What will probably happen: Arthas, Jaina, and the Shadowlands

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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Let’s face it friends. With all the leaks and foreshadowing going on so far in BfA lore, we can safely assume that the Shadowlands will be the next realm to explore in World of Warcraft. That means, we get to see a lot of interaction between important people with their dead counterparts. Important people like Jaina and her dead lover Arthas.

So far into BfA we can say that she has forgiven herself and “moved on” with her life. But, what will happen if she sees the real (or at least a fraction of the soul of) Arthas again? Confronting your fear and self is one thing, but facing the real deal is altogether a different matter.

What will Jaina do? Will she suffer crippling depression and anxiety all over again? Will she try to safe him because of her guilt and love for him? Or will she flip the bird and carry on?

What will Arthas do? Will he finally ask for forgiveness from her and his living counterpart? Will he try to help us, adventurers and important NPCs, to correct the sins of his past? Will he try to win back Jaina’s affection?

Please, don’t be afraid to tell us your ideas and opinions in regards to this issue. I would like to know the community’s disposition on their relation after all these years.

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Don’t tell me you’re actually entertaining that Shadowlands leak as real. 4chan Warcraft leaks have had a pretty horrible track record - this one especially is really lazily written up. It basically amounts to just a bunch of popular fan theories slapped into a blender, and then slopped onto a webpage with no kind of organization whatsoever. And that “photo evidence” that it came with doesn’t even look that convincing. Yeah, sure, they changed a few minute details to throw some people, but you can see there’s a stylistic differentiation between WoW’s cutscenes and that picture. Also… do you REALLY think they’re gonna end the expac with us dying, and leave it unresolved until the next launch? I got mog runs to do.

“Now you are ready for the true Battle for Azeroth.” - that alone should be enough to tell you it’s fake.

No, I don’t think I will. Also this isn’t really a RP topic.

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I don’t really believe the Shadowlands leaks. Every WoW leak ever made has been wrong, no matter how convincing they might seem. Blizz tends to be pretty iron tight with information. Plus the Shadowlands one is full of major red flags that don’t make sense to the story. Most of it is just stuff players have been fantasizing about.

But hypothetically, no I don’t want to see Arthas again. A redemption for him and Sylvanas too to overwrite their many many crimes isn’t right. He lived as a villain and should stay as one.

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I’m on the fence about this. On the one hand, Arthas was the best villain Warcraft ever gave us, and possibly one of the best villains in any video game. I think his story had a great beginning and ending, and anything further might disrupt that. This isn’t a case of Illidan dying too early as a loot piñata - Arthas lived and died how we expected, and it was satisfying to see it.

On the other hand, there seemed to be implications towards the end that Arthas lost control of himself, and might’ve been a prisoner in his own body. The chief of these is in Jaina’s interactions - Uther tells Jaina that the last bits of him are all that’s keeping the Scourge from decimating the world, then reinforced by the revelation that Arthas kept Jaina’s locket all this time. A theory is that Arthas died when he touched Frostmourne, a prisoner in his own body. Maybe that’s the mystery they wanted to convey - and as such, don’t want solved. Unlike Sylvanas, a person fully in control of her actions and wholly unrepentant in them, nobody to blame but herself.

Personally, I’d say I lean more heavily towards agreeing with you. Arthas had a good story, and it should be left at that.

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I just hope we get Sylvanas to pay for what she did

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This doesn’t really have anything to do with RP so you kinda posted in the wring forum,mac. Also, 4chan should SELDOM ever be taken seriously given most of em either spout dead memes,spam NSFW content and try to sew the seeds of chaos and discord on anything they touch for cheap laughs.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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I lol’d. Hard.

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I mean, nothing I’ve said is incorrect. Yes, the expansion is Shadowlands, nothing about what I said suggests I didn’t think it was definitely not gonna be Shadowlands. But the explicit leak that Martua was using as credence was proven to be false.

Maybe read the whole post first before you necro a two month old post.

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Agreed with Grand not only has it nothign to do with RP,it was debunked which in turn,this thread did not need to be necroed…

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Lmao, what’s more fun than the people who where like “that’s fake, it’s not going to be shadowlands, your stupid” (heavy paraphrase).

Those comments?

Or, the people who are now whining cause a “2-month old” post was “necro’d”.

Lol, it’s super relevant, and I laughed really hard when I got to see all the nay Sayers.

I coulda told you we where going to shadowlands a year ago, without leaks, just play the dam game.

As for the original poster, I came here cause that’s super relevant. I don’t believe Arthas will have any sort of redemption story…but Medihv got one…

So he should get one to be fair. He always did what he thought was best, and had the best intentions. The road to ruin, just so happens to be paived with good intentions.

**My imagining of his redemption;

I could see us going on a journey with him, one where he essentially apologizes and atones to everyone he wronged. It would be beautiful if Jaina could forgive him, if they could have the exchange like her and thrall did. A “human” exchange of emotions, for lack of a better word.

**Scenario off the top of my head;

We could enter the maw, and Jaina finds a young Arthas (like when she first met him), A journey begins with this Arthus, younger and less twisted, still tormented by the knowledge of what he has done. He’s swinging a paladin’s hammer, and uses the light, but he looks like the definition of remorseful. Accepting of (that portion of) his soul being forced to wonder The Maw, or prisoner of it, however that works.

