Since I have seen no evidence of the covenants trying to free anybody alongside Sylvanas, and Sylvanas was meant to free all the souls, I have to assume Blizzard intended everyone to support this punishment, at whatever cost to the actual souls. Punishing the guilty is more important than helping the innocent, according to Blizz.
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if I’m not mistaken, only a few people are able to freely go to-from the Maw on a whim and when NPCs do it they need us to help them get out. When the covenant assaults start, they’re able to only because they go through Korthia only are able to stay there for a brief time, hence the anima shipments. Sylvanas, presumably because of her work with the Jailer is able to stay there indefinitely. Brokers don’t seem to be affected. Our characters’ personal connections to Azeroth keeps us safe. Those conditions don’t seem to apply to everyone, even as we start to conquer the Maw in the patches.
We don’t know if the Covenants are there to help her. I assume that they would be, but they also have their own realms to rebuild after everything the Jailer/Denathrius did there so that the machinery of the afterlives is ready to go and function properly as the souls come out of the Maw. But honestly, we don’t really know what the maw is/feels like now since part of what made it so hellish and awful was the Jailer and his torments and those aren’t there anymore.
Sylvanas is sent to the worst pit in existence surrounded by all of her victims but now she has her conscience back and finally feels the shame, guilt, and remorse over everything she did. That sounds like a punishment to me.
It’s also fitting that she’s sent there five minutes after everybody agrees that nobody deserves the Maw. It’s basically a loophole Maw condemnation for her and a pretty clever punishment on Tyrande’s part. They agree that all souls deserve redemption, all souls deserve to find a new purpose in the Shadowlands - she just gets her’s last.
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Anyone seemed able to go in and out once we opened the two waystone. We see them assault the Maw with relative impunity.
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I think she cannot go out of the Shadowlands or travel to the afterlives, but allowed to return to Oribos to return souls
right but like I said in the rest of the paragraph: they don’t stay. i don’t think they can. like, they don’t build bases or maintain a consistent presence in the maw. the assaults need regular shipments of anima. that all tells me that they can’t stay in the maw or away from Korthia long.
when you go there with vorpalia, she says that she can feel it “tugging” her essence and that she can’t stay. the souls that are stuck in gorgoa, aka, still flowing into the maw and hadn’t reached torghast yet are depicted as being husks. I think for most “average” creatures (mortals, souls, shadowlands beings), the maw has a deleterious effect on your anima by simply just being in it. only few are immune to it, and I would assume that includes sylvanas.
so that’s why I don’t think the covenants would be able to do much of the soul rescuing.
They can stay long enough to clear some trash, grab some souls then come back again and again until the place is cleared up. Conversely, the Alliance/Horde should have spent the last 5 years of the time skip making sure they keep sending the players/their forces into the Maw to try and free the souls of their people. If nothing else we Maw walkers should be able to stay permanently.
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nothing wrong with assuming that that’s what they’re doing then - we don’t have a lot of insight to what’s happening in the shadowlands since we’ve left. whether or not they do doesn’t change the fact that sylvanas’ punishment is appropriate imho.
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There is every indication Sylvanas is alone in the Maw because we literally saw her/Anduin talking.
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there’s every indication sylvanas is alone in the tiny section of the otherwise fairly large maw that the cinematic takes place in, you mean.
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And there is no indication, in lore or otherwise, that we or the covenants are actually doing anything to help. Nor would it make sense, if that was her punishment then its not much of a punishment at all if we are also all doing it? What, are we being punished as well?(although that weekly did feel like a punishment)
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we do it cuz we’re heroes and selfless actions are what we do and until the arbiter is replaced and the shadowlands are fixed, we’re the only ones who can do it and the shadowlands needed their energizer batteries.
like I said - you can imagine them helping or not. either way she’s still a (questionably) mortal person with a reconnected sense of how terrible she was, sent to hell to find and face her victims and she can’t leave until all are found. given how long the shadowlands were broken, the implication is that she will be there for a very, very, very long time (read: next to forever, or until Blizz decides to write her back into the game).
While the rest of Azeroth gets to heal, move on, experience the good emotions, generate some dopamine, and basically not just languishing in death’s misery pit for close to eternity. That sounds pretty punish-y to me.
It’s basically condemning her to the maw five minutes after everyone agrees that nobody deserves the maw.
I am not questioning that she is an awful person. However, I am saying her punishment while supposedly something that is should seem “fitting” actually falls apart the moment anyone give a few seconds of thought into it. Which yeah, is basically the biggest criticism of Shadowlands.
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i…wasn’t arguing that you were saying she wasn’t awful? I’m arguing that…no, actually her punishment feels pretty fitting to me. if I were sylv, I’d beg tyrande to kill me rather than have to face an near-eternity in that place seeing all the people I killed and now feel remorse for and sending them off to get an actual afterlife and knowing that mine won’t come for a very, very long time.
So in your head, there is every indication that she is alone… because someone else is with her…
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There is every indication the she is alone in trying to save the souls. In fact, Anduin basically just left her and didn’t bother helping her. Which adds another thought, he is not a Maw walker and yet he can go in and out of the Maw. which implies mortals in general can now do so as well.
Clearly Anduin could walk about the Maw and chat with her. He did not just teleport infront of her. There is proof right there that others are in the Maw, we do not know who or what they are up to.
You are simply making assumptions that border on head canon.
There is not much information as to the state of the maw, or what is going on there. It is not stated that she is the only one saving souls. I do not know why you feel you have to invent a conclusion.
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Tyrande Whisperwind says: Every soul lost in its depths, betrayed or condemned…
Tyrande Whisperwind says: you shall find and send forth to the Arbiter
That was Tyrande’s judgement. It specifically state it Sylvanas herself who is responsible for saving all those soul. No one else.
She never says “you alone” or “no one else.” Those are your words.
What Tyrande has said could easily mean Sylvanas is working as clean up. Places that the Covenants have cleared already or are clearing out currently.
It is her duty to clean up every last soul. Like the janitor who does a final walk through before locking up - that doesn’t mean the janitor cleaned the whole place alone. The janitor just has to make sure its clean at the end. Picking up the last bits of trash others may have missed.
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She specifically say “every soul” is hers to find and sent forth to the Arbiter. Not “every soul except the ones saved by someone else”.
That would be horrible grammar and redundant. If they were already saved and no longer in the maw, they would not need to be saved from the maw by Sylvanas.