The Process of Demonization

We know that many, if not most, if not all demons in the Burning Legion were once mortal races. In fact, the drinking of the Blood of Mannoroth by the Orcs was, in all likelihood, the first step toward converting the Orcs into a race of demons. The uncorrupted Eredar live on as the Draenei, so we can safely assume that Archimonde, Kil'jaeden, and the other Man'ari were originally blue space goats like Velen or Yrel.

However, those infamous tweets about the nature of demons and the Twisting Nether suggested (though they didn't explicitly say) that demons are all the same demon, regardless of which reality you find them in.

Ok, technically, the tweets only said that the Twisting Nether is universal. It's possible that if were to enter the Nether itself, we'd find a multitude of Archimonde souls from each reality in which he turned evil. They would be able to compare notes, but would still exist as individuals.

If that's the case, then the problem is more or less solved.

But the implication of these tweets seems to suggest something more profoundly strange, and that is that there is only one Archimonde, whose demonic soul rests in the Twisting Nether. The times we've fought him - on Mount Hyjal and in Tanaan Jungle - we've really been fighting a kind of puppet-avatar. A physical body that Archimonde controls, but is not one and the same with.

The problem that arises is that there were clearly once several Archimondes - across the potentially infinite universes, an infinitude (though possible a fraction of infinity, as there could be realities in which Archimonde declined Sargeras' offer) of uncorrupted Archimondes became a single demonic Archimonde.

This actually makes the process of becoming a demon quite horrifying - not that "becoming a demon" suggests anything but that. All the myriad differences between the lives of these various Archimondes would suddenly become a cacophonous discord of memory. A plethora of tiny differences would add up to a confusing blur.

But then again, doesn't that kind of sound like what you'd expect the inside of a demon's mind to be? Maybe they want to destroy everything just to shut the millions of voices up.

This does raise some interesting questions about fate, though. We've taken for granted that there could be some timelines in which Archimonde declines Sargeras, and perhaps Velen accepts his offer.

But given the pan-universal nature of the Legion, that would mean we'd probably encounter this demonic Velen at some point - it would be strange if we hadn't.

So there's also the possibility that the corruption of Archimonde and Kil'jaeden is strongly fated to happen - happening in all universes.

The alternative is perhaps more horrific.

Consider that there could be some universes in which Velen convinced his fellow members of the triumvirate not to accept Sargeras' offer. Perhaps in some of these, the Eredar fended off a subsequent Legion invasion, or perhaps fell to it. Hell, Sargeras might turn around and invade Argus with the very Eredar army he got from the universes in which he did succeed.

But maybe it's not always up to you whether you become a demon. Perhaps there were realities in which Archimonde and Kil'jaeden turned Sargeras down, but as they were transformed into demons, uniting their infinite versions between the myriad universes, even those who had tried to resist were sucked into the Nether to be bound with their less virtuous doppelgängers.

What's horrifying about this is that it's not enough for you to resist the Legion's call. Every version of you would have to be.

So what about Gul'dan?

The end of the Archimonde cinematic makes it clear that Gul'dan's still in the picture. The question is whether Archimonde will use him to create something similar to the Lich King, simply employ him elsewhere, or possibly turn Gul'dan into a demon himself.

And if he does that, what does that mean for our universe's Gul'dan? Our Gul'dan died during the Second War after he tried to take the Eye of Sargeras. But if Gul'dan becomes a demon, would he essentially resurrect his universe-A doppelgänger's memories? A demonic Gul'dan would become not just a copy of the one that created the Horde - he would be that very Gul'dan who menaced the world, only now even more powerful.