Inconsistencies and plot holes of the First War, Second War and invasion of Draenor

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

What are the the various errors, inconsistencies, plot holes and other things that don't make sense in the lore covering the time between the beggining of the Old Horde's invasion of Azeroth to its final defeat at the end of Beyond the Dark Portal ?

It always looked weird and inconsistent to me how the Frostwolf clan was supposed to have taken refuge in the mountains of Alterac by the time of the First War, after their banishement, without the humans of Alterac and the other northern kingdoms having seemed to notice and react. Even with the helps of the elements a whole clan of gree humanoids creatures riding on giant wolves is very hardly something that could go unnoticed between Stormwind and Alterac Mountains.

Also I don't think that Medivh could have been killed by Khadgar and Anduin Lothar despite their great prowess if he hadn't manage to break free or at least hold his own body back against Sargeras' possession for at least a small moment given his incredible power able of annihilating an entire army.

[Romanthony]

I mean I think back then they didnt think, the lore would be going on for so long. But some things that always made me chuckle, wa slike How the Frost Wolves, was named, for there kin ship with the Frostwolves on Draenor, just for them to find Frost Wolvesjust like them on Azeroth too.
And how its funny how the Black rock orcs just so happen to settle in black rock mountain.,

[Ivarr]

The gnomes vanished and then came back again.

[Thage]

Stuff like this is why Chronicle was so valuable and why people were happy to have an official, definitive document patching over all these plot holes, and then they pulled the "certain point of view" shit that made it all effectively toilet paper for people trying to get a meta sense of the lore and setting.

[DatToffer]

I really didn't enjoy the Chronicle's depiction of the Wars.

The time squish with the Horde going up to Quel'thalas and back to the Dark Portal in one year. Completely moronic.

They don't elaborate enough on the cultural changes of the Orc clans.

Dragons were either submissive or disobedient when it was convenient.

Battles oversimplified to the point that they are just "Things were good, until the enemy threw this new unit in the battle. Then things were bad. Until we threw this new unit in the battle." There's not good battle description, it's just about upping the adversary with that new cool thing to introduce in lore.

Every faction seem to rely on one commander. In the Horde it's Orgrim this, Orgrim that. Even when he separates his army, they don't care to elaborate on who's in charge of the troops left behind.

There's no care for the logistic, the populations, the life on the battleground.

I'm pretty sure you can find middle schoolers history books written with more details. Well... Maybe not, okay.

[Garymorilix]

Stuff like this is why Chronicle was so valuable and why people were happy to have an official, definitive document patching over all these plot holes, and then they pulled the "certain point of view" shit that made it all effectively toilet paper for people trying to get a meta sense of the lore and setting.

This is such a ignorant way of looking at the Chronicles.

While certain cosmic origins and motives might be "of Titan perspective" the more grounded mortal events (such as the First, Second, Third War) have pretty much 100% happened how it's written.
These events obviously have zero to no bearing on why and how and who created the universe and how the different realms of cosmic powers are set up.

[Hobbidaggy]

I mean I think back then they didnt think, the lore would be going on for so long. But some things that always made me chuckle, wa slike How the Frost Wolves, was named, for there kin ship with the Frostwolves on Draenor, just for them to find Frost Wolvesjust like them on Azeroth too.
And how its funny how the Black rock orcs just so happen to settle in black rock mountain.,

Dragonmaw as well. They surely didn’t name themselves after the fey dragons on Draenor haha they had their name before death wing came and filled Draenor/Outland with black dragons and experimented making netherwing

[DatToffer]

Dragonmaw as well. They surely didn’t name themselves after the fey dragons on Draenor haha they had their name before death wing came and filled Draenor/Outland with black dragons and experimented making netherwing

Yeah. That part was kinda explained with the rylaks being the equivalent of dragons in Draenor. So when the dragonmaw moved to Azeroth, they found the dragons were quite like rylaks and their name roughly translates that way.

[Shadowferal]

Damn certain that the Chronicles need to be rewritten.

