The History of All Major Retcons in WoW Lore

in this video we'll be going over a lot of the Retcon's from wows history, of course a Retcon being, blizzard changing the lore of reestablished events, retroactively making new information Canon, and since World of Warcraft has so many minor retcons, I'm obviously not to be able to cover them all. But I will go over pretty much all the major ones throughout the history of the game.
Video edited by The Flying Buttress
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-The List-
Intro: (0:00)
Vanilla: (0:21)
TBC: (2:14)
Wrath of the Lich King: (4:34)
Cataclysm: (5:42)
MoP: (6:29)
WoD: (7:14)
Legion: (16:36)
BFA: (22:35)
Shadowlands: (24:10)
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[@n7revan829]

Butress note. "They gave Thrall credit for alot of what Rexxar did." THEY DID WHAT!!! No my boy, my badass Mok'Nathal boy...

[@Skollshorties]

I don't really think any of it was actually true considering BfA acknowledged the Founding of Durotar a lot.

[@joshuakim5240]

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.

[@Skollshorties]

@@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.

[@phoenix6890]

By fang and claw they did what!

[@snadderolsen9834]

yeah i was also sad to see rexxar getting his credit stolen when he is legit the GOAT in the horde.

[@al470ex12]

I miss the times where titans and old gods were a mystery… forces beyond the players understanding.

[@Davivd2]

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.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

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.*

[@Mediados]

@@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!"

[@yoremothra9838]

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.

[@yoremothra9838]

@@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.

[@josejuanandrade4439]

You left out two important facts about Me'dan: 1- His voice sounds like a chours of angels perfectly singing in harmony. 2- When he goes to the toilet, he shits marshmallows, like a unicorn.

[@Ishantos]

Hahahaha amazing :p

[@gpturismo]

@@Ishantos Unicorns shit ice cream. Have you not seen the squatty potty commercials?

[@apharys8921]

@@gpturismo Depends how much fiber they've had.

[@itsyaboiguzma2325]

When they retcon something, it makes me feel like "Why do i even read the novels anyway"

[@Chaogod1233]

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]

@@Chaogod1233 not just the trilogy but also its prequal day of the dragon and the 2 standalones lord of the clans and last guardian are excellente

[@Chaogod1233]

@@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.

[@vojtik135]

Nothing from the novels was really ever retconned, so there is that.

[@AzureRoxe]

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.

[@amalekh]

You forgot about night elf whole society structure. Like females being warriors and males being druids which was forgotten in vanila

[@Tutel0093]

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

[@hexxin]

@@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.

[@simonbelmont1539]

@@Tutel0093 No, it is only your fetish.

[@Nebuhalanezar]

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.

[@KorporateKotoo]

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.

[@CantusTropus]

I still remember how original WC3 portrayed Tyrande rescuing Illidan (and butchering the Watchers in the process) as being something between an abuse of power and flagrantly illegal (or at least extremely taboo). Then Frozen Throne came out and we're expected to pretend that Maiev is some crazy fanatic for hating Tyrande, even though Tyrande hasn't been punished or even apologised for killing Maiev's Order.

[@midgetydeath]

She _is_ a crazy fanatic. Her hate of Tyrande is not the cause or embodiment of that.

[@AndreiCaldararu]

Blizz just has a tendency to go "yeah, this person' evil now... We'll think about why later, if we feel like it"

[@AzureRoxe]

And with Sylvanas, they're also doing the opposite. "Well, she's good now, be redeemed".

[@JagEterCoola]

@@AzureRoxe To be fair, they had to pull this 'This person evil now' first. Sylvanas was never really good. As a Sylv fan they really should've just her die from throwing herself off of the Icecrown Citadel at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. That would be a fitting end for the Vengeful Queen, wouldn't It be?

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

Garrosh Hellscream - who did nothing wrong, incidentally - sends his regards.

[@moscanaveia]

@@JagEterCoola Took blibsnarl three years to fill Vol'jin's shoes (with a minor character that barely featured in WoW) after they axed him. Imagine how long it would take to do the same with Sylvanas. I liked the shift of old Sylvanas, a spiteful victim of the Scourge but largely impotent to fight back without heavy assistance (from the Argent Crusade, from Silvermoon, from the armies of the Horde...) into this new Sylvanas, more confident and in control and utterly without scruples as the new questing in Silverpine and all of BfA shows. Does not make for the best written leader to the Horde in the way it was dealt with, she should've stirred up internal opposition way sooner than she did, but still a worthwhile story to tell in my opinion.

[@TheNemesis432]

And it's always some kind of magic corruption which conviently corrupts this person, but not basically everyone else.

[@EnderPryde]

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.

[@andromidius]

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.

[@ec4145]

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.

[@JJJBunney001]

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

[@TheDancerMacabre]

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.

[@EdoardoFacchinelli]

For WotLK retcons, pretty sure Muradin originally didn’t lose just his memory when they found Frostmourne

[@lancejohnson3278]

Yeah, he is definitely assumed to be dead

[@akshanthakar989]

@@lancejohnson3278 I just read on wiki and wowpedia that he is alive but has his memory wiped completely.

[@alligraham31]

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.

[@fiendish9474]

@@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

[@TheMetastasia]

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.

[@nerdbrain396]

Astral recall, the shaman 10 min hearth stone teleport ability's text still reads that you go through the twisting nether, so shamans still have some things to do with the twisting nether

[@Snagprophet]

I'm surprised it hasn't been changed to reference being pulled through various elemental planes. It's like Spirit being considered an element and perhaps that was meant to come into play when fel magic users use souls to power things.

[@fishraposo7192]

@@Snagprophet spirit is basically a "soft element", that works as a pacifier for the other ones. That's why draenor is so wild, it just doesn't have enough spirit (due to not having a world soul)

[@GonnerMax]

@@fishraposo7192 Dont you have it changed? Draenor have much more Spirit than Azeroth, because in Az's Titan soul drain so much of It. Thats why the elementals in Azeroth are agitated and the ones in Draenor are more peacefull. However, that in turn made the plants (evergrowth) more powerfull, and ever fighting the breakers.

