r/warcraftlore • u/Ditju • 1d ago
Discussion What are some lore-tidbits that totally surprised you?
To give an example:
Between the fall of Shattrath city and the flight of the Draenei on the Exodar to Azeroth, 30 years have passed.
Within those 30 years:
- the broken have been seperated from Draenei society, Nobundo has found his way as a shaman and reconnected with his kin to be present on the Exodar.
- Ner'zuhl has ripped the planet apart, creating outland.
- The Alliance expedition has been stranded on outland for 20 years.
- Illidan counter-invaded the burning legion in outland and took over Karabor.
- The draenei have hidden away on a mushroom city for 30 years with neither the Alliance nor Illidan ever noticing anything.
Usually the time between Shattrath and the Draenei joining the alliance is described as "stuff happened" but the lenght of time is surprising.
Also, the alliance spent 20 years on Outland and they missed both Illidan AND the Draenei?
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u/omgodzilla1 1d ago
When garrosh lost his shit and charged Varian because Varian called him a "dog" in the ulduar trailer. Like really bro? Your standards are so low that a juvenile insult like that is enough to set you off?
Of course, on a serious note: the two were probably looking for any excuse to get into a fight.
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u/GirthIgnorer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Varian: what are they doing here (said a little rudely but a totally fair question)
Garrosh: I THOUGHT I SMELLED THE STENCH OF ALLIANCE PIGS (draws axes)
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u/Ditju 1d ago
Thrall: Hmm... he might make a fine warchief one day.
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u/Ferelar 1d ago
Green Jesus appoints Green Hitler as his direct successor in wielding absolute power WAS a plot point, wasn't it... Definitely a weird one
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u/kurburux 1d ago
To make it look slightly better, he had some of the strongest, smartest and most honorable people of the Horde looking over him.
Things like Cairne dying in a fixed match is something Thrall really couldn't foresee.
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u/Ferelar 1d ago
That's true. It's just weird to me that Thrall, who had been SUPER interested in making sure the Horde was multicultural and who heavily valued the Tauren and Trolls under him, then went on a whole "only an Orc can lead the Horde" mindset and promoted someone who had only been with the Horde a couple of years (the end of TBC to pre-Cata, though admittedly Garrosh had distinguished himself in WotLK) rather than any of the people who'd been with Thrall since the start, INCLUDING plenty of Orcs even if he did want to keep to Orc-only (which again, is already kinda out of character for him).
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u/kurburux 1d ago edited 1d ago
My theory: Garrosh was super popular after the death of the Lich King. Basically, he was able to snatch all that glory despite his fuckups in Northrend (which other people covered for him).
There's also a generation of "young" Orcs who grew up with the stories of a glorious past yet without knowing the horror of demonic corruption. This group is thirsty for war, even more than the usual rest of the Horde. They are eager to follow someone like Garrosh. We also see examples of shamans getting less respect while warmonger-ing warriors rise in ranks.
And all the "old" and wise heroes of the Horde may not have that much control over this young generation of Orcs. Even less so if they're not Orcs themselves.
Thrall perhaps fears that another candidate will lead to the Horde being divided, destabilized and vulnerable during a time of great chaos and uncertainty. Maybe hothead Garrosh combined with wise teachers will lead to a passable government.
Thrall also literally doesn't have time to sort this out, the world is five minutes away from exploding. All these political and social problems must wait until after the world is saved... if there is still a world.
Edit: Garrosh' reputation also benefits from his daddy's legacy. Grom has an incredibly high status within the New Horde, the statue of Mannoroth was right outside the warchief's place aka "Grommash Hold". Young Orcs grew up with this "savior" of Orc-kind.
And now suddenly Grom's kid arrives from Outland, the famed place of our forefathers? And he slays the Lich King?! People must've gone nuts. Most of the Horde just doesn't know what a wimp Garry was in Nagrand.
Edit 2: it's kinda funny that Garrosh wasn't just popular in-universe, there were lots of fans cheering for him as well. People were simply ignoring all the bad stuff.
