World of Warcraft: Midnight is a very purple expansion, thanks to its primary antagonist being the Void. There's a big purple beam shooting from the sky in the distance all the time. Most of the enemies are purple. Two out of three of the major raids and several dungeons and delves are purple. And the main villain, Xal'atath, is very purple.
Given all the purple going around, it's not too much of a shock that Blizzard finally brought back one of its simultaneously best-loved and most-hated purple characters for a plot twist at the end of the most recent raid. What is shocking, though, is the news that character delivered: a hint that we might be careening toward a revisit to one of World of Warcraft's most maligned (and only occasionally purple) expansions: Shadowlands.
Warning: Spoilers follow for World of Warcraft: Midnight's story so far, up to and including the cinematic that plays after The March on Quel'Danas. Read on at your own risk.
WoW: Midnight opens with Void harbinger and baddie-of-the-decade Xal'atath unleashing the Voidstorm above the Isle of Quel'Danas in an effort to corrupt the Sunwell and turn it into a void-powered Darkwell. For the majority of the expansion's questing, dungeons, and raids, we the adventurers are trying to find a way to stop her from succeeding, while the Army of the Light holds off the void's influence as long as they can manage to protect the Sunwell.
However, at the end of The Voidspire raid, Xal'atath manages to release the dark Naaru L'ura from her prison inside Alleria Windrunner, and uses L'ura to finish the corruption of the Sunwell, creating the Darkwell. In response, the various armies hanging out around Silvermoon City unite to try and retake the Darkwell from Xal'atath, with the effort taking place in the most recently-released raid, the March on Quel'Danas. The second and final boss is none other than the dark Naaru herself, L'ura, and we manage to defeat her before she can fully make use of the Darkwell's power to ruin everyone's day.
But that still leaves Xal'atath hovering around and making quips and threatening to destroy everyone. Yet another confrontation with her plays out in which she has the upper hand (this happens a lot), but she's interrupted by none other than Sylvanas Windrunner, former Horde Warchief, former Ranger General, and night elf genocider extraordinaire. Sylvanas manages to blast off one of Xal'atath's funky void shoulder decorations with an arrow, only for Xal'atath to repair it easily and disappear. Sylvanas cryptically announces to her sister Vereesa and nephew Arathor: "The Shadowlands are not at all what they seem. I cannot rest until I uncover the truth. Still, I hope to see you both again, before the end begins."
Okay?!?!?!?!?
Sylvanas, Revisited
If this isn't having the impact on you that it is on me, let me recap a bit of what's been going on with Sylvanas lately. Sylvanas has a long, long history in the Warcraft universe that would take a whole Wiki article to cover, but sufficient for this is to know that she was a beloved "antihero" character to the fanbase for many years. She's tortured and tragic, but also powerful, noble, ruthless, and dedicated to her people, the Forsaken. Through a series of complex events, she became Warchief of the Horde during a time of tense, tentative peace between her faction and the Alliance. Sylvanas, however, was convinced that peace could never last, and that the Alliance would inevitably come back and try to destroy the Horde. So in response to events that hadn't even happened, Sylvanas made the absolutely unbelievable decision to commit genocide on the Night Elves by burning down the world tree, Teldrassil.
This, understandably, pissed off a lot of Sylvanas fans (and haters!). Sylvanas had always been ruthless, calculating, and cynical. But outright, remorseless genocide was never something they had considered to be within her character description. In the ensuing chapters of the story, both Alliance and pissed off Horde members chase her around for awhile, at one point laying siege to the Forsaken capital Lordaeron, where Sylvanas makes another unhinged decision to drown the place in Blight rather than allow it to be taken. All the while, Sylvanas keeps making cryptic comments about Death and her "master" and how one day everyone will understand why she's doing what she's doing, etc.
After she demolishes two beloved capital cities, it is eventually revealed that Sylvanas has been working for some evil being called the Jailer who rules the Shadowlands, the realm of death and the titular setting of the Shadowlands expansion. Her goal, which she also thinks is the Jailer's, is to subvert death and restore true free will to everyone in the world. Surprise surprise, the Jailer is evil and actually just wants to subjugate everyone, an obvious fact that Sylvanas doesn't figure out until she's already done tons of war crimes. She eventually agrees to help the heroes defeat the Jailer and stands trial for her crimes, ultimately being sentenced to free the souls in the Shadowlands that she had condemned by her actions until every last one was at peace - a task that could easily take literally forever. She's been down there ever since.
Back into Shadow
Sylvanas' cryptic comments before heading back into the Shadowlands leave us with more questions than answers.
