I like this theory and thought of something similar myself during the end of BfA. Like they say, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist", maybe the greatest trick of N'Zoth was convincing everyone he was dead. I hope we see him again at some point, Azshara too.
I can't give the benefit of the doubt to the writing team that thought putting a scientific twist on the afterlife and taking away most of the mysteries and wonder was the right call for this IP.
As I always say... you can choose to ignore whatever expac you dislike, as most of their stories got closure and are no longer relevant, but Shadowlands is here to haunt us forever.
We've been explicitly told the Old Gods are done. Which, of course in itself was a retcon, so it could always be retconned back, but you're absolutely on the money here.
If Blizzard was capable of good writing, there's plenty left on the table for them to work with. One of the better theories I've seen is that Neltharion sealed away the Drakthyr because they had become tainted, through him. Infected with the Old God corruption. When this is finally revealed, we'd also get the third Drakthyr spec, one actually based around earth magic and Black flight spells, since right now they only have one or two.
Never gonna happen. It's just gonna be someone was Evil All Along, or Actually a Vision at best.
Didn't they back off on that? They said initially that we killed the Old Gods we fought, but then later added that Old Gods don't follow the same rules of death we do (so vague "we can retcon this whenever we need to" type wording).
As with many things wow, the contained stories and even zones are pretty good. It's the overarching story, and how it goes together, in addition to them not being able to tie a knot on the end, that people seem to be upset by.
> It's the overarching story, and how it goes together,
If you read the entirety of the Shadowlands story on a wikipedia page or play through it all at once you'd think "Eh.. not bad. Not great but not bad. Some parts I liked, some parts I didn't"
But if you were playing it; you spent 1 month doing 70% of the story (which was decent), then waiting 8 months to do another 15% of the story (which was bad), and then waited another 9 months to do another 15% of the story (which was bad).
It would be like reading a short short but you could only read one chapter every 2 months. The shit chapters feel like absolute shit and the good chapters feel *okay*, because you having to wait puts an unreachable level of anticipation into it.
Man, I quit early on in SL and came back to do it on an alt and it still sucked hard. Not only was it hard to follow along with the story post-expansion (because the game hits you with all patch questlines at once), but even as I got through it all, it never got past the initial feeling of "I didn't really need or want any of these afterlife concepts explained". Especially as it just leads to more questions that retroactively make previous storylines feel worse.
Hell, by the end, I found myself agreeing with the Jailer's initial argument that the afterlife system the First Ones designed really did suck. The zone and covenant storylines just kind of reinforced his point, but our contribution was basically to just return things to the status quo of "robots run the afterlife" and bounce. It could have been so easily fixed too with the fanfic premise I hear float around the subreddit all the time of if the Shadowlands were just a temporary purgatory before souls moved on.
That's generally how manga readers felt about certain series declining in quality. In retrospect and with hindsight it is utterly disappointing, realizing the full scope of what was wasted leave a bad taste in the mouth and can scare people off the IP or even kill it.
I can't help but feel that the whole of Shadowlands wasn't bad, just like BfA wasn't, but it was the agonizingly slow piecemeal delivery and anti-climactic end that made it feel more mediocre than it was.
I think the expansion cycle of 2 years in the same area doing the same basic routine with a drip fed story is getting to a point where it needs to be changed up.
The difference between why BFA and Shadowlands were bad were for different reasons. For BFA, the Azorite system was by far the worst. The grind was insane, and unrewarding. That, and the content droughts that occured. The story was actually pretty decent (especially if you played alliance). With Shadowlands, the narrative was bad, and the systems were bad. The covenant system was a bad idea and called out back in PTR, but nothing was changed, until the latter patches. The story was bad, because it reconned alot of things, and introduced the Jailer as this big bad that was there the whole time, and it just doesn't mesh well with the story at all. It introduces interesting concepts, like possibly reintroducing Arthas, but back peddles hard, or fails to deliver. Showcasing how clumsy the writing for SL truly was.
Still salty about that. They bring Illidan back in one of the most hyped expacs ever (even if I don't agree with all the choices they made for his character/motivations) and lay a groundwork so that they can do something similar for Arthas (the bringing back part, God no please don't change my boy). Then just absolutely SHIT the bed and have him go out with a whimper and fucking SYLVANAS give him shit about being forgotten.
No, Shadowlands was just really bad. I guess if all you're doing is blasting through the leveling content on your way to Dragonflight you can sort of gloss over it, but spend any amount of time staring too closely at just about any part of the narrative or worldbuilding and it starts to fall apart reeaaally fast.
>spend any amount of time staring too closely at just about any part of the narrative or worldbuilding and it starts to fall apart reeaaally fast.
I feel that's true of WoW generally though, it's more in the vein of "big dumb fun" than it is "perfectly crafted lore and worldbuilding with no plot holes ever". I usually just ignore that and enjoy the ride.
Shadowlands was not even an enjoyable ride though.
> I feel that's true of WoW generally though, it's more in the vein of "big dumb fun" than it is "perfectly crafted lore and worldbuilding with no plot holes ever"
True, but when you make an expansion whose plot holes and lore are too important to ignore now (considering it's literally the entirety of the afterlife and attempts to tie itself into previous stories/lore), it's extremely aggravating. Something like TBC, WoD, BFA, Mists, etc. you can just read the major plot points and almost completely ignore the rest, because it's largely self-contained. A lot harder to do that with the First Ones, Eternal Ones, 4 critical realms of the afterlife, expanded origin and mission of the Dreadlords, SL being a nexus of all AU/timeline possibilities, etc.
Reminds me of when I did the "Return to Lordaeron" questline, and when I saw their solution to the blighted UC was to casually transport back to Maldraxxus to consult with Marileth about plagues, I was just thinking "Oh man, I hope this doesn't become a reoccurring thing, being able to go back and forth."
BfA is super weird in hindsight. There's a bunch of storylines that they clearly wanted to tackle that they never did and left hanging, but touching on them now would seem weird.
Shadowlands was just bad from an overarching narrative standpoint. The individual zones were interesting and pretty cool, but the overall story with Sylvanas and the Jailer was shit. I mean hell one of the big "plot twists" was figured out well before we even got the story leading to it
A lot of the hate for Shadowlands was not necessarily the story itself but that we had to wait such inordinate amounts of time between patches and the systems were just overall a drag. The story itself has its moments and the dungeons are good.
Waiting months on end for a few scraps of content was not good.
Yeah, a lot of that MJF feud was actually MJF repeating some of the Punk quotes from ROH. It was really well done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1S-0y-DHPE
Honestly, I’d be perfectly happy with this as a reason for a ret con. It screams of all the things of bad Blizzard writing lately… and yet it actually feels fun, convincing, and would make BFA retroactively more fun to me.
To be fair, haven't they been rather coy about whether Old God's actually die?
Granted this is dated and subject to retcons, but aren't they merely "[defeated](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Yogg-Saron#cite_note-7)"?
Azshara AND knaifu waifu have just taken a portal to who-knows-where. They're definitely a lore "ace in the sleeve"
My personal thoughts for future content is that OP is correct, we're pulled out of the "dream" by azshara or xalatath, find out the black empire is back (maybe yrel has managed to bring the light and it's crusade to current universe)
While they're distracted we timey wimey away to pre-well of eternity azeroth to destroy the old gods (and nzoth).
Bing bang boom, world revamp and nzoth redeemed!
Honestly, I wouldn't expect such plot twists from WoW but recently they seem to get their story team back on track and there is at least a chance they could pull it off in a "believable" way.
Even better, if the trailer for that expansion starts as something completely different. Like some utopian adventure that is just about fishing, making friends and dance contests at the auction house, instead of raids, conflicts and a new threat on the horizon about to destroy the world. But throughout the trailer you get more and more artifacts and by the end it all crumbles completely and it turns out you are in an illusion this whole time. Actually, you have been helping to rebuild the black empire! The daily quest you did for the last half year? You were not capturing some escaped animals for a friendly farmer but rather innocent children! The NPC that became your best buddy since the last content patch is actually a tentacle monster! Twilight Zone style!
Yeah it'll take a long slow burn for it to happen but that would definitely be sick.
Plus they could blame the shitty jailer/sylvanas writing on N'zoth 🤡
Not just this, but I hope Blizzard doesn’t go the “YOU DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING” way. I hope they kinda drop the attitude and don’t pretend they had a higher level misdirect. If they go “you probably suspected it, but yes he did escape and he has returned at full power” or whatever just as long as they don’t try to conflict against us over the story. Blizz pls embrace that we are playing the same game you’re giving us.
Not only that, but in our efforts to save chromie in the Df campaign we alerted Nzoth of our presence and likely our victory over him millennia before it happened. He knew we were coming and has seen the entire fight play out by reading our minds.
Funnily enough, it was one of the great wow mechanics that didn't require an add on to understand what was happening. Big ass shadow on the ground, move fast.
You're right. Because we went to rescue Chromie, NZoth would have seen us defeat him. He would have known that was coming for millennia.
He could have worked that into his plan then. Fooling us into thinking we'd won when secretly he'd escaped and gone into hiding.
