There is no retcon anymore.

[Mehrunes]

And it did just that. I read all 3 books, I have them right in my place.

They certainly clear a lot of stuff up, so I am not even bloody sure what are you bitching about. As for your Azeroth blip, whatever you said is a prime example of a Windmill you are fighting - eventually stuff will get cleared up in this way and it's fine. Just like Elune will somehow end up being a reformed Void Lord or some shit like that or whatever other thing they make up there.

No need to raise pitchforks over everything. And certainly pretending like Chronicles are end all be all lore - that's just silly, simply because huge parts of Warcraft universe are not even made or well defined yet besides "yeah there is this thing".

Like they literally said themselves in the panel - yeah there always were Shadowlands and there was some sort of definition there, but what we get in the expansion - a lot of it they had to define from scratch, because all in all - it is a new lore. So yeah, you won't read in Chronicles about "Kyrians" because it simply was not a thing back then.

Is this a "retcon" or is this some sort of sacrilege rendering Chronicles invalid? No, it's simply an expansion of the universe that will evolve over they years much more and further.

Given how none of your counterexamples are a retcon and anyone even briefly checking what a retcon is would realize that, you either couldn't have been bothered to even do that, or you're blatantly straw-manning people.

[sylenna]

if blizzard would go by the lore they created for warcraft and would stay in those confines, WoW wouldn't even be a thing.

so why all the hate for "retconning"? blizzard is developing this story and this universe step by step and maybe are even leaving the established stuff behind to break out of azeroth and try something new. nobody could have written ALL the lore prior to warcraft. that means: this lore is a living thing. enjoy the damn ride.

[TheRagebear]

if blizzard would go by the lore they created for warcraft and would stay in those confines, WoW wouldn't even be a thing.

so why all the hate for "retconning"? blizzard is developing this story and this universe step by step and maybe are even leaving the established stuff behind to break out of azeroth and try something new. nobody could have written ALL the lore prior to warcraft. that means: this lore is a living thing. enjoy the damn ride.

That's their own damn fault for hyping the spectacle up to 11 over the course of two expansions. Who actually thought we'd be defeating Sargeras and N'zoth back to back like this back in Cataclysm? MoP? Even WoD? They can't pace themselves and so they have to asspull new stuff that doesn't fit and try to hammer it into place disregarding everything it breaks. That's what we call "Bad Writing."

[Powerogue]

the biggest problem for me was the line 'no mortal went to shadowlands'

That seems like an easy line to fix, because yeah, that is commonplace in canon already. Odyn (kinda mortal?), the death knights to get their horses as well as retrieve certain powerful souls for their rituals, Uuna and the player in A Dark Place, Sylvanas in Edge of Night, etc.

[Mehrunes]

That seems like an easy line to fix, because yeah, that is commonplace in canon already. Odyn (kinda mortal?), the death knights to get their horses as well as retrieve certain powerful souls for their rituals, Uuna and the player in A Dark Place, Sylvanas in Edge of Night, etc.

I mean, it is not unheard of in previous lore, but half your examples are bad. Odyn simply peered into the Shadowlands. And Uuna was kinda dead.

[Biske]

I mean, it is not unheard of in previous lore, but half your examples are bad. Odyn simply peered into the Shadowlands. And Uuna was kinda dead.

Hell, all those examples outside of Odyn are dead people, thus "no mortal" still holds with those examples.

[Radeghost]

Btw, Helm of Domination doesn't have any real power of itself. It can store a concioussness and expand psychic abilities. As stated in Rise of the Lich King I believe. Ner'zhul was into death magic and was powerful nonetheless and the hełm unlocked his full potential.

- - - Updated - - -

We get a hint to the answer to this question in WoWHead's recent interview with the devs regarding Legendaries in Shadowlands:

We will craft our legendaries in the Forge of Domination - this is the same forge with which Frostmourne was made, and we'll learn exactly how, and by who, it was crafted.
Given the name of the forge, this most likely extends to the Helm of Domination as well.

They never did explain exactly how Kil'jaeden and the Nathrezim created the Lich King (especially given how powerful he ended up being). This is Blizzard finally explaining the mechanics behind how the Lich King came into being.

My educated guess: KJ and the Nathrezim of the Burning Legion struck a deal with one of the death entities in the Shadowlands (specifically the one who oversees the Forge of Domination) to craft the helm and sword.

