I think if we were ever have a "Time" expansion, dealing with the Infinite Dragonflight, or even as a subtext of another expansion, perhaps Blizzard should just explain it away by saying there's a limited number of timelines. Say, for example, that large catastrophic events cause a disruption of the timelines, so that we can effectively have multiple, but not infinite, realities. And that those realities have to be stitched back together somehow.Perhaps Ner'zhul's act of opening hundreds of portals ripped not only the physical plane of Draenor apart, but also splintered it's place in the "timeline" and caused the alternate Draenor to pop up. Even though Ner'zhul opened the portals much later around the second war, and the AU Draenor timeline begins before the first war - it's timey wimey stuff, just play it off like it fractured at some point before, who cares, it'd make more sense than what we currently have.
The frustrating thing is with a bit of thought (and writers who watch a decent amount of time travel content) it could have been handled just fine. You can't pull an ultimate self soul at the same time as having an afterlife where you are judged, though.
Should've just had AU Shadowlands or make AU souls their own thing that go to the same Shadowlands as the rest of us. Since the Shadowlands are massive and not just the places we'll visit in the expansion, you can just handwave AU souls away as saying they're somewhere else.Even though I'm the biggest fan of the lore you'll find, I usually give WoW lore a break because it's based on games from decades ago that they never thought would become this and they've outright admitted rule of cool trumps all else. These answers were just unnecessarily convoluted though and make things more of a mess.
This doesn't really clear up anything, at least for me.So you have the Garrosh rope, the Garrosh we know was evil and insanely prideful, thus he gets sent to Revendreth, in an attempt to save his soul. Yet there are countless other versions of Garrosh which were supposed to be heroes, or at least better than the Garrosh we see in our timeline. So when that evil Garrosh strain joins the rope again, wouldn't the rope itself be, uh, good? So what happens when those Garrosh's die? Garrosh is suddenly is no longer a workhorse and gets redeemed? Would even the most noble Garrosh be sent to Revendreth first, rather than being allowed in Bastion? Or are those alternate version just irrelevant and is ours the only relevant Garrosh, as the other ones we're only possible outcomes?Then there's the Drakka rope... She's clearly our Drakka, as she specifically mentions her death. Does this mean that AU Drakka still lives, rather than being killed by Yrel's army? Or is AU Drakka dead but just stuck in the maw, as she did die in BfA. Yet when AU Drakka does die or is retrieved from the maw, does the Drakka in Shadowlands just feel a ton of memories pouring in as the souls come together? Also, why is Drakka still green in the Shadowlands? I'm assuming it's to make it clear which Drakka we're dealing with... even though they're supposedly all connected.Which brings us to the craziest one yet, the Chromie rope. She died dozens of times in Legion, does this mean each time a Chromie died, the first dead Chromie would gain those new memories, as they're still one rope? So we now have the living Chromie on Azeroth and a dead Chromie in the Shadowlands, who has all of Chromie's memories, up until the last death we failed to prevent?There's more stuff yet, with Arthas being killed by the infinite Dragonflight before he purged Stratholme or took up Frostmourne, where would he have gone? Same thing with a character like Yrel, MU Yrel should be in the Shadowlands, yet she didn't do any evil, so would she be in Bastion? Yet what about the AU Yrel, who clearly turned on people, even Durotan, who never joined the Iron Horde, which would make her morally dubious, at best.Talk about a can of worms, dude. Complicated questions, indeed. At least in his example of Velen, the character was consistent in his morals, which can't be said for all characters.
Nothing to be confused about, its just Rick and Morty-level kind of storytelling what with infinite realities and parallel universes.
We don't care about Graka lul
Basically, it's a giant mess that can't be explained in a satisfactory way.The rope answer is bull^&*!. Like others have said, how do you get judged for the actions of your other selves? How does your mind not fracture under the burden of having thousands of separate lives and consciousnesses all twisted in to one. How would you for example, reconcile a Draka that loved Thrall and tried to save him vs a Draka that grew to resent him? How do you as a reformed single consciousness cope with the trauma of having died, over and over and over...AU's are going to be one of the biggest regrets Blizzard has from a lore standpoint. Should've made the allied race our Mag'har and sealed off the AU as a "what could've been" but of no further relevance.