I don't think anyone was surprised to see Sylvanas herself again - she's one of WoW's most recognizable and beloved (at least at one time) characters. But her insinuation that there might be unresolved plot in the Shadowlands is genuinely a surprise, and one that's being met with mixed reactions.
Shadowlands was...not a popular expansion. A lot of that genuinely had to do with the aforementioned Sylvanas story, and the ways in which a number of other previously-beloved characters acted in ways that did not make sense with past lore. The reveal of what happens after "death" in Azeroth ended up weird, confusing, and inconsistent plot-wise with a lot of other established facts about the world, while simultaneously trivializing death in the universe entirely. There was also a lot of "all will make sense when the true plan is fully revealed" going around during that time without a satisfying payoff. Many players were also annoyed that an expansion-long trip to the literal realm of death didn't offer more opportunities to meet more beloved deceased characters and see how they were doing in the afterlife. Yes, we did certainly meet some, but a lot of others were conspicuously missing.
On top of that, Shadowlands had long stretches of time between patches where there just wasn't much to do, and when activities were introduced to keep people busy, they were pretty grindy, boring, and slow, so a lot of people fell off. There was also the Covenant system, which many felt forced them to choose between committing to a story and aesthetic they enjoyed for a lot of the endgame content, or playing something less fun, but more optimal for raids.
Some folks have come around on Shadowlands a bit in the years since, as WoW does tend to have cycles of players disliking an expansion when it's current, then praising it years down the line (see: Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor). But Shadowlands is still broadly spoken of with a sour taste in the mouth. Many players have been happy enough to simply move onto different storylines unconnected from the Jailer or whatever's going on in the land of the dead. It's done, it wasn't great, why bother thinking about it anymore? But with Sylvanas coming back and suggesting something else is wrong down there, players are now speculating that Blizzard is preparing to embark on a journey to salvage those plot threads via a retcon, or at least a recontextualization.
It's unclear what form this could take. On one hand, it could be as simple as doing a Shadowlands Remix in between the next two expansions, ala Mists of Pandaria or Legion Remix. On the extreme end, we could very well end up back in the Shadowlands for an entire expansion or at least a major patch, either in a familiar zone or an unfamiliar one, picking apart what exactly the "truth" is of the Shadowlands that Sylvanas is talking about.
Revisiting Shadowlands, in whatever capacity, would also give Blizzard the opportunity to revisit Sylvanas. She's been out of the picture for several expansions, with Blizzard rightly recognizing the character needed a lore break. But bringing her back in any context, even after a hiatus, is full of challenges. Her personality, motivations, desires, and fears aren't really clear anymore after the plot pulled her in so many different directions for multiple expansions, and bringing her back would require settling on some sort of firm outline of who Sylvanas is, now, after everything. It would also require basically every character excusing the Night Elf genocide enough to allow her to be around in a more permanent way, and an awful lot of players would likely feel a bit uncomfortable with that scenario. Probably the Night Elves, first of all.
Also, not for nothing, but Sylvanas supposedly was being guarded by a big owl. How is she even leaving the Shadowlands without getting into owl trouble? Why did she show up, shoot off one of Xal'atath's decorations, and then disappear? Heck, why did Xal'atath leave when Sylvanas appeared, apart for the fact that she emerges victorious and then vanishes mysteriously at the end of every big encounter we have with her?
In the end, we don't know what Blizzard is planning. Maybe this was all just an excuse to tie Sylvanas back into the Windrunner-heavy plot and offer some path to reconciliation with her nephew Arator (who seems stoked to see her), and sisters Vereesa (who gives her a big hug in the cinematic) and Alleria (who fell into a big void fountain at the end of Voidspire and whose current status is unknown). For all we know, we never see Sylvanas again! Or, as others are speculating, it's all connected, Pepe Silvia-style, and Blizzard is concocting some ridiculous plan that will make all the Shadowlands issues make sense, tie in the current plot stuff with Xal'atath and the World Soul and the Titans and all, and redeem Sylvanas somehow all in one fell swoop. That seems like a tall order to me, but what do I know? I can barely keep all the Dragon Aspects straight.
We're just going to have to sit tight. March on Quel'Danas literally just came out, and upcoming patch 12.0.5's most exciting introduction is a prop hunt mode (though that is admittedly pretty exciting). We've got months of raiding ahead of us before anything Sylvanas- or Shadowlands-related could even begin to manifest itself. We're also, dare I say it, in the middle of a pretty fun expansion generally as far as questing, raids, dungeons, delves, and world activities go. I'm personally fine with letting Blizzard cook on this one... even if I did roll my eyes into the next county when I saw two of Blizzard's numerous tragically conflicted purple women have a brief, inconsequential staredown.
We'll get Xal'atath next time, I hope.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
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