Amazing how the community forgot about the huge amount of night elf lesbian stuff because that old lore about males being dumb sleepy druids and females being Chad Warriors
@@Tutel0093 Most forgot, but the group i gamed with back in those days every dps/melee was a chad female and druids were beta males. Not enough people that came from warcraft1-3 communities could fight the newbs coming to the lore after people seen how great of a fluid combat/quest/character systems were. In those days most people could not solo a regular mob their level. WoW was first game that was a detailed MMO that could solo. Which was what drew me from FFXI.
I remember that in Vanilla when I started most Druids were just male, and basically all the other classes were female. Players came from the games and books and really cared back then.
That wasn't a retcon though. From my understanding, the society just evolved by the time of World of Warcraft. The old society structure is still canon, it's just not used anymore.
That Disc's of Norgannon quest in Uldaman is still one of my favorite WoW memories. I felt like I stumbled onto some deeper mystery. I really couldn't agree more with your comment.
I mean I can kinda understand why you've eventually gotta introduce them. There's only so much lore you can do and each expansion has to be more and more grandiose in order to get people interested. It's the Chekhov's rifle thing. You've eventually gotta expand on shit because people want everything expanded on and then those same players complain when the things are expanded upon. Basically, people don't know what the fuck they want. The best thing to do is accept WoW is cursed to be shit after *insert expansion here.*
@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor The problem is not that they intrdocued them, but that they just changed the BBEG after BfA. They introduced N'zoth as side content to be done with him, before saying: "Well, that's dealt with, but there is a someone you have never heard about who pulled the strings all along!"
They still are, my bet is mostly everything in BfA and Shadowlands has been a fever dream for the player character. The Titans remain at the Top, big baldy in Shadowlands is just a vision, from an Old God.
@@Davivd2 Could not agree more, if only Blizzard had paid attention to how popular quests like that were, and gave us more Titan Mystery....as opposed to everything that happened after 2006.
For vanilla, you also glossed over the whole... "The continent of Lordaeron was overrun by demons and undead, who were still running the place, hence why Admiral Proudmoore even went to Kalimdor" They even outright said during release that effectively they just wrote out the "alliance and horde are working together now" plot point because it got in the way of their faction-based pvp gameplay.
To be fair there are a lot of Undead in Lordaereon still, and Demons roam many zones too. Kalimdor by comparison is mostly a wild place with only small pockets of either in a handful of zones. But the whole deal with Horde vs Alliance was never really explained. We just get to see the consequences of their re-falling out.
I don't think it has anything to do with pvp players. Merge the factions and you can easily explain it away for pvp--gladiator games to hone skills against your fellow citizens. They won't get rid of it because of the super nerd, endlessly loyal paying customer base that is actually invested in their faction like real life patriotism in a warring country. Edit: if they said it, they were blaming PVP players under the guise of supporting them as an excuse to not call out the no-lifers.
It's not because of PvP fame modes. It's because of the factional system. So yes battlegrounds and PvP you can explain away but war efforts, RP, story, zones and even open world pvp wouldn't make any sense if the factions were combined
I always saw it as the sides are officially "working together" but there's still a lot of bad blood between individuals. And if you happen to see someone flying a blue banner around Tarren Mill, it was my duty for the fallen members of the Horde to make sure that pinkskin pays.
In Warcraft III it's not really stated either way. It was always just kinda an assumption. He was just thrown to the ground and then nothing really after that (I think Arthas might have mentioned something to some dudes, don't remember). In Wrath it wasn't really a retcon, more of a "here's the rest of the story". He had amnesia, but regained his memory slowly over time.
@@alligraham31 they played a death animation in that sequence. In wc3 to my knowledge every single time a character got a death animation they were dead. So I don't think it's irrational to assume that Muradin died
He was even considered death by the other dwarves when Arthas returned to Northrend. Arthas himself never told the other alliance people thatMuradin was hit by a giant fucking boulder. So I assumed they found his body.
_"So, how many retcons do you want?"_ Vanilla: "Gimme a few." TBC: "I'll have what he's having in a bigger size." Wrath: "I'm on a diet." Cata: "I'm allergic." MoP: "I'm vegan." Legion: "Whatever one's your biggest." BFA: "I'm on a budget." Shadowlands: "I'll take the house special." WoD: *"Yes."*
Because they are entertaining books. The War of the Ancients trilogy is still a really good fantasy Trilogy on its own. TBH they should just do that more with the books, focus on telling a really good story that happens to be at a point in WoW lore. Rather than "Heres what you need to know for the upcoming expansion"
@@BlackDonMetallo I haven't read those. I'll have to check them out! But yeah back then they were written to be a good story and not just something that exists to expand lore. I like the Illidan book but only because of the fact that it just expands on the things he mentioned. Not because it was a good story.
Ironically, they spent A LONG TIME saying the novels were not canon.......and then randomly made them all canon despite the game itself contradicting them a lot.
Yes and no. No, he's actually skipped a lot of stuff for most expansions. Yes, because MoP is still generally the "cleanest". The two main things I'd point to as retcons in MoP are the Zandalari and Garrosh, but these both tie in heavily to Cataclysm stuff. In some ways, MoP's Zandalari story (at least the 5.2 one) was undoing and fixing the retcons of Cataclysm Zandalari. It was a retcon, but it was also course-correcting the story so that the sloppy Cataclysm Zandalari story made more sense. So, debatably, this is actually a point in MoP's favor. Garrosh... is complicated, and it's not *really* MoP's fault alone, so much as a thing over multiple expansions. He was planned to be a heroic Horde character with a character arc (search for the Thread "Blizzard Lies" and you'll see ample evidence of this), but they later went with making him a villain. Arguably, this isn't a retcon, since he was shown being a villain at times, so if you ignored the development he was getting in BC-Cata, it made sense. But ONLY if you choose ignore certain events... and the devs outright saying Garrosh won't be a villain. Over time, some of the development moments for Garrosh were discretely removed from the game or retconned out to try to make it seem like Garrosh was always planned to be a villain.
Lorewise it was the most enjoyable expansion for me. I ve never ever had a moment of frustration when it comes to story. Even Legion had me frustrated couple of times but not MoP. It was brilliant.
People think MoP is bad/dumb because of "haha Pandas" but most of the lore they did throughout that expac was awesome. Garrosh stuff towards the end was kinda dumb since they just made him go full evil out of no where but otherwise a lot of it was sick as hell. The Sha are way cooler than any other Old God threat.
Jar of Pickles not really. The expansion launched with Garrosh's going full evil and large parts throughout it was dedicated to stopping him. The sha themselves ARE an old God threat, but whether you prefer them Yogg'saron, Cthun, or N'zoth is entirely subjective. There were a lot more things than "Pandas dumb" that made people dislike the expansion.
As a long time Lady Vashj fan since war 3, her retcon were more then just "minor changes" like the video implies but destroyed what agency she used to have in that game. Instead of being a selfish person who simply had the same desire as Illidan and Kel'thas, gain more power to ease their thirst, she was first retconned that she acted on the behalf of all Nagas then further more when all of her contribution to the story was just according to old god plans. Her involvment in Shadowlands pretty much sealed that trait to her forever. ...I miss when her character was just the cool evil snake witch of which, even after her death, you would learn some new story about her past in various naga ruins in post-TBC.
