I know a certain warlock blood elf hates when I bring up hearthstone when it comes to Warcraft proper’s lore but considering the theme of this particular one being alternate timelines I think its as relevant as how we treat other AU timelines like back in Dragonflight/WoD.
For one, the debate has shifted again, apparently Silvermoon’s main motif color pre-Scourge is now back to blue. The Sylvanas novel wanted to retcon it to “it was always red” but I guess that itself has been retconned again.
Second, the expansion has reiterated that Nozdormu can be saved from his Murozand future. I am glad that plot point has not been forgotten.
Lastly, the Alternate timeline heroes, we don’t have much info yet but the idea that the Gelbin’s brain will simply be preserved when he dies and turned into a holy Android/the posibility Gnomeragan will be turned into a holy powered city is a fun scenario to think about.
Hearthstone has extra titans and added pieces of lore which simply don’t exist in WoW’s version of the lore.
I wish it had some of the hearthstone stuff, they use the Warcraft fantasy far more effectively to do unique and interesting things, but it simply isn’t canon.
I imagine whatever they said in that novel was wrongly informed by whatever writer they hired to write it for them. They probably showed them a modern picture of Silvermoon and said ‘write about this’ without much care beyond that.
It had always been referenced as blue in the past.
I would say half true, its more like embellishments of current lore/lore that can end up being canon. Like the explorer’s league ended up being added to WoW eventually. And in this particular case, because we are dealing with alternate timelines, it is as canon to Warcraft lore as say the alternate timelines we dealt with in Dragonflight, meaning they are things that could happen had certain event in Warcraft’s main timeline were slightly different.
The writer was Golden, so yeah, most likely she was informed/was told she could retcon it.
Tbh I feel like there’s a big difference between reusing named characters and making big lore decisions like the fall of Nozdormu.
The Reno and Elise stuff feels more like ‘hey we need named Explorer’s League characters that aren’t just Brann… uhh… use those Hearthstone guys, yeah, people like them.’
But that’s just speculation on my part.
She probably talked about the color because she was describing the scene the characters were in…
Y’know… a typical thing for books to do.
I mean, you could use that same argument for the worgen tails thing.
‘If worgen didnt have tails, then why did Golden describe it?’
Because she threw in some fluff to make the book sound prettier and forgot they didn’t have tails.
The reason she probably never went back and commented on the color thing in particular is that it didn’t stir up as much controversy over it and nobody really cared. At least the vast majority didn’t care.
Except she made sure to apologize for that and say that was wrong but didn’t do so for the color of Silvermoon.
There were alot of other things once could do to describe a scene. This was pretty deliberate.
if this was all I was going by it would be foolish, but this isnt all I am going by, the expansion simply reinforced what was said in Dragonflight, that Nozdormu’s fate may not be seal at all.
Because the tail thing is something that everyone, for one reason or another, was very passionate about.
The only people who cared about the color inconsistency were fringe lore nerds.
The tail thing concerned a major biological facet for one of the playable races, and everyone seemed to have their own take on it.
Like I literally just said (because I knew you were going to point that out, despite me already saying something to combat that point):
…Color seems like the most basic fundamental choice for describing a scene.
Then why even comment on this Hearthstone expansion meaning anything for the lore (which it doesn’t) when all it did was reiterate things we already knew.
Because as mentioned 1) for the color thing there was a soft retcon of Blizzard going “it was always red” in the Sylvanas book. Which is now not canon.
as for the Nozdormu thing I think it means that they are leaning further into that direct for his story. That this is not a plot point they forgot and have now again emphasised the possibility of him being saved.
It can be. But in all the warcraft books they never talk about say the colored roofs representing the various district. Golden conciously decided to add a scene specific to talking about the color of Silvermoon.
All other sources point to it being blue prior to War3.
How can you describe Silvermoon without one of its twi signature colors?
Like actually, how would you describe Silvermoon.
Describe the city that is notoriously red, white, and gold all over. But don’t mention any of the colors on it.
It’s like trying to describe Duskwood without mentioning the darkness over it. It’s a signature feature of the place.
I imagine Christie just looked at a picture of Silvermoon from in-game when writing it and then just printing it onto the page.
Actually one of my biggest gripes with her writing, she essentially writes down things from in-game one to one. I’ll never forget the instance within the Rise of the Horde novel where she started describing the old dumb demon summoning animation as how literal demon summoning looks like. The one that doesn’t even exist in the modern game anymore because it was built to convey something simply with technology made in 2004.
Not really. Again, as I said before Hearthstone is basically Warcraft lore embelished and I think can be used as testing grounds for ideas that can become canon.
She made a mistake and decided to correct it. She didnt do so for the whole “the roof of Silvermoon were red” because she thought/like was told that should be part of lore going forward.
I mean, it’s a non-issue either way because they are red now and a symbol of the Blood Elves’ changed (and cemented) national identity. In acknowledging the atrocity to their people, they also acknowledge disassociation from their identity previously.
I still think its important. Especially considering the implication that it was always red/always destined to conincided with the Horde motif. Rather then it was an Alliance race that ultimately did change.
