Afaik Chron 1 makes the claim that Life (including trolls) didn’t start flourshing until after the black empires defeat and the creation of the well of eternity.
As others have pointed out tho, unreliable narrator
Yeah it is a bit…I don’t know. You get the impression that this 20 or 30 year ongoing story hasn’t been planned out in advance, at least not very much, and that Blizzard have been writing it as they’ve been telling it.
In that sense it’s quite reminiscent of TV series in the 90’s where they just got another season and another season and another season, and the writers just kept creating more plotlines to support the many episodes. And then eventually the show had to end and the story had to reach a conclusion and it usually flopped or fell flat, because the story was never written with an ending in mind, and it was an impossible task to include so many seasons with so many plotlines into an overarching conclusion that would tie everything together in a seamless and beautiful manner.
And that’s kind of where WoW is, and by extension Warcraft. We’re getting to the point where the story has to get wrapped up. There has to be a conclusion and a finale to this behemoth that Blizzard has been writing on for 20 or 30 years. And there’s almost no other way Blizzard can approach the plethora of plotlines they’ve got going on, except to tie them into some greater conspiracy where it’s all been a lie and here’s what really happened.
It is what it is, and if you’re a long-time Warcraft fan I do think it’s fair to be a bit moody about it, because it doesn’t seem like it’s a very spectacular fantasy story that remains when it’s been told to its end.
Where I think it’s still interesting, is the execution of the ending. Like, how is it actually going to unfold? Just like those TV series in the 90’s, it was actually pretty exciting to see the final episode of Friends, X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Beverly Hills 19210, and so on.
And obviously in The Last Titan there’s going to be a reckoning between us, the denizens of Azeroth, The Titans, the World Soul, and various other parties of interest.
And then we’ll see what Metzen’s version of Ragnarok looks like.
And what the aftermath of it is.
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Chronicles were originally released in 2012-13. It was in 2019 that everyone’s favourite Danuser said it was written from the perspective of the titan’s, (2019 was during BfA).
Also the edict you mentioned came with Dragonflight, the openly hostile anti-titan expansion.
Given the age gaps bewtween chricicles and these 2, I don’t think of it as a direct continuity, but a retcon to fit and expand the lore to their [aka the writers in 2019 and 2022] own agenda.
Obviously the IP is Blizzard’s, as forex Star Wars is Disney’s, so legally they are free to do with their propety as they desire, but I uphold my right of free speech to say it doesn’t mean they are doing a good job.
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This is what I dislike as well. Instead of creating new lore, they try to alter the old one and say “It wasn’t what you thought it was, and what you did happened for the wrong reasons, and the people you thought had a motive were actually puppets etc.”.
We know that the story up to the ending of Legion was sketched out, at least as a draft, from all the way back in The Burning Crusade. But with BFA and especially with Shadowlands and Dragonflight, they revisited some of the old lore to say “Hah, there was actually an ulterior motive!” or “This thing that was told that exists for one reason? Yeah, it exists for another”. The entire concept of doing that is not problematic, it’s that there was no foreshadowing or even planning to do that which was hinted; it was pure distilled retconning.
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Yeah, I have this sense that Metzen and Afrasiabi came up with some kind of loose idea of where the overarching Warcraft narrative was going back in WotLK. Because that’s the expansion where they start to put in all these cosmic forces, mysteries, conspiracies, and secrets. Before that it all feels a bit random and rule-of-cool, so to speak. but WotLK is where the first seeds appear to be sown for this Cosmic-Titan-Azeroth-World Soul-narrative that we’ve slowly been exploring ever since.
And that goes fine until Afrasiabi gets the boot and Metzen quits with stress, and then in comes Danuser and he’s looking at the notes and goes: “Okay…but I think it would be cooler to do this other thing instead.”
And then we get Shadowlands and Dragonflight that really take the narrative in a different direction with the emphasis on an unreliable narrator and the broadening of the cosmic scope of the Warcraft universe.
with Legion and BfA it feels like we’re starting to hone in on the whole World Soul part of the narrative, but then with Shadowlands that’s totally forgotten in favor of The First Ones and Elune and The Pantheon of Death. It’s all something that just expands the scope of the narrative, rather than honing down on the plotline that we were on.
And then Metzen comes back and Danuser…leaves. And again it seems as if Metzen has looked at the notes and gone: “Okay…but I think I want to go back to my original idea.”
And then the middle and ending of Dragonflight takes a sharp turn to the right in order to shove some Azeroth and World Soul relevance in. And then Dragonflight and Shadowlands get all but forgotten and treated as fillers as The War Within and The World Soul Saga begins and Metzen carries on with his original overarching narrative that revolves less around an unreliable narrator and small lore mysteries, and more on just advancing the plotline with events and actions to get to the ending of the story sooner than later.