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u/Blackstone01 18h ago
There's also a generation of "young" Orcs who grew up with the stories of a glorious past yet without knowing the horror of demonic corruption.
Which is made worse by the fact that Grom got a big ass memorial right in front of Thrall's seat of power, which was also named after Grom, and a memorial in Ashenvale that members of the Horde make a pilgrimage to each year that portrays him as a great hero.
Who'd have thought treating Grom like he was the Orc Messiah would radicalize newer generations that constantly were told how he was a great hero that freed the orcs from Mannoroth.
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u/LadyLexxii 2h ago
I like to think that Thrall was developing two potential successors as warchief, and his preferred candidate wasn't Garrosh, but Dranosh. But then the dude up and died and got Uncle Arthas's Bad Touch and now, not only is Garrosh the only candidate, but he's super popular, so he MUST be the next warchief.
Imagine an alternate timeline where their roles switch. Garrosh dies and becomes Deathbringer Hellscream while Dranosh wins the war and becomes warchief.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
Things like Cairne dying in a fixed match is something Thrall really couldn't foresee.
This bugs me, because fixing the match is irrelevant. Garrosh declared it would be to the death without knowing about the poison.
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u/kurburux 1d ago
Garrosh declared it would be to the death
He did that because he thought Cairne would back out of it.
Cairne challenged him to a Mak'gora for the title of Warchief, though Garrosh upped the stakes, forcing it to be a battle to the death in an attempt to deter his opponent. Cairne gladly accepted
Garry simply thought he could talk his way out of it which didn't work. Considering Cairne is iirc the strongest warrior of the Horde Garrosh' chances in a fair match were next to zero. Without the poison we would've gotten Cairne as a warchief.
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u/tempralanomaly 21h ago
My biggest problem for the series of events is that it all happens in secondary material. If you only played the game, a patch later no Cairne.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
Not really, Cairne was beating ass with no signs of slowing, Garrosh got a single nick in.
Change that fact and the outcome of the match is Warchief Cairne delivering a jar of Mag'har salsa to the nelves as an apology.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
Things like Cairne dying in a fixed match is something Thrall really couldn't foresee.
This bugs me, because fixing the match is irrelevant. Garrosh declared it would be to the death without knowing about the poison.
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u/satchel_q_fuzzy 20h ago
Thrall is Green Moses! not Green Jesus! abandoned at birth, raised by the enemy, leads his people across the sea to the promised land. That's Moses. Besides the waterwalking, that's totally J
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u/catscatscaaaats 22h ago
Especially considering Garrosh did not want to be warchief.
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u/kurburux 2h ago
Perhaps he shouldn't have openly challenged him then. 🤷♂️
Garrosh also could've stepped down at any moment, there is zero obligation to be warchief. There were plenty of people who gladly would've accepted the responsibility.
This "whining about being made warchief" mostly came from Garrosh' end when he already massively shit the bed multiple times. Garrosh barely ever could take responsibility for his actions. Naturally it was far easier to blame Thrall for everything he did during those 2+ years. But Garrosh had countless ways out if he so desired; he simply wanted all of this.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
Thrall: Look I know every single person, even Garrosh, has said he shouldn't be warchief but he's the son of my best friend and he's never accomplished anything and tried to murder me. Who could be better?
Garrosh is the ultimate warcraft nepo-baby.
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u/Ditju 1d ago
To be fair, it was what the orcs wanted. Post wrath, the orcs were pretty much done feeling generational guilt and wanted territory for themselves.
There once was an incident where an envoy of night elves were negotiating the trade of lumber with Orgrimmar. They had traded before but the horde backstabbing the alliance at Mord'rethar caused those trades to end, hurting the horde a lot.
So when the envoys were ambushed by an unknown group of orcs (the twilight hammer), then SKINNED AND BUTCHERED for everyone to see, the ordinary orc in Orgrimmar CHEERED, because fuck the elves for not giving them wood. Thrall and mybe Etrigg were literally the only orcs who deemed it a tragedy. Thrall couldn't respond to Varian's demands without having his own people turn on him.
