That Disc's of Norgannon quest in Uldaman is still one of my favorite WoW memories. I felt like I stumbled onto some deeper mystery. I really couldn't agree more with your comment.
I mean I can kinda understand why you've eventually gotta introduce them. There's only so much lore you can do and each expansion has to be more and more grandiose in order to get people interested. It's the Chekhov's rifle thing. You've eventually gotta expand on shit because people want everything expanded on and then those same players complain when the things are expanded upon. Basically, people don't know what the fuck they want. The best thing to do is accept WoW is cursed to be shit after *insert expansion here.*
@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor The problem is not that they intrdocued them, but that they just changed the BBEG after BfA. They introduced N'zoth as side content to be done with him, before saying: "Well, that's dealt with, but there is a someone you have never heard about who pulled the strings all along!"
They still are, my bet is mostly everything in BfA and Shadowlands has been a fever dream for the player character. The Titans remain at the Top, big baldy in Shadowlands is just a vision, from an Old God.
@@Davivd2 Could not agree more, if only Blizzard had paid attention to how popular quests like that were, and gave us more Titan Mystery....as opposed to everything that happened after 2006.
Honestly, i always just took that as the usual "the commander is given the credit" pattern that happens in history all the time. Thrall as the leader of the Durotar Founding's conflict against Daelin is just credited as "the most important guy present", even though Rexar did all the heavy lifting.
@@joshuakim5240I mean even the most basic Kul Tiran soldier knows what Rexxar did and vice versa with the Orcs, Tauren and Trolls. I honestly think that Chronicles just chose not to go into extreme details as per usual.
Yes and no. No, he's actually skipped a lot of stuff for most expansions. Yes, because MoP is still generally the "cleanest". The two main things I'd point to as retcons in MoP are the Zandalari and Garrosh, but these both tie in heavily to Cataclysm stuff. In some ways, MoP's Zandalari story (at least the 5.2 one) was undoing and fixing the retcons of Cataclysm Zandalari. It was a retcon, but it was also course-correcting the story so that the sloppy Cataclysm Zandalari story made more sense. So, debatably, this is actually a point in MoP's favor. Garrosh... is complicated, and it's not *really* MoP's fault alone, so much as a thing over multiple expansions. He was planned to be a heroic Horde character with a character arc (search for the Thread "Blizzard Lies" and you'll see ample evidence of this), but they later went with making him a villain. Arguably, this isn't a retcon, since he was shown being a villain at times, so if you ignored the development he was getting in BC-Cata, it made sense. But ONLY if you choose ignore certain events... and the devs outright saying Garrosh won't be a villain. Over time, some of the development moments for Garrosh were discretely removed from the game or retconned out to try to make it seem like Garrosh was always planned to be a villain.
Lorewise it was the most enjoyable expansion for me. I ve never ever had a moment of frustration when it comes to story. Even Legion had me frustrated couple of times but not MoP. It was brilliant.
People think MoP is bad/dumb because of "haha Pandas" but most of the lore they did throughout that expac was awesome. Garrosh stuff towards the end was kinda dumb since they just made him go full evil out of no where but otherwise a lot of it was sick as hell. The Sha are way cooler than any other Old God threat.
Jar of Pickles not really. The expansion launched with Garrosh's going full evil and large parts throughout it was dedicated to stopping him. The sha themselves ARE an old God threat, but whether you prefer them Yogg'saron, Cthun, or N'zoth is entirely subjective. There were a lot more things than "Pandas dumb" that made people dislike the expansion.
Yes. That's exactly what's happening there. Contrary to popular belief of Demons being mindless brutes, they're actually pretty civilized and have a very robust medical program. They have free full body check ups ever quarter..
@@akshanthakar989 Good morning, sir. Did you get your prostate checked recently? It is widely known in the medical community that continued exposure to fel energy can produce tumours, but these are treatable with preservation of quality of life if you detect them early!
Pretty sure it's been stated the "old gods can't die without destroying the planet" was already explained back in MoP. The TITANS could not destroy them because it's like using a manchette to remove a splinter, they just don't have the precise control needed to surgically remove old gods from a planet. However the keepers and mortals of said planet can since they are on a much smaller scale.
So why didn't the keepers kill them ? The story makes no sense if they are killable, but expecting Blizzard after Warcraft 3 to write something that makes sense is expecting too much.
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!
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.
The worst thing BY FAR imo is how they rewrite arthas' motivation, attituide etc. they make him into a monster, while he was just misguided romantic hero who didnt think twice about sacrificing even himself to save the people
@@bsherman8236 But he wasn't. He was still his own character in the undead campaigns, people just seem to forget for some reason. Turning Sylvanas was 100% Arthas, not Ner'zhul's influence. He still showed plenty of wit, creativity, and tactical prowess as a Death Knight, which is why Ner'zhul chose him as his champion and host in the first place. The problem with WoW's Lich King is that it removed all of that and just gave us "Big Evil Bad Guy", which didn't fit either Arthas or Ner'zhul's characters.
@@AmericanZergling yes he was. And people don't forget. His was the first soul frostmourne claimed, thus had has no moral responsibility for anything that follows. His story really should have ended when he ascended the frozen throne and become one with the existing Lich King. But shitty writers made it all about Arthas, 20 something prince that somehow was more powerful than everyone else.
@@AtheismF7W His morality was gone, but his character was still a character. My problem with Wrath is that while it made it "all about Arthas" the Arthas we got wasn't even Arthas. The character in Warcraft 3, the snark, the sadism, bluntness, frustration, even in cases trust and companionship with Kel'thuzad and Anub'arak were not present in Wrath. In Wrath he was just evil for the sake of evil, wanted to take over the world for no reason, and made dumb decisions only for the purpose of MMO quest design. For a story focused on Arthas, they did a poor job translating his actual character. And of course they did Ner'zhul dirty too. Ner'zhul, like Arthas, is also a character Blizzard go back and forth on and still somehow becomes generically evil too, despite having no real motivation to do so. He isn't Gul'dan, but Blizzard keeps writing him as if he is.
You forgot to mention the massive retcons to Deathwing's character which turned him into the cunning schemer from Warcraft 2 and Day of the Dragon to being a dumb meathead who wants to just destroy everything for whatever reason. He got the Mogor treatment, but was actually an important character, and for me at least, the way Deathwing's character panned out was one of Cataclysm's biggest failures.
By whatever reason, you mean when they wrote a whole outline for Deathwing's fall from grace, where he felt he got the unfair share of work from the Dragon Aspects, where he had to tend to the Earth, closest to the Old Gods and their prisons, while his mates got the easy and pleasurable jobs? Or do you prefer a black dragon born evil who put a neat metal plate on his scales and helped the orcs enslave the red dragons, for whatever reason?
I don't remember him being retconned, he just succumb to the old golds whispers. First thinking his actions where his own to then being a feral emo cutter who liked slayer and thought the politics of GWAR were BASED. So it made sense to me or my old ass forgetting something.
@@happytoastfudge being insane isn't a great excuse to completely shift ones ability to make technical and clever choices, more it affects the out comes of said choices. The Joker is a brilliant genius in Batman but a lunatic, he still makes clever downright insane plans but the outcome always ends in people getting hurt/dying. Deathwing shouldn't become a brute simply because hes now insane, but instead act out his typical clever plans but with extremely sadistic, strange outcomes that perfectly mirror the Old Gods wishes... the Old Gods are full of madness and chaos too... so should they be brutish and sloppy as well?
4:34 "in Wotlk there weren't any major retcons" ... You're wrong. The major retcon was Lich King himself. It wasn't the same cunning, scheming Lich King that we know from Warcraft 3, rather an arrogant, bored ruler that wanted to conquer Azeroth for no real reason. Ner'zhul had a bone to pick with the Kil'jaeden, not with the rest of Azeroth. Attacking BOTH the Horde and the Alliance was not bold, but very arrogant, and once again, a plot-driven by MMO needs. The real Lich King would have patiently waited for the Legion to arrive. It just didn't feel like the same character from Warcraft 3.
Kinda wrong on the second bit. LKs motivation as back as WC2 technically (well Nerzhuls) was to set up something against the legion as he essentially got the power to do so moments before his "death"/sealing by forging the helm, plate and blade after his plane hopping. What he would have done is made a slow creeping plot that corrupts and turns everyone in ways from where they are weakest either against their own final goal or eachother before overwhelming the enemy before they get truly cornered... you know, like he did technically three times before WoW.
Remember this was Arthus as the Lich King not Nerzhul. It stands to reason that Arthus would be more arrogant (after killing any influence on himself as Lich King) and prepare an undead nation spanning the entire world (and world soul if he could) to fight the legion. He almost succeeded too if not for Light being super effective against Dark types.
@@hiropisku1078 It was clearly stated back then that Ner'zhul was the dominant one. Arthas was holding him back from using Scourge full force. Where did you come up with that stupid b******t ?
Me'dan is not a Gary-Stu, the player is the true Gary-Stu/Mary-Sue of Warcraft universe. The player pretty much is the only one who can solve every crisis that the rest of the characters. We manage to defeat Archimonde despite he was supposed to be so powerful that no even an army of gods can put a challenge to him, and he was so powerful that it took a nuke on a tree to destroy him, yet in Warlord of Draenor, he got down after a couple of beats. Then we manage to defeat the Avatar of Sargeras, Aggramar, and Argus despite a Titan supposed to be so powerful that nothing harms them except other Titans. So! If you ask me, the true Mary-Sue on Warcraft is the players and not Me'dan.
A few, ahm, critques: The Sargeras retcon (and in turn, the draenei one) of who corrupted who also changes the fundamental power structure of the WoW universe: previously it was Titans at the top, with demons second and able to corrupt them, with Old Gods somewhere nearby, to Void Lords vs whatever the Light has, to Titans etc. This change, and of course also the creation of the Universe being made from light clashing with Void, changes the "corrupted by inherently evil beings" into "went mad" which is such a tired trope for the Void/Old Gods. The outcome is the same, but it's still not great. Illidan's motivations are basically a 180°. Previously he was just a power-hungry edgelord who was too quick to gobble power and make deals and got burnt for it, but then it's some grand plan to fight the Legion? Not everyone has to be an anti-hero - sometimes, being a villain is fine. Even having Xera narrate his dumb life felt like a betrayal of his character. I don't even know what to say about Kael'thas, it's so lame. Algalon and the Titans was always a weird one, but what does one expect when they make up new lore on the fly? Finally, Sylvanas: if you did pay attention to most of the critique aimed at her motivations and actions, it is that a) she never wanted to be Warchief and b) when she killed herself, she never met an entity that struck a deal with her, she just briedly experienced hell (or something akin to it) until a Val'kyr took her place. So her actions and powers in BfA came out of nowhere. I've heard that Afrasiabi said he knows Sylvanas well and that she authorised the Wrathgate Blight incident, but all sources at the time disagreed with this and stated that Putress acted on his own. You also forgot that they gave Varian and his motley crew the credit for killing Onyxia, which we did, and reduced Marshal Windsor's story to one of epicness to a quick death... so Varian could shine.
