Only one Archimonde? What?(Spoilers)

[Deleted]

Why would he die? It'd be no different than the first time Archimonde became a demon. Regular Arch soul becomes demon Arch soul where there is no demon Arch soul.

Because that would mean that it doesn't matter if we kill any demon even in the Nether, because Sargeras can simply go to an alternate world where said demon was not corrupted and corrupt him, creating a new version. Sure, maybe said version wouldn't be as strong... except that we know that the leaders of the Legion can insert into one's head, so he could insert most memories of the dead demon.

Essentially, this way, Archimode would never die, no matter what. Or Ki'jaden. Or Mannaroth. etc.

And this way, even Illidan's plan to battle Kil'jaden and Archimode in the Nether is... just delaying the Legion until they corrupt another Archimode and Kil'jaden and bring them up to speed. Essentially, this would mean that the Legion truly is unbeatable.

[Deleted]

I don't know why this is even discussed. Despite what dazed and confused Kozak is saying, the cinematic is canon. It has to be canon because it initiates Legion.
If Archimonde died in the Nether he wouldn't have been able to send Gul'dan to our Azeroth and we wouldn't have Legion right now.

[Seifross]

I don't know why this is even discussed. Despite what dazed and confused Kozak is saying, the cinematic is canon. It has to be canon because it initiates Legion.
If Archimonde died in the Nether he wouldn't have been able to send Gul'dan to our Azeroth and we wouldn't have Legion right now.

Oh, not this again, haha.

Kozak said that what happened in-lore wasn't reflected in the cutscene. Gul'Dan could have casually walked on through the portal as we were fighting Archimonde. Maybe Jaina appeared and spartan kicked him. Maybe he made a new portal. Maybe Sargeras himself came down from on high, picked Gul'Dan up and booted him through.

That's literally all that has to happen - Gul'Dan goes through a portal. Thousands of ways this could be done. That doesn't mean the cutscene is canon, especially when the people who decide what is canon and what is not have said that the cutscene isn't canon. The thing is that it isn't up to us, or the people who made the cutscene. If the writers up and said "Oh, Cataclysm was a bad dream sequence", then that's canon. It doesn't matter how silly or ill-reflected it is in-game.

[Qualia]

Because that would mean that it doesn't matter if we kill any demon even in the Nether, because Sargeras can simply go to an alternate world where said demon was not corrupted and corrupt him, creating a new version. Sure, maybe said version wouldn't be as strong... except that we know that the leaders of the Legion can insert into one's head, so he could insert most memories of the dead demon.

Essentially, this way, Archimode would never die, no matter what. Or Ki'jaden. Or Mannaroth. etc.

And this way, even Illidan's plan to battle Kil'jaden and Archimode in the Nether is... just delaying the Legion until they corrupt another Archimode and Kil'jaden and bring them up to speed. Essentially, this would mean that the Legion truly is unbeatable.

That would depend on how the WoW universe work. I don't believe we have any official explanation yet. For now, the plausible theory is that the AU demons will merge into the MU / prime version. However, I don't think we've gotten any agreement on the details how that works yet, each and any of us might have his or her own ideas.

For example, I can think of a few explanations for what you said to not be an issue. It'd only be a problem if "infinite possibility" means everything and anything can happen (and thus, every beings can be corrupted at any point of time, if not in this universe then another). What if "infinite possibility" only means that - infinite *possibility*. There might be something that are impossible no matter what, or events that are fixed in some kind of fate / akashic record of WoW universe. Maybe if a being is to become a demon, he / she / it can only become a demon at an fixed exact moment in the universe time (may or may not be determined by the first time it become a demon), or else he wouldn't be corrupted or wouldn't survive the corruption at all. So to address what you said, Sargeras wouldn't be able to corrupt a non-corrupted version of a demon in an AU after the prime demon is dead in Nether, as that being's "corrupted moment" is already long past - it'd either be able to resist the corruption, or it will perish in the proceed.

Or maybe, in another simpler theory, the alternate versions of a demon would merge into the prime demon - existence, soul and everything. However, to the world, the prime demon is "dead dead" so the alternate demon merged into a "dead dead" existence. Thus, it dies, as it became part of something that no longer exist / live in any sense. There goes your plan, Sargeras, can't try to cheat the record that way.

Of course, that's just my explanation. I'm not sure if Blizzard's explanation will be anything remotely similar to it, so take them with a grain of salt. Just trying to figure out an explanation for the "Why doesn't Sargeras just corrupt a non-corrupted alternate version of a demon to replace it after it's killed in the Nether" issue. I don't think it contradicts with the current lore, though.

[Deleted]

Oh, not this again, haha.

Kozak said that what happened in-lore wasn't reflected in the cutscene. Gul'Dan could have casually walked on through the portal as we were fighting Archimonde. Maybe Jaina appeared and spartan kicked him. Maybe he made a new portal. Maybe Sargeras himself came down from on high, picked Gul'Dan up and booted him through.

