How Blizzard Finally got World of Warcraft’s Lore Right (Part 1: Sargeras)
Welcome to Lore of Warcraft, a new series that will explore the ever-changing Lore of the Warcraft Universe. Today’s article is Part 1 of what I hope to be a very long series: Sargeras.
The Lore of the Warcraft Universe has always been a bit messy, to say the least. A game that started it as a RTS about Humans killing Orcs has turned into the biggest MMO on the planet, a title it had held for 12 years. As such, the Lore, or backstory if you will, of the game’s setting has gone through multiple iterations, most of them clunky at best.
That has all changed with the release of World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1. With the release of Chronicle players finally have a Lore that makes sense and fills in as many plot holes as possible without completely changing the story as a whole, no easy feat when you consider that the Lore of World of Warcraft is recounted in dozens of novels, comics, audio dramas, and in-game content.
This is going to be part one in a series of posts about WoW Lore. Today’s post will be about the “big bad” of the Warcraft universe, Sargeras.
In the Beginning (The Old Lore)
The development of the character of Sargeras is an interesting one, which frankly intrigues me. I don’t have time to go into it in detail but a bit of backstory is needed to make sense of the changes and why they are so profound.
Warcraft I & Warcraft II
The first game in the Warcraft franchise, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans offers little information on the Demons (Daemons as they were called at the time) and the Burning Legion they serve. They were used as heavy damage dealers, on par with Water Elementals. No mention is made of Sargeras until Warcraft II: Tides of War was released. In the Warcraft II manual we see our first mention of Sargeras:
It is rumored that Gul’dan has entered into a pact with a sect of Daemons loyal to the Daemonlord Sargeras who are willing to aid the Warlock in finding their master’s Tomb.
As we can see, far from being a big bad, Sargeras was a demon lord of a particular sect of demons. Which makes since as the Burning Legion had not been created (from a Lore perspective) yet.
In fact, we get more information on both Sargeras and his future lieutenant Kil’jaeden from the words of Gul’dan himself:
[Medhiv]’s face broke into a wicked sneer as he proceeded to show me the image of an ancient tomb upon which was etched the name of the Daemonlord Sargeras. The Tomb of Sargeras! The Daemonlord who had instructed my own tutor Kil’jaeden was entombed upon this pathetic little world! Destiny had chosen to lay the hand upon my shoulders alone, for Kil’jaeden had told me that the lost Tomb contained power absolute – enough to make any who could control it into a living god. Medivh pledged that he would grant me the location of the Tomb if only I would use the Horde to destroy his enemies…
As we can see Kil’jaeden was already an established part of the Warcraft lore as Gul’Dan’s tutor. Although in this iteration of the lore Kil’jaeden reaches out to Gul’dan first rather than Ner’zhul. However Sargeras is simply another demon lord, one who is dead and is buried on Azeroth.
Warcraft III
With Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos we finally have a fleshing out of the Lore of Azeroth and specifically The Burning Legion. Here we have Sargeras elevated from a mere demon lord to a fallen Titan. The lore of the Titans has only changed a little bit from their original conception and will be covered later. Suffice it to say the Titans are supremely powerful beings who ordered Azeroth (along with countless other worlds) millennia ago. The Titans themselves are very similar to The Celestials from Marvel Comics.
In Warcraft III Sargeras is described as a former Titan. Originally tasked with fighting the demons he eventually became distraught by the futility of his task:
The noble Sargeras, unable to process the raging doubt and despair that overwhelmed his senses, lost all faith in not only his mission, but the Titans’ vision of an ordered universe, as well. Sargeras began to believe that the concept of order itself was folly – and that chaos and depravity were the only absolutes within the dark, lonely universe.
In this version of the lore Sargeras is Luciferian in his downfall: a member of the pantheon who falls from grace. Similarities are also drawn between Sargeras and Morgoth, the big bad of Tolkien’s Legendarium, but it should be noted that Morgoth is inspired mainly by Lucifer himself (Tolkien was an extremely devout Catholic).
However, rather than corrupting his fellow Titans into rebellion Sargeras turned to another army:
In his madness, Sargeras shattered the prisons of the Eredar and the Nathrezim and set the vile demons free. The cunning demons, bowing before the dark Titan’s vast rage and power, offered themselves to him and swore to serve him in whatever malicious way they could. From the ranks of the powerful Eredar, Sargeras chose two champions to lead his demonic army of destruction.
