Just thought of this but, considering that souls from the entire universe are going to the Maw, wouldn’t a few thousand from the fourth war seem kinda irrelevant? Do you see the stream of souls going into the Maw in Oribos and the cinematics? That’s a crap ton.
I don’t know, seems pretty risky to make yourself such a massive target by causing a genocide and inciting a war for some souls that are less than a drop in the bucket of what you’re already getting. 
Yes, they are. Now stop asking questions.
There was more to it than that.
It wasn’t just to start a war and kill people, but to start a war and distract people from what they really should have been focusing on - ie the fact that the planet had been stabbed and was bleeding out.
It’s also to weaken the planet’s defenders and inhabitants for when the Jailer is unleashed and comes to claim Azeroth herself. After all, everything always comes back to claiming Azeroth.
All the extra souls were just gravy,
Yeah ofc they are, but the its just a plot hole. Doesn’t matter regardless Sylvanas STANS will listen and take in anything with her in it… blizzard knows it too
I suppose each soul has varying amounts of anima, so not all are created equal. Also, I would assume the Jailer has agents everywhere, but seeing how Azeroth is a special target Sylvanas would be more important maybe?
We all just don’t know why she did what she did and until 9.1 we wont have a clear idea.
If you’ve seen what Baduin did to the Archon in the 9.1 spoiler cinematic, I bet he does that to Tyrande as well to syphon off all the Night Warrior power.
So Sylvanas really only wanted to cause that for the endgame of getting that energy to the Jailor, and the entire 4th War is just the fallout and all those extra souls are gravy.
It makes me wonder what they did to gaurantee those souls went into the Maw and not get picked up by the Spirit Rezzers or Kyrian or Valkyrie or whatever
Also keep in mind, I think they said right around the time of Legion (after Ursoc and Ysera were killed) was when they started subverting souls, I could be wrong
But I think it’s more than just a few thousand. Also remember that in-game is a mere representation and if it were a book the death toll would probably be much higher. We don’t know the exact population of the Night Elf citizens, or how many people Sylvanas gassed at the battle at Lordaeron
Unless they did give us numbers and I’m wrong
Neither do the writers
Even if it was more than a few thousand, it’s the ENTIRE UNIVERSE we’re talking about here. I can’t imagine the risk would have been worth it.
I wonder if Sylvanas had more planned but had to scrap that when she killed Saurfang and told everyone they are nothing. From there she flew off to destroy the Lich King’s helmet and opened up the gateway to the Shadowlands.
I really feel like opening a gate into Shadowlands could not have been plan A.
“I am doing something nefarious! Follow me and find out!” Yeah right!!
The Kyrian are lawful stupid. They still collect souls and drop them off at Oribos International Airport knowing full well that they’re falling into a Maw vacuum.
Fortunately most of them have wings so they can just fly over any plot holes they stumble across
I imagine part of it is to weaken Azeroth. The Jailer wants our titan, his heralds said that. He’s going to invade us at some point which is why there’s that giant hole in the sky.
As he saw over the years Azeroth’s defenders are pretty good at doing impossible things against greater enemies. By causing the 4th war right off the back of the big Legion invasion she weakened the Alliance and Horde to far lower levels than they normally would be. It was repeatedly said we’re running out of soldiers.
Of course there are other groups on Azeroth too, but those are the two biggest super powers. The Jailer has been pretty thorough and trying to not leave loose ends to chance. Without BfA both factions would be stronger to resist and armed with a lot of azerite that was not spent on a war.
It wasn’t Sylvanas. It was what even villain Blizzard pulls out of their hat to make the true bad guy and then the real Sylvanas escape from her prison in the Mall to save us all (sigh).
But doesn’t it seems strange that this ancient and scheming bad guy wants to invade Azeroth before he’s out of the Maw?
Everyone seems to ignore this massive hole in the logic here.
Why would the Jailer invade Azeroth when;
Maybe, maybe not. Again we wont know if they have at least a reasonable explanation or if it will be a horribly plot hole ridden mess until at least next patch.
A few people mention in Shadowlands that Azeroth must be a special world since people from Azeroth seem to always be at the center of the action.
So I don’t think it’s irrelevant at all. Sylvanas sent a large quantity of high quality souls with lots of Anima to the Jailer, which means a lot of power and also high quality Shades.
They do get lots of souls from Mortals being Mortals and dying across the universe, but by killing a lot of Azeroth people the Jailer got all those souls plus the cream of the crop from Azeroth.
you said it yourself. as many AS POSSIBLE. take a drop out of a full cup is it still full?
I belive the writers laugh and ask themselves “yea this crap has so many loopholes and makes no sense but meh”