Erm, correct me if I am missing something, but nagas were made nagas by N'zoth. And ever since their inception, their allegiance to Azshara herself had been established: Maiev finds the Azshara statue witth a serpentine tail on the ruins of the Tomb of Sargeras, and Vashj herself later tells Kael the Naga were once the Highborne. So the only real retcon is that the naga were made into what they are by N'zoth, and not the energies of the Well as it was previously stated. So "the Old Gods made me do it" pretty much changes nothing, because Azshara was ostensibly acting according to N'zoth's wishes anyways (even though she herself subverted that from the get-go, there is no indication whether her followers were in on the joke).
@@moscanaveia Previously, it was explained that the nagas responded to Illidan's summon in TFT because of "previous highborne debt". There was also questlines about some naga not directly worshipping Azshara, but rather Neptulon, meaning the naga does have autonomy that defies the old gods. And it's not really anything ground breaking to give N'Zoth all the credit, it's just lame characterization that was otherwise more interesting. Just like Illidan's retcon in his novel made him a much more interesting character than just "gone mad after losing in Icecrown". Characters having autonomy over their own decisions is sorely needed in WoW since we already have a sht ton of "corrupted into villain" plotlines.
@@Ryan-sn3uo No. You don't understand. People never have motivation or necessity to commit selfish acts of self-preservation and acquisition of power to detriment of others around them. They have to be corrupted by demons from Hell, Cthulhu or undeath to ever do such a thing. That's just how it happens in real life, I mean, have you seen all those politicians? Then again if you're just cool and awesome enough you can still be corrupted by all those things above and... just don't be evil. Smh.
Honestly, i always just took that as the usual "the commander is given the credit" pattern that happens in history all the time. Thrall as the leader of the Durotar Founding's conflict against Daelin is just credited as "the most important guy present", even though Rexar did all the heavy lifting.
@@joshuakim5240I mean even the most basic Kul Tiran soldier knows what Rexxar did and vice versa with the Orcs, Tauren and Trolls. I honestly think that Chronicles just chose not to go into extreme details as per usual.
The motive for the 4th war, as per the inner monologues of Sylvanas in “Before The Storm”, was to slay entire Stormwind and turn them all to undead. Sylvanas wanted to bolster the ranks of the forsaken this way. She also thought that life sucks and she’s be doing humans a favour by killing them and turning them to undead. This was the end goal. When Blizzard decided on adding the jailer to the mix, they changed it so the supposed plan was to throw more souls into the Maw rather. There was never a good explanation on why her plan shifted and when.
Yes. That's exactly what's happening there. Contrary to popular belief of Demons being mindless brutes, they're actually pretty civilized and have a very robust medical program. They have free full body check ups ever quarter..
@@akshanthakar989 Good morning, sir. Did you get your prostate checked recently? It is widely known in the medical community that continued exposure to fel energy can produce tumours, but these are treatable with preservation of quality of life if you detect them early!
One retcon that always annoyed me was the Forsaken new plague. Most of the forsaken quests in classic wow are surrounding the development of the plague specifically to be used on living and undead alike, including other members of the horde. This is shown several times such as the quest in the undercity to provide materials for an apothecary treating a tauren which ends up killing the tauren. The plan always was "death to the scourge and death to the living" with an all forsaken end game. This culminates with the execution of the plan at the wrathgate and subsequent retcons that Sylvanas knew nothing about this world spanning quest line involving hundreds of her agents and wow guys it was just the legion the forsaken are very pro horde.
I always kind of assumed that Sylvanas was onboard with the plan until Putress decided to make his move too early and did his coup with Varimathras at the same time. Then Sylvannas covered her ass by denying all knowledge of her involvement(which i think it´s safe to say that Thrall didn´t fully trust, considering that afterwards he had his Kor-Kron guards police undercity afterwards). Because if this was her plan, it's weird that she didn´t do more to trap Arthas to ensure his death, or that she would risk fighting a war on three fronts,even with all the troops tied up in Northrend.
Yeah, back when the Forsaken had a very uneasy alliance with the Horde because the Kalimdor races didn't trust them, but having a major foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms was just too big of a strategic boon to let go (with the added benefit of at least keeping tabs on what the hell the scourge is up to after Arthas went to Northrend) and the Forsaken begrudgingly admitting that they are in dire need of protection against the Alliance and the Scarlet Crusade. Like, the whole Vanilla Tirisfal quests were about consolidating their tenous control over the core Lordaeron territories, where they were at open war with the Scarlet Crusade, parts of the Argent Dawn and the Kirin Tor (funny how that just got forgotten too). By the time of Cataclysm, they have achieved that and much more. The problem that there wasn't really any reason for Sylvanas to stay loyal to the Horde after the Lich King was dead (or so she believed) and with a full arsenal of WMDs at her disposal has plagued the lore on numerous occasions. That said, Forsaken lore has been a giant mess ever since Vanilla. Originally, it was stated that they were about half of the entire Scourge, which would be absolutely MASSIVE. Nothing about this is seen or even communicated.
The helm of domination's importance actually has reveal roots in the warcraft rpg books, which predate WoW. The stats given for the lich king specify that the helm of domination grants psychic-style powers as well as necromantic ones, and multiplies the amount of undead the wearer can control. It's page 175 of the manual of monsters, in the original book line. The old WoW books were never absolute canon, but a ton of stuff that is canon appeared in them first.
He sort of said it. He said Retroactively altering the Canon, when it’s actually means retroactive continuity. But that’s nitpicking and it means by and large the same thing. :) good video though.
@Sinsear Yes, Walt Simonson was writing the comics, though it was probably more like he was "scripting" the story and plot that he was told to present (as is usually the case with cross-medium franchise fiction). I cannot think of anybody else at the time besides Chris Metzen who would have had the ability to create and define a character that would be the lead in a title like Med'an was.
@@andrebetita If it really was Metzen, why was Med'an ignored until they could retcon them out with a back-handed joke to whoever conceived such a shameless self-insert?
The worst thing BY FAR imo is how they rewrite arthas' motivation, attituide etc. they make him into a monster, while he was just misguided romantic hero who didnt think twice about sacrificing even himself to save the people
@@bsherman8236 But he wasn't. He was still his own character in the undead campaigns, people just seem to forget for some reason. Turning Sylvanas was 100% Arthas, not Ner'zhul's influence. He still showed plenty of wit, creativity, and tactical prowess as a Death Knight, which is why Ner'zhul chose him as his champion and host in the first place. The problem with WoW's Lich King is that it removed all of that and just gave us "Big Evil Bad Guy", which didn't fit either Arthas or Ner'zhul's characters.
@@AmericanZergling yes he was. And people don't forget. His was the first soul frostmourne claimed, thus had has no moral responsibility for anything that follows. His story really should have ended when he ascended the frozen throne and become one with the existing Lich King. But shitty writers made it all about Arthas, 20 something prince that somehow was more powerful than everyone else.