Kil’jaeden the Deceiver was chosen to seek out the darkest races in the universe and lure them to Sargeras’ shadow. The second champion, Archimonde the Defiler, was chosen to lead Sargeras’ vast armies into battle against any who would stand against the dark Titan’s will.
Here we see that both Sargeras and Kil’Jaeden are retained in this new version of the lore. Kil’Jaeden was necessary as the teacher of Gul’dan and his inclusion as Sargeras’ right hand. But using Sargeras as the new big bad would lead to some serious complications down the line as we shall see.
The “Death” of Sargeras?
Keep in mind that Warcraft II established that Sargeras was dead and his tomb was in Azeroth. Although no mention of Sargeras is made in game, the Warcraft III manual places Sargeras at the head of the Burning Legion. This is fine for the lore but it is still never mentioned how Sargeras died and how Azeroth became the resting place of a Titan.
No mention of his death is made in the Warcraft III manual, but he had to have died for him to have a tomb. So where did his death occur?
The answer came in the form of Aegwynn. When Warcraft III was in development several novels were released in order to help flush out the lore and backstory the game. One such novel, The Last Guardian details the death of Sargeras as well as the birth of Medivh and his later resurrection.
In this novel we learned that Aegwynn, Medivh’s mother, was the Guardian of Tirisfal charged with protecting Azeroth from otherworldly threats. Eventually she came upon the avatar of Sargeras, a demon that took all of her strength to defeat. As the story goes she was able to defeat Sargeras’ avatar but the demon used this moment as an opportunity to invade Aegwynn. Once inside Aegwynn’s mind he was able to influence her, and later her son Medivh, into opening the dark portal so the orcs could invade Azeroth. When Medivh was killed he was freed of Sargeras’ influence and Sargeras’ soul was sent to the twisting nether.
But why did Sargeras need to use an avatar to invade Azeroth, instead of using a demon army as he had before? And why did Sargeras not make an appearance in Warcraft III?
The Avatar of Sargeras
In 2005 we got our answer. The release of World of Warcraft was preceded by the first two novels of the War of the Ancients trilogy. In the novels we learned that Sargeras had already stepped through the portal at his end when the night elves destroyed the Well of Eternity. As such, his body was destroyed (or more accurately) “he ceased to be”.
From a lore standpoint most people interpreted this to mean that Sargeras was cast into the Twisting Nether, unable to take physical form on Azeroth or presumably any other world. He was still able to communicate with his demonic allies but was unable to physically interact with them.
Now we finally had a reason why Sargeras was forced to use an avatar when he fought Aegwynn, as well as why it was Archimonde that we saw in Warcraft III and Kil’jaeden that we saw in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, but not Sargeras himself.
In fact, this is seemingly confirmed in game: during the Sunwell Plateau Raid Kil’Jaeden speaks these words (emphasis added):
Now I shall succeed where Sargeras could not! I will bleed this wretched world and secure my place as the true master of the Burning Legion. The end has come! Let the unraveling of this world commence!
One can assume that Kil’jaeden would not be able to even dream of doing this if Sargeras were able to prevent him. After all Sargeras is a Titan and infinitely more powerful than even the most powerful Eredar. This seems to give us confirmation that Sargeras is still trapped in the Twisting Nether and therefore can only make himself corporal in the form of avatars which contain only a small fraction of his power. Which again would explain why Aegwynn was able to defeat an avatar of Sargeras because it has less power than the real thing.
So here we finally come to what was the primary lore of Sargeras up until the release of Warcraft Chronicle: Sargeras begins as a noble Titan who is corrupted during his war with the demons. He founded the Burning Legion and travels from world toward destroying it. He attempted to invade Azeroth but his forces were fought back by the night elves. His body was destroyed or at the very least exiled into the twisting matter. As such, he was unable to take physical form. Some 9,000 years later he sent his Avatar into Azeroth which was defeated by Aegwynn. Sargeras’ spirit invaded Aegwynn mind (some versions of the lower states that he was trapped inside of Aegwynn) and he later invaded the mind of her son Medivh. He used Medivh to orchestrate the Orcish invasion of Azeroth in an attempt to see Azeroth destroyed. But Medivh was killed and Sargeras was exiled into the Twisting Nether once again.
The new Lore
As you can see, the development of Sargeras went through many iterations, and was molded by different creative teams over the course of 20 years. The very idea of a Burning Legion did not exist until development of Warcraft III began, and therefore during the first two Warcraft games there was no need of a “big bad”.
