Yeah Slyvanas went there (at least I’m fairly certain that’s what Edge of Night was describing) but Slyvanas is also a terrible person.
Before she leaps to her death she is shown a future wherein her people are mercilessly slaughtered to a man in her absence and she does not care at all. She definitely belongs there with Arthas.
But other Undead? They all have weird relationships with their souls since they’re awkwardly tied to their corpse but I’ve read nothing to suggest a good natured Undead would be doomed to the maw under normal circumstances.
You could say the same thing about Sylvanas. I would think what she endured was far worse than Kael’thas endured and the shadow magic is a constant influence on undead.
She had done nothing when compared to Kael’thas.
He slaughtered and corrupted hundreds. He helped Illidan destroy the souls of thousands of innocent Draenei and summoned the Burning Legion to destroy the world.
She wouldn’t go to the Maw after her second death. She would go to Revendreth the Maw was drawing in everyone even then.
Guys you have to remember, the Maw isnt just for the pure evil, its also where people get sent if they are too dangerous that they might be a threat to the balance/ other realms of the shadowlands
Also we see Kyrian aspirants in bastion that used to be forsaken so its clear that being undead doesnt automatically damn your soul.
Ya it was in the demo on the showfloor. You see the spirits of almost all playable races around bastion waiting to be turned into Kyrians. Including some forsaken
Umm…I wasn’t at Blizzcon so this is going only from the panels I was able to watch on youtube, but wasn’t the implication pretty strong that the ‘machine of death is now broken, all souls are now being funneled directly into the maw to give the jailer (and her) power’ situation true as of BFA (including the thousands of innocents she murdered at Teldrassil/Darkshore and everyone who died during the latest war), not before? So she went to the maw purely because of the evil she’d done from vanilla-wrath.
I’ll give her a pass and not hold her responsible for the people she killed while being enslaved to the Lich King…she like the other undead who broke free and became the Forsaken didn’t have a choice in what they were forced to do while being controlled.
But every evil, vile act she committed after she was freed from the Lich King is entirely on her head…especially the burning of Teldrassil…a decision she made partly out pure, petty spite because Delaryn dared express pity for the monster she’d allowed herself to become.
Kael’thas did some truly horrible things, but he isn’t responsible for nearly that many deaths and you could make the argument (if you want to grasp for something to explain the horrible, villain bat writing) that everything he’d seen done to his people had driven him insane). Motive, before they went the crazy "you’ll all drown in your own blood’ level of crappy writing with him, also plays a part. Everything Kael did was with the intent of saving his people (before the bat), Sylvanas after becoming undead has only cared about herself and her personal quest for vengeance against Arthas…the Forsaken were just a means to an end to her, arrows in her quiver.
Then when she killed herself after ICC and saw that she’s doomed to wow hell…she made her bargain with the valkyr (and presumably this mysterious jailer who we now know rules the maw) to get back, and everything she’s done since then has been an effort to keep herself from ever being trapped there again. She’s trying to save her own selfish skin, and has no qualms about sending everyone else to essentially wow hell if she can save herself from it.
Sylvanas did not do the wrathgate they walked that back.
Kaelthas helped Illidan he doesnt get out of it because he didnt personally do it. And you ignore the hundreds of deaths and corrupted souls he was responsible for. The invasion of the Legion is directly at his feet all the souls that died in that conflict are his fault.
By comparison Sylvanas killed far fewer before her swan dive. Some people were used in experiments but its no where near the amount of agony, demonic corruption and mutation Kael’thas caused among his own people and others.
I think my issue with major ‘fate worse than death’ plots is that they kind’a deflate the drama of the rest of the story.
Who cares about minor mortal crimes and dramas like murder, treason, defilement etc when fates worse than death or infinite punishment are so common?
And then the problem with infinite punishment is that it’s really hard to make the audience immerse themselves. It’s easy to feel bad for someone receiving bamboos under their fingernails… but when it comes to eternal torture, it’s such a massive, abstract thing that our brains cop out when even trying to think it, thus deflating the drama. Generally you’ll get practically the same dramatic effect out of a character dying as said character dying & being sent to eternal damnation.
Have you ever considered that the trauma of dying, having people you loved die, being brought back to (un)life to kill your loved ones, only to have to live with that and rejection from more loved ones, turns people into jerks?
I took that as “arrows in the quiver” isn’t something that has changed in Sylvanas it was there when she was alive as well. I just can’t bring myself to believe the same Ranger General that was tossing little children and women out of harms way during the Scourge Invasion and trying to save the Blood Elves nation is the same as today’s Sylvanas without having her soul twisted in some fashion. As a matter of fact that’s exactly how her transformation is described in Trilogy.
He took her ravaged body and cast unholy spells upon it! Creating from what had once been good a thing of evil! He twisted the soul of Sylvanas Windrunner and turned her into the Banshee she is now!
You bring up a good point, I have no doubt that trauma could cause someone to go coocoo for cocoa puffs, now mix that in with the curse of undeath and you have the Forsaken. Some undead do operate under the “Undeath is just a skin disease” framework, but I wouldn’t say that was the norm for the undead.
I just wish they’d clarify whether ‘all undead are doomed to the maw simply by ‘virtue’ of being undead’ period regardless of their actions after being raised. (which is messed up and BS frankly, as we’ve seen that being turned undead doesn’t make you evil by default. Some people are driven insane by the trauma, some turn evil, others have deadened positive emotions and enhanced negative ones, and others mentally/emotionally are exactly the same as they were while living).
Because if the ‘all souls are being sent to wow hell regardless of virtue’ is true only as of BFA and going forward…then the fact that Sylvie went there at the end of Wrath is pretty confirmation of her being evil and selfish, and not because she’s undead.
I don’t know where it came from either…unless people interpreted the fact that both Sylvanas and Arthas (who definitely deserved to go there) went there to mean that ALL undead are doomed to go there too.
We have seen some undead go to the Light. Alexandros Mograin is a good example as are the undead in EPL that we free from being in Ghouls.
The issue is blizz never planned any of this out and rarely think of such intricate details. So now the lore is full of holes like Tirion who died in Legion yet is somehow with the Light.
That’s why they need to say WHEN the ‘all souls go to the maw’ started. I got the implication it’s only true as of Battle…which explains why Tirion/Varian/Vol’jin etc aren’t stuck there since they all died before Battle.