@@AtheismF7W His morality was gone, but his character was still a character. My problem with Wrath is that while it made it "all about Arthas" the Arthas we got wasn't even Arthas. The character in Warcraft 3, the snark, the sadism, bluntness, frustration, even in cases trust and companionship with Kel'thuzad and Anub'arak were not present in Wrath. In Wrath he was just evil for the sake of evil, wanted to take over the world for no reason, and made dumb decisions only for the purpose of MMO quest design. For a story focused on Arthas, they did a poor job translating his actual character. And of course they did Ner'zhul dirty too. Ner'zhul, like Arthas, is also a character Blizzard go back and forth on and still somehow becomes generically evil too, despite having no real motivation to do so. He isn't Gul'dan, but Blizzard keeps writing him as if he is.
The flying buttress is how I finally learned all the lore, Highly recommended. Finished 100s of videos for only a few hundred likes a peice. Deffently deserves more recognition!
Night Elf and Tauren lore was heavily ripped in the transition from Warcraft 3 to WoW. Night Elves pre-WoW were a race where the women are the warriors and the men are the druids / spellcasters in general. Taurens were a heavily shamanistic race like the Orcs (one of the reasons the two races liked each other when they first met), but instead they were shifted to be a druid race in WoW (e.g. major Tauren lore character like Hamuul Runetotem who is a druid). This was all done for obvious gameplay reasons. Horde needed druids and the Tauren were given that role. Rob Pardo persuaded Chris Metzen that lore concessions need to be made for the Night Elf race, again because of gameplay - players should have the ability to play female druids, which is something Metzen was against as it retcons the initial idea and lore of the Night Elfves back then. Rob Pardo talked about how Blizzard games are always focused on gameplay first, immersion and story second. In other words the lore follows the gameplay aspect and not the other way around. This is why in Cataclysm for example, the lore was developed in such a way that we got Tauren paladins and priests, Troll Warlocks, Orc mages, Dwarf shamans, etc... Same thing with playable Undead race as part of the Horde in Classic and later 2 new races in TBC (so that Horde can get paladins and Alliance can get shamans). If I am not mistaken, initially the combat resurrection was supposed to be a shaman ability, but was given to druids instead, because shamans were Horde only in Classic. There was also some uncertainty with Troll lore, their healers - on one hand they have Troll priests, on the other hand they have shamans that use "holy" abilities: Shadow Hunter's healing wave in WC3 which is the shaman's Chain Heal in WoW. In Classic and the expansions up until Cataclysm, Chain Heal used to have a holy effect and sound during the casting of the spell, instead of a nature / watery sound and effect.
I always hated it that they made those race-class adjustments. Back then you just felt special with certain race and class. Since Vanilla I simply refuse to accept Gnome Warriors. I don’t accept Tauren Paladins either, or Nightelf Mages (and so on…)
@@narrahian9713 sort of. The one where Arugal was an arch mage for Gilneas, the fact that there were still people behind the Wall, the size and purpose of it, the location of the Scythe of Elune post-Vanilla, and the development of Gilneas from their Warcraft 2 medieval look to a Victorian era style. One of the few positive retcons that gets skimmed over.
@@narrahian9713 If I remember correctly the worgen curse spreads through bites. So Arugal could pretend he "knew how to make worgen" as if no druidism was needed but he just had worgen in the dungeons where he put humans to be bitten by them to make more worgen to bite even more people. It doesn't retcon much to say the origins were druidic, Arugal just jumped the opportunity to make an army
I personally think it is worth noting that a lot of Warcraft 2 era lore was completely and totally retconned. This is kind of a major topic in and of itself, you cover things like Mogor, but they retconned SO much about what was described in the original Warcraft 2 lore book, which also stems from Warcraft 1. Deathwing in particular is an absolute disaster from a lore standpoint, they had to completely undo and redo a lot of the events that occurred in the games and then in the books, specifically around his events in Draenor/Outland.
I’ve watched most of Flying Buttress’s videos and I usually get a chuckle. Good for binge watching since he does them for a 5 minute length. Highly recommend it if you haven’t checked him out
The part of the titans being dead was actually changed in MoP. To be precise, during the legendary cloak questline, Wrathion eats Lei Shen's heart and gets possessed by this voice that says: "We must protect the final titan.", implying the others are already dead.
Here's a couple major retcons that were missed: * Void and Fel were more closely related (or were possibly the same thing) until TBC, with Shadow likely being the opposite power of Light. This retcon is why Priests used Shadow instead of Void for one of their specs and why Warlocks were allowed to summon Voidwalkers despite them being entities of the Void and not Fel. * Chronicle was retconned from being fact as written by the developers to being opinion as written by Titans in a Shadowlands panel in 2019.
didn't shadow lands also retcon this? From what i remember, Fel magic came from the Dreadlords messing with Void magic after Denathrius put them there.
@@Elipson52008 The Vanilla to TBC retcon of Void/Fel included a stipulation that Void magic was easy for any group to access, thereby preserving the general story of demons helping Old Gods corrupt an unborn Titan to get back at Sargeras for imprisoning a bunch of demons, which just so happened to work too well and the denizens of Fel got a new taskmaster. The Shadowlands retcons of this event are as follows: * Dreadlords were never native demons, but actually servants of Death sent to infiltrate the various cosmic powers. * The Dreadlords corrupted the unborn Titan knowing it would drive Sargeras insane, which would eventually result in a Fel-corrupted Titan which would eventually die which would overload the Arbiter despite the Kyrians having explicit rules to not bring souls of other planar powers to the Arbiter which is exactly what both a Fel entity and a Titan would be. My best guess as to how this could work is that Argus was actually Death-corrupted in secret(somehow), which made its soul "valid enough" to get carried over, but this is not canon lore. I'd give the amount of years of planning ahead this would've taken, but the corruption of Sargeras has not been given a solid date in the Warcraft timeline, and is just listed within the general mythos of warcraft.
Pretty sure it's been stated the "old gods can't die without destroying the planet" was already explained back in MoP. The TITANS could not destroy them because it's like using a manchette to remove a splinter, they just don't have the precise control needed to surgically remove old gods from a planet. However the keepers and mortals of said planet can since they are on a much smaller scale.
So why didn't the keepers kill them ? The story makes no sense if they are killable, but expecting Blizzard after Warcraft 3 to write something that makes sense is expecting too much.
That Aegwynn change still gets on my nerves, it basically reduced her down to a goody two-shoes rather than the missive manipulative whore(who I loved for being so different from the rest) who realized her mistakes. This truly made her a forgettable character. The other change that I hate was Khadgar's redesign. His old man wizard appearance was tied to his character and the loneliness he felt knowing that no woman would ever love him. It truly made me feel sorry for him.
"His old man wizard appearance was tied to his character and the loneliness he felt knowing that no woman would ever love him" He should have figured it out early on considering he had to remain a virgin 30 years to become a wizard, guess chadlocks take another win home. *Here lies Khadgar, he never scored*
It was likely a misguided attempt to remove the psuedo rapey connotations of medivh. I dislike it too, but aside from medan comics aegwynn is a bit character.
ofc? they can't make a character different from their mary and gary stues...smh WOW lore is so soft anyway needs more evil characters doing things from their hearts and not OHNOES I GOT CORRUPTEDZZZ IM ACTUALLY GOOD, does nobody get sick of every single villain just being someone corrupted by another person that was corrupted? zzz no individuality.
You forgot to mention the massive retcons to Deathwing's character which turned him into the cunning schemer from Warcraft 2 and Day of the Dragon to being a dumb meathead who wants to just destroy everything for whatever reason. He got the Mogor treatment, but was actually an important character, and for me at least, the way Deathwing's character panned out was one of Cataclysm's biggest failures.