[Thage]

This is such a ignorant way of looking at the Chronicles.

While certain cosmic origins and motives might be "of Titan perspective" the more grounded mortal events (such as the First, Second, Third War) have pretty much 100% happened how it's written.
These events obviously have zero to no bearing on why and how and who created the universe and how the different realms of cosmic powers are set up.

Except that Chronicle vol 1 was billed as a setting bible. Now that they've retroactively claimed it to be from an unreliable perspective, there is no guarantee those events are how they were portrayed within the text of Chronicle. Ergo, no, we can't reliably say "This is how it happened." We can say, "This is how it happened for now," which makes trying to nail down a meta perspective of events pointless because not even the writers are adhering to a meta perspective of events; Watsonian points of view are being sloppily paintbrushed over books that were written from, and advertised as, Doyle's word on the matter.

[Garymorilix]

Except that Chronicle vol 1 was billed as a setting bible. Now that they've retroactively claimed it to be from an unreliable perspective, there is no guarantee those events are how they were portrayed within the text of Chronicle. Ergo, no, we can't reliably say "This is how it happened." We can say, "This is how it happened for now," which makes trying to nail down a meta perspective of events pointless because not even the writers are adhering to a meta perspective of events; Watsonian points of view are being sloppily paintbrushed over books that were written from, and advertised as, Doyle's word on the matter.

Firstly, this applies to literally every single fantasy story ever written forever.
Your unwillingness to accept that any fantasy property can make small or big changes to previously written lore (or give background info) does not mean that it can't happen to anything.

Look at literally any franchise that went on for long enough.

Secondly, the first/second whatever wars are so irrelevant regarding the direction we are going that we can 100% safely assume that literally nobody will ever care about them again to change whatever happened there, especially since it's literally just rando warfare.
Cataclysm already closed the dragon stuff.
The orc stuff has been closed since before WoW.

IDK what the argument is here.
Fiction can't be expanded because, why again?
Real life fiction.... oh sorry.... religious texts have been re-written dozens of times and people for some reason believe in them... Don't they dare expand WoW lore tho.

[Shadowferal]

Firstly, this applies to literally every single fantasy story ever written forever. .

No.
Inconsistencies lose audiences....and customers.

[shoc]

Firstly, this applies to literally every single fantasy story ever written forever.
Your unwillingness to accept that any fantasy property can make small or big changes to previously written lore (or give background info) does not mean that it can't happen to anything.

Look at literally any franchise that went on for long enough.

Secondly, the first/second whatever wars are so irrelevant regarding the direction we are going that we can 100% safely assume that literally nobody will ever care about them again to change whatever happened there, especially since it's literally just rando warfare.
Cataclysm already closed the dragon stuff.
The orc stuff has been closed since before WoW.

IDK what the argument is here.
Fiction can't be expanded because, why again?
Real life fiction.... oh sorry.... religious texts have been re-written dozens of times and people for some reason believe in them... Don't they dare expand WoW lore tho.

WoW lore is fucked because the writers literally don't know when to stop worldbuilding. Cosmic mythology and ontological reality facts about the universe are cool but the whole point of establishing a setting is that stories are told within it. Plus, spelling out all the boring answers to Warcraft's reality takes 100% of the fun out of speculating, this is the problem with commissioning fan fiction in place of good writers.

That's why Hearthstone story bits are superior to World of Warcraft's, HS has the common sense to actually engage with the extremely rich Warcraft setting, instead of "finding it constricting". Fighting pirates in booty bay, taking down a necromancer cult, fighting dragons and shit is what Warcraft is all about, not a cosmic metaphysical war between all the god pantheons from all the realms.

[Thage]

Firstly, this applies to literally every single fantasy story ever written forever.
Your unwillingness to accept that any fantasy property can make small or big changes to previously written lore (or give background info) does not mean that it can't happen to anything.

Look at literally any franchise that went on for long enough.

