I’d say…
WoW is 20% coherent plot, 20% illogical plot, 20% poorly realized developer conceit and 40% obvious missed opportunities.
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have you read The Shining Blade? the kids book written by Roux? I think there’s a connection between Zul, Mueh’zala and a Dreadlord in that book, they were searching for a shard of Ashbringer. the legendary shard of K’ara.
Apparently Roux wanted Mueh’zala’s connection to be far more pronounced in the book but she was asked to roll it back because it conflicted with what was planned in Shadowlands.
it would be neat to be a fly on the wall when they come up with these stories.
what if … now this is just wild speculation…
Sylvanas’s powers are Medivh’s powers.
I have no idea how this could even remotely begin to make sense but the image of Medivh using his powers in Chronicle looks very similar to Sylvanas’s powers in the reckoning cinematic. Kel’thuzad ( or his followers really) did have the Book of Medivh for quite a while after WoLK.
Kathra’natir was trying to steal the forge of the Guardian in Legion.
All of this can be tied back to De Other Side Dungeon with Mueh’zala being the mastermind, with Bwonsamdi helping to facilitate deals with the manastorms for example- millhouse tried to steal to nightborne soulstone for himself, I’m sure that’s the thing he borrowed Bwon’s mojo for, but it ended up imprisoning Kathra’natir in Dalaran. It seems like through Kathra’natir and the mage order hall arc at some point the Dreadlords were researching different magic schools with the endgoal to create a magical society that embraces both arcane and fel and necromancy, like all the magic schools. that makes way more sense with Denathrius as thier leader if his goal as a teacher was to learn as much as possible.
Medivh having so much connection to the Shadowlands and Death, the Plauge of undeath and the Horde, seems like a huge oversight not to involve him some way in the Shadowlands plot, his arc wasn’t always meant to be just about stopping Sargeras.
Ugh, yeah… 80% of just wasted potential indeed.
I actually vaguely suspect they were considering making Mueh’zala the Evil Eternal One instead of Baldy McSkullface, the Offbrand Diet Sauron-Lucifer
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I was hoping he was actually Yogg-Saron 
Still no hint of yoggy boi in Shadowlands.
(But he’s dead… yeah… I know but there were so many hints in Legion and in the Brawlers Guild.)
You mean this?: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/e/e9/Chronicle2_Medivh.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20181002180512
Looks like Arcane not the Darkness that Sylvanas used.
Sylvanas uses Violet-Black Darkness distinct from the Purple Domination-tainted Void used by the Shadowmoon Clan and Mueh’zala, Arcane is also Purple and Pure Void is Dark Blue.
she did but if you look at the second after Saurfang was blasted you can see inside the bubble of shadow there is white electricity like in the Medivh image, hold on I’ll find the exact frame on Youtube .
You can see it at the 4:10 mark the white electricity… then again at 4:40
This power could have also come from Xal’atath because it also looks like the magic Nathalie Saline uses on her Hearthstone card.
Medivh’s powers and Nathalie’s (Xal’atath’s) powers could be one and the same, clearly Death/Void related magic. Xal’atath could have bestowed Sylvanas with this power after the Horde brought her Xal’atath in BfA.
What’s interesting about that plot hole is it again ties back to Zul, because Zul was the one who facilitated the bargain between Sylvanas and Azshara and Xal’atath that we still have no idea the context of… It was Zul who was the asset Sylvanas sent the Horde to retrieve from Stormwind stockades, not Talanji… how Talanji and Zul became locked up together in the Stockades is still a mystery.
but I guess not that we are gonna have Sylvanas locked up we can interrogate her for answers. I can’t wait for next week for the new stuff we never saw on the PTR. this will be interesting 
Do you sometimes need to quench that thirst for cliche evil?
Too busy to tie a damsel to a train track, or even kick a puppy?
THEN TRY Diet Saurcifer
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Storytelling does draw on IRL history though. Fiction is a great way of teaching people good morals and historical events without actually bringing those up.