@@2dollarchickenwings689 I don't quite follow your rebuttal. I wrote that the demons were inherently evil and made Sargeras mad, not that Sargeras was evil.
Illidan always was an antihero edgelord who tried to help his people and was addicted to power. He still was retconned and a lot more evil, but it is not close to Arthas and Sylvanas retcons.
HOLY SHIT I was thinking about the whole "the Titans were dead all along" thing two days ago. I was thinking to myself "wait, but Algalon said..." It's like you read my mind and made this video for me. Thanks, bro!
I've also wondered about the scaling between the Titans, Old Gods and Aspects from the War of the Ancients Novels. Krasus doesn't say that "all the dragon aspects together could easily defeat the Old Gods". He says that if there's anything that MIGHT be able to stand up to the Old Gods it would be the Dragon Aspects. To the best of Krasus's knowledge the Aspects represent the strongest power on Azeroth. He also says that if destroying every demon won't matter if Sargeras makes it into Azeroth, because Sargeras is too strong. We know the Old Gods THINK they can use and defeat Sargeras and Krasus believes they may be right. However, something to keep in mind is that these are all statements made by a character in the books, not by the author or by Blizz themselves. They are also made in different conversations with different other characters days apart from each other. Most importantly; Krasus is set up to be an extremely knowledgeable character but he isn't omniscient. Statements he makes about creatures that haven't been seen since LONG before even the Aspects existed shouldn't be taken as factual Warcraft lore.
Fantastic video! I was most interested in the Sargeras retcons, as I feel they were pretty major and interesting. I wish you had been able to spend more time on the whole 'fell into despair while fighting demons due to their evil and cruelty' vs. 'easily bested and imprisoned demons but felt that the Titans ordering of the universe was unnatural and wrong' vs. 'was actually just using demons while trying to prevent an even worse Void Lord fate.' One thing I was surprised you didn't cover was Muradin Bronzebeard, and how we went from dying in WCIII when Arthas claimed Frostmourne to... not dying... at all.
The fact with Sargeras, that in the original lore he jailed the most cunning demon race (Eredar) and later freed them after he gone mad (partly because he couldn’t understand how evil the Eredar were) when the Draenei got introduced - where it just flipped and suddenly the Eredar were totally chill until they corrupted Sargeras. Like… Huh? Also the original story for WoW was on the website until I think Cataclysm? Or even longer, I don’t remember exactly. But I read it at least ten times when I first started playing as a kid in vanilla because it was so cool for me and well written. 😢
I personally hate retcons, because when I like something I’ll obsess over it a bit, fit the entire story together as best as I can, and when they change that... it just falls apart.
To be honest though pretty much every retcon made the story so much better and flow better imo. The only really shitty one I think is the old gods being dead and being able to remove them (which honestly I have doubts about really don’t think we killed nzoth at all)
@@BlackenedRainvowPigs I agree with your take on the retcons. Things like Argus and theh Jailer added so much to pre-existing lore. People forget "expansions" are supposed to make the world bigger, yet they always complain about new lore and lore updates both, almost like they'd prefer to endlessly replay Classic and TBC and Wrath until their pants burst and the servers get shut down. And I can't say I am mad about this Old Gods change, though I'd like to know the source of this information because I got the impression it is far from definitive.
@@moscanaveia it’s definitely not definitive just see lots of people in the community sharing that opinion, the reason I think they aren’t really dead though is just the fact that it never was really explained how we were all of a sudden able to fully kill the old gods. Nzoth we went to Ny’alotha so we killed him in “his realm” but none of the other golds were done that way not to mention it just kind of completely ignores the whole we can’t destroy them without destroying the world thing, unless that is explained and I’m just misinformed
@@BlackenedRainvowPigs The full nature of Ny'alotha is up in the air, which suits me just fine. Seems to me it's an illusion created by the Old Gods to represent the fallen Black Empire as it existed in the world before the Titans. But when it spills into Azeroth like it did during the Invasions in 8.3, we can actively fight the corruption. FRankly, the characterisation of the Old Gods was flawless in BfA. I do not mind them being dead. C'thun is just a boring dungeon boss, Yogg has a lot more tentacles (pardon the pun) and pull, Xavius and the Nightmare were very fun to destroy in Legion, but N'zoth's rise and fall left me satisfied, to the point where I am willing to let them go. Also, apparently this was communicated during an interview or something, during Blizzcon, so it is probably not definitive.
There are a few things on this vid that I think have some details painted a bit inaccurately. Although can't really blame anyone; Warcraft lore is a huge gigantic mess. Anyway: 1. The Shaman/Warlock Connection. This retcon actually happens in the "Lord of the Clans" novel between WC2 and WC3. Orc warlocks have been around since WC1 and have remained largely unchanged in description to today. The retcon is that in "Lord of the Clans", Blizz introduced the lore of Orcs having a noble, shamanistic culture BEFORE warlocks twisted them into what we saw in WC1, hence inventing the "orc shaman" but as a thing that supposedly predates the orc warlock. 2. The Twisting Nether. Originally, the Twisting Nether was basically the realm where ALL magic came from -- not just fel or shamanic. Mages channeled the Twisting Nether, too. The holy light and nature (at least the "life" side of nature, not the elements) were not counted as "magic", however, and that's why druids and paladins have no connection to the Twisting Nether. This alignment of powers seemed to slowly get abandoned through WotLK onward, and all non-physical forces started to be considered "magic" and the Twisting Nether relegated to being connected to just Fel (and maybe a mix of light and void) magic. But some things slip through the cracks, as is the case with the Shaman "Astral Recall" ability, where the tooltip still references the Twisting Nether. 3. The Draenei/Eredar debacle. If I remember correctly, Chris Metzen made the retcon and the apology not because of how upset the community was, but because he came out with lore that was so obviously self-contradictory it was impossible not to notice. The "History of Warcraft" document that had been around and was canon during WoW Vanilla said that a demonic race called the "Eredar" corrupted the Titan Sargeras into madness which led to the creation of the Burning Legion. When TBC was coming out, Metzen expanded the lore of the Draenei by saying they were descended from a race called the "Eredar", who were corrupted BY Sargeras. The truth is, as Metzen says, he always meant Sargeras' corruptors and corruptees to be 2 different races, but had forgotten that he already used the name "Eredar" for the corruptors before, which led to him using the name again for the corruptees. He retconned this by making the corruptors of Sargeras be the Nathrezim (Dreadlords) instead.
This is a neat clarification, I was going to comment on the draenei retcon also being that it made Sargeras corrupt the Eredar, when it was originally the Eredar who corrupted Sargeras, but I didn't know it was just a dumb name re-use. Didn't know that it was ever re-retconned to be dreadlords that corrupted Sargeras instead.
Retcons I think get a bad wrap in fandoms sometimes, and I appreciate your more value neutral take. Like there are some poorly implemented retcons in WoWs but retcons in and of themselves are part of how stories have been told since the beginning of time and writers deciding they wanna change things isn't a bad thing. I just think the hate boner people have with retcons have to do how they implement them, and not the fact retcons exist. Great video as always!
Them being a thing "since the beginning of time" doesn't mean it's beyond stupid to create something, have everyone love it and then say "let's change it" again and again.
They dont get crap for nothing, people get invested in the characters and stories they become familiar with, if they change it you're pretty much removing something they liked. Why did people hate when they removed the dialogue when Garrosh calls Sylvannas a bitch?; it wasn't because they are in favour of insulting women or because they have a hate-boner for Sylvannas, it's because that line is probably one of the most memorable dialogues we got out of Cataclysm and did a great job to deliver how intolerant Garrosh was to his authority as warchief being taken lightly. Retcons are necessary because writers dont have an infinite amount of foresight to build a story decades in advance, but people hate them because its a pretty clear sign of "they are making stuff up along the way" and J. J. Abrams has shown the world how quickly that becomes tiresome and any new content has to be carefully considered on how it will fit in the story.
@@Testingthisname WoW is such an old and big universe (in modern standards) that retcons are unavoidable. Rather than criticise them, we can help and improve them.
@@Testingthisname yeah, I just asked. What's your problem? You can't point to a single one so you have to refer to them collectively? They know what they are writing, that's why I'm confused by your statement.
Blizz did something more writers of chronicles should do actually. State that this is the history based on the knowledge of the writer. The chronicles resemble more actual history books than lore-books. Therefor they can make them false without making them redundant. It's a clever move actually. It's always been a problem that readers/player know too much. Let's take the "Aegwynn Retcon", which isn't necessarily a retcon. Why? Because a confident person can be seen as arrogant by others. Depending on who is telling the story. Depending on who is telling the story, it could also be said by someone that she tricked that man into fatherhood. Why would anyone do such a thing? Hm, why would someone try to bring someone else in miscredit? Seriously, this is hardly a retcon, this is just a change in perspective. All in all, too many players get too salty too fast. Sure, not every "change" fits every taste, how could it? It's like claiming that everyone has to like Lord of the Rings because it is good, no you don't. Writing is not bad, because you don't like it, it's not good because you like it. That's the most ridiculous thing among too many Warcraft-"fans". They don't like something, it must be bad. Nah, dude, you don't like it, so you don't like it. Doesn't make it bad, but the attitude is there and it is absolutely ridiculous. Most changes Blizzard made were actually additions and not changes. They were made to streamline a story that went on for far longer than most of the Blizzard staff may have anticipated. You know how hard it is to constantly write a consistent story for over 20 years? Guys, retcons, changes and additions are an absolute necessity to keep that stuff working. That they streamlined the Warcraft story with the chronicles was more a necessary thing than anything else. Sometimes giving more information on something is good, sometimes it destroys the mystery. And sometimes it simply destroys the fan imaginations. People who made up their own mind about how something is, and are now being told: "Nah, it's not how you think it is." and some of these people were really proud about their ideas. Thing is, the writer decides what the story is and were it goes. You don't have to like it, even if it is your favorite franchise. It's okay to not like something. But please, stay away from that arrogant attitude to assume your taste is an objective measure for what is good and what is not.