By whatever reason, you mean when they wrote a whole outline for Deathwing's fall from grace, where he felt he got the unfair share of work from the Dragon Aspects, where he had to tend to the Earth, closest to the Old Gods and their prisons, while his mates got the easy and pleasurable jobs? Or do you prefer a black dragon born evil who put a neat metal plate on his scales and helped the orcs enslave the red dragons, for whatever reason?
I don't remember him being retconned, he just succumb to the old golds whispers. First thinking his actions where his own to then being a feral emo cutter who liked slayer and thought the politics of GWAR were BASED. So it made sense to me or my old ass forgetting something.
@@happytoastfudge being insane isn't a great excuse to completely shift ones ability to make technical and clever choices, more it affects the out comes of said choices. The Joker is a brilliant genius in Batman but a lunatic, he still makes clever downright insane plans but the outcome always ends in people getting hurt/dying. Deathwing shouldn't become a brute simply because hes now insane, but instead act out his typical clever plans but with extremely sadistic, strange outcomes that perfectly mirror the Old Gods wishes... the Old Gods are full of madness and chaos too... so should they be brutish and sloppy as well?
This wasn't actually as bad as I thought some of them were going to be. They're doing the best they can with 20 years of interconnected lore sources! Good video.
You did mention at the end that you covered a few minor retcons you enjoyed, which explains Mogor being talked about over more impactful lore, but I was sad to see you make no mention of the Ashbringer retcon. The quests spanning vanilla and TBC clearly stated that the Ashbringer couldn’t be cleansed but had to be reforged, then in the DK starting quests in Wrath, Mograine simply tosses the corrupted Ashbringer to Tirion and holding the sword for half a second purifies it. It was a major upset in the community considering how few people actually got corrupted Ashbringer and experienced the first multi-expansion quest for themselves.
HOLY SHIT I was thinking about the whole "the Titans were dead all along" thing two days ago. I was thinking to myself "wait, but Algalon said..." It's like you read my mind and made this video for me. Thanks, bro!
I still hate how the twisting nether becasically became the big name for "space." I always thought of the twisting nether as a universe/plain of existence alongside ours but outside what we could see (like shadowlands)
just played some wc3 (not wc3:refunded), and there is one interlude there where we "the dreadlords meet in their keep in the twisting nether"...Yeah, it looks like hell
Except it is no stand-in for Space. The Space is called the Great Dark Beyond, and that is in Chronicles and those charts and whatnot. There have seen spaceships since TBC, by the way, difference being thhey travel through dimensions, not just space. The Nether has always been a different plane of existence, but sort of like the Astral plane, it connected to every point in the Material Plane, and that is why demons could pop in anywhere in the Great Dark and why Sargeras spent his days hunting them down.
@@moscanaveia That's right. The Great Dark Beyond and the Twisting Nether are not the same, although it often had me confused in the past, when it wasn't very fleshed out.
With how many thing that are technically retcons in wow, it REALLY helps that the vast majority of the story is told from character perspective and is then usually just speculation from said characters, not hard facts said by the devs.
A few, ahm, critques: The Sargeras retcon (and in turn, the draenei one) of who corrupted who also changes the fundamental power structure of the WoW universe: previously it was Titans at the top, with demons second and able to corrupt them, with Old Gods somewhere nearby, to Void Lords vs whatever the Light has, to Titans etc. This change, and of course also the creation of the Universe being made from light clashing with Void, changes the "corrupted by inherently evil beings" into "went mad" which is such a tired trope for the Void/Old Gods. The outcome is the same, but it's still not great. Illidan's motivations are basically a 180°. Previously he was just a power-hungry edgelord who was too quick to gobble power and make deals and got burnt for it, but then it's some grand plan to fight the Legion? Not everyone has to be an anti-hero - sometimes, being a villain is fine. Even having Xera narrate his dumb life felt like a betrayal of his character. I don't even know what to say about Kael'thas, it's so lame. Algalon and the Titans was always a weird one, but what does one expect when they make up new lore on the fly? Finally, Sylvanas: if you did pay attention to most of the critique aimed at her motivations and actions, it is that a) she never wanted to be Warchief and b) when she killed herself, she never met an entity that struck a deal with her, she just briedly experienced hell (or something akin to it) until a Val'kyr took her place. So her actions and powers in BfA came out of nowhere. I've heard that Afrasiabi said he knows Sylvanas well and that she authorised the Wrathgate Blight incident, but all sources at the time disagreed with this and stated that Putress acted on his own. You also forgot that they gave Varian and his motley crew the credit for killing Onyxia, which we did, and reduced Marshal Windsor's story to one of epicness to a quick death... so Varian could shine.
@@2dollarchickenwings689 I don't quite follow your rebuttal. I wrote that the demons were inherently evil and made Sargeras mad, not that Sargeras was evil.
Illidan always was an antihero edgelord who tried to help his people and was addicted to power. He still was retconned and a lot more evil, but it is not close to Arthas and Sylvanas retcons.
I’m pretty sure the whole “killing the old gods kills Azeroth” is a misconception based on the Chronicle event of the Titan ripping an Old God out of Azeroth and causing massive damage in doing so rather than just killing one on Azeroth as the players have been doing all this time. It’s apparent that they made the Old Gods tumour like in concept with the whole ‘Azeroth is actually a Titan’ and how Old Gods have growths and slowly corrupt stuff so the comparison between the Titans killing them by ripping them out (wanton dismemberment) and the players strategically assaulting their weakest points (surgically precise operations) can be made. Though technically N’zoth’s death by F off Titan laser kinda contradicts that... It should also be noted that Sylvanas’ Val’kyrs were retconned from Vrykrul Val’kyr raised by Arthas who didn’t wish to be ordered about by Bolvar to Mawsworn Kyrians sent by the Jailer.... who also happened to look just like Vrykrul Val’kyr and do stuff only Val’kyr could do and mention they use to be Vrykrul. Also I’m not sure if they have finished retconning the Helm of Domination but they definitely retconned the whole “there must always be a Lich King”.
Well, the whole val'kyr lore is being tightly knit. They had been a vrykul thing when Arthas learned to copy the ritual to make them, per the original lore. By the time we get to Legion and they introduce Odyn, we get full fleshed out Val'kyr lore, with Odyn ostensibly wanting to steal souls to make the Valarjar, with knowledge of death he gained by sacrificing his eye. Come Shadowlands, we learn Mue'zhala brokered the deal with Odyn, and in the end it is Helya's interference that allowed the Lich King to subvert the val'kyr from Azeroth to his service, just like the Forsworn were corrupted into the Jailer's service in the Shadowlands. This adds and deepens what we previously knew of Arthas' shenanigans - val'kyr are still fundamentally different from Kyrians in that they are created by Eyir (and Arthas) through some reproducible methods from living subjects.