Curiously the development team of Warcraft III decided to elevate Sargeras, a demon who had been established to have died, to the leader of the Burning Legion and as a former Titan. Perhaps the developers wanted to use a familiar name, and decided to flesh out to the backstory of Sargeras a bit more. Only two demons in previous Warcraft lore had ever been named: Kil’jaeden who is described as a “demon” and Sargeras who is described as a “Demon Lord”.
It is perhaps because of this that they decided to elevate Sargeras, rather than simply creating a new character from scratch. It certainly would’ve saved the development team a lot of headaches in the future, especially when it came to development of World of Warcraft and all of the novels that followed.
Nevertheless Warcraft had its “big bad”. But the story of Sargeras, and particularly of his downfall, was always a little week. In addition, the lore was so convoluted, having been written by multiple authors at multiple times with what appeared to be only a tenuous link to the overall grand lore of Warcraft that frankly it was hard to keep up with.
When Blizzard decided to release World of Warcraft Chronicle and finally detail the lore and backstory of the World of Warcraft universe, they decided to change Sargeras’ a story once again.
Although most of Sargeras’ story, particularly the latter part of the story, remain intact, his early storyline has been changed slightly. The Chronicle details not only the origin of Sargeras but also the origin of the Titans and of the universe itself which had until now been unknown.
The Fall of Sargeras
In this iteration of the lore, Titans are born as World-Souls that grow within a rare number of worlds. As these World-Souls mature they awaken and become Titans. In the old lore, the Titans were described thusly:
The Titans, colossal, metallic-skinned gods from the far reaches of the cosmos, explored the newborn universe and set to work on the worlds they encountered. They shaped the worlds by raising mighty mountains and dredging out vast seas. They breathed skies and raging atmospheres into being. It was all part of their unfathomable, far-sighted plan to create order out of chaos. They even empowered primitive races to tend to their works and maintain the integrity of their respective worlds.
Chronicle tells us that the Titans are in fact as massive as worlds. This is how Chronicle describes the Titans’ physical appearance:
their bodies are covered in mountain peaks and rivers, their forms wrapped in cloaks of stardust and their eyes shining like brilliant stars
The Titans are made up of the worlds from which their World-Souls emerged. Chronicle also changes the purpose of the Titans. In the old lore (described above) the Titans’ task was simply to bring order to creation. This purpose was a little one-sided and Chronicle changes this purpose to instead searching for more World-Souls. As the Titans find a planet with a nascent World-Soul they foster it until it emerges. If they find a planet without a World-Soul they still place it under their protection. This process has gone on for millenia, and only a few worlds have been known to foster World-Souls.
The Demons (mainly the Nethrezim) come from the Twisting Nether, and can only be slain there. They can manifest physical bodies on mortal planets, and seek to corrupt the denizens of each world. As the Titans went about searching for other World-Souls, they discovered the Nathrezim and other lesser demonic races, and had to remove them from each world.
Just as in the old lore, Sargeras (along with his friend Aggramar as his lieutenant) was tasked with fighting the demons while the rest of the Pantheon continued their search. For eons the two fought the demons, but Sargeras began to recognize demons whom he had kill previously. He did not know at the time that some demons can only be killed in the Twisting Nether and therefore created a prison to cage the demons he faced.
One day Sargeras found a world with a young World-Soul inside of it. As he drew closer he heard its thoughts; but instead of the tranquil thoughts of a growing World-Soul he found dark dreams and soon realized that it had been corrupted by the inhabitants of that world: The Old Gods.
Chronicle explains to us that The Old Gods (my personal favorite part of Warcraft lore as they are inspired by the Cthulhu mythos) are beings created by a group of creatures known as the Void Lords. Void Lords dwell within the void, also known as the shadow. The Shadow and the Light are the two fundamental forces of the Warcraft universe and it is in the places where these two forces interact that creation began. The Void Lords themselves are not as powerful as the Titans, but they are envious of their power and seek to destroy them.
Since they cannot match them in strength they devised a strategy: to corrupt a Titan. They had apparently made attempts to do so with waking Titans to no avail, so they decided they would try it with a Titan when it was at its most vulnerable: in a World-Soul state.
To do this, the Void Lords created The Old Gods and scattered them across the known universe. Since neither the Titans nor the Void Lords know which world will have a World Soul, they seek out all worlds and try to place Old Gods in all of them.