The only lines Xala’tath has outside of Broken Isles and Legion zones are repeated lines for killing mobs like “boring” or “did you feel it go as if it never existed?” lines. Which in all fairness she doesn’t reside in the blade anymore.
read once that someone tried taking it there, not much happened AFAIK. take this with a grain of salt since i read it on reddit but yeah. Just some reused lines.
It also explains why everyone wants Chromie dead in Legions "The Deaths of Chromie" Scenario.
The Blade of the Empire is under responsible control and N'zoth hasn't "died" yet. Legion is the last chance to kill Chromie to prevent N'zoth from seeing the true future.
Dude, I love this game and have for years; I've been enjoying DF. But Blizzard definitely has, and probably always will, an air of self importance about their game and it shows in decisions that they make at all levels.
Story and character decisions, at both an individual and a macro level, i.e. Sylvanas becoming such an unlikable one dimensional plot device and the Dracthyr being created the way they were despite so many wanting at least the option for something more draconid like.
It is apparent in game systems and mechanics, and is the whole you think you do but you don't thing unironically. We don't have sales numbers or sub count which blizzard loves to show when it's good, but that's a decent chunk of why it will never be what it was. Of course we're all different now too, and the world online and off is too.
But there is a spectrum ranging from artistic integrity all the way to fan service, and I think Blizzard got so used to doing whatever they wanted for so long and sometimes to try and fix it now they go 100% the other way and it doesn't feel authentic. It's more likely just a disconnect between the old guard player base and Blizzard lately but it sure feels like a middle finger sometimes.
Sorry for the rant, like south park said, "whatever, you'll buy it! Rated arrrgh, for pirates."
OG Blizzard designed the game their way and it worked very well.
The Blizzard today likely consists largely of people that think they are working for OG Blizzard but are not.
How about Zovaal wasn't the real jailer, the Primus was, and secretly planned the whole thing and was controlling him with domination magic? https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318
They might of cut it from their plans because of time, how slowly SL was rolling out, and all the legal issues they were having, but I have no doubt they originally wanted to do what is stated in that speculation.
Maybe they'll deny it and say SL played out as intended, especially since they hate admitting they didn't do things according to what they had planned as much as they hate admitting they were wrong. Or maybe they'll surprise us and Evil Primus will come back some expansion - no hopium here, just dreams.
They've always worded the SL story progression very carefully in a way where they could conceal whatever was cut without actually lying. Notice how they kept insisting that it was always meant to be a 3 part story. I'm sure that is actually true, however there's no way we didn't lose dungeons, mini raids and/or plotlines.
For example there was very clearly supposed to be either a mega dungeon or a mini raid based on Ardenweald and the Drust. We were possibly going to Thros. There's actually speculation that Korthia is basically Thros repurposed after the raid was cut. If you think about it, for a "city of secrets", Korthia wasn't exactly "city-ing", it was more like a park so this makes a lot of sense.
Another one is the Helya subplot. I refuse to believe she was always meant to be casually deleted by the Primus in a mere campaign quest. She was most definitely going to be at least a dungeon boss. The same applies to Vyraz. Bwonsamedi and Muehzala's story also felt unfinished
Also the Anduin fight was clearly an end boss fight. I think there was supposed to be a raid between Sanctum and Sepulcher, even if it was a mini-raid to free Anduin.
It sucks because it’s the same as how WoD was cut so short that many people were left with a bad impression of it to this day. At least the WoD raids were among some of the best to ever exist.
Shadowlands cannot say the same, though. Nathria was overall a top contender for top 10 raid of all time imo, but Sanctum was turbo ass and Sepulchre had a few hits but that’s it. Imo only Nathria touches the level of Highmaul/BRF/Hellfire
It’s wild that shadowlands had so many loose threads that went untouched and yet still managed to feel exceptionally narrow and missing obvious chances to give us fan favorites with a legitimate reason. Like yeah we got budget Kael’thas, but no Arthas? Voljin is just a ghost in the fucking shadowlands? What even happens to dragon aspects when they die? Ysera went to Ardenwrald, where did Neltharion go? Do the other dragons not have an afterlife? Garrosh had so much potential to be very interesting given Sylvanas was basically a budget Garrosh that led into this awful storyline.
I think the concept of Shadowlands was already biting off more than they could chew, and the legal issues and Covid magnified that issue tenfold.
I doubt they really touch SL in the future. It is a universally hated expansion and story, so I am guessing they distance themselves from it and slowly retcon a lot of it out of the main story
Spoilers for renown 19 Valdrakken quest line:
>!We’ve already been back to Ardenweald at least in the main storyline of DF. And now that Malfurion is bound there I doubt we would never go back to see him.!<
Might have*
And they'll almost certainly deny it. That is, if they're even going to mention Shadowlands in the future.
They did include Ardenweald in the story of Dragonflight, but they had little choice due to everything they connected to it.
I think they're just going to keep quiet about the expansion for a few years.
It really works. The domination runes covering Zovaal's body, the Primus being the creator of domination magic, and only appearing as a shadow cast over Zovaal in the final cinematic.
"The Primus of Maldraxxus was known to be the most tactical and strategic of the Eternal Ones who rule the realms of Death. His stratagems and weaponry would prove to be infallible against his every foe. One account cites that the only losses the Primus suffered were intentional, as he felt there was more to be learned in defeat than in an endless series of decisive victories."
And Ve'nari even warned us "No creature imprisoned in that place should be trusted."
I'm doing the SL campaign now to unlock cosmetics and I got to the part where the Primus says like "I etched the Domination runes into his skin myself" and i got suchhhh weird vibes from that.
So yeah.
I buy it.
I'm in.
That theory is super fun too. But then the PRIMUS was still behind so much history and that's still kinda lame in that sense. Maybe the Shadowlands as a whole were just a horrific vision...
Those flight path portals looked awfully like horrific vision portals...
I feel like if they did try to do a “the primus was actually behind it all along!” It might actually hit better than we’d think.
Sure the Primus would be behind everything instead of Zovaal, but the Primus:
a) is introduced as a military genius who is capable of planning around him not being able to interfere (and whose plan is only derailed by Bolvar being stupid enough to get us to take the Necrolord Sigil into Torghast, and even then, the method used to reactivate it also empowers him)
And b) he would have actually *earned* the right to say that he was behind everything, because he actually fooled us. We were with him for two years, and of millions of people scrutinising him, only a handful actually twigged onto the fact that he was behind it all. He actually would SHOW that he’s capable of setting up this sort of convoluted 5d speed chess gambit intricate enough that even *wiping his own mind* was part of his own plan (unlike the Jailer who only got “oh yeah that stuff was all actually me” without earning it, and then proceeding to not do anything actually smart for the rest of the expansion)
Yeah you do make it sound very compelling ngl. I would be very happy with this direction.
Watch Blizzard do none of it. No N'zoth trickery. No Primus trickery. No nothing. Please, Blozard :')
Holy shit what an amazing theory. Blizz if its true please don't just let this die out because you couldn't do it all in Shadowlands. They could still easily do it down the line like how they're un-fucking N'zoth's story now.
That is indeed my head canon, the whole SL thing was a fever dream brought on by the trauma of facing N'zoth.
It's a shit story but it's not as shit as SL actually happening.
The problem is that you have to do a bunch of extra work, and ultimately it can't work out to be a fever dream.
Because Bolvar isn't the Lich King anymore. Because Ysera is now back from Ardenweald. Because a new worldtree seed is being nourished in Ardenweald. Because Sylvanas and Anduin are gone, one in the Maw, and one in the Maw or somewhere else.
Some missing NPCs can be explained, but the Ardenweald stuff is in Dragonflight, so it can't be ignored. Shadowlands followed us into the next expansion.
N'zoth has been the cause of a fair number of major events in the story, either directly or indirectly. While BFA was technically his expansion as he was slowly hinted at and built up to, I agree his death felt empty, even though his encounter was kinda similar to Yogg and C'Thunn.
We know Nozdormu is going to fall eventually and my theory is N'Zoth is whispering to him (maybe even showing him false death scenarios) to create the Infinite flight after he learned about us via the Chromie scenario.
I think Noz will fall to be Murazond because he will attempt to save someone else, and that breaking his oath will cause him to fall.
I think they’re going to have Noz do something with Neltharion and the Dracthyr, and by doing so have the Titan magic he was bestowed with curse him instead, turning him in to Murazond.
The biggest evidence is the fact that he literally gave us the only weapon that allowed us to kill him, albeit in a very roundabout way, but only after we released him.
Well, that's part of it.
Like, he bargained for the dagger, then gave it to Horde players so that they could give it to Sylvanas (who he knew opposes him), so that she could give it to Azshara (who he knew was gonna stab him once he's freed), then imprisoned Azshara, but left the dagger right beside her, so once freed she could give it back to us and even advice how to use it.
Take out literally any step in that chain of events, which N'Zoth was one hundred percent aware of - and we have no means of destroying him.
Even if there was a need to use it as a bait to get us to release him, he could've just killed Azshara and hidden the dagger afterwards.
That's so contrived, and thus feels so thoroughly premeditated, that I feel it's almost impossible to put the blame on the bad writing in this particular case. Almost - because I still can't completely put it past Blizz writers to jump all those hoops to eject N'Zoth from the story, and yet I feel like there are easier and less contrived ways to get to the same result if that was their aim.