But it’s all a bit weird, because there’s stuff that happened in Shadowlands and Dragonflight that you can’t just pretend no longer exists or didn’t happen.
And it’s also very easy to see how it all goes from Metzen to Danuser and back to Metzen again.
And because it’s now so laser-focused on THE WORLD SOUL, then everything else starts to feel a bit pointless and irrelevant because we know that freaking Armageddon is imminent.
It’s a bit like Game of Thrones in that sense, that you can feel that Blizzard want to get to the climatic ending now. So you are left with a beginning that’s comprised of 20 years and then an ending where everything has to happen and get wrapped up in ~5 years.
It feels a bit rushed in that sense, but that’s probably because Blizzard never planned for it. And in retrospect a lot of expansions and patches have been spent on story that has been pretty irrelevant to the main narrative that they’ve now spent 20 years on!
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People playing the old Warcraft 3 would recognize everything up and until Wotlk .
Cataclysm ? 1st tier bringing back classic wow …
2nd tier ? again Ragnaros and last was Deathwing .
Nothing new introduced as for Expansion .
Mist of Pandaria was nice with some themes of panda but basically nothing that the previous 4 expansion of WoW had and not only that but even until now Mop doesn’t have a connection between expansions or provide something that means for WoW.
World of Draenor ? Another re-introduction from Wacraft series that we basically play a redo of things we had and fighting again the same Villain …
Legion? Yep Again Guldan ~ Illidan ? was Archimonde again or the other Kil jaeden ?
I could continue but saddly the writers have messed up at the point that anything they put now . i doubt anyone will even understand anything .
Any new player introduced in World of Warcraft will find himself unable to adapt to what is supposed to do or what every important character this game currently provide.
Villains with no background …villains that we killed them 2/3 times and we are still get them …it’s a total mess that suits the current seasonal model when you barely give any importance at all.
That is true
Say what you want about Dragonflight be the Raszageth and the Primal Incarnates was at least a change not the same old but in diferent colours
Warcraft series were build around Sargeras and conflicts between horde and Alliance .
World of wacraft took everything from warcraft series and genially created an amazing lore wise story up until Wotlk ?
What happened after ?
Nothing about Sargeras… they deleted cool characters like Saurfang and many more and we have now some new characters that (Anduin have 8 cinematics were 6 is crying and a woman that is 400 years old that goes through …*gonna get banned : *
Every new expansion is like a great reset . New weak character introduced and the top quality are getting benched for character that cannot survive another expansion
Majority of the new players would never understand the lore or should i say the procedure that a new player need in order to become familiar with WoW.
There is a reason why wow is not getting attention especially from the new players and basically wow is keep up just from the older players …
Yes, pretty much enslaving an entire sentient species is evil, that the whole purpose of Earthen society is a lie is a shocking revelation to them (Pay attention during the Theatre-event, those plays are downright Titan propaganda)
The Titans are (At the very best) uncaring, they will do the old “Format C:” on Azeroth if their perfectly orderly plans are in any way disrupted (How many reorigination facilities have we found so far? I lost count by now…), never mind all the poor schmucks living on Azeroth, if it’s not perfectly orderly, the whole planet is dotted with “Wipe it all and start over”-installations.
Algalon (The first clue to the truth about the Titans) said it himself:
“I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers’ (The Titans) flames, their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart devoid of emotion… of empathy.*”
That sums up the Titans: Emotionless order-freaks, we’ve known this since Wrath.
The problem that the story runs into is the framing and scope.
The Titans are cosmic Gods who have shaped countless planetary systems, existed for eons, traversed all of space, and who by their very nature perceive the universe from their own vantage point.
We are ants to them.
Good and evil ceases to be concepts at that point, and it becomes more a matter of relevance and irrelevance, compliance and disruption.
You could draw a parallel to the real world and what you do when you see a mosquito land on your arm as you sit out in your garden on a hot summer evening. As you smash that mosquito with your hand you’re hardly pondering the morality of your action, or questioning your right to mow the lawn in your garden, or similar.
It’ll be curious to see if Blizzard are going to try to frame the Titans as being evil, as in they know that what they’ve done is morally abhorrent, or if they’re just behaving as humans landscaping their own garden with little thought for the insects that live there.
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If the plot twist that the Titans are not all rainbow farts and cuddles is any kind of actual twist to you, then I weep for media literacy. Could we bring back that whole thing with going down the TvTropes rabbithole?
Anyway, the Titans and Titan-adjacent entities have been morally orange for ages–as early as WotLK, really. Rebellion against the authoritarian force has also been a thing for ages, with pretty much every other expansion being ultimately centered around our fight for self-determination against forces who Know Better 
. The plot with the Earthen overcoming mind-slavery and forging their own path is quintessentially Warcraft. In the only more iconic case of that, the dudes were buff and green.