But we already know that Nathrezim crafted the Lich King's armor and weapon. Will they retcon it either? Holy fuck that's next level of bullshit

[Hell-Nicø]

Changing lore is not the same as expanding lore. As you yourself just said, lore has changed as time progresses.

When we first saw "Valkyr" in WOTLK they were constructs created by Arthas and not servants of Odin. That was retconned later in Legion. You can claim it was "expanded" lore, but really it was a retcon. The original Valkyr were purely undead servants of Arthas and the Legion with powerful necromantic abillities and nothing hinted they were part of any lore associated with "death" or the "shadowlands" outside of the legion's death magic. Odin and Helya had absolutely nothing to do with the WOTLK Valkyr and the Vyrkul that were turned into Valkyr were purely due to the Lich King's powers. They even had a site named Valkyrion in Northrend as if to say this is where the lore and name Valkyr originated, with the scourge and death magic.

Basically your "expanding the lore" means they are making it up as they go. Otherwise if all these elements of lore were mapped out in advance long ago, the story would be more consistent. But it isn't and largely lore developments serve gameplay and is created as the game goes on.

^This.
The problem with wow story for... quite some time now is that they don't write ANYTHING with the future in mind, being event or just background lore.
Look at intro event of BFA, the burning of Teldrasil and the bombing of Undercity, it's painfully obvious that they just wrote thos event because they were """"cool"""" (that's how they see in their mind "shocking twists"). But they didn't FOR A SECOND thought about the repercussion of thos event on the world outside of "it's war now. Warer than before", and they won't update the world to reflect it until the next old world revamp comes up.
They won't developer what will happen to the NE & UD society, they won't show the logical retake of Gilneas or the inevitable fall of Silvermoon (remember when the only reason the BE joined the horde was because they couldn't afford to have to have their neighbors the forsaken come knocking at their door, when said door was still under siege of the scourge remnants?) now that the Forsaken are gone.
Hell, the map is still in a Cataclysm state, because Blizzard don't think ahead anymore, instead of writing their story with the "now and then" in mind, they just write the now and leave it on the map for ever, because replacing it with the then once the extension is gone would be too much hasle. The result is a broken disjointed world that is the furthermore thing possible from coherence.

And it's the same thing with the background lore. They don't seem to EVER think ahead. They don't plant seed that could be exploited later outside of "the story", and that lead them to evolve the world trough retcon because said world was either not build with evolution in mind, or the writer is too stupid and lazy to take existing lore and write logical evolution for it.

And that problem becomes even more noticeable when blizzard stopped to be creative and just started to recycle old stuff instead of making new one exactly like they did with the Vyrkrul. For some reason they felt the need to bring back a race that had a pretty clear background, and copy pasted it outside of Northrend with the elements linked to the Lich King (like the Vargul and Valkyr), and just quickly retconned thos elements to have them fit in their new narrative, thus making their previous incarnation completely stupid (Apparently now Nerzul was just Hellya bitch and used her toy because... reasons?).

[Qualia]

Btw, Helm of Domination doesn't have any real power of itself. It can store a concioussness and expand psychic abilities. As stated in Rise of the Lich King I believe. Ner'zhul was into death magic and was powerful nonetheless and the hełm unlocked his full potential.

But we already know that Nathrezim crafted the Lich King's armor and weapon. Will they retcon it either? Holy fuck that's next level of bullshit

The Helm contains Lich King's spirit / essence - and said spirit (or essence), in turn, has Lich King's power. In both "Rise of the Lich King" and Chronicle 3, Arthas and Bolvar both gained power of the Lich King after they put the Helm on (for example, quoting Chronicle, "Thus, Arthas embraced the unknown and placed the helm upon his head. The Lich King's power flooded into him"). The Helm by itself might not contain too much power, but the essence inside does.

Regarding the Nathrezim, we know that they and KJ created Lich King's armor and weapon. That hasn't changed, as far as we know. However, we do not know how they created it. It just turned out that they created it using Shadowlands power and possibly some existing forges and / or artifacts. That isn't really a retcon.

[Highelf]

Whoops, I was kinda wrong. It was the residue energy FROM that book that was resposible for the portal.

Did the book build it too? On both sides? And power it up on both sides?