[@fishraposo7192]

@@GonnerMax you are right, my bad. I forgot that the elements on azeroth were literally at war

[@Nirax3]

Can I ask you something for clarification? I just got into WoW, most liking the roleplay aspect of it and figuring out my character's personalities and motivations from what I know about the lore. This section of the video was so brief I'm a little confused... I read Rise of the Horde while playing WoD to figure out the identity of my Mag'har Shaman, who I wanted to be an exile from the Shadowmoon clan fighting with the Frostwolves because I liked the original feel of the clan's focus on shamanism, their mystic environment and book!Ner'zhul before everything turned to shit with the legion persuading them into using fel. So: In the original timeline and before the retcon, was the transition from them being shamans to them being warlocks a softer one, meaning they already used fel/spirit (?) as part of the elements and merely focused more on that one 'element'? Because I got the impression that even then the warlock's magic was something new to them, entirely different from what they knew and the warlocks completely abandoned shamanism (though I also have a hard time imagining any element still lending them their powers once knowing what they're up to). The book even describes how the Shadowmoon clan teaches their members to use fel, from then on calling them warlocks instead of shamans. So was the book just written after the retcon or do I still not get what exactly was changed?

[@DavidBrocekArt]

I just like the simplicity of vanilla in a sense, that I like helping simple farmers and fight local monsters. Not flying to space to fight multidimensional space gods.

[@mallios13]

I agree. And to put it in other terms: I miss when Warcraft felt like it was trying to be a fantasy, not a sci-fi comic book rip off.

[@sensaiko]

@@mallios13 you people talk like that wasnt thrown away at the first expansion lol

[@JJJBunney001]

I mean, warcraft has always had Sci fi elements. The whole dark portal stuff is using space magic to allow aliens to Invade Azeroth.

[@Sottoth]

ah yes, the simplicity of raiding an old prison in the middle of a desert full of aliens, filled with with gigantic humanoid insects to kill and lovecraftian eldritch horror

[@francescoporcari8597]

​@@Sottoththat was just the peak of the endgame, the fact is that we got to have a larger picture only after having dealt with the loose ends.

[@abiybattlespell8401]

old aegwynn was better. just showing how medivh was a thing created out of just bad situations on bad situations

[@LongClawzHidden]

Neither good nor evil, but just a very human thing to do. Holding onto power for the sake of power, tripping off said power, coming back down and seeing the ramifications of your hubris happen in real time around you, and eventually coming to accept that you were kind of an asshole and fucked up so that you can finally work on moving forward after having found yourself humbled.

[@abiybattlespell8401]

@Justin Nope naga plz her literal creators are men

[@loganreed9340]

@@LongClawzHidden on the other side, why would council of mages agree to give this kind of power to a such person? Did they have not choice? Or were they forced somehow? This has to be expanded upon to make more sense.

[@adde27]

@@loganreed9340 iirc, from the novel this is featured in, Aegwynn was the only girl in a group of boys, and they were all candidates. It's sort of implied that they were all equally talented, but Aegwynn worked harder: she mastered a spell (or spells) that transmuted one thing into another, so it wasn't a glamour (another boy attempted the same on the fly, and a gnome mage just quickly saw that it was a fake transmuation). This is what set her apart in an evaluation, where it was revealed that at least some of the other boys had looked down on her because she was a girl. So Aegwynn was chosen because she was talented and worked hard: of course, she also had the flaws of being brash, impatient, overconfident and eventually mistrustful of the Council of Tirisfal and decided to take over the succession of Guardians by siring the new one. She even chose Aran for his looks and magical skill.

[@moscanaveia]

@@loganreed9340 Per what I recall, she has always been confident but only became callous because of the haunt she was carrying in her back, Sargeras' influence. That's my head-canon at any rate

[@bradypus55]

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.

[@moscanaveia]

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).

[@Ryan-sn3uo]

@@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.

[@nguyentuition1092]

This.

[@TheNemesis432]

@@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.

[@hmvollbanane1259]

Especially since the original lore stayed true to the overarching theme of the elves being prone to being corrupted by their thirst for power.

[@Skollshorties]

Moira finally calling out Hiru for mispronouncing names gives me so much life.

[@vyntarus9618]

@@alakazamisabeast A very common mistake unfortunately... lots of people misread that word.

[@TheAlexR96]

@@alakazamisabeast thats how I've pronounced it all my life. What is the correct way?

[@alakazamisabeast]

@@TheAlexR96 har ben jer

[@alakazamisabeast]

@@TheAlexR96 cute cat under the motorcycle btw

[@masterboffin]

Don Hiquote has always bothered me to an unreasonable extent.

[@minghaoliang4311]

The Wild Gods/Loas used to go to the Emerald Dream when they are killed. Now they changed it so they would go to Ardenweald before they go back to Emerald Dream

[@hirumaredx]

Yeah they added an extra step. Their death states were never 100% explained and just kinda hand waved, so its more like they just gave it actual rules.

[@jordanread5829]

Wild Gods that took part in Freya's ritual still go to the Emerald Dream, as Ursoc ended up there after he was killed in Wrath. Since he is corrupted and later killed in the Dream / Nightmare. Most likely dying in the dream takes the wild god soul to Ardenweald where it was originally meant to go to as seen with Ursoc. There is a reason why the Ardenweald afterlives video starts with Ursocs encounter in the Emerald Nightmare raid, which takes place in a nightmare version of Grizzly Hills. I believe in Chronicles vol 1 it also stated that not all of the Wild Gods took part in Freya's ritual, which explains why Wild Gods like Mam'toth ended up in Ardenweald and not the Emerald Dream.

[@adde27]

@@hirumaredx A Dev did state that Cenarius was in the Emerald Dream in Cataclysm, so that's a retcon for sure.

[@moscanaveia]

@@jordanread5829 Ysera and Ursoc also both appear on the Rift of Aln after you kill Xavius, and yet in present day both went officialy straight to Blunderweald. One of the few retcons that directly contradict things you see in-game, I believe.

[@Ryan-sn3uo]

I'm pretty sure their souls go to Ardenweald, and from their pods they dream within the Emerald Dream, thus you see them existing in spirit form after the raid, rather than physically like Cenarius.

[@androski5247]

So lore wise, MoP was actually the best expansion they ever made since they barely retconned anything.