The soul of a character from AU merges with the soul of the MU in shadowlands, ok but...how it works for a soul from a character who only exists in AU and not in the MU (like Yrel or Geya'rah, or a Mag'har player) ?WoD expansion brings a lot of bull&*!@ lore impossible to correctly explain... I think it's better for Blizzard to ignore AU for Shadowlands expansion.(sorry for my broken english)
chronicle volume 3 has this to say about timelines:"In all known realms of the cosmos, time flows forward, ever forward. Chaotic energies in places like the Twisting Nether can affect how quickly it flows, but it only flows forward.Once an event happens, it cannot be changed. These events and choices, made up of all creatures and forces in the cosmos, join together like a river, sharing the same reality. Different choices and different possibilities naturally spin off the river of time like small creeks and estuaries, ebbing and flowing for a while. If these shades of what could have been are left alone, they will eventually dissipate into nothing. If efforts are made to preserve them (or alter them), they can indeed remain in existence indefinitely. They can even be made to feed back into the main river—dead creatures can seemingly "live again," and the past (or future) may literally come back to haunt you. This is not a natural phenomenon, and the inhabitants of the main timeway will often find these experiences to be quite alarming.But the only timeway that has a permanent effect on the cosmos is the main timeway. Creatures like the bronze dragons, who have command of temporal magic, can see all the countless tributaries of alternate universes and timelines, and they can even move back and forth along the stream to observe the past and the future.If that main river is disrupted, it could spell doom and disaster. All life on Azeroth depends on time to flow ever forward. Without the surety that the sun will rise and set each day, the seasons would not pass, the cycle of life would become meaningless, and all living creatures would eventually die from being unable to sustain themselves. It is the most sacred mission of the bronze dragonflight to keep that from happening."so i think the only thing that would affect a character's ultimate fate in the shadowlands would be the actions of their main timeline, and the whole rope analogy was probably unnecessary...until blizzard retcons how timelines work again, i thought i read something around the time of warlords of draenor that said azeroth only has one timeline (which is why we have to prevent the infinite dragonflight from making changes to it or Bad Things can happen) while other planets (probably ones that aren't titan eggs, such as draenor) can have multiple existing timelines, but i may be remembering that wrong, and that explanation is pretty messy when it comes to entities from outside azeroth that interact with it such as demons and the like
Ok so all higher planes are only one, with that in mind you can imagine that you are judge based on your overall impact on the cosmos.So while not all Garrosh or Arthas were evil their overall balance is still negative because of their MU counterpart.Garrosh would still have a chance once they beat MU Garrosh sin out of him but souls that go to the MAW are so lost that this isn't a viable optionthat's probably why souls in bastion have to forget their mortal life, they are forgetting every life, some are easier to forget than others, Uther soul was so marked by the events on the MU that he couldn't let go.Now about Drakka she kept MU memories because that's what made her a asset to Maldraxxus in the first place.We need to stop thinking of different timelines as different individuals because they are not apparently, once you died and you are merged with all your "threads" you will know all your actions across the cosmos, some will be more important than the others, but the thing is now you ARE all of them, AU Drakka is not Thralls mother because she is only a thread but SL Drakka is the rope so she is Thralls mother ( she also kept her MU memories but thats not the point )So my final understanding is that once you die you become the rope ( collection of all of "you" ) and is judged based on thatBastion: You have a very noble and pure overall score and is send here to transcend your original existence and be reborn after you let go of your mortal selfs.Revendreth: Your soul is tainted and this taint is so strong that is stopping you from becoming the full rope ( the tainted part is taking control ), you are going to be cleansed so that you can become a fully realized ropeMaldraxxus: One of your mortal selfs was judge as a asset to the ranks of the SL, so that self is brought to the front of the rope so you can serve the SLArdenwald: No idea why you are sent there yet so I can't really commentMaw: Same as Revendreth but there is no salvation for youOther places:Using Durotan as a example, neither of his mortal selfs were specially important for the SL, he becomes the rope and gets to just enjoy his after life in one of the other islands, this is what happens to the huge majority of souls.I don't know if I got everything right, but it seems to make sense to me
People assume that the Alternate Draenor exists in an entire alternate universe but I don't think so. It's just a pocket dimension containing alternate draenor, like someone took outland and wound back the clock. Each alternate dimension would realistically have it's own shadowland otherwise there would be infinite duplicate souls everywhere, it'd be a mess. But because alternate draenor is a pocket dimension it's tied to our own universe since it was people from our universe that actually made the darn thing.
I think they should of used water instead of rope. Think of the soul as a glass of water. When the AU and MU souls combine into the same glass, it doesn't matter how pure either soul could be, one dirty soul can taint the water. This taint has to be "Purified" or "Filtered" and that's why they are sent to their respective covenants regardless of the other contents(AU souls) of the glass, to be cleansed. If the combined glass of water is too far gone it just gets trashed in the Maw (RIP Garrosh that became a great hero, life's not fair why should death be). The Arbiter basically checks the PH levels of the combined souls to determine which covenant they go for purification.Still there are plot holes to that ideology as well. Like what about the memories of AU personalities. I guess it's like when Goku and Vegeta fuse into Vegito you can see characteristics of both people. Or maybe you only see the section of the soul from your universe like the difference between looking out a window versus standing outside and seeing the whole thing. Or maybe we're all just overthinking it and the soul is like Pi. The MU soul makes up the 3.14 and the AU souls are the 1592653589793238*insert infinite* that comes after. Only the 3.14 is what we focus on.I'm kind of reaching a lot trying to justify the idea, but I'm a blizz fanboy and it's the only way I can wrap my head around the thought. At the end of the day it's Blizz decision on how we perceive their game and we gotta roll with it whether it makes sense or not.Also, it's just a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey....stuff