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The Clarifications and Changes in Chronicle Volume 4 (Spoilers)
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Publié
17/07/2024 à 08:08
par
Portergauge
Blizzard has released the fourth installment in the
World of Warcraft Chronicle
series, and here we go over the new information and changes to the story added in this book.
In this newest volume, we pick up where the last book left off at the end of Cataclysm, and cover the events of Mists of Pandaria all the way to the end of Shadowlands. Laid out within it is broadly a summary of each expansion's major events, but it also includes new pieces of lore such as specific factions undergoing the events of various raids, as well as incorporating new knowledge into previous story such as the revelations found in the
Sylvanas
novel.
Warning: Spoilers for Chronicle Volume 4
Chronological Zone Orders
While expansions like Dragonflight or Warlords of Draenor have firmly established zone orders, both Legion and Battle for Azeroth gave the option of player choice for their leveling order, leaving the timelines of their events slightly unclear. Thanks to
Chronicle
Volume 4, we now have a canon order of events!
Altered Order of Pandaria's Patches
While Pandaria's leveling zones mostly have an established order, some of the events of its patch stories have been altered slightly to create a new timeline. In its original release order, each patch from Landfall to Rise of the Thunder King to Escalation to Siege of Orgrimmar occur one after the other, but
Chronicle
changes their order slightly.
Rather than being the first raid to happen in the expansion, Mogu'shan Vaults is now the third, occurring after both Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring, and acting as a transition between the Mogu storyline and the Zandalari storyline that would pick up in patch 5.2.
Similarly, instead occurring at the end of the expansion as originally intended, the beginning half of Siege of Orgrimmar now happens concurrently with the events in Throne of Thunder. As described here, the heroes of both factions return alongside Jaina Proudmoore and Lor'themar Theron to find the Vale
in ruins at the hands of Garrosh
, and it is after clearing it out and defeating the Sha of Pride that word is then sent to the factions. From there, the Horde and Alliance begin to muster their respective forces in the Barrens and Durotar to prepare for the second half of Siege of Orgrimmar, where the city itself is assaulted.
While this ultimately changes little in terms of actual story, it is an interesting alteration to the timeline of the expansion, and makes for quite a busy year in the life of our player characters.
The Broken Isles' New Timeline
As mentioned, Legion was the first expansion that gave players the choice of order for their leveling experience, and as a result it has never had a canon order (other than certain quest implications from an Aszuna side story).
With
Chronicle
, we now have a chronological series of events for the leveling campaign. After the expansion's introductory events, we first head to
Azsuna
to fight off the Legion and the naga, before dealing with the drogbar threat in
Highmountain
. From there, the storylines involving the factions and vrykul alike occur in
Stormheim
, then finally lead us to
Val'sharah
.
Not only do the events of the zone's leveling story occur then, but we we also lead directly into Darkheart Thicket and subsequently the Emerald Nightmare. Those storylines are now resolved before any of the previous leveling interludes such as Light's Heart and the Exodar scenario, or the investigations with Maiev at Black Rook Hold.
Similarly, the events concluding Odyn and Helya's battle for supremacy over the val'kyr happens earlier in the timeline now, with the Trial of Valor raid occurring before we set foot in Suramar altogether. Our alliance with the Nightfallen and ultimate liberation of Suramar occurs in one fell swoop now, rather than being drawn out between patch stories.
Like with Mists of Pandaria, this ultimately changes little about the story of Legion beyond some switching of orders for a more clean cause-and-effect, unlike our next section.
Battle for Azeroth's Confusing Timeline
In contrast to the minor changes in Mists of Pandaria or Legion, the timeline clarifications are a mite more complicated. Due to the nature of Battle for Azeroth's defining faction divide, the events during the expansion happened concurrently with one another, primarily in events such as the war campaign for each faction. In a book like
Chronicle
, however, events are told in a chronological order, and in an effort to codify a solid timeline for the expansion, some interesting implications have been made.
In
Chronicle
, it is firmly established that rather than the events of the Stormwind Extraction with Talanji and Zul being the inciting incident for the expansion, the events of Kul Tiras entirely take place before that story. Not only do the events of
Stormsong Valley, Drustvar,
and
Tiragarde Sound
happen first (in that order), but the capstone storyline with
Jaina Proudmoore's torment
and the
Siege of Boralus
takes place beforehand as well, culminating in her appointment as Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras.
Additionally, it is noted that the entirety of the baseline Horde war campaign also occurs before any activity on Zandalar, with Nathanos' exploits to uncover the body of Derek Proudmoore happening in this timespan, as well as the storyline in patch 8.1's Tides of Vengeance campaign also occurring with the freedom of Lady Ashvane from Tol Dagor at the hands of Rexxar and Valtrois.
As the book states, Ashvane's freedom "emboldens" Sylvanas to press her luck in finding advantages against the Alliance, which leads to her discovery of Talanji and Zul's imprisonment in the Stormwind Stockades. It is from there that they are freed and the Alliance fleet chases after them to their ruin, as seen in the
Zandalar introduction cinematic
. Once this occurs, we get the leveling stories of
Nazmir, Vol'dun
, and
Zuldazar
(in that order) entirely after the events of Alliance leveling, which is then followed by the death of G'huun in Uldir.
As one might guess, this presents quite a few problems for the existing timeline in Battle for Azeroth. Most notably, the fact that all of Kul Tiras now happens before