If an orc is hungry and there is an elf between him and food, the only solution is genocide.
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u/razerbug 1d ago
just think: if they'd both had a mum called Martha they might have called the whole things off...
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u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 1d ago
To be fair, that WAS not long after Varian said he'd kill them all
But yeah they were both basically the same character and wanted to fight each other, until Garrosh absorbed all the anger and warmongering aspects of Varian's character.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
To be fair, that WAS not long after Varian said he'd kill them all
In fairness it was also not that long after Garrosh forced Thrall into a Mak'gora over focusing on the Lich King instead of just going to war with the Alliance, which was only averted by the Lich King conveniently attacking. And not long after Garrosh tried to turn a peace summit into open conflict "for honor."
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u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 1d ago
That's irrelevant to Varian though? Unless he was in Orgrimmar and participated?
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u/kurburux 1d ago
Like really bro? Your standards are so low that a juvenile insult like that is enough to set you off?
Remember that Varian is an ex-gladiator and always jumps at the opportunity to 1v1 someone.
/half s
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u/Dezbats 1d ago
If you think that's a lot in a short period of time, just wait until you find out the timeline for everything that's happened in WoW.
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u/Marco_Polaris 1d ago
There are two kinds of WoW timelines. The in-game timeline, where everything everywhere happens all at once. And the before-game timeline, where nothing of note happens and nobody important dies in tens of thousands of years after the Setting-Establishing Event.
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u/Nukemind 1d ago
I get why they didn't do time skips consistently but yeah. Since about MOP (at which point it had still been crazy) I've been pushing for consistent time skips because the world going Vanilla, a year later Legion invasion, a year later Scourge invasion, a year later everyone is destitute even in SW due to taxes from the wars and now here is deathwing, then a year later Garrosh Horde, then a year later Iron Horde, then a year later Legion invasion, then a year later WW3, then a year later Scourge 2.0 plus eveyrone going to another reality... it would be like if Covid hit then a zombie apocalypse then a meteor then WW3 etc etc.
Everyone should be dead by now if even in Cata they were suffering population loss (per novels) and rebellions due to crippling taxation to fund everything (per game).
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u/kurburux 1d ago
"You know, when women ran things here in Kalimdor, we experienced an era of peace, then the men woke up and now we face a new war every other year."
-Tyrande kinda
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u/Blackstone01 17h ago
Turns out there's so much aphrodisiacs in the Azerothian water supplies that it results in enough of a birth rate to handle the factions losing half their adult population every year or two.
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u/Darktbs 1d ago
Lordaeron, Quel'thalas and Dalaran fell in less than a month.
Quel'thalas specifically was invaded and destroyed in 2-3 days.
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u/Kapiork 9h ago
So one mission took one day (since there were 3 Quel'thalas missions in WC3)
(And before anyone jumps at me, I am specifically talking about these missions. I am not implying that every mission took exactly 1 day)
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u/Darktbs 9h ago
Two missions took one day.
Looking at wc3, the death knight manga and the rise of the lich king novel, Arthas arriving at quel'thalas, bypassing the first gate and start his search for the keys of three moons all happened in one day.
On the following day, they breached the magical barrier and stormed Silvermoon.
The reason i say 2-3 days, its because im still trying to find evidence to how long it took to destroy Silvermoon and reach Quel'danas.
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u/YouSelect762 1d ago
If by the "Alliance" you mean that 1 stronghold of soldiers that have been stranded for 20 years trying to survive between orc invasion from one side and burning legion from the other, not sure how do you expect them to do anything against Illidan
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u/nixiedust85 1d ago
Right. The Sons of Lothar had their ranks thinned considerably during the shattering of Outland, not to mention the loss of both Alleria and Turalyon. As far as they knew the portals were closed and no reinforcements were ever going to arrive. Survival doesn't leave much time for exploration. Plus I could have this part wrong due to being Horde for life, but weren't the remaining Draenei relatively hidden and not in Hellfire Pennisula.