On this planet which Sargeras had discovered rested one such World-Soul. It had been corrupted by the Old Gods and its dreams were dark and dangerous. Sargeras knew that if this corrupted World-Soul were to awaken it would be more powerful than all of the other Titans and would destroy them all. Sargeras killed the World-Soul and returned to the Pantheon to inform them of his decision.
The Pantheon felt that Sargeras had been wrong and that the World-Soul might have been saved. Sargeras, who had actually spent time fighting the demons and the Old Gods and knew their power, decided that if the Titans would not help then his former enemies would. Sargeras had come to the conclusion that, given the threat that a Dark Titan would create, he must destroy all worlds in order to prevent the Old Gods from creating a Dark Titan.
Thus Sargeras released his former prisoners and created the Burning Legion with the express purpose of destroying all of creation to prevent a Dark Titan from being born.
How the New Lore Changes Everything
Sargeras’ fall from grace is handled much better in this new version. Instead of simply being driven mad by the evil denizens he has fought, he is in fact trying to fight an even greater evil and willing to use any method to complete his goals. This turns Sargeras from a pure villain to more of an anti-hero.
The true tragedy of Sargeras here is that in trying to defeat the Void Lord’s plan to create a Dark Titan, he has himself become one. Although we can presume that a Dark Titan of the Void Lord’s creation would be more dangerous, we can’t see much of a difference as Sargeras’ express purpose is not to destroy all worlds.
Additionally, we have a much more logical reason for why Sargeras needed to send and Avatar into Azeroth: because his true form won’t fit. The Chronicle describes Sargeras as destroying an entire planet with a single swing of his sword. If the real Sargeras were to show up on Azeroth there is literally nothing that could be done to stop him.
Lastly, the Chronicle establishes a greater threat than Sargeras: the Void Lords, the Old Gods, and a possible Dark Titan. Sargeras seems to think that a Dark Titan, corrupted by the Old Gods, would be more powerful than the entire Pantheon combined. We don’t know what the Void Lords want to do with a Dark Titan; perhaps they want to destroy creation (which if so essentially makes no difference in the end run) but if that were the case then the Void Lords should be on the side of Sargeras. No, it is logical that the Void Lords would do something even worse than destroy all life were they to succeed. Sargeras, instead of being seen as the embodiment of evil, has now become a tragic character which makes him much more interesting.
One last thing to note, and this helps explain why the Burning Legion keeps invading Azeroth, and possibly why we’ve been able to stop them time and time again, is that Azeroth has a World-Soul inside of it. And this World-Soul is described as being the most powerful Titan to ever have been born.
Which is a problem because Azeroth has Old Gods. Old Gods who had existed on the planet for millennia before The Titans came and ordered Azeroth. Now the Titans removed Azeroth of its corruption (for the most part) and we can presume that this nascent World-Soul is on track to grow up to be a good Titan but the question remains: what if the Titans were wrong? What if our planet is the incubator to a future Dark Titan more powerful and more evil than Sargeras?
Which begs the question: should we then be helping Sargeras destroy Azeroth to prevent an even greater evil?
Blizzard probably hasn’t decided on an answer yet but there are some clues regarding its viability, and they come from the End of Time (on Azeroth). Back in Cataclysm we needed to retrieve the Demon Soul in order to destroy Deathwing. To do that, however, we had to travel to the End of Time on Azeroth to retrieve the Hourglass of Time. At the End Time we see one of several possible futures for Azeroth should Deathwing (a servant of the Old Gods) succeed, all of them bad. When we finally face off against Murozond (who is in fact a future, corrupted version of Nozdormu) and finally kill him we are given this script:
You know not what you have done. Aman’Thul… What I… have… seen…
This is pretty damn cryptic, but we know a few things. We know that at some time Nozdormu will become corrupted, by what we do not know. He will go mad by a vision of the future. Is it the vision of his own demise? Or is it a vision of something worse, perhaps of a Dark Titan awakening.
Which is exactly what would have happened if Deathwing had succeeded and the Old Gods (his masters) had taken over Azeroth again. But whatever corrupted Nozdormu, it occurred in the future. As of Legion Nozdormu is uncorrupted and as such it can’t be a vision of Deathwing succeeding who is in fact dead.
Is it possible that Nozdormu eventually sees a future where a Dark Titan awakens and brings an evil greater than Sargeras into the universe? And if so, then not only is our struggle against Sargeras futile, it is destructive for all other life in the Universe.
These are deep questions without any real answer, And besides, this is all about a video game. But the point of all of this is that in updating the lore Blizzard has finally made sense of World of Warcraft’s big bad and created a much more interesting and compelling story.
