A lot of these are not retcons and are just things people do not like.
An example of a retcon is the Eredar being corrupted by Sargeras instead of the Eredar corrupting Sargeras.
Mine has to go to the Titans not actually being destroyed by Sargeras as it contradicted the Chronicle’s books a few months after their release.
For which Chris Metzen personally apologized for.
For my number, nothing beats the devs retconning Sylvanas’s own internal monologue and motive from Before the Storm to within about a year later at the Shadowlands reveal. Literally nothing matters.
It was a retcon. A retcon, or retroactive continuity that imposes a new interpretation on already established events. I noticed that many people on these forums believe it is only a total contradiction. While that may come in the form of a direction contradiction, it’s not exclusive to that.
Sylvanas wasn’t dealing with the Jailer in Edge of Night, the Val’kyr didn’t mention the Jailer. There was no master plan to break the cycle.
There actually are not a lot of egregious retcons in this franchise. The franchise has a far bigger problem with incoherent characterization.
Pavetta and Grandblades criticisms are due to inconsistent characterization and not actually retcons. You can of course argue that inconsistent characterization is just as bad as a retcon. I think it is.
Mostly agree with Kordana. There aren’t that many straight-up retcons that have damaged the story.
People may have Female Worgened a lot when they decided that Eredar and Draenei were the same race but it gave us a popular playable race and big chunks of enjoyable Outland/Draenor and Argus lore.
A thing that DOES annoy me is how the Old Gods were cheapened in value when they were made lackies of the Void Lords just so they could have an even Bigger Badder Big Bad. The constant tweaking of the overall cosmology in general hasn’t done them any favors in my eyes.
Another (mixed with bad characterization) is the ever more extreme villainous of the Forsaken in general and Sylvanas in specific. They were a race of beings who had gone through utter hell and even the ones who retained their sanity were mentally and emotionally damaged, so it’s understandable to a certain extent that they bitterly treat the rest of the world as nastily as they themselves had been treated. But they kept getting written and re-written til Sylvanas herself seems to be using and abusing them out of psychotic selfishness.
Which is exactly why the whole “Yup, Sylvanas was playing 10D chess with y’all and lying to your faces since the end of Wrath” thing is not only a retcon, but an outright insulting one.
Blizzard is literally trying to pass off a new development that they only recently came up with–as a result of villain-batting a Horde Warchief for the second time–as something that’s supposedly been there all along.
It wasn’t.
Arthas is referred as the boy that would be Litch king there.
The boy that would be Litch king serves at the masters table. Three lies he will ofer you. Bound by the frozen throne? No free free.
BfA was the second lie.
And yet, nary a Jailer or “Sylvanas makes a deal” to be seen.
But you’re certainly right about Battle for Azeroth being a lie…
Making it so demons are immortal unless killed in the twisting nether was a horrible idea. It retroactively cheapens WC3 immensely.
And yes this was a retcon. Everything we had ever seen indicated demons were permanently dead when killed (it’s why KJ isn’t killed in Sunwell Plateau). It’s no coincidence the first time we ever see a “revived” demon is WoD (where originally the Legion portrayed was supposed to be an Alternate Universe Legion).
On the same topic, the “one Legion for all timelines” retcon is also incredibly stupid.
Yes, but then again, so did making Illidan a full-on villain in The Burning Crusade. Blizzard essentially introduced one retcon to correct another on that point.
Yes, but then again, so did making Illidan a full-on villain in The Burning Crusade. Blizzard essentially introduced one retcon to correct another on that point.
They could have corrected this oversight without such an idiotic retcon.
Turns out he wasn’t dead at the end of BT! Maieve made sure to leave him alive so he could serve his sentence. She just kept it secret so there would be no repeat jail break.
Much less egregious.
Becouse Sylvanas didn’t make any deal. The story will go like Arthas or part of him came back with her in dormant state and he was awekened at the end of Legion.
Man, I’m still convinced that Illidan was DED dead at the end of TFT. They just brought that sucker back in TBC for some quick cheddah cheese.
they said he was originally meant to not die, arthas let him live to see his rise to power
edgy
Oh for real?
Well that makes sense 
Wasn’t Yenniku originally Nimboya’s son until cataclysm mess?
I think that WoD made a lot of damage in terms of timeline, how Legion works, and how they villanized a lot of orcish clans.
But the most personal retcon before altering trolls and tauren to predate titans is how trolls were portrayed in front of Azshara. in-game wow books it was written clearly that nelves attacked trolls.
in Chronicles apparently, nelves were super peaceful and only trolls were “openly hostile” and Nelf conquest was totally done in a super harmless and peaceful way.
That is the stupidest thing and one of the most atrocious narrations where invaders are justified and painted trolls who were trying to stop nelves from taking lands from them as the evil guys. And Azshara is the noble and gracious being there. What- the- hell.
Same goes with helves and Amani.
The double standards are so strong it’s really frustrating.
Humans are all noble for defending themselves from invading orcs, but apparently trolls are evil for defending themselves from invading elves.
The changes of the WOTA were the worst for me.
An Awesome Apocalyptic War between the Night Elves/Dragons/Wild Gods and the Legion that lasted for 250 years was turned into a…crap that is unparalleled.
Yup, that was the mess during cataylsm. He sends you to look for his chief’s son and called him his own at the end.
Void lords, full stop.
Honestly, I was actually counting on Ner’zhul making a return, either as the Jailer or returning from the Shadowlands.
Blizzard has said outright that the Jailer’s a new character (though considering their history with canon…), but the “Original Lich King” returning would be a lot more interesting to see than the, in Sylvanas’s words, “man-child.”