Finally, a voice a reason in these comments, lol. Thanks for taking a stand and reminding us that this isn't something we should take too seriously. I also deal with the problem that having too much "outsider information" ruins the sense of immersion. It's why i love the Elder Scrolls games, because they tell everything through the unreliable narrator through people's stories and in-game books filled with limited knowledge and biases. For me, WoW has always walked the line of a story where I'm really invested into the lore, but also one where I accept that it's a game world run by rule of cool before all else and things can/should change to suit that purpose. This isn't Lord of the Rings or Narnia, it's a fun story that happens when you take element from fantasy and cultures all across the earth's history and throw it into a fun blender to find a cay it all combines.
I remember talking with my bf about a lot of WoW lore since he wasn't familiar with anything past WC3, and as I was explaining everything to him and being like "yeah they retconed this and that" he said something that made a lot of sense: "It sounds like each expansion is just an alternate timeline with a few things just slightly different." And now I can't stop thinking about it, it's broken my mind, and now I've adopted that idea too - we know alternate timelines are a thing in WoW, Anachronos explained to us something similar in BFA in a Horde quest line. For example: remember in Cataclysm how Garrosh was kind of seen as this not evil dude and kind of just figuring out the best way to do what was best for the Horde, but then in Mists suddenly became evil? Maybe Mists was the timeline where Garrosh was evil, and the Cata was the timeline where Garrosh was a pretty decent guy. I don't know if I'm making sense but all I can say is this assumption makes a lot of sense and it messes with me every time I'm reminded it's a thing lol
When I read the Med‘an comics for the first time I was blown away by how bad this shit was. Good thing they basically delete the character out of the story
I believe Uther’s soul is the way it is solely because of Frostmourne. The half that wasn’t taken by the blade went to the shadowlands - with that half not remembering anything other than the painful way he died. And the other half of his soul, that being who he really was, remained trapped in the blade until the end of wrath, presumably unable to move on because of how the blade fucked things up
My theory with Sylvanas is that she went to the maw and was forced to serve the jailer which is why she sought so hard to become immortal by the valkyr and when she finally got the lamp from helya in legion. Her fate was sealed when Genn broke the lamp so that’s why she serves the jailer
The Ashbringer comic all but completely retconned a "hidden" quest in Vanilla involving the corrupted Ashbringer, as well as their multiracial origins.
Lady Vashj's retcon is significant to me, because you get a feeling that she might harbor genuine sympathy towards the blood elves and Illidan. In Warcraft 3, she seems more like a 3-dimensional character, a proof that even nagas have their own beliefs, values and can relate to others. Making her essentially just another mindless servant of the Old Gods takes away from the unique dynamics these characters had.
I dont think, those are necessary retcons, i just see it as story told by creatures that did not had all the information. Like poeple here on earth, find new stuff every minute and history is overwritten every day. And I find it beautiful..
I think the Brow/Green skin color of the orcs is pretty important too. Before Warlords of Draenor i think, Orcs were naturally green, exception being Mag'har and Blackrock clans for example. Drinking demon blood turned them red. Whereas since WOD, they are originally brown and can turn green with contact to the fel. Not sure if i'm correct about this one but i always got confused
Orcs were never naturally green, in TBC the Mag'har already existed and we knew that drinking demon blood turned then green, but drinking it "everyday" made the corruption even worst turning them red (the red orcs on that TBC dungeons drank the blood of Magtherion for this)
They were always naturally brown. Demon corruption made them green. A constant source of demon corruption (like drinking demon blood like coffee) makes them red.
24:03 I always interpreted the "the old God's can't be killed or it will kill the planet" was more referring to the TITANS themselves killing them being too traumatic for the world soul and jailing them was the only option since their servants was nowhere near powerful enough to deal a killing blow to them.
First war was also retconned. Originally orcs didn't start the war right away and the war laster much longer so it possible for Garona to be half human and grow up in that time. This was later retconned to much shorter span of time so they had to change Garona to half Draenei instead because there was way should be half Human.
a massive problem is blizzard keeps putting all the important lore we need for the massive ingame shifts into books most people dont know exist, or if they do, dont have the money or time to get it
yeah but that's stupid. it's just them explaining away why their ill-conceived lore story requires Uther's soul to be in two different places at the same time.
I think one of the bigger retcons that I dislike is the retcon to how canon the Chronicles are. They were started by Metzen before he left I’m pretty sure, and were supposed to be THE definitive lore from an Omniscient source. Then, after 3 came out, they released that statement that it’s all being told from one perspective that isn’t flawless… So tired of writers trying to retcon their retcons. We just want definitive lore and events to happen like they do in the real world. I swear one day they’re going to address the whole, “Jains is a dread lord” joke and the “Jaina and Thrall were banging” joke by saying that it’s really their evil twins Rodrick and Catherine behind those things.
Another retcon that i noticed is Kel Thuzad being a pawn of the Jailer instead of someone completely dedicated to the Scourge, and the Lich King's most loyal servant and friend. It bothers me since he is my favourite character.
Not really a retcon maybe but it's weird how the blackrock orcs (that come from draenor) live in the blackrock mountain on azeroth, that had that name even before the opening of the dark portal. Coincidence?
And the biggest retcon is that Warcraft is a retcon of Warhammer. A human kingdom fighting off orcs that appear out of a blasted land through a very narrow path into the forested kingdom. Ignoring a swamp to the East and heading for the capital far in the West.
I very much think that Sylvanas and the Jailer are going to be "good doing evil" kinda thing. There's probably a bigger threat than anything in the Shadowlands; The Void. The Kyrian hero that strikes down void creatures, the Brokers which are clearly related to the Trade princes from the void, our loose threads with Alleria, the dark;consuming void in Tyrande's heart. I haven't even finished level 60 intro quests yet, but I can tell the next expansion is "HEY GUYS THE VOID IS BACK AND ITS PISSED" OH; also Alleria and Sylvanas being the Alliance/Horde leaders of the new Dark Ranger class is just chef's kiss, amirite?
wow retcons: Every positive nice quests from forsaken , Sylvanas bending the knee to Thrall to saving forsaken and blood elves and anything that is Sylvanas. Fuck cataclysm.
Void lords are not stronger than the titans, it was stated (i think in chronicles? can't remember) they they envied/feared of how powerful the titans are, so they made old gods and scatter-shot them across the great dark in hopes and for the sole reason of corrupting an unborn titan, thus claiming that titanic power for the void. Pretty sure this part of lore will be retconned too soon enough, it's not like anyone at blizzard cares about making a coherent universe anymore, even Chris himself showed signs of getting tired of it long before his retire
2:15 I don't understand where the retcon is here. did they have to apologize? I mean the draenei in warcraft 3 were clearly introduced as "Pseudo-Dark templar", there was a clear hint those were potentially "banished ones" from a greater whole. 4:34 well... one could argue Arthas was unnecessarily "Sunday's villain" in this expansion
Don't forget the retcon of the Ashbringer. It's kind of a big deal. Naxxramas in Classic never existed, player never got Ashbringer. Now it's Darion, who never went to Outland, who attacked Naxxramas with the Argent Dawn, meet his father Alexandros Mograine , killed his undead form, took the sword, brought it to the Scarlet Monastery where his father's spirit indeed kill Renault, and bring it to the Argent Dawn. Then, to free his father from the cursed sword, Darion killed himself and that somehow underturned the battle and free his father, but doomed him to be enslaved by Kel'Thuzad in place of his father as the Corrupted Ashbringer. So really that doesn't change much so far, it's Darion and not Alexandros, but it's still an undead Mograine guy with the Corrupted Ashbringer, and Renault's dead. Then the Death Knight quest, Tirion got the Ashbringer and purify it by just taking it (Despite Fairbank telling us the blade is too corrupted and there's no way to purge it, it must be entierely reforged) and from that point, the players will need to wait to Legion to finally get the Ashbringer for themselves This retcon was really important because it didn't just took away the possibility to have the Corrupted Ashbringer and render impossible to get the Scarlet Monastery Event, which was super rare and cool at the time, it also straight up delete the Corrupted Ashbringer from player's accounts. I believe this is the only time a retcon lore went this far in the game
I wouldn't call the lore about the Old gods and the Titan a retcon since everything knows about them back in the day were based on speculation and no fact.
I disagree totally on the old gods side, the retcon they did with them literally would've made at least half the things in Azeroth totally differente, the only reason we fought the old gods before was because the titans HAD to keep them alive, they killed Y'shaarj and that almost killed the planet if they had continued on killing the others, if they can be killed why the fuck the titans didn't slay them before? This is the worst ever retcon they did in my opinion, that nullifies important lore, if the old gods could be killed there would be no deathwing, no elves and no first invasion of the Legion (The Well of Eternity was the injury the planet suffered when Y'Shaarj was killed), if the Legion couldn't find azeroth later then no LK, orcs etc.
@@linkzellda if there was not retcon, then tell me why the titans didn't kill them in the past? that's why the old gods dying don't make sense at all, even if the "old lore" was just speculation like you are saying, the speculation is more valid than the actual canon
@@ramonnunes2064 Your argument doesn't change the fact that everything we know about the Old Gods back in the day was based on speculation and no fact. Rumors are not fact as there no evidence to prove anything about the Old Gods back in the day, so there wasn't retcon about them upon the release of Chronicle.
Pretty much what this video tells you is that Blizzard has trouble making story often. Anything can be changed just because they say so and the reason doesn't need to make sense. A decent amount of these retcons made the story flow better and make more sense NOW but the change wasn't explained at least not in this video, but some of these you can't explain, it was just them changing something cause they messed up and didnt think long term earlier on in the lore because they didnt think the game would still be alive.
Nah the weirdest addition they made to the story was Vashj was originally a Night Elf with cat eyes. idk if it's a retcon or anything, it's just really damn weird to me for some reason.
I love how you say the “Shadowbringers Special”, which is of course FFXIV and not WoW at 25:18 😂. Not saying that’s a bad mistake though as I prefer XIV at the time as it is.
Correction Sylvanus did kill herself but when she was brought back she wasn't moved to make sure her people didn't share the same fate. she was so horrified by what she saw in the shadowlands and the creatures within it that she decides to strengthen the forsaken so they can act as a shield to protect her from ever dying again. cause in the short story she first refers to them as arrows to be spend and forgotten where after her suicide the clam she will make them into a shield to keep her safe forever.
I can't fathom why they retconned all the Titans to be dead in Legion, only for the next patch to show them all alive without ANY explanation. I have no idea what happened there.
