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World of Warcraft Dodges a Bullet With the Arbiter's Story in Shadowlands from freeamfva's blog

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is in the testing phase of the expansion’s final major story content, called Eternity’s End. Among the story arcs being concluded in it, Eternity’s End will finally see the seat of the Arbiter filled once more–and it seems World of Warcraft is narrowly avoiding falling into harmful stereotypes with its unexpected choice. Warning: Spoilers for Shadowlands: Eternity’s End below.To get more news about buy wow gold classic, you can visit lootwowgold official website.

In Shadowlands, players discovered the Arbiter, a construct responsible for sorting souls to their proper afterlives, was destroyed due to the machinations of the Shadowlands antagonist, Zovaal the Jailer. During Eternity’s End, Pelagos, a fledgeling kyrian who players met through the story, will voluntarily take up the mantle of the Arbiter and assume her duties.
The cutscenes datamined from Eternity’s End show Pelagos embracing this new destiny as the Arbiter. In the process, he receives a literal glow up–a mixture between his previous form and the massive and elegant arbiter. In the cutscene, it appears he still retains his personality, as he banters with Kleia, and with the player character.

A few weeks prior, World of Warcraft fans datamined the voice lines used in this dialogue, which first hinted at this development. As Pelagos is one of World of Warcraft’s first trans characters, many players were concerned Warcraft was going to force him to “de-transition” by having him assume the female-coded form the old Arbiter used, or would erase his personality in the proccess, functionally killing him off with extra steps. It seems World of Warcraft avoided both of these problematic tropes often used with LGBTQ+ characters, as Pelagos not only retains a masculine form, but his personality and individuality as well.

Though reception is mixed on this story development, many Warcraft fans who are members of the LGBTQ+ community are pleased with this development. Having a trans character not only take the spotlight in such a way, but essentially become a god of death, is not something people get to see very often.

Others are less pleased with this story beat. Though all players meet Pelagos during the Shadowlands story, only players who choose the Kyrian covenant get to know him, or even discover he is trans in the first place. Many claim the choice is out of left field, and that other characters, such as Sylvanas, Uther, or Anduin would make better choices for the next Arbiter. However, it is unlikely any of these choices would have been better received, especially due to the lukewarm reception to Shadowlands since its launch last year. Pelagos’s fate as the new Arbiter may be the best players could hope to expect, but they are free to come to their own conclusions when the story is finalized in Eternity’s End.

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