History is doomed to repeat if you do not learn from it. In all honestly though, they should’ve done something like this with the Alliance for BFA if there had to be a faction conflict story. However the problem with this is Anduin. Anduin has always been the voice of reason and he is always willing to put himself in harms way to protect others. As seen in Cata when the PC and Anduin root out twilight cultists in SW (good foreshadowing having the “boss battle” of this chain in the Cathedral though). In MoP we have him fight against the Sha of Despair and of course standing up to Garrosh and nullifying the Divine Bell. It would be hard to have this character suddenly fall into a villain role. One of the reasons why I did like MoP. Varian was a complex character and acted as a decent foil for Garrosh. Both of them are warriors who love a good fight. Yet one learns to become level headed while the other gives in to his anger and hatred. We see Varian try and build relationships (even if it is executed poorly) with the other leaders of the Alliance while Garrosh alienates his fellow horde leaders. Going so far as killing one of them (Caine), banishing another from Orgrimmar (Vol’jin), insulting one (Sylvanas) and gaslighting another (Lor’themar). So it comes to no surprise that he ends up surrounding himself with Yes men like Malkorok. The only reason why Nazgrim sided with Garrosh is because of an oath. It was Garrosh that promoted him from a low level grunt to Legionaire in Cata and then General in MoP. Even though Nazgrims actual mission in Vashj’ir was a failure. So naturally, as a true honourbound orc he would side with his Warchief. Even though he knows he is on the wrong side. If Nazgrim wasn’t turned into a DK in Legion, I could easily see him in Bastion over Maldraxxus.
Personally I would prefer if BFA had no faction conflict. Having 2 expansions where it was one of the main focus was enough (Cata and MoP). I didn’t mind the stuff in Legion as it was just a continuation of the Forsaken vs Gilnean story thread from Cata. Even though Sylvanas was Warchief, it was never played as a full on faction war. Which is honestly why people like Saurfang buying into the “we must kill alliance before they kill us” was a bit silly. Knowing the kind of character Anduin was, he would never launch unprovoked attacks on the Horde. Hell he was captured and held prisoner by the Horde in MoP and yet he never held a grudge. He even says to the horde PC in Krasarang Wilds that for now they should focus on removing the Sha of Despair and settle their differences afterwards.
“Our people have their differences, , but we are all guests in this place.
The pandaren have shown me great hospitality and respect, as I’m sure you’ve also received, and now they need our help.
The Horde is not without honor. If you know honor, you will know to save our quarrel for another time.”
So why anyone would believe that he would launch any kind of unprovoked attacks is stupid. Genn might have, he basically does it in Stormheim. So they could’ve done it with him if they had to. But Genn more or less has settled his score with Sylvanas when he stops her from enslaving Eyir. That was until Shadowlands anyway.
One slight problem. The Dagger was an empty shell at that point. The entity within was gone. Which was why Azshara wanted to get her hands on it when she learnt that it was now empty. She could use it to seal N’zoth within and rule the Black Empire.
I believe it was Ashvane that does this. We know Ashvane was in league with Azshara before The Eternal Palace, since the Kraken that attacked Anglepoint Wharf was the same Kraken that Ashvane uses to attack Boralus. And again, Xal’atath was an empty shell by the time sylvanas got it from the Horde players after they looted it from Uu’nat. Sylvanas has the horde PC along with Rexxar and Valtrois break her [Ashvane] out of Tol Dagor. Afterwards Sylvanas has a chat with Ashvane. We later see Ashvane in Nazjatar guiding the Naga on how to create Azerite weapons. Meanwhile Nathanos goes off on his own to deliver “something” to an “ally”. It is not that hard to connect the dots.
You can’t just make up some headcanon and call it a plot hole.
One of my main missed opportunities was to have Thunderaan and his Air elementals help out the Uldum Accord during 8.3. It would be a nice call back to when the elementals stood against the Old Gods when they first landed but also a sort of “we are sorry” for what Al’Akir did in Cata. There is also Goriona showing back up. I wonder what she is up to after leaving her Master to die on the Skyfire.
Al’Akir was another missed opportunity. He didn’t even get a voice actor and still doesn’t.
I would probably still have G’huun being a lab experiment gone wrong. However have Zul, as an agent of Mueh’zala use G’huun as an unsuspecting pawn to cause more death and destruction. Same way that Sylvanas helps Azshara “free” N’zoth because the Old God would cause more death and destruction.
There’s actual quest text that says Zul facilitated the meetup between Sylvanas and Azshara. The Naga conveniently left the dagger on the beach for us to find so we could release Xal’atath, it was planted for us to find, why would Azshara give us the dagger she already had just for us to give it right back? Why didn’t her Naga just release Xal’atath themselves? Everything you saw as a non-Loyalist was an illusion, a strategic manipulation of events.
Zul was likely working with/for Mueh’zala but that’s just speculation on my part because Zul seems to know about the whisper that made Sylvanas warchief, based on his off hand comment to Nathanos on the first trip to Zul’Dazar. Apparently Sylvanas placed her faith in him to set up a meeting between her and Azshara. His relationship with Mueh’zala and the Jailer goes all the way back to Zul’Gurub.