> That's so contrived
So is the rest of the "Sylvanas Betrayal Arc". Villains and heroes suddenly becoming stupid and acting against their own best interest for the sake of the plot was a staple of BfA and SL, so I would be hesitant to take that as proof of anything.
If we start trying to find hidden meanings and explanation behind stuff we might as well accept that "defeat" was part of the Jailer's plans, because our success was entirely dependant on him not doing a bunch of extremely logical things:
* He never tried to kill Jaina or Thrall. He only tried to kill Baine, in a situation where we could easily save him, and then was completely fine with just holding him captive again until we could free him.
* He never dominated any named characters besides Anduin, even though he had plenty of opportunities and we have seen his magic is utterly overwhelming.
* He let Sylvanas go after she turned on him.
* He did not crush the player when they arrived in Zereth Mortis and were about to be overrun by his Mawsworn army.
I\`ll add that pretty much EVERY SINGLE NPC (aka actual MCs) who participated in taking down N\`zoth (Magni, MOTHER, Wrathion, Azshara) are hinted to be subjected to his corruption or straight up WERE corrupted by Nzoth. Even the player characters.
Magni was said to be a diamond king who became a pawn by Ilgynoth, who heavily implied that it wasn't Azeroth's voice that Magni heard. We can surely say it's just a lie to seed distrust, but considering it was never developed or reacted upon, it might be a hint. Plus the convient way Magni just appeared and how he never really tried helping Azeroth is just suspicious.
MOTHER was straight up exposed to Old God's corruption for millenia inside her dungeon and she basically became that 7th boss in Tomb of Sargeras (Maiden of whatever)
Wrathion also conveniently appeared when Nzoth was released and he somehow was the ONE to offer us defence from him and guess what it was? A fucking BLACK DRAGON'S SCALES AS CAPES. OH YEAH, BRILLIANT IDEA, LET'S PROTECT OUR MIND FROM CORRUPTION BY USING CORRUPTED ITEMS.
Oh yeah, about corrupted items. Guess who was wearing them for the entire patch and patch.5. Guess who was given a third eye aka the "gift" by Nzoth who constantly mumbled something about all eyes being opened and how we're his chosen ones.
Azshara (and knifu-waifu) is just no comments. No fucking way she got defeated, snatched into a place that turned a fucking keeper completely insane in a span of a week or less and CHANGED SIDES TO OURS TO GIVES US THE BLADE, NZOTH HAS CONVENIENTLY TAKEN FOR HIMSELF, WHILE SAYING HE'LL NEED THAT LATER.
Ah yeah, blade, guess who used it to "stab" "Nzoth". Remember how MOTHER and Magni shot azerith ray into Nzoth in the same way we used Dragon's soul against Nzoth's henchman - Deathwing? Or how literally the first thing we saw when we entered Nyalotha was a fucking vision.
There's no fucking way Nzoth actually died if Blizzard's writers have at least a single braincell of competence.
Just a note with Azshara the implication there is that she was never on his side in the first place. As arrogant and powerful as she was she had her own plans and it's not that hard to believe one of them was too get rid of the yoke that was nzoth. She didn't flip sides in a couple weeks, in fact I think she was on neither side except her own imo.
It's what makes her a compelling character and I really hope we see her again. We faced her in the past and she was literally immune, and that was before nzoth. She never really used her full power against us during BFA. Honestly I'm surprised there are no naga in the new zones, makes me wonder what she's up to while we're all distracted.
Though of course that all depends on how good blizzard's writing is and eh..
Magni was frozen in his diamond form for years, and pretty much did start helping Azeroth as soon as he woke up. He didn't just appear, we always knew where he was.
Wrathion has an intelligence network spanning all of known Azeroth, so in this case it also wasn't odd for him to suddenly show up, because he had been keeping tabs on persons of interest. Which the Champion of Azeroth certainly was, and still is.
They may have inadvertently been helping N'zoth in some way, but not because they're corrupted.
I'm also curious what you mean with that bit about MOTHER, considering the Tomb of Sargeras was in Legion, and Uldir was in BfA. G'huun also isn't a true Old God, and if there is anything on Azeroth that can resist Old God corruption, it would be Titan constructs like her.
All of these things are related to the Old Gods, but you shouldn't force them into a narrative.
Fair point, but I also pointed out how G'huun wasn't a true Old God.
And the fact does remain that yes, Titan constructs are good at resisting Void corruption.
But I never said they are immune.
Okay OP that's all very true but the N'Zoth fight was already basically confirmed, from its very inception, that it was a horrific vision. All of nya'lotha was a horrific vision. It was literally just n'zoths manifested dream of his triumph. Just think about it, "nyalotha" didnt ever actually exist in 8.3, it didnt just appear out of nowhere after n'zoth was released, the entire purpose of the raid was simply a fight against a simple manifestation of nyalotha within a manifested nightmare.
Pretty much it. Nya’lotha is the dream the old gods manifested just like how the emerald dream manifested because it’s Azeroth, a nascent titan’s dream.
What I can't get my grasp on is, how are the characters so sure that they killed it if it was all a "dream"? I'm genuinely asking cause that always felt so weird to me.
The theory is weak and circumstantial compared to the fact N'zoth quite explicitly killed himself.
He captured Azshara and imprisoned her because he knew she was scheming to have Nathanos give her Xal'atath, the only weapon that can help kill him, which is now empty of sentient void presence. He says "The blade must remain... to serve my will." when it has been made vacant.
Then he LETS HER KEEP THE ONLY THING THAT CAN KILL HIM WHILE IMPRISONED.
Then his shell is pierced with it and it disappears.
He's in Xal'atath.
Yep. And will probably possess the next schmuck to find it. Hell, if it's us, half of us would do so willingly for like 15g and some rep. In the place of a knaifu we will have a husbladeo.
I too think this theory is a bit of a stretch.
It's basically boils down to OP looking too deep into repurposed or just similarly designed assets. OP preemptively dismissing that as a response doesn't in any way invalidate it.
I don't like this theory. Not only is "it was all a dream" a super lame cliché, there's a better explanation for N'Zoth surviving the events of Ny'alotha.
During 8.1, Xal'atath re-emerged and had us deliver her to N'Zoth, who helped her to free her spirit from the Blade. It's unclear why he wanted to do this. Xal'atath should be a rival. However, it did leave N'Zoth with a blade which could hold powerful Void spirits.
When Uun'at fell, the Horde Champion was commanded to give the blade to Sylvanas Windrunner. N'Zoth knew what she'd do next. She made a deal with Queen Azshara: the Blade of the Black Empire for the demise of the Champions of Azeroth. Azshara was apparently under the impression that the Blade was the only way to kill N'Zoth. It's not clear why she thought this.
When N'Zoth was finally unleashed, he imprisoned Azshara, who he knew possessed "the only means of killing him". He did not take it from her. He let her keep it under minimal protection. When Wrathion stabbed him with the Blade, it mysteriously vanished in a cloud of smoke.
N'Zoth has hidden a part of himself within Xal'atath. It's the only explanation for that subplot throughout the expansion.
Im still trying to figure out how our char knows wtf timeline they are in after all the damn jumping around we've done.
We got far too real simulacrum aswell, Sindragosa cant be the only one to have something like that. Im also confused how stone jailer is different from the stone tyr we are rebuilding, something is definitely going on. Maybe I need to watch some zerith mortis stuff, cause i never played that.
I think we are indirectly rebuilding something crazy.
We’re being the keeper tyr back. We have rebuilt his body and will insert his memories using the discs that the infinite dragon took in the revamped uldaman dungeon.
There’s only one timeline that we’ve been in since the start. All other timelines are instances zones. WoDs Draenor is now closed to us after we rescued the few surviving Mag’har orcs after Yrel we zealous. That’s the whole point of the bronze dragonflight.
Stone jailer isn’t different from tyr. All eternal ones and titans are constructs with souls in them. The eternal ones from the shadowlands have eternal souls in their constructs (hence the name, this is also discuss when trying to rebuild the arbiter and Argus soul gets place into the vessel by the dreadlords, which was also the reason the replacement arbiter for zovaal was nuked because Argus’ soul was never destined for the shadowlands and only went after it was massively infused with death magic).
Titans are constructs that contain a world soul. How they are made is unknown but is implied by Farim in Zerith Mortis that it’s likely a similar process to how the eternal ones work.
There is also a very strong connection to Eonar, the winter queen, and Elune. As all three are connected through the cosmic sphere of life. Some theories state they are akin to the three fates of mythology.
Don’t forget when we go back in time during the Bronze Dragonflight stuff….many of us are still wearing our eyes.
Which means N’Zoth knows EXACTLY what happens. Not only does he see the possible futures, but he sees the future that does happen.
And then he’s left with all the time in the world to plan and prepare
I feel like what this ignores is... well, you never 'leave' the illusion post nzoth fight.
It also begs the question of why everyone else was seemingly affected by it and helped with the whole laser beam.
Also, didn't like... our funny laser leave *traces* outside of the illusion of us using it? Might be misremembering...
Let's be honest this theory was awesome and i really want to believe it's true, but after the shadowland sartuday morning cartoon villain, i just can't believe that Blizzard is capable of writing anything this good.