FYI Water elementals in War I had nothing to do with Orcs, their warlocks summoned demons, human magi summoned water elementals
Yes, but as far as power goes they were on par with Demons in the original game.
Hell no, the lore was already butchered ages ago… but killing off Sargeras was the last straw… without Sargeras there is literally nothing left, they retconed the fuck out of this series with those shitty chronicles novels which were re-written specifically for World Of Warcraft (because Warcraft lore clearly doesn’t work with WOW so they had no choice). If you ask me, the lore died with Wrath Of The Lich King with the Battle For Undercity, that entire section of the game is stupid and it just got dumber from there on. I despise Blizzard for ruining this series’ lore.… Read more »
You seem to be under a few misconceptions, and I suspect that you didn’t read the article (just the title) given statements such as ” [Sargeras} was the primary antagonist of the original trilogy” with the actual history of the lore. Sargeras was not the primary antagonist of the original trilogy of games, far from it. He receives a passing mention in the second game and is not mentioned at all in the first. It is only when Warcraft 3 is released that his role in the lore is expanded as being the leader of the Burning Crusade. As mentioned… Read more »
He is the primary antagonist, it even says that he is on the blurb on the back of the Warcraft Archive, he’s the leader and founder of the Burning Legion, the people who caused the orcs and humans to fight each other in the first place. The Burning Legion have always been the primary antagonists in the Warcraft series. Of course Sargeras barely gets a mention, he takes a backseat role and has his underlings do his bidding. Sargeras is not the leader of the Burning Crusade, he’s the leader of the Burning Legion. The Burning Crusade is not a… Read more »
Again, you seem to misunderstand how the Warcraft games were created. You keep thinking that the Warcraft lore was set in stone with the release of Warcraft. It was not. It was a changing lore that kept having information added and retconned to suit the needs of the story. Sargeras has no mention in the Warcraft manual nor in any text within the game which, as I’ve mentioned above, you would know had you actually read the article. The inclusion of Sargeras only occurred with Warcraft II and again it was not for him to be the primary antagonist but… Read more »
I’m going to leave this reply in a separate thread because it is tangential to the heart of the matter: “Sargeras is not the leader of the Burning Crusade, he’s the leader of the Burning Legion. The Burning Crusade is not a faction, it’s a mission for the Burning Legion which involves destroying the entire universe. Learn your lore before you attempt to argue my points.” Arguing about nomenclature rather than substance is a bit like arguing about a spelling error. It’s a bit pedantic and whether or not someone uses an incorrect name while hastily typing out a reply… Read more »
The “Demon Lord” if you want to call him that is the primary antagonist of the series, just because he didn’t have a name does not change that. Plus I have read the Warcraft Archive, I read the blurb of that book, Sargeras is mentioned in that blurb. The Last Guardian mentions him many times.
At least I know my facts, you can’t argue that I don’t because Sargeras IS that demon lord, it has been confirmed as canon.
You do realize the lore didn’t start in 2002 when Warcraft III came out right? I’m talking about Warcraft from 1994 and Warcraft II 1995. There is no mention of Sargeras in the Lore from 1994. In 1995 he is mentioned once as a demon lord who had trained Kil’Jeaden who in turn had trained Gul’dan. His tomb is a place that Gul’dan seeks out, but is killed by the demons inside. The player has to go to the island and kill Gul’dan’s forces, as well as a few rogue demons around the tomb. Saying I get that you read… Read more »
Of course it didn’t start in 2002, how could it when The Last Guardian was published in 2001? You’re completely forgetting the existence of the Warcraft Archive, the book that expanded on the Warcraft Universe tremendously. Jeff Grubb and Christie Golden brought a lot to the lore. As for Knaak I was never fond of his work but I will not deny that he expanded on the lore also. For the record, the content within the Warcraft Archive came out BEFORE Warcraft 3… this is the point I have been trying to make this entire time when you state that… Read more »