Regarding the Old Gods, if memory serves, the idea that you can't kill the old gods without killing Azeroth originated as how in Classic and early WotLK, it was presented as you outright couldn't kill any of the Old Gods, with even the Titans being unable to do so, with the only example where they appeared to do so with C'thun actually turning out to have been still alive and just having gone dormant for thousand of years to heal from his wounds. Than in the Ulduar raid, it's revealed that the Titan's had access to the forge of origination capable of literally scouring the surface of Azeroth of all life, so the idea that the Titans lacked the firepower to finish off the Titans permanently seemed a silly idea if they always had the option to do that. So in Cataclysm, the idea/fan theory started developing that while the Titans had the ability to destroy the Old Gods, they chose not to, as the potential long-term consequences to Azeroth would be too dire, so it was better to imprison the Old Gods, and slowly work to counteract the damage they had done to the planet. This seem to be supported based off what we saw of the Sha being created from Y'shaarj, and even more so based off what we saw in the Chronicles how Aman'Thul ripping out Y'shaarj creating the well of eternity.
4:34 "in Wotlk there weren't any major retcons" ... You're wrong. The major retcon was Lich King himself. It wasn't the same cunning, scheming Lich King that we know from Warcraft 3, rather an arrogant, bored ruler that wanted to conquer Azeroth for no real reason. Ner'zhul had a bone to pick with the Kil'jaeden, not with the rest of Azeroth. Attacking BOTH the Horde and the Alliance was not bold, but very arrogant, and once again, a plot-driven by MMO needs. The real Lich King would have patiently waited for the Legion to arrive. It just didn't feel like the same character from Warcraft 3.
Kinda wrong on the second bit. LKs motivation as back as WC2 technically (well Nerzhuls) was to set up something against the legion as he essentially got the power to do so moments before his "death"/sealing by forging the helm, plate and blade after his plane hopping. What he would have done is made a slow creeping plot that corrupts and turns everyone in ways from where they are weakest either against their own final goal or eachother before overwhelming the enemy before they get truly cornered... you know, like he did technically three times before WoW.
Remember this was Arthus as the Lich King not Nerzhul. It stands to reason that Arthus would be more arrogant (after killing any influence on himself as Lich King) and prepare an undead nation spanning the entire world (and world soul if he could) to fight the legion. He almost succeeded too if not for Light being super effective against Dark types.
@@hiropisku1078 It was clearly stated back then that Ner'zhul was the dominant one. Arthas was holding him back from using Scourge full force. Where did you come up with that stupid b******t ?
Me'dan is not a Gary-Stu, the player is the true Gary-Stu/Mary-Sue of Warcraft universe. The player pretty much is the only one who can solve every crisis that the rest of the characters. We manage to defeat Archimonde despite he was supposed to be so powerful that no even an army of gods can put a challenge to him, and he was so powerful that it took a nuke on a tree to destroy him, yet in Warlord of Draenor, he got down after a couple of beats. Then we manage to defeat the Avatar of Sargeras, Aggramar, and Argus despite a Titan supposed to be so powerful that nothing harms them except other Titans. So! If you ask me, the true Mary-Sue on Warcraft is the players and not Me'dan.
I agree with your assessment of the Illidan novel... I really feel like it tied up the main story arc of the Burning Crusade well, and did a good job of tying it into the Legion storyline.
I've also wondered about the scaling between the Titans, Old Gods and Aspects from the War of the Ancients Novels. Krasus doesn't say that "all the dragon aspects together could easily defeat the Old Gods". He says that if there's anything that MIGHT be able to stand up to the Old Gods it would be the Dragon Aspects. To the best of Krasus's knowledge the Aspects represent the strongest power on Azeroth. He also says that if destroying every demon won't matter if Sargeras makes it into Azeroth, because Sargeras is too strong. We know the Old Gods THINK they can use and defeat Sargeras and Krasus believes they may be right. However, something to keep in mind is that these are all statements made by a character in the books, not by the author or by Blizz themselves. They are also made in different conversations with different other characters days apart from each other. Most importantly; Krasus is set up to be an extremely knowledgeable character but he isn't omniscient. Statements he makes about creatures that haven't been seen since LONG before even the Aspects existed shouldn't be taken as factual Warcraft lore.
Fantastic video! I was most interested in the Sargeras retcons, as I feel they were pretty major and interesting. I wish you had been able to spend more time on the whole 'fell into despair while fighting demons due to their evil and cruelty' vs. 'easily bested and imprisoned demons but felt that the Titans ordering of the universe was unnatural and wrong' vs. 'was actually just using demons while trying to prevent an even worse Void Lord fate.' One thing I was surprised you didn't cover was Muradin Bronzebeard, and how we went from dying in WCIII when Arthas claimed Frostmourne to... not dying... at all.
The fact with Sargeras, that in the original lore he jailed the most cunning demon race (Eredar) and later freed them after he gone mad (partly because he couldn’t understand how evil the Eredar were) when the Draenei got introduced - where it just flipped and suddenly the Eredar were totally chill until they corrupted Sargeras. Like… Huh? Also the original story for WoW was on the website until I think Cataclysm? Or even longer, I don’t remember exactly. But I read it at least ten times when I first started playing as a kid in vanilla because it was so cool for me and well written. 😢
Remember when Sylvanas tried to offer Anduin the choice that she never had and Blizz made sure to give her the most pitiful facial animations ever even though two expansions ago she was trying to bend an entire race of Angels to her will?
Or how one expansion ago she legitimately committed mass genocide and rejected the words of Delaryn, who was set up visually and narratives to be the nelf version of her in the Kalimdor version of the scourging of Lordaeron lol.
Wrath: Garrosh learns to temper his warlust and many blind hatreds while battling against the Lich King's forces. Cata: Garrosh displays full and well what he's learned in Northrend as Warchief, though many of his peers are ignorant to his change of nature and commands, if not outright hostile toward him, because fuck you Garrosh you fought and bled for us so we owe you nothing but death threats. Panda: Garrosh suddenly forgets what he learned in Northrend and goes back to being a warmongering brute, while also now becoming a full-on racist toward anything not an orc, making his ignorant peers look justified in their dislike for him. Warlords: Garrosh remains a warmongering brute to the nth degree, dies like a scrub in a Mak'gora that Thrall cheated in.
Thrall didnt cheat, there isnt a rule saying magic isnt allowed in Mak'gora, that's just a popular belief and it's not true. Each Mak'gora has its own set of rules.
@@ameliel.48 Back before Blizz forgot there were rules to a Mak'gora, the basic rules of a Mak'gora is that the two fighters must be face one another unarmored and basically in the nude, armed only with a single weapon of choice (permitting the weapon to be blessed by a shaman/priest is optional), and can only utilize their natural strength and endurance to overcome the other. Thrall utilized his shamanistic capabilities to overcome Garrosh in their final fight, basically calling on a host of influences outside of what is meant to be a 1v1 duel to win the fight, which is basically cheating. The elements even started to slowly abandon him in the years following this as a consequence of what they perceived as an abuse of their power.
@@DT-267K I was with you until you said Thrall cheated. He didn't cheat. Thrall used elemental magic in every Mok'gora. This was never against the rules because the in one version of lore the rules are decided before the fight, and in the other version... the other version is always ignored. Look at your own list of rules, all of them were broken by both of them. You're essentially arguing that Thrall broke one more extra rule than Garrosh broke. Nobody even said Thrall cheated until *after* the Warcraft movie came out. Then it suddenly became everyone's hot take on lore. Thrall lost elemental powers because of his self doubt and guilt, but even if that weren't the case, there are other issues with it: 1. Thrall called upon AU Draenor's elements. 2. Garrosh was using Dark Shaman against these elements in Nagrand, they're not going to be upset over that. 3. Thrall lost his connection to Azeroth's elements. The elements didn't time travel to inform the elements on a different timeline and planet what Thrall did or didn't do.
