I’m gonna say something many of you won’t like but I like shadowlands and my problem with it was that there just wasn’t enough of it. I think every “bad” expansion had the potential to be good but all suffer from cut content. Catclysm? We lost 2 raid tiers (blizz said there would be 1 in each zone, so that means deepholme probably and throne of tides/maw certainly.) And then uldum had looked to be about the explorer’s league and archeology but in its final release got turned into indiana jones references, possibly because of time restraints and the total scope of a world revamp.
Same thing in WoD. Entire revamp or rework with outlands as its foundation was a tall order in addition to housing and new systems.
Shadowlands in my opinion is no different. They changed so much of the lore and story and character even up to the point of release. Look at korthia, once probably the original realm of zovaal himself reduced to some mystery forest. Does it not make way more sense with the original context that it was Zovaal’s realm as the arbiter? isn’t that much deeper and interesting? Doesn’t it make way more sense why the eternals hid it away from him? Cut, removed, now you have a soulless zone that everyone hates with tons of nothing burger things in it.
But despite that I still like Shadowlands. I thought the art direction was amazing. Music was great. Zone quests and lore not strictly tied to the main campaign was great. Even the main campaign had some high lights I liked (dominated anduin one shotting Archon was a chilling cinematic.)
It would be fine with me for the first ones to turn out to be the true gods of the shadowlands but I do NOT want them to turn out to be the titans. That would be so supremely disappointing. I wouldn’t mind a retcon that they didn’t invent all of reality but were merely the true dieties of the shadowlands from the realm of death beyond the shadowlands. But the new sylvanas quest implies quite strongly that it isn’t real and that it is a product of order and therefore the titans.
But not only do I not like this direction for the story as the Titans to be creators of the zerith instillations and pantheons of deities. It’s just plain inconsistent.
Third: Do not share knowledge of the First Ones.
Mortals could not conceive of the wonders that the makers granted to the titans in Zereth Ordus. Thus, learning of the Progenitors would only confuse them.
It is enough that mortals know the titans brought Order to the cosmos, and that they are owed deference.
~Edicts of the Prime Designate, Volume 742
This is what Odin told to his loyal subjects when he still ruled over Azeroth before the treachery of Lokin or exchange of his eye with Jailer. He is privy to information about the origin of the titans within zerith mortis and their very own interaction with the first ones. Thus proving they are or were separate entities.
Now look here, regardless of what you think of shadowlands lore this will only further complicate things as blizzard spirals to write further justifications creating even more problem with world building narratives. That might be fine for some of you but what you’re looking at with this sort of revision is almost the same issue many of you had with SL to begin with. “It was nerzul but it was actually the legion but that turned out to actually be denathrius who is actually just puppeted by the jailer who is actually just trying to save the universe from actually what is to come which is actually (…)”
I was fascinated to learn more about the first ones and preferred to believe they had already all died. I find a narrative where people live in a world where there were once gods who are now dead to be rather interesting and it makes the titans and others into figures trying to play god in their absence. While their status is unclear and has been for some time, I do not like the idea of going back to “titans did everything.” If that’s the case no wonder zovaal wants to tear down everything because it’s pretty terrible that these guys that can’t fight Sargeras 1v20 somehow are responsible for all of creation. And isn’t it interesting that even Odyn says we should be lied to, to believe they are the creators of all as it would only confuse mortals who should know that the titans represent order and are therefore owed deference.
What is the burning legion to be twisted into just another fabrication of the titans? Oh actually we wanted sargeras to wipe out all life this whole time. It was all a part of our master plan. Oh the titans ACTUALLY created the old gods and void lords. See the Titans actually created themselves in zerith ordus and were therefore just talking to themselves. This is the exact sort of thing people hated about the retcons made in the shadowlands with the introduction of the first ones and lands of death but many are happy to see it happen again so long as it means they can disparage SL. And maybe that’s fine with you but then you’re just trading “first ones created everything” for “titans created everything.” And it was not even like that before. They were exploring a universe which they awoken into and was wrought with maladies, chaos, and endless hunger. They don’t even know where all the world souls are and it takes them 10 gazillion years to get somewhere. Sargeras couldn’t even get to azeroth from across the universe after 10,000 years following the war of the ancients. But they ordered all of the shadowlands? What?
And not forget that Elune and Winterqueen are sisters who share in an eternal cycle. Lore suggests that the Elune created the Naaru but that the Naaru were created near the dawn of creation where they then clashed with the void and the resulting energies gave rise to the twisting nether and from chaos arose order. The titans origins don’t even imply they could have possibly been awake at that time due to their long time in stasis to reach maturity and emege from their worlds per aman’thul’s mission statement.
It would be best to leave the first ones as some dead or absent myth but how many expansions worth of lore are you willing to retcon to say “the titans are actually the first ones.”