Sorry, when I wrote “trilogy” I meant Warcraft, Warcraft II and it’s expansion pack beyond the dark portal, which is essentially a second game, rather than Warcraft III. Second, Warcraft Archive came out in 2006, Warcraft III came out in December 2002. The Last Guardian was released about 6 months prior to Warcraft III. Jeff Grubb was brought on to help flesh out the lore, and he worked heavily with Chris Metzen and the Warcraft III team. This all came in conjunction with the release of Warcraft III, which would be the first batch of retcons. As far as the… Read more »
Did you google the Warcraft Archive on Wikipedia? You do realize what the Warcraft Archive is right? It’s a re-release of the 4 original Warcraft novels, Day Of The Dragon, Lord Of The Clans, The Last Guardian and Of Blood And Honor. There’s a reason it has “WARCRAFT” in the title and not “World Of Warcraft” (though for some reason the manga still uses just “Warcraft” but whatever) Yes the archive itself was released after Warcraft 3 but the books in it were sold separately before Warcraft 3 You seem to have forgotten the existence of a game titled “Warcraft:… Read more »
I’m beginning to think you don’t actually read these comments in full, just find one single sentence with which you disagree and then rage post about that ad nauseum. Yes, I’m well aware that Archive is a collection of 4 stories by 4 different authors. It’s not a republishment of those stories, but rather an abridgement of them as Archive is ~600 pages and the summation of those four novels would be about ~1200 plus or so since each was around 300 pages. Regardless, had you read one sentence further you would have read “The Last Guardian was released about… Read more »
And? Your point? Do Warcraft 3 and the Archive not matter in this discussion? Are they somehow invalid because they prove all of your points wrong? You speak of ad nauseum yet you’ve been arguing about sargeras being the main antagonist and not the real point. Sargeras wasn’t fought in Warcraft 3… how could he be the main antagonist of just Warcraft 3? It makes ZERO sense. Yet he is still responcible for basically everything that happends in the original trilogy retcon or not, this is a fact. Kil’jaeden did all that stuff because Sargeras gave him power and split… Read more »
I’m not saying the archive and W3 don’t matter. I’m saying that they changed the lore, which is fine. You seem to be operating under the impression that only WoW made drastic changes to the lore and this is factually incorrect. As I’ve been trying to explain to you for weeks now, W3 and it’s accompanying novels were themselves drastic changes to the lore. Your pedantry regarding this thread is truly astounding. I’m not saying Sargeras is the main antagonist in W3. I’m saying that he has been the primary antagonist in the entire Warcraft story, but only since the… Read more »
Also Sargeras DID appear in Warcraft 1… you fight him at the end of one of the game’s missions… but you don’t fight him directly, you fight his host, Medivh. Sargeras was mentioned A LOT in The Last Guardian. This was written BEFORE Warcraft 3. Maybe if you actually read all of the books instead of the crappy retconned Chronicles, you would know this. Literally everything that happends in the original trilogy storywise is caused by the Burning Legion. The orcs going to Azeroth, The Scourge, the third war it was all connected to the Legion. Sargeras was the leader… Read more »
Oh come on. Granted, the “lore” of WoW certainly sucks, now. But the “backstory” of the RTS trilogy just really sucked, like god-awful bad. In the first game, it amounts to eight pages in the manual of large text that reads like a bad Chinglish translation due to the authors’ inability to form coherent sentences. There aren’t any “characters,” just some hastily contrived names to serve as props for the blocks of pixels you’re moving around the screen. If you think the creative team had thought about Sargeras while making that first game (or anything beyond pushing a product out… Read more »
You don’t like Warcraft’s story? That’s your opinion, it doesn’t stop me from complaining about how they ruined it in WOW.