Correct me if am wrong, but didn't Maiev basically not care bout what's happening to the world and was willing to let Tyrande die just to capture Illidan? But then she suddenly cares about Azeroth in Legion and frees Illidari just for the sake of it? Am I misremembering that?
Well, a few months later and we can add the blatant retconning of Elune and her feelings towards the Night Elves, along with the retconning of what we were originally told the Night Warrior was. She went from loving the Night Elves as her chosen people to happily ABANDONING them when Sylvanas burned Teldrassil. The Night Warrior is also described to be Elune's Wrath, her vengeance, a power used by the Night Elves to build their old massive Empire [meaning they used this power for WAR], but when Tyrande is about to take vengeance and risk her life to kill Sylvanas, Elune abandons her, only to later say that it's completely Tyrande's choice whether to use this power to kill Sylvanas even if it means losing herself [which is exactly what she tried to do before Elune stopped her]. Elune stops her from making the choice only to later say that Tyrande can choose anyway.
as someone who stopped playing near the end of BFA and is only now trying to catch up on everything, all the motivations are jumbled!! i loved the night warrior ritual quest thing but elune appears to be as indecisive as ever lol. almost like tyrande is being gaslit with the whole "you have a choice [procedes to take choice away] damn you made the wrong choice ig" thing LMAO
Was Gul'dan retconned in Chronicles? It's been awhile since I've read it, but I was under the impression that the new lore we got in Warlords only applied to AU Gul'dan.
No reason for it not to apply to real world Gul'dan. It's not like many Shadowmoon orcs alive today (or undead, let's not forget Ner'zhul's pals were made into liches early on in the Scourge's history) would willingly share the stories.
I personally hate retcons, because when I like something I’ll obsess over it a bit, fit the entire story together as best as I can, and when they change that... it just falls apart.
To be honest though pretty much every retcon made the story so much better and flow better imo. The only really shitty one I think is the old gods being dead and being able to remove them (which honestly I have doubts about really don’t think we killed nzoth at all)
@@BlackenedRainvowPigs I agree with your take on the retcons. Things like Argus and theh Jailer added so much to pre-existing lore. People forget "expansions" are supposed to make the world bigger, yet they always complain about new lore and lore updates both, almost like they'd prefer to endlessly replay Classic and TBC and Wrath until their pants burst and the servers get shut down. And I can't say I am mad about this Old Gods change, though I'd like to know the source of this information because I got the impression it is far from definitive.
@@moscanaveia it’s definitely not definitive just see lots of people in the community sharing that opinion, the reason I think they aren’t really dead though is just the fact that it never was really explained how we were all of a sudden able to fully kill the old gods. Nzoth we went to Ny’alotha so we killed him in “his realm” but none of the other golds were done that way not to mention it just kind of completely ignores the whole we can’t destroy them without destroying the world thing, unless that is explained and I’m just misinformed
@@BlackenedRainvowPigs The full nature of Ny'alotha is up in the air, which suits me just fine. Seems to me it's an illusion created by the Old Gods to represent the fallen Black Empire as it existed in the world before the Titans. But when it spills into Azeroth like it did during the Invasions in 8.3, we can actively fight the corruption. FRankly, the characterisation of the Old Gods was flawless in BfA. I do not mind them being dead. C'thun is just a boring dungeon boss, Yogg has a lot more tentacles (pardon the pun) and pull, Xavius and the Nightmare were very fun to destroy in Legion, but N'zoth's rise and fall left me satisfied, to the point where I am willing to let them go. Also, apparently this was communicated during an interview or something, during Blizzcon, so it is probably not definitive.
There is also another retcon in 'Shadowlands' missing from here - originally in 'Edge of Night' the valk'yr chose Sylvanas to be their champion. Specifcally, they say ""We need a vessel. One like us. A sister of war. Strong. Who understands life and death. Who has seen the light and the dark. Someone worthy-worthy of power over life and death" However, the art book that came with the Special Edition of the Shadowlands has a section that explicitly says the Val'kyr were sent by the Jailer to claim her. So in essence, she was originally chosen because of her strength and it was a deeply empowering moment for her...but now it's been retconned to show that the val'kyr never chose her for that reason after all, and she was just manipulated by the Jailer as part of his larger "plan" (whatever that is)
I think that depends on a point of view. After all Nathanos was manipulated by the dark rangers, that she loves him, but to be honest sylvanas only can feel rage or mostly.
"Along the way, Anya (a dark ranger) implied to Nathanos that Sylvanas had feelings for her champion..." Sylvanas had one champion before she became warchief, that was Nathanos. -Dark Mirror novel
The thing with Sylvanus isn't a "retcon" issue, it is that that built on established lore with INCREDIBLY bad writing, likely in an attempt to be SUPER clever by planning the Jailor reveal years later. Having her be an outright, unapologetic villain motivated by *genuine* care for her people made her one of the best characters in Warcraft. Making her into a panto villain in some vague copypasta of cinematic Thanos was just *terrible* Their continue attempts to explain bad writing are just more bad writing. Could they have sold this EXACT narrative much better? Absolutely. I can totally get behind some 5th column banshee queen driven by her despair becoming some kind of death cult jehadist. But it's WAY less compelling than her original master manipulator, Forsaken nationalist character. And it in NO WAY explains why the Horde would continue to follow her orders when they had ONLY JUST replaced Garrosh. We invade our own capital to dethrone a genocidal maniac using dangerous powers to win the war against the Alliance, but we just... go along with the burning of Teldrassil? It was the kind of stuff edgy teenagers write & Warcraft is RIFE with it. Which is sad because there is so much GOOD writing too (the entire Garrosh/Iron Horde plot? Actually pretty great. He was a villain, but everything he did made sense from his perspective) Maybe I'll be happy with the resolution, but I think not. Especially when I imagine what COULD have been.
having recently played through silverpine and listening to slyvanas, it literally makes no sense that she would be working with the jailer at that point.
Yepp, because if you have a pact with somebody in the afterlife, you sure wanna everybody know that. XD And in silverpine she already has the valkyrs yes? One more point to the lore.
@@aladnyulok32 what was the pact at that point? What good did sylvanas do for the jailer between cata and legion? I'll tell you, nothing because they retconned her so bad it makes her existence in that time frame meaningless to her character motivations of her supposed long game plan
@@DaWoWzer She got valkyrs, if you make an undead character you are being resurrected by valkyrs. She has a new purpose, a direction. If she gets close to power she can feed the Jailer. She got a soul cage (legion) Which Helya gave to her. (We know that Zovaal and Helya are allied). Tldr: She got valkyrs, an end to fight for (not only to free herself, but everybody), she almost got more valkyrs to aid her (Greymane). Btw. you gave me a timeline when she didnt get a lot of air time.
@@aladnyulok32 She never fought to free everybody, it was mentioned in BFA that she was fighting for HER fear of death, which is a massive retcon. Hell, the Cataclysm quest where she's shot in the back implies THAT was the first time she was revived by the Valkyrs and that's why she knew without a doubt that they were the future FOR HER PEOPLE, not for her. They retconned everything she did to make it look like it was for her specifically [even stuff like the Wrathgate and the siege of Undercity in Wrath which was 100% clearly not started by her] and now for Shadowlands, they retconned the retcon to say it was to "free everyone".
