I have always been curious why there are so many examples of powerful beings in warcraft with varying degrees of access to Time magic who apparently cannot or do not see their own betrayal; nor do anything with their time magic to undo that betrayal?
Examples: If the Titans and Aman’thul have time magic and a preference for a certain timeline…then why was it a surprise to him that he was betrayed by Sargeras and defeated by Sargeras? Why did he never prevent or reverse that defeat?
If Nozdormu had time magic and the ability to protect a preferred timeline, then why was he surprised by the betrayal of Neltharion? Why did he never prevent or reverse that defeat?
If Xe’ra and N’Zoth have access to time magic… why did neither one of them foresee their own defeat and prevent or reverse it?
If the Fatescribes of shadowland writing have access to Time magic and they pick and choose entire timelines… then why didn’t they foresee their own betrayal or capture by nathrezim and thereby prevent or reverse that betrayal?
If Elisande had access to time magic… why didn’t she know that Thalyssra would be the one to betray her; and thereby why did she not prevent or reverse that betrayal? (this one may be a smaller residual of whatever answer we can come up with for Aman’thul’s power given Elisande was using the rings…but I’ll ask it anyway)
Well… you could introduce Dr Who type plot logic like certain events being fixed points of fate which cannot be altered without causing time to come unraveled. Also, you could argue if you attempt to change your own timeline all you do is either branch another timeline off, or cause a bootstrap paradox. Nobody likes a paradox.
The actual answer is stop asking about the obvious plot holes temporal magic causes. This is why Nozdormu’s vision of the future is always conveniently clouded, as was Elisande’s.
When it comes to the Bronze Dragonflight, the future’s always been a less concretely defined thing. It’s why they only send us back to preserve the past (and thereby the present); the only time we’re sent forward is to the “Primalist Future” in DF and that’s basically because a Primalist victory there would threaten the Temporal Conflux, through which they could potentially access and alter the past.
Ultimately the future is only truly certain once it happens, and thus becomes the present. Until then, it’s only what might happen, so the Bronzes wouldn’t have as definitive an idea of what specific future will eventually unfold. Similarly, though he knows of his own revealed fate to become Murozond, even Nozdormu doesn’t really know when and under what circumstances it will occur.
If it even will. It remains theoretically possible that the whole “doomed to become and die as Murozond” angle was a deliberate seed planted by Aman’thul to influence Nozdormu’s behavior, keeping him on task and securing a future for our timeline in which it won’t actually happen, with Murozond being his fate in literally every single other timeline except ours.
It’s important when considering deliberately granted visions of the future to keep in mind that there’s usually a reason for someone to share that sort of information, and the reason isn’t necessarily just to give the recipient spoilers about what will happen. It can also be to steer them toward preventing it. After all, one way to potentially avert a disaster is to convince someone that it’s destined to happen without telling them how or why, so that they’ll be locked into always striving to prevent it by doing their job just in case any particular situation threatening to cause that disaster isn’t actually “the right time” for it to happen. So even if Nozdormu “knows” he’s supposed to become Murozond in the future, he can never know how or when it’s meant to occur until it does, which means he’s inclined to keep preserving the timeline under the presumption that when he does fall, it will only happen in spite of his utmost efforts to prevent it.
The Titans preserve one timeline as the true timeline. Why that is, that’s unclear. But it seems obvious that that timeline is not just an idle preference. So they might view it as a necessary one even if they lose at times. And really, they came back in the end.
As for the Old Gods and Void users, they seem less capable of truly understanding which outcome will come out. As in they can predict the outcome as well.
I don’t know enough abou the Fatescribes to comment.
And for Elisande, Thalyssra’s plot failed. So she possibly did see it. That said, time magic is not infallible.
That has never been presented as a rule in the warcraft lore, so…
I agree that the Titans seem to treat a timeline as true… but it doesn’t explain why they would be surprised by Sargeras betraying them and not prevent that from happening. Especially since Sargeras proceeded to go around the great dark ruining and burning thousands and thousands of the planets which the Titans had already visited once.
Not sure what you mean. Thalyssra’s plot “did” succeed… I was part of it, as were hundreds of thousands of other players who finished the campaign and finished the raid. With regard to the ‘time magic is infallible’ …that’s part of what I’m getting at. Seems like if it is infallible, then it is not time magic. If you’re not seeing what will happen or what did happen… then time magic has no value. And we have too many examples of where time magic was used to change things which have real consequences… that we can’t say it is of no value.
Something is going on, something needs explanation, more writing by Metzen is needed for this.
But I already addressed the question, why not try to prevent it. Because they clearly value one timeline specifically. For all we know, every other timeline might be even worse or doomed for destruction.
Not sure why you’re spamming the ellipsis.
But no, her first plot failed, that’s what I was talking about. She attempted to overthrow Elisande before the shield was lowered, that failed.
However, for the raid, this is actually specifically addressed, if you actually do the raid.
In the raid, she starts off by saying this.
I foresaw your coming, of course. The threads of fate that led you to this place. Your desperate attempt to stop the Legion.
My people face a similar dilemma. I peered into all possible futures in search for an answer… and found only one.
The Legion’s victory is inevitable. Every time stream shows it to be so. Had we resisted, they would have taken the Nightwell by force and left us bereft of it.
I could not allow my people starve, to waste away without its energy sustaining us. So a bargain was struck.
