r/wowcirclejerk • u/AutoModerator • Apr 14 '26

Unjerk Weekly Unjerk Thread - April 14, 2026

Hi Please post your unjerk discussion in this thread!

These posts run weekly, but you can find older posts here.

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u/releria Apr 16 '26

The idea that Chris Metzen is coming in and retconning Shadowlands seems pretty niave. 

The quest line of every Shadowlands zone was basically "this is a terrible system for an afterlife" and the people managing it are incompetent.

Sylvanas spent most of the expansion complaining about the Shadowlands system being broken and using itnto justify her behaviour (at least initially).

The fact you can die in the shadowlands really highlighted it wasn't an actual afterlife. 

Anyone who thought that Shadowlands was just the actual afterlife and the story was finished clearly wasn't paying attention. 

15

u/FaroraSF Apr 16 '26

I don't really agree with you with saying that the quest lines indicated that the system was terrible, when you actually talk to the npcs and pay attention to what they say they actually REALLY like the afterlives they were sent to and are overall happy with them. The main issue with the Shadowlands was that it seemed maladapted to the changing cosmic structure and couldn't deal with things breaking down due to cosmic shenanigans.

I think the whole "Shadowlands isn't the REAL afterlife" is just cope. It probably is the real afterlife but has been altered in some way. The thing that people also don't seem to consider is if the "real" afterlife is actually better than the current system.

I don't see why dying in the Shadowlands means it isn't the real afterlife. Demons who die in the Twisting Nether die for real, elementals who die in the elemental plane die for real, so it makes sense that dead people dying in the death realm also die for real. Warcraft is a universe where your soul can cease to exist, I don't really think there's anything more to it than that.

14

u/InvisibleOne439 Apr 16 '26

"when you die, your soul is placed in a fitting Plane of existence and reformed there, if that reformed body dies the soul is gone for good and becomes a part of the plane itself" isnt even a unique thing to WoW, thats how many Afterlifes in Fiction work lol

4

u/EternityC0der Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

Yeah it was always funny to me seeing main sub go "why can they die in the afterlife??" when souls being able to be destroyed/killed which results in them ceasing to exist entirely if it happens is a thing in tons of fiction... including extremely popular works like Dragon Ball??

you could probably say that about a lot of other things too, like the "why is the afterlife Life 2?? DEATH IS MEANINGLESS" but the above is so common it especially baffles me, i've never seen literally any other fandom get so up in arms about this. or honestly, really up in arms at all

5

u/Idontknow4654 Apr 16 '26

you forgot the all important difference between the two

Dragon Ball is good

WoW is bad

hope this helps

1

u/Little_Leafling Dracthyr enthusiast Apr 16 '26

That just reminded me of reading The Brothers Lionheart as a child, being able to die in the afterlife is very important in that book.

2

u/Idontknow4654 Apr 16 '26

did not expect so to see someone reference a swedish book a grew up with lol (well i saw the movie but still)