The main one right now would be potentially the possibility that the first major in-game cinematic cutscene might be rendered non-canon by the implication that Chronicles states the Blight killed everyone, including Dranosh (who was killed by the Lich King). Though honestly, I’m not entirely sure if that’s actuality, a slip of the tongue, or one of the areas Chronicles is just a bit more vague for the sake of summarizing events.
In fact, looking at the passage in question now, it doesn’t technically say the Blight directly killed Saurfang. It says that all the soldiers remaining on the field were killed. Which would be true regardless of which fraction of them was killed by Arthas or Forsaken mustard gas. The writer in me speculates that specifying that Arthas killed Dranosh first might be edited out for being a bit wordy or maybe sounding odd to read.
Beyond that, honestly, it’s hard for me to single out specific retcons that generally ruin stuff. Even the most blatant one, the Draenei being uncorrupted Eredar, and the Broken being corrupted Draenei, isn’t too bad because as a nice little consequence we have one of the most visually interesting cultures in WoW, a character dynamic between Velen and his former Triumvirate friends that lends to some pretty dramatic moments, including Kil’jaeden’s dying breath, and in some part the introduction of the Naaru who are interesting in their own right.
While it’s merely a possible retcon… the Wrathgate comment did sour the story for me even more so than before. A lot of the story surrounding Sylvanas and the Forsaken they’ve been doing lately has really switched me off from the game.
Another one was the changes they made to the Night Elves in order for them to fit into the Alliance. Losing their amazonian Sentinels to be dominated by the Druidic themes killed my interest in playing the race entirely (except for my one NE Demon Hunter that I’ll get around to leveling at some point).
Other than that, most of the “retcons” I’ve either been netural or liked.
I believe Thrall directly outlines his rationale in a story. I wish I could remember where. But I think it was more about ‘hard living will keep us humble’ or something. Whereas the penance was part of it. But I could be misremembering.
The biggest lore change that bothered me came in WoD. We were told for the longest time that the Orcs were a peaceful shamanistic people until the Legion came and tricked them.
Then WoD says, ‘Nope, they have been warlike the entire time.’ I am just now going through the all of WoD, skipped it when it came out, and I like the story in it but, that general change to Orc culture really bothered me.
I’m not sure if it’s a retcon or just an issue of us not being given clear information. The whole Lorash thing and his lufe span in my opinion this a monkey wrentch into the High/Blood Elven lore. How has he lived so long when other prominent figures, that didn’t fight in the troll wars are dead.
I think I understand what happened here. Derek was killed by the red dragons in the second war. This happened because (I think Im correct on this) Deathwing manipulated things so the orcs (dragonmaw clan) got their hands on the dragon soul and used that to trap Alexstraza and tame and enslave the other red dragons for war. With her captured and the dragon soul in their hands the other dragons couldn’t do anything until she was free by Kraus, Veeresa and Rohin.
The retcon.
This happened in game. After that war the dragon soul was lost and we needed it to fight deathwing. So we went to the well of eternity dungeon (which should have been a raid), and Nozdormu removed the dragon soul at the end and brought it to the present for the fight against deathwing. With the dragon soul removed from the timeline the orcs couldn’t have gotten their hands on it, therefore they couldn’t enslave the red dragons, meaning Derek didn’t die by dragon fire. It changed the timeline.
I completely understand this point. I’m lucky that I didn’t play W3 so I didn’t get the original version of the Night Elves. But after watching the videos its clear they have been altered.
I dislike the new scene of Sylvanas’s death as shown in the Warbringers video. Power-sliding directly into Arthas’s sword is just so … Stupid. Uncool. Incompetent-looking. I really hope that’s not being enshrined as the new canon. I guess we’ll see what the BE flashback scenario and WC3 remaster show us in-game.
The Dragon Soul was returned to the Well of Eternity the same instant we stole it from. If the Horde never had dragons that would change a huge amount of lore to the point of absurdity.
I didn’t actually remember the soul being returned but I just checked and that is correct. I was on to something for a minute there lol. But to your second point have they not already changed quite a bit of the lore anyway.
I don’t think it would, tbh. Like, it’s not terribly far fetched to say that Sylvanas threw putris under the bus, and used Varimathras’ disloyalty to drive home this frame.
Chronicles 3 giving Tempest Keep (a naaru/draenei-themed raid with a final boss whose dialogue is written for Alliance players) clear credit to the Horde, and Sunwell Plateau (a blood elf-themed raid that concluded the blood elves’ story arc in TBC) clear credit to the Alliance was mind-bogglingly stupid.
To Blizzard’s credit, they at least cooked up a little sub-plot about Silvermoon’s blood elves heading up the raid into TK, and then MgT, to put down their own problem. The Alliance, on the other hand, was given no reason whatsoever to clear SWP beyond cheap faction parity and a generic “save the world” implication. Absolutely lame.
Worst of all, none of this was needed. There was nothing wrong with the Aldor/Scryers/Sha’tar seeing to TK’s downfall and the Shattered Sun Offensive, “supplemented by heroes of the Alliance and Horde” (t. Wrath’s manual), doing SWP. If they absolutely had to pin one raid on one faction, it should’ve been the other around.
Also, I don’t think all retcon are really bad or have ruined the lore, except for the retcons that directly contradict the original RTS games. For instance, Broxigar’s involvement in War of the Ancients really make Grom’s first clash witht he Night Elves strange. More than that, when it is revealed that the Orcs didn’t willingly make themselves slaves to the Burning Legion. That completely trivializes Grom’s redemption story. If he was tricked, then what is there to redeem? At that point, he is a victim, not someone who has done intentional harm. Why then, does Thrall settle in a desert with little water and natural resources? His original logic was that the orcs had to repent for the sins of their past… But we now know that past was a lie. They were victims of treachery, not a once blood-thirsty race driven by the need to conquest. Why was this retcon even made? So Orc players can feel good about never being the “bad guys”?
Blizzard has made a habit of appeasement, which is partly why the community is so sensitive about the role their faction plays in a story. Blizzard has sacrificed story nuance with fan appeasement. So now, in BfA, a story with quite a bit of nuance comes alone, they wonder why people are so resistant to it… Though, WoW is doing very well financially, so… People don’t hate it as much as they claim it seems.
Kalec is a an Alliance friend. The Sunwell Broad was his Girlfriend. He ended up pining for Jaina, which means he was created to be the Alliance’s Blue Dragon Bone - one way or another.
I can understand the Sunwell going down as Alliance.
The existance of Nightborne (and void elves to a lesser extent but that’s not really a retcon.)
Making Suramar into a Horde city is also sickening. I have a feeling they won’t even include night elves in the Azshara raid and nazjatar zone too.
Legion’s broken isles retcons were weird and not necessary but i’m not really against them, except for the nightborne stealing everything cool about night elves and giving it to the horde. Atleast the Alliance still has Highborne, though i doubt we’ll see them for a long time.
This is honestly the most annoying thing about Legion. Suramar, the Birthplace of Tyrande and the Sisterhood of Elune… isn’t Night Elven anymore and instead this other race of elves that no one has ever heard of… and who join the Horde despite having a near identical culture and perhaps even living relatives to Night Elves…
Think about that for a moment, Tyrande was borne in Suramar… Its totally possible that she would have Nightborne relatives. But no, better join the Horde because Tyrande is understandably weary about our dependency on magic You know, because its not like that has ever caused problems in the past…
if everything cool about the Nightelves was everything they had rejected and left behind as a society for the last 10,000 years, you have to consider the possibility that you didn’t really like the Nightelves.