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.
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.
@@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.
@@loganreed23 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.
@@loganreed23 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
Amazing how the community forgot about the huge amount of night elf lesbian stuff because that old lore about males being dumb sleepy druids and females being Chad Warriors
@@Tutel0093 Most forgot, but the group i gamed with back in those days every dps/melee was a chad female and druids were beta males. Not enough people that came from warcraft1-3 communities could fight the newbs coming to the lore after people seen how great of a fluid combat/quest/character systems were. In those days most people could not solo a regular mob their level. WoW was first game that was a detailed MMO that could solo. Which was what drew me from FFXI.
I remember that in Vanilla when I started most Druids were just male, and basically all the other classes were female. Players came from the games and books and really cared back then.
That wasn't a retcon though. From my understanding, the society just evolved by the time of World of Warcraft. The old society structure is still canon, it's just not used anymore.
Because they are entertaining books. The War of the Ancients trilogy is still a really good fantasy Trilogy on its own. TBH they should just do that more with the books, focus on telling a really good story that happens to be at a point in WoW lore. Rather than "Heres what you need to know for the upcoming expansion"
@@BlackDonMetallo I haven't read those. I'll have to check them out! But yeah back then they were written to be a good story and not just something that exists to expand lore. I like the Illidan book but only because of the fact that it just expands on the things he mentioned. Not because it was a good story.
Ironically, they spent A LONG TIME saying the novels were not canon.......and then randomly made them all canon despite the game itself contradicting them a lot.
For vanilla, you also glossed over the whole... "The continent of Lordaeron was overrun by demons and undead, who were still running the place, hence why Admiral Proudmoore even went to Kalimdor" They even outright said during release that effectively they just wrote out the "alliance and horde are working together now" plot point because it got in the way of their faction-based pvp gameplay.
To be fair there are a lot of Undead in Lordaereon still, and Demons roam many zones too. Kalimdor by comparison is mostly a wild place with only small pockets of either in a handful of zones. But the whole deal with Horde vs Alliance was never really explained. We just get to see the consequences of their re-falling out.
I don't think it has anything to do with pvp players. Merge the factions and you can easily explain it away for pvp--gladiator games to hone skills against your fellow citizens. They won't get rid of it because of the super nerd, endlessly loyal paying customer base that is actually invested in their faction like real life patriotism in a warring country. Edit: if they said it, they were blaming PVP players under the guise of supporting them as an excuse to not call out the no-lifers.
It's not because of PvP fame modes. It's because of the factional system. So yes battlegrounds and PvP you can explain away but war efforts, RP, story, zones and even open world pvp wouldn't make any sense if the factions were combined
I always saw it as the sides are officially "working together" but there's still a lot of bad blood between individuals. And if you happen to see someone flying a blue banner around Tarren Mill, it was my duty for the fallen members of the Horde to make sure that pinkskin pays.
_"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."*
In Warcraft III it's not really stated either way. It was always just kinda an assumption. He was just thrown to the ground and then nothing really after that (I think Arthas might have mentioned something to some dudes, don't remember). In Wrath it wasn't really a retcon, more of a "here's the rest of the story". He had amnesia, but regained his memory slowly over time.
@@alligraham31 they played a death animation in that sequence. In wc3 to my knowledge every single time a character got a death animation they were dead. So I don't think it's irrational to assume that Muradin died
He was even considered death by the other dwarves when Arthas returned to Northrend. Arthas himself never told the other alliance people thatMuradin was hit by a giant fucking boulder. So I assumed they found his body.
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.
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.
@Sinsear Yes, Walt Simonson was writing the comics, though it was probably more like he was "scripting" the story and plot that he was told to present (as is usually the case with cross-medium franchise fiction). I cannot think of anybody else at the time besides Chris Metzen who would have had the ability to create and define a character that would be the lead in a title like Med'an was.
@@andrebetita If it really was Metzen, why was Med'an ignored until they could retcon them out with a back-handed joke to whoever conceived such a shameless self-insert?
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
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.
@@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)
@@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.
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?
@@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?
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
As a long time Lady Vashj fan since war 3, her retcon were more then just "minor changes" like the video implies but destroyed what agency she used to have in that game. Instead of being a selfish person who simply had the same desire as Illidan and Kel'thas, gain more power to ease their thirst, she was first retconned that she acted on the behalf of all Nagas then further more when all of her contribution to the story was just according to old god plans. Her involvment in Shadowlands pretty much sealed that trait to her forever. ...I miss when her character was just the cool evil snake witch of which, even after her death, you would learn some new story about her past in various naga ruins in post-TBC.
Erm, correct me if I am missing something, but nagas were made nagas by N'zoth. And ever since their inception, their allegiance to Azshara herself had been established: Maiev finds the Azshara statue witth a serpentine tail on the ruins of the Tomb of Sargeras, and Vashj herself later tells Kael the Naga were once the Highborne. So the only real retcon is that the naga were made into what they are by N'zoth, and not the energies of the Well as it was previously stated. So "the Old Gods made me do it" pretty much changes nothing, because Azshara was ostensibly acting according to N'zoth's wishes anyways (even though she herself subverted that from the get-go, there is no indication whether her followers were in on the joke).
@@moscanaveia Previously, it was explained that the nagas responded to Illidan's summon in TFT because of "previous highborne debt". There was also questlines about some naga not directly worshipping Azshara, but rather Neptulon, meaning the naga does have autonomy that defies the old gods. And it's not really anything ground breaking to give N'Zoth all the credit, it's just lame characterization that was otherwise more interesting. Just like Illidan's retcon in his novel made him a much more interesting character than just "gone mad after losing in Icecrown". Characters having autonomy over their own decisions is sorely needed in WoW since we already have a sht ton of "corrupted into villain" plotlines.
@@Ryan-sn3uo No. You don't understand. People never have motivation or necessity to commit selfish acts of self-preservation and acquisition of power to detriment of others around them. They have to be corrupted by demons from Hell, Cthulhu or undeath to ever do such a thing. That's just how it happens in real life, I mean, have you seen all those politicians? Then again if you're just cool and awesome enough you can still be corrupted by all those things above and... just don't be evil. Smh.
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!
@@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 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.
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
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.
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
@@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.
@@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.
@@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
@@narrahian9713 sort of. The one where Arugal was an arch mage for Gilneas, the fact that there were still people behind the Wall, the size and purpose of it, the location of the Scythe of Elune post-Vanilla, and the development of Gilneas from their Warcraft 2 medieval look to a Victorian era style. One of the few positive retcons that gets skimmed over.
@@narrahian9713 If I remember correctly the worgen curse spreads through bites. So Arugal could pretend he "knew how to make worgen" as if no druidism was needed but he just had worgen in the dungeons where he put humans to be bitten by them to make more worgen to bite even more people. It doesn't retcon much to say the origins were druidic, Arugal just jumped the opportunity to make an army
One retcon that always annoyed me was the Forsaken new plague. Most of the forsaken quests in classic wow are surrounding the development of the plague specifically to be used on living and undead alike, including other members of the horde. This is shown several times such as the quest in the undercity to provide materials for an apothecary treating a tauren which ends up killing the tauren. The plan always was "death to the scourge and death to the living" with an all forsaken end game. This culminates with the execution of the plan at the wrathgate and subsequent retcons that Sylvanas knew nothing about this world spanning quest line involving hundreds of her agents and wow guys it was just the legion the forsaken are very pro horde.
I always kind of assumed that Sylvanas was onboard with the plan until Putress decided to make his move too early and did his coup with Varimathras at the same time. Then Sylvannas covered her ass by denying all knowledge of her involvement(which i think it´s safe to say that Thrall didn´t fully trust, considering that afterwards he had his Kor-Kron guards police undercity afterwards). Because if this was her plan, it's weird that she didn´t do more to trap Arthas to ensure his death, or that she would risk fighting a war on three fronts,even with all the troops tied up in Northrend.
Yeah, back when the Forsaken had a very uneasy alliance with the Horde because the Kalimdor races didn't trust them, but having a major foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms was just too big of a strategic boon to let go (with the added benefit of at least keeping tabs on what the hell the scourge is up to after Arthas went to Northrend) and the Forsaken begrudgingly admitting that they are in dire need of protection against the Alliance and the Scarlet Crusade. Like, the whole Vanilla Tirisfal quests were about consolidating their tenous control over the core Lordaeron territories, where they were at open war with the Scarlet Crusade, parts of the Argent Dawn and the Kirin Tor (funny how that just got forgotten too). By the time of Cataclysm, they have achieved that and much more. The problem that there wasn't really any reason for Sylvanas to stay loyal to the Horde after the Lich King was dead (or so she believed) and with a full arsenal of WMDs at her disposal has plagued the lore on numerous occasions. That said, Forsaken lore has been a giant mess ever since Vanilla. Originally, it was stated that they were about half of the entire Scourge, which would be absolutely MASSIVE. Nothing about this is seen or even communicated.
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.
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
@@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.
@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
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.
@@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.
"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 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.
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!
I miss the times where titans and old gods were a mystery… forces beyond the players understanding.
That Disc's of Norgannon quest in Uldaman is still one of my favorite WoW memories. I felt like I stumbled onto some deeper mystery. I really couldn't agree more with your comment.
I mean I can kinda understand why you've eventually gotta introduce them. There's only so much lore you can do and each expansion has to be more and more grandiose in order to get people interested. It's the Chekhov's rifle thing. You've eventually gotta expand on shit because people want everything expanded on and then those same players complain when the things are expanded upon. Basically, people don't know what the fuck they want. The best thing to do is accept WoW is cursed to be shit after *insert expansion here.*
@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor The problem is not that they intrdocued them, but that they just changed the BBEG after BfA. They introduced N'zoth as side content to be done with him, before saying: "Well, that's dealt with, but there is a someone you have never heard about who pulled the strings all along!"
They still are, my bet is mostly everything in BfA and Shadowlands has been a fever dream for the player character. The Titans remain at the Top, big baldy in Shadowlands is just a vision, from an Old God.
@@Davivd2 Could not agree more, if only Blizzard had paid attention to how popular quests like that were, and gave us more Titan Mystery....as opposed to everything that happened after 2006.
Butress note. "They gave Thrall credit for alot of what Rexxar did."
THEY DID WHAT!!! No my boy, my badass Mok'Nathal boy...
I don't really think any of it was actually true considering BfA acknowledged the Founding of Durotar a lot.