The biggest retcon in Warcraft lore wasn't even in WoW, it was an entire game, Warcraft 3. The entire nature of the Horde was retcon'ed from Evil Invaders to misunderstood victims. Oh, and the Entire nature of the Light was retconned out of Warcraft 2!
@@DavidPachón8591 Internment camps were very generous considering what the Alliance had just gone through, especially when you consider how the camps were a factor in fracturing the original Alliance. King Terenas was a kind man; he thought keeping the orcs imprisoned would eventually cure them of their bloodlust and that's why he didn't want them all executed.
So there’s also no “future retcon” about why the Old Gods can die. They’ve already said some dumb line about, “That’s what the Cataclysm was” trying to say that the destructive events of us killing C’thun and Yogg-Saron were that Deathwing would try to destroy the world… but that isn’t what was implied at all would happen. It wasn’t that some other entity would end the world, it was that the world wouldn’t exist any longer if all the Old Gods died out.
Retcons I think get a bad wrap in fandoms sometimes, and I appreciate your more value neutral take. Like there are some poorly implemented retcons in WoWs but retcons in and of themselves are part of how stories have been told since the beginning of time and writers deciding they wanna change things isn't a bad thing. I just think the hate boner people have with retcons have to do how they implement them, and not the fact retcons exist. Great video as always!
Them being a thing "since the beginning of time" doesn't mean it's beyond stupid to create something, have everyone love it and then say "let's change it" again and again.
They dont get crap for nothing, people get invested in the characters and stories they become familiar with, if they change it you're pretty much removing something they liked. Why did people hate when they removed the dialogue when Garrosh calls Sylvannas a bitch?; it wasn't because they are in favour of insulting women or because they have a hate-boner for Sylvannas, it's because that line is probably one of the most memorable dialogues we got out of Cataclysm and did a great job to deliver how intolerant Garrosh was to his authority as warchief being taken lightly. Retcons are necessary because writers dont have an infinite amount of foresight to build a story decades in advance, but people hate them because its a pretty clear sign of "they are making stuff up along the way" and J. J. Abrams has shown the world how quickly that becomes tiresome and any new content has to be carefully considered on how it will fit in the story.
@@Testingthisname WoW is such an old and big universe (in modern standards) that retcons are unavoidable. Rather than criticise them, we can help and improve them.
@@Testingthisname yeah, I just asked. What's your problem? You can't point to a single one so you have to refer to them collectively? They know what they are writing, that's why I'm confused by your statement.
Ner'zhul was never a warlock. Only thing which called him a warlock was warlock order hall other than that its always a shaman heck wotlk CE behind scenes called him a shaman who used dark shamanism. In wc3 it was mentioned that it was frostmournes connection to the frozen throne that gave it power and thats why when illidan damaged the frozen throne and lich king energies started coming out and which caused ner'zhul to take powers from frostmourne to survive and thats why at tft last missions prelude ner'zhul told arthas he will give him all the power he spare and also that was the reason when LK was damaged by illidan in TFT many undeads started rebelling as dreadlord started controlling them, turning feral or gaining sentience. It was said in blizzcon 2019 that dreadlords took the helm/stole and frostmourne nobody gave them to dreadlord but seeing that lich king were jailers herald its most likely again a retcon.
I can name you one retcon. Back at the tomb of sargeras, the Blackrock clan were replace with the Black Tooth Grin clan, which fought the Twilight's Hammer. In Warcraft 2, however, the Blackrock clan fought both the Twilight's Hammer and Stormreaver clans, while the Black Tooth Grin clan remained in Khaz Modan. This retcon was based on Aaron Rosenberg's mistake when he wrote Tides of Darkness. While I found Rend and Main cutting an x-shaped scar on Cho'gall's chest interesting, they could have done that earlier when Doomhammer stormed the Shadow Council and slaughtered warlocks and necrolytes left and right.
But you’ve never said about Blizzard Retconing entire Kul Tiran nation, from noble human island nation with Holy light religion to some weird shamanistic pagans living on one big island.
@@bezel95 I'd agree with you on this normally since its a valid point but Alexstrasza never deals a blow to him only the minor (not even full fledged dragons) drakes we ride on which still shouldn't be enough to kill him considering we slaughter those little bastards all the time.
One of the reasons I stopped buying the Warcraft hardcover books, was because of the frequent story arc retcons. It just started getting too exhausting trying to figure out what was considered cannon and what wasn't, simply because Blizz kept ripping up the playbook and writing a new one, whenever one of their in-house geniuses had a change of heart. For any other franchise, the LORE was the foundation, what would bind it all together and set the ground rules by which new concepts and ideas would be formulated. Blizz used lore like a dish cloth, throwing it out and getting a new one whenever it became soiled from use. It's their lore, they can do whatever the hell they want with it but I sure as hell don't have to buy into it. So, I stopped. It's kinda funny, Blizz really wanted us to read in-game quest text and storyline beats and would feel disappointed when after all their fabulous writing, players would just bypass it but honestly in retospect, why should we pay close attention to something, that by next expansion is going to be tossed out and rewritten anyway? Ya reap what ya sew folks...
There are a few things on this vid that I think have some details painted a bit inaccurately. Although can't really blame anyone; Warcraft lore is a huge gigantic mess. Anyway: 1. The Shaman/Warlock Connection. This retcon actually happens in the "Lord of the Clans" novel between WC2 and WC3. Orc warlocks have been around since WC1 and have remained largely unchanged in description to today. The retcon is that in "Lord of the Clans", Blizz introduced the lore of Orcs having a noble, shamanistic culture BEFORE warlocks twisted them into what we saw in WC1, hence inventing the "orc shaman" but as a thing that supposedly predates the orc warlock. 2. The Twisting Nether. Originally, the Twisting Nether was basically the realm where ALL magic came from -- not just fel or shamanic. Mages channeled the Twisting Nether, too. The holy light and nature (at least the "life" side of nature, not the elements) were not counted as "magic", however, and that's why druids and paladins have no connection to the Twisting Nether. This alignment of powers seemed to slowly get abandoned through WotLK onward, and all non-physical forces started to be considered "magic" and the Twisting Nether relegated to being connected to just Fel (and maybe a mix of light and void) magic. But some things slip through the cracks, as is the case with the Shaman "Astral Recall" ability, where the tooltip still references the Twisting Nether. 3. The Draenei/Eredar debacle. If I remember correctly, Chris Metzen made the retcon and the apology not because of how upset the community was, but because he came out with lore that was so obviously self-contradictory it was impossible not to notice. The "History of Warcraft" document that had been around and was canon during WoW Vanilla said that a demonic race called the "Eredar" corrupted the Titan Sargeras into madness which led to the creation of the Burning Legion. When TBC was coming out, Metzen expanded the lore of the Draenei by saying they were descended from a race called the "Eredar", who were corrupted BY Sargeras. The truth is, as Metzen says, he always meant Sargeras' corruptors and corruptees to be 2 different races, but had forgotten that he already used the name "Eredar" for the corruptors before, which led to him using the name again for the corruptees. He retconned this by making the corruptors of Sargeras be the Nathrezim (Dreadlords) instead.
