Good point. Maybe it wasn’t VanCleef that had the relationship with Shaw but rather it was Alexston.
And this favor that VanCleef did for Alexston had something to do with Shaw and Alexton’s relationship. Got them together? Helped them keep it secret? Maybe even was the reason it ended?
Though this shines a very different light on him.
Either way, Shaw is a secretive person who keeps his personal life VERY far from his professional one. It’s understandable that we haven’t learned anything about his past relationships until now. That’s the way he would want it.
All of this is irrelevant to Warcraft humans, who are not natural organic lifeforms in origin. The Curse of Flesh wasn’t meant to make Titanforged “mortal,” it was meant to make them easier to corrupt, more susceptible to the influence of the Old Gods. The similarities between Cursed Titanforged beings and their descendants and species that have been organic from their origins are coincidental.
I would agree in regards to the material from Vanilla, which is what I was sticking to in my previous post. More recent information could be taken as hinting at further history between Shaw and VanCleef. For starters, there’s the fact that the outfit Shaw’s worn in game since Legion is the T9 Alliance rogue set, which is named “VanCleef’s Battlegear” after Edwin. There’s the text for the Faceless Mask of the Pained from the Horrific Vision of Stormwind, which I quoted in my previous post: “His lost passions, lost loves are all gone, crushed under his own duty and loyalty to the crown.” Shaw was forced to bring about Edwin’s death in order to protect the crown. There are also drowned Defias NPCs in the moat near Shaw’s location in the Horrific Vision, and at one point in development Vanessa VanCleef was the NPC the player assisted in fighting Shaw instead of Valeera. A note written by an escaped prisoner that exists in the final version that went live was probably written by her: “Shaw, Better luck next time. V.V.” My point here is that there is a quite a lot of Defias stuff associated with Overlord Shaw, which is a bit strange considering that they haven’t been a major threat in years. Then there’s this bit from Shaw’s gossip text during Shadowlands prepatch, after Anduin’s been abducted: “The king was taken on my watch. I should’ve had more agents assigned to him. This is what happens when I let my guard down. When I allow my-- [Shaw takes a deep breath] No, damn it. This was her doing. I won’t blame myself for finding happiness.” Shaw’s talking about having gone off with Flynn for the events of the Exploring Azeroth book when he says “finding happiness,” but the relevant thing to VanCleef is the first part of the quote, which sounds like Shaw’s comparing Anduin’s abduction to a previous event. The obvious comparison to make would be to Varian being kidnapped in Vanilla by the Defias Brotherhood under Edwin’s leadership, and that comparison would imply that Shaw blames himself for that event for somehow letting something personal get in the way of his duty. Last, but certainly not least, is the Eastern Kingdoms book. Edwin Vancleef is mentioned on the very first page of the first entry as Shaw describes the history of Stormwind, crediting VanCleef’s rogue training (which Shaw taught him) as key to him building up the Defias, and specifically calling out the rise of the Defias Brotherhood as a stain upon SI:7. A few pages later, in the middle of Shaw further describing items from the Deadmines, we have a note written by Flynn in regards to Edwin: “Word has it you knew him. Is that why you went to that old mine?” Taken all together, all these hints point to a deeply messy history between Shaw and VanCleef. Whether it was platonic or romantic, there’s definitely some drama there.
Vereesa’s age, iirc, was never stated to be anything besides “fairly young” and iirc the reason why she didn’t participate in the third war was retconned quickly from her being too young to her being pregnant.
I thought he was only promoted before the third war? Either way it’s always been human potential nonsense that even a 30yo human made it to Ranger Lord when a bunch of those we know were, like, troll war vets.
I agree. Having a variety of characters being naturally introduced to the story is fine (Qadarin and Thiernax), but retcons to virtue signal (Chromie’s sudden gender swap) are shallow and unhelpful.
What do you mean avoid? It’s stated pretty flat out with Pelagos and at least two other Kyrian, and has been clarified recently with Chromie that both are trans folk. It might have also come out in Ardenweald as well, but I;'m not as sure.
I feel if I voiced my thoughts about it, despite it being aimed criticism at blizzard for not wanting to make Trans people that are Alive and Mortal, People would just call me transphobic.
We have literally done this entire song and dance. Pelagos was added as the first trans because he fit the bill of the theme, the afterlife, which we assume is full of dead people but clearly Blizzard is not stopping with him and are adding new trans/non-binary/gay/lesbians etc characters.
And I know you dont like retcons but retcons are not evil/bad writting in and of themselves.
Its not that retcons are bad, Its that when they constantly retcon something out of the game that players bought by just dismissing it as “Ehm yeah that stuff is just PoV” when a product was described as a “lore bible” so to speak and then a year later “Actually that stuff is just Point of view from x”. It sort of gets tiresome because suddenly despite the fact that most of the stuff there laid out the world as such, but then suddenly all the stuff in the book is made non canon basically because whatever reason.
Outside of Chronicles 1 bit about how the Cosmic side of wow look (and even then that one appeared very unbiased) but instead of saying that that one part is “just from their pov” everything in the Chronicles books IS now “pov cannon” which makes it questionable if it “Really is canon or not” because well “There might be bias, What if the titans are biased against the horde/alliance” etc