Honestly, i always just took that as the usual "the commander is given the credit" pattern that happens in history all the time. Thrall as the leader of the Durotar Founding's conflict against Daelin is just credited as "the most important guy present", even though Rexar did all the heavy lifting.
@@joshuakim5240I mean even the most basic Kul Tiran soldier knows what Rexxar did and vice versa with the Orcs, Tauren and Trolls. I honestly think that Chronicles just chose not to go into extreme details as per usual.
By fang and claw they did what!
yeah i was also sad to see rexxar getting his credit stolen when he is legit the GOAT in the horde.
So lore wise, MoP was actually the best expansion they ever made since they barely retconned anything.
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.
They retconned Garrosh's character development
Lorewise it was the most enjoyable expansion for me. I ve never ever had a moment of frustration when it comes to story. Even Legion had me frustrated couple of times but not MoP. It was brilliant.
People think MoP is bad/dumb because of "haha Pandas" but most of the lore they did throughout that expac was awesome. Garrosh stuff towards the end was kinda dumb since they just made him go full evil out of no where but otherwise a lot of it was sick as hell. The Sha are way cooler than any other Old God threat.
Jar of Pickles not really. The expansion launched with Garrosh's going full evil and large parts throughout it was dedicated to stopping him. The sha themselves ARE an old God threat, but whether you prefer them Yogg'saron, Cthun, or N'zoth is entirely subjective. There were a lot more things than "Pandas dumb" that made people dislike the expansion.
So on 12:55 that Satyr was checking if that succubus didn't have breast cancer?
Yes. That's exactly what's happening there.
Contrary to popular belief of Demons being mindless brutes, they're actually pretty civilized and have a very robust medical program.
They have free full body check ups ever quarter..
@@akshanthakar989 Good morning, sir. Did you get your prostate checked recently? It is widely known in the medical community that continued exposure to fel energy can produce tumours, but these are treatable with preservation of quality of life if you detect them early!
@@moscanaveia 😆 I want the succubus nurse to check me out
@@Sorrowdusk Dr Nathrezu will schedule your appointment, but I can make no promises it won't be a mo'arg nurse instead.
@@moscanaveia I had to google what a mo'arg was and now my butt hurts.
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.
Meanwhile apparently us whacking a tiny portion of them with swords and mortal magic worked.
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.
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!
Thanks for the recommendation! Always excited to see new game lore channels on the rise, especially for WoW.
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.
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
That pains me the most. How could they even think about that?
after frostmourne took control of him he was already done as a character.
@@bsherman8236 But he wasn't. He was still his own character in the undead campaigns, people just seem to forget for some reason. Turning Sylvanas was 100% Arthas, not Ner'zhul's influence. He still showed plenty of wit, creativity, and tactical prowess as a Death Knight, which is why Ner'zhul chose him as his champion and host in the first place. The problem with WoW's Lich King is that it removed all of that and just gave us "Big Evil Bad Guy", which didn't fit either Arthas or Ner'zhul's characters.
@@AmericanZergling yes he was. And people don't forget. His was the first soul frostmourne claimed, thus had has no moral responsibility for anything that follows. His story really should have ended when he ascended the frozen throne and become one with the existing Lich King. But shitty writers made it all about Arthas, 20 something prince that somehow was more powerful than everyone else.
@@AtheismF7W His morality was gone, but his character was still a character.
My problem with Wrath is that while it made it "all about Arthas" the Arthas we got wasn't even Arthas.
The character in Warcraft 3, the snark, the sadism, bluntness, frustration, even in cases trust and companionship with Kel'thuzad and Anub'arak were not present in Wrath.
In Wrath he was just evil for the sake of evil, wanted to take over the world for no reason, and made dumb decisions only for the purpose of MMO quest design. For a story focused on Arthas, they did a poor job translating his actual character.
And of course they did Ner'zhul dirty too. Ner'zhul, like Arthas, is also a character Blizzard go back and forth on and still somehow becomes generically evil too, despite having no real motivation to do so. He isn't Gul'dan, but Blizzard keeps writing him as if he is.
You forgot to mention the massive retcons to Deathwing's character which turned him into the cunning schemer from Warcraft 2 and Day of the Dragon to being a dumb meathead who wants to just destroy everything for whatever reason. He got the Mogor treatment, but was actually an important character, and for me at least, the way Deathwing's character panned out was one of Cataclysm's biggest failures.
By whatever reason, you mean when they wrote a whole outline for Deathwing's fall from grace, where he felt he got the unfair share of work from the Dragon Aspects, where he had to tend to the Earth, closest to the Old Gods and their prisons, while his mates got the easy and pleasurable jobs? Or do you prefer a black dragon born evil who put a neat metal plate on his scales and helped the orcs enslave the red dragons, for whatever reason?
Cataclysm was a huge dissapointment because of Deathwings reconned personality. He was so cool in the Novels, but such a wasted villian in game.
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.
@@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
@@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?
4:34 "in Wotlk there weren't any major retcons" ... You're wrong. The major retcon was Lich King himself. It wasn't the same cunning, scheming Lich King that we know from Warcraft 3, rather an arrogant, bored ruler that wanted to conquer Azeroth for no real reason. Ner'zhul had a bone to pick with the Kil'jaeden, not with the rest of Azeroth. Attacking BOTH the Horde and the Alliance was not bold, but very arrogant, and once again, a plot-driven by MMO needs. The real Lich King would have patiently waited for the Legion to arrive. It just didn't feel like the same character from Warcraft 3.
Kinda wrong on the second bit. LKs motivation as back as WC2 technically (well Nerzhuls) was to set up something against the legion as he essentially got the power to do so moments before his "death"/sealing by forging the helm, plate and blade after his plane hopping.
What he would have done is made a slow creeping plot that corrupts and turns everyone in ways from where they are weakest either against their own final goal or eachother before overwhelming the enemy before they get truly cornered... you know, like he did technically three times before WoW.
Remember this was Arthus as the Lich King not Nerzhul. It stands to reason that Arthus would be more arrogant (after killing any influence on himself as Lich King) and prepare an undead nation spanning the entire world (and world soul if he could) to fight the legion. He almost succeeded too if not for Light being super effective against Dark types.
@@hiropisku1078 It was clearly stated back then that Ner'zhul was the dominant one. Arthas was holding him back from using Scourge full force. Where did you come up with that stupid b******t ?
As others have pointed out, Arthas killed Ner'Zhul and himself kind of and the Lich King isn't Ner'Zhul during WotLK
@@Mythodyn You and the others have a problem understanding the word "retcon"??
Oh, didn’t tell about retcons with the Emerald Dream and the fact that the Legion is one between parallel universes.
The Legion between parallel universes?
The Titans and burning legion are outside the multiverse. Meaning in each universe it’s the same Sargeras
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.
He had like mastery on every type of magic
@@vulcanmemes9770 So? The player pretty much can defeat anything.
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.
I don't see how being created evil is a better trope then madness.
@@2dollarchickenwings689 I don't quite follow your rebuttal. I wrote that the demons were inherently evil and made Sargeras mad, not that Sargeras was evil.
Illidan always was an antihero edgelord who tried to help his people and was addicted to power. He still was retconned and a lot more evil, but it is not close to Arthas and Sylvanas retcons.
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!
Algalon: WHY CAN’T I FEEL ANYTHING?!
Sargeras: haha get fucked pussy, I get your leaders’ spirits in chains :)
I've also wondered about the scaling between the Titans, Old Gods and Aspects from the War of the Ancients Novels.
Krasus doesn't say that "all the dragon aspects together could easily defeat the Old Gods". He says that if there's anything that MIGHT be able to stand up to the Old Gods it would be the Dragon Aspects. To the best of Krasus's knowledge the Aspects represent the strongest power on Azeroth.
He also says that if destroying every demon won't matter if Sargeras makes it into Azeroth, because Sargeras is too strong. We know the Old Gods THINK they can use and defeat Sargeras and Krasus believes they may be right.
However, something to keep in mind is that these are all statements made by a character in the books, not by the author or by Blizz themselves. They are also made in different conversations with different other characters days apart from each other.
Most importantly;
Krasus is set up to be an extremely knowledgeable character but he isn't omniscient. Statements he makes about creatures that haven't been seen since LONG before even the Aspects existed shouldn't be taken as factual Warcraft lore.
Fantastic video! I was most interested in the Sargeras retcons, as I feel they were pretty major and interesting. I wish you had been able to spend more time on the whole 'fell into despair while fighting demons due to their evil and cruelty' vs. 'easily bested and imprisoned demons but felt that the Titans ordering of the universe was unnatural and wrong' vs. 'was actually just using demons while trying to prevent an even worse Void Lord fate.'
One thing I was surprised you didn't cover was Muradin Bronzebeard, and how we went from dying in WCIII when Arthas claimed Frostmourne to... not dying... at all.
But if you include "not dying", the list wouldn't end.
@@Iamnotpicky The Frostmourne pedestal was merely a setback!
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. 😢
I personally hate retcons, because when I like something I’ll obsess over it a bit, fit the entire story together as best as I can, and when they change that... it just falls apart.
To be honest though pretty much every retcon made the story so much better and flow better imo. The only really shitty one I think is the old gods being dead and being able to remove them (which honestly I have doubts about really don’t think we killed nzoth at all)
@@BlackenedRainvowPigs I agree with your take on the retcons. Things like Argus and theh Jailer added so much to pre-existing lore. People forget "expansions" are supposed to make the world bigger, yet they always complain about new lore and lore updates both, almost like they'd prefer to endlessly replay Classic and TBC and Wrath until their pants burst and the servers get shut down.
And I can't say I am mad about this Old Gods change, though I'd like to know the source of this information because I got the impression it is far from definitive.
@@moscanaveia it’s definitely not definitive just see lots of people in the community sharing that opinion, the reason I think they aren’t really dead though is just the fact that it never was really explained how we were all of a sudden able to fully kill the old gods. Nzoth we went to Ny’alotha so we killed him in “his realm” but none of the other golds were done that way not to mention it just kind of completely ignores the whole we can’t destroy them without destroying the world thing, unless that is explained and I’m just misinformed
@@BlackenedRainvowPigs The full nature of Ny'alotha is up in the air, which suits me just fine. Seems to me it's an illusion created by the Old Gods to represent the fallen Black Empire as it existed in the world before the Titans. But when it spills into Azeroth like it did during the Invasions in 8.3, we can actively fight the corruption.
FRankly, the characterisation of the Old Gods was flawless in BfA. I do not mind them being dead. C'thun is just a boring dungeon boss, Yogg has a lot more tentacles (pardon the pun) and pull, Xavius and the Nightmare were very fun to destroy in Legion, but N'zoth's rise and fall left me satisfied, to the point where I am willing to let them go.