Maybe it's just me but I don't recall many fantasy settings going "Our out-of-universe setting bible was actually written from an in-universe POV despite being marketed and sold as an out-of-universe POV" within months of publishing and selling their setting bible.

And your inability to distinguish something that major out of a company seemingly allergic to continuity from, say, Tolkien expanding on his world building between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the interest of preserving internal consistency doesn't help your argument any.

Secondly, the first/second whatever wars are so irrelevant regarding the direction we are going that we can 100% safely assume that literally nobody will ever care about them again to change whatever happened there, especially since it's literally just rando warfare.
Cataclysm already closed the dragon stuff.
The orc stuff has been closed since before WoW.

The First and Second Wars are irrelevant until they're not. That's my point. You can't put your foot down and say, from a meta perspective, "This is how it is," because the team has amply demonstrated they can, and will, completely throw out everything and say "Actually, it's this," even completely negating a character's internal monologue months later. Not years, not decades, months. You can only say, "This is how it is," with the unspoken caveat being, "until it's completely recontextualized by writers with a disdain for internal consistency."

IDK what the argument is here.

Your poor reading comprehension isn't my problem to solve.

Fiction can't be expanded because, why again?
Real life fiction.... oh sorry.... religious texts have been re-written dozens of times and people for some reason believe in them... Don't they dare expand WoW lore tho.

Staying away from the obvious bait and banned topic, the point is that it's pointless to try and set down a settled meta narrative, because not even the writers treat it as a settled meta narrative. Everything is now told from Watson's point of view and Doyle has been gagged, just in case Richard Lancelyn Green runs out of ideas.

[Varitok]

Stuff like this is why Chronicle was so valuable and why people were happy to have an official, definitive document patching over all these plot holes, and then they pulled the "certain point of view" shit that made it all effectively toilet paper for people trying to get a meta sense of the lore and setting.

Ding ding ding. 100% the right answer. Chronicle was nullified and completely turned useless when it could have been the best thing for WoW lore.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

its funny how the Black rock orcs just so happen to settle in black rock mountain.,

It'd make sense if the lore was retconned so that Blackrock Mountain in the EK was just some random volcano (probably with a different name), but when the Blackrock Orcs moved in and made it their base of operations, it came to be known as Blackrock Mountain. Except that retcon wouldn't work out because Blackrock Mountain was already prominent as it was the location of the Dark Iron Dwarves' kingdom.

[Triceron]

It'd make sense if the lore was retconned so that Blackrock Mountain in the EK was just some random volcano (probably with a different name), but when the Blackrock Orcs moved in and made it their base of operations, it came to be known as Blackrock Mountain. Except that retcon wouldn't work out because Blackrock Mountain was already prominent as it was the location of the Dark Iron Dwarves' kingdom.

It could be that "Blackrock Mountain" is specifically after the Blackrock Clan had taken over it and retroactively applied to all moments of it in history. Just like how 'Draenor' is literally the Eredar name for the planet, and everyone just accepts it as a reference point for any historic name for the planet before it exploded into 'Outland'.

[Shadowferal]

The changes they made should have been written as future progress...

[Romanthony]

Thinking back, one of the big things I also remember is the whole "Drain life" idea. How children such as griselda, Garona, and Rend i think? Was "Aged" up by having warlock use Drain life on them?
I think also the whole "The frostwolves, wont Drink the blood of Mannaoth... But still are green orcs?"

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

It has also always looked strange to me that the Bleeding Hollow clan was somehow left alone and able of keeping both the Bronzebeard dwarves and the gnomes inside their respective cities on their own, without even a single other orcish clan to help them even if they are supposed to be one of the strongest clans and Killrog one of the greatest leaders and warriors of the Horde.

This reminds me of how strange it's that some clans remained on Draenor despite not being as bloodthirsty or insane as the Warsongs, Broken Hand, Laughing Skull and Bonechewer clans. For example the Thunderlords would have been really useful as scouts and to explore and fight in Dun Morogh due to their experience with icy and mountainous environnements.