This story has been absolutely miserable and I plan on making a big analysis post on why the metaphysics of the Shadowlands are incoherent (which is a risk of creating such an expansion unless you put in sufficient effort with people trained in such matters to create a coherent paradigm because inventing novel soteriology/harmatology in a fantasy universe is hard which is why most don’t do it), so in order to spark joy in my withered soul I’m theorycrafting some:
The Primus invented Domination Runes/Domination magic as a whole, and created it for the purpose of trapping Zovaal. (Grimoire page 116)
Domination magic is woven into the Maw and Torghast’s very fabric. (Blizz interviews + Jaina/Thrall/Calia dialogue)
The Tarragrue has “stalked the halls of Torghast since the first spire was raised” (encounter journal), but it is a creature of Domination magic (Domination runes everywhere)
The Primus says Zovaal was banished to the “inescapable Maw”, but the Winter Queen stated that the Heart of the Forest is what makes the Maw inescapable. (Court of Winter quest, The Queen’s Request quest)
The Primus did not think Zovaal could use the magic of memory (Into the Vault quest), but the Archon and Kyrians as a whole we see use memory magic thoroughly.
The Primus states that they bound Zovaal together (further implying each had a role in so doing) and created the Arbiter using his sigil (which we know Mourneblades, created by Domination magic, can extract, so the Primus used one on zovaal) and anima (which Denathrius is the expert at anima extraction).
Grimoire states there are other realms of punishment throughout the Shadowlands besides the Maw.
The Maw’s unique quality appears that it eventually leads to the annihilation of souls, and Jaina describes the Maw as inherently draining her soul; like any realm of the Shadowlands, it needs anima to sustain itself, and anima comes from souls, and Domination magic is the magic of “suppressing another” (Grimoire page 116).
Thus:
The Primus created a mourneblade to strip Zovaal of his sigil ie the Arbiter sigil, and carved Domination runes upon his flesh to suppress him
Kyrestia stripped him of memories
Denathrius drained his anima
Winter Queen used the magic of Ardenweald (which, note, is the magic that gives Kyrians their wings that allow them to travel between planes) to seal the Maw (a reversal of the Kyrian wing gift) and make it inescapable
The Maw, Torghast, and the very existence of damnation and the annihilation of souls as punishment did not exist in the plans of the First Ones but was an invention of the Eternal Ones to punish Zovaal, and “invented” eternal damnation/spiritual annihilation because it is a realm that like any other is fueled by anima and is a magic that exist to suppress souls (and all magics in WoW so far require energy/fuel of some sort)
And thus:
Sylvanas was convinced by the Jailer because before he was banished, Hell did not exist and nobody was being eternally damned.
Devos was convinced by the Jailer because for eons Kyrians have contributed to the eternal damnation of souls which the First Ones did not intend (“The Purpose is a lie!”)
(Came up with this in convos in the pedia discord server with some folks uwu)
edit:
Also additionally, since Attendants (including the Fatescribes) came after Zovaal was banished, this suggests possibly the power Fatescribes have are also originally Zovaal’s power.
So as you are aware Bastion is based on Greek cosmogony, and Bastion was the first as Krestia is “The First Born” right? So in Greek cosmogony with regards to the creation of Tartarus which is what the Maw is based on, Tartarus was also a god along with three other siblings, Earth (Gaia), Night (Nyx) and Time (Chronos). In the Orphic traditions and in the mystery schools, Tartarus is also the unbounded first-existing entity from which the Light and the cosmos are born. (it should be noted that this a patriarchal view of creation in which the progenitor is male, this view is later thrown out in favor of sophism. The orphic tradition as under gone a lot of shifts over time, eventually adopting a matriarchal view of creation which would later become the foundations of Sophism, The mother of Tartarus is Sophia [Wisdom] who created reality.
In Hesiod’s Theogony “The genealogy and Birth of the Gods” these four gods, Tartarus, Gaia, Nyx and Chronos were called “The First Ones.”
I know a lot of readings of the new cosmology chart are Death sprung up to challenge Life but I think with all the hints that Shadowlands is following a very Greek mythological pattern, I think the reason we got a new cosmology chart from the PoV of Death is that Death is the first one from which all other cosmological sprang from, Zorvall if he is meant to be Tartarus, is the progenitor of Light and the Cosmos. (now I say that but I also know that later myth, this cosmogony is completely thrown out the window in favor of a matriarchal reinterpretation where Tartarus is just the “Demiurge” the fallen “warrior of Light” and the Romanized myth of “Satan” or Lucifer.
Zorvall is a Light Lord. Zorvall is probably An’she because this creation story matches up really well with The Eyes of the Earthmother. Nothing else about the Shadowlands mythos matters except for this.
Overall, I really like this theory. Even if I have some serious problems with the way the storytelling was executed, it would be great if this what the story turned out to be.
firstborne, frostmourne, Kingsmourne I think they just like adding an “e” to the end of things to sound cool. Also I would probably take that as a hint that Krestia may be just a secondary creation. I’m not even sure she’s even native to the Shadowlands at this point, just like the Winter Queen isn’t native to the Shadowlands by to the Life realm presumably.
the problem with theorycrafting is you could think of the best direction for the story and you could think you have it all figured out only for the writers to go in a completely different direction. I worry about that a lot. I empathize with Pyromancer’s recent meltdown over the lore but I think he got too into his own theories and got really upset when his intuition steered him wrong, I used to really love his videos and I think all through BFA he was really one the nose with it but he lost himself entering shadowlands, his entire tone shifted at the start of Shadowlands and it’s hard to see him spiral.
