You are aware that this is a 1996 video game that got released with a strict deadline it almost failed to reach and a budget they fought hard many times to get raised
They had no time nor money to spend on creating tailor made dialogues for every heroes, so even if Aidan was set to be the prince at that time… doubt he would have gotten his own dialogue throughout the game
But even if coincidences or looking too deep into it. It’s Ogden that raises the most stuff
“Greetings, good master. Welcome to the Tavern of the Rising Sun”
Thank goodness you’ve returned! Much has changed since you lived here, my friend
And based on cinematics it’s confirmed that warrior is the protagonist
Maybe it was intended from the start or maybe the novel writer just filled the blanks
The greetings are just standard greetings that you could imagine Ogden saying to all his patrons, and the notion that the character once lived in Tristram in no way implies that the character is a prince (that being said, D2 seems to have removed the notion that the warrior once used to live in Tristram).
Diablo 2 is from 2000, and there’s no issue of “hero specific dialogue” with it, yet it doesn’t have the slightest hint of the Wanderer being a notable character beyond the fact that he vanquished Diablo.
And Diablo 3 doesn’t have Leoric referencing him a single time, despite bringing up Albrecht. You would expect him or Lachdanan bringing up the notion that he was sent to the Westmarch war. Worse even, the events as presented should have him return with Lachdanan, and as prince of the kingdom the notion that nothing is said about him getting or not getting the throne, or trying to mobilize troops to act in Tristram, or anything else of this kind is beyond weird.
I know they retroactively added this backstory to the canon, but it just brings in a lot of plotholes without adding anything substantive to the lore.
You guys may like this addition, but I am not convinced you can honestly play Diablo 1 and 2, then learn about this backstory and think “yeah, makes sense”.
Look, you may think I am stupid, but I have a decent understanding of the notion of what is and isn’t canon. And in both D1 and D2 the canon was clearly that the Warrior was a nobody (which doesn’t mean he was anonymous, just that he wasn’t a huge figure like the prince of the country would be).
You can simply check the wiki, if you don’t believe me.
" The concept behind Aidan is effectively retroactive, as up until the conception of Diablo III, he was never given a name besides the “Dark Wanderer”. In the first game, he was never given a name and did not conceptually exist; like the other classes, the Warrior merely represented all such individuals who traveled to Tristram to fight the Darkness.
In Diablo II, it was established that the Warrior class was the hero to canonically slay Diablo, and was given the title of the Dark Wanderer. However, his backstory remained the same as the warrior class, that he was a nameless hero. One fact was retconned: Deckard Cain spoke of the Dark Wanderer as though he was foreign to Tristram, but NPCs in the game speak to the player as though the player is a villager returning from a long journey. This was also added to in the game’s manual, as written by Deckard Cain. A warrior/thief character named Qarak appears in The Awakening as a possible take on giving the Wanderer a name, but can still conceptually exist as his own character."
PS : The following paragraph in the wiki :
" By Diablo III, the Warrior’s background had been further altered, being given the name of “Aidan” with the backstory that he was Leoric’s elder son. This is effectively a retcon, as previous lore had stated that Leoric only had one son (Albrecht), and, in Diablo, the people of Tristram reacted no differently to the Warrior than to the other classes, despite Aidan being known to them. This is slightly amended in Book of Cain, where Cain explains that he used the term “Dark Wanderer” to describe Aidan because he could not bring himself to use his name after his fall. Marius and other characters used the name “Dark Wanderer” as well, which can more sensibly be justified in that few outside of Tristram knew the Wanderer’s true identity.
ah, because the opinions they’ve projected into the wiki is always correct…
unless there is lore outside of the supposed “retconning” to support cain is originally from tristram (again, you can’t use retcon lore to support lore being non-retcon…), nothing you’ve quoted gives any indication that the warrior cannot be aidan. the NPCs in the game not treating the warrior differently does not support it cannot be aidan. that comes down to designated design of a game, and not telling of a lore (ie, the lack of existence of something does not support anything by ways of game lore, only if the game itself directly states it itself). as for “previous lore had stated that leoric only had one son”, this is what i would like to see. the lore, for all we know, could have been aidan was estranged from his father and left the village but later returned (not to say this is the lore established retroactively, but to say without the retroactively applied lore, that could easily have been a possibility)
You can find it page 71 of the Diablo 1 manual : “Enjoined by his dark master, Lazarus kidnapped Albrecht - the only son of Leoric - and dragged the terrified youth down into the blackness of the labyrinth.”
is this a narrator speaking or an in-game character speaking? if its a narrator, then that is definitely a retcon. doesn’t really change my original point, but you wouldn’t be wrong about that. if its an in-game character writing that, ingame characters can be wrong in their understandings (the “unofficial” way of retconning)
It is an omniscient narrator. And honestly, even if it wasn’t, it would still be a retcon.
What frustrates me a little is that, being an avid Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 player, this “detail” is one of the multiple instances where I was clearly thinking “that’s not possible” when I stumbled upon it.
I mean, this was clearly a major retcon to the Warrior/Wanderer’s identity when compared to the previous two games, and after having read the Diablo 3 Act 1 journals ad nauseam, it was clear that they were written without Aidan in mind.
It’s like Adria being a servant of Diablo. Sure, you can make some convoluted explanation as to why she was helpful to the characters in Diablo 1, but the truth is, she wasn’t intended to be a servant of Diablo in Diablo 1, and this change isn’t truthful to the character as it was depicted in Diablo 1. (And there were plenty of ways of still making her a villain that resurrects Diablo in Diablo 3 without making this retcon.)
Look, if you want to be dishonest about the Warior/Wanderer’s name and royal status being a retcon, that’s on you. Clearly it is one.
Either way, if a series were to use that storyline, it would have to make sure to properly place concordant information in all relevant places, such as people treating him as the prince, Leoric referencing him, and so on.