So, the list of stuff that can be screwed up or handled smartly via soft retcons. So far.

1). The Helm of Damnation and Frostmourne were created by the Forge Sage in the Forge of Damnation within Thorgast (old lore, from the Arthas novel: dreadlords did that (even older lore from WC3: Frostmourne was conjured by Ner’zhul).

A. The Forge Sage was aided by the gargoyles of Revendreth, who are actually (speculation: we’ve discussed its prons and cons before: appearance, Denathrius, castle Nathria etc) ancestors of the dreadlords.

B. The Forge Sage did it. That’s all.

2). The Scourge architecture is inspired (if not occasionally teleported from) Maldraxxus (old lore since WC3: it was inspired by Azjol-Nerub).

A. An easier route is to say that the Nerubian and the Necrolord architectures simply look alike. A strange coincidence. And the Scourge took bits from both.

Or to make more sense of Maldraxxus and Azjol-Nerub similarities: let’s say that the Nerubians were inspired by the realm of the dead somehow. Say that Yogg-Saron had some affinity with Death (not to an extent of creating undead armies, but still: to kill people): being “god of death”, firing green lasers of doom, turning his avatar into a val’kyr etc. So, his spider people got some visions of the Shadowlands and were inspired by them, just as by their old culture of the Black Empire. Plus, Maldraxxus is full of spiders: maybe spiders originated from there.

B. Just Maldraxxus. And even in that case, Azjol-Nerub and its ziggurats are still there, and they won’t disappear anywhere, so the similarities between the cultures shall remain. So, kind of both of them influenced the Scourge, but it’s still mostly Maldraxxus, and the rest is thrown under the rug.

3). Spirit healers are Kyrians. (old lore from the Chronicle: spirit healers are original va’kyr, created by Odyn against their own will, who were freed by Helya, but refused to follow her into Helheim).

A. The val’kyr, who once followed Helya, had found the Bastion due to their natural connection with this realm. They joined the Covenant, and got uplifted into proper spirit healers.

B. They are just Kyrians, ex-mortals, who got transformed over the aeons.

4). The Ancient Guardians go to Ardenwald to regenerate their powers in order to reincarnate. (old lore since Cataclysm: they do all that in the Emerald Dream).

A. First, they go back to the Dream (due to their connection with Nature: it fits Q&A answer from the last Blizzcon), and then to Ardenwald: to regenerate their souls via anima. And then back to the Dream.

B. Just Ardenwald all the way.

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тче баттле бегонс...

I would argue there’s a C: Death -> Ardenweald -> Dream.

Theory/Head-Canon: the Titans have long had power in the Shadowlands, and they use it to create their death redirects: Freya connected the Emerald Dream to Ardenweald to help speed along the regeneration of Wild Gods: they can pass between the two without trouble, but they need the Anima from Ardenweald to return to the physical world. Helya used the Shadowlands to redirect elementals to the Elemental Plane instead of just regenerating in Azeroth’s core. Similarly, Sargeras himself may have used the Shadowlands to create Mardum and have Demons respawn their instead of the Nether and later to power his demonic redirect at Argus. Maybe that’s why taking down Argus might have thrown the Shadowlands out of whack.

That might require a new thread......

I sincerely doubt it.

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As I've been saying on several Discords, the Spirit Healer situation is fine.

The Chronicle page doesn't outright mention Spirit Healers.

They say some of the val'kyr that escaped Helya would sometimes guide for the spirits of mortals to return to life.



That's saying "they would sometimes act as spirit healers".

It doesn't impede there being other kinds of spirit healers before the vrykul val'kyr.

Let's have a metaphor, shall we?

"The few who stil retained a glimmer of nobility in their souls dedicated themselves to watching over the physical world. From within the Shadowlands, these Val'kyr would at times guide the dead back to the land of the living."

What if we had lawyers and counselors?

"...these lawyers would at times provide advice, help, or encouragement to people."

So these lawyers would sometimes act as counselors.

Does this impede the possibility of there being counselors before lawyers? No.

Does this impede the possibility of there being people who work exclusively as counselors? No.

Just like the Chronicle wording doesn't say that Odyn's valkyr were the first and only to guide the dead back to the land of the living, aka acting as spirit healers.

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You finally took the lore blackpill eh? Welcome aboard.

But yeah both retcons are utterly unnecessary. Not everything has to be linked to the new thing, Ner'zul's helm held a lot of dead people, unleashing them all at once can be enough to overwhelm the Veil, no need for a connection beyond that.
And the Scourge possibly being Mal'draxxus ripoffs? Stupid, and a retcon since the WC3 manual said that Scourge buildings are summoned from the Twisthing Nether, which is why it makes sense we don't see it after WC3, the partnership with the demons ended so no more spectral aid. but now possibly this? Why? So unnecessary and dumb.

But oh well, just keep looking at big pic. stuff if you can't help yourself and try to laugh through the ride.

And then in Legion we extensely traverse the Twisting Nether and yet we see nothing that not even closely resembles the Scourge aesthetics.

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So what? They could have retconned or more likely just forgot about it.

Besides the Scourge architecture was always Nerubian in origins, it was only built in the Twisting Nether by Legion laborers. Or possibly built in some Scourge location and only transported to final location through the Nether. Back then the Twisting Nether was the source of all arcane magic and so goes hand in hand with teleportation.

By this logic it can still be transported through the Twisting Nether. They just use the Nether as a Conduit between Maladraxxus and Azeroth.

The link between the Legion and the Shadowlands will need to explored in order to handle this retcon with anything resembling grace.

Eh?

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Don't overthink it too much.

Warlods of Draenors was basically centered on the premise of cameos from Old Horde leaders. This one's simply gonna be centered on glorified cameos from dead characters.

Take Kael for example. Apparently, his last shenanigans was due to pride.

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Technically, the Shadowlands themselves (the place) is a retcon. As of Warcraft 2 the dead were in the Twisting Nether


http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/War...%20edition.PDF

Emphasis added.

The whole Scourge Buildings being summoned from the Twisting Nether is probably based on that lore. Basically, early on, the Twisting Nether was our one-stop-shop for all things Hell. As the Lore developed, Death was further and further divorced from Demons and this is the result. Unless they decide to link the Maw and the Nether......

And to be fair, even that old entry was already retconned by Rise of the Horde and subsequent Draenor/Outland materials and content, whereby it turned out the dead of Draenor were never really indicative of how death works in general because the souls there were being artificially anchored to the planet by the proximity of the collapsed/collapsing naaru interred in Oshu'gun and Auchindoun and suspended over Shadowmoon Valley.

So while correct while they lived there, the beliefs of the orcs and draenei (and any other sapient races living on Draenor) concerning the spirits of the dead arguably ceased to be accurate when they came to live on Azeroth.

Yup, the Retcon started clear back in TBC and no one noticed. From there it just kept on growing until now we’re here.

Nah, it was just inside the Frozen Throne with the armour and the helmet. The implication is that Kil'jaeden and the Legion made Frostmourne and the Helm.

The only real inconsistency is whether Illidan caused the crack in the Throne or Ner'zhul purposefully did it. I think the former makes more sense in terms of the timeline, but the latter was... fine too?

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

The idea of metaphysics differing between worlds is a fascinating world building concept. One I wish more fantasy settings would use when they start mucking about with cosmology. Unfortunately, this is Blizzard and they suck at world building.

Oh they're fine at worldbuilding the problem is they have no consistency or respect for what comes before.

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There is no canon. Only retcon.

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