Blizzcon 2011 Poster Artwork and Sheablo Speculation
Posted 2 November 2011 by FluxBlizzard has finally released the Blizzcon 2011 poster artwork in a high quality digital image (as a wallpaper), and it’s a good chance for us to once again view Diablo and his/her child-bearing hips. Debate about this has raged since the event, with the most obvious conclusion/rumor that a female is somehow possessed by Diablo’s spirit, soul-stone style.
Also note the big, glowing eyes in the top back, which the Blizzard website update says are there to symbolize the Pandareans. (Not to tease something from 
Titan, as some had speculated.)
We can make a lot more informed speculation about Diablo’s form in Diablo 3 though. It’s a bit spoilery, so I’ll put it below the fold. Click through to read about which female seems the obvious choice to turn into Diablo, in Diablo III.
There’s no proof that Diablo possesses a woman, but if he does it seems like Leah is the obvious choice. Some spoilery points in the argument:
- Leah is the only female main character NPC we know of who gets involved in the story and action. (The Mystic doesn’t count.)
- Leah looks to be menaced by and possibly within the grasp of Azmodan in the Black Soulstone cinematic.
- Diablo has a history of possessing humans and reforming their bodies for his use.
- Leah is the daughter of Adria and (apparently) Prince Aiden (who became the Dark Wanderer).
- Data-mined images show Leah with a corrupted form (but looking zombie-like, rather than demonic.)
- This artwork of Diablo has… dat hips. And possibly boobs as well, though the mouths on the shoulders are unaddressed by this theory.
- Chris Metzen puts similar themes/events into all of the Blizzard franchise stories, and he loves to take females and throw them into danger/possession/transformation by powerful enemies. Kerrigan, for instance.
The various Diablo devs, asked about this possibility at Blizzcon, gave very non-committal replies. They must have rehearsed them in advance, since they knew where the fan speculation would run once they showed us this feminine-looking Diablo. Here’s Julian Love speaking to Gamefront:
Julian Love: You know, demons don’t really have a gender.
GF: There’s a theory going around that Diablo may be female, based on the art we’ve seen. With the newly revealed Black Soulstone cinematic, I’m sure people will wonder if Leah will become the new Dark Wanderer and host to Diablo, explaining Diablo’s feminine features.
Julian Love: Play the game and find out.
well it is unlikely for diablo to be transformed from an NPC that is introduced half way thru the game, the character had to be pretty important to make the story dramatic. i cant see suddenly an housewife in town A being transformed……….. So ill say Leah is pretty much it.
It is also kind of late to claim demons dont hav a gender now tho…… i do remember in D2 the prime evils were called brothers. If there is no gender, shud be siblings?
Yeah that didn’t really sit right with me… what about Lilith and Andariel who are clearly female and the fact that Lucion and Lilith are said to be the son and daughter of Mephisto? And how bout the maiden of lust or the succubi? Are they all just female in appearance without actually being the gender? Seems like a stretch to me…
They should just say that the seven Evils are without gender or something like that…
Yes flux it actually says on the post for the artwork that the eyes are the pandaren. At least on the official wow site it does.
Females have been Diablo before
C’mon Blizzard, giving away the ending half way through WoL wasn’t enough, now you have to give away D3′s story in a poster/wallpaper?
agreed… i saw the blizzcon poster last week, and 1st thing i thought was “woah! diablo has hips!”. so the 3 things i could think of was:
1.- diablo is involved in some sort of trans-gender possession
2.- that’s not actually diablo
3.- the artist screwed up and said “i thought diablo was a woman all along!!!!”
this.
There’s a full-body image of Diablo on the wiki. Now, this was pulled directly out of the game’s files, so go figure that the image they purposefully made for BlizzCon looks even more feminine than this one:
http://diablowiki.net/File:Diablo_full.jpg
Hero: Rest, Leah, the beast within you is no more.
Leah: Uhhn…*passes out*
*Hero carries Leah off into the sunset*
This is going to happen at some point, isn’t it?
How about,
Hero: ahhh (moaning in pain)
Sheable: it will all be alright, the world is no more.
Hero: *passes out*
*Sheablo carries of Hero into the newly reclaimed Burning Hells (to mate with him)*
Looking at this I can´t help but think how smart was Blizzard, when during the teaser cinematic, they only showed Diablo´s head, which fans noted was slightly different then previous, but thought nothing of it. Know we know why they didn´t show the entire body.
As far as the debate goes, unless they introduce some new female character midway through the game, Leah seems like the only choice for Diablo to possess. How will that play out and what implications will it have, remains to be seen.
I have a hunch that decard’s adopted niece, the non- believer, becomes sheablo.8O
In regards to the green eyes, this quote comes directly from the Diablo 3 website:
“We’ve updated our BlizzCon Media section with the BlizzCon 2011 Wallpaper! This key art, created by Glenn Rane for BlizzCon 2011, features a trio of Blizzard notables: Thrall, Diablo, and Sarah Kerrigan, in addition to the peering eyes of the pandaren. ”
So yeh, that particular mystery is solved at least. Should probably do this to that segment of the article.
nevermind. see above post. Can’t I delete entirely?