Fall of Deathwing

It is finished. I know there wasn't much time between my halfway submission and my finished submission... but that's because this project has been over the course of three days. Now that I am finished with it I can say I feel fairly good about what I've made.

What you see is Neltharion the Earth-Warder in his final moments, the shadowy evil essence of Deathwing the Destroyer evaporating from his being as he slowly fades into nothing. In his final moments, Neltharion becomes aware of everything he's done, and so though he is able to die with some last few moments of dignity, his heart is weighed down with the guilt of all the atrocities he's committed.

This is a fan concept... my concept, as Blizzard has up to this point portrayed Deathwing as being Deathwing, with no shred of his former self left. In game, Deathwing dies as Deathwing, but as someone who likes a good story, I felt I would like to see a little more as the one and only patriarch of the black dragon flight fades into nothing. I dislike it in plot lines when majorly important characters die and no one seems to notice. The third Transformers movie from Michael Bay was another good example of this... as last I checked Ironhide was a pretty important character, in spite of the fact that none of the other characters seemed to notice he was gone.

It seemed weird to me how none of the other aspects seemed at all phased by his death... almost immediately their focus went to Thrall and Aggra, and the loss of their powers. Anyone who cares about lore like I do I would imagine had an eyebrow raised throughout the entire course of that endgame cinematic event... No matter how many times I go over it, I still have a hard time understanding why their immortal powers chose right then to go away... unless somehow it wasn't enough for them to just kill Deathwing. It'll be interesting to see if Neltharion makes a comeback at some point... I think he could be a very interesting piece of the puzzle when the inevitable confrontation with Sargeras occurs. I guess we'll see.

With the return of Ragnaros, Nefarian, and the double return of Onyxia... I have come to believe that no all powerful entity is ever just dead. Hopefully Nef and Ony are dead though... as unlike Ragnaros and Neltharion... they were born of evil and there seems to be no multivalence in either of their personalities. Again, I guess we'll see.

Per usual... artistic/creative rights to me, concept/character rights to Blizzard.