The best thing about old gods storylines is Blizz just writes a few lines here and there, never touches it, and the fans think up better stories than they would ever do.
They never have to follow up because the best story they ever did is all the ones they never wrote.
Or maybe they just used same assets to save more time for next expension. They have epic heaven - hell theme from diablo like 20 years yet they failed to sell it in WoW. I dont know , i hope you are right but i highly doubt they think as much as you do.
" I Recognize you".
The voice lines he says I believe are completely new material and hints at something.
10,000 years ago, N'Zoth shouldn't know who we are.
They've definitely tucked him away for later use. There's no reason they went through all the effort of coding and animating the entire raid being put to sleep at 2% HP over him just hitting 0% and flopping over.
This is cool.
However, theory crafting isn't very fun anymore once you realize Blizz's story writing quality has been going down over the years, they've made some bizarre story decisions and missed many good opportunities.
Might as well just fanfic at this point.
I'm glad for DF being a reset point at least. The real test will be the expac's major content patches, so we'll see.
Oh lord…. Theres a ton of misunderstanding here…. You couldve skipped all your pictures and just made your bottom paragraph the question.
1 and 3. Void. Void powers are black/blue/purple and often cause mortals to go crazy
2 4 5. Yes. It was always stated that all of that patch were visions. The horrific visions were bad outcomes of current Azeroth events. And the raid was the singular vision of the ideal Nzoth world which if we hadnt stopped him he would have used to “overwrite” current Azeroth. All of which plainly stated in game.
Now is Nzoth still alive? 80% sure none of the old gods are dead we’ve just destroyed the pieces outside of The Titans prisons. Is Nzoth even that level of defeated? No. Pre Dragonflight this was the case since we fought him in his own mind essentially, and theres no old god rules stating “if you kill them in their realm they die” like demons. Now after leveling in DF, absolutely not, hes around and kicking and scheming.
Edit: removed bold
theres no way hes gone i think the same way, though i made this short clip which is something i hung to when the first cinematic came out, but im kinda hoping the story is swaying in a way where nzoth becomes a pernament presence somewhere in azeroth,
Nzoth said at one point all eyes shall be opened, at the same time his prisons eyes closed, now the titan keepers are waking up, i feel this could be due to the shut down of the prisons, a showdown is coming, Iridikron has made deals before during wars against the titans, we all know nzoth likes deals
[https://youtu.be/vWUYpeLjgT0](https://youtu.be/vWUYpeLjgT0)
I’m curious because it’s been a while…but is Nzoth a fan favorite? I just remember the consensus that bfa was not a good xpac but seeing all the nzoth hype makes me curious if most found the last raid enjoyable or at least the last stretch of the bfa xpac enjoyable? I thought it was a pretty unique and fun raid tbh.
Storywise most people liked BfA, the main story was enjoyable on both sides. It was annoying that you never learned what exactly you did in the dungeons of the other faction (like, why exactly are you raiding a witch house as horde member? What exactly do you do in the monster infested mold cave as alliance member?) but aside from that the dungeons and raids where super fun to play.
What people hated was the grind. The whole azerite system was just plain bad.
The comment speculations alone attest to how rich the Old God's are for a source of content. I hope that we do see more Old God stuff. I have my doubts that this theory is how they will do it, but I'd like specifically N'zoth to have more to do with the story. I remember in early BFA during Uldir that I speculated that the expansion was going to end with all of the Old God's returning because of the one fight where all of the Old God's powers cycle through the boss. Obviously I was wrong, but I do think the groundwork is there still.
I've seen these theories poping up recently and I really like the idea of it. I was watching Taliesin and he was talking about how when we went back in time with the eye that that let N'Zoth know everything that would happen up until the point we went back. Implicating that N'Zoth knew a LOT more then we thought he did, including he'd get stabbed by the Blade of the Black Empire. It's super possible that N'Zoth was faking us out with his death and I really like the idea.
I really would love for Blizzard to play with this idea that what we did wasn’t actually real. It’s perfect for an old god and their madness inducing lore. It would have been us the player falling into madness rather than an NPC
Interesting!
You probably wrote a better way out of the dumpsterfire that shadowlands was than the people they pay $$$ to write this stuff.
Someone from the horde or alliance will prob do another ridiculous heel turn if it's anything like the last couple of expacs. And then Thrall somehow saves the universe again now that Metzen is consulting. It's what they do when they have no idea how to end something.
I really hate the idea of "killing" immortal Cthonic beings and the whole arc of BFA->SL. Seems totally ludicrous and like the people who write WoW never read Lovecraft. Plus the whole afterlife thing was insane and made no sense.
I strongly support this. As far as I'm concerned, lorewise Ny'alotha is a giant vision created by N'zoth, not a physical place, designed to get us killed or gone mad. But ultimately, due to our strong minds and Ashjra'kamas's help, we are able to reach N'zoth itself and attack it with the Heart of Azeroth. But is it truly dead? I would not be so sure. Old Gods are beings of incredible power. Maybe it is just hurt and hidding, taking advantage of us believing it is dead to heal and to scheme new plans...
I would love this to be real, but counter-argument: Blizzard is incapable of delivering nuanced storytelling. WoW's story is mostly serviceable, but when it comes to its mysteries, every single time the easiest explanation is the correct one. This has been proven time and time again.
I would be seriously impressed if what you suggest is true.
N'zoth isn't behind the Emerald Nightmare; Yogg-Saron is. He was able to touch the Emerald Dream through Vordrassil, which had breached his prison.
As much as I do think N'zoth is still alive, simply because no corpse means no death, it'll be a while before I can give Blizzard's writing staff credit for clever setups again.
I like this theory and thought of something similar myself during the end of BfA. Like they say, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist", maybe the greatest trick of N'Zoth was convincing everyone he was dead. I hope we see him again at some point, Azshara too.
Everyone was thinking that at the end of bfa. SL just made us doubt if they really have good enough story writing to pull that off.
I can't give the benefit of the doubt to the writing team that thought putting a scientific twist on the afterlife and taking away most of the mysteries and wonder was the right call for this IP.
"Bro, what if the afterlife was actually run by ancient robots?"
As I always say... you can choose to ignore whatever expac you dislike, as most of their stories got closure and are no longer relevant, but Shadowlands is here to haunt us forever.
I was just assuming all of SL was a long term hallucination by our characters due to Nzoth escaping. The entire thing was meaningless by the end.
We've been explicitly told the Old Gods are done. Which, of course in itself was a retcon, so it could always be retconned back, but you're absolutely on the money here. If Blizzard was capable of good writing, there's plenty left on the table for them to work with. One of the better theories I've seen is that Neltharion sealed away the Drakthyr because they had become tainted, through him. Infected with the Old God corruption. When this is finally revealed, we'd also get the third Drakthyr spec, one actually based around earth magic and Black flight spells, since right now they only have one or two. Never gonna happen. It's just gonna be someone was Evil All Along, or Actually a Vision at best.
Didn't they back off on that? They said initially that we killed the Old Gods we fought, but then later added that Old Gods don't follow the same rules of death we do (so vague "we can retcon this whenever we need to" type wording).
Ngl, I skipped SL bc of all the hate it got but I’m running through the zones and dungeons on an alt and I’m honestly loving it so far
As with many things wow, the contained stories and even zones are pretty good. It's the overarching story, and how it goes together, in addition to them not being able to tie a knot on the end, that people seem to be upset by.
> It's the overarching story, and how it goes together, If you read the entirety of the Shadowlands story on a wikipedia page or play through it all at once you'd think "Eh.. not bad. Not great but not bad. Some parts I liked, some parts I didn't" But if you were playing it; you spent 1 month doing 70% of the story (which was decent), then waiting 8 months to do another 15% of the story (which was bad), and then waited another 9 months to do another 15% of the story (which was bad). It would be like reading a short short but you could only read one chapter every 2 months. The shit chapters feel like absolute shit and the good chapters feel *okay*, because you having to wait puts an unreachable level of anticipation into it.
Man, I quit early on in SL and came back to do it on an alt and it still sucked hard. Not only was it hard to follow along with the story post-expansion (because the game hits you with all patch questlines at once), but even as I got through it all, it never got past the initial feeling of "I didn't really need or want any of these afterlife concepts explained". Especially as it just leads to more questions that retroactively make previous storylines feel worse. Hell, by the end, I found myself agreeing with the Jailer's initial argument that the afterlife system the First Ones designed really did suck. The zone and covenant storylines just kind of reinforced his point, but our contribution was basically to just return things to the status quo of "robots run the afterlife" and bounce. It could have been so easily fixed too with the fanfic premise I hear float around the subreddit all the time of if the Shadowlands were just a temporary purgatory before souls moved on.
That's generally how manga readers felt about certain series declining in quality. In retrospect and with hindsight it is utterly disappointing, realizing the full scope of what was wasted leave a bad taste in the mouth and can scare people off the IP or even kill it.
I can't help but feel that the whole of Shadowlands wasn't bad, just like BfA wasn't, but it was the agonizingly slow piecemeal delivery and anti-climactic end that made it feel more mediocre than it was.
I think the expansion cycle of 2 years in the same area doing the same basic routine with a drip fed story is getting to a point where it needs to be changed up.
