resurrection or return, and even the Undead are not immune to this fate.
We’re given a satisfying conclusion to the Sylvanas Windrunner arc, we’re expanding upon the Titans and their role in the Warcraft Universe, and we’re not sharting all over pre-existing lore and stories for the sake of “Look at this new big bad!!” for end-game raiding …