When Sylvanas tore apart the Helm of Domination, what did it actually do?

Lore Story Forum
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As I like to do in my posts, RECAP!: We know that Icecrown Citadel is (was?) where the veil between life and death was thinnest, meaning the influence of the Shadowlands could be best tangibly observed. It’s probably why Arthas decided to fight at the tippy top of it; he was closest to what would become the literal rift and what was on the other side: Torghast. And we’ve all seen the cinematic so we see a power of sorts shoot upwards and crack the sky, revealing the Shadowlands and either the bottom or very top of Torghast.

Destroying the helm means the Scourge is able to run rampant but we quelled that pretty quick in pre-patch so I’m only talking about the giant hole in the sky.

So that brings me back to the topic of this thread:

–> Q - When Sylvanas tore apart the Helm of Destruction, what what did it actually do?

–> Possible A - It created a portal/rift to the Shadowlands.

This seems like the obvious answer at first and there’s some strong supporting evidence of this, but there’s also some inconsistencies as well.

For example, can individuals from Azeroth travel through it? We haven’t seen any character or cinematic showing anyone mounting up and trying this, so one would think maybe it’s more of a 1-way situation. We (being Bolvar) had to conduct a ritual with the shattered pieces of the helm to open a large black rift that a few of us were able to jump through, coming out the other side in the Maw. So it doesn’t appear like we can just go through it and not to mention we had to open stabilized portals to Oribos.

But what about Sylvanas herself? Did she black-and-purple smoke herself into the sky like she enjoys doing and travel through it when she decided to leave Azeroth to join the Jailer’s side? What about the Mawsworn who (I’m assuming) came through the giant rift when they abducted our faction leaders? Did they fly back through those portals holding mortal bodies who were somehow able to successfully pass through it? During pre-patch, we also started fighting a lot of enemies and time-gated world bosses, all clearly tied to the Maw in some fashion.

Maybe one has to be attuned to the Maw, or the Jailer himself, in order to successfully traverse the rift. But it still raises questions such as: how did Sylvanas travel to the Maw originally to meet the Jailer? Had she not met him prior to the shattering? Did maybe Helya help introduce her somehow? Does Sylvanas, technically being undead, mean she has an ability to travel freely to the Shadowlands? And if so, does that mean this was always an ability that undead possessed, including Forsaken?

Or maybe the rift is solely a portal for the Jailer to travel through; anyone else using it, coming and going, is just a side effect that doesn’t particularly concern him.

–> Possible A - It allows the Shadowlands to exert power onto Azeroth.

Every cosmic power has already been exerted onto Azeroth in one way or another, with Death being no exception. The Lich King, the Scourge, Frostmourne, the Helm of Domination, the Forsaken, anything undead, necromancy in general. Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination were only things and they are considered some of the most powerful artifacts to have ever existed on the planet, potentially the universe. Maybe the Jailer needs the rift to allow him to access the full power of the Maw when he eventually attempts to step foot on Azeroth but I think his power comes from him and not any single thing or whatever else in the Maw. I know theories exist that the Jailer is currently jailing the actual big bad king of Death - it’s possible his power is being leeched by the Jailer but the Jailer seems to pull his power from souls and anima. I don’t know; there’s a lot to unwrap there and I’m not diving too deeply into any of it.

It’s possible though that the rift is like taking the screen off a window, meaning that now Death can be truly exerted in a way not done prior.

–> Possible A - It allows the Jailer to pull Azeroth into the Shadowlands.

We’ve seen the Jailer chain giant landmasses and pull them towards Torghast. And Icecrown Citadel is clearly a castle right out of the Maw - it looks like it belongs there because it does. I’m curious if Icecrown’s architecture is built in a way that will allow the Jailer to throw a massive shadowy chain or two at it and pull it into the Maw. I doubt he would pull the landmass of Northrend out of the water but, rather, the entire planet.

Sylvanas’ chains have also been a topic of theory and speculation, and chains seem to be a Shadowlands theme: Chains of Domination, chains all around the various Torghast halls and instances, various characters chained up. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the Jailer might just try to pull Azeroth, or idk what, into the Maw.

Okay - I’m all typed out lol. What are your thoughts??

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Any undead raised by the Scourge or the Scourge’s offshoots seems to use a particular kind of necromancy tied directly to the Jailer’s domination magic. I’d guess that as undeath spread across Azeroth, the Jailer gained influence indirectly. The Lich King was intended to act as a middleman who, when the time was right, would use the power they gained through the spread of the Jailer’s influence to weaken/shatter the veil to allow the Jailer’s forces to spread proper.

But, due to their personal reasons, Ner’zhul/Arthas/Bolvar never did that. The power that the Jailer needed to be unleashed had been collected but the Jailer was unable to sufficiently bend the will of the Lich King to his own. His solution was to simply destroy the position of Lich King and take direct command of the Scourge himself, which is what happened when Sylvanas shattered the Helm of Domination.

At least, that’s around what I’d guess

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I wonder why he hasn’t pulled Azeroth into the maw already. Maybe he can’t, idk.

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I figured this as well but all the fighting we’ve been doing has been in the Shadowlands. If the Scourge is now under the Jailer’s command and not inhibited by a Lich King, why is the Scourge currently not a larger world threat in this expansion? It would almost make more sense if the Scourge became a major issue because it would force Azeroth to split it’s focus and resources, and we’d probably not be as helpful in the SL if we’re busy trying to stop undead from destroying our own world.

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I think it is implied that he needed the key from the Archon to get a zone of the shadowlands into his zone

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It’s implied that Scourge rampancy is a problem happening back on Azeroth. We aren’t there fighting them because the bigger problem is the Jailer and the fact that all souls are going to the Maw.