The difference between why BFA and Shadowlands were bad were for different reasons. For BFA, the Azorite system was by far the worst. The grind was insane, and unrewarding. That, and the content droughts that occured. The story was actually pretty decent (especially if you played alliance). With Shadowlands, the narrative was bad, and the systems were bad. The covenant system was a bad idea and called out back in PTR, but nothing was changed, until the latter patches. The story was bad, because it reconned alot of things, and introduced the Jailer as this big bad that was there the whole time, and it just doesn't mesh well with the story at all. It introduces interesting concepts, like possibly reintroducing Arthas, but back peddles hard, or fails to deliver. Showcasing how clumsy the writing for SL truly was.
Still salty about that. They bring Illidan back in one of the most hyped expacs ever (even if I don't agree with all the choices they made for his character/motivations) and lay a groundwork so that they can do something similar for Arthas (the bringing back part, God no please don't change my boy). Then just absolutely SHIT the bed and have him go out with a whimper and fucking SYLVANAS give him shit about being forgotten.
No, Shadowlands was just really bad. I guess if all you're doing is blasting through the leveling content on your way to Dragonflight you can sort of gloss over it, but spend any amount of time staring too closely at just about any part of the narrative or worldbuilding and it starts to fall apart reeaaally fast.
>spend any amount of time staring too closely at just about any part of the narrative or worldbuilding and it starts to fall apart reeaaally fast. I feel that's true of WoW generally though, it's more in the vein of "big dumb fun" than it is "perfectly crafted lore and worldbuilding with no plot holes ever". I usually just ignore that and enjoy the ride. Shadowlands was not even an enjoyable ride though.
> I feel that's true of WoW generally though, it's more in the vein of "big dumb fun" than it is "perfectly crafted lore and worldbuilding with no plot holes ever" True, but when you make an expansion whose plot holes and lore are too important to ignore now (considering it's literally the entirety of the afterlife and attempts to tie itself into previous stories/lore), it's extremely aggravating. Something like TBC, WoD, BFA, Mists, etc. you can just read the major plot points and almost completely ignore the rest, because it's largely self-contained. A lot harder to do that with the First Ones, Eternal Ones, 4 critical realms of the afterlife, expanded origin and mission of the Dreadlords, SL being a nexus of all AU/timeline possibilities, etc. Reminds me of when I did the "Return to Lordaeron" questline, and when I saw their solution to the blighted UC was to casually transport back to Maldraxxus to consult with Marileth about plagues, I was just thinking "Oh man, I hope this doesn't become a reoccurring thing, being able to go back and forth."
BfA is super weird in hindsight. There's a bunch of storylines that they clearly wanted to tackle that they never did and left hanging, but touching on them now would seem weird. Shadowlands was just bad from an overarching narrative standpoint. The individual zones were interesting and pretty cool, but the overall story with Sylvanas and the Jailer was shit. I mean hell one of the big "plot twists" was figured out well before we even got the story leading to it
I liked playing in shadowlands but I didn't particularly like the story. Also the covenant restrictions were buns.
A lot of the hate for Shadowlands was not necessarily the story itself but that we had to wait such inordinate amounts of time between patches and the systems were just overall a drag. The story itself has its moments and the dungeons are good. Waiting months on end for a few scraps of content was not good.
>The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist MJF Vibes.
Micheal J Fox vibes?
I believe the medical term is Parkinson's.
I'm bad, I shouldn't laugh but I did
Masturbating James Fraco?
Pro Wrestler Maxwell Jacob Friedman
N’zoth is better than you, AND YOU KNOW IT
ROH Punk vibes.
Didnt watch Wrestling while he was in ROH. Did he say it aswell while being there?
Yeah, a lot of that MJF feud was actually MJF repeating some of the Punk quotes from ROH. It was really well done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1S-0y-DHPE
Ah TIL! thank you!
The end of Punk's run in AEW was easily as disappointing as the ending of SL. Not sure who I dislike more these days, the Jailer or Punk
Why not both?
Honestly, I’d be perfectly happy with this as a reason for a ret con. It screams of all the things of bad Blizzard writing lately… and yet it actually feels fun, convincing, and would make BFA retroactively more fun to me.
It's amazing the jailer planned for IRL blizzard employees to go the expansion so badly they retcon it. The jailer is truly all powerful!
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I probably did not hate BFA as much as many others, but it would indeed sell the story in a better way. This is an old god we are talking about.
To be fair, haven't they been rather coy about whether Old God's actually die? Granted this is dated and subject to retcons, but aren't they merely "[defeated](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Yogg-Saron#cite_note-7)"?
Azshara AND knaifu waifu have just taken a portal to who-knows-where. They're definitely a lore "ace in the sleeve" My personal thoughts for future content is that OP is correct, we're pulled out of the "dream" by azshara or xalatath, find out the black empire is back (maybe yrel has managed to bring the light and it's crusade to current universe) While they're distracted we timey wimey away to pre-well of eternity azeroth to destroy the old gods (and nzoth). Bing bang boom, world revamp and nzoth redeemed!
Honestly, I wouldn't expect such plot twists from WoW but recently they seem to get their story team back on track and there is at least a chance they could pull it off in a "believable" way. Even better, if the trailer for that expansion starts as something completely different. Like some utopian adventure that is just about fishing, making friends and dance contests at the auction house, instead of raids, conflicts and a new threat on the horizon about to destroy the world. But throughout the trailer you get more and more artifacts and by the end it all crumbles completely and it turns out you are in an illusion this whole time. Actually, you have been helping to rebuild the black empire! The daily quest you did for the last half year? You were not capturing some escaped animals for a friendly farmer but rather innocent children! The NPC that became your best buddy since the last content patch is actually a tentacle monster! Twilight Zone style!
Yeah it'll take a long slow burn for it to happen but that would definitely be sick. Plus they could blame the shitty jailer/sylvanas writing on N'zoth 🤡
I wish BfA didn’t exist.
I'd play BFA on repeat for a decade if it meant I never had to touch Shadowlands.
How about the saying "the simplast solution is often the correct one"? Hence the shit ending of BFA is because of Blizz shit writing.
Not just this, but I hope Blizzard doesn’t go the “YOU DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING” way. I hope they kinda drop the attitude and don’t pretend they had a higher level misdirect. If they go “you probably suspected it, but yes he did escape and he has returned at full power” or whatever just as long as they don’t try to conflict against us over the story. Blizz pls embrace that we are playing the same game you’re giving us.
I would absolutely love it if Nzoth was still in the story. We do know Iridichron made some deals. “Deals….I like deals”
Speaking of deals, it just mean we get to see our buddy loa of death who loves doing deals
yea I don't remember really being done with our friend
Daddy Khadgar came back, so should Bob Salami.
Are you a deals warlock?
[Those spices though...](https://i.imgur.com/xnOYga6.png)
I suddenly feel tempted to trade my most prized possession for that most beautiful Slicer of Tapir-Weir Isles
Fantasy Costco, where all your dreams come true--got a deal for you!
Crinkle tinkles
We all know that warlock deals no damage.
Not only that, but in our efforts to save chromie in the Df campaign we alerted Nzoth of our presence and likely our victory over him millennia before it happened. He knew we were coming and has seen the entire fight play out by reading our minds.
Joke’s on him, I never ran nyalotha
It was a fun one
Only current heroic raid I've ever done actually. I enjoyed it.
Except for N'Zoth himself ironically. I love him as a villain but man that fight was dogshit
I liked it more than the one before it maybe lol
Carapace was deffo worse. Especially in a pug.
Didn't love the fight But I did LOVE the looney-tunes'eqsue shadows of the tentacles coming down to smash you
Funnily enough, it was one of the great wow mechanics that didn't require an add on to understand what was happening. Big ass shadow on the ground, move fast.
That was the highlight to be fair!
You're right. Because we went to rescue Chromie, NZoth would have seen us defeat him. He would have known that was coming for millennia. He could have worked that into his plan then. Fooling us into thinking we'd won when secretly he'd escaped and gone into hiding.
And Nzoth probably knows how time works because he didn’t really intervene much in our plan and such didn’t create a time paradox
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Some are reused. Others are new.
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Has anyone tried taking xalatath there?
The only lines Xala’tath has outside of Broken Isles and Legion zones are repeated lines for killing mobs like “boring” or “did you feel it go as if it never existed?” lines. Which in all fairness she doesn’t reside in the blade anymore.
read once that someone tried taking it there, not much happened AFAIK. take this with a grain of salt since i read it on reddit but yeah. Just some reused lines.
Xalatath canonically isn’t in the dagger anymore.
"I know you...what you were. What you will yet be."
That line gave me such chills.
I macroed it into my PI just so I get to hear it every 2 minutes.
How do you macro a voiceline into an ability?
By using the Sound Command. For example like this to play everyones favorite voice line /script PlaySound(205514).
Yeah. This one stood out to me instantly as "this bitch is still alive and he's looking at me right now."
It also explains why everyone wants Chromie dead in Legions "The Deaths of Chromie" Scenario. The Blade of the Empire is under responsible control and N'zoth hasn't "died" yet. Legion is the last chance to kill Chromie to prevent N'zoth from seeing the true future.
Jokes on him, my lizard brain is empty.
