They made such a big deal about him getting whacked, like it was some grand plane to get into the shadowlands… and then nothing happened.
Sylvanas had a moment where she was like 
and that was it. The guy had such a big build up throughout BFA and now it seems like he was forgotten like the sword.
Some say, he was just a self-insert for a certain WoW writer.
And that’s all he was.
All we know is, he was called Nathanos.
Nathanos was a self insert for one of the writers. Make of that what you will.
You have to see the story from afar, most people don’t wish to drive in too deep with these types of stories because they don’t really see the point when it comes to an love issue in a war zone.
So here’s the thing. BFA and Shadowlands wasn’t supposed to play out like it actually did. A specific game dev / writer decided to self destruct / sabotage sylvanas and nathanos characters because he was getting fired for being one of those special devs who you know thought lesser of woman and participated in the whole cosby room thing. Said dev also made it hard for other… guys who thought women were lesser to get in trouble because he would back up said guys over the women who accused them.
Anyways when he finally got caught and the hammer came down on him, he made sylvanas as irredeemable as possible and just self destructed the story of shadowlands. So yeah, Shadowlands was so awful because some powerful people who were getting fired got super petty. And as others mention his “insert character” was nathanos. So the devs are just kinda of staying away from him.
As a person who enjoys WoW, The Horde and Forsaken. I liked nathanos, was he a butt (can’t use vulgar words)? Sure was! But the character had personality, motive, and was unique amongst the main cast of wow.
Nathanos personality was Donkey-portal simp with some edgelordisms thrown in.
Nathan was a good love to hate kind of villain with a sexy voice. I could stand a Nathan raid boss comeback tbh.
I mean in the beginning of BFA he was actually begining to question the sanity of sylvanas, as well in the books. His character was being really developed well. Then by mid BFA they just tossed it all away / suicided his character development. Hence when the hammer came down on the insert character dev.
Hmm, look from that point of view, does seem fit . His infatuation with Sylvanas,so he personified Nathanos? Now that is interesting.
He even hesitated when she said “Burn it.” so there was actual hope for the character to not be a simplord, but Afrasiabi happened.
In the book where sylvanas basically gets the desolate council executed, Nathanos was somewhere in a mixture between disgusted / bewildered and even spoke up against sylvanas before backing off.
I think they ran out of time and just didn’t get to cover that.
There is an interaction with Sylvanas where she apologizes to loyalists and says that we aren’t just arrows in her quiver, and that she is looking for someone special in the Maw. So, I’m assuming that is Nathanos and that she will return.
Original (vanilla) Nathanos was pretty cool.
After his destruction, presumably Nathanos was in the Maw somewhere with everyone else. People asked about him at the time, but that would have meant writing something about a Horde character and that might detract from Jaina or Tyrande or Bolvar’s daughter, so we can’t have that, can we.
This is a really good point. I think a lot of people remember Nathanos and remember how much they hated him, and that was exactly the point. He was designed by the writers to be a harsh military leader that you will end up hating. This is a sign of good character writing, even if it was yet another Horde leader being killed off.
Nathanos’s death wasn’t meant to be important for Sylvanas’s plan. It was meant to move Tyrande’s story forward as the Night Warrior.
Like realistically we could have just left Nathanos in the Plaguelands while we scooted up to Icecrown and fundamentally Shadowlands story would be unchanged.
Even in BFA, Nathanos wasn’t that important to the story. It’s that someone high up really, really liked him for some reason, so he got a lot of screen time.
I disagree, he was the General of the Horde army, he was a very important character.
You might be right that someone liked him, or maybe someone just really hated him, because his story doesn’t play out like a love letter to his character, or Sylvanas’.
As a Horde fan boi, I really hate Tyranda and Jaina. The focus on them really dampened my enjoyment of the story / lore for the game. And tbh i’m one of those people with the unpopular opinion that they focused really hard on the women characters for “women empowerment” by making all the male characters around them stupid / incompetent. Nothing wrong with Women empowerment in any way shape or form. But making King Rhastakhan blind to the snakes in his garden, and sabotaging his bloodline / daughter with a shady pact with Bwonsamdi to basically raise Princess Talanji into this awe inspiring women leader., to making anduin and genn (though genn doesn’t really need much help based on his character) look incomptent in BFA like Anduin couldn’t do crap without Jaina there. To Tyranda being this semi Diety moon warrior, while… MALFUION DID JACK Bleep AGAIN and even suicided his character to bring Ysera back >.<
To nathanos being a super simp who was overly full of himself because sylvanas was always there. Like dang it really bothered me.
<— from a salty player who still hasn’t gotten over King Rhastakhan’s death.
Whatever happen to him? Nothing about him in SL and I hope not the same thing like Arthas.
In the end this specific guy was just a scapegoat, let’s be real. He came in really handy to shift blame on him while simultaneously the writers praised their own creativity regarding Zereth Mortis and its sh*tty plot. Let’s not pretend that the writers at Blizzard are great and this guy wrote the whole plot, zones and themes of SL himself.
So he wrote the Sylvanas arc after he got caught and let go? Sounds sus to me, idk.
no he’s gone gone, not with Blizz at all. On top of that, you gotta admit the devs don’t know half of whats going on with their game. Thats why Garrosh had a good moment in stone talon mounts about honor, and other horde races being equal when he actually thought orcs was the true horde and everyone else was lesser. Or how that one dev was shocked / surprised when garrosh called sylvanas the B word even though its been in game since cata but only found out in BFA.