My belief with the Shadowlands is that it isn’t another realm, it’s another world. Like how souls can be used to fuel things like constructs or be contained in shards, mortal souls have been contained to only funnel to another world to continue their afterlife.

There’s something inherently machine-like about the entire cosmos of WoW, about how the Titans literally created mechanical beings and those of stone to safeguard world souls and the planets they inhabit.

The simplest comparison I can make is a throwback to the Little Robots cartoon where robots make a world for themselves out of scrap and spare parts. Everything is artificial while an organic life exists outside of it.

The day & night cycle becomes nothing more then an artificial light bulb and more “people” can simply be made from the recycled parts which in SL, we see it with how the anima is used as a recyclable power source.

This idea of a machine is brought home more so when you realise mortals wouldn’t be sentient flesh without the organic design of the Void and Old Gods whose “curse” gave us free will and in turn, we were their ultimate downfall for that.

Pyromancer and The Dreaded Expanse have hit the nail on the head far more times than other speculators have.

Void is time. Void is Decay. Void is the inevitable. Void is organic and entropic. It brought sentience and the ability to finally meet The End.

It’s the thing everyone fears most - Death. This is why the only things capable of fighting it was stone and artificial life forms.

The Titans have done nothing but constantly turn old gods and old god spawns into experiments, turned the living into their playthings (Freya).

We’ve used up our Azerite hearts, we’ve used up the pillars of creation, the artefact weapons, We no longer have a guardian, there’s no old gods left in the planet and every elemental lord was imprisoned.

Azeroth is Defenseless.

Furthermore, the Shadowlands has had far more influence then we’re led to believe. Pretty sure it’s had a responsibility in why Draenei, or originally, the Eredar exist.

On Draenor, we’re introduced to the zone known as ‘Shadowmoon’ which in alt Draenor suggests -

- that there was either a connection to Elune at some point or that Arenweald had an influence. We also see huge similarities between the creatures of Adrenweald and the Eredar, most notably the crest and horns on the Winter Queen.

On Argus and continuing into Draenor, the Eredar now known as Draenei had been practicing the art of soul binding, manipulating and using spirits to fuel constructs to be their eternal guardians, which we see in Bastion.

The Eredar wouldn’t be the first race to be influenced by the Shadowlands, either, as we’ve seen it’s dabbling with the events of the Lich King and also Odyn and the creation of Helya’s Valkyrie.

Lastly, to end this thread, while on Argus, players were introduced to the ore known as “Empyrium”, a type of ore whose name stems from “Empyreal”, a reference to the Empyrean or the “highest heaven” in ancient cosmology.