Only one Archimonde? What?(Spoilers)

[Wolfheart9]

There is 1 legion, but several clones of every demon, that's why we have 4 Gul'dans, and 3 Jaraxxuses for example. They are not aware of their clones and can not interact with each other directly, only indirectly like leaving notes to each other, or artifact's like with Gul'dan and Gul'dan, and Ner'zul.

Wait, what? I don't think you have that right.. What 4 Gul'dans? There are two as far as I know. Only 1 Jaraxxus, so on.

[Aquamonkey]

Blizzard confirmed this early in Warlords of Draenor via a Tweet that went along the lines of "The Burning Legion transcends all realities."

That wasn't early at all. It was late, like HFC PTR late. 6 June 2015, to be precise.

[Selastan]

What I'm curious about is...what would happen if there was a reality years behind our own, one where Archimonde had yet to be corrupted? What would happen if Archimonde walked through a portal into the Twisting Nether years after he had 'transcended realities'? What of Illidan? He is linked to the Nether in the same way that demons are, how can he exist in the past during the Well of Eternity instance?

[RedNight at MMOC]

That wasn't early at all. It was late, like HFC PTR late. 6 June 2015, to be precise.

Memory is hazy at best during Warlords of Draenor, thanks for the correction.

[Brenak]

I Like to think of it like this, when we went into wod, we didnt actually go back in time. We created this stand alone bubble of Dreanor from the past inside of our reality. We know that this is some what true because it is not an exact copy from the past, it has alot of differences. So the Velen that was there existed there and died there because he was part of the created bubble. The Legion that we were fighting was really the Legion from our timeline and they kind of followed us there and saw the opportunity to take it and cease our world. This helps me cope. Id draw a picture to better explain but i think the bubble concept pretty much captures my thinking.

[Selastan]

I Like to think of it like this, when we went into wod, we didnt actually go back in time. We created this stand alone bubble of Dreanor from the past inside of our reality. We know that this is some what true because it is not an exact copy from the past, it has alot of differences. So the Velen that was there existed there and died there because he was part of the created bubble. The Legion that we were fighting was really the Legion from our timeline and they kind of followed us there and saw the opportunity to take it and cease our world. This helps me cope. Id draw a picture to better explain but i think the bubble concept pretty much captures my thinking.

They were there before we were.

[Aquamonkey]

What I'm curious about is...what would happen if there was a reality years behind our own, one where Archimonde had yet to be corrupted? What would happen if Archimonde walked through a portal into the Twisting Nether years after he had 'transcended realities'?
Normal Archimonde wouldn't have a demon soul so nothing would happen to him. One instance of a person ascending to demon doesn't instantly erase all non-demon versions. WoD-universe Archimonde and Kil'jaeden were still approached and inducted into the Legion just as they had in our universe.

"Thousands of year ago, the demons of the Burning Legion came to our homeworld and offered our leaders a great gift. Two of them, Kil'jaeden and Archimonde, saw the wisdom in their offering, but the last leader, Prophet Velen, refused."

What of Illidan? He is linked to the Nether in the same way that demons are, how can he exist in the past during the Well of Eternity instance?

Illidan wasn't a demon until WC3. Also, the Nether doesn't transcend time. They still experience linear time within the Nether just like the regular universes (just that some places within the Nether the flow of time gets weird).

[Selastan]

Normal Archimonde wouldn't have a demon soul so nothing would happen to him. One instance of a person ascending to demon doesn't instantly erase all non-demon versions. WoD-universe Archimonde and Kil'jaeden were still approached and inducted into the Legion just as they had in our universe.

"Thousands of year ago, the demons of the Burning Legion came to our homeworld and offered our leaders a great gift. Two of them, Kil'jaeden and Archimonde, saw the wisdom in their offering, but the last leader, Prophet Velen, refused."

Okay, so what happened to the Eredar of that reality when they transended? Did they just fuse with all the other realities' demonic Eredar?

[Aquamonkey]

Okay, so what happened to the Eredar of that reality when they transended? Did they just fuse with all the other realities' demonic Eredar?

Seems to be the most likely result, not that Blizzard put too much thought into it. Remember, WoD and its denizens were originally written to be completely separate with its own Twisting Nether.

[Selastan]

Seems to be the most likely result, not that Blizzard put too much thought into it. Remember, WoD and its denizens were originally written to be completely separate with its own Twisting Nether.

That sounds like even more of a headache than keeping the interdimensional Council of Ricks together. How would a conversation between Archimonde and Kil'Jaedin go?

"Hey man, remember that time you ate a rotten Nether ray egg on accident?"

"No...what reality are you thinking of?"