[@keelhaulsthingsthatdontmat3877]

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.

[@warhammerguy]

They retconned Garrosh's character development

[@dreamermagister8561]

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.

[@jarofpickles4057]

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.

[@warhammerguy]

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.

[@TheMarko33]

Remember when Alexandros Mograine was orginally one of the founding members of the Scarlet Crusade before it was retconned?

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

That was retconned? Seriously?

[@ianwhelan-miller90]

@@HiddenEvilStudios Yeah, they reconned it so that the Scarlet Crusade was founded kind of as a result of his death. The Scarlets were never *good* but it casts their founding in a far more dark light since they were founded as a result of an intentional murder.

[@---fb4mg]

@@ianwhelan-miller90 I don't think that technically got retconned just more recontextualized. It just wasn't called the Scarlet Crusade before his death. He was still technically a founding member but when he was murdered was the breaking point where it split into two separate factions. The fanatical Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn who thought that the rganization lost sight of its true purpose. So you could say he's technically a founding member of both groups.

[@warhammerguy]

Wow lore has become like some comic books. You need an almost encyclopedic knowledge to keep up with all the retcons and inconsistency over the years. Making it not only incredibly daunting for new fans to get into it, making most new WoW players not even bother with the lore or story of the games. It also turned a pretty straightforward but tightly written story into more and more nonsensical.

[@laius6047]

Exactly why I don't care too much about wow story. I only care about vanilla wow and the story behind it. Whatever happened after that it irrelevant

[@mathewstafford7943]

Even as an old player myself, they've made it so messy that I just take in each expansion as its own bubble. It's the only way I can make sense of stuff, by just assuming things "are this way now," and moving forward. I think it's on purpose. With being able to level in any expansion now and super quick leveling, it would be pretty hard to tell a coherent story of any kind to new players. It seems like their goal is to just make things bigger and crazier now, almost like they are trying to replicate a Marvel Endgame in WoW.

[@LadyDoomsinger]

@@mathewstafford7943 Each expansion is it's own alternate timeline :)

[@AlozarLorandul]

Totally how I feel as well and honestly one of the main reasons I ended up dropping the game. Of course the general gameplay and game design changes were a big part as well, I started to dislike it in Cataclysm (though honestly probably late WotLK as well) but the story is really what kept me going. Yet, every expansion they just wrote things to be worse and worse, changed characters on a whim, retconning everything... I just lost track and didn't care anymore because at a certain point it didn't even feel like the same story. Like, for real, is Arthas at the end of Shadowlands even the same character as Warcraft 3? He used to be, in my eyes, a very tragic villain who was a good person being controlled by dark forces, but then it seems as time went on they just removed that nuance entirely and made him nothing but a cheap villain. Maybe I'm wrong, I already admitted I wasn't able to follow the plot as well after a certain point, but it kind of feels that way... I understand having to make retcons sometimes to make game events make sense, like how for most of the time they kinda just ignored that the player characters existed and had major game events either retroactively done by the major story characters or by "warriors of azeroth" etc... but making such huge sweeping characters reworks every expansion, I don't get it. I think the novels are probably a big part of it, and really when it started to get bad. You hand a bunch of random writers a setting and ask them to churn out interesting titles to make money, and they are gonna take liberties wherever they can. Same thing happens in all the big franchises. Should've left things to Metzen and the core story team.

[@mathewstafford7943]

@@AlozarLorandul Nah it ain't you, a good fantasy story is easy to follow lol. LotR for example. You're right though about the LK and I feel that way with a lot of the main characters. I don't know who Jaina, Sylvanas, LK, Thrall, etc etc are. All these characters are so different now. I get that many years have gone by so it's probably tough to keep things fresh, but now they are unrecognizable to me. The only character I feel somewhat connected to and look forward to seeing progress is Anduin, but we will see.

[@darthvaderreviews6926]

_"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."*

[@Dev_Six]

Now there are more holes than in a cheese.

[@kaelmic7476]

I mean the wod ones were more legion. Late wod was basically legion. Especially from the dev teams perspective.

[@almimi9000]

and wod is a other timeline sooo....yeah easy answer to all wod retcons in second draenor

[@ng-lr4nl]

"I'll have 2 number nines a number nine large a number six with extra dip a number seven two number 45s one with cheese and a large soda"

[@gregsmw]

cata and mists did a FUCK ton of retcons idk what your on

[@belzac]

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.

[@alexander1055]

I rolled my Eyes so hard at that, that they got stuck for a Week.

[@Elearen]

Rip apothecary society rip undercity

[@belzac]

@@Elearen The demons made me do it.

[@Silversteeldragon]

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.

[@Donnerbalken28]

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.

[@Smitty19966]

Blizzard’s like that DM we’ve all had that makes it up as they go.

[@Oboecoffee]

Yes. That’s how you make a game. You make it up. It’s pretend, fantasy, fake, unreal. How else do we make a game?

[@Filip_Agrippa]

@@Oboecoffee "Make it up as you go" means that you don't think the story through before you tell it, but during the storytelling. Basically when you have no idea where your story will be going when you present it.

[@mishab4065]

To some degree i always do this because my players love to fuck around and i don't wanna force them into following the intended story

[@saikanji9570]

To be fair, it's the most efficient way to DM

[@MegaLowkiller]

I really like that you said what a retcon is, cause I had no clue

[@bojanpet555]

U can google it

[@Sintakhra]

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.

[@Oboecoffee]

Also he does not stick to his own definition...

[@Ellthom]

Moira roasting hiru for his pronunciation for her name made me chuckle :D

[@ardedits540]

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

[@sir_weltschmerz]

Sure, we've retconned retcons, but have we retconned retcons that were retconned yet?

[@zennim125]

*look at shadowlands yes

[@moscanaveia]

@@zennim125 Name fingers and point names

[@JaneLame]

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.

[@MrLolguy93]

I can't wait for the next batch of retcons in the future expansion

[@alexander1055]

Sylvanas was never dead. When Arthas stabbed her she actually dodged and he only pierced her Armor. It was a Ruse all along so the Forsaken would not be led by someone Evil. Who is that someone? It's the Servant of a big Villain in an upcoming Expansion.

