The story says that the stones were placed by the First Ones for the Maw Walkers. It also says Sylvanas was the first Maw Walker.
Taken with other data-points, The First Ones:
Knew Zovaal would break.
That the Primus would make things worse with Domination.
All the specific Cosmos threatening events and places that would have to be traversed, to and from, in the process.
And the mortal souls that would exist, at the right time, to key those stones to.
Their knowing, and building things to move the events along, removes character agency. This is absolute Fate, no character had a choice with this rigid a formulation.
I’ve been saying this all along, but Fate is the final big bad of the Shadowlands. This does actually confirm that predestination is a thing in this Universe, so does anyone actually have true free will?
Sylvanas was right all along. Those were her motives all along. Why she sided with the Jailer. To destroy Fate. Because if fate is real than everything that happened to her was always fated to happen. That’s a hard pill for a abuse survivor “everything happens for a reason.” yeah no.
It makes sense why she and zooval saw it as a flawed system that needed to be remade. Problem was, sylvanas learned the hard way that she and zooval had VERY different ideas on what that new reality would look like
Remember when the main takeaway from Legion was “Destiny isn’t real, we choose our own path”? And then Shadowlands comes along and says actually destiny is real and it’s immutable. Love the consistency.
(In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people.)
I don’t want my system to break down, I’m not planning on it to break down… but if it does…
For some stupid reason the First Ones knew their perfect order of the cosmos was going to break eventually. So they set up a system allowing the player to essentially play god.
With the Pelagos piece we’ll be getting, the root of the story says: “No.”
I wish they had picked some road to actually move free will in the story.
Sylvanas was right about rebelling against Fate. With the current story objects, I dislike how the structure leads to Sylvanas being Fated to side with Zovaal and then turn on him; as she’s the first Maw Walker there’s no real way to say the First Ones didn’t know what all was going to happen… and they deliberately forwarded it…
Don’t forget Wrath and Rhonin:
Rhonin yells: Cold logic deemed our world not worth saving. Cold logic, however, does not account for the power of free will. It’s up to each of us to prove this is a world worth saving.
The Pelagos piece
I think you’ll get the issue when you see it. These go further than simple “oops” buttons.
I never liked Rhonin’s speech, because if “logic” actually deemed Azeroth not worth saving, that would Algalon right. Logic is not an enemy. There really wasn’t anything logical about what Algalon wanted to do.
I love that this has spawned such an awesome discussion this feels like coming back home.
Algalon said it was our “tenacity” that made us worth saving. This was always bizzare to me but knowing that one of the tenants of both Light and Shadow religions is tenacity and how both the Light and Void sought to destroy the Shadowlands themselves, that may be a lot of lore groundwork for future expansions.
The Void, we know for a fact, is against fate.
The Light, through Xe’ra seemed to want to break moral ethics to uphold it. Bring on the Light vs Void expansion!
This doesn’t break Legion canon so much, it just seems to be drawing a heavier line in the sand between Light and Void.
Logic Vs. Free Will/Emotion is a common formulation in US fiction after Star Trek ToS popularized it. It doesn’t always fit where it’s used.
The Rhonin speech definitely irritates now:
Due to the follow on events, our supposedly minuscule chance of beating him was ordained; have him re-originate Azeroth and the mortals can’t kill a Titan to disable the Arbiter with…
Her being there ruined what could have been a perfectly wholesome emotional scene. All I can hope for is when it is Sylvanas’ time her name can be likewise forgotten.
She’s not going anywhere for a long time. I’m happy that your disappointed about sylvanas though. Her character deserves better than what the devs been doing with her the last couple years
You know there are still two more cinematics, namely her judgement. At this point, I dont particular care what happens to her and as long as she ends up gone and forgotten.
With any luck you will be equally disappointed by it.
this feels like coming back home.