"HR-13398, The one where that one star didn't exist"

"Oooh, okay. I remember that now...that sucked!"

[Deleted]

They better retcon this into a workable form, and soon, otherwise the wod bs will kill the universe. Trying to decipher this is pointless, they worked multiple mutually exclusive ideas into one messed-up story. We can't figure it out because there's nothing to figure out. Guess we'll have to wait for chronicle v2.

[DakonBlackblade]

Did Archmonde actualy die on Hellfire Citadel ? Cause he was defeated on the Twisting Nether. Or was that part of the fight just flavor and not canon ?

[Raetary]

Did Archmonde actualy die on Hellfire Citadel ? Cause he was defeated on the Twisting Nether. Or was that part of the fight just flavor and not canon ?

it is on the edge.
they still havent decided if the mythic encounter was canon or not.
that's why i hate such special mythic/heroic/helicopter only phases which dont line up with everything else in the end.
if you already want a special phase for the harder difficulties at least make it so that it makes sense, not *gets killed outside of the physical universe* *cinematic shows him out of a sudden in the pysical universe*

[Deleted]

Did Archmonde actualy die on Hellfire Citadel ? Cause he was defeated on the Twisting Nether. Or was that part of the fight just flavor and not canon ?

Dead for good, confirmed by blizz because mythic phase. But we know that they can change their mind anytime they want.

- - - Updated - - -

it is on the edge.
they still havent decided if its canon or not.

So they took that back already?

[Dellis0991]

There is 1 Archimonde, there is 1 legion, blizz already explain this in a tweet or something. The Archimonde we fought is the same one we fought in Hyjal back then.

[Aquamonkey]

Is Archimonde really dead?
I can tell you our idea behind that. We might change it. This might not be canon. This might be something that we decide we're gonna tinker with. I'll try and explain what the thinking was. The idea was that the demons in the Burning Legion, they're kind of immortal in that they can exist across all the planes, unless they're killed in the actual Twisting Nether itself. So killing Archimonde at the World Tree in Warcraft 3... well, he was killed on Azeroth, but he would re-coalesce in the Twisting Nether and come back to haunt us again. And the idea was if you played in Mythic and defeated Archimonde, you actually defeated him in the Nether and that he'd be dead dead for good. That was the idea that we played with. We tried to explain that and I don't know if... that certainly doesn't come across in-game because it's not necessarily explained in-game. Maybe we'll change that. Maybe we'll change the canon of that. But that was the idea that we were working with... was unless you rip these demons out and take them to the Twisting Nether and kill them there, they'll always keep coming back. But maybe that's not canon. Maybe we'll tinker with that idea. (Source)

[AbalDarkwind]

They'll declare it non-canon, or explain that Archimonde "dropped" out of the Twisting Nether right as he died, when the designers of the final Burning Legion raid in WoW want a Kil'jaeden and Archimonde twins fight.

[DakonBlackblade]

Is Archimonde really dead?
I can tell you our idea behind that. We might change it. This might not be canon. This might be something that we decide we're gonna tinker with. I'll try and explain what the thinking was. The idea was that the demons in the Burning Legion, they're kind of immortal in that they can exist across all the planes, unless they're killed in the actual Twisting Nether itself. So killing Archimonde at the World Tree in Warcraft 3... well, he was killed on Azeroth, but he would re-coalesce in the Twisting Nether and come back to haunt us again. And the idea was if you played in Mythic and defeated Archimonde, you actually defeated him in the Nether and that he'd be dead dead for good. That was the idea that we played with. We tried to explain that and I don't know if... that certainly doesn't come across in-game because it's not necessarily explained in-game. Maybe we'll change that. Maybe we'll change the canon of that. But that was the idea that we were working with... was unless you rip these demons out and take them to the Twisting Nether and kill them there, they'll always keep coming back. But maybe that's not canon. Maybe we'll tinker with that idea. (Source)

This has gota be the most stupid oficial answer ever released in the history of mankind. "We make the lore but we kinda don't know what were doing so it might be this one thing, but we might change our minds too".

[Seifross]

By creating this topic you've put more thought into the situation than Blizzard did. Just rest assured that we're not going back - alternate Gul'Dan is the only real holdover from WoD anyway.

[Deleted]

Blizzard confirmed this mid-way in Warlords of Draenor via a Tweet that went along the lines of "The Burning Legion transcends all realities."

Yet killing Archimonde in the present he is still alive in the past and future. Regarding the 4, possible 5 Gul'dan floating in the TN

MU - dead, only his skull remains
AU - dead, torn apart in the Suramar night well
AU2 - unknown, after doomhammer destroys Lorderon it's up to speculation if he reached the tomb
MovieU - alive, yet to reach the tomb of Sargeras