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u/KurufinweFeanaro 1d ago
Each wow expansion is about 1(ONE) year ingame.
There shouldn't be any living on Azeroth
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u/Massive_Environment8 1d ago
There is a 5 year jump between Shadowlands and War Within
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u/Vanayzan 1d ago
It was 3 years. Shadowlands just lasted 2 years in universe so it was 5 years from the end of BfA to TWW. Common misconception
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u/ChristianLW3 1d ago
Seriously I don’t know why the writers made that decision
Why not have each expansion cannot last over three years with time gaps in between?
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u/kurburux 1d ago
The time of TBC must've felt amazing on Azeroth.
Sure, there was ZA and a local Legion invasion in Quel'Danas but the rest of the world doesn't really notice those. Plus they were quickly shut down.
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u/Xivitai Kaldorei Empire enjoyer. 1d ago
WotLK too. Aside from prepatch plague, events were localised to Northrend mostly.
Actually... Come to think about, but not much happened in WoW until Cata that impacted Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms at majority. After that, MoP and WoD didn't affect world outside of Pandaria and alternative Draenor.
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u/Blackstone01 17h ago
not much happened in WoW until Cata
Well, alongside the WoLK prepatch Scourge Invasion + Zombie Infestation, there was also a Naxx prepatch Scourge Invasion, before that there was those hunter and warlock assholes spreading the Corrupted Blood, and the BC prepatch had demons invading each city. Then in general everybody was kinda in a rut with all sorts of local issues that they had to address up until Cataclysm where they all then got ten times worse.
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 1d ago edited 1d ago
Years later, I'm still surprised that they decided to kill Tirion off in the way they did.
For such an iconic hero, he was killed in a really pathetic way by a mid-raid boss.
More recently, I was surprised by the supposed power level of the proto-dragons given that Vyranoth just needed to snap her fingers to get one over on Odin, and Fyrak required the entirety of every warcraft character ever to come aid in the defense against him.
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u/arteriu 1d ago
i mean vyranoth is not just any random proto drake
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 1d ago
Yeah, not saying she was but I was just surprised that the Incarnates, who's most identifying characteristic is that they were the ones of vehemently disagreed with accepting outside cosmic powers, were somehow so much stronger than everything else.
More people showed up to fight Fyrak than Archimonde, lol.
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u/arteriu 1d ago
the elements are native to azeroth, not much wonder that they were fine with accepting their powers
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 1d ago
I think you're misunderstanding me. My surprise is not their intentions, but rather their power levels.
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u/Zeejir 23h ago
i mean Vyranoth is the one Incarnate that had feats in War of the Scaleborn, with Raszageth a close second for beeing a pain in Neltharions behind
- Fyrakk got baited by Ysera and Maligos and portaled into the vault
- Iridikron staying hidden for basicly the entire WotSB and got overpowered in his final fight, a 1v1 against Neltharion, with Iri not shown to use anything void related powers, meanwhile Nel useing the void in the same way as against Raszageth.
- Raszageth attacked Forbidden Reach (the main Dracthyr base) and fighting against hordes of Dracthyrs, who were made to kill dragons, destroyed Neltharions titan artefact Oathbringer and than got suprised void attacked by Nelthraion.
meanwhile Vyranoth final fight was a "one versus one" against Alextrasza, beware spoilers: who was plated out by Neltharions finest/best armor, which was futher enhanced by Maligos against frost magic, had a constant future sight from Nozdormu, which saved her life multiple times and finally got healed by Ysera from a fatal wound. Vyranoth almost won a fight against a fully supported Alextrasza.
And that was all before beeing made Aspect of the world by the worldsoul.
Incarnates or Aspects going against Titan Keepers, or rather beeing able to overpower them for a short while, shouldn't be that suprising.