This is a neat clarification, I was going to comment on the draenei retcon also being that it made Sargeras corrupt the Eredar, when it was originally the Eredar who corrupted Sargeras, but I didn't know it was just a dumb name re-use. Didn't know that it was ever re-retconned to be dreadlords that corrupted Sargeras instead.
I just hate how blizzard just constantly SHITS on the old God lore and ruined their lovecraftian, mysterious nature down to "oh look, alien tentacles!"
I must be remembering wrong, because I don't remember them saying that the Aspects could handle the Old Gods in the Ancients Novel, Nozdormu had 'infinite' versions of himself across all time fighting against their attempt to break free using the Dragon Soul, and he JUST BARELY managed it. They outright STATE that Sargeras entering their world was INFINITELY less a problem than if the Old Gods Break out, as they said, as they wielded power enough to make even him beg for the mercy of death. That doesn't SOUND like if they break out the Aspects would still have things... 'handled' to me. But as you said, this got shitcanned, to ensure that Sargeras continued to be a 'bigger badder' threat in future expansions, the Old Gods got downgraded from Interplanetary Galactic Eldritch Horror's that took the ENTIRE Pantheon's power JUST to seal, because not even their COMBINED MIGHT even when Sargeras was a PART of them, could KILL them, to.... Bugs on Sargeras's windshield he could take out drunk stumbling home from the pub. This was NOT a good Retcon, time and again they've fucked up their own lore and honestly I'm glad I'm done with it, between them middle fingering the player bases accomplishments, and downgrading the various characters and threats to make the next 'big bad' an EVEN GREATER THREAT than Azeroth has ever seen!!!!! OMG FEAR HYPE AND EPICNESS!!! It's just not worth it to invest any kind of enjoyment in it at all anymore.
There is a whole deal with presentation of Broken Isles in Legion that is a retcon, beyond just Warcraft II events being retconned. The first time we hear the word Suramar is from Maiev - telling her troops that she recognises the islands risen from the depths as the city. She receives help from Malfurion and Tyrande arriving to save her from Naga onslaught, after which they move their merry pursuit to Lordaeron - wherein we're introduced to Kael'thas and Kael'thas is introduced to Illidan, as enemy of contrivance even. On top of that, War of the Ancients trilogy establishes all four named Night Elf heroes as Suramar natives. With Suramar not being gone, all four of them would've passed past the actual Suramar, as well as other things like the mountains in Stormheim, and not noticed it (since they are travelling from Kalimdor). Either it is a contrivance of absurd proportions, the team has retconned events of a pretty significant Warcraft 3: TFT mission arc in their head and haven't had time to tell the world how it looks now, or they flat out didn't notice. And, it is true that WoW first seeks to deliver a new experience (and I like WoW's Broken Isles!), but in story-heavy Legion, I expect it not to have a critical error.
7:30 There is Blackrock mountain on draenor aswell, not just azeroth. Blackrock clan took up residence in Azeroth's blackrock mountain after finding out it's name, because they saw it as a good omen. Not retcon, but i can see how it can be confusing.
Not a retcon, more like bad writing... a clan who used a Blackrock mountain for forging... happened to invade near a place ... with a Blackrock mountain... its just not good lore is all.
1:04 Nerzul is a priest, not a worlock. 23:17 We have no confirmation that Sylvanas wanted to be warchief, nor that she was working with the Jailer at the time. We only know that the Jailer had his plans for her, which is why he sent his Val'kyr to convince her to live after Arthas was killed. You left out that Sylvanas' warbringer cinematic was retconned, half a week after release, when they dropped the novel [A good war]
I remember talking with my bf about a lot of WoW lore since he wasn't familiar with anything past WC3, and as I was explaining everything to him and being like "yeah they retconed this and that" he said something that made a lot of sense: "It sounds like each expansion is just an alternate timeline with a few things just slightly different." And now I can't stop thinking about it, it's broken my mind, and now I've adopted that idea too - we know alternate timelines are a thing in WoW, Anachronos explained to us something similar in BFA in a Horde quest line. For example: remember in Cataclysm how Garrosh was kind of seen as this not evil dude and kind of just figuring out the best way to do what was best for the Horde, but then in Mists suddenly became evil? Maybe Mists was the timeline where Garrosh was evil, and the Cata was the timeline where Garrosh was a pretty decent guy. I don't know if I'm making sense but all I can say is this assumption makes a lot of sense and it messes with me every time I'm reminded it's a thing lol
Quick question: do retcons include lore stuff that is from the pov of the titans and that we base our thinking on and we get new/updated information from other cosmic beings? Such as death which was the end of existence but now instead we go to the Shadowlands instead.
Yepp, chronicles for expample is a book written by aninymus author and has a lot of questionable stuff. Even blizz admitted it that chronicles written by unreliable narrator and most party of that book are not true nor perceived by the azerothian mortals.
@@aladnyulok32 Because blizzard themself had anoucned and said chronciles was OBJECTIVE and THE source of lore and correct over all otehr sources It whole thign was meant to eb objective writing of the lore how evrything happend. But they couldnt be bothered to keep themself to it, so then years later they chanegd it.
@@zyella277 So? Its a still valid thing. For example we had hard time in history debunk some sh1t, because winners (more powerful people) write the history. We are still not sure in many things. So yes its canon, its in the lore, but whos perspective? Is the Bible true, because it makes circular arguments, have an unfalsifiable claim and have an anonymus author? Man sure poeple dont learn history.
gonna need to do another 30 minute video about how Shadowlands retcons have changed the pre-established lore, the plotholes they created and questions they have created.
When I read the Med‘an comics for the first time I was blown away by how bad this shit was. Good thing they basically delete the character out of the story
The helm of domination/frostmourne creation is like when designer products are made in China but then givin a final touch in like France to make it so it was made in France lol
You jest, but that fits just fine. Nobody knew about the Jailer because the Jailer didn't exist in previous iterations of the lore, but also because the Jailer wasn't big on advertisement, because he didn't want the other idiots in the Shadowlands to know he had his fingers outside the Maw. So of course the Nathy buddies would lie to Daddy Kiljy about the origin of the magic thingamabobs.
I feel like the Old Gods retcons are the most nonsensical ones. The story was always that we were only facing what amounts to the tip of the fingers of the old gods as they were strong enough to destroy Azeroth itself which was why they were imprisoned. Which is also a secondary reason as to why they couldn't be killed, because in their deaths they would wreak havoc and kill many, and their influence would continue to infest. Y'Shaarj's death was a cataclysmic event which motivated the titans to imprison them. But you're telling me that in the same level that we kill a fairly strong dragon and a botched Ragnaros summon is the same level that we defeat an Old God? And that we would go on to defeat another in Ulduar only to be defeated by the Lich King? At least "killing" N'zoth in BFA makes sense because at this point we're essentially the avatar of Azeroth and even then we needed to be Deus ex machina'd by the heart of Azeroth as we actually lose that fight. But we just walk into their prison, kill the finger reaching between the bars, and that is enough to kill the whole god? Alright.
Please do a second video on all the other retcons people are pointing out in the comments I’ll add one: You forgot to say that when Sargeras killed the Titans, Norgannon managed to craft a spell that made their souls return to the Keepers in Azeroth, but were later found in Antorus as if they were captured by Sargeras all along.
