A friend of mine pointed out an inconsistency with his timeline since they are trying to do slapdash retcons to fit him into the horde so, Arator is born between year 3-4, Making him about 4 years old when his parents leave in year 8. He is raised in dalaran by Rhonin and vereesa until about year 15 where he turns 10 and squires under Lord Shadowbreaker, In year 18 the 13 year old arator somehow also is living in quel’thalas and learning to be a farstrider which he can only be doing for 2 years because in year 20 lordaeron and quel’thalas get scourged Making him 15 then.
He then must spend 6 years in dalaran cause this is when he turns 18 and BC starts, Vereesa’s kids would have been born sometime in around those 6 years, Meaning he was already a full adult by the time he knew them. This leads to the events of legion Where he is 26 years old the events of legion unfold, Then he doesn’t appear again until bfa where he turns 28 still would have had to have been living in dalaran this whole time cause y’know the wars. Its not until the peace after bfa where in his 30’s tensions would have cooled enough to move to quel’thalas, he turns 35 in TWW and barring another huge time skip, he will be 36 in midnight, Meaning he only would have had 5 years of adulthood living in quel’thalas and 2 in his teens.
They should have made him just simply learning about the culture in Silvermoon and Quel’danas than having been there for a long while. It makes no sense to shoehorn him into it’s history.
I don’t know why they’re doing this weird shoe-horned history with Quel’thalas when they can just have him be dating a girl from Silvermoon/Quel’thalas as the reason for why he moved there. You can still have that emotional tie to the Sin’dorei as a faction while also maintaining the plainly obvious push-and-pull of divided family that Blizzard wants to tell for Arator and his deadbeat parents.
I like the implication that Sylvanas was far too busy as Ranger-General to be able to raise him, yet her second-in-command wasn’t similarly swamped with military and political affairs for whatever reason.
So, here’s my question: had Vereesa moved to Dalaran at the end of the Second War, or were there years before she moved?
Also, is there any evidence to suggest that after moving to Dalaran, she never returned to Quel’Thalas?
I think its possible that at a very young age, Arator could’ve been in Quel’Thalas if not for a prolonged period of time, then for visits. If Vereesa visited, say, a few months every year, then it makes sense that Arator could’ve had some training under Lor’themar or something.
I do agree with the premise that this all is extremely convoluted and heavy handed.
We generally don’t know because Rhonin and Veeresa were essentially “book only” characters up until Wrath came to be. There’s also the fact that the timeline between their only two appearances at the time, Day of the Dragon and War of the Ancients, was so long that it’s up to anyone’s guess as to what those two were doing. What we do know/can speculate is that the end of Day of the Dragon seemed to imply that Vereesa and Rhonin’s relationship was hot and heavy and that them getting married was an inevitable thing to happen within a relatively quick time frame. Rhonin’s 2nd chronological appearance (War of the Ancients trilogy) also seemed to imply that Rhonin and Veeresa were only ever able to start a family of their own until after the Scourging of Lordaeron and Quel’thalas had forced Rhonin and Vereesa to be holed up somewhere remote within the Eastern Kingdoms.
I haven’t read the Sylvanas book, and don’t plan to, but maybe there’s something about Rhonin and Vereesa in there that explains what happened between DotD and WoA.
They retconned that he was a new born when he was given to Vereesa Windrunner to raise. That was year 10 now not year 8. So they’ve moved around the early timeline of the Second War/Invasion of the Alliance forces to Draenor. Making him 2 years younger at least so closer to early to mid 30s. Not late which would be if the older lore timeline was preserved.
The lore from 2001 Day of the Dragon was changed slightly or recontextualized if the new book’s lore is now the most accurate. Where she is given Arator to raise then she does Day of the Dragon marries Rhonin and lives in Dalaran, but there’s no reason she wouldn’t return post Second War to visit her family in Quel’thelas. This is pre Scourging of Silvermoon. So Post Second War but before the Scourge came. She could of stayed and left him with Lor’themar and Liadrin to care while she did her business affairs and Sylvanas Windrunner was busy with Nathanos and hunting the remaining Amani in Quel’thelas/ Orcish Horde Remnant post Second War. Then the Scourge came and she was in Dalaran? I would have to read the new book to see how that makes sense.
The way his new Horde-(Belf) backstory tidbits unfold kind of remind me of Worf from Star Trek — who’s basically an Earthling of Klingon ancestry who’s raised by two human parents, yet conversely leans into the Klingon identity really hard in a way that comes across as very LARP-y.