Also, apparently this was communicated during an interview or something, during Blizzcon, so it is probably not definitive.
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!
Nice to see someone who knows what a retcon is, and doesn't think a retcon is any new lore they don't like.
This is for buttress and his new computer:
WOOOOOOOO
There are a few things on this vid that I think have some details painted a bit inaccurately. Although can't really blame anyone; Warcraft lore is a huge gigantic mess. Anyway:
1. The Shaman/Warlock Connection. This retcon actually happens in the "Lord of the Clans" novel between WC2 and WC3. Orc warlocks have been around since WC1 and have remained largely unchanged in description to today. The retcon is that in "Lord of the Clans", Blizz introduced the lore of Orcs having a noble, shamanistic culture BEFORE warlocks twisted them into what we saw in WC1, hence inventing the "orc shaman" but as a thing that supposedly predates the orc warlock.
2. The Twisting Nether. Originally, the Twisting Nether was basically the realm where ALL magic came from -- not just fel or shamanic. Mages channeled the Twisting Nether, too. The holy light and nature (at least the "life" side of nature, not the elements) were not counted as "magic", however, and that's why druids and paladins have no connection to the Twisting Nether. This alignment of powers seemed to slowly get abandoned through WotLK onward, and all non-physical forces started to be considered "magic" and the Twisting Nether relegated to being connected to just Fel (and maybe a mix of light and void) magic. But some things slip through the cracks, as is the case with the Shaman "Astral Recall" ability, where the tooltip still references the Twisting Nether.
3. The Draenei/Eredar debacle. If I remember correctly, Chris Metzen made the retcon and the apology not because of how upset the community was, but because he came out with lore that was so obviously self-contradictory it was impossible not to notice. The "History of Warcraft" document that had been around and was canon during WoW Vanilla said that a demonic race called the "Eredar" corrupted the Titan Sargeras into madness which led to the creation of the Burning Legion. When TBC was coming out, Metzen expanded the lore of the Draenei by saying they were descended from a race called the "Eredar", who were corrupted BY Sargeras. The truth is, as Metzen says, he always meant Sargeras' corruptors and corruptees to be 2 different races, but had forgotten that he already used the name "Eredar" for the corruptors before, which led to him using the name again for the corruptees. He retconned this by making the corruptors of Sargeras be the Nathrezim (Dreadlords) instead.
This is a neat clarification, I was going to comment on the draenei retcon also being that it made Sargeras corrupt the Eredar, when it was originally the Eredar who corrupted Sargeras, but I didn't know it was just a dumb name re-use. Didn't know that it was ever re-retconned to be dreadlords that corrupted Sargeras instead.
Mist of Pandaria is a fantastic expansion for being able to insert lore and make it work.
This was well done beautifully edited.
When Arthas died, he took the lore with him.
Retcons I think get a bad wrap in fandoms sometimes, and I appreciate your more value neutral take. Like there are some poorly implemented retcons in WoWs but retcons in and of themselves are part of how stories have been told since the beginning of time and writers deciding they wanna change things isn't a bad thing. I just think the hate boner people have with retcons have to do how they implement them, and not the fact retcons exist. Great video as always!
Them being a thing "since the beginning of time" doesn't mean it's beyond stupid to create something, have everyone love it and then say "let's change it" again and again.
They dont get crap for nothing, people get invested in the characters and stories they become familiar with, if they change it you're pretty much removing something they liked. Why did people hate when they removed the dialogue when Garrosh calls Sylvannas a bitch?; it wasn't because they are in favour of insulting women or because they have a hate-boner for Sylvannas, it's because that line is probably one of the most memorable dialogues we got out of Cataclysm and did a great job to deliver how intolerant Garrosh was to his authority as warchief being taken lightly. Retcons are necessary because writers dont have an infinite amount of foresight to build a story decades in advance, but people hate them because its a pretty clear sign of "they are making stuff up along the way" and J. J. Abrams has shown the world how quickly that becomes tiresome and any new content has to be carefully considered on how it will fit in the story.
@@Testingthisname WoW is such an old and big universe (in modern standards) that retcons are unavoidable. Rather than criticise them, we can help and improve them.
@@Testingthisname which writers are you referring to? The number of writers WoW had is probably higher than your age.
@@Testingthisname yeah, I just asked. What's your problem? You can't point to a single one so you have to refer to them collectively? They know what they are writing, that's why I'm confused by your statement.
that editing is pure fire 8/8 great work m9
I mean, one of the bigger retcons is just the fact that Illidan was *alive* to begin with. Arthas killed him pretty dead during the end of TFT.
14:40 Killy didn't have that scar back then. That scar was given by the player (demon hunter) on the legion order hall campaign
My god even this video has a lore retcon..
I love that they retconned illidan from not so evil to full evil to not evil at all
20:43 I love how Saitama is there.
Blizz did something more writers of chronicles should do actually. State that this is the history based on the knowledge of the writer.
The chronicles resemble more actual history books than lore-books. Therefor they can make them false without making them redundant. It's a clever move actually.
It's always been a problem that readers/player know too much. Let's take the "Aegwynn Retcon", which isn't necessarily a retcon. Why? Because a confident person can be seen as arrogant by others. Depending on who is telling the story. Depending on who is telling the story, it could also be said by someone that she tricked that man into fatherhood. Why would anyone do such a thing? Hm, why would someone try to bring someone else in miscredit?
Seriously, this is hardly a retcon, this is just a change in perspective.
All in all, too many players get too salty too fast. Sure, not every "change" fits every taste, how could it? It's like claiming that everyone has to like Lord of the Rings because it is good, no you don't. Writing is not bad, because you don't like it, it's not good because you like it. That's the most ridiculous thing among too many Warcraft-"fans". They don't like something, it must be bad. Nah, dude, you don't like it, so you don't like it. Doesn't make it bad, but the attitude is there and it is absolutely ridiculous.
Most changes Blizzard made were actually additions and not changes. They were made to streamline a story that went on for far longer than most of the Blizzard staff may have anticipated. You know how hard it is to constantly write a consistent story for over 20 years? Guys, retcons, changes and additions are an absolute necessity to keep that stuff working. That they streamlined the Warcraft story with the chronicles was more a necessary thing than anything else.
Sometimes giving more information on something is good, sometimes it destroys the mystery. And sometimes it simply destroys the fan imaginations. People who made up their own mind about how something is, and are now being told: "Nah, it's not how you think it is." and some of these people were really proud about their ideas.
Thing is, the writer decides what the story is and were it goes. You don't have to like it, even if it is your favorite franchise. It's okay to not like something. But please, stay away from that arrogant attitude to assume your taste is an objective measure for what is good and what is not.
Finally, a voice a reason in these comments, lol. Thanks for taking a stand and reminding us that this isn't something we should take too seriously. I also deal with the problem that having too much "outsider information" ruins the sense of immersion. It's why i love the Elder Scrolls games, because they tell everything through the unreliable narrator through people's stories and in-game books filled with limited knowledge and biases. For me, WoW has always walked the line of a story where I'm really invested into the lore, but also one where I accept that it's a game world run by rule of cool before all else and things can/should change to suit that purpose. This isn't Lord of the Rings or Narnia, it's a fun story that happens when you take element from fantasy and cultures all across the earth's history and throw it into a fun blender to find a cay it all combines.
I remember talking with my bf about a lot of WoW lore since he wasn't familiar with anything past WC3, and as I was explaining everything to him and being like "yeah they retconed this and that" he said something that made a lot of sense:
"It sounds like each expansion is just an alternate timeline with a few things just slightly different."
And now I can't stop thinking about it, it's broken my mind, and now I've adopted that idea too - we know alternate timelines are a thing in WoW, Anachronos explained to us something similar in BFA in a Horde quest line. For example: remember in Cataclysm how Garrosh was kind of seen as this not evil dude and kind of just figuring out the best way to do what was best for the Horde, but then in Mists suddenly became evil? Maybe Mists was the timeline where Garrosh was evil, and the Cata was the timeline where Garrosh was a pretty decent guy.
I don't know if I'm making sense but all I can say is this assumption makes a lot of sense and it messes with me every time I'm reminded it's a thing lol
When I read the Med‘an comics for the first time I was blown away by how bad this shit was. Good thing they basically delete the character out of the story
I believe Uther’s soul is the way it is solely because of Frostmourne. The half that wasn’t taken by the blade went to the shadowlands - with that half not remembering anything other than the painful way he died. And the other half of his soul, that being who he really was, remained trapped in the blade until the end of wrath, presumably unable to move on because of how the blade fucked things up
My theory with Sylvanas is that she went to the maw and was forced to serve the jailer which is why she sought so hard to become immortal by the valkyr and when she finally got the lamp from helya in legion. Her fate was sealed when Genn broke the lamp so that’s why she serves the jailer
Big fan of all your videos. Honestly hope you keep up the good work!
I'm glad they retconned whoever the fuc Med'an was, cos it sounds like the author who wrote him just went on a full-blown Marty Stu powertrip.
Very well done and explains major plot points in the past to help view the present
The Ashbringer comic all but completely retconned a "hidden" quest in Vanilla involving the corrupted Ashbringer, as well as their multiracial origins.
Lady Vashj's retcon is significant to me, because you get a feeling that she might harbor genuine sympathy towards the blood elves and Illidan. In Warcraft 3, she seems more like a 3-dimensional character, a proof that even nagas have their own beliefs, values and can relate to others. Making her essentially just another mindless servant of the Old Gods takes away from the unique dynamics these characters had.
I dont think, those are necessary retcons, i just see it as story told by creatures that did not had all the information. Like poeple here on earth, find new stuff every minute and history is overwritten every day. And I find it beautiful..
I think the Brow/Green skin color of the orcs is pretty important too.
Before Warlords of Draenor i think, Orcs were naturally green, exception being Mag'har and Blackrock clans for example. Drinking demon blood turned them red. Whereas since WOD, they are originally brown and can turn green with contact to the fel.
Not sure if i'm correct about this one but i always got confused
Orcs were never naturally green, in TBC the Mag'har already existed and we knew that drinking demon blood turned then green, but drinking it "everyday" made the corruption even worst turning them red (the red orcs on that TBC dungeons drank the blood of Magtherion for this)
They were always naturally brown. Demon corruption made them green. A constant source of demon corruption (like drinking demon blood like coffee) makes them red.
hope you do a video about the minor retcons, too.
