"Eternity's End": Empty Inside

"Eternity's End" Key Art.

We have reached the end of this saddening path, it seems. Life goes on, for better or worse, and so does World of Warcraft with its "popular" Shadowlands expansion. Similarly to my Chains of Domination coverage, I plan to glaze over some of its key narrative points to simply state an obvious fact of how bad things really are. I'm holding on to this personal bargain to go all the way until the conclusion of all this, and soon it shall be fulfilled.

It's rather curious to see the public transformation in terms of how they view this chapter of Warcraft. The vast majority of people are negative when it comes to Shadowlands for many good reasons, even though here I mostly "bother" with story/lore side of things. Not that it would be new or surprising to you no matter how good you're informed whenever through my posts or other means. Well, I suppose we should get it over with. Don't we?

Exhausting Summary.

Let's begin by reinforcing the points from previous articles. I don't want to repeat myself about the likes of "Fear of Original Ideas" and other key points related to this expansion. I would assume that you're either familiar with that material one way or the other. Shadowlands lacks proper connection to Warcraft franchise. It feels alien, redundant and unfitting to the series. That's one of the points of criticism I've raised towards this expansions and its setting. This is the reason why my posts dedicated to it might seem to be done on surface level or just lack a certain depth to it. Because its true. I guess you can say that Blizzard succeeded for once since they actually intended for that zone to be "as alien as possible"... Probably not in a way some of them envisioned, but hey.

Unlike previous low points of Warcraft, there's no sense of familiarity in Shadowlands. There's simply no reason to care about it, no matter how hard Blizzard "tries" to attach it to game's world. That's why I would mostly glaze over Zereth Mortis. Once again, I feel bad for their art team. They obviously can do so much better, but instead their talent gets wasted (and, potentially, erased) on stuff like this. Another generic "off-topic" "sci-fi-esque" location that favors circular and angular shapes with latter gaining prominent presence in World of Warcraft's visuals since Legion, but really starting to pop-up now. Some might say that its neat that players can walk on writers' texts there, even though their emphasis on that became a meme of sorts. Even if announcement itself is just there.

I know that I've already compared Torghast and Sanctum of Domination to Antorus, The Burning Throne, but the imitation of Legion's last raid doesn't stop with Sepulcher of the First Ones. It becomes even more apparent, as far as I'm concerned. Just looking at it makes me feel like "I've seen it in Legion". They can praise themselves for all the "great work" they've done, for the zone that looks "unique" with balls all around and players talking on water. One part of me hopes that it was just a PR speak for the video, but another wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard developers are being genuine there.

Never Forgotten.

There's nothing really to talk about in terms of "Shattered Legacies" cinematic from narrative standpoint. It's about Sylvanas Windrunner and that's the dead horse I have to desire to poke, not even punch. I simply don't care about her and throwing around jokes about "Nathanos" with his obsession with Banshee Queen is just too easy... I think I referred to him as Blightcaller in some "articles", but you know what I mean. If I'm not invested in the character, storyline or pretty much anything, why bother?

You know what's going on (if you're reading this because I simply can't imagine somewhat not familiar with World of Warcraft to read this: if you are, just close it and never look back), I know what's going on... That can be said about previous posts and this is a fair thing to say, but I'm obliged to follow through in somewhat fair way. Windrunner is one of the symptoms of current direction of Warcraft narrative. I tried to focus on larger picture.

However, what I can say about that cinematic releasing way before the release date of "Eternity's End" was even known? Again, I feel terrible for Terran Gregory and Blizzard's cinematic team here because regression is noticeble here as well. I'm not talking about this weird Sylvanas model that probably consumed most of the budget Activision Blizzard provided them, but other details like reusage of Afterlives footage for a flashback.

Uther the Lightbringer from "Shattered Legacies" cinematic. Taken from Wowhead.

With that out of the way, its Anduin Raid Finale time. Yeah, right... Eh? Sylvanas' unfitting monologue that's just dragged video length? The fact that mastermind like Zovaal didn't know how Shalamayne works? That his enchant was shitty and not able to persist after splitting of the blade? Why they just didn't try to disarm "fallen king" and do the thing? How Anduin wouldn't undergo any changes as a character besides 2-3 "I'm sad" kind of quotes after all this? Yeah, that's all obvious facts about how simply dumb all of this is.

I suppose you are here for Arthas Menethil "cameo"... I don't care. Don't get me wrong, I'll still throw an obvious critique, but (unlike others) I felt nothing after seeing what they did. It wasn't funny, upsetting or "deep". Just there. It's ironic, considering how many people expected Blizzard to mistreat Arthas since they were alluding and making callbacks to him for a while now. Nobody asked them to bring him back, and they actually didn't want to. While its good to see them clearly cutting this expansion short, for some reason they decided to go along with Menethil instead of  just outright cutting him out.

That's really the best way Blizzard could've treated him: just not use Arthas. If you stated that you "do not invoke his name lightly", then stick to your word. Either shut up or put at least some effort to it. If Danuser and his minions really had to use Arthas, they could've used his paladin model from "Realm of Torment" cinematic. Make his reuse Ner'zhul quotes from Ascension cinematic with a couple alterations:

Ner'zhul: "Return the blade. Complete the circle. RELEASE ME FROM THIS PRISON!"

Example: "Return the blade. Break the circle. RELEASE US FROM THIS PRISON!"

...for those sweet nostalgia points as a moral boost for Anduin with or without Varian and Varok. Or just keep him silent while he looks at Jaina, Uther and Sylvanas before fading away without anyone making any noise. No monologues after that. Nothing, just end it there. Don't explain anything because there's no need for it. End it there, for good... or, again, just keep your mouth shut and never bring him up in the first place.

Conclusion.

What about "The Jailer's Fall"? Final bits of expansions' storylines? Like I've said before, it doesn't matter. We don't missing out on anything by waiting for those parts of alleged content just as much as I didn't by not bothering with the events in specific locations of Shadowlands for aforementioned disconnection between expansion and the franchise.

That's it. We are pretty much done here. You know, my perspective on this segment of a post changed multiple times. At first, I had a small hope that there would be something to truly laugh it since that's something I could really use in these dark times. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and it changed to a short moment of sadness. Not for long though. My casual depressing reflection lead to a realization then: it's the triumph of apathy.

Blizzard with its remaining loyal audience have lost. Upon looking at comments and reactions to the latest cinematic, I've seen many of them throw quotes like "This is not the finale, wait for it" or "all of you are like crazy ex who can't let go of their past partner". Steve Danuser already played "just wait and see" card on Twitter. Developers and current fans alike might look down on people like who doesn't play the same or about to quit in a bad way, as some "toxic minority that just doesn't get it". Perhaps they think that they've victorious because of that as it seemingly filters all that "problematic crowd".

However, the truth is different. You know what they say? "You're locked in here with me"? No, we are free. Free from this stupidity, mediocrity and depression. You are locked in there with it. Some of us, like me, will still look back sometimes. Even if we move on to something better, it's hard for some to completely abandon something like World of Warcraft or this franchise as a whole that has played a huge part in their lives. Maybe I'll take a look at next expansion's announcement here. Damn, perhaps mobile Warcraft game would have something catchy to it. Who knows, I don't want to throw around any promises when I'm not sure about my ability to deliver on them.

As it stands, World of Warcraft is moving towards another doom. The doom that will eat those who remained from the inside as something just can't let them go. Unlike those who prefers to remember what Warcraft used to be. Could've been. That's what we will cherish.