The Great “Sheablo” Surprise?

Though the Blizzard CMs seem lately to have joined Jay Wilson in his no-Internet bunker, when Bashiok was still visible last week (and busy avoiding comment on any of the key topics) he found time to weigh in with his reaction to the whole Sheablo revelation.

He wasn’t the only one shocked; according to Chris Metzen in the Behind the Scenes DVD, some guys on the team “walked out” of the development meeting when the story guys first revealed this twist. Though presumably they walked back in again, sooner or later.

Reading that and watching the coverage in the Behind the Scenes DVD, I got to thinking… I’m pretty sure I don’t care, and that no one else does either. That Diablo’s a girl, I mean.

We had fun speculating about “Sheablo” following the hints and clues which were first revealed in rough cinematic shots from Blizzcon 2009, and the mystery/controversy really kicked up in Blizzcon 2011 when we got “womanly hips” Diablo artwork, and the developers made their various non-denials (see the Sheablo wiki article for Blue quotes and context on all of this) during show interviews. But as best I remember from fan feedback, no one was really surprised or upset or offended.

We’ve seen Diablo and Baal take over human bodies in the past and transform them into demonic forms, and given the might of the demons it seems pretty irrelevant if the body is male or female. It’s not like boobs slow down the casting speed of the Lightning Hose, and Leah’s vocal cords certainly didn’t restrain Diablo’s lectures from echoing out with the same gravely pitch and tone as all the other demon voices in the game.

I don’t really remember my own reaction, but I’d read (and written) so much about “Sheablo” pre-release that I was expecting it in the game, and thus found the story unsurprising. I’m curious about how you guys reacted, though. (Check out the comments from two older posts for fun with wild theories.) Was anyone NOT following the game at all pre-release, and thus totally unaware of the Sheablo speculation, and thus totally surprised by events in the game plot as they unfolded? What did you think when you found out? I like the idea that Diablo sired his own daughter for repossession twenty years later, as part of his long term plot for heavenly domination. Pity it didn’t work out, and better luck next time.

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BTW, Sheablo and boobs and womanly hips were explained. But what about the mouths on Diablo’s shoulders? Was there ever any in-game discussion of that? As the Prime Evil he took in all the other demon lord essences from the Black Soulstone, but that should have added more than just two mouths to feed. Or were the mouths supposed to represent Belial and Azmodan, as the two most recent additions? If so, why? Weren’t they all just in the same DMV-esque holding cell of eternity along with Meph and Baal and the others, inside the Black Soulstone?