It. Is. A. Cutscene.
Those are always canon. Why else make them?

Kozak has contradicted himself so many times already and sometimes had to take back statements (The World Soul will never awaken. No wait, it will). Why are you still taking him at face value?

[Qualia]

It. Is. A. Cutscene.
Those are always canon. Why else make them?

Kozak has contradicted himself so many times already and sometimes had to take back statements (The World Soul will never awaken. No wait, it will). Why are you still taking him at face value?

No, cutscenes aren't always canon. They are always canon *when they were released*. However, if there is any later information (in this case, Kosak interview) contradicts them, they stop being canon. Additionally, Kosak hadn't taken back his statement yet - that's the thing. Regardless how you feel about it, Word of God is canon by definition. If they contradict with story displayed in game, said story will have to reshape itself to fit what he said. That's just how we define canon stuff, not just in WoW but in fiction in general.

Additionally, when a Blizzard employee - not just Kosak - makes a mistake, they usually refute it soon enough (you bring up an example yourself, and there are various other examples as well - i.e: that "drunk" tweet). Seeing that (1) neither Kosak nor Blizzard hast refuted it and (2) Gul'dan called people with Mythic Archimonde kill "Slayer of Archimonde", I feel it's likely that Blizzard hasn't changed their mind yet (although they always have room to, due to his "maybe we will change that"). I'm not even sure why you are arguing against WoG here - his statement didn't accidentally contradict with the cutscene. He explicitly said what their idea was, and that the cutscene didn't reflect it well enough - basically a "crap, we did a bad job there, that wasn't how it was" (again, probably because they were too rushed to create two different cinematics for that ending).

[Deleted]

I'm not even sure why you are arguing against WoG here

Because it's an obscure dev statement buried in a forum. Most people don't even read that stuff. They do get to see the cinematic, though.

- his statement didn't accidentally contradict with the cutscene. He explicitly said what their idea was, and that the cutscene didn't reflect it well enough

Then why release the cutscene at all?
This whole "Mythic ending is totally canon guys"-stick is just a lame-ass attempt to give some semblance of meaning to an overall entirely irrelevant expansion storyline.

[Aquamonkey]

Then why release the cutscene at all?
This whole "Mythic ending is totally canon guys"-stick is just a lame-ass attempt to give some semblance of meaning to an overall entirely irrelevant expansion storyline.

That's not the first time the hardest difficulty has had a different ending. I wouldn't exactly call BlizzCon obscure.

[Seifross]

Because it's an obscure dev statement buried in a forum. Most people don't even read that stuff. They do get to see the cinematic, though.

Then why release the cutscene at all?
This whole "Mythic ending is totally canon guys"-stick is just a lame-ass attempt to give some semblance of meaning to an overall entirely irrelevant expansion storyline.

We're not saying it's a well-told story, we're saying that the cutscene is officially non-canon. That's what the post said, and there's nothing to contradict that. It was an official statement in regards to the cutscene because players found the two endings confusing (because they contradict each other).

The official answer was that what we see in-game was a poor depiction of what the team intended, so now they're unsure of how to proceed. This means that at the moment, the cutscene's canonicity is undecided, but we know the team intended Archimonde to have died.

There's no reason to argue against this, it's a proven fact. We're not saying that it's the best decision, or that the cutscene was stupid or that the Mythic ending was an improvement or a bad idea - we're literally just saying that the dev team doesn't currently consider the cutscene to be canon, but their minds are currently up in the air as to how to handle Archimonde. For now, he's basically Schrodinger's Archimonde in that he's both dead and alive.

He definitely could be alive, but he's just as likely dead right now. The cutscene means nothing until the team does something new. That's really crappy - of course the cutscene should be canon, but it isn't. The team dropped the ball, IMO, and having a non-canon cutscene that finishes an entire expansion is really a crap way to end it. However, that's the case. No two ways about it.

[Qualia]

Because it's an obscure dev statement buried in a forum. Most people don't even read that stuff. They do get to see the cinematic, though.

Then why release the cutscene at all?
This whole "Mythic ending is totally canon guys"-stick is just a lame-ass attempt to give some semblance of meaning to an overall entirely irrelevant expansion storyline.

It doesn't matter how obscure it is - and it's not a forum statement, it came from live interview in Blizzcon 2015 (they even showed the cutscene during the interview when he said "It didn't come across in-game). I understand that most of people don't follow Blizzcon that closely (in fact, I personally don't watch Blizzcons at all) so it makes sense that people might be confused. However, that doesn't make the answer less canon (it's like claiming Chronicle stuffs non-canon because "most people don't even read that stuff").

So why did they release the cutscene? Because it'd work for all other difficulty, and they already made that. Throwing it away would be a waste, that's about it. As Aquamonkey said, that's not the first time the hardest difficulty (Mythic, and Heroic before) had a different ending and is considered canon over the easier difficulties (i.e: Rag). Of course, ideally, I believe they'd have loved to create another cutscene, but they were already short of time as it was.