[Ihsan997]

^This.
The problem with wow story for... quite some time now is that they don't write ANYTHING with the future in mind, being event or just background lore.
Look at intro event of BFA, the burning of Teldrasil and the bombing of Undercity, it's painfully obvious that they just wrote thos event because they were """"cool"""" (that's how they see in their mind "shocking twists"). But they didn't FOR A SECOND thought about the repercussion of thos event on the world outside of "it's war now. Warer than before", and they won't update the world to reflect it until the next old world revamp comes up.
They won't developer what will happen to the NE & UD society, they won't show the logical retake of Gilneas or the inevitable fall of Silvermoon (remember when the only reason the BE joined the horde was because they couldn't afford to have to have their neighbors the forsaken come knocking at their door, when said door was still under siege of the scourge remnants?) now that the Forsaken are gone.
Hell, the map is still in a Cataclysm state, because Blizzard don't think ahead anymore, instead of writing their story with the "now and then" in mind, they just write the now and leave it on the map for ever, because replacing it with the then once the extension is gone would be too much hasle. The result is a broken disjointed world that is the furthermore thing possible from coherence.

And it's the same thing with the background lore. They don't seem to EVER think ahead. They don't plant seed that could be exploited later outside of "the story", and that lead them to evolve the world trough retcon because said world was either not build with evolution in mind, or the writer is too stupid and lazy to take existing lore and write logical evolution for it.

And that problem becomes even more noticeable when blizzard stopped to be creative and just started to recycle old stuff instead of making new one exactly like they did with the Vyrkrul. For some reason they felt the need to bring back a race that had a pretty clear background, and copy pasted it outside of Northrend with the elements linked to the Lich King (like the Vargul and Valkyr), and just quickly retconned thos elements to have them fit in their new narrative, thus making their previous incarnation completely stupid (Apparently now Nerzul was just Hellya bitch and used her toy because... reasons?).

I see things like this, and see how dedicated much of the fan base is to lore, to the point where “loremasters” are a thing in some guilds, and then I think...what is Blizzard itself doing? Much of what you and @InfiniteCharger are pointing out can be noted by anybody who devotes the time to it. And in theory, Blizzard devs should have at least one office, or maybe one guy, who gets paid a salary to devote time to lore. They can’t do as good of a job of keeping track of lore as people like you doing it for free?

[Saltysquidoon]

I see things like this, and see how dedicated much of the fan base is to lore, to the point where “loremasters” are a thing in some guilds, and then I think...what is Blizzard itself doing? Much of what you and @InfiniteCharger are pointing out can be noted by anybody who devotes the time to it. And in theory, Blizzard devs should have at least one office, or maybe one guy, who gets paid a salary to devote time to lore. They can’t do as good of a job of keeping track of lore as people like you doing it for free?

Or they could could make a meme character then go back to snorting coke off the Doomhammer and walking around the office naked accosting people with 'I am the warchief'

(Seriously though we got monkey pawed hard with Metzen we thought it was bad but we had no idea bout how bad things really were)

[Dastreus]

We went into the dream in the raid. Show me where, other than an image of Thunderbluff, did that look like Azeroth? There are many places other than what we see in these locations. This part of the shadowlands is like a spirit way station.

The Emerald Dream is azeroth barely touched by mortal architecture. Sparse night elven and tauren stuff. It's still one landmass, even.

[sam86]

That seems like an easy line to fix, because yeah, that is commonplace in canon already. Odyn (kinda mortal?), the death knights to get their horses as well as retrieve certain powerful souls for their rituals, Uuna and the player in A Dark Place, Sylvanas in Edge of Night, etc.

they didn't fix the idea of Legion is one and same across all universes just to make WoD Archimonde the same as TBC Acrhimonde, that line is probably why WoD holds the place of worst lore in entire wow history, a spot that BFA is heavy contestant for
So i bet they won't change it for the rule of 'kool' as usual, like how they made the entire Me'dan story a total mess with how he is 'removed' yet everything happened due to his influence or by him is cannon (try to explain that dreadlord in entire mage campaign without Me'dan role heh), they don't care anymore, and it definitely sounds cooler to say that 'no mortal went before' than 'there is at least 2 who 100% go because u can't retcon that part or else Sylvanas won't get the dagger and become OP and open portal to shadowlands'

Hell, all those examples outside of Odyn are dead people, thus "no mortal" still holds with those examples.

