The Shadowlands have been a cosmic mystery in WoW since the concept was introduced in Chronicle. The realm of Death wasn't explicitly mentioned in-game until Legion, and even then, we never got any really solid confirmations of whether we had seen it in-game.
The implication in Chronicle was that, like the Emerald Dream, the Shadowlands were a reflection of the material plane, suggesting perhaps that an expansion set there would be in dark, alternate versions of existing places.
In fact, the implication seemed to be that when we die and travel as a ghost to retrieve our bodies, we're actually in the Shadowlands.
That has not strictly been denied, but it definitely seems as if the Shadowlands are more complex than that. My current headcanon is that the "ghost world" we experience is the kind of "Border Shadowlands" whereas the specific realms, like the new zones in the new expansion, are in the "Deep Shadowlands." (This is borrowing concepts from D&D, specifically the Ethereal Plane, which is where ghosts go, though souls that do move on to their proper afterlives go farther.)
In fact, when player characters die in the Shadowlands, there will be a new look and aesthetic to the "ghost realm." Naturally, this mechanic is necessary for gameplay, but they are changing the aesthetics to show how it's different when you die while already in the realm of the dead. In Bastion, at least, the spirit healer equivalents basically say "hey, don't worry, death is just like a brief nap here."
The Shadowlands are said to be infinite, and are not limited to Azeroth. While we're only going to be exploring five of its realms, plus the city of Oribos (which I'm hoping will be inspired by D&D's city at the center of the True Neutral plane, Sigil,) there are supposedly myriad other afterlives to be found in the Shadowlands, which both opens up future zones in this expansion as well as sojourns back to the Shadowlands in the future.
We've seen a number of afterlife-like realms before, but we've never seen any real confirmation of whether that's what they are. Thros and Helheim feel very much like they ought to be realms of the Shadowlands, and even Ny'alotha feels like it could be one as well - a kind of afterlife for the Old Gods that N'zoth is very happy to pervert into a kind of Rath-style overlay onto Azeroth, much as he had planned to do with the Emerald Nightmare.
In Wrath of the Lich King, we also delved occasionally into the spirit realm, or the realm of shadows. Death Knights and Horde players both traveled here at times - Death Knights to get their mounts and Horde players in Dragonblight when they were aiding Koltira. Meanwhile, Alliance players worked with a Draenei shaman in Howling Fjord to discover the truth about the Vrykul and their relationship with humanity by journeying into the Spirit Realm, where the Lich King was waiting for them (if you got close enough to him without getting hit by his Val'kyr, you got a cool little monologue before he instantly killed you.)
Given that we're seeing the Shadowlands are not a realm of pure darkness and evil - more equivalent to D&D's outer planes than its Shadowfell - it strikes me that much of that journeying through the "spirit realm" could have been through some area in the Shadowfell.
Moving on, another thing that just occurred to me is that in Shadowlands, we're going to have a new currency/resource called Anima. Being the sort of essence a soul carries with it after death, is Anima the "spirit" that maintains harmony between the elements? If that's the case, Azeroth might be the single entity with the very most Anima in the cosmos, and in that case, it would make sense for some malevolent force within the Shadowlands - like the Jailor - to really want Azeroth to die and for her to be sucked into his realm of the Maw. Might that be the gameplan for the big bad here?
Next, we've got some unanswered questions from Legion and BFA.
We know that some spirit lied to Vol'jin, telling him to name Sylvanas as Warchief. Now that we know she's been working with the Jailor since Cataclysm, it seems basically confirmed that he was the one that whispered to him. (I'll confess I don't like that Vol'jin said "few will understand" why he named her, given that he clearly didn't understand either. It's not how I would have written it, but oh well.)
But I'm now less convinced about other notions we had regarding the Shadowlands.
For example, I've always assumed that the Shadowlands entity that Odyn made his deal with was a malevolent figure. But knowing that things like the Kyrians exist - which are explicitly said to be the precursors of the Val'kyr - it actually seems more logical that he gave his eye to them, and then used their magic to transform Helya. It was still an evil thing to do to Helya, but interestingly seems to put most of the real evil of it on Odyn - the Kyrians value dedication to service, and might have assumed he would only use the power on a willing subject, or even himself. I hope to learn more about this in that zone.
We also know that the "Hand of Valor" transformed Vol'jin into his current form. What is that form, exactly? Is he a Loa? We know that there is a Bwonsamdi-themed dungeon in Ardenweald, and so I'm eager to see how the Night Fae relate to the Trolls and their Loa.
Another question, though it's one that I actually don't expect to be answered in the expansion, is how the Light and Void relate to the Shadowlands. While they're clearly setting the Shadowlands up to be a profound and primal part of the Warcraft cosmos, it also seems as if beings of pure Light and pure Shadow might be exempt from them. Indeed, that also might be true of the Arcane and Fel beings. Do dead Titans go to the Shadowlands? Demons certainly don't seem to go there - though if a demon is killed in the Twisting Nether (as we assume, for example, Kil'jaeden was,) do they go here, or are they just annihilated? Where is X'era? Does she only live on in the shards that we used to fuel the Netherlight Crucible? Does her spirit live on in some realm of pure light? Or is there an afterlife for Naaru?
After all, we saw Crusader Bridenbraid saved from the undead plague and taken from the mortal realm by the Naaru. Did he go to the Shadowlands, to some paradise of an afterlife, or is he in some other place entirely? If Uther the Lightbringer is in Bastion, one would think that even the most steadfast champions of the Light still wind up in the Shadowlands after death, and that that isn't a bad thing.
If creatures like Naaru or Demons or what have you don't wind up there, can they still freely go back and forth?
Another big question: Torghast, the Tower of the Damned, is in the Maw, and it's there that we're going to farm materials to make our legendaries in the new expansion. Supposedly, we're going to use the same forge that created Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination (both broken now, so how good a forge can it be? I kid, mostly.) Given that Kil'jaeden made both, does that mean he's been to the Maw? That can't be, as we're supposed to be the first people to actually escape it. Perhaps the forge is instead in Oribos, in which case I really want to know what that was like, for Kil'jaeden to just saunter in there, say "hey folks, don't mind me, just going to make a super evil sword and a helmet that is imbued with so much power that if it's destroyed, it'll totally screw up this entire plane of existence."
Indeed, I actually think Kil'jaeden needs to be a very big posthumous character in this expansion. While he's presumably perma-dead after the events of Legion, the creation of the Lich King not only essentially stole a ton of power from Maldraxxus but also clearly made a huge mess for the realm of the dead. Was that intentional?
In fact, did the Burning Legion want to burn away the Shadowlands along with the physical plane? And likewise, do the Old Gods want to infect it? Would Azeroth as a Void Titan be enough to threaten the Shadowlands?
Yeah, this expansion is opening up a huge can of lore worms, and while I'm sure we'll only get some answers, I'm very excited to have more fuel for tin-foil hat theories.
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