[@AdrianGrave]

hopefully they retcon Shadowlands ;p

[@kaelmic7476]

What?? The war of the ancients trilogy greatly exaggerating someone's power? I just CANT believe it! Not from a richard a knaak novel! He'd NEVER do anything stupid like that!

[@zazi5305]

You could salt the oceans, goodness

[@kaelmic7476]

@@zazi5305 what the oceans that mafurion moved with his fucking TEARS?

[@adde27]

@@kaelmic7476 You mean the leviathan of power that is Malfurion? He, whose power dwarves leviathans like the Highbornes, could move the ocean, that houses leviathans?

[@moscanaveia]

@@kaelmic7476 So this hack is the source of the "Malfurion-is-more-powerful-than-everyone" movement?

[@modarnwarfare2rull]

@@moscanaveia Yes, people were hating on Thrall for being Green Jesus back in Cata but what Knaak did with Malfurion was worse, he was essentially Superman.

[@exmaarmaca]

So on 12:55 that Satyr was checking if that succubus didn't have breast cancer?

[@akshanthakar989]

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..

[@moscanaveia]

@@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!

[@Sorrowdusk]

@@moscanaveia 😆 I want the succubus nurse to check me out

[@moscanaveia]

@@Sorrowdusk Dr Nathrezu will schedule your appointment, but I can make no promises it won't be a mo'arg nurse instead.

[@RevCode]

@@moscanaveia I had to google what a mo'arg was and now my butt hurts.

[@Kunori]

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.

[@lancejohnson3278]

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.

[@Cat-eu2rc]

I was surprised to see no mention of the retcon for the Nathrezim being made into servants of Denathrius and the Jailer. Possibly, that's how the Jailer got the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne to the Legion in the first place.

[@gabrielreed8039]

Because it's technically not a retcon, all we know about the Nathrezim we learned from other beings who had not crossed over. So, unless you came back from Revendreth, you wouldn't know who their true master is and this would be under the belief that the Nathrezim we're agents of the legion

[@Jaricko]

@@gabrielreed8039 When the lich king was defying the dreadlords and attacked mal'ganis, i would argue it makes no sense for mal'ganis to be on the same side as the jailer. Unless the jailer was just throwing arthas a bone, my knowledge is also foggy of warcraft 3, but i could have sworn it was the dreadlords who convinced illidan to go stop arthas from putting on the helm of domination.

[@JJJBunney001]

​@Jaricko the dreadlords were working for others, that's why there's so much factional strife with them. That's something that's explained by the 2nd campaign in wc3. So not a retcon, just a more in-depth explanation

[@francescoporcari8597]

​@@JJJBunney001 I still find it clumsy. So you're saying that nathrezim were cross faction?

[@vitalii2321]

@@gabrielreed8039 it is a rertcon and a stupid one. Dreadlords homeworld is a planet called Nathreza, not shadowlands

[@Thalaranthey]

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

[@deathkorpstrooper8228]

That pains me the most. How could they even think about that?

[@bsherman8236]

after frostmourne took control of him he was already done as a character.

[@AmericanZergling]

@@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.

[@AtheismF7W]

@@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.

[@AmericanZergling]

@@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.

[@SporeShay]

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.

[@Dogmelter42]

... You forgot one of the better retcons from Cata, concerning Arugal, the Worgen, Gilneas etc.

[@narrahian9713]

You mean the one where the Worgen curse turned out to be created by Druids?

[@Dogmelter42]

@@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.

[@cycy9154]

@@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

[@narrahian9713]

@@cycy9154 iirc he got the initial worgen batch from the emerald dream (i kid you not the night elves imprisoned worgen in there)

[@Sumo-san]

Who give a fuck about Worgens bruh

[@evilsizer4428]

Mogor never had a character in Warcraft 2, he was only referenced in the manual. Also, in the first Orc mission in Through the Dark Portal, there was a group of Laughing Skull enemies with a generic ogre in the middle, who I always assumed was him. The super intelligent single minded Ogre Mage that I believe you're thinking of is Dentarg, a playable hero unit in Warcraft 2.

[@Mantriox]

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.

[@moscanaveia]

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?

[@Athansathefirst]

Cataclysm was a huge dissapointment because of Deathwings reconned personality. He was so cool in the Novels, but such a wasted villian in game.

[@hexxin]

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]

@@hexxin Yeah I agree with this. His madness is growing, which means he's going to be more brutish and sloppy. The cunning is gone

[@captainpotato5108]

@@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?

[@crowely3034]

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!

[@Sanguivore]

Thanks for the recommendation! Always excited to see new game lore channels on the rise, especially for WoW.

[@501stadvisor]

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.

[@robertlupa8273]

Why do we have Orc mages again?

[@501stadvisor]

@@robertlupa8273 same reason why we have Tauren paladins and priests - more race + class options

[@asmrtpop2676]

@@robertlupa8273 if orca can use fel they can handle arcane

[@Nebuhalanezar]

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…)

[@cduncan7797]

@@Nebuhalanezar gnome warriors were a thing in vanilla, too...

[@Corrupted]

who the hell wrote med'an, and why?

[@andrebetita]

Chris Metzen and .... Chris Metzen.

[@andrebetita]

@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.

[@moscanaveia]

@@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?

[@DoftheLin]

@@moscanaveia probably because they waited till Metzen left his role in Blizzard.

[@moscanaveia]

@@DoftheLin Stop projecting. Med'an is not Metzen's creation and Blizzard never used him because he was too shoddily written

[@limontree476]

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.

[@AzureRoxe]

Meanwhile apparently us whacking a tiny portion of them with swords and mortal magic worked.

[@modarnwarfare2rull]

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.

[@uzukiltd.4133]

Not sure if anyone mentioned it in comments yet, but in Shadowlands in a book in Revendreth, "Enemy Infiltration" it essentially confirms that the Nathrezim are serving Sire Denathrius (ergo Castle Nathria), which recontexualizes the Burning Legion and the Dread Lords as serving the Jailor the whole time. Arguably it's the most major retcon that's been glanced over it just isn't widely known.

