Light Lord Illidan?

[Kynario]

Well basically, in WoD Blizzard decided to add time travel into the mix, thus creating an alternate timeline and then allowed the player to travel into the alternate timeline and battle/ally with heroes/villains/etc who are dead in the main universe, hence the jumping the shark comment.

In Legion Blizzard completely retconned (revise retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events) a lot of lore that had been long established. Which would be bad on it's own (rewriting 15+ year old events that were key to the game's story should always be a no no) however these changes also directly re-wrote the players own story and past accomplishments (a MAJOR no no in any MMORPG), hence the punting the shark into orbit comment.

At this point I fully believe Arthas will return in the next expansion, explain he was just playing dead (How Blizzard reintroduced the NPC Nathanos Blightcaller after his death in Vanilla), explain how he was a double agent all along working on our side to improve our armies without the baddies noticing, and then team up with Illidan and perform the fusion dance to become super mega Arthidan.

This is one of the truest things I've ever read. And frankly the whole time-travel/alternate universe/dead characters coming back to lite etc. is ridiculous.

[Aliven]

Xe'ra allready show Illidan a vision of him as some sort of archangel of light in the Illidan book.

It will happen.

Dear mother of mercy... Now i realized that if they go full blown legacy of the void on illidan he and kerrigan could have a baby.

We let one slip, kill the second before they lay eggs...

- - - Updated - - -

dead characters coming back to lite etc. is ridiculous.

Well every single healer in this game has res me plox spell (even on mass scale if you are bros) and there are literall ress machines scouring through ghost realms ressing anybody who want (spirit healers, they are canon, rogue valkyrs).

So yeah, it is wonder why ANYBODY stay dead in this world.

[Immitis]

Our motivations for killing Illidan and the situations revolving around it have been altered, due to being retconned/rewritten.



Because he wasn't originally, that's one of the things that was retconned/rewritten in.

He was originally a sadistic/evil villain and we heroically defeated him to save Outland. Now due to the retcon/rewrite he was a misunderstood hero and we killed him due to incompetence.



It's a major rule in MMORPGs, you're not supposed to randomly erase/alter the player character's past achievements/history or rewrite part of an MMORPG that's been ongoing for 12 years.

yes but illidan and kael being randomly turned into a villain for no reason was highly criticized in tbc and people hated it, blizzard has regretted turning them into villains for years now.

"retconning" tbc (which itself was full of retcons, the draenei themselves being a retcon) is simply bringing illidans character back to where it needed to be, that of an antihero

[Requimortem]

PD: Light Lord Illidan is the equivalent to a Super Sayan 4 Mary Sue

With the current quality of Blizzard's writing this is exactly how it's going to end up.

[thesmall001]

Well basically, in WoD Blizzard decided to add time travel into the mix, thus creating an alternate timeline and then allowed the player to travel into the alternate timeline and battle/ally with heroes/villains/etc who are dead in the main universe, hence the jumping the shark comment.

In Legion Blizzard completely retconned (revise retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events) a lot of lore that had been long established. Which would be bad on it's own (rewriting 15+ year old events that were key to the game's story should always be a no no) however these changes also directly re-wrote the players own story and past accomplishments (a MAJOR no no in any MMORPG), hence the punting the shark into orbit comment.

At this point I fully believe Arthas will return in the next expansion, explain he was just playing dead (How Blizzard reintroduced the NPC Nathanos Blightcaller after his death in Vanilla), explain how he was a double agent all along working on our side to improve our armies without the baddies noticing, and then team up with Illidan and perform the fusion dance to become super mega Arthidan.

That's also not the definition for a retcon. Retcon is literally "retroactive continuity", it is the act of actively changing your continuity. The events from WC3 onwards all still happened exactly as told, they just added more information over time that (as Grimo said) changed the perception of those events.

You're basically getting pissy because at the end of "The Sixth Sense" they retconned Bruce Willis to have been a ghost all along. A twist is not a retcon. A retcon can't just be a twist that you don't like, TBC had no good story-telling and was out of context and made no sense. I was there. I remember asking "What did this guy do wrong?" and nobody could give a straight answer. Now Blizzard have explained, we got conned by the Legion and everything that happened is still intact.

[caervek]

This is one of the truest things I've ever read. And frankly the whole time-travel/alternate universe/dead characters coming back to lite etc. is ridiculous.

Thanks

That's also not the definition for a retcon.

Yes it is, it's in italic to make it obvious that it's a dictionary quote.

The events from WC3 onwards all still happened exactly as told

And that's a problem because that makes no sense due to the retcon. Those events wouldn't have transpired as they did if Illidan was the anti-hero he is now instead of the villain he was then.

