from a character storytelling standpoint, this is messy because, for instance if you meet a character in shadowlands who we know, are we getting more of their story, which is informed by their their viewpoint/experiences/memories/deeds/etc? or are we getting the continuation of a different version of that character?for example when we meet draka or cairne, etc, are we getting the story from the draka or carine who we've known? or are we getting the story from a different draka and cairne? since souls from all different versions of characters combine into a single being (sigh) then whenever they speak or act, they could be actions based off completely different characters from other identities/realms who we're unfamiliar with.as one would naturally assume when following any character in any medium, they have an ongoing story from when/where we last encountered them. we know our cairne, but we don't really know other cairnes, therefore if the carine we meet in shadowlands is a combination of different cairnes, then we're not really following our carine's story. we're following a cairn who is a cluster of different carine memories and experiences. and since time doesn't exist in shadowlands, our caine may not actually even be there at all yet, and the version of him we meet could be deceased cairnes from other lives, while our cairne who yes has died, may not have moved on yet to join the cluster of cairnes we're interacting with. he may not recognize bane. if he is our cairne, he might recognize bane but also be distracted by his other/more complete/fully realized/self, including having memories and experiences of other azeroths and sons and wives, etc.and if garrosh is being tortured/kael'thas is lamenting/etc, are the good versions of them suffering in the bad version's body? doesn't seem fair to punish the good ones, but if a single soul is a combination of many versions of that character, I suppose to become a complete/good soul, all versions of it would have to endure/realize that they need to be good before they can rest in a better afterlife.
I knew time travel was a stupid idea, because its hard to pull those off.And now, the whole thing is back to bite them in the ass.
Easier way to understand it: AU Dreanor was a pocket dimension created from our own timeline, once the connection stops, it ceases to really exist anymore.
so if a shadowlands soul contains all timelines of a character doesn't that make it basically impossible to properly judge a soul since theoretically they've done very very evil things as well as very very good things in the infinite realities that they've existed in?
The main problem, I think, is Blizzard have like three separate, cool and fun ideas, but they're trying to have all three be true at the same time, which causes huge contradictions.
Time doesn't matter in the Shadowlands... except in the cases where it explicitly matters, like feeding/resurrecting Wild Gods, souls like Uther's being affected by events happening in the physical world (leading to a plot that seems to be based entirely around what's going on in the physical world), the entire anima drought plotline that we deal with in Shadowlands... etc.
So basically "The One" that starred Jet Li, got it.
That idea of Souls being part of a rope, made up of multiple threads, and Time and Death not being related, that kinda makes me think of the Jet Li movie The One. It actually makes sense, and is a much simpler and cleaner way to deal with it, than having millions of doppelgängers.
TL;DR: Making the concept of AU ion WoD was a mistake, and now we're all paying for it in the lore, so we need to spin weird explanations to ease away from it.WoW lore should not be take too seriously.
The way I thought it worked was more around the lines of when an AU character dies, that character holds a place in the Shadowlands until the MU dies and then they kinda like "fusion" and there's just one version of a said dead character. That is abiding by the theory that "Same matter cannot occupy the same space". I'd think that for example there would be a version of AU Velen in the Shadowlands and if there's a time where MU Velen dies, then said AU would be replaced with MU and all of the other Velens from the different timelines would just boil down to the MU Velen in Shadowlands as they die in their own separate stories.
On one hand, I find it interesting that they may have multiple versions of people there because it would be interesting to see different perspectives where these people really differed from the MU counterparts, the idea of a rope with strands (different incarnations) just kind of kills it for me. It's like that Jet Li movie.