[@Skund79]

And we already know (or can expect) who the lightforged Nathrezim is

[@Snagprophet]

I don't think that's a retcon, more like more context or specific information as to how the Nathrazim were working with the Legion. They also get around the fact that Nathrazim =/= demon by having various Nathrazim infused with different cosmological energies, like the light in Lothraxxion etc. I kind of think of retcons as a blatant contradiction rather than "they didn't mention this in Warcraft III". But I agree with you they probably didn't make up this lore until more recently.

[@uzukiltd.4133]

@@Snagprophet According to the established lore, as late as Chronicle, the Nathreziem were nothing but Demons. It does explain the origins of the Dread Lords more specifically, but yes it is a retcon the same way the recontexualization of Illidan's and Kael'Thas' stories are retcons.

[@TheAstyanii]

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.

[@Elipson52008]

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.

[@TheAstyanii]

​@@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.

[@ChuckNorris130194]

As a shadow priest I hate it to this day. It sucks that now I have to be associated with this old God garbage all the time.

[@ts45wF3]

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.

[@emeraldcrusade5016]

It was stated that Khadgar later shaved his beard off sometime before WoD.

[@arforafro5523]

"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*

[@kaelmic7476]

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.

[@torturapesnorrarape]

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.

[@vulcanmemes9770]

@@torturapesnorrarape how is better than everyone bring a goody two shoes that has as much character depth as a bucket

[@Low_Score_Boy]

Oh, didn’t tell about retcons with the Emerald Dream and the fact that the Legion is one between parallel universes.

[@EriniusT]

The Legion between parallel universes?

[@loreaver3882]

The Titans and burning legion are outside the multiverse. Meaning in each universe it’s the same Sargeras

[@miketiplady2052]

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.

[@1un4cy]

Sargergas looks like if Malfurion was a fiery demon druid

[@OljeiKhan]

Does that mean... half life three confirmed?

[@reflex1109]

Isn’t that just Fandral Staghelm in Cata? (That isn’t a bad correlation though lol)

[@and1str93]

Aegwynn to Aran: "Oi, mouth-breather! We are making a baby." - this is now cannon. 😂😂

[@Insertnamesz]

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.

[@loganreed9340]

@@Testingthisname what do you do if the original lore is of questionable quality and full of holes itself?

[@Zarotian]

You missed a WoD retcon where they stated that the twisted nether is connected to all timelines. (one of the worst ones)

[@AlexanderForsman]

Not a retcon. It was never stated to be otherwise

[@Mason_____]

Not rly a retcon, just a run of the mill ex machina from a company that is creatively bankrupt because their original team jumped ship long ago.

[@TheLesoro]

@@Mason_____ And you are saying this about the guys who turned Kael'thas into the villain during the TBC and made him boss twice throughout expac (almost same with Anub'arak lol)

[@mokarokas-2138]

It doesn't really count, because it was just a tweet that was swiftly removed and never acknowledged or commented on again.

[@demery1551]

@@mokarokas-2138 But if it doesn't count then our timeline Archimond wouldn't be dead

[@linkzellda]

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.

[@vulcanmemes9770]

He had like mastery on every type of magic

[@linkzellda]

@@vulcanmemes9770 So? The player pretty much can defeat anything.

[@mechogecko3931]

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)

[@Dwarf2005]

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

[@Oboecoffee]

Well that’s on you. YOU thought of it like that. YOU were wrong

[@moscanaveia]

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.

[@Yutani_Crayven]

@@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.

[@anothertarnishedone5960]

The space is the great dark beyond. The twisting nether is a kind of astral plane where darkness and light energies collide, and the realm of demons.

[@Fyrijou]

Sylvanas feels more and more like a writer‘s pet with each new expansion

[@AzureRoxe]

Old Gods were retconned multiple times from what i remember. Originally we DID always flatout killed them, then it was mentioned that we were simply pushing them back since they were nowhere near full power and, if they were, we simply would not have won. Then they said we never even fought the Old Gods AT ALL, we simply fought their Avatars which were barely a sliver of their power and then they finally went back to their original idea of "we WERE always killing them", despite also saying that killing them would kill Azeroth and this part being core to their story even through all the previous retcons. Sylvanas was also constantly shown to be an anti-hero, never a full villain to be hated. We see that she DID love her people and was willing to work with others if it meant their survival. It was also heavily implied that she missed her people, her LIVING people, and knew that she could never go back to them and that the Forsaken were her people now, that she would led them to give them a purpose in a world that wants them dead. Hell, THE RACIAL NAME IS FORSAKEN, she united them because she saw them as being just like her: People whose life was taken away from them and now had nothing to do or live for and she gave them a purpose just as much as they gave her one.

[@BarokaiRein]

As someone who read the wow comics when they were brand new and I was a stupid teenager,I'm so happy they fucking retconned Med'an. Even back then I realized how stupid the character was even as a concept.

[@00Alyx]

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.

[@Thagesthoughts]

One thing I like that's remained pretty consistent is that the dwarves, in both the initial Classic storyline, the Tabletop RPG, and the post-Chronicle timeline, are depicted as doing a lot of the heavy lifting holding the Alliance together and directing its forces productively, with much of the endgame coming from Magni recruiting for strikes into Blackrock Mountain and gathering supplies for the Qiraji war effort. Moira orchestrating most of this to secure power and a better life for the Dark Irons is a rare example of the WoW writers doing a good retcon, because it clearly establishes a throughline with Moira's character (being manipulative and willing to get her hands dirty, but doing so out of love for her son and a desire to see an end to what she views as pointless tribalism among the dwarves). There really aren't many fantasy settings where the dwarves get to lead the charge, and putting the focus on King Chin and making everything in the Alliance "Humans and Friends (I guess, if we HAVE to)" from WotLK onward was a mistake, in my opinion. Stormwind humans are as bland as microwaved oatmeal, and they had to make Varian an abrasive asshole and have everyone else gobble his dick just to make him stand out (but it's ok because he was only an abrasive asshole because magic, and he gets better just in time to be bland for two expansions and die). People can go on and on about 'core of the franchise' all they want, but all I have to do is point at the prequel and sequel trilogies continuing to rely on the Skywalkers being 'the core of the franchise' versus how well-received Rogue One was for why a long-running franchise needs to let that shit go and expand beyond 'the core.' Not everything has to be orcs and humans, and for a blissful few years, the humans had to play second fiddle while they dealt with their own problems and the dwarves got to step up.