Again you are entirely missing the point. Your contention that Sargeras was any part of the “original lore” is not backed up by the mountains of evidence before you. You enjoy the Warcraft 3 era retcon. That’s fine. But they created many problems that later additions to the lore were unable to correct. This is a serious problem that has haunted the franchise and Chronicle does a very good job of adding internal consistency to a fractured and dissociative lore that has been written by dozens of authors over three decades, many of whom didn’t talk to each other and… Read more »
The only problem that was created was World Of Warcraft. The fact that Blizzard had to change the lore for gameplay reasons. People wanted to play as the forsaken and Night Elves, of course they did because they are important factions in the lore. However if they remained independant, the PVP which was planned to be (and still is) Alliance Vs Horde would be imbalanced as these races would be on their own… so they were shoehorned into either faction for no reason until retcons came and patched things up. The entire game was built around the whole “Alliance vs… Read more »
I’m well aware there is a mission called Tomb of Sargeras, having played it multiple times. Where in that mission does it say Sargeras is the leader of the Burning Legion? Where in the game manual? Where in any of the lore that was released in 1995 does it say this? I’ll answer that for you since you still don’t seem to understand the premise of the article. No where. Once again you seem to be under the misapprehension that Blizzard created the entire lore with no changes, no retcons at all until The Chronicle came out and changed what… Read more »
My point was that Sargeras was mentioned in Warcraft 2, not that he was part of the burning legion. He is a demon lord, which logically means that he is a lord of demons. Lords are in charge of lesser beings. As such it’s natural to assume that he is in charge of the Daemons. You can argue that they’re rogue demons but good luck convincing anyone of that. The writers would not have mentioned a “demon lord” if the daemon’s around Medivh didn’t have a master. It’s common sense. Anyways before you de-rail this any further, my point is… Read more »
Most of my reply has already been handled in another thread but I’ll answer the question about ruining lore. Name one thing that W3 did that ruined the lore? I wouldn’t say it ruined the lore, but it’s elevation of Sargeras to leader of the Burning Legion created several headaches that the story section had to deal with later on, rather than having some other, as yet un-named demon, being the head of the Burning Legion. But, as described above, the 2000’s were sort of a Wild West when it came to Warcraft Lore. But then again I’m not the… Read more »
I might as well be talking to a brick wall… none of my points seem to have gotten through to you at all…
I might as well be talking to a brick wall… none of my points seem to have gotten through to you at all… All you have done the entire time is nitpick, you demand that I play on your playing field, limiting the discussion by saying that only warcraft 1 and 2 matter. You seem to be way too caught up in Warcraft 1 and 2 yet you forget 3 and the archive. You seem to be forgetting the entire point of my argument. My point being “the chronicles suck”. If Blizzard didn’t make World Of Warcraft, we wouldn’t even… Read more »
1) your point is that “Chronicle sucks, killing Sargeras is stupid.”
Chronicle didn’t kill Sargeras. You haven’t actually supported your argument. Really your argument is “WOW ruined the Lore.” Fine. Not the point of this article.
Every thing you complain about seems to be having to do with the death of Sargeras which, again, isn’t even in the chronicle. Which you would have known had you read the Chronicle, or the article at all.
The Chronicle set things up so that if Sargeras died, they could continue adding more content to WOW, essentially making him a meaningless character.
So yeah, the Chronicles did cause his death because Blizzard wrote the story in their favor so they can keep milking more garbage lore… and y’all fell for it.
“The Chronicle sets things up so that if Sargeras died, they could continue adding more content to WOW, essentially making him a meaningless character.” For the most part the chronicle merely clarified his origin and motivation. Sargeras could have been killed off at any point in WoW as there were plenty of villains not related to the Burning Legion and there have been many expansions not directly related to it as well. Your point is not really substantiated by the evidence, but I get it, you don’t like that they killed Sargeras. Fine. That’s never been the point of this… Read more »
Yes because it’s nothing more than a justification for all the lore changes in WOW.
So you don’t like Chronicle because it’s a justification for changing lore?
Basically your argument boils down to “I don’t like change.” Which isn’t logical but you’re entitled to your opinion.
For the record Chronicle doesn’t really change much in lore. Rather it clarifies Sargeras’ backstory. Exactly what changes in the lore did Chronicle justify? Sargeras’s death? Certainly not as he could have been killed off in game in the exact same way story wise without the chronicle. So what exactly does Chronicle justify that you hate?
it does change lore, a lot of it, it adds a chart that governs every bit of energy in the universe a chart that many have argued makes absolutely no sense. Here’s a video which discusses this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlyxUK7N-KY This guy’s theory makes so much more sense than what the chronicles say. In fact it’s already better and more interesting than anything in WOW. I also forgot to mention the retcon of Sargeras. Originally Sargeras became a dark titan because of his depression due to the fact that he killed tonnes of demons and began to question the titan’s ideals, the… Read more »
I’m not saying I don’t like the story (I’m here, after all,) just that it’s pretty bad in a whole variety of ways—all primarily due to the fact that creating a story is not the main focus of the endeavor. Unless the franchise just stops, it’s always going to be a soap opera of changes to what previous episodes dished up.
Whether it’s bad or not is not what matters, what matters is, WOW ruined it.
Again, in Warcraft I Medhiv was simply a rogue Wizard and not the host of Sargeras. This was later added in the novels that were released in the lead up to Warcraft III. What you are defending as the “original lore” is merely the first of many retcons.
If you’d actually read the article you’d know this.
A rogue wizard that summons daemons. Yeah, nothing suspicious about that is there? It’s obvious Sargeras was influencing Medivh the moment that those Daemons appeared around him.
