Before The Storm - Is the book not canon?

[MiiiMiii]

Hi.

Spoilers of the book below.

I don't read much WoW lore but I read Before The Storm a few years ago. I remember at the end of the book there was this big reveal, and supposed to be the big lore impact from the book.

"But soon, I will call upon the brave fighters of the Horde for another battle. The one you and I have both longed for." Nathanos was silent. She did not take that for disagreement or disapproval. He was often silent. That he did not press her for more details meant the he understood what she wanted.

Stormwind.

This was a long time ago, Is 9.2 going to raid Stormwind as a last impact Sylvanas had on The Jailor?

Or is it common that these books by Cristie Golden just write things that never happens?

[ohwell]

Hi.

Spoilers of the book below.

I don't read much WoW lore but I read Before The Storm a few years ago. I remember at the end of the book there was this big reveal, and supposed to be the big lore impact from the book.

"But soon, I will call upon the brave fighters of the Horde for another battle. The one you and I have both longed for." Nathanos was silent. She did not take that for disagreement or disapproval. He was often silent. That he did not press her for more details meant the he understood what she wanted.

Stormwind.

This was a long time ago, Is 9.2 going to raid Stormwind as a last impact Sylvanas had on The Jailor?

Or is it common that these books by Cristie Golden just write things that never happens?

Stormwind isn't even remotely on his mind. Not sure where you're somehow getting this. She was a means to the end for him. Nothing more nothing less.

[bmjclark]

Before the storm was almost certainly written at a time when they had no clue what Sylvanas' real motivations were so parts of it are almost certainly abandoned story points or just retconned all together

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It’s common for things to go into the book that never get acted on because the in game team doesn’t really cross reference with the people they get to do the books which leads to all kinds of errors all the time. Pretty much the ingame lore team tell the book people to hit X Y and Z plot points and then just fill the rest with what ever they want.


As far as stormwind goes though it wasn’t a dropped plot thread as such as a good war establishes that sylvanas wanted to attack stormwind but that there was no good way to do it while the alliance was in tact so the war of thorns was meant to break them up until she flip flopped last second.

[Aucald]

The book is canon, but the stated plan to attack Stormwind never came to fruition. Teldrassil was envisioned to be a stepping stone for the Horde by which they could break the Alliance's will to fight, and start gobbling down territory a piece at a time until a final stand at Stormwind against a defanged Alliance would result in a final Horde victory. Whether this was actually Sylvanas' plan or just a feint in service to Zovaal is an unknown, though.

[Evaddon]

Her goal was to attack Stormwind and cause as much death as possible to further impower the Jailer, this plot was foiled by Saurfangs coupe/revolt and the Horde dissolving from their original course that was started in War of Thorns...to conquer the Alliance! But this didn't go according to plan via the course of the Battle for Azeroth expansion, as Saurfang would put it, she just kept failing.

Its canon and...it makes sense.

[Varodoc]

Sylvanas was pretty much uttering nonsense when she said that, but that's par for the course with Sylvanas.

In A Good War, which Canonically takes place after Before the Storm, Sylvanas and Saurfang discuss a hypothetical invasion of Stormwind, with Saurfang noting that the Horde lacks the resources, manpower, and logistics to maintain an invasion of Stormwind.

It is then revealed that Sylvanas planned to "conquer" Stormwind not by actually invading it, but by taking Darnassus instead. Then, by holding Darnassus hostage, she would force the Alliance to sue for peace and concede to the Horde, which would mean that Stormwind would be conquered politically.

So Sylvanas herself in the end knew that she couldn't conquer Stormwind in a battle, her only chance was blackmailing the Alliance into surrendering by holding Darnassus hostage.

Any potential dream of conquering Stormwind died when Sylvanas burned Teldrassil; As later on it was revealed that this event had the opposite effect. Rather than breaking the Alliance, it reinvigorated them, destroying any hope at blackmailing the Alliance into surrendering and conquering Stormwind politically.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

It is canon.

[MikeBogina]

It heavily implies that her and Nathanos have been wanting to stick it to the Alliance and humans really badly, but we know now that all the bad shit she' done is actually to help everyone. Basically proving that they make a lot of the stuff up as they go and "planning expansions out years in advance" doesn't mean they actually have anything solid until maybe a year ahead of a release.

If you played Legion, it's clear Sylvanas isn't working for some powerful old death god being and is genuine in trying to be good(good as in a universe with demons, old gods and other evil things, she's not that bad). Come BFA, the team decided she was going to be evil and slaughter as much as she can to fuel her evil friend Zovaal who was going to bring a lot of death to everyone. Come Shadowlands, turns out she wasn't evil, but doing what she thought was good for everyone.

There is no actual concrete plan and the narrative changes constantly. Like I imagine by the time an expansion finally launches, they at that point know how it's going to end and no sooner than that. Like they probably didn't know how Legion was going to end until actually released Legion, but now I dont even think they knew how Shadowlands is going to end until maybe a couple months ago. They probably dont know even now who is going to be good or evil come the next expansion or how most of it is going to playout.

[shadowmatrix]

It's a common part of stories, shit gets planned but gets cancelled because something came up. The Empire had plans but then the Death Star got blown up, Arthas had plans but then the Forsaken unleashed the new plague, the town guard had plans but then he took an arrow to the knee, etc.

As for Sylvanas' thoughts, that is used when you want to keep the reader in the dark while still giving them limited access to the characters' mind.

[FelPlague]

The book is canon, but the stated plan to attack Stormwind never came to fruition. Teldrassil was envisioned to be a stepping stone for the Horde by which they could break the Alliance's will to fight, and start gobbling down territory a piece at a time until a final stand at Stormwind against a defanged Alliance would result in a final Horde victory. Whether this was actually Sylvanas' plan or just a feint in service to Zovaal is an unknown, though.

This^^^
Her original plan that was SO close to working was attack teldrassil which forces the other factions to defend their own kingdoms leaving the elves to themselves, which then leads to the alliance just falling apart.
but the gilneans fucking saved it, they were like "no fuck that, were helping the elves, they let us in when our kingdom fell to the forsaken, we must repay the favor" instead of breaking the alliance it furthered their bond, and so her plan didnt work.

[Maljinwo]

Before the storm was almost certainly written at a time when they had no clue what Sylvanas' real motivations were so parts of it are almost certainly abandoned story points or just retconned all together

So, regular Sylvanas writing

[Super Dickmann]

If only. It's just had Sylvanas' internal monologue entirely retconned, but we haven't had the good fortune of having every aspect of the Forsaken from it forcibly expunged.

[Kathranis]

I guess either he didn't understand her as well as he thought, or Saurfang's uprising ended her scheme before they could attack Stormwind. I mean, ideally, she would have kept sending souls to the Maw, right?

If it's a retcon, it's a minor and easily explained one. AFAIK there are bigger issues with her general motivations in the book. I actually never read this one because the subject matter didn't interest me.

[Powerogue]

Well the thing is she wanted Stormwind both for the destruction of the Alliance capital but also to take out Anduin who she is fundamentally philosophically opposed to. Having managed to obtain that and being focused on the end of everything now, Stormwind feels like small potatoes.

Stormwind was the target she was aiming the Horde at to drum up support that they just happened to share a target for different reasons. Now with both factions against her, and Anduin in their clutches, targeting Stormwind specifically doesn't have that benefit.