Even Shadowlands is looking like a good expansion gameplay wise in some aspects there is already a whole ton of plotholes im going to list in right now. And characters missing from shadowlands.
Dranosh Saurfang nowhere to be found in all the shadowlands zones
Where is Tirion
Slyvanas being shocked at becoming warchief if shes been working with the jailer she should have already known that she was going to become warchief
Varian is missing nowhere to be seen
Where is deathwing why is he nowhere to be seen unless hes in the maw
Malygos is also missing where is he
Lord Godfrey (Although he could be in the Maw due to slyvanas).
King Rastikhan is also nowhere to be seen.
Nzoth Although we learned that beings of their respective pantheon do not goto the shadowlands but still we might learn more on this.
Slyvanas caring for the forsaken and her 180 but this is well known to us. And before anyone says she never cared her dialogue in cataclysm and legion suggest otherwise. Thank you Steve Dansuer for having no idea about the lore.
Liam Greymayne is also nowhere to be seen
Where is Carine Bloodhoof.
How is tyrande moving in the maw without being captured and just showing up like there is no problem i thought the maw was inescapable and a place of hardship.
Where is Edwin Vancleef.
Where is Archbishop benedictus.
Helm Of Dommination being destructible and opening up a hole in the sky.
Where is Broxxigar the Red
Where is King Llane Wyrnn
Where is Anduin Lothar
Both Guldans (Although they might be in the maw)
Varian Wife is nowhere to be seen at all.
Where is Ner’zhul alternate universe.
-Fandral Staghelm son and himself are nowhere to be seen.
Dreadlords being seemingly retconned into serving the jailor despite them being from the twisting nether unless they expand on this and say that .
Where is alternate universe Velen he died so he should be in shadowlands.
Where is Terenas Menethil in the shadowlands shouldn’t he be in bastion after being freed.
Calia Menethil husband and daughter (Although i thought she had a son people been saying they are dead. Blizz needs to answer this.)
If the light has no power in the shadowlands how is calia menethil able to be ressurected into an undead. Did the Naaru use necromancy or what i am very confused.
Where is Medivh he should be in the shadowlands if he’s dead although in legion it was hinted at he was alive.
Where is khadgar shouldn’t he be helping out.
Look guys I really do get the games limitations but they need a novel for this expansion to cover the characters missing after this expansion is said and done because there are a ton of characters that are completely missing that need to be explained as to where they are. Also feel free to add more plotholes that I didn’t listed. Lets see how many plotholes Steve Dansuer and the writing team opened up because of this expansion
ok well firstly:
It seems that there are a lot more realms in Shadowlands than the few we visit.
We visit the ones that are somehow connected to Sylvanas new sugar daddy.
So it is safe to assume that characters who have died within wows history actually would have been mostly sent to other realms like Elunes realm or Light afterlight.
We encounter just the souls who for some reason wer sent to these realms instead of their actual destination.
For example: Every light woshiper would be sent to light afterlight but some souls have experienced stuff that made them more suitable to another realm.
Some souls are robbed, like the ones in the maw now. And so on.
We only visit a fraction of what the shadowlands are and thus only encounter a fraction of the people died withing the WoW history.
Secondly:
Blizzard isn’t evencapable of using all the charctes that currently live and should be involved in one expansion. How would they be to even involve all the dead ones aswell…
But wasn’t it explained that the characters that die are also mortal. If thats the case then uther for example after being freed from frostmourne should have went on to the light afterlife. I know frostmourne was revealed to have done something to his soul but even so another plothole is how uther ended up in shadowlands if the light has no power there.
Also i mentioned i understand they are incapable of using all characters but some of the ones i listed are major lore characters that should be explained on. This is my problem right now with this expansion there is too many characters they have to cover
That is his whole story arc.
There is a reason that a Paladin like Uther is more suiting in Bastion. He died with anger, with grief and couldn’t let go of the past. He somehow went thus more suiting into bastion.
I mean that is the whole concept of heavens and hells. ou only go there if you life a life dedicated to these dogmas. But Uther seem to have died with a hear full of hatred and thus maybe was not worthy of the light afterlife, or even he wouldn’t have been able to enjoy that afterlife because of his unfullfilled deeds. Bastion is a realm where you are tought and supposed to let go of your past life and forget it. Becuase its memorys are too painfull for the sould that forgetting is a better fate. This is not possible in theh light afterlife probably as it is bastions … theme.
Edit:
Also there are yet content patches to come and with them at least 2 more zones.
So Shadowlands will expand a bit.
The whole Summoning of souls and even the Emerald Dream is for now … problematic.
But maybe there is an explanation to that.
One I could argue is:
In D&D you have spells that allow you to animate dead corpses for a short amount of time to talk to them and ask them questions.
It is explained that you don’t really call back the soul of said person, but just a mere memory of him, like if you watch someones old somehow interactive video recordings.
Maybe that is the case with summoning ghosts of people aswell.
Yes of course. I have explained to you how the Shadowlands would work but why it is impossible to build one expansion with all of the infinite amount of realms.
Just told you that not everthing that is missing is a plothole.
I completely agree with this, so many important characters that died are probably not going to be there. I’m probably just nitpicking this but there are too many characters that were so significant that Blizzard just… forgot, so thank you for bringing it up-! Also, I’m 99.9% certain that every soul will go to the Shadowlands after death at least once, excluding the Halls of Valor which I think you have to go through the Maw just to have your soul chosen for judgement anyway.
Just because we don’t see them or interact with them, doesn’t make it a plot hole or a retcon. They just aren’t important to the story being told. People thrown the word Plot Hole around and it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
It is a plot hole when something isn’t explained or is illogical if these characters are missing it doesn’t make sense why they shouldn’t be there unless it is explained. Like I said a novel after this expansion just covering it would help clear this mess up. Many of these characters were integral to the plot of world of Warcraft.
Truly to each it’s own, but I personally feel as if some characters who were important to the story previously wont be remembered because the fact that not many people talk about them, or they aren’t seen as important in Blizzards eyes.
You can’t build infinite amount of Zones.
It is the same way as in legion there was no Kul Tiras … does that mean the existance of Kul Tirans is a plothole? We - just - weren’t - there - (yet).
Many of those characters mentioned in the OP were already dealt with in one expansion or another, we don’t need to interact with/deal with them again in the Shadowlands to make the story in Shadowlands relevant. Especially to new people who aren’t going to know or care about those characters to begin with.
The four realms we visit are key to the function of the Shadowlands. They aren’t the be all and end all. There are literally an infinite number of other realms and afterlifes.
As for why someone might go to a particular realm, that is up to the Arbiter. She picks where souls go. The light really has no say in it since the light doesn’t have any specific power of the Realm of Death. Hell, the Light has tried to invade the Shadowlands before and been driven back.
These words give me flashbacks to BFA interviews, i hate this words so much but yes currently the whereabouts of all the guys we killed/died and are not shown could be on the other afterlives since there are “infinite in number” so it can be handwaved and as such is not a plothole.