[@slyapbg]

Star Wars is about the Skywalker family. It's their saga. It's not at all a good comparison.

[@Kaiyanwang82]

Amazing comment.

[@joshuadonnelly1978]

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!

[@preds43]

Algalon: WHY CAN’T I FEEL ANYTHING?! Sargeras: haha get fucked pussy, I get your leaders’ spirits in chains :)

[@Hissey1987]

Illidan. the Itachi Uchiha of the Warcraft Universe

[@LooterPenguin]

"You know all those innocent people and families he mercilessly slaughtered? Yeah, he was actually completely in the right and justified in doing so. Please like him again" -Writers of WoW and Naruto alike

[@insidetrip101]

@@LooterPenguin They also brought Illidan back from the dead just so you could kill him again.

[@JBrandonMercer123]

@@insidetrip101 Yep. This is the biggest one to me and it isn't even mentioned. Arthas killed Illidan during the battle outside of Icecrown Citadel. They retconned it to be that Arthas beat Illidan up and told him to never return to Northrend. What a stupid change! Doesn't fit Arthas at all. He wouldn't leave Illidan alive. He'd either kill him or turn him into an undead like he did to Sylvanas.

[@azazamat]

Not even close. Itachi faced an impossible dilemma and made an impossible choice for the sake of his brother and the village. Illidan was just an arrogant treehugger, that think he knows best, just like the rest of them. And his paranoia just kinda sorta made him stumble around, until daddy Blizzard had to bail him out cause let's sell demon hunters, woohoo!

[@kleberleite4006]

@@azazamat what do you mean Itachi did something good for Sasuke, he literaly traumatized him for all of his childhood

[@zom8680]

Hope I see Neptulon in this. Gets abducted by Ozumat. (Cata) Abyssal Maw raid gets cancelled Neptulon shows up in Shaman order hall without an explanation (Legion) Me , and everyone else who does Cata timewalking : da fuq?

[@moscanaveia]

Where is the retcon part? Neptulon is kind of like a god. We get a lot of content that sets him up rather unambiguously: Duke Hydraxis, that one imprisoned naga in TBC that says he worships Neppy and not Azshara, and for that he was a heretic, and a questline in the revamped Blasted Lands, I believe, where a whole tribe of naga who worshipped Neptulon turn to Azshara and enslave the murlocs. He had broken free of Old Gods control during his imprisonment in the Abyssal Maw, and the Old Gods wanted him dead. He needed no extra push to lend his aid to the Earthen Ring in Legion, and that is pretty in character for him, as he is one of two Elemental Lords who had a rather proactive following on Azeroth before Cata, the other being Ragnaros who didn't give a fuck about Azeroth but was trapped there by the Dark Irons' summoning spell.

[@Ryan-sn3uo]

It was actually explained that he dealth with it himself. Ya know, it's refreshing to have a major powerhouse character who can manage himself without needing us every five feet.

[@darknessvamp]

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”.

[@moscanaveia]

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.

[@Elearen]

That last line was one of the greatest moments in the lich king story, and then they ruined it 😔

[@moscanaveia]

@@Elearen How do you figure they ruined it?

[@bubbykins4864]

SL pre-event shows they didn't retcon it, rather kept the consequences away from the gameplay after the pre-event. They happened, it just isn't shown.

[@chugiakjrtheplaywwright6461]

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.

[@dokilar1]

As someone who used to follow the lore pretty closely, it amazes me at how inept, convoluted and clueless the people who are in charge of of the lore. Shadowlands has been a huge piece of shit in terms of lore imo

[@lightests]

I left during MoP and came back near the end of BFA where I spent 70% of my playtime catching up on the content. Now it makes sense why I didn't recall some of the events...They were changed. I really don't want to buy anymore novels or lore books now. What's the point? The team will even goes back on the short stories which should be safe.

[@nemesisnidhoggr1468]

As someone, who has at least couple of brain cells, it amazes me how delusional, stupid and arrogant the people who expect lore of 16 years old game to be perfect. You know they didnt planned everything back in a days they made WoW, right? They didnt expected the game to live more that 4-5 years. To expect a writer to think ahead so many steps - is impossible. Not only he had to consider previous lore, but he has to come up with his own. And even more - he has to think into future, where will his lore and story will go. But what if that person left the company? All his ideas, all his visions of the future lore, all his foundations for the future lore is gone. You have new person, that has to learn previous lore, learn current lore and guess where the fck this lore is heading. I'm not even gonna talk about other things developers must consider. Like what theme next expansion will be. Because of marketing and analysis, they cant just pump out two similar addons

[@Miniman6347]

@@nemesisnidhoggr1468 Whike that may be true, let’s take a look at a game that’s been out for 8.5 years with FFXIV. While it’s 100% reasonable to say that the devs didn’t have every single story beat down, it’s reasonable to assume that there are overarching plot points that are set up story-wise. Now, you could also argue that the same devs have been working on XIV since A Realm Reborn came out, but to that I say: The current lead writer for FFXIV didn’t actually take over the writing team until partway through Stormblood. This means that ARR and Heavensward were written primarily by an entirely different person. Yet even in Endwalker, I can’t find a single instance of a lore retcon even with respects to FFXIV 1.0. If Final Fantasy can go so long without any retcons whereas WoW can’t *even go one god damn expansion without retconning it’s own lore within that expansion*, that is a *major* problem with the writing team in terms of consistency that cannot merely be chocked up to people entering or leaving the company.

[@dokilar1]

@@nemesisnidhoggr1468 I dont expect the lore of WoW to be perfect. In fact I find it all rather copy/paste and cliche but that still doesn't mean there shouldn't be continuity amongst its story lines. At the end of the day it's a video game. If I want some rich compelling story I'll read a good book but seeing as how story is supposed to fairly important to an rpg it should be somewhat coherent. I'd also like some of whatever you're smoking if you truly believe they didnt think this game would last 4 or 5 years. There was an interview back in Wrath sometime I believe where they said they had ideas and were loosely working on things 2 expansions in the future. Not to mention that a good bulk of the lore they just shit all over didnt really becom meaningful until Wrath. Maybe you think the jailer is a good villain, I dunno. If you do that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Me on the other hand have seen nothing from this expansion that makes me think "damn that's cool" They retconned 3/4s of nearly everything in this franchise with this one dude and if you don't see a problem with that then I guess continue having fun with the story of WoW. I would lay a large bet that you are in the very small minority.

