Recontextualizing the Shadowlands: a new cosmology

# Explanation:

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This is an attempt to change the lore introduced in Shadowlands to help it better make sense, with a minimum amount of retcons necessary to make it better fit in the established lore, some of it is building on top of what already exists and some is adding some thing behind the scenes to change the perception of characters, with discrepancies being explained as in-universe lack of knowledge, some are of course, actual retcons, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

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# What are The Shadowlands?

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Inspired by a comment in this Sub, i believe The Shadowlands are not the actual afterlife of the Warcraft Universe, but rather the gateway to the actual afterlife, and the zones we visit are merely the administrative sections, serving as a sort of purgatory.

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# The zones:

All zones are actually the physical bodies of Titans or Titan-like beings, that served as predecessors to the current Pantheon, or even the current universe.

Bastion was a feathered creature, as evident in the featherlike qualities of the flora and fauna there, as well as the winged Kyrian. Currently the role of Bastion is to serve as guides and protectors of wayward souls, those that should have passed into the shadowlands and from there to the afterlife, but for some reason stayed behind.

Ardenweald was a tree/nature related being, something like the current Titan Eonar, it's ties to life also served to establish its current role in the Shadowlands, which is to serve as a buffer for resurrection, beings that can die but later return to life do not move on to the afterlife, but rather stay in Ardenweald as they gather strenght or are returned to life in some other way.

Maldraxxus was a being of flesh, probably connected to poison or reformation in some way, it's current role is as the protectors of the Shadowlands, particularly agaisnt incursion for extradimensional beings (Devourers), but would serve as the frontline against any other threat.

Revendreth is an actual purgatory, souls whose sins prevent them from moving on to the afterlife stay here and are purged of sin until they can move on, its progenitor being was a being of the Earth, probably with some connection to blood.

Of course all zones have their own inhabitants, beings created from the primordial essense of its progenitors, as well as the transformed souls of those that decided to stay, in particular those that still had strong ties to reality but were not burdened by sin, could instead join the factions of the Shadowlands according to their personalities and desires, or instead choose to forget in an attempt to move on faster.

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# Who were the First Ones?

In short? Titans.

But not our titans, we know there is a greater threat coming, it is my belief that this is not the first universe that existed, but rather part of a cycle, as Outside forces work to destroy everything there is, the Pantheon uses the last of the strenght to build the foundations for the new universe, if the Titans are the souls of planets, then their bodies fall into the shadowlands to become the landmasses, while their souls still have their own forms and can thus create machinery as we know titans can do (Ulduar, Uldum, etc) in the Form of the Zereths. The bodies of the Titans before them, now free from their connection to the current universe, can then "fall" from the Shadowlands and into the true afterlife.

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# And Zovaal and the leaders?

They are the equivalent of Titan constructs, like Odyn and Thorim, once again we see the parallels between Titans and First ones, in that they create lesser beings to carry out their will while they are absent, created in almost the exact same way as known Titan constructs, although apparently the previous Pantheon liked their creations to at least look fleshy, probably the influence of Maldraxxus.

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# What was then Zovaal's plan?

He simply learned of the pattern of creation and destruction, and understandably afraid of it, wanted to stop it, to this end, he sought to stop the flow of souls from the Shadowlands and into the afterlives, so that every souls had to stay and fight for the universe, he also wanted to obtain the power of the titans to create more landmasses that could harbor this army, or even allow them to choose how they would transform.

The use of Zereth mortis however, being a titanic construct, requiered the power of a Titan to use, and Zovaal being a lesser being could never access it, and had to instead use the power of an actual Titan, a conveniently sleeping one to spoof those protocols and access the mainframe.

Of course this plan did not sit well with the other leaders, who stopped him and casted him into the void, perhaps hoping he would fall into the afterlife, but his ties to the world prevented this, and he hung onto the floating debris of previous cycles that circle The Maw, as the threshold beyond which there is no return is know.

Suspecting this, the Primus went to look for his brother, as he did not want him condemned to cling to lifeless rocks for untold millenia, but instead Zovaal defeated him and imprisoned him with him, where they stayed until recent event.

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# So The Maw as we know it did not exist until recently?

The current Maw was created by the Soul of Argus as he passed into the afterlife, normally the soul of a titan would not truly die as long as their progenitor World existed in some way, instead being reformed inside it, but the extensive damage to Argus (the planet) meant that Argus truly died and moved on, but the fact that some remained meant he could not move to the real afterlife, and neither could he bring his world with him, so instead the power of his soul pulled together all the debris around the Maw, creating the new landmass and plugging the passage of souls.

With this, Zovaal was finally able to work on his plan, he contacted Denathrius who we know from the flashback was sympathetic to him, by this points the shadowlands had stopped working and Denathrius, being a natural schemer, realized that he had better chances of success, or at least survival, by deceiving Zovaal.

Ages ago he created the Nathrezim to serve as his spies among the forces of the universe, to feed him knowledge of reality and thus allowing him to predict what souls were to arrive or what he needed to be prepared for. He lied to Zovaal and convinced him that the Dreadlords had been working for him the whole time, and that he always supported him and had been furthering their cause after since they last met, Zovaal believed him and accepted the Dreadlords into his ranks without questioning it.

Then the current events of the game start, he contacts Sylvanas, who had also fallen into the maw but being unable to pass due to a portion of her soul being still in the living world, she saw only the darkness of the floating debris on the threshold, and conviced her to help him, by weakening azeroth through the mining of her blood, Teldrassil was inconsequential, as the amount of souls coming from a city was nothing compared to the stalled souls of the entire universe.

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# In short?

The Shadowlands is not the afterlife, Zovaal did not manipulate anyone and the First ones were previous Titans.

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Also, this new cosmology means that Arthas was finally able to pass on to the real afterlife after his last connections to the world were severed, when Sylvanas and Uther forgave him, and Jaina had the chance to say goodbye.