While I think he’s a better choice than Sylvanas, to me it also feels like “it was going to be Sylvanas but everyone predicted and hated it, so lets Game of Thrones it and pick someone that absolutely wasn’t set up for the role for a contrived reason that makes no sense”.
I also think Pelagos is a bit lacking in personality and I’m not sure what qualifies him to become the new Arbiter (I would’ve at least liked to see him be the first to become an ascended on the reforged Kyrian altar. Perhaps that will happen in 9.2).
He seems like the intern who’s been there a short time who is now promoted to CEO, surpassing people who have been there 1000’s of years more at least and have way more experience.
Still a better choice than Sylvanas. Otherwise, I think better candidates would be Kleia, Bolvar or any of the Paragons/Margraves/Arch-fey/Court members.
Spoilers Pelagos is the new Brann from GoT. I don’t know how they thought this was a good thing, but we shall see how this will play out. I wonder how he will be able to process billions of souls from all over the universe and concurrently process each lifetime’s experiences, and individually ask them, “Where do you want to go?” Idk… they should of rebuilt the old Arbiter and reprogrammed her to be more ethical and humane. C’est la vie.
Feels like one of two things happened here behind the scenes.
The Med’an Effect: There were old rumors that Thrall was never supposed to play the role he did in Cataclysm, that it was supposed to be Med’an, who had been set up through the comics the same way Varian had been. Med’an was immensely unpopular with the players, so he was thrown into the fridge and they picked Thrall instead. It feels like the same here, except its Sylvanas who is unpopular, and they just threw darts at the Shadowlands characters and they landed on Pelagos.
The WoD Effect: Shadowlands’ story is going to end with 9.2, but it seems as if 9.3 had been planned. Same as with WoD. So, just as Yrel, Grom, Doomhammer, etc… all lost a LOT of character development because of the shortened content, Pelagos is losing the development that would have led to him being a more natural and obvious choice for becoming the Arbiter.
Either way I’m not sure why we can’t make a new Arbiter in Zereth Mortis unless, as has been suggested in another thread, we need an Arbiter to get there in the first place.
If it is The Me’dan Effect, I think they should’ve put more thought into who the new Arbiter should be, or at least I hope they have a really good story cooked up to justify why Pelgaos gets the job.
If it’s The WoD Effect, then it’s a shame the story content was cut that explained such a choice (on that note, I had the feeling that Pelagos was going to be the first Kyrian acolyte ascended on the new Crest of Ascension made during the Kyrian Covenant Campaign.
The Primus did say he needed a replacement for the Arbiter’s sigil before we could get to Zereth Mortis. Having said that, I think a better idea for that would be Sylvanas giving up anima from her Jailer-given powers instead of some contrivance that would Sylvanas into the new Arbiter.
My only concern with that is, I don’t want Sylvanas involved even slightly with the new Arbiter because I’ll always be wondering when they’re going to slip in, “The Banshee Queen added her own essence to the Arbiter and now lives on eternally.”
Considering how activision tried to use the recent censure as a excuse to counter how they actually let social injustice be a thing in their compagnie, i wouldn’t be suprise that putting a trans for this role is just a way for them to be like:
‘‘Oh don’t worry about our real life employee not being treated equally and women being paid less, we put a trans in a important role in our game so we are super progressive’’.
The only problem with this is, going by the voicelines, Pelagos is sacrificing himself to become the New Arbiter. As in, there won’t be a Pelagos anymore. No memories, no experiences, nothing. He’ll become a mindless machine sorting the souls of the dead to their appropriate afterlives.
Same. Like after the Archon made giving up memories completely optional I was expecting Pelagos to ascend soon after. He did conquer his doubts at the end of the 9.0 Kyrian campaign after all.
Danuser did like the Game of Thrones 8th Season so…
Game of Thrones 8th Season of course is all about subversion for subversion’s sake.
Danuser seems to like this way of running a ship so once Sylvanas was predicted to be the new Arbiter she got kicked out of the running because everyone saw her as guaranteed to be the Arbiter unlike Teldrassil where it was deemed too obvious to be her therefore it had to be her just to subvert expectations.
In otherwords nothing can be certain with Danuser and the Plot!
Afrasiabi who took Kosak’s place during Legion which was when Danuser first showed up as a member of Staff.
WoD incidentally wasn’t Kosak’s idea either as it was Tom Chilton who chose to have WoD be a Time Travel Expansion instead of a restore Outland to Draenor through Magic Horn Expansion!
I’m not surprised that Afrasiabi was Danuser’s successor - he was Danuser but worse.
I consider AU Grom’s “Draenor is Free” to be the subversiveness for the sake of subversiveness in WoD. Then Afrasiabi helmed Legion, where the majority of subversiveness came from the Illidan-fanfic parts of Legion and the story of a certain naaru who got jobbed (“jobbed” in the North American sense and the wrestling sense).
They hinted at something like this in the campaign for Chains of Domination.
I just got back from a hiatus (on that note, hi everyone I missed you guys) and was catching up on the campaign and there is a little bit of dialogue between Uther and Pelagos about Arthas’ fate after you finish the Kyrian related part of the campaign before you head back to the Primus.
Pelagos asks what happened to Arthas in the end and Uther tells him about what he and Devos did to him. Pelagos says “Now that I have seen the Maw for myself… I cannot say that any soul deserves such torment. Perhaps some can never be forgiven… but you have shown me that they must be treated with compassion.” Sounds odd to hear from someone that has basically no power at this point, but makes sense to hear from someone that will eventually influence the Arbiter in some way.
So they came to the conclusion that they should scrap Sylvanas as Arbiter as far back as Chains of Domination then…if not earlier…
Of course they decided to make Denathrius more important after seeing him around Beta if not sooner so it seems Danuser rewrote the entire plot of Shadowlands right after Afrasiabi was fired.
Whatever Afrasiabi had planned was changed for the sake of Danuser subverting as much as possible at start.
Gharmal was made imposing enough to be a threat and thus died in the Bastion and Maldraxxus Covenant Campaign, Vyraz was made out to be important so he died in Chains of Domination, Krexus was made out to be an important character so he died in the Leveling Storyline, Kel’Thuzad was made out to be important so he died without fanfare in the Sanctum of Domination Raid, Helya was made out to be important and was banished abruptly in Chains of Domination and Odyn was made out to be important only to be ignored…
Everyone thought that Sylvanas was too obvious to be behind Teldrassil and lo and behold she was responsible.
Danuser likes to subvert expectations… If he abruptly kills Sylvanas off then it is due to everyone expecting her to live and if he lets her live it is because everyone expects her to die…
His plan for Sylvanas cannot be predicted as he refuses to be predictable and we can’t be predictable in our assumptions concerning Sylvanas either for fear we might influence him the wrong way…
The Maldraxxi quest-giver who tells you collect oozes and dump’em all into a vat in various combos until a rare mob pops out would’ve made a better Arbiter. “Oh yes, let’s see, what happens when I put more troll souls into Revendreth. More mage souls? What do you get? Oh my!”