You're basically getting pissy because *strawman*

No.

A twist is not a retcon.

Correct however your example is flawed, a better example would be Highlander 2 where it was revealed that in the first film they were aliens all along, it wasn't a twist on the original film it completely contradicted it and changed the story as a result.

Likewise, Blizzard can't just say "Twist! Illidan wasn't evil after all, he just did all these evil things because he had a secret plan he was working on that he never told anyone about, even when you were killing him for being evil!" because it doesn't make any sense, and that's one of the most annoying flaws with this retcon, it makes the events of TBC seem stupid and taints TBC by association.

[thesmall001]

Thanks



Yes it is, it's in italic to make it obvious that it's a dictionary quote.



And that's a problem because that makes no sense due to the retcon. Those events wouldn't have transpired as they did if Illidan was the anti-hero he is now instead of the villain he was then.



No.



Correct however your example is flawed, a better example would be Highlander 2 where it was revealed that in the first film they were aliens all along, it wasn't a twist on the original film it completely contradicted it and changed the story as a result.

Likewise, Blizzard can't just say "Twist! Illidan wasn't evil after all, he just did all these evil things because he had a secret plan he was working on that he never told anyone about, even when you were killing him for being evil!" because it doesn't make any sense, and that's one of the most annoying flaws with this retcon, it makes the events of TBC seem stupid and taints TBC by association.

If you can find a single quest that definitively contradicts it in the entire TBC quest archives then go for it. I'll 100% concede the point. But, as with the Void story-line, you're working under false the assumption that this hasn't been Metzen's end-game since TBC. The events of TBC WERE stupid. We blindly followed orders, listened to the first giant talking glow stick we found, had little to no context for why we were doing things and then took a sharp left turn counter to all our actions throughout the expansion. Black Temple, in its entirety, was a side-quest that didn't fit in with the Legion narrative. It never made sense. I remember trawling through SoL trying to find any indication as to why Illidan was a bad-guy when, last we heard, he was just off chilling to prepare for the Legions return. It turns out he was just off preparing for the Legion's return and then told us we weren't prepared for the Legion's return because we weren't prepared for the Legions return and now the Legion has returned and we were not prepared because we killed Illidan and he was the one preparing and so we were not prepared. Prepared. Prepared. It's right there in the cinematic.

[Wildmoon]

Illidan was kinda insane in TBC not sure how they handle that in the Illidan novel.

[Aucald]

Illidan was kinda insane in TBC not sure how they handle that in the Illidan novel.

It was explained by having his consumption of the Skull of Gul'dan's energies having a deleterious effect on his emotional state and thoughts - he was having "issues" digesting the massive influx of Fel energies, acting out with cruelty or lack of forethought at times. Some of his actions against Shattrath, the Broken, and others were explained by this - a few of his followers such as Altruis felt that his transformation had made him unhinged and left his service because of it. Towards the end of the novel this instability was wearing off, and Illidan was slowly becoming aware that some of his actions in the Outland campaign probably wouldn't be seen in the best light by the encroaching Horde and Alliance forces.

[Tharivor]

If you can find a single quest that definitively contradicts it in the entire TBC quest archives then go for it. I'll 100% concede the point. But, as with the Void story-line, you're working under false the assumption that this hasn't been Metzen's end-game since TBC. The events of TBC WERE stupid. We blindly followed orders, listened to the first giant talking glow stick we found, had little to no context for why we were doing things and then took a sharp left turn counter to all our actions throughout the expansion. Black Temple, in its entirety, was a side-quest that didn't fit in with the Legion narrative. It never made sense. I remember trawling through SoL trying to find any indication as to why Illidan was a bad-guy when, last we heard, he was just off chilling to prepare for the Legions return. It turns out he was just off preparing for the Legion's return and then told us we weren't prepared for the Legion's return because we weren't prepared for the Legions return and now the Legion has returned and we were not prepared because we killed Illidan and he was the one preparing and so we were not prepared. Prepared. Prepared. It's right there in the cinematic.

I think you may need to re-play Outland with an alt if you can't find see BC-Illidan is doing evil things. He orders an attack on Shattarath, his Naga are destroying Zangarmarsh, his forces on the whole are brutally enslaving thousands of Broken against their will, and his Fel Orcs are kidnapping Mag'har and forcibly turning them into Fel monstrosities.

