In the eternal palace raid lady ashvane demands azshara give her the power she was promised and azshara seemingly gives it to her until we realize lady ashvane begins screaming in horror “what’s happening to me.” and “not like this!!” She is then transformed into a hideous deep sea abomination.
It was quite disturbing to see this character that had been the chief antagonist for the alliance in the kul’tiran quest line go out in a more than they bargained for scenario becoming a mindless beast. Zul the chief antagonist for the zandalar quest line was at least full aware of what he was getting himself into and came to a dignified end. What do you all think about the end of the ashvane arch? Personally I like the horrifying and rather ironic end of such a scheming character
Her depiction early in the expansion made me think that maybe Ashvane was a smart enough cookie to realize that any “deal” with Sylvanas and / or Azshara would not end well for her and a plan B, C, D and maybe E would be needed if she wanted to come out on top.
Instead she took the other party’s word at face value and just became another pawn that dies as a random boss.
It seems that most WoW Villains never get a proper treatment within the Game’s Story since half of them ether end up as Raid Bosses or just die in a disappointing end.
Wouldn’t really call Zul’s end dignified - they built him up as an all seeing all knowing prophet only for him to die in a quest scenario and die again as a raid boss. Somehow his prophecy powers just suddenly stopped mattering.
Ashvane’s ending is kinda par for the course, really. She’s certainly not the first character to get this sort of treatment, nor will she be the last. Kinda loses its edge after a while, really.
I loved how Blizzard handled this character right up until the raid. She has a great backstory, and was a really interesting foil for Jaina.
I think using her as a raid boss in this way is really a failure of imagination. Because raid/dungeon boss is the typical end fate for antagonists, they all wind up feeling kind of same-y in the end. I think a character like Ashvane could have been kept around as someone to pop up in the plot from time to time, meddling away. I don’t see that transforming her into a big monster adds much to the story.
Zul was ressurrected as an even more powerful being in undeath, ashvane was turned into a mindless abomination. That’s what I’m getting at it was a monkeys paw scenario
Ashvane is a good character. She’s memorable, which is more than you can say of 90% of the characters in this story.
Which is not a knock on the story - it’s a big narrative, and most of the characters are going to be stock fantasy. Your Ashvanes are rare beasts, which is why I hate to see her go out as just another raid monster.
It’s also why I hate what has happened to Sylvanas. Love her or hate her, you could never ignore her. She’s been one of the few WoW characters to transcend the game, along with Thrall, Illidan, Arthas, Jaina, and maybe Varian.
Priscilla Ashvane has “it”. It’s a shame to lose her.
Brought back by who though? The Fetid Devourer(amalgamation of Loa created by G’huun’s Underrot) when he reforms in the Emerald Dream? it was confirmed that lost Loa aren’t permanently gone and the Fetid Devourer is Raid Boss level and thus probably strong enough to raise Zul from the dead again.
Probably N’Zoth, since he seems to side with Old Gods. I am hoping for a morally grey N’Zoth, since it is shaping up that Azshara has him imprisoned. So far he hasn’t actually been bad yet and in the Crucible seems to test us. I am one of the people who chose to carry his gift on my character.
Zul also effectively stopped being Zul when he died and was resurrected. His boss fight has no narrative significance (Talanji makes one passing remark about him before the fight), and there’s nothing to suggest what sort of state he’s actually in at this point (sentiment zombie; mindless zombie; sentinent but will utterly bent to G’Huun; etc).
Azshara doesn’t have him imprisoned but is actively resurrecting him and has us brought to Ny’alotha from the part of Nazjatar where Ny’alotha’s herald was killed so that we can use the Heart of Azeroth to break the seals on his prison for him since Azshara is getting impatient to get him out to revive the Black Empire!
Funny how C’Thun didn’t require as much time and effort as N’Zoth to be released from his prison(the Chronicle makes it quite clear he was fully released)
though that may just be due to him being stronger…
Yogg-Saron had Cho’gall weaken his prison and was using the time of WotLK to break out himself and was defeated before that could happen! Was this due to Ulduar being the capital of Azeroth’s Titanforged or is C’Thun stronger than him?
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Zul,_Reborn#Quotes
He seems to be the same as before… Of course his last statement( Zul yells: Wait… Dis was not the future I was promised…) was realizing that he just fell into the same trap as his student by fighting us.
His model’s different. His skin is paler and he has red eyes and coloration (as opposed to his previous blue eyes and color scheme). He’s clearly intended to be undead at that point (if his creature type doesn’t reflect that). Main point still stands though that the actual boss fight has him being pretty irrelevant from a narrative perspective.
If anything, it’s a pretty undignified end that the prophet who even has a click greeting commenting about the Horde champion being present for numerous events makes no effort whatsoever to form a contingency plan for us. Killrogg’s fight focused more on future sight and prophecy than Zul’s did.
Only reason I bothered to do a bit of Uldir was to defeat Zul since he was behind so much back in Pandaria, so it was at least nice to wrap up that loose end.
Even he seems to realize how undignified his end was and how despite his speech to his apprentice he fell into the exact same trap of being overly certain about his victory.
As for his eyes: They were Red during his fight with Rastakhan though not as Red as when he’s an Undead Blood Troll(Undead are still the same people they were in life as shown by Before the Storm):
Azshara is the type that wants to rule everything herself. I thought she had him like her b#$% in the prison and was using his power. Everything else so far seemed like it was hinting at the two of them in a partnership but not really being friends. In the Warbringers he seems angry at her while stuck in his prison. Didn’t know she was actively trying to break his prison though.
I would still not be surprised if her defeat is actually in his interest. I mean we all know he will pop out after she is defeated and not before, which makes it seem like he is waiting. I will be disappointed if he is just another Old God raid boss who is resurrected with her dying breath and the gift buff goes nowhere.
Azshara makes it clear that the bargain was on her terms during the Raid which is probably not something she should have called attention to.
N’Zoth was very angry when she told him that if he doesn’t cave in to her demands he’d be a God of nothing so being reminded of that he will probably backstab her the moment he’s out since he already now has the Twilight’s Hammer thanks to Cho’Gall!
In that scene you see how zul drops his sword when he sees his minion is about to fire,and turns to face his Slayer? It’s because he knew it was over and his goal was completed death means very little to man who will only come back as a stronger undead being.
Also the loa of death helps us a lot in the fight against Gthun and his forces basically turning the tide in our favor. Death entities tend to only help in Warcraft as long as it’s in their own self interest and stopping an old god whos main power is usurping death is definitely in his best interest.