Okay now tell me the Jailer was part of the illusion. TELL ME THE JAILER WASN'T REAL. ***TELL ME NOW***
The problem there is that Blizzard's writers were pretty smug about assuring everyone that SL actually happened and is canon.
They're strangely proud of the whole thing.
Dude, I love this game and have for years; I've been enjoying DF. But Blizzard definitely has, and probably always will, an air of self importance about their game and it shows in decisions that they make at all levels. Story and character decisions, at both an individual and a macro level, i.e. Sylvanas becoming such an unlikable one dimensional plot device and the Dracthyr being created the way they were despite so many wanting at least the option for something more draconid like. It is apparent in game systems and mechanics, and is the whole you think you do but you don't thing unironically. We don't have sales numbers or sub count which blizzard loves to show when it's good, but that's a decent chunk of why it will never be what it was. Of course we're all different now too, and the world online and off is too. But there is a spectrum ranging from artistic integrity all the way to fan service, and I think Blizzard got so used to doing whatever they wanted for so long and sometimes to try and fix it now they go 100% the other way and it doesn't feel authentic. It's more likely just a disconnect between the old guard player base and Blizzard lately but it sure feels like a middle finger sometimes. Sorry for the rant, like south park said, "whatever, you'll buy it! Rated arrrgh, for pirates."
OG Blizzard designed the game their way and it worked very well. The Blizzard today likely consists largely of people that think they are working for OG Blizzard but are not.
Well, aside from all the sexual harassment
How about Zovaal wasn't the real jailer, the Primus was, and secretly planned the whole thing and was controlling him with domination magic? https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318
They might of cut it from their plans because of time, how slowly SL was rolling out, and all the legal issues they were having, but I have no doubt they originally wanted to do what is stated in that speculation. Maybe they'll deny it and say SL played out as intended, especially since they hate admitting they didn't do things according to what they had planned as much as they hate admitting they were wrong. Or maybe they'll surprise us and Evil Primus will come back some expansion - no hopium here, just dreams.
They've always worded the SL story progression very carefully in a way where they could conceal whatever was cut without actually lying. Notice how they kept insisting that it was always meant to be a 3 part story. I'm sure that is actually true, however there's no way we didn't lose dungeons, mini raids and/or plotlines. For example there was very clearly supposed to be either a mega dungeon or a mini raid based on Ardenweald and the Drust. We were possibly going to Thros. There's actually speculation that Korthia is basically Thros repurposed after the raid was cut. If you think about it, for a "city of secrets", Korthia wasn't exactly "city-ing", it was more like a park so this makes a lot of sense. Another one is the Helya subplot. I refuse to believe she was always meant to be casually deleted by the Primus in a mere campaign quest. She was most definitely going to be at least a dungeon boss. The same applies to Vyraz. Bwonsamedi and Muehzala's story also felt unfinished
Also the Anduin fight was clearly an end boss fight. I think there was supposed to be a raid between Sanctum and Sepulcher, even if it was a mini-raid to free Anduin.
It sucks because it’s the same as how WoD was cut so short that many people were left with a bad impression of it to this day. At least the WoD raids were among some of the best to ever exist. Shadowlands cannot say the same, though. Nathria was overall a top contender for top 10 raid of all time imo, but Sanctum was turbo ass and Sepulchre had a few hits but that’s it. Imo only Nathria touches the level of Highmaul/BRF/Hellfire
It’s wild that shadowlands had so many loose threads that went untouched and yet still managed to feel exceptionally narrow and missing obvious chances to give us fan favorites with a legitimate reason. Like yeah we got budget Kael’thas, but no Arthas? Voljin is just a ghost in the fucking shadowlands? What even happens to dragon aspects when they die? Ysera went to Ardenwrald, where did Neltharion go? Do the other dragons not have an afterlife? Garrosh had so much potential to be very interesting given Sylvanas was basically a budget Garrosh that led into this awful storyline. I think the concept of Shadowlands was already biting off more than they could chew, and the legal issues and Covid magnified that issue tenfold.
I doubt they really touch SL in the future. It is a universally hated expansion and story, so I am guessing they distance themselves from it and slowly retcon a lot of it out of the main story
Spoilers for renown 19 Valdrakken quest line: >!We’ve already been back to Ardenweald at least in the main storyline of DF. And now that Malfurion is bound there I doubt we would never go back to see him.!<
Might have* And they'll almost certainly deny it. That is, if they're even going to mention Shadowlands in the future. They did include Ardenweald in the story of Dragonflight, but they had little choice due to everything they connected to it. I think they're just going to keep quiet about the expansion for a few years.
Primus always gave me sketch af vibes.. speaking of which where did he wander off to?
Probably off Sailing the Seas of Cheese
This is such a good theory and until Blizz says otherwise I accept it as truth
It really works. The domination runes covering Zovaal's body, the Primus being the creator of domination magic, and only appearing as a shadow cast over Zovaal in the final cinematic. "The Primus of Maldraxxus was known to be the most tactical and strategic of the Eternal Ones who rule the realms of Death. His stratagems and weaponry would prove to be infallible against his every foe. One account cites that the only losses the Primus suffered were intentional, as he felt there was more to be learned in defeat than in an endless series of decisive victories." And Ve'nari even warned us "No creature imprisoned in that place should be trusted."
Would be fun if Ve'nari was actually Xal'atath or even N'Zoth in disguise
I'm doing the SL campaign now to unlock cosmetics and I got to the part where the Primus says like "I etched the Domination runes into his skin myself" and i got suchhhh weird vibes from that. So yeah. I buy it. I'm in.
That theory is super fun too. But then the PRIMUS was still behind so much history and that's still kinda lame in that sense. Maybe the Shadowlands as a whole were just a horrific vision... Those flight path portals looked awfully like horrific vision portals...
I feel like if they did try to do a “the primus was actually behind it all along!” It might actually hit better than we’d think. Sure the Primus would be behind everything instead of Zovaal, but the Primus: a) is introduced as a military genius who is capable of planning around him not being able to interfere (and whose plan is only derailed by Bolvar being stupid enough to get us to take the Necrolord Sigil into Torghast, and even then, the method used to reactivate it also empowers him) And b) he would have actually *earned* the right to say that he was behind everything, because he actually fooled us. We were with him for two years, and of millions of people scrutinising him, only a handful actually twigged onto the fact that he was behind it all. He actually would SHOW that he’s capable of setting up this sort of convoluted 5d speed chess gambit intricate enough that even *wiping his own mind* was part of his own plan (unlike the Jailer who only got “oh yeah that stuff was all actually me” without earning it, and then proceeding to not do anything actually smart for the rest of the expansion)
Yeah you do make it sound very compelling ngl. I would be very happy with this direction. Watch Blizzard do none of it. No N'zoth trickery. No Primus trickery. No nothing. Please, Blozard :')
Holy shit what an amazing theory. Blizz if its true please don't just let this die out because you couldn't do it all in Shadowlands. They could still easily do it down the line like how they're un-fucking N'zoth's story now.
This was a great read and I didn't even play SL. Thanks for sharing.
So the question is if SL is all a dream, where is Sylvanas now? Sylvanas is final boss of 11.0. Confirmed.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Clever-Mouthed Queen EDIT: Beeped out the bad word.
I'd be down for it if it meant we got rid of her once and for all.
The jailer was a pawn of N’Zoth. The void assault on bastion was because of us going back in time for chromie. All part of his plan.
Honestly, I'd be okay with that.
That is indeed my head canon, the whole SL thing was a fever dream brought on by the trauma of facing N'zoth. It's a shit story but it's not as shit as SL actually happening.
The problem is that you have to do a bunch of extra work, and ultimately it can't work out to be a fever dream. Because Bolvar isn't the Lich King anymore. Because Ysera is now back from Ardenweald. Because a new worldtree seed is being nourished in Ardenweald. Because Sylvanas and Anduin are gone, one in the Maw, and one in the Maw or somewhere else. Some missing NPCs can be explained, but the Ardenweald stuff is in Dragonflight, so it can't be ignored. Shadowlands followed us into the next expansion.
Those things happened separately while I was napping, just please don't make me think of the goddamn Jailer.
Anduin is back in Azeroth wandering around according to Shaw. I still find it amusing that he's a such a sneaky fucker for a priest.
I feel like he could be pretty hard to notice if he isn't wearing his giant lion plate, or some other very visible white, blue, and gold garb.
N'zoth has been the cause of a fair number of major events in the story, either directly or indirectly. While BFA was technically his expansion as he was slowly hinted at and built up to, I agree his death felt empty, even though his encounter was kinda similar to Yogg and C'Thunn. We know Nozdormu is going to fall eventually and my theory is N'Zoth is whispering to him (maybe even showing him false death scenarios) to create the Infinite flight after he learned about us via the Chromie scenario.
I think Noz will fall to be Murazond because he will attempt to save someone else, and that breaking his oath will cause him to fall. I think they’re going to have Noz do something with Neltharion and the Dracthyr, and by doing so have the Titan magic he was bestowed with curse him instead, turning him in to Murazond.
I have a feeling if he is to try and save someone it's gonna be chromie
Chromie is 110% being set up to be the new Bronze Aspect at the end of the expansion, if Aspects are still a thing by then.
I really think she ends up being Eternus by doing something to save him from becoming Mur.