I’d also guess that the Scourge is nowhere near as coordinated as it was under the Lich King. The Jailer nominally controls it now, but it seems that it already fulfilled its purpose by building him enough influence to shatter the veil at Icecrown. He probably doesn’t really care what they do now.

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Come to think of it the Jailer is basically Molag Bal trying to do the Planemeld. Blizz ripped off ESO

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It’s also possible that if Azerite is still a thing, the Alliance and Horde may well outright have more powerful weapons on hand than they did during the war against Arthas, allowing them to hold back the full strength of the Scourge more effectively than they could have back then.

Plus between Cataclysm, MoP, Legion and BfA, both factions have gained more allies on Azeroth with whom to form a coordinated response, and fending off the advances of a limitless demonic army may have led to the adoption of strategies and tactics specifically suited to weathering the onslaught of a foe that has nigh inexhaustible numbers and refuses to retreat out of fear.

On top of that, one of the Scourge’s greatest assets was the industrialized production of undead and weaponized plagues churning day and night. That’s not necessarily the sort of infrastructure one simply boots back up, since the players wiped out a lot of the Scourge’s best minds - living and undead - during our march on Icecrown Citadel, and by appearances as the player arrived at the start of Shadowlands the Citadel itself is seemingly in the hands of the Ebon Blade, along with the top-tier Scourge R&D and production facilities therein.

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Going through it is described as going “through the veil” for a reason, in short. What we used to know as the Shadowlands, the place we go when we die in game, has been renamed into the Veil, as an in between of reality and the Shadowlands. It’s where Kyrian reside when performing their duty, and where souls go when they are in limbo.

As you mentioned, Icecrown is the place where that Veil is thinnest, and reality is closest to the Shadowlands. Breaking the helm and releasing that power tore a hole in that veil, and because it was so thin, ripped right into the Shadowlands.

If I had to guess as to why it opened to the Maw specifically, likely due to the power of the Helm itself, as well as just the general power of Icecrown and Sylvanas being the one to break it.

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I don’t know why but I had it in my head that Sylvanas really was supposed to put on the helmet and just broke it in a fit of rage. Because if Ner’zhul/Arthas/Bolvar all didn’t play ball while wearing it and she’s already aligned with the jailer, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to be sent there to put it on?

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I had a similar perception. Bolvar seemed really sure that her goal was to actually wear the helm, which makes me wonder if her destroying it was an act of disobedience rather than the actual plan.

However, Blizzard has taught me that speculation on Sylvanas’s story/motivations is an exercise in frustration.

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My interpretation is that the Helm of Domination, Frostmourne, and the Frozen Throne (the gigantic shard of nether ice Nerzhul entombed inside) themselves each served as a tether to the Shadowlands.

When Frostmourne was shattered at the end of ICC, it weakened the barrier between Azeroth and the Shadowlands just enough for Sylvanas to encounter the Maw (and possibly the Jailer also) during the Edge of Night. Everyone assumes that her goal from thence forward was to try to avoid the afterlife eat all costs (likely because this was her original motivation in the story but the story has since been retconned) but in reality she was actually trying to find a way to weaken the divide further - but to do that would mean facing Bolvar on her own and to accomplish that would require more power than she currently possessed.

Hence the long and grueling mass killing campaign, each soul fed to the Maw granting her an extra little jolt of power until she finally had enough to take the Helm and destroy it. I think it was said somewhere that the Jailer thought Sylvanas would wear the helm, but instead she created a tether between the Maw and Azeroth not only so she could travel to the Shadowlands but also so the Mawsworn could freely travel to Azeroth and collect potential ‘weapons’ that the Jailer could use to free himself.

The Scourge rampage on Azeroth isn’t given much attention outside of the pre-patch event because it’s incidental - an ancillary result of the Helm being destroyed, but not the primary goal of doing so. A convent distraction to explain why the full might of the Horde and Alliance can’t be mobilized in the Shadowlands, but instead military action has to be left to the forces of the Shadowlands themselves aided by the rallying presence of the Maw Walkers.

TL;DR - When Sylvanas tore apart the helm it linked Azeroth more firmly to the Shadowlands allowing travel to and from the afterlife not just for Sylvanas but also for the potential weapons the Jailer’s had the Mawsworn abduct. The goal does not seem to be for the Maw to exert force on Azeroth or to pull Azeroth into itself, but those things may happen incidentally anyways.

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I just think the sky was a firmament between the reality of Azeroth and the higher plane of existence of the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands exists just outside of reality. I don’t think there is much to speculate on when it comes to this. I think just like leylines, Azeroth has places where the firmament is weak, like ICC and Karazhan and those weaknesses can be exploited as a point of entry into the Shadowlands without having to die.

When Medivh “died” he probably used this to slip into the Shadowlands as well knowing the Veil is thin at Karazhan also.

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This information is good but doesn’t attempt to answer the original question which is: what did shattering the helm really do?

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The answer is rather obvious when you go to that spot and Look up.

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I always did equate the Helm to the Amulet of Kings since Shadowlands was announced…

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It graphically updated the skybox - got it.

The topic is for discussing lore in the lore story forum. But thanks anyway…

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You’re looking for a technical dissertation of the event. You’re not going to find one because it does not exist… beyond "ripping the sky open and breaching the barrier between the living and the dead.

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Wait you’re getting there! Okay so you said it breached the barrier between the living and the dead. What does that include? This “barrier” between life and death has been breached over and over, long before a giant hole was ripped in the sky. So back to the original point of the topic: why does the giant hole exist?

If you think it’s a pointless topic or isn’t worth the effort, then don’t contribute. We probably read topics everyday we don’t care to engage in - why engage negatively?

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It gave blizzard an excuse to make a terrible expansion.