Right now the Shadowlands are being treated as totally mysterious, unknown realms, but we have a LOT of formerly dead people around. Don’t they all remember what it was like in there?
AFAIK nobody ever talks about it except Sylvanas. But when Sylvanas killed herself she went to part of the Shadowlands which seems to have been the Maw, and that experience was so frightening to her that it ended her suicidal ambitions. So it seems like she didn’t just have the memory of the Shadowlands erased as soon as she came back to life.
So what about everyone else? In some cases, it helps explain a lot: the Night Elves resurrected by Sylvanas make a lot more sense joining the Horde if they were doing it to escape the Maw, and feeling abandoned by Elune after going to the most hellish part of the Shadowlands makes sense.
But more broadly it raises more questions than it answers. Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about the Shadowlands? Would anyone who had been anywhere except the Maw or maybe Maldraxxus choose to continue life as an undead? If you remember a relatively pleasant afterlife in the Ardenweald wouldn’t you just immediately kill yourself?
It could be that nobody remembers their time spent dead and Sylvanas remembering the Shadowlands is just a plot hole, but it is a little confusing.
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This is a bizarre way of looking at things.
Sylvanas’s experience was extremely strange. She:
- Entered the maw via Old God Blood
- Was pulled out of the Maw by a special pact, not regular necromancy
- Is clearly being marked as special by the Jailor, who wants her as a collaborator
Any or all of these could account for the differences between her experience and that of a “regular” undead. Simply dismissing it as a “plot hole” is nonsense.
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It seems like they are using some beliefs from the real world. In reincarnation, you come back with no memory of what happened before, the life you are in is all that is important.
In main line religions you you no memory of anything before birth. So what they are doing is in line with RL experiences. What happened to Sylvanus would correlate to a near death experience.
The Shadowlands everyone knows of is the place we go into when we die in game. That is, gray Azeroth
It was stated at Blizzcon that when someone goes to the Shadowlands and comes back, they have little to no memory of it after returning to the physical world. A specific example they gave is Cenarius having at most a hazy memory of the Shadowlands.
It might be possible that the undead night elves initially retained some memory of it but it faded over time. I guess that could kind of, sort of, maybe explain why they initially joined Sylvanas and seemed convinced they had a reason to do so, but now seem to have no idea what they’re doing.
Sira Moonwarden: We all have our reasons for accepting the val’kyr’s gift. But now is not the time for those discussions.
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They also had her remembering her first visit to the Shadowlands, which likely had her briefly in Ardenweald or something (golden fields and forest) right before Arthas dragged her back. That was part of why she was willing to kill herself after Arthas’s death and why she was shocked by the Maw - she thought she was still going back to the first place.
(I actually thought that she had gone to that field in HoV at first when they introduced the whole Odyn’s army and Stormborne thing, but I guess it’s a different golden field now?)
…
All this being said, the thread also does raise a good point of sorts, because at least a few prominent death knights also have memories and experiences with it. I know the one who makes your horse mount for you does (guy with the old huntsman model), and Koltria has you go into it to kill some spirits for him. So, there should at least be some knowledge of it floating around, though why the dk’s don’t share it is another issue I guess.
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The Death Knights should at least.
I am pretty sure they have the power to travel to the Shadowlands at will,
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Some do anyway, but I think it’s part of Maldraxxus, since the area is full of wraiths and such.
Well, it could be anywhere, the Shadowlands are supposedly countless.
That dark forest you go to save Uuna (or something like that) is also part of the Shadowlands.
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It’s a fairly common trope that just as memories of your life are kind of sketchy post death, you don’t tend to remember what it was like in the afterlife when you’re brought back to this side of the Veil.
Might also be there same reason why there are so many ghosts wondering Azeroth.
Because the Gates are broken/closed to the living world. They just can’t pass on and never see the Shadowlands.
Probably they don’t remember it on the account of how traumatic dying is.
I’m sure that, if it were the case, it’d be like a fever dream that seemed so unreal for the few moments they saw the other side.
Undead have never been affected in any way, shape, or form by Saronite.
Well, weapons made from the stuff chop undead up as readily as anyone else. So Saronite affects undead in that way, shape and form.
Alright, that’s fair. Saronite weapons can, infact, kill undead the same way that iron weapons can.
You could most likely assume being returned from the Shadowlands is like waking up from a dream, you might remember snatches of it but it’s like trying to keep water in your hands it just slips away the longer you’re alive.
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I used to hypothesize that a karma or deeds based afterlife where the good are rewarded and the bad are punished was a reason for the Forsaken’s atrocious recruitment rate and the higher than average number of psychos and monsters within the Forsaken’s ranks.
I’m pretty sure this theory is going to be proven wrong come next expansion. Best we can probably hope for is the revelation that being revived as Forsaken removes any memories of the afterlife.
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Bold to assume the Forsaken are even going to be touched on in Shadowlands. They went whole hog about Tyrande and Valsharrah², Kael’thas, Uther, and quietly mentioned Draka. They didn’t bring up Forsaken at all. It’s half the reason I didn’t pre order. I’m a solid 95% certain this is going to be another Alliance-Only expansion.
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So the forsaken get mindwiped so they do not remember anything about being dead. That does not explain why they never run into anyone who remembers them from their shadowlands time. If they went to Baston, then there should be someone who knew them when they were there after they died and before they were brought back.
In all the factons there should be some rumor about all those who popped out of the shadowlands and got taken back to their world.
I think someone did not think the forsaken all the way through this.
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