24:03 I always interpreted the "the old God's can't be killed or it will kill the planet" was more referring to the TITANS themselves killing them being too traumatic for the world soul and jailing them was the only option since their servants was nowhere near powerful enough to deal a killing blow to them.
First war was also retconned. Originally orcs didn't start the war right away and the war laster much longer so it possible for Garona to be half human and grow up in that time. This was later retconned to much shorter span of time so they had to change Garona to half Draenei instead because there was way should be half Human.
a massive problem is blizzard keeps putting all the important lore we need for the massive ingame shifts into books most people dont know exist, or if they do, dont have the money or time to get it
Soulbringers outright shows Uther’s soul being split, with a blue portion of it going into Frostmourne and a yellow portion going to Bastion.
yeah but that's stupid. it's just them explaining away why their ill-conceived lore story requires Uther's soul to be in two different places at the same time.
A year after... Oh boy, that Shadowlands ending cinematic xD
You forgot that the demons of the burning legion went to argus instead of the void
I think one of the bigger retcons that I dislike is the retcon to how canon the Chronicles are.
They were started by Metzen before he left I’m pretty sure, and were supposed to be THE definitive lore from an Omniscient source.
Then, after 3 came out, they released that statement that it’s all being told from one perspective that isn’t flawless…
So tired of writers trying to retcon their retcons. We just want definitive lore and events to happen like they do in the real world.
I swear one day they’re going to address the whole, “Jains is a dread lord” joke and the “Jaina and Thrall were banging” joke by saying that it’s really their evil twins Rodrick and Catherine behind those things.
Another retcon that i noticed is Kel Thuzad being a pawn of the Jailer instead of someone completely dedicated to the Scourge, and the Lich King's most loyal servant and friend. It bothers me since he is my favourite character.
Not really a retcon maybe but it's weird how the blackrock orcs (that come from draenor) live in the blackrock mountain on azeroth, that had that name even before the opening of the dark portal.
Coincidence?
And the biggest retcon is that Warcraft is a retcon of Warhammer. A human kingdom fighting off orcs that appear out of a blasted land through a very narrow path into the forested kingdom. Ignoring a swamp to the East and heading for the capital far in the West.
What was that at 25:105 hiru? Shadow...bringers? Big hmmmm lol. Jokes aside interesting vid. Good job as always.
I very much think that Sylvanas and the Jailer are going to be "good doing evil" kinda thing. There's probably a bigger threat than anything in the Shadowlands; The Void.
The Kyrian hero that strikes down void creatures, the Brokers which are clearly related to the Trade princes from the void, our loose threads with Alleria, the dark;consuming void in Tyrande's heart.
I haven't even finished level 60 intro quests yet, but I can tell the next expansion is "HEY GUYS THE VOID IS BACK AND ITS PISSED"
OH; also Alleria and Sylvanas being the Alliance/Horde leaders of the new Dark Ranger class is just chef's kiss, amirite?
wow retcons: Every positive nice quests from forsaken , Sylvanas bending the knee to Thrall to saving forsaken and blood elves and anything that is Sylvanas. Fuck cataclysm.
Void lords are not stronger than the titans, it was stated (i think in chronicles? can't remember) they they envied/feared of how powerful the titans are, so they made old gods and scatter-shot them across the great dark in hopes and for the sole reason of corrupting an unborn titan, thus claiming that titanic power for the void.
Pretty sure this part of lore will be retconned too soon enough, it's not like anyone at blizzard cares about making a coherent universe anymore, even Chris himself showed signs of getting tired of it long before his retire
WAIT
they ruined aegwyns lore!?!? she was so cool before ::/
2:15 I don't understand where the retcon is here. did they have to apologize? I mean the draenei in warcraft 3 were clearly introduced as "Pseudo-Dark templar", there was a clear hint those were potentially "banished ones" from a greater whole.
4:34 well... one could argue Arthas was unnecessarily "Sunday's villain" in this expansion
Also the Nathrezim are just Stoneborn Gargoyles from Revendreth sleeper agents who manipulated everything to happen in the Warcraft universe
Don't forget the retcon of the Ashbringer. It's kind of a big deal. Naxxramas in Classic never existed, player never got Ashbringer. Now it's Darion, who never went to Outland, who attacked Naxxramas with the Argent Dawn, meet his father Alexandros Mograine , killed his undead form, took the sword, brought it to the Scarlet Monastery where his father's spirit indeed kill Renault, and bring it to the Argent Dawn.
Then, to free his father from the cursed sword, Darion killed himself and that somehow underturned the battle and free his father, but doomed him to be enslaved by Kel'Thuzad in place of his father as the Corrupted Ashbringer.
So really that doesn't change much so far, it's Darion and not Alexandros, but it's still an undead Mograine guy with the Corrupted Ashbringer, and Renault's dead. Then the Death Knight quest, Tirion got the Ashbringer and purify it by just taking it (Despite Fairbank telling us the blade is too corrupted and there's no way to purge it, it must be entierely reforged) and from that point, the players will need to wait to Legion to finally get the Ashbringer for themselves
This retcon was really important because it didn't just took away the possibility to have the Corrupted Ashbringer and render impossible to get the Scarlet Monastery Event, which was super rare and cool at the time, it also straight up delete the Corrupted Ashbringer from player's accounts. I believe this is the only time a retcon lore went this far in the game
I wouldn't call the lore about the Old gods and the Titan a retcon since everything knows about them back in the day were based on speculation and no fact.
I disagree totally on the old gods side, the retcon they did with them literally would've made at least half the things in Azeroth totally differente, the only reason we fought the old gods before was because the titans HAD to keep them alive, they killed Y'shaarj and that almost killed the planet if they had continued on killing the others, if they can be killed why the fuck the titans didn't slay them before? This is the worst ever retcon they did in my opinion, that nullifies important lore, if the old gods could be killed there would be no deathwing, no elves and no first invasion of the Legion (The Well of Eternity was the injury the planet suffered when Y'Shaarj was killed), if the Legion couldn't find azeroth later then no LK, orcs etc.
And I might be missing some more important stuff that wouldn't happen too there
@@ramonnunes2064 NO! Everything that was known about them was based on speculation and no fact, so there was no retcon about them at all.
@@linkzellda if there was not retcon, then tell me why the titans didn't kill them in the past? that's why the old gods dying don't make sense at all, even if the "old lore" was just speculation like you are saying, the speculation is more valid than the actual canon
@@ramonnunes2064 Your argument doesn't change the fact that everything we know about the Old Gods back in the day was based on speculation and no fact.
Rumors are not fact as there no evidence to prove anything about the Old Gods back in the day, so there wasn't retcon about them upon the release of Chronicle.
Pretty much what this video tells you is that Blizzard has trouble making story often. Anything can be changed just because they say so and the reason doesn't need to make sense. A decent amount of these retcons made the story flow better and make more sense NOW but the change wasn't explained at least not in this video, but some of these you can't explain, it was just them changing something cause they messed up and didnt think long term earlier on in the lore because they didnt think the game would still be alive.
Nah the weirdest addition they made to the story was Vashj was originally a Night Elf with cat eyes.
idk if it's a retcon or anything, it's just really damn weird to me for some reason.
I love how you say the “Shadowbringers Special”, which is of course FFXIV and not WoW at 25:18 😂. Not saying that’s a bad mistake though as I prefer XIV at the time as it is.
Same. It's just solid MMO, especially the story
Oh shit I didn't even pick up on that.
Thankfully with FFXIV the only recons are from AAR content.
Correction Sylvanus did kill herself but when she was brought back she wasn't moved to make sure her people didn't share the same fate. she was so horrified by what she saw in the shadowlands and the creatures within it that she decides to strengthen the forsaken so they can act as a shield to protect her from ever dying again. cause in the short story she first refers to them as arrows to be spend and forgotten where after her suicide the clam she will make them into a shield to keep her safe forever.
are you considering updating the shadowlands part and also the dragon flight expac to this?
I can't fathom why they retconned all the Titans to be dead in Legion, only for the next patch to show them all alive without ANY explanation. I have no idea what happened there.
I want to add that it's not "Outlands." It is just Outland. No s. This is actually pretty important.
thanks for an awesome video, sir
Me'dan's removal is weird because Aegwynn's actual death was supposed to have come from lending the last of her power to him.
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.
The helm of domination was the dumbest retcon. It's the lich king admitting he sucks at leading the undead, since they'd be stronger without him
When orcs were literal demons from literal Hell instead of corrupted aliens.
old aegwynn was better. just showing how medivh was a thing created out of just bad situations on bad situations
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.
@Justin Nope naga plz her literal creators are men
@@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.
@@loganreed23 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.
@@loganreed23 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
You forgot about night elf whole society structure. Like females being warriors and males being druids which was forgotten in vanila
Amazing how the community forgot about the huge amount of night elf lesbian stuff because that old lore about males being dumb sleepy druids and females being Chad Warriors
@@Tutel0093 Most forgot, but the group i gamed with back in those days every dps/melee was a chad female and druids were beta males. Not enough people that came from warcraft1-3 communities could fight the newbs coming to the lore after people seen how great of a fluid combat/quest/character systems were. In those days most people could not solo a regular mob their level. WoW was first game that was a detailed MMO that could solo. Which was what drew me from FFXI.
@@Tutel0093 No, it is only your fetish.
I remember that in Vanilla when I started most Druids were just male, and basically all the other classes were female.
Players came from the games and books and really cared back then.
That wasn't a retcon though. From my understanding, the society just evolved by the time of World of Warcraft. The old society structure is still canon, it's just not used anymore.
When they retcon something, it makes me feel like "Why do i even read the novels anyway"
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"
@@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
@@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.
Nothing from the novels was really ever retconned, so there is that.
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.
For vanilla, you also glossed over the whole...
"The continent of Lordaeron was overrun by demons and undead, who were still running the place, hence why Admiral Proudmoore even went to Kalimdor"
They even outright said during release that effectively they just wrote out the "alliance and horde are working together now" plot point because it got in the way of their faction-based pvp gameplay.
To be fair there are a lot of Undead in Lordaereon still, and Demons roam many zones too. Kalimdor by comparison is mostly a wild place with only small pockets of either in a handful of zones.
But the whole deal with Horde vs Alliance was never really explained. We just get to see the consequences of their re-falling out.
I don't think it has anything to do with pvp players. Merge the factions and you can easily explain it away for pvp--gladiator games to hone skills against your fellow citizens. They won't get rid of it because of the super nerd, endlessly loyal paying customer base that is actually invested in their faction like real life patriotism in a warring country.
