Titan souls as you said (and from whatever I remember or the facts are now) do indeed not go there. But since Argus was the Unmaker. Sort of a being of order yet affiliated/representing death/end of reality, his own end would likely cause a pretty big ripple in the fabric of reality.
Pretty much a result of the dreadlords doing their thing.
Best answer I can come up with is Remornia, someone on the Will of Remornia battlepet WoWhead page said it has an ability that’s eerily identical to the red energy blast that took the Arbiter offline…
Also makes the most sense, Denathrius caused the anima drought and was the one behind redirecting the anima flow to the Maw.
I think it’s definitely got something to do with him though. Perhaps Dreadlords. The Sire was definitely in comms with them. Once they told him the Legion was toast and they needed to come back home soon…maybe. Maybe it WAS Argus and the fact that his soul wasn’t supposed to be there period but due to all the plotting somebody stole it, and the Arbiter just couldn’t take it cause she’s not meant to ever interact with such a being.
This is an amazing and critical question!
Denathrius zapped her, I thought that was obvious.
An arms war walked up to her and rolled his face on the keyboard ^^
He loaded a lob of anima into a howitzer and fired it from atop Castle Nathria
So far we only have Headcannon answers, some think it’s argus, others think it was denathrius, but officially we’re not sure what happened.
Blizzards Writing
So, we know a rough ‘timeline’ in universe of when it happened, so we know that Varrian as actually…some where.
-Warbrave Oro from the Highmountain quest line from Legion is in Bastion
This means Arby broke after this point
-Souls from Tel’Drasil’s burning went to the maw
So, arbiter was broken by here.
So it was a major soul/death or a soul that shouldn’t have gone to the Shadowlands being sent to the shadowlands between those two events
That isn’t what is being asked. What is being asked is what was the initial attack that took the Arbiter offline and thus caused the chain of events.
I suspect the official answer will come in a book and not in game.
I really hope that’s not the case
To be fair to Blizzard also, it could very well be a plot point meant to launch the next expansion too. It could very well be a power or entity that we’ve yet to get any real intel on. I wouldn’t put too much stock into the red color necessarily meaning Sire or his pet sword did it.
That said, they have foreshadowed much and a lot of signs point to the eventual return of the void lords and even a potential clash with the light (who in itself may be just as bad in its own way). We also know the void invaded Bastion and was barely pushed out at one point also.
I think though that kind of setup works best having SL introduce some timey wimey stuff and us return to a world years down the line potentially in the grip of that eventual cosmic war.
How about the jailer?
The Jailer (Who we don’t really know anything about, but don’t worry) got all the Sigils (What we don’t really know anything about, but don’t worry) to open (We don’t really understand how, but don’t worry) the way to the Sepulcher of the First Ones (Which we don’t really know anything about, but don’t worry) to utilize some First Ones technology (Who we don’t know anything about, but don’t worry) to unmake reality (Which doesn’t really mean anything, but don’t worry).
No concrete answer I don’t think.
Unless I missed something but then again I stopped paying too close of attention to what Stevie boy writes.
Unless the jailer is a timelord, that isn’t true (and even if he was, he has some paradoxes to work out first).
Arbiter shutting down is what allowed the cascade of souls to default flow to the maw. The maw is known to be inescapable and if he already had the means to get out to attack the arbiter, he would have just stayed out.
Sire cut off the anima to the other covenants (and even his own) to starve them and essentially prevent them from doing their respective jobs and thus be weakened and unable to defend themselves. Short of the forsworn/Kyrian, who natively have the means to traverse the various planes, there is no evidence of any other covenant denizen being/going to the maw meaning it isn’t likely anything came in or out of it directly. It took a herculean effort and relics of the first ones to even get the means for the covenants to invade the maw.
We also do know something about that other stuff. Not all obviously but it isn’t near as blind as you are trying to make it out to be.
It is hard to understand from reading I understand from what people say.
I myself did not paid much attention to the people saying it the first time I did the SL campaign. I was more interested in the story of Maldraxxus than in the general story of the shadowlands.
The second time I ran it, I noticed the people explaining the story throughout the arc, and the fact that I did not liked or interested in Ardeweald made my first run not so much productive in understanding the big picture of the Shadowlands and the powerplay that was happening.
Then there is a video in YT, old enough, and people pose that exact same question. And then I started to pay attention in my second alt to the story.
Some quotes are interesting to this:
"So the Blue eyes make sense ? "
In this presentation he lays down the reasons as to how the things happening. And he says what triggered that red thing. It is not an actual “who”.
And that is why Uther had to bypass Arthas directly to the Maw, as if it was happening after it, there would be no reason, as all souls were going to the Maw anyways.
They needed to ensure Sylvanas would survive, and they had to make Arthas serve the function Nerzul wouldnt. In order for the things that happened, happen.
Then you have the things orchestrated to a specific situation that was what triggered an specific soul to “glitch the Arbiter”, for an specific reason. Zovaal knew this because he knowns how the Arbiter works.
The problem is understanding the timeline of events. People are saying things basing the idea that this plan started in this xpac, and they simply “created” shadowlands plot now.
As I said before in other topic:
We know from certain lore characters that the rough timeline when the arbiter broke.
Arthas VERY CLEARLY died and was tossed into the maw a long time before the arbiter broke…even considering the possibility for time being weird (which likely makes your case far worse anyway). There is a High Mountain Tauren who literally dies right next to us named Oro or something that we see in Bastion…which is, canonically, years and years post Arthas death.
Meanwhile, we have the much more recent burning of a certain tree and thousands of dead elves who Elune, instead of turning them into wisps, was sending to her sister in Ardenweald only for them to go to the maw.
So the arbiter broke sometime after Legion but before BfA. Uther 100% screwed over Arthas and there is absolutely no lore justification that is going to let him wiggle out of it…Arthas was denied his judgment plain and simple.
“The devil’s toothpick”
How is this considered a mystery?
We know Denathrius was always working with the Jailer, secretly.
We also know Denathrius helped construct the new arbiter (who was clearly an Automa) with the Primus and the others when they ousted the Jailer from his previous job as the first Arbiter.
We saw what happened in the cinematic. Arbiter got zapped by Revendreth flavor magic, and while Anima stopped flowing to the other three main afterlives, the Anima kept secretly flowing to Revendreth.
All this was explained if you were paying attention.
As for when, it was about the time Sylvanas came to power. When all the pieces were in place for the breakout.