DKs are mortals, being undead != immortal, immortals in wow don't die from old age, undead decompose with time until they collapse without constant maintenance, hence why sylvanas did that ritual for her pet Nathanos

- - - Updated - - -

I see things like this, and see how dedicated much of the fan base is to lore, to the point where “loremasters” are a thing in some guilds, and then I think...what is Blizzard itself doing? Much of what you and @InfiniteCharger are pointing out can be noted by anybody who devotes the time to it. And in theory, Blizzard devs should have at least one office, or maybe one guy, who gets paid a salary to devote time to lore. They can’t do as good of a job of keeping track of lore as people like you doing it for free?

they got fired
i won't be surprised if that is one of biggest reason why most old blizzard employees left
Blizz used to make games for love of gaming not the paycheck, that's why old games had so much hard work in it, check how the leftover from old times talk about how they made vanilla wow, anyone who had a fun idea implement it, no hold back, do what u love, not what will sell and make money
now u have Bobby Kodick, the most overpayed CEO who increased his paycheck by 15% in same year that blizz made most profit in its history and fired 10% of their staff, Bobby Kodick infamously said that his only wish is to remove fun from games, a journalist asked him if he has one wish only what it will be, he didn't ask for money, or wealth, or women, or even world domination like a james bond villain, no his biggest wish is to remove fun from games.
Congratulation i think he finally did it, Bobby Kodick is probably the guy who hates video games the most in video game industry, he works only for paycheck, he cares only for shareholders who most of them probably don't even know blizzard is a gaming company, just want continuous profit and nothing else

[Mormolyce]

"There must always be a Lich King" was the rationale for preventing the masterless Scourge from running rampant across the face of Azeroth.

This is just a headcanon we all accepted. The Scourge was defeated already at that point so it never really made any sense.

I'm pretty sure Blizzard just thought it sounded cool at the time.

[Ihsan997]

they got fired
i won't be surprised if that is one of biggest reason why most old blizzard employees left
Blizz used to make games for love of gaming not the paycheck, that's why old games had so much hard work in it, check how the leftover from old times talk about how they made vanilla wow, anyone who had a fun idea implement it, no hold back, do what u love, not what will sell and make money
now u have Bobby Kodick, the most overpayed CEO who increased his paycheck by 15% in same year that blizz made most profit in its history and fired 10% of their staff, Bobby Kodick infamously said that his only wish is to remove fun from games, a journalist asked him if he has one wish only what it will be, he didn't ask for money, or wealth, or women, or even world domination like a james bond villain, no his biggest wish is to remove fun from games.
Congratulation i think he finally did it, Bobby Kodick is probably the guy who hates video games the most in video game industry, he works only for paycheck, he cares only for shareholders who most of them probably don't even know blizzard is a gaming company, just want continuous profit and nothing else

That’s serious, and seriously messed up.

Can anybody get links for these interviews with Kodick? I’m curious in seeing how blunt he may have been about this.

[Biske]

DKs are mortals, being undead != immortal, immortals in wow don't die from old age, undead decompose with time until they collapse without constant maintenance, hence why sylvanas did that ritual for her pet Nathanos

Undead are immortal. Age doesn't kill them. The stresses of life may chip away at their bodies but they can just fix themselves.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Life_spans#Immortal_races

"All that I am: anger, cruelty, vengeance - I bestow upon you, my chosen knight. I have granted you immortality so that you may herald in a new, dark age for the Scourge."
^straight from the Lich King's mouth.

https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Ques..._The_Lich_King

The stated goal and the only reason living humans follow the Cult of the Damned is because of being promised immortality through undeath.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Kel%27Thuz...of_the_Scourge

Here's Dave Kosak saying they can live forever as long as their bodies aren't damaged: https://twitter.com/DaveKosak/status/252237319489343488

Sylvanas gave Nathanos that new body so he wouldn't look all ugly and had a more fit body, since regardless of being unable to die from old age, you'll still perform better if your body isn't in the same condition as the guy from Tales From the Crypt.

