First, we have the Void Realm, which is a “hell” in the sense that it’s the place that is diametrically opposed to the Light, which is all that is Holy and stuff.
Then we have the Twisting Nether, which is a “hell” because that’s where Demons come from.
And finally we have the Maw and Revendreth, which is a “hell” because it’s the place where bad people go when they die.
(I’m counting both as a single place because they are right next to each other and you can literally throw souls from Revendreth into the Maw)
I don’t know, I just think it’s a funny way to organize the WoW cosmology. Blizzard is always talking about how “concentrated coolness” is one of their pillars of game design, yet they diluted the same idea across three different things lol
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Raven though wouldnt be a hell. The people there are repenting for thier sins etc.
The maw would be closest to hell. The Nether and void may be closer to purgatory.
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I’d say it’s not so much interesting as it is a result of never knowing from the beginning the actual cosmology of your universe. They just created a world/setting and winged it for 20 years after that.
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Which is how a lot of Christian sects interpret hell.
i find it funny that dying in this game is still hell. i hope i can die like varian and just be erased.
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in all Christian religions, you go to hell because you didn’t repent. You don’t go to hell to repent.
“repent” and “hell” are opposite alternative outcomes in Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism and all the other smaller ones that I know of. With some debate on role of Church in avoiding the latter amongst the Western Christian religions.
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Every covenant we saw in the Shadowlands is a different version of hell.
I’d say more like purgatory than hell
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You saying you’d like to go to an afterlife where everything is made of flesh and you just get instantly killed and stitched into an abomination? Or an afterlife where you’re surrounded by fey creatures?
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I didn’t say that.
But hell is where you go after failing with no sense of redemption or renewal.
Purgatory is where (generally speaking) one goes when they still need to purify their soul before adequately moving on.
The second feels more like what we saw. Not saying either is a perfect comparison
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I don’t think people move on from any of the covenants other than Ravendreth.
I absolutely adore Maldraxxus.
It’s a mix of Zombie Apocalypse, Wrestlemania and wholesome petting zoo.
I don’t believe in afterlife but I wish the afterlife was like that for real.
Just suplexing the frankensteins during the day and then petting the doggies and the kitties in the evening… Just a good time all around 
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Arden I would say as well.
Again. Not saying it’s a perfect comparison.
Only that I think it more closely resembles purgatory.
The people in maldraxus seemingly want to be there
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What confuses me is Khadgar saying “LIKE HELL YOU WILL!” when Hell isn’t even a real place in WoW. There is Helheim, but the subtitles used two 'L’s and not one… Wouldn’t The Maw be Hell? I guess “LIKE THE MAW YOU WILL” didn’t quite roll off the tongue.
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As someone already said, they’ve been winging it on cosmology since the beginning.
I would say, at this point, that the Maw is clearly the closest equivalent to Hell, as a sort of inescapable final eternity of torment for conscious souls to suffer in. Although, it differs from the concept of Hell in that it’s pretty darn escapable after all, and you can be sent there by accident/clerical errors on the part of the Arbiter.
Whatever the Void dimension is, I see it more like one of the Inner Planes in DnD 2nd edition cosmology. It’s like the Negative Energy Elemental Plane. It has maybe less of a moral or anthropomorphic basis, and represents a force of nature (entropy, collapse into chaos, separation, dissolution). Of course, this means that its opposite the Light should represent natural forces of conglomeration, organization etc without a moral dimension, and in both cases we know that’s not true. Light and Void both clearly have some sort of moral dimension, and Light, at least, seems to have some interest in what happens to us after we die, even if the “Light Dimension” isn’t explicitly a destination for conscious souls after death.
The Nether never made much sense to me. Is it considered the “Fel Elemental Dimension” now? At one point early on it was clearly just the Warhammer universe’s Immaterium.
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I think you can trace a lot of it back to Chris Metzen being a 90s anime fan, cutting his teeth on stuff like Record of Lodoss War and Slayers.
The cosmology of a lot of that 90s fantasy anime, the style of which has seen some resurgence with isekai hits like Konosuba, is influenced by both Zoroastrianism (where light and darkness exist in balance, rather than Good being superior to Evil like in Christianity). Demons, which are called “mazoku” in many anime including Slayers and Konosuba, don’t come from “Hell” but rather a demon world existing alongside our own, and are not fallen angels but rather a race of beings.
Revendreth and The Maw are post-Metzen, but make more sense if you think in terms of Eastern religion as well, there’s the idea of Jigoku, a place where people who bear too much negative karma to reincarnate on Earth go. It has many layers, with the upper ones being where the generally redeemable go. Those who would take million of years to reform go to Mugen Jigoku, or Avici (where the Swedish electronica performer gets his name), which is sort of like being condemned to the Maw. The torments they face by Jigoku’s oni occupants reflect what goes on in Revendreth.
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Eh, I would kinda disagree about the Void being “hell”. The void is supposed to just be…void…nothingness.
I would agree with the other points.
To a degree. Ravendreth theres redemption. Maw there isnt.
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