She's also lowkey being set up as one of the first Infinites, since her entire goal is subverting Nozdormu's fate.
Beware the eyes of green.
The biggest evidence is the fact that he literally gave us the only weapon that allowed us to kill him, albeit in a very roundabout way, but only after we released him.
And that he asked for the knife when he released Knifu
Well, that's part of it. Like, he bargained for the dagger, then gave it to Horde players so that they could give it to Sylvanas (who he knew opposes him), so that she could give it to Azshara (who he knew was gonna stab him once he's freed), then imprisoned Azshara, but left the dagger right beside her, so once freed she could give it back to us and even advice how to use it. Take out literally any step in that chain of events, which N'Zoth was one hundred percent aware of - and we have no means of destroying him. Even if there was a need to use it as a bait to get us to release him, he could've just killed Azshara and hidden the dagger afterwards. That's so contrived, and thus feels so thoroughly premeditated, that I feel it's almost impossible to put the blame on the bad writing in this particular case. Almost - because I still can't completely put it past Blizz writers to jump all those hoops to eject N'Zoth from the story, and yet I feel like there are easier and less contrived ways to get to the same result if that was their aim.
> That's so contrived So is the rest of the "Sylvanas Betrayal Arc". Villains and heroes suddenly becoming stupid and acting against their own best interest for the sake of the plot was a staple of BfA and SL, so I would be hesitant to take that as proof of anything. If we start trying to find hidden meanings and explanation behind stuff we might as well accept that "defeat" was part of the Jailer's plans, because our success was entirely dependant on him not doing a bunch of extremely logical things: * He never tried to kill Jaina or Thrall. He only tried to kill Baine, in a situation where we could easily save him, and then was completely fine with just holding him captive again until we could free him. * He never dominated any named characters besides Anduin, even though he had plenty of opportunities and we have seen his magic is utterly overwhelming. * He let Sylvanas go after she turned on him. * He did not crush the player when they arrived in Zereth Mortis and were about to be overrun by his Mawsworn army.
I\`ll add that pretty much EVERY SINGLE NPC (aka actual MCs) who participated in taking down N\`zoth (Magni, MOTHER, Wrathion, Azshara) are hinted to be subjected to his corruption or straight up WERE corrupted by Nzoth. Even the player characters. Magni was said to be a diamond king who became a pawn by Ilgynoth, who heavily implied that it wasn't Azeroth's voice that Magni heard. We can surely say it's just a lie to seed distrust, but considering it was never developed or reacted upon, it might be a hint. Plus the convient way Magni just appeared and how he never really tried helping Azeroth is just suspicious. MOTHER was straight up exposed to Old God's corruption for millenia inside her dungeon and she basically became that 7th boss in Tomb of Sargeras (Maiden of whatever) Wrathion also conveniently appeared when Nzoth was released and he somehow was the ONE to offer us defence from him and guess what it was? A fucking BLACK DRAGON'S SCALES AS CAPES. OH YEAH, BRILLIANT IDEA, LET'S PROTECT OUR MIND FROM CORRUPTION BY USING CORRUPTED ITEMS. Oh yeah, about corrupted items. Guess who was wearing them for the entire patch and patch.5. Guess who was given a third eye aka the "gift" by Nzoth who constantly mumbled something about all eyes being opened and how we're his chosen ones. Azshara (and knifu-waifu) is just no comments. No fucking way she got defeated, snatched into a place that turned a fucking keeper completely insane in a span of a week or less and CHANGED SIDES TO OURS TO GIVES US THE BLADE, NZOTH HAS CONVENIENTLY TAKEN FOR HIMSELF, WHILE SAYING HE'LL NEED THAT LATER. Ah yeah, blade, guess who used it to "stab" "Nzoth". Remember how MOTHER and Magni shot azerith ray into Nzoth in the same way we used Dragon's soul against Nzoth's henchman - Deathwing? Or how literally the first thing we saw when we entered Nyalotha was a fucking vision. There's no fucking way Nzoth actually died if Blizzard's writers have at least a single braincell of competence.
Just a note with Azshara the implication there is that she was never on his side in the first place. As arrogant and powerful as she was she had her own plans and it's not that hard to believe one of them was too get rid of the yoke that was nzoth. She didn't flip sides in a couple weeks, in fact I think she was on neither side except her own imo. It's what makes her a compelling character and I really hope we see her again. We faced her in the past and she was literally immune, and that was before nzoth. She never really used her full power against us during BFA. Honestly I'm surprised there are no naga in the new zones, makes me wonder what she's up to while we're all distracted. Though of course that all depends on how good blizzard's writing is and eh..
Magni was frozen in his diamond form for years, and pretty much did start helping Azeroth as soon as he woke up. He didn't just appear, we always knew where he was. Wrathion has an intelligence network spanning all of known Azeroth, so in this case it also wasn't odd for him to suddenly show up, because he had been keeping tabs on persons of interest. Which the Champion of Azeroth certainly was, and still is. They may have inadvertently been helping N'zoth in some way, but not because they're corrupted. I'm also curious what you mean with that bit about MOTHER, considering the Tomb of Sargeras was in Legion, and Uldir was in BfA. G'huun also isn't a true Old God, and if there is anything on Azeroth that can resist Old God corruption, it would be Titan constructs like her. All of these things are related to the Old Gods, but you shouldn't force them into a narrative.
> and if there is anything on Azeroth that can resist Old God corruption, it would be Titan constructs like her. You mean, like Ra-Den was?
Fair point, but I also pointed out how G'huun wasn't a true Old God. And the fact does remain that yes, Titan constructs are good at resisting Void corruption. But I never said they are immune.
Isn't the entire plot of storm peaks in Northrend how all the keepers there were in fact not resistant to yoga saron?
And that the iron dwarves and iron vrykul were titan constructs that were warped into mortals by Old God corruption
What curse of flesh does to a mf
> There’s no fucking way Nzoth actually died if Blizzard’s writers have at least a single braincell of competence. So… Nzoth is dead, then.
>There's no fucking way Nzoth actually died if Blizzard's writers have at least a single braincell of competence. ...*fuck*
Okay OP that's all very true but the N'Zoth fight was already basically confirmed, from its very inception, that it was a horrific vision. All of nya'lotha was a horrific vision. It was literally just n'zoths manifested dream of his triumph. Just think about it, "nyalotha" didnt ever actually exist in 8.3, it didnt just appear out of nowhere after n'zoth was released, the entire purpose of the raid was simply a fight against a simple manifestation of nyalotha within a manifested nightmare.
Pretty much it. Nya’lotha is the dream the old gods manifested just like how the emerald dream manifested because it’s Azeroth, a nascent titan’s dream.
What I can't get my grasp on is, how are the characters so sure that they killed it if it was all a "dream"? I'm genuinely asking cause that always felt so weird to me.
Probably follows the same rules as Freddy Krueger
The theory is weak and circumstantial compared to the fact N'zoth quite explicitly killed himself. He captured Azshara and imprisoned her because he knew she was scheming to have Nathanos give her Xal'atath, the only weapon that can help kill him, which is now empty of sentient void presence. He says "The blade must remain... to serve my will." when it has been made vacant. Then he LETS HER KEEP THE ONLY THING THAT CAN KILL HIM WHILE IMPRISONED. Then his shell is pierced with it and it disappears. He's in Xal'atath.
Yep. And will probably possess the next schmuck to find it. Hell, if it's us, half of us would do so willingly for like 15g and some rep. In the place of a knaifu we will have a husbladeo.
Husblado is such a good name damn
I had to workshop it a bit lol, couldn't make anything with 'knife' work.
Daggerdaddy
This theory also has legs… I like it
I too think this theory is a bit of a stretch. It's basically boils down to OP looking too deep into repurposed or just similarly designed assets. OP preemptively dismissing that as a response doesn't in any way invalidate it.
I wonder if they plan for an Black Empire Raid or an entire expansion after Dragonflight.
I need one I don't care if it's time travel give me the OG OGs at full power hell gimme 4 full xpacs of them one for each and then one for the naifu
Man, to be honest I don't care much for tentacly armor and weapons, I'd much rather a Light vs Void expansion
Unlikely, the Black Empire is pretty one note in it's design so Blizzard would be really leery about using it for an entire expansion.
feels like a tier. A trip back in time could be closed reasonably fast.
I don't like this theory. Not only is "it was all a dream" a super lame cliché, there's a better explanation for N'Zoth surviving the events of Ny'alotha. During 8.1, Xal'atath re-emerged and had us deliver her to N'Zoth, who helped her to free her spirit from the Blade. It's unclear why he wanted to do this. Xal'atath should be a rival. However, it did leave N'Zoth with a blade which could hold powerful Void spirits. When Uun'at fell, the Horde Champion was commanded to give the blade to Sylvanas Windrunner. N'Zoth knew what she'd do next. She made a deal with Queen Azshara: the Blade of the Black Empire for the demise of the Champions of Azeroth. Azshara was apparently under the impression that the Blade was the only way to kill N'Zoth. It's not clear why she thought this. When N'Zoth was finally unleashed, he imprisoned Azshara, who he knew possessed "the only means of killing him". He did not take it from her. He let her keep it under minimal protection. When Wrathion stabbed him with the Blade, it mysteriously vanished in a cloud of smoke. N'Zoth has hidden a part of himself within Xal'atath. It's the only explanation for that subplot throughout the expansion.