From the Crypt Lord description from Warcraft 3: " Though the Nerubians fell before the wrath of the Lich King during the fabled War of the Spider, the insidious Crypt Lords were swayed over to the Lich King's ranks and granted considerable power and the immortality of undeath."

edit: Wait there's more:

'The blacksmith, Tevan Whitfield, had chuckled, a raspy, hollow sound. "That's technically true. No, I mean... when I was alive, I felt immortal. I didn't take care of myself, and I was a bit reckless. Now I am immortal, technically. But because injury is the only thing that can threaten that, I'm suddenly aware of how fragile flesh is.'
-a forsaken in Before the Storm (note: all immortal beings in Warcraft can be killed through damage)

From the Lich unit description from Warcraft 3: "These Liches possessed tremendous magical powers, yet their immortal, undead bodies were bound to the iron will of Ner'zhul."

Meryl Felstorm has been undead and kicking for around 3000 years.

[Aucald]

This is just a headcanon we all accepted. The Scourge was defeated already at that point so it never really made any sense.

I'm pretty sure Blizzard just thought it sounded cool at the time.

It can't really be "headcanon" as it is explicitly stated as an in-game rationale - headcanon is created by fans to explain unexplained or inexplicable events or occurrences, "there must always be a Lich King" is said directly by the ghost of Terenas Menethil II to Tirion Fordring. Now, Terenas could certainly have been wrong, and Tirion as well as Bolvar could've been wrong for heeding his words, but that's not headcanon either.

The mass of the Scourge was not destroyed at ICC on the occasion of Arthas' death, either. Considering that they're all over Azeroth at that point, thousands strong, and they remained a visible threat well after WotLK such as in the Plaguelands.

[rhorle]

It can't really be "headcanon" as it is explicitly stated as an in-game rationale - headcanon is created by fans to explain unexplained or inexplicable events or occurrences, "there must always be a Lich King" is said directly by the ghost of Terenas Menethil II to Tirion Fordring. Now, Terenas could certainly have been wrong, and Tirion as well as Bolvar could've been wrong for heeding his words, but that's not headcanon either.

Blizzard implied that it was a lie during ask the creative devs. They said that the spirits knew the scourge needed a leader or they would run rampant across Azeroth. Though it would be interesting to see if they had this concept for Shadowlands in some shape or form at the time. As in the creative devs they also said that both Arthas and Ner'zhul were holding back their full strength for some reason. With what they said I felt it was more "It makes sense to have a leader then a leaderless scourge". They could even spin it to the Lich King helped keep the jailer at bay.

I'm not saying they had the exact Shadowlands we see now. But it would be interesting to see if they were looking at some concepts for a death/scourge threat for an expansion but scrapped it in favor of other ones. I do thnk Bolvar was put on ice for to long with out any relevance.

[Aucald]

Blizzard implied that it was a lie during ask the creative devs. They said that the spirits knew the scourge needed a leader or they would run rampant across Azeroth. Though it would be interesting to see if they had this concept for Shadowlands in some shape or form at the time. As in the creative devs they also said that both Arthas and Ner'zhul were holding back their full strength for some reason. With what they said I felt it was more "It makes sense to have a leader then a leaderless scourge". They could even spin it to the Lich King helped keep the jailer at bay.

I'm not saying they had the exact Shadowlands we see now. But it would be interesting to see if they were looking at some concepts for a death/scourge threat for an expansion but scrapped it in favor of other ones. I do thnk Bolvar was put on ice for to long with out any relevance.

Internally speaking it could well have been a lie of some kind - but that still wouldn't make it headcanon, as it were. The line was said and the intent was stated in-game, and that's as canon as it gets. Whether it turns out to be a deception, a misapprehension, or flatly wrong is another matter entirely.

I doubt that Shadowlands was formed as an idea all the way back in WotLK, mind you, though I could imagine there was a rough idea that we would visit or otherwise explore the afterline realms of WoW to some degree in the future - Emerald Dream style spit-balling, you might call it. The Shadowlands have never been deeply explored or explained in WoW lore, so they're a completely open field for iteration and innovation of new story ideas, plotlines, and set-pieces.

It's always been the nature of WoW storytelling to put various entities, ideas, and plot-hooks in the proverbial cooler so to speak - let them stew for awhile and then pop them out whenever they seem relevant or just as a complete body-swerve surprise to the players. Bolvar was one of those, like Illidan and Sargeras before him. Although he still had a minor role to play in Legion if you were a Death Knight, and made a cameo in BfA as well.