Edit: if they said it, they were blaming PVP players under the guise of supporting them as an excuse to not call out the no-lifers.
It's not because of PvP fame modes. It's because of the factional system. So yes battlegrounds and PvP you can explain away but war efforts, RP, story, zones and even open world pvp wouldn't make any sense if the factions were combined
I always saw it as the sides are officially "working together" but there's still a lot of bad blood between individuals.
And if you happen to see someone flying a blue banner around Tarren Mill, it was my duty for the fallen members of the Horde to make sure that pinkskin pays.
_"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."*
Now there are more holes than in a cheese.
I mean the wod ones were more legion. Late wod was basically legion. Especially from the dev teams perspective.
and wod is a other timeline sooo....yeah easy answer to all wod retcons in second draenor
"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"
cata and mists did a FUCK ton of retcons idk what your on
For WotLK retcons, pretty sure Muradin originally didn’t lose just his memory when they found Frostmourne
Yeah, he is definitely assumed to be dead
@@lancejohnson3278 I just read on wiki and wowpedia that he is alive but has his memory wiped completely.
In Warcraft III it's not really stated either way. It was always just kinda an assumption. He was just thrown to the ground and then nothing really after that (I think Arthas might have mentioned something to some dudes, don't remember). In Wrath it wasn't really a retcon, more of a "here's the rest of the story".
He had amnesia, but regained his memory slowly over time.
@@alligraham31 they played a death animation in that sequence. In wc3 to my knowledge every single time a character got a death animation they were dead. So I don't think it's irrational to assume that Muradin died
He was even considered death by the other dwarves when Arthas returned to Northrend. Arthas himself never told the other alliance people thatMuradin was hit by a giant fucking boulder. So I assumed they found his body.
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.
Hahahaha amazing :p
@@Ishantos Unicorns shit ice cream. Have you not seen the squatty potty commercials?
@@gpturismo Depends how much fiber they've had.
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.
She _is_ a crazy fanatic. Her hate of Tyrande is not the cause or embodiment of that.
who the hell wrote med'an, and why?
Chris Metzen and .... Chris Metzen.
@Sinsear Yes, Walt Simonson was writing the comics, though it was probably more like he was "scripting" the story and plot that he was told to present (as is usually the case with cross-medium franchise fiction). I cannot think of anybody else at the time besides Chris Metzen who would have had the ability to create and define a character that would be the lead in a title like Med'an was.
@@andrebetita If it really was Metzen, why was Med'an ignored until they could retcon them out with a back-handed joke to whoever conceived such a shameless self-insert?
@@moscanaveia probably because they waited till Metzen left his role in Blizzard.
@@DoftheLin Stop projecting. Med'an is not Metzen's creation and Blizzard never used him because he was too shoddily written
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
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.
@@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)
@@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.
@@GonnerMax you are right, my bad. I forgot that the elements on azeroth were literally at war
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?
Blizz just has a tendency to go "yeah, this person' evil now... We'll think about why later, if we feel like it"
And with Sylvanas, they're also doing the opposite. "Well, she's good now, be redeemed".
@@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?
Garrosh Hellscream - who did nothing wrong, incidentally - sends his regards.
@@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.
And it's always some kind of magic corruption which conviently corrupts this person, but not basically everyone else.
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.
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
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.
@@mathewstafford7943 Each expansion is it's own alternate timeline :)
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.
@@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.
Remember when Alexandros Mograine was orginally one of the founding members of the Scarlet Crusade before it was retconned?
That was retconned? Seriously?
@@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.
@@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.
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.
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.
@@mallios13 you people talk like that wasnt thrown away at the first expansion lol
I mean, warcraft has always had Sci fi elements. The whole dark portal stuff is using space magic to allow aliens to Invade Azeroth.
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
@@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.
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
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.
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.
@@hirumaredx A Dev did state that Cenarius was in the Emerald Dream in Cataclysm, so that's a retcon for sure.
@@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.
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.
Sure, we've retconned retcons, but have we retconned retcons that were retconned yet?
*look at shadowlands
yes
@@zennim125 Name fingers and point names
As a long time Lady Vashj fan since war 3, her retcon were more then just "minor changes" like the video implies but destroyed what agency she used to have in that game. Instead of being a selfish person who simply had the same desire as Illidan and Kel'thas, gain more power to ease their thirst, she was first retconned that she acted on the behalf of all Nagas then further more when all of her contribution to the story was just according to old god plans. Her involvment in Shadowlands pretty much sealed that trait to her forever.
...I miss when her character was just the cool evil snake witch of which, even after her death, you would learn some new story about her past in various naga ruins in post-TBC.
Erm, correct me if I am missing something, but nagas were made nagas by N'zoth. And ever since their inception, their allegiance to Azshara herself had been established: Maiev finds the Azshara statue witth a serpentine tail on the ruins of the Tomb of Sargeras, and Vashj herself later tells Kael the Naga were once the Highborne. So the only real retcon is that the naga were made into what they are by N'zoth, and not the energies of the Well as it was previously stated. So "the Old Gods made me do it" pretty much changes nothing, because Azshara was ostensibly acting according to N'zoth's wishes anyways (even though she herself subverted that from the get-go, there is no indication whether her followers were in on the joke).
@@moscanaveia Previously, it was explained that the nagas responded to Illidan's summon in TFT because of "previous highborne debt". There was also questlines about some naga not directly worshipping Azshara, but rather Neptulon, meaning the naga does have autonomy that defies the old gods. And it's not really anything ground breaking to give N'Zoth all the credit, it's just lame characterization that was otherwise more interesting. Just like Illidan's retcon in his novel made him a much more interesting character than just "gone mad after losing in Icecrown". Characters having autonomy over their own decisions is sorely needed in WoW since we already have a sht ton of "corrupted into villain" plotlines.
This.
@@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.
Especially since the original lore stayed true to the overarching theme of the elves being prone to being corrupted by their thirst for power.
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!
You could salt the oceans, goodness
@@zazi5305 what the oceans that mafurion moved with his fucking TEARS?
@@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?
@@kaelmic7476 So this hack is the source of the "Malfurion-is-more-powerful-than-everyone" movement?
@@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.
Moira finally calling out Hiru for mispronouncing names gives me so much life.
@@alakazamisabeast A very common mistake unfortunately... lots of people misread that word.
@@alakazamisabeast thats how I've pronounced it all my life. What is the correct way?
Don Hiquote has always bothered me to an unreasonable extent.
@@alakazamisabeast so it's a jer and not a Ger? What a way to kill a word...
21:12 for anyone interested. The editor is the best! Who knows, Moira may or may not be from Moria.
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
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.
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
@@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.
@@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.
@@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
... You forgot one of the better retcons from Cata, concerning Arugal, the Worgen, Gilneas etc.
You mean the one where the Worgen curse turned out to be created by Druids?
@@narrahian9713 sort of. The one where Arugal was an arch mage for Gilneas, the fact that there were still people behind the Wall, the size and purpose of it, the location of the Scythe of Elune post-Vanilla, and the development of Gilneas from their Warcraft 2 medieval look to a Victorian era style. One of the few positive retcons that gets skimmed over.
@@narrahian9713 If I remember correctly the worgen curse spreads through bites. So Arugal could pretend he "knew how to make worgen" as if no druidism was needed but he just had worgen in the dungeons where he put humans to be bitten by them to make more worgen to bite even more people. It doesn't retcon much to say the origins were druidic, Arugal just jumped the opportunity to make an army
@@cycy9154 iirc he got the initial worgen batch from the emerald dream (i kid you not the night elves imprisoned worgen in there)
Who give a fuck about Worgens bruh
One retcon that always annoyed me was the Forsaken new plague. Most of the forsaken quests in classic wow are surrounding the development of the plague specifically to be used on living and undead alike, including other members of the horde. This is shown several times such as the quest in the undercity to provide materials for an apothecary treating a tauren which ends up killing the tauren. The plan always was "death to the scourge and death to the living" with an all forsaken end game. This culminates with the execution of the plan at the wrathgate and subsequent retcons that Sylvanas knew nothing about this world spanning quest line involving hundreds of her agents and wow guys it was just the legion the forsaken are very pro horde.
I rolled my Eyes so hard at that, that they got stuck for a Week.
Rip apothecary society rip undercity
@@Elearen The demons made me do it.
I always kind of assumed that Sylvanas was onboard with the plan until Putress decided to make his move too early and did his coup with Varimathras at the same time. Then Sylvannas covered her ass by denying all knowledge of her involvement(which i think it´s safe to say that Thrall didn´t fully trust, considering that afterwards he had his Kor-Kron guards police undercity afterwards).
Because if this was her plan, it's weird that she didn´t do more to trap Arthas to ensure his death, or that she would risk fighting a war on three fronts,even with all the troops tied up in Northrend.
Yeah, back when the Forsaken had a very uneasy alliance with the Horde because the Kalimdor races didn't trust them, but having a major foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms was just too big of a strategic boon to let go (with the added benefit of at least keeping tabs on what the hell the scourge is up to after Arthas went to Northrend) and the Forsaken begrudgingly admitting that they are in dire need of protection against the Alliance and the Scarlet Crusade.
Like, the whole Vanilla Tirisfal quests were about consolidating their tenous control over the core Lordaeron territories, where they were at open war with the Scarlet Crusade, parts of the Argent Dawn and the Kirin Tor (funny how that just got forgotten too). By the time of Cataclysm, they have achieved that and much more. The problem that there wasn't really any reason for Sylvanas to stay loyal to the Horde after the Lich King was dead (or so she believed) and with a full arsenal of WMDs at her disposal has plagued the lore on numerous occasions.
That said, Forsaken lore has been a giant mess ever since Vanilla. Originally, it was stated that they were about half of the entire Scourge, which would be absolutely MASSIVE. Nothing about this is seen or even communicated.
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.
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
@@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.
@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
@@JJJBunney001 I still find it clumsy. So you're saying that nathrezim were cross faction?
@@gabrielreed8039 it is a rertcon and a stupid one. Dreadlords homeworld is a planet called Nathreza, not shadowlands
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.
Blizzard’s like that DM we’ve all had that makes it up as they go.
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?
@@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.
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
To be fair, it's the most efficient way to DM
Illidan. the Itachi Uchiha of the Warcraft Universe
"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
@@HimePenguin They also brought Illidan back from the dead just so you could kill him again.
@@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.
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!
@@azazamat what do you mean Itachi did something good for Sasuke, he literaly traumatized him for all of his childhood