Now I see a future where the Legion is victorious and my people endure. This is the thread that must be preserved. I will do everything in my power to make it so!
Your deaths ensure the future of the Nightborne. Come forward, then. Let us speed you toward your fate.
So apparently she planned even for us to come that far. As she claimed there was only one route for surviving the Legion, the timeline she chose. However, she later says this.
Echo of Elisande says: In all the possible futures I scryed, I did not foresee one in which you were victorious. I wonder… Echo of Elisande says: Will you defeat the Legion? Will you fail? Time eddies about you fits and starts. Nothing is certain! Echo of Elisande says: Perhaps you will win. And in saving your world, my people would be freed from the terrible bargain we were forced to make. Echo of Elisande says: Fates be damned! I cast my lot in with yours, champions. Go now, face Gul’dan. I will aid you as best I can, and perhaps together we can save us all.
As she says, time eddies around us (the heroes) in fits and starts. Time magic cannot perfectly foresee the outcome of events. But it can still generally do so. And it still has other uses such as traveling to the future or past. Freezing time (usually localized).
That doesn’t really make any sense. The Titans didn’t have any other audience present when they argued with Sargeras so there is nobody else to act to… and since Sargeras was also a Titan, he would either already know time magic or would know that Aman’thul knows time magic just like the rest of the pantheon knew he knew time magic.
There is no spamming of the ellipsis… I use exactly as many as appropriate. But no, I never mentioned anything about a “first plot”, I refer to her successful plot. With me in her plan. It succeeded, she succeeded, we succeeded. Ellisande did not see the proper future. I did the raid, that’s why I mention the raid… and that’s why I list her in the first post of this Topic. Her use of time magic was not effective, it did not see the future. So something is wrong, something needs explanation, more writing by Metzen is needed for this.
Also End Time to a degree. Where Murozond succeeded in stopping his younger self from pulling off a time heist. Ensuring the Hour of Twilight happened.
Elisande only knew about Thalyssra’s assassination plot because Melandrus betrayed her (Thalyssra that is). In the achievement dialogue in Court of Stars, Elisande even says Melandrus failed to kill Thalyssra (obviously) and she knows Thalyssra is still alive because of the dusk lillys that have been found on the corpses of her allies. If Elisande did see Thalyssra’s betrayal ahead of time, like even before Melandrus told her, Thalyssra would’ve been killed.
Elisande says: You throw a party for vapid nobles even as rebels leave corpses strewn about our streets?
Advisor Melandrus says: I assure you, Grand Magistrix, the situation is being addressed. It will be a simple matter to track down a few random dissidents and– Elisande says: Random? Do you not find it striking that each body found is decorated with a dusk lily? The same flower adored by Thalyssra? Advisor Melandrus says: I… I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Grand Magistrix. Elisande says: Then let me be plain. You bungled your assassination of Thalyssra. In fact, she is very much alive, and is…
I don’t agree. The thing is, Elisande notes in the raid she foresaw us coming. Letting events play out where Thalyssra lives and comes back to us was all part of her plan according to what she says. The part that wasn’t was when we actually beat her.
It doesn’t take someone who meddles in time magic to know that we would eventually storm the Nighthold. Even without the Nightfallen.
We needed the Eye of Aman’thul. Elisande knows why (after all, she is the one who used it originally to seal off the demon portal within the Tomb of Sargeras 10k years ago). Therefore saying “I foresaw your coming of course” does not mean that she only knew due to time magic. I mean the “of course” implies she used basic logic to figure it out.
You’ve given absolutely no reason for me to think as much or be persuaded as much. I won’t be changing my style at all, ever.
Thus… no lore and no reasoning to consider your previous reply of “they were just acting”. Unsupported supposition that is inconsistent and contradictory.
No explanation whatsoever. There was “never” any explanation as to why Ellisande did not see Thalyssra and myself being successful. It was left as a mystery. Thus, why I included it in my starting list.
She saw us fighting because us fighting her was going to happen eventually. Like I said, one did not need to see into the future to know that we would storm the Nighthold to get the Eye of Aman’thul. However she only saw her as the victor. For all we know she used the Nighwell to see into the future while we were clearing the raid. She never said when she did it.
That’s still a weird situation too, since by trying to lock in a specific future and thereby force the timeline to produce it, that Murozond was essentially trying to do the opposite of what the Infinite Dragonflight otherwise does. They’re all about Time not being forced to remain adherent to its path, only for their leader to show up insisting that it actually should and he’s just trying to force a different path from the one he apparently experienced.
Almost like whatever caused that version of him him to try to lock in the Hour of Twilight had happened once he was already Murozond, and caused him to abandon even the Infinite Dragonflight’s agenda to liberate the timeline in favor of trying to force a different one onto it instead.
But yeah, that wasn’t really so much about making a certain future happen either; from a contemporary framing it was about Nozdormu’s powers not working right when he tried to send us back and the Hour of Twilight just happening to be where the source of the problem was. The actual world events happening in that future and whether they were tied to our present wasn’t really relevant to our reasons for being there; despite having to fight through a few bosses first, we were only really there to address the time bubble where that Murozond was adversely affecting Nozdormu and preventing us from reaching the past.
In fact with Nozdormu’s parting dungeon monologue, it was really a case of someone trying to force a certain future to happen, and why that’s not how the whole thing’s supposed to really work.