Couple quests, learn some things, fight off some evil spirits haunting him, and he may even be forgiven by Jaina…end the zone cenematic with Arthas ascending as if he’s dying a second time right after she does this…would be absolutely beautiful from a story perspective. It would reenforce her recent character development…as well as be heartwarming.

Later we would learn the riteous pieces of his sould are being gathered in preparation for our fight against the jailer. We now have to help Arthas find forgiveness in all versions of himself, from the dead that he has made. Sounds…impossible, but do remember, a good majority of the dead he made…are still living. It’s really only the people that knew him prior to WC3 this story will hinge on.

***Reason I think Arthas would be important to the plot:

Shadowlands thrives off of Anima…who, dead, could possibly have more Anima than Arthas Menethil?..his deeds, evil or otherwise, reduced portions of continents still uninhabitable by the living of Azeroth, even to this day, 15 years later…

At the same time…he helped Illidan grow to that level of power by telling him of the skull of gul’dan in WC3, he distanced Jaina from himself, making her accept Medihv’s words more readily, when she had witness the aftermath of Stratholme.

Arthus has set so many things in motion, Arthus…not the LK, not Twisted Ner’Zhul…at the end of WOTLK, who’s daddy was there? Not Ner’Zhul’s, it wasn’t Ner’Zhul’s dead lover (real one) that said goodbye…even with all that power, I believe it was 100% Arthus inside the helm, and at the wheel. I believe he was just that powerfully when it came to Fates.

His redemption will be finding the light again. All the zones have something to do with him, but it remains to be seen if they are going to give his fans the RIP deserved of someone so used, abused, and hated.

Draenei have taught us, from Darkness, comes light. Uther still has to be met, I imagine we will find Kel’Thas…perhaps even the knight Garithos. I suspected connections between Garithos, Uther, King Terenas, and Lor’themar…honestly many more too.

Terenas Menethil:
“My son. The day you were born, the very forests of Lordaeron whispered the name, Arthas. My child. I watched you with pride, as you grew into a weapon. Of rightousness. Remember, our line has always ruled with wisdom, and strength. And I know that you will show restraint, when exercising your great power. But the truest victory, my son, is stirring the hearts of your people. I tell you this, for when my days have come to and end. You, shall be king.”

It’s all speculation, but let me know what you think.

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First of all, holy hell, stop pressing the ENTER key every five seconds.

Second of all, you don’t know the context of the post. Nobody was discounting the idea that we were going to the Shadowlands. We were discounting the idea of a VERY specific leak that was popular at the time and was fully debunked. This thread still remains incorrect given the context.

Third of all, your Arthas redemption story is bad and you should feel bad.

Sit the hell back down.

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You seem to ignore the Wrath cinematics on how Arthas subverted all of those lines in his role as the Lich King. (For example, “stirring the hearts of his people” wound up motivating the undead armies of his Scourge. Exercising his great power was in raising the Frost Wrym matriarch as a dracolich.)

Arthas had not one ounce of regret or remorse at the moment he died, only his personal awareness of the darkness that awaited him.

He is not a candidate for redemption. What might be interesting would be an attempt to convince Jaina of that though, possibly by manipulating Derek.

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I already pictured Arthas being tormented horribly by Sylvanas and the Jailer though, with Arthas pointing out to her that she wound up becoming something far worse than what she hated so much. I dunno what else we could see of him, but I think at the end of Shadowlands, he might pull what Bolvar did at the end of ICC, and ask him to make him the new Jailer to replace the old evil one, causing the Maw to turn blue and cold when he’s made the new Jailer, like how the Helm of Domination changed when Bolvar put it on. With Arthas’ first few actions as the new Jailer being that he releases all the innocent souls in the Maw, while freezing and dragging back inside the truly evil ones the Jailer controlled. Would that be a good one for how Arthas might appear in the final raid?

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It really hard to say because life and death in this fantasy world don’t really have much meaning. People are literially brought back from the brink of death on a daily bases and receive visits but died family members on a few rare occasion.

It reminds me of the The Legend of Korra when she linked the spirit realm to the physical one. Some of the more colorful places kind of remind me of that spirit realm in Avatar as well.

The whole thing kind of reminds me of Disney fantasy, where people don’t really die, they are just transformed. I’m thinking of Maleficent 2 and the last 3 Star Wars movies. I really wish Blizz could take a few points from Game of Thrones or the Witcher. I know there were a lot of questions raising in BFA but if you think about from a business point of view it’s easy to predict.

Arthas will be apologetic, Jaina will seek him out seeking closure, and Jaina will forgive him. Where the story goes from there I’m not so sure, but I know it will be very kid friendly, and make stockholders very happy.

Seeing how heavily cinematic the past few expansions have been and how many resources there are on the internet. I think this will be the one I don’t buy and will learn everything I need to know from ‘Let’s Players’. I don’t know I kept my subscription for all of BFA but I stopped mid when siding with Varok Saurfang wasn’t a opinion.

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Yeah I like that. Or maybe Sylvanas realizes that the Arthas is the Jailer and she’s been working for the man she’s hated the whole time. That would be an interesting plot twist.

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Do you ever do anything else but put down other peoples writing?

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The Jailer was already confirmed to be some completely new though. But I was already betting on Arthas also trapping the by-then dead Sylvanas in the Maw as her personal warden. Which would be pretty sweet ironic justice too.

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Don’t you have pants that need soiling?

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Do we really want to end the Sylvanas story being reminded of her horrific start by having her fall into the unending control of her abuser?