Just some idle thoughts on how Dragonflight and War Within “could” have been written with different management and different Writing staff…
If they had done what I wish they did; no fated season, no family-together-family-together story contradiction, no elements contradiction, no titankeeper contradiction, no primalist contradiction.
They should have had 4 full Raid patches in Dragonflight.
Vault of Incarnates first Raid. Raszageth killed and 3 others let loose.
Vakthros Tower megadungeon with Vyranoth and Red Dragons story where Alexstrasza justifies herself and makes Vyranoth admit being wrong such that fighting for dominance of the Incarnates only means taking away the freedom of all the non-dragon sentient mortals that would be fed upon by those Incarnates if they won.
Aberrus second Raid. Where Vyranoth tells us about Neltharion having a secret hidden lab and we find that Iridikron and Fyrakk had gone there. But we discover servants of the Void had been pretending to “be” Neltharion after he abandoned that lab long ago. And as such, it could be revealed that the fake Neltharion made the Dracthyr and captured Raszageth as portrayed in the emberthal animation. Then, when confronted by Malygos, either the real Neltharion or the fake Neltharion could agree to put all the Dracthyr into stasis. As we also saw in an emberthal animation. Fyrakk would have still empowered himself with even more shadowflame during that patch, leading to the next raid.
Amirdrassil, the third Raid. With Green Dragonflight info shared and Cosmic Life revealed to be responsible for the original protodragons emerging out of elementals before the arrival of the Titans. The original Tyr would have encountered these odd starting protodrakes and ascended only the 5 of them to be Aspects. The main plot of this raid patch should have had Cosmic Life admit their involvement by Elune and when Fyrakk is finally defeated, the tree should let Elune speak directly and tell us that the Incarnates were made long in the past but what they turned into was not what Life intended for dragons. Then we should find Iridikron around the Bronze Dragon Shrine and being helped by the Infinite Dragonflight to go back and use the dark heart on Galakrond in the past.
Leading to final 4th Raid. Time travel raid into the past where final boss is evil alternate Tyr who empowers corrupted proto-drakes who had been mutated by Yogg-Saron at the same time Yogg-Saron mutated Galakrond…and that is where the Primal Incarnates came from. They had been given visage forms by that evil Tyr of Nerubians/Klaaxi/Qiraji and such. We as a raid group stop the alternate Tyr, but then maybe Iridikron can barely get away at the end of the raid thus transitioning into the War Within expansion.
War Within rethought: Since Iridikron had a Qiraji and/or Nerubian visage form, and powers of Earth magic…he could have fled down through the chamber at Khaz Algar and been the cause of the damage that temporarily prevented Earthen from going up and down through the chamber. Then, Iridikron could have kept going down until he found the Nerubians and deceived them to gain access to the dormant old god blood; which would have empowered the dark heart which was still in his possession. Only at this time should Xal’atath have appeared, to steal the dark heart from Iridikron, making him angry and vulnerable.
First War Within Raid, Nerub’ar Palace. But when Queen Ansurek is defeated, Iridikron should get angry and activate Quakes and Cracks in Azeroth…which break open a cave shaft into the haranir and the Rootlands.
Then Thrall should take the horde into those Rootlands and reveal an evil smaller faction of Cosmic Life which wanted to deceive the Titans with elune’ahir to dominate and steal the World Soul for only cosmic life. But Thrall knows the history of Orcs who were created by Titans and fought against the Everbloom on Draenor.
Rootlands, 2nd Raid. Evil plant bosses defeated, but Thrall learns a small number of haranir like Orweyna didn’t agree with the plant bosses. They join with Thrall and perform a ritual that binds the Spirits of Orc Ancestors to Azeroth the World Soul, so that living Orcs can defend the last titan and dead Orc ancestors can contribute to Spirit balance among the Elements here on Azeroth. The melancholy by Thrall about the elements can finally be resolved…and for the first time, Orcs can feel like they belong here, instead of being unethical foreign invaders.
This would lead to Therazane and Elune revealing that Beledar was indeed a naaru Light-ship that crashed here long ago and got stuck in the layers of rock. Thrall could also learn that the quake and cracks from Iridikron had loosened around Beledar and at long last, there is a way to enter Beledar with help of the Earthen.
So 3rd Raid of War Within, Beledar. Unfortunately, Xal’atath is also now sneaking inside Beledar and with the dark heart that she had stolen, she is trying to finalize conversion of all the naaru inside to void naaru. Alleria and her son the paladin Arator join us in the raid…and we defeat Iridikron as he tries to pursue Xal’atath and retrieve his dark heart. Unfortunately, Arator gets killed during the fight, and this mentally hurts Alleria so much that she loses control of the void being which was inside her. According to the Locus Walker quote back in Legion to Alleria where he said “So long as your mind is your own, you command this power. It does not command you.” …Alleria losing control of her mind lets the Void being out and it fully converts Beledar to Void. This results in a huge Void portal opening up in the sky which sets the stage for the Midnight expansion…
But… this is not what we got. More is the pity. I guess more side quests and never acknowledging any role for Thrall or Beledar.