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Are you sure? From my understanding world souls are basically, unspecified cosmic force balls laying dormant into planets. They can be converted into whatever force reaches them first.
With the exception of Aman Thul, who seems to have awoken by himself, every other titan was a world soul. Order magic converts the world soul into a Titan essentially.
Yes correct, though he’s some kind of messed Titan that got corrupted by both the forces of Disorder and Death (if shadowlands lore is to be taken seriously).
As for Magni calling her a Titan, well he didn’t know better at the time.
We got to remember that we the players, know a lot more about lore than our heroes in game, which can be rather confusing at times. Then on top of that Blizzard writes books, retcons stuff, saying “no no this the ultimate canon” and the goes “well actually this was the Titan’s point of view”. Then they made another cosmic chart and all them SL weird cartel force people going all “haha silly Titans thinking they know what’s what”… 
Honestly I’m losing the plot sometimes, even after watching lore videos by Nobbel and Bellular, I don’t blame players for being confused about what on earth is going in this game!
That’s the most interesting part, though it makes you wonder, other world souls, might have also had the same dislike towards being converted into “Titanhood” but they just didn’t have as many powerful races walking their surface and causing mayhem, hehe.
it is high time titans give way to some other entity to control and heal azeroth
Yes. They are all titans that flung into our plane at its creation (was stated in one of their audio books). And likely intended by the First Ones given how the Pantheon of Death was also artificially created.
He got corrupted by Sargeras and the Natherzim. He was supposed to be a regular titan. Azeroth may also already be partly corrupt if we can believe Sargeras conception of her as he stated her to be corrupted, demonic and most importantly his (so either he wants to corrupt her as well as make her demonic or she is already partly corrupted)
Its not just Magni. And Magni at least spoke with her.
Its safe to assume that the races on Azeroth are strong because of Azeroth herself and not vice versa. Her link towards the players and buffing the ever living poop out of them heavily supports this.
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All for the best, if you ask me.
Probably 2 of the worst expansions lorewise. Danuser messed up so much that I can’t even wrap my mind around this mess anymore.
This is a bit worrying, it could go downhill real quick if they don’t do it right.
I mean Dragonflight I barely even played and I don’t think I’ve missed on something really important.
Shadowlands has done some massive damage to the lore but I’m optimistic. Some of it can be undone. Just hope the team didn’t lose their inspiration and can still bring some creative ideas.
Maybe foolish of me but I have faith in Metzen’s ability to steer the plot in the right direction.
That’s pretty much my point, the Titans are uncaring, at best, knowing this, perspective shifts from “Good or Evil” (Although we humans like to frame things that way) to self-preservation, to be noticed by the Titans is pretty much a death sentence (Much like the mosquito you mentioned, seriously, how many people got happier from the Titans’ meddling?), except that unlike the mosquito, the mortal races of Azeroth are fully sentient beings, with ideas of their own, which don’t involve being the Titans’ maintenance drones for their world soul incubator.
Once the Titans show up, it will be to “Reclaim their world soul”, which will be bad news for us (And Azeroth seems to be resisting their influence as well), so Good or Evil go right out the window, and the Titans become the next force we’ll have to kick off the planet.
Takeaway points of Dragonflight lore:
- Iridikron has an artifact called… called… I forgot what it’s called… Anyway, it resembles the Dragon Soul and can… and can… what was the purpose and power of that artifact again?
- Night Elves got a new flammable house.
- Bronze and Infinite Dragonflight are going to mess things up worse than before because we now have “authority” to change things in the past
- The Void is still the most subtle of evils
I don’t think I’ve missed any.
Indeed, I await the day when my car just drives itself wherever it wants to.
Or when my computer decides which activity it offers on that day.
A bit like random dailies, on second thought.
Yesterday you were allowed to read mails, today you must write two, then 2 minutes of Facebook, then 1 hour of YouTube, then you must win 3 FreeCell games before bed.
I’ll check it out, you made me curious.
I knew that, yeah.
Ow, nothing can go wrong there, yep.
I mean evil when it come to the cosmic powers is still a very lose term. I think they’re all fighting for supremacy.
Cheers for the updates!
That’s what I’m wondering though, wasn’t that detail soft retconed as being PoV and not an “objective truth”? Mind you it probably was the “truth” when it was written but we all know how blizzard likes to change their mind when they write themselves into a corner?
Going out a bit on a different direction here but the visual representation of magic is very different too. All titan magic has a particular aesthetic, whereas all of Azeroth’s essence (azerite, the huge beam channeled during the jailer fight) is different. That to me suggest a different kind of entity.
To connect it back to the OP, the latest quest that showed how the titans essentially built a prison that’s slowly modifying her, and she’s literally converting their creations against them, suggests to me that world souls aren’t titans. Why would a titan not want to be awoken or recognise titan tech as something familiar?