You see there’s a problem with videogames today, every detail has to be explicit, there’s no subtlety in videogames anymore. The Daemons were a subtle detail. The game never tells you that sargeras is behind it all but there are many implications that link to sargeras. Why did Medivh open the portal to begin with? For fun? He had to have a reason. Someone or something must have influenced him to do that.
Once again you are making the mistake of assuming that just because Sargeras was labeled as the leader of the Burning Legion in Warcraft III that he was always intended to be so. There is no evidence of this and the evidence against it is quite strong. You can’t view the older lore with the knowledge of what was later added and assume that everything was planned to be that way. In 1995 Blizzard hadn’t intended for Sargeras to be the antagonist. That much is clear both from the stories set out in the games and the lore that was… Read more »
Just because it wasn’t explicitly stated that he was meant to be the main antagonist doesn’t mean that he wasn’t the main antagonist. bear in mind that I am talking about the entire trilogy and the books released in the archive. When you play Warcraft 3, the things that occur in Warcraft 1 and 2 all adds up. It makes sense that they wouldn’t tell us about the main antagonist in the first game. They wanted people to make their own judgement, this is what the Warcraft series has always been about, hiding the information away so that it’s difficult… Read more »
“Just because it wasn’t explicitly stated that he was meant to be the main antagonist doesn’t mean that he wasn’t the main antagonist.” This a lot like saying “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” While this may be technically true there’s one thing it is not: evidence. I could say the same thing about literally every other character in the Warcraft lore and have the same amount of accuracy. You’re essentially looking for any justification, however weak, to back up your point rather than looking at the evidence and making a fact-based conclusion. “The Chronicles ruined this by… Read more »
I’ll tell you how it ruins the lore. Because it makes everything that happends in Warcraft 3 feel completely meaningless and pointless. Turning evil due to an endless war against demons is actually what I consider to be good writing. It was a perfect way to set up a villain, have them slowly deteriorate into madness, I absolutely loved that. He clearly began questioning what the titans told him to do and wondered if it was worth it, his answer was no so he did the opposite and undis the titans creation…. because the constant war with the demons messed… Read more »
1) The Chronicle does not invalidate what happens in W3. It covers things that occurred thousands of years before W3. It merely changes motivation. 2) Your preference to him turning evil because he fought evil is simplistic at best. Having Sargeras ally with his former foes in order to fight a greater one and then being corrupted by them is not only more nuanced, it’s more logical. It’s like the difference between LoTR and GoT. Simplistic villains vs nuanced story telling. Personal preferences does not mean something is bad or good. 3) Your argument against the Void Lords is illogical.… Read more »
All good except for the bit about GoT being nuanced story telling.
Well that’s a discussion we could have another time but to clarify I was mainly writing about the Song of Ice and Fire novels by GRRM, but I contend that, compared with most television shows, GoT is far more rich and nuanced that the vast majority of what’s being broadcast. When you look at depth of characters, the near total absence of pure villains and pure heroes, logical conclusions for characters’ decisions and a nearly complete lack of plot armor it’s very well written and very nuanced.
Except your blog’s title says “How Blizzard Finally Got World Of Warcraft’s lore right” I think that title is a load of bullcrap. World Of Warcraft’s lore has never been right, it never will be. The only way they can fix it is with a clean slate, something the movie seems to be doing Warcraft: The Beginning > World Of Warcraft lore-wise. No freaking contest. Of course classic Warcraft lore is always and will always be the best. All you have been doing is telling me that I’m wrong because I apparently haven’t got my facts right. First of all,… Read more »
Thanks again for verifying that all you’ve read is the title.
Yeah and that title is a big problem.
Well read the body and get back to me
Not worth my time. If you think that Warcraft lore is getting better, I don’t really care about any of the drivel you have written.
And here folks we have the epitome of the internet troll: someone who reads a headline, disagrees with it, and rather than spend the time and effort reading the body of the text and focusing on the arguments therein, proceeds to rage post about how wrong the article (which again he has not read) is, even making points that are addressed in the article itself.
That title is the biggest troll of them all, claiming that Warcraft lore is getting better right after Sargeras dies.
That’s like saying “Warcraft was shit until they got rid of everything that made it Warcraft”, blatant insult to fans of the series.
You do realize this article was written 10 months before Sargeras died right? I highly suggest you read articles before you comment on them lest you make yourself look ridiculous.
Still, World Of Warcraft was released nearly 14 years ago…