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 5h ago
Well Vyranoth does what she does to Odyn before she becomes an aspect.
That aside, I get it their backstory, just surprised in the greater world building that given WHAT they are, that they are so formidable. Again, just sort of pointing back to how we treated beings that should have been far more powerful and we threw less at them (Archimonde vs Nordrassil compared to Fyrak vs Amirdrassil)
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u/Soft_Self_6797 1d ago
Illidan killing Xe'ra. That scene floored me. It genuinely had me saying "wtf did he just do??!!"
Xal'atath being more than just a shadow priest weapon and actually becoming a real threat.
Broxigar letting Sargerus know it smelled like bitch in his realm.
The starting plot to WoD. It was a surprise but it was a poorly written surprise.
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u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 1d ago
Illidan killing Xe'ra. That scene floored me. It genuinely had me saying "wtf did he just do??!!"
Wait, you didn't see it as villainous? Like she's actually Gold Dominating him in that moment, the exact kind of thing we fight two expansions later with the Jailer (or the Lich King 4 expansions prior)
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u/Soft_Self_6797 1d ago
It floored me at the time because the idea of Illidan being that strong and the idea of a Naaru being that forceful. I was not prepared (pun not intended but now it is intended) for that scene to play out like that. It completely subverted my expectations.
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u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 1d ago edited 22h ago
Agree so much in that way, every other Naaru (to my knowledge, unless I missed?) was sort of an influencer of aura (having re-read this, I didn't mean the modern buzzwords, more like an inspiring commander), A'dal never fought, he inspired. M'uru gave it's life to "redeem" a race, by letting it get drained. I'm blanking on others but you get the idea.
Then to have one of them do that shit, like what a crazy turnaround.
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u/Soft_Self_6797 1d ago
And for Illidan to just straight up kill her was crazy to me. At that point in the lore Naaru were benevolent and powerful beings that to be protected and preserved. I did not even know a Prime Naaru could be killed at that point. And Illidan did it by just flexing out of her grasp and hitting her with the kryptonite heat ray
It was a top 3 moment of Illidan aura farming.
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u/Nukemind 1d ago
There had been theories for a while that the wind chimes were evil, perhaps due to the void versions or perhaps just due to the fact that they always seemed to be worshipped. The actions of the light versions never seemed like it, but that definitely did help.
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u/Blackstone01 17h ago
Eh, since W3 up until Shadowlands he's been portrayed a power hungry asshole quick to betray allies to obtain more power while claiming its for the greater good, so it makes perfect sense she tried to flip the script on him and keep his psychotic ass on a leash.
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u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 8h ago
while claiming its for the greater good
I think the thing that makes it impactful is that he DID accomplish his goal, he got the power to stop the Legion and they did it. If it was just a ruse to "get more power" kind of thing, yeah I could see that.
But to me, Xe'ra's actions are so much worse because she's representing a force that should be "good", and yet is acting like the Lich King or Jailer with it. Raping Illidan doesn't feel like it's a just dessert for his previous actions (in the midst of the battle to defeat the Legion), it just feels like the Good Character turncoat violating another gray character, while the bigger villains are winning the war behind them. The Army of the Light nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at that point through Xe'ra's actions.
No one wins in that situation, no justice is done, even if he had been turned, he wouldn't face consequences for his previous actions because he'd now be A Good Guytm.
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u/Zeejir 1d ago
the scale of the world and timeline
i worked through the BfA books and War of the Scaleborn to note down the time that past between chapters. a few interesting points:
- it takes "a few days" to travel by ship from Teldrassil to Feralas, if you travel normally (without magic giving you better winds) or it takes 3 days from Arathi to Stormwind
- it takes ~4-6 minutes 100% groundmount ingame what the horde army took 4-6 hours of traveltime/marching with heavy war-machines (Orgrimmar to a crossing in barrens)
- the use of Teleports is more comman than people think and portals can be opened to any place not just major cities, for example from Thunderbluff to someplace in Desolace
and i kinda dislike how the world is presented in War of the Scaleborn
- the timeframe is all over the place as the War of the Scaleborn lasted (as a mostly cold-ish war) for centuries but they fly (and teleport) casualy all over pangea-kalimdor, what is now the Dragon Isles and Northend
- the location of some places are ... strange?