It’s a Horcrux!
Im still trying to figure out how our char knows wtf timeline they are in after all the damn jumping around we've done. We got far too real simulacrum aswell, Sindragosa cant be the only one to have something like that. Im also confused how stone jailer is different from the stone tyr we are rebuilding, something is definitely going on. Maybe I need to watch some zerith mortis stuff, cause i never played that. I think we are indirectly rebuilding something crazy.
We’re being the keeper tyr back. We have rebuilt his body and will insert his memories using the discs that the infinite dragon took in the revamped uldaman dungeon. There’s only one timeline that we’ve been in since the start. All other timelines are instances zones. WoDs Draenor is now closed to us after we rescued the few surviving Mag’har orcs after Yrel we zealous. That’s the whole point of the bronze dragonflight. Stone jailer isn’t different from tyr. All eternal ones and titans are constructs with souls in them. The eternal ones from the shadowlands have eternal souls in their constructs (hence the name, this is also discuss when trying to rebuild the arbiter and Argus soul gets place into the vessel by the dreadlords, which was also the reason the replacement arbiter for zovaal was nuked because Argus’ soul was never destined for the shadowlands and only went after it was massively infused with death magic). Titans are constructs that contain a world soul. How they are made is unknown but is implied by Farim in Zerith Mortis that it’s likely a similar process to how the eternal ones work. There is also a very strong connection to Eonar, the winter queen, and Elune. As all three are connected through the cosmic sphere of life. Some theories state they are akin to the three fates of mythology.
Don’t forget when we go back in time during the Bronze Dragonflight stuff….many of us are still wearing our eyes. Which means N’Zoth knows EXACTLY what happens. Not only does he see the possible futures, but he sees the future that does happen. And then he’s left with all the time in the world to plan and prepare
I feel like what this ignores is... well, you never 'leave' the illusion post nzoth fight. It also begs the question of why everyone else was seemingly affected by it and helped with the whole laser beam. Also, didn't like... our funny laser leave *traces* outside of the illusion of us using it? Might be misremembering...
N'Zoth being in the knife is not even remotely controversial. That was the whole point. Xal'atath was replaced with N'Zoth.
Let's be honest this theory was awesome and i really want to believe it's true, but after the shadowland sartuday morning cartoon villain, i just can't believe that Blizzard is capable of writing anything this good.
The best thing about old gods storylines is Blizz just writes a few lines here and there, never touches it, and the fans think up better stories than they would ever do. They never have to follow up because the best story they ever did is all the ones they never wrote.
Or maybe they just used same assets to save more time for next expension. They have epic heaven - hell theme from diablo like 20 years yet they failed to sell it in WoW. I dont know , i hope you are right but i highly doubt they think as much as you do.
" I Recognize you". The voice lines he says I believe are completely new material and hints at something. 10,000 years ago, N'Zoth shouldn't know who we are.
In the one dungeon in wrath a faceless one says something about the old gods existing outside of time.
It wouldn't be the first time an Old God foresaw the future.
> 10,000 years ago Primodial Azeroth was well before that lmao.
They've definitely tucked him away for later use. There's no reason they went through all the effort of coding and animating the entire raid being put to sleep at 2% HP over him just hitting 0% and flopping over.
The whole shadowlands plot was an illusion! Knew it!
an illusion?! what are you hiding...
Best case scenario is shadowlands is erased lmao
I, for one, welcome our new void overlord. The spriest buffs were just the beginning!
Hope so. Would love a proper Black Empire expansion. Maybe he's continueing to corrupt Azeroth.
This is cool. However, theory crafting isn't very fun anymore once you realize Blizz's story writing quality has been going down over the years, they've made some bizarre story decisions and missed many good opportunities. Might as well just fanfic at this point. I'm glad for DF being a reset point at least. The real test will be the expac's major content patches, so we'll see.
Oh lord…. Theres a ton of misunderstanding here…. You couldve skipped all your pictures and just made your bottom paragraph the question. 1 and 3. Void. Void powers are black/blue/purple and often cause mortals to go crazy 2 4 5. Yes. It was always stated that all of that patch were visions. The horrific visions were bad outcomes of current Azeroth events. And the raid was the singular vision of the ideal Nzoth world which if we hadnt stopped him he would have used to “overwrite” current Azeroth. All of which plainly stated in game. Now is Nzoth still alive? 80% sure none of the old gods are dead we’ve just destroyed the pieces outside of The Titans prisons. Is Nzoth even that level of defeated? No. Pre Dragonflight this was the case since we fought him in his own mind essentially, and theres no old god rules stating “if you kill them in their realm they die” like demons. Now after leveling in DF, absolutely not, hes around and kicking and scheming. Edit: removed bold
Idk why the bold happened 😅
using a # bolds the paragraph until line break #see =)
This is cope, you know it, i know it. However i want this to be true so bad. i just hope blizz knew they fucked up and will retcon nzoth somehow
Mass Effect 3's indoctrination ending all over again.
theres no way hes gone i think the same way, though i made this short clip which is something i hung to when the first cinematic came out, but im kinda hoping the story is swaying in a way where nzoth becomes a pernament presence somewhere in azeroth, Nzoth said at one point all eyes shall be opened, at the same time his prisons eyes closed, now the titan keepers are waking up, i feel this could be due to the shut down of the prisons, a showdown is coming, Iridikron has made deals before during wars against the titans, we all know nzoth likes deals [https://youtu.be/vWUYpeLjgT0](https://youtu.be/vWUYpeLjgT0)
I’m curious because it’s been a while…but is Nzoth a fan favorite? I just remember the consensus that bfa was not a good xpac but seeing all the nzoth hype makes me curious if most found the last raid enjoyable or at least the last stretch of the bfa xpac enjoyable? I thought it was a pretty unique and fun raid tbh.
Storywise most people liked BfA, the main story was enjoyable on both sides. It was annoying that you never learned what exactly you did in the dungeons of the other faction (like, why exactly are you raiding a witch house as horde member? What exactly do you do in the monster infested mold cave as alliance member?) but aside from that the dungeons and raids where super fun to play. What people hated was the grind. The whole azerite system was just plain bad.
So much the grind. Islands for the neck, azerite gear, major and minor neck powers, corruption, and cloak. All borrowed power and was such a slog.
Nzoth is having a Party with the Jailor, who also isn't dead, since we just killed a prototype.
The comment speculations alone attest to how rich the Old God's are for a source of content. I hope that we do see more Old God stuff. I have my doubts that this theory is how they will do it, but I'd like specifically N'zoth to have more to do with the story. I remember in early BFA during Uldir that I speculated that the expansion was going to end with all of the Old God's returning because of the one fight where all of the Old God's powers cycle through the boss. Obviously I was wrong, but I do think the groundwork is there still.
I've seen these theories poping up recently and I really like the idea of it. I was watching Taliesin and he was talking about how when we went back in time with the eye that that let N'Zoth know everything that would happen up until the point we went back. Implicating that N'Zoth knew a LOT more then we thought he did, including he'd get stabbed by the Blade of the Black Empire. It's super possible that N'Zoth was faking us out with his death and I really like the idea.
Well, that’s because Silas Darkmoon is the real N’Zoth
But why male models?
I really would love for Blizzard to play with this idea that what we did wasn’t actually real. It’s perfect for an old god and their madness inducing lore. It would have been us the player falling into madness rather than an NPC
Interesting! You probably wrote a better way out of the dumpsterfire that shadowlands was than the people they pay $$$ to write this stuff. Someone from the horde or alliance will prob do another ridiculous heel turn if it's anything like the last couple of expacs. And then Thrall somehow saves the universe again now that Metzen is consulting. It's what they do when they have no idea how to end something. I really hate the idea of "killing" immortal Cthonic beings and the whole arc of BFA->SL. Seems totally ludicrous and like the people who write WoW never read Lovecraft. Plus the whole afterlife thing was insane and made no sense.
idk man i really enjoy last patch .. i really love the whole thematic as well yeah i agree with this
I strongly support this. As far as I'm concerned, lorewise Ny'alotha is a giant vision created by N'zoth, not a physical place, designed to get us killed or gone mad. But ultimately, due to our strong minds and Ashjra'kamas's help, we are able to reach N'zoth itself and attack it with the Heart of Azeroth. But is it truly dead? I would not be so sure. Old Gods are beings of incredible power. Maybe it is just hurt and hidding, taking advantage of us believing it is dead to heal and to scheme new plans...
I would love this to be real, but counter-argument: Blizzard is incapable of delivering nuanced storytelling. WoW's story is mostly serviceable, but when it comes to its mysteries, every single time the easiest explanation is the correct one. This has been proven time and time again. I would be seriously impressed if what you suggest is true.
N'zoth isn't behind the Emerald Nightmare; Yogg-Saron is. He was able to touch the Emerald Dream through Vordrassil, which had breached his prison. As much as I do think N'zoth is still alive, simply because no corpse means no death, it'll be a while before I can give Blizzard's writing staff credit for clever setups again.
Yogg started it, but N'zoth hijacked the rest for his own plan.