[@nemesisnidhoggr1468]

@@Miniman6347 and there is a reason why WoW was on a top of MMORPG across the world, while FFXIV began it's popularity only due to recent WoW "refugee" situation. When you creating coherent story from start to finish and you do it, knowing that your players are invested in it and will be playing - is one thing. I dont know much about FF and i'm, as well as many other players, find this universe really fkin confusing. With their numerical order not being their chronological or time order. So you have XXIV is some medieval fantasy setting while VII is some futuristic time. So i cant say much about how story and lore of FFXIV is connected to other games of the series. WoW on the other hand has 18 years of game life (against 12 of FFXIV) plus it's lore goes as back as 28 years (and there were retcons for events from that time as well). And lets not forget, that blizzard never was a "storytelling" company. It has really memorable characters and universes. They build beautiful worlds with charismatic heroes. But that's it. They dont provide good single-player experience. They provide enjoyable gameplay. Expecting from them mind-blowing story-telling across 30 years is just.. stupid.. Whilst FFXIV gives amazing and immersive story - it's gameplay is absolute garbaje. Fkin sliding around during cast animations in 2022, like whatafak. They different games, that targeting different playerbases and focusing on different aspects of the game. You cant have game that is perfect in every aspect

[@phantom0456]

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.

[@nothingsjim]

Regarding Akama’s betrayal, there’s also the part where Illidan enslaved the souls of dead Draenei in Auchindoun to use as fuel for his spell.

[@hirumaredx]

That happened after his betrayal chronologically, in fact it was one of the last things Illidan did before he was killed.

[@adde27]

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 see how being created evil is a better trope then madness.

[@adde27]

@@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.

[@kokotvole4884]

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.

[@kbredstar529]

This is for buttress and his new computer: WOOOOOOOO

[@thenerdbeast7375]

Oh I've been waiting for you to do this video! It's gonna be awesome!

[@MB-vu5ne]

Thank you so much for doing this video. Mustve been hard reasearching for it.

[@a.r.t.8651]

medan's explanation had me laughing so hard, specially with the pictures XD

[@nielsdegroot2997]

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.

[@Elurin]

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!

[@Ezio999Auditore]

Well said

[@davidpachon8591]

Is funny how almost every horde thinks internment camps were one of the worst things that the alliance did to them

[@norricommander]

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.

[@BlackenedRainvowPigs]

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)

[@moscanaveia]

@@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.

[@BlackenedRainvowPigs]

@@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

[@moscanaveia]

@@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.

[@DW-lb6hw]

Well done with this vid, and yeah, the Flying Butresses videos are really amazing and deserve more love.

[@Cagicajagi]

I think one of the most major ones was with Chronicles 1 when they reestablished the structure of magic. They did it AGAIN with Shadowlands by stating that it's not entirely correct as it was written by the Nathrezim, and Death has a much stronger domain than that. This also puts a completely different spin on the relationship between the arcane and fel. Previously, arcane was considered a gateway to fel. Now it's considered the antithesis, the magic of order to fel's destruction. They also messed with the extent of things like mana addiction, which makes some lore aspects about the high/blood elves and the Shen'dralar somewhat confusing.

[@TechDragon1]

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.

[@Iamnotpicky]

But if you include "not dying", the list wouldn't end.

[@Leopoldshark]

@@Iamnotpicky The Frostmourne pedestal was merely a setback!

[@littlesunshine9218]

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. 😢

[@unbe]

The "mini stories" that happen on the screen are so good and funny they're almost distracting! This video was amazing! Thanks for all the hard work!

[@thenerdbeast7375]

It is possible the bit with Old Gods dying harming the planet was because Aman'thul _ripped Y'shaarj out the ground like a goddamned carrot._

[@Kylora2112]

Re: the Old Gods and their status. I don't think there was ever confirmation that they were just avatars, truly dead, in stasis, or whatever. That was just a fan theory. Same with Ragnaros in Molten Core being "just an avatar." No, we killed him, but his essence returned to the Firelands where we ultimately destroyed him in Cataclysm.

[@gabrielpaulino9701]

I think one dev said this once in an interview. Then fans took this improvised answer as super-canon when in the canon texts there is nothing about It. At least not that I remember.

[@Green-tf8uw]

@@gabrielpaulino9701 well if a dev says it then it's natural to assume it's cannon, right?

[@jordanread5829]

@@Green-tf8uw There have been times when the devs get stuff wrong. Such as the infamous "Isn't Falstad dead" which came from Metzen himself. So take what they say at things like Blizzcon with a grain of salt.

[@Green-tf8uw]

@@jordanread5829 lol true I forgot about falstad, you are right.

[@moscanaveia]

@@jordanread5829 Thing is Old Gods are far more relevant than the whatever joe that leads those unplayable dwarves. However, I still agree it should be taken with a grain of salt.

[@Dantarn]

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?

[@valeclaw1697]

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.

[@gnomewicked]

An absolutely excellent video. Comprehensive, well-researched, and well-explained in a fair and objective manner. Truly fabulous, bravo!

[@MrTarakanisher]

15:20 I hate it so much. They needed to make Illidan a good guy but couldn't ignore his war crimes so they made Akama a shortsighted idiot instead, thus destroying my favorite character. Just in one short scenario they turned my boi from hero who lost his people, lost his home, even lost his soul, but never gave up, to impatient moron. This hurts so much.

[@EdgedShadow]

Nice to see someone who knows what a retcon is, and doesn't think a retcon is any new lore they don't like.

[@Najemniczkas]

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?

[@ztriker4406]

I always assumed that had something to do with the orb she picks up in Warcraft 3 and when the orb left her personality stopped being affected by it

[@michamatczak2134]

@@ztriker4406 nothing stops you from just not picking it up in the game, it is not a main quest

[@Barsee23]

@@ztriker4406 can't people simply develop/change over time

[@jonkku]

5:36 "It doesn't really count as a retcon, it just added some continuity retroactively"

[@ReganousTheGrey]

Hello there, Excellent video Hiru! Very much enjoyed learning about all these retcons :) Thanks for all your hard work!