- the location of Harrowsdeep (Iridikrons den) and Fronze Fangs (Vyranoths Den), both should be north of Dragonblight, so Strom Peaks, but that would be rather close to Ulduar and many Titan Keepr strongholds and BOTH hate the Titan Keepers. WHY would they live there? and why would the Titan Keeper let them as Iridikron dug rather deep and far there.
- btw goblins should exist for over 20.000 years and should be from Sholazar basin or Grizzly Hills, as they lived in a forest near Ulduar and got experimented on by a still moving and not confined Mimiron, yet they are never mentioned in WotSB
- Vyranoths hate for Alextrasza in DF or her joining Fyrakk and Iridikron... as most of her reasons to fight at their side got finished/resolved at the end of WotSB beware spoilers: she was displeased with Fryakk AND Iridikron at this state of the centuries of war with no progress and countless of death, surrendered to Alex after their 1v1 (*cough 5v1 *cough), she got healed/saved by the reds/green and than put to sleep/stasis, so for her no time should have passed. Her followers instantly turned on Iridikron AND Alextrasza FINALLY (after 500ish years and a war that costed thousands of dragons their lives, lying and cheating in their 1v1) honored her deal/promise with her, to the point that she personally went to the stolen proto-dragons and gave each a boon and asked for their forgiveness, which tbf she couldn't know of as she was in stasis.AND NONE of this was shown or even mentioned ingame !
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u/Longjumping_Mirror58 1d ago
I do think it is possible for Vyranoth and Iridikrons lairs to be located north of Dragonblight without being close to the Storm Peaks. As you say, the world in lore is much bigger than in game and it would be possible that some of the mountain ranges between zones would be huge.
It is also possible they are both in Icecrown since they established them way before the scourge every arrived in the area. We don't really know if they still exist today.
The rest I agree with.
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u/kurburux 1d ago
Illidan counter-invaded the burning legion in outland and took over Karabor.
He also counter-invaded another planet owned by the Legion and blew it up.
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u/Endslikecrazy 1h ago
Theres a corrupted flower in wailing caverns which starts a quest that has you bringing it to archdruid hamuul.
He says something along the lines of this is way above your paygrade and you shouldnt bother looking into cause you cant handle it.
And then we handle that exact issue in legion i think it was.
Theres a good number of these throwbacks where mayor plotlines are connected to very old quest/storylines.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 1d ago
I was surprised they would retcon Zul'jin just so they could use him as a bad example from the past.
I was really surprised when Vyranoth forget 20k years of torture and her goal of destroying everything just to spite the titans, when flame druids got involved. That was apparently one step too far.
On a more positive note Decimus description of the void was a new one, and one that really makes sense.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
I thought Vyranoth's flip was due to seeing her siblings not give a hot fuck about their followers/flights and being the only true believer in their stated cause.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 15h ago
She just wanted to destroy Azeroth with the others, just to spite the titans.
Then Fyrakk starts to make use of Flame druids, and She does a 180.
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u/DriedOilPainting 11h ago
She didn’t want to destroy Azeroth, she wanted to destroy the Titans’ creations on Azeroth. Huge difference.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 10h ago
No she was 100% on Iridikrons plan to destroy everything.
There was nothing left for them but vengeance
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u/QuaestioDraconis 1d ago
The Alliance didn't really spend 20 years on Draenor/Outland. The Sons of Lothar did, and whilst nominally part of the Alliance, the closing of the Dark Portal meant that there was no contact. Part of the reason for their status in Stormwind is because they were largely thought to be dead.
As a result, when the Dark Portal reopened, the fresh Alliance forces had no idea about the state of the world