I mean even if one goes with the book retcon that the Shattarath attack was just Keal'thas acting on his own initiative (which is never indicated in BC) and even if one charitably assumes Illidan didn't know/care exactly what the Naga are doing in Zangarmarsh that still leaves a ton of evil stuff he did know about: a quest in BC Hellfire Citadel makes it clear that Illidan was explicitly ordering the Fel Orcs to carry on "producing" more of their kind by kidnapping and corrupting Mag'har at the Blood Furnace and the brutal enslavement of innocent broken is so pervasive throughout Illidan's forces that its impossible for him to have not known about it. And thats not even mentioning that the book apparently adds another crime to his list; namely the destruction of thousands of draenei souls in order to power one of his portals.
I get that making Illidan into a power-obsessed tyrant kinda ruined his anti-hero vibe and so BC lore was a fail from that perspective, but you can't pretend that BC didn't give a pile of reasons for any good-aligned character, especially the Orcs and Draenei whose Outland allies suffered the most under his rule, to justifiably consider him evil. At the very least Blizz should have acknowledged Illidan's chequered past in Legion rather than forcing Illidan-never-did-anything-wrong down our throats even though our characters literally saw the opposite. I mean the whole thing is immensely immersion breaking, especially if you're playing a Draenei or Orc.

[Rotted]

Since this guy exists, I have no doubt that Illidan could easily become some Light Wielding Demonic looking motherfucker.

My face hit the desk so hard when I saw this guy doing the priest campaign, I was sitting there like

"This is seriously the best campaign Ive played so far"
*He appears*
"I'm done"

I think what annoys me the most out of it, is he still has tattered wings, true that might of been from combat, but fuck me it all just annoys me

[Wildmoon]

It was explained by having his consumption of the Skull of Gul'dan's energies having a deleterious effect on his emotional state and thoughts - he was having "issues" digesting the massive influx of Fel energies, acting out with cruelty or lack of forethought at times. Some of his actions against Shattrath, the Broken, and others were explained by this - a few of his followers such as Altruis felt that his transformation had made him unhinged and left his service because of it. Towards the end of the novel this instability was wearing off, and Illidan was slowly becoming aware that some of his actions in the Outland campaign probably wouldn't be seen in the best light by the encroaching Horde and Alliance forces.

That explantion leaves much to be desired though. He was his normal self throughout WC3 after he consumed the skull in RoC.

[Aucald]

That explantion leaves much to be desired though. He was his normal self throughout WC3 after he consumed the skull in RoC.

He did attack and massacre a Night Elf port-town named Nendis in the opening acts of WC3 - as well as recruiting the Naga to aid him (probably not the best move given his previous beef with Azshara). But yeah, I think this was more a literary device used to push him out of the straight-up antagonist mold he was put it into in TBC in exchange for his previous anti-hero portrayal.

[Zerref]

The biggest problem with this thread is you all are coming from an angle of perception. You all know what has happened from both sides now, and with that bias, you are saying Illidan is evil and he did evil things, or he was justified in doing so. It wasn't a retcon that he is the one that will change things, just added to future storylines. When we went through the portal in Burning Crusade, it was under the pretense that we can possibly find our lost heroes, the Sons of Lothar, while freeing these people of this malicious tyrant, whom we only know what Malfurions based thoughts tell us of him. As we reach further into Outland, we run across the Broken and small encampments of resistance fighters that say, Illidan is evil and must be stopped. The whole expansion is a point of view that we are given as the players. This is an MMORPG, we are supposed to immerse ourselves as our character, but our only viewpoint is whats given to us, not outside lore that we read as an outside force with no impact on the game.
TL;DR: Follow the story as your character progresses with the information given in game, not as the outside force reading everything to tear continuity apart.

[Wildmoon]

The biggest problem with this thread is you all are coming from an angle of perception. You all know what has happened from both sides now, and with that bias, you are saying Illidan is evil and he did evil things, or he was justified in doing so. It wasn't a retcon that he is the one that will change things, just added to future storylines. When we went through the portal in Burning Crusade, it was under the pretense that we can possibly find our lost heroes, the Sons of Lothar, while freeing these people of this malicious tyrant, whom we only know what Malfurions based thoughts tell us of him. As we reach further into Outland, we run across the Broken and small encampments of resistance fighters that say, Illidan is evil and must be stopped. The whole expansion is a point of view that we are given as the players. This is an MMORPG, we are supposed to immerse ourselves as our character, but our only viewpoint is whats given to us, not outside lore that we read as an outside force with no impact on the game.
TL;DR: Follow the story as your character progresses with the information given in game, not as the outside force reading everything to tear continuity apart.

What? Malfurion had nothing to do with us going to Outland to kill Illidan.

[Zerref]

Didn't say he did. We only know what Illidan could be from Malfurions knowledge, and that he was where we were heading.