[@sussudio5210]

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)

[@vojtik135]

Yeah, the Val'kyr never chose her! Their boss chose her so they also chose her!

[@NarancsosPirula]

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.

[@vojtik135]

@@NarancsosPirula That's just wrong.

[@NarancsosPirula]

@@vojtik135 why?

[@NarancsosPirula]

"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

[@stepanpytlik4021]

20:44 Ok, this is amazing

[@Gnarwolf]

What a great video ,thanks for making this one Hiru!!!

[@m0002856]

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.

[@Lichdemonz]

I'm assuming the thing about killing the old gods was that we couldn't REMOVE them from the planet in the process. Y'know, like when Aman'thul *yeeted Y'shaarj.*

[@AzureRoxe]

No, it was mentioned that they couldn't die AT ALL because they were so deep inside Azeroth that their deaths would affect the planet too. This is why they were sealed away instead.

[@dukeystupendous4740]

I'm guessing the intention for the old gods 'death' is that it's not an actual death, but more like a Cthulhu style 'slumber', it's just that 'death' is a simple way to tell people to ignore them for the foreseeable future. So we've 'killed' them, but they haven't 'died' because they are so alien they don't actually experience death, except I guess Y'Shaarj but that could be explained away is him being killed killed because he was killed by the titans rather than us. Which means we can/should expect them to reappear when Bliz gets tired of Sylv.

[@patrickmccurry1563]

@@AzureRoxe That phrasing makes it sound like medical procedures more advanced than a basic grab and yank could have reasonably worked. We/titans can't kill the parasite, because it would release toxins, but qualified surgeons could safely remove it.

[@patrickmccurry1563]

@@dukeystupendous4740 In Lovecraft, old gods are almost impossible, but not necessarily impossible to kill in theory. It's more those referred to as outer gods which are eternal forces of existence. With modern retcons, that would fit the Void Lords, IMO.

[@ZanathKariashi]

@@patrickmccurry1563 to be fair, the only reason we were able to kill N'zoth was due to the culmination of the Titan's studies into the old gods and HOW to kill them (without killing the entire rest of life on the planet). So I assume they simply hadn't thought of using the Forge of origination in a completely unintended way (perhaps from MOTHER studying everything that had happened outside of Uldir since they'd been isolated, and discovering that the Tol'vir had somewhat successfully broken the Forge of Origination to use it as a death-star laser against Lei Shen (albeit with disastrous side effects because of how unfocused it was) and worked out a plan to use it like a surgical laser to burn N'zoth and JUST N'zoth out of the planet. And it's assumed that once they did that, we just went and killed the other Old Gods off screen, since they were already trapped and under lock and key and wouldn't need all the song and dance that N'zoth did.

[@DaWoWzer]

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.

[@emeraldcrusade5016]

After they removed the "Watch your clever mouth, bitch!" line from Garrosh.

[@NarancsosPirula]

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.

[@DaWoWzer]

@@NarancsosPirula 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

[@NarancsosPirula]

@@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.

[@AzureRoxe]

@@NarancsosPirula 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".

[@xxgamerxx6074]

This was well done beautifully edited.

[@zachstasch4688]

This is the exact kind of content I always want and I am here for it. So thank you!

[@FratinandMadrik]

21:13 Moira*. You're thinking of the dwarves from another IP.

[@valeclaw1697]

You didn't really mention how Shadowlands retconned the Emerald Dream's lore as well, since it was pretty clearly stated in a few different places the Dream was an afterlife itself.

[@moscanaveia]

Just like Bwonsamdi could hack the system, maybe the Wild Gods and Aspects were capable of such as well.

[@gabrielreed8039]

If this was retconned, it took place much earlier than Shadowlands. As early references in the books (WotA) and classic refer to the emerald dream as a realm alongside ours. Hell, the whole of Stormrage reflects it as a twin realm as opposed to an afterlife. Spirits tied to the dream could "remain" behind as keepers iirc, that being the closest connection it had to an afterlife.

[@gabrielreed8039]

@@moscanaveia Bwonsamdi could only cross back and forth between the veil because he was basically the ferryman for the troll dead as loa of death, loas like Rezan and Hir'eek were limited to the mortal plane (they couldn't cross into the Shadowlands), similarly, the aspects and wild gods would be bound to the mortal plane.

[@moscanaveia]

@@gabrielreed8039 Not correct at all. Wild Gods go to Ardenweald. Night Fae players rescue powerful divine souls and plant them in the queen's garden, until they're ready for rebirth. Bwonsamdi crossing over is more a result of him being tied to death and Azeroth both. Same with Helya, likely, who had her own realm of death likely in the Shadowlands, and accessible via the Maw of Souls and that portal in the vrykul temple. The story of the Valkyr, and of Bwonsamdi both show that certainly powerful beings are very well capable of "stealing" souls from the machine of death: the valkyr collected dead Vrykul for the Halls of Valour, Helya stole her dead for her kvaldir, Bwonsamdi rescued the trolls from the Maw by bringing them to De Other Side and Elune turned her elfs into wisps to tend the forests eternally. So no death lore was broken or retconned by Shadowlands. It was merely expanded

[@alvarooverlay5405]

that editing is pure fire 8/8 great work m9

[@samirgomeznovelo746]

Retcon is a shortened form of retroactive continuity, meaning that it doesn't necesarily mean that a past fact is being changed, it also means adding information that it didn't exist originally, this means that all the stuff you said is just adding more context is actually Retcon, heavy retcon at that, specially the Illidan and sylvanas stuff. All the shadowlands expansion was a retcon since nothing of it was originally planned when the original story was made, unlike pandaria that had some of the road already paved in WC3.

[@onefromdust581]

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.

[@joshageman7931]

You forgot that they are fat now

[@VileVamp]

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.

[@moscanaveia]

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.

[@davismorgan7955]

I’ve been watching the duel logs for a while now and I had no idea you did Warcraft stuff as well! It’s like Christmas

[@MarioTheSupah]

Big fan of all your videos. Honestly hope you keep up the good work!