We brought the dagger to Sylvanas after it was left to the Horde to find by N’Zoth himself that’s why BFA makes logically no sense because there’s no way N’Zoth couldn’t see that Azshara was planning to trap him in the dagger. In his fight we are shown that he knew/orchestrated the meeting between Sylvanas and Azshara.
There’s a lot of good theories out there that N’Zoth wanted to be trapped in the dagger, or he needed the dagger to give us the illusion that he was defeated. I think without a doubt this is true based on the story I was told as a Loyalist, “just play along.”
Ashvane was just a minor cog in this wheel to disrupt the Alliance, who in the end was insignificant, Sylvanas just handed her over to Azshara to be a raid boss. Ashvane’s only contribution to the Horde was to allow Nathanos to sneak into Boralus when it was being attacked and steal weapons and ammunition for the Horde, it was all part of the quest chain to steal the staff thing with the power to control the tides, which originally belonged to Azshara. The Horde side of BFA was a mess but the Loyalist side was very informative, the entire Horde Civil War from the Loyalists perspective was a smoke screen, your victory was set up by Sylvanas so she could earn the trust of the Jailer.
N’Zoth isn’t dead, everything that happened in BFA he wanted to happen. He even foresaw Sylvanas beating Bolvar and opening the way to the Shadowlands. That was all part of his plan.
As a Sylvanas fan this puzzles me because in We Ride Forth it seems not even the “presence” in Bolvar’s head (which was supposed to be the Jailer) anticipated Sylvanas would break the helm… who exactly is Sylvanas working with/for? The Jailer or N’zoth?.. maybe she’s a pawn of both. Either way N’zoth knows more than the Jailer, and has backed us and Sylvanas for some reason. She seems unaware that she’s actually doing exactly what N’Zoth wants, the PC is probably also unaware but your PC is a minion of N’Zoth, don’t forget that, even if you didn’t accept his gift. You were given the illusion of choice.
This is why being as Loyalist wasn’t just “picking the wrong side and losing” we were privy to more information unfolding behind the scenes of BFA.
Another missed opportunity to expand on the mentioned long ago Yogg-Saron – Arthas connection.
But maybe the current team has ideas they consider to be better.
gl hf
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The biggest dropped ball imo was the fact that they missed the opportunity to make the connection between Arthas and Yogg-Saron more a thing and I was annoyed in We Ride Forth they tried to make it the Jailer all along.
Another attempt to make this new Jailer character seem important to the lore where he wasn’t before.
Remember when Afrasabi said Tyr would be in Ulduar? Yeah…
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Care to share it for the rest of the class?
The quest chain starts with “Words from the Deep.” you get a letter drop that says that Zul was in talks with Azshara. It’s right before you happen to stumble across Naga priests trying to perform a ritual on Xal’atath, we then kill the naga and confiscate Xal’atath and continue with the ritual to set her free.
Zul and Azshara both were working together to attack Rastakhan when he was wounded in the Horde quest chain No Safe Haven.
It didn’t make it into the game
Zul was working with Azshara (even though Ghuun and Nzoth don’t like each other?) and Azshara conspired with Sylvanas (even though Azshara is aware of Zovaal?) so Zul was working with Sylvanas essentially
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Except the letter never made it into the game iirc. It was on the PTR but never made it to live.
So your main evidence never made to live. If something didn’t make it to live, it is not canon.
Also iirc, you got that letter when you did the tortollan chain in Zuldazar. The one that ends at Gaals temple.
This did though:
Which says he sought an alliance, but with the item removed, we don’t know if they were in fact working together.
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Yes, Zul was the asset Sylvanas set the Horde to retrieve from the Stormwind stockades but we were mislead that she had good intentions to retrieve Talanji to bring the Zandalari into the Horde.
In the Welcome to Zandalar, Nathanos says “I hope the Warchief’s faith is not misplaced.” to Zul, which implies that Nathanos knew about Zul’s deal with Azshara, because it was Zul who facilitated the meeting between Sylvanas and Azshara.
Which objectively doesn’t make sense, for the parenthetical reasons I mentioned.
G’huun hates N’zoth, N’zoth hates Zovaal, Zovaal presumably is in contempt of the Void.
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My guess blizzard did have plans for Zul to be in the conspiracy but most likely dropped it for reasons. Then moved what role Zul had to Ashvane. Remember, Ashvane was the original final boss for Siege of Boralus early into the alpha / beta.
They do this sometimes. They remove quests and stuff but don’t actually remove everything tied to them. Which is why you sometimes see named enemy NPC’s that are not involved in any quests.