Theorycrafting… it’s not for the meek. I really hope he finds his love of the lore again.
okay so hear me out. Sargeras… has what looks to be a runeblade in the image of him destroying a Titan world soul in Chronicle. The Titans Sargeras may have been using a runeblade and feeding those Titan souls into the blade. This goes back to the thread about The Legion having strong ties to Maldraxxus.
As far as we know lore wise, this blade that he had was lost and was replaced by the blade he has now with an eyeball stuck currently in our planet.) We also don’t know how Sargeras went from being a literal shadow carrying a runeblade to a burning being of fire brandishing what looks like an Old God weapon. But I’m sure lore books in the future will fill in these blanks. I hope.
I mean to be perfectly honest, Elune’s breadth of powers made more sense for her to be one of these First Ones.
Even if that wasn’t going to be confirmed until much later, the anticipation would’ve made for fun engagement by littering references here and there.
Oh look, Bastion’s symbol is a tear. Oh look, the Winter Queen’s night fae and the Night Elves have some physical similarities. Etc.
The story direction is simply not good. The nuance is nonexistent. They pivot every patch (e.g. the Stonewright).
You cannot grow attached to a story that has no sense to it.
If the players predict a story, that isn’t cause to change it last minute, as is the case lately in other media in recent decades (e.g. Gossip Girl reveal).
The story is crap for reasons I mentioned in the other thread.
Frostmourne was decorated with a dragon skull… maybe Galakrond somehow? I guess apocalypse was decorated that way too… maybe it means nothing.
I’m going to make a weird guess and say that the Archon Spear is a mourneblade and it also was made with 6 souls to make sure that it was powerful enough to take Zovaals sigil. And that’s why Zovaal was all personal with Kyrestia when he took her sigil. (no runes on archon’s spear, so probly not)
It is possible that the runes seared into his flesh did the work he used a Mourne blade for. I kind of have this visceral image of all those brands glowing and the arbiter sigil literally tearing itself free like some sorta chest burster.
The arbiter sigil is unusual as it is physical, the others were more like well… energy symbols rather than true objects. Given it and Arbiter 2.0 were made of his anima I see her more like an incarnation of a part of his soul, a fragment that was still duty-bound which is why he hated her so much.
One thing they mentioned is the Arbiter was created to be impartial, which would mean Zovaal was NOT. Take that with ancient references of a time the Arbiter 1.0 was not so kind as 2.0 was and to me that makes me suspicious the Maw has always existed. in fact, it might of been where Zovaal sent most people (if not everyone) he deemed not useful to the core realms of death. Revendreth might of been more of a place to reform souls to be what he deemed useful, even. Finding out he had been doing such might of been part of why they see him as such a monster, and perhaps why no one seemed to entirely trust Dentahtrius; he was always by default on team Zovaal but acted in accordance to his power politic nature when the others rose up against him…
It may be the infinite nature of the Shadowlands came into being when a kinder, more impartial Arbiter took over and used her power to create realms as needed. In this outlook I am curious if they didnt just repurpose the realm that he condemned most souls to as a kind of poetic justice.
No I agree completey, Shadowlands 9.0 and 9.1 was a mess and it seems like they cut a lot of the story and that could be attributed to mass layoffs (which we know now were related to the investigation and not a mass exodus due to poor management) and shifting to a work from home setting during the start of the pandemic.
I don’t think the story is trash right now because they wanted it to be trash. I think they bit off more then they could chew at the moment and there’s time to make up for it later when they have their stuff together.
They teased a high def cinematic of Zorvall literally chained in the Shadowlands gameplay trailer. What happened to that? last summer Blizzard went on a hiring spree of cinematic artists so maybe a lot of the cinematic artists were laid off as part of Blizzard cleaning house.
See I dont see it quite like that, as I think Zovaal tended to just eternally damn most souls who he didnt see as useful to the maw. While Arbiter 2.0 is stated to be impartial, there is also commentary on her kindness also. She seems like she was made very much as his mirror inverse in a lot of ways.
This of course leads to the question why did the First Ones had over the Keys to an entire Cosmic Force to an unjust and cruel person to begin with…
Think of it this way: this would make for a compelling argument that could explain why Sylvanas sided with Zovaal.
Before Zovaal was banished there was no Maw, there was no Eternal Damnation, there was no Annihilation of Souls.
That would make Devos/Sylvanas makes sense.
Why Devos says the purpose is a lie, why Devos says that the Kyrians were also thrusted with a burden they were unaware of (feeding souls to the Fake Arbiter that damns souls), etc.
If the central plot of Shadowlands were to be a disagreement of metaphysics such that the choice was:
The story would not only begin to make sense but would also be coherent.
because inventing novel soteriology/harmatology in a fantasy universe is hard which is why most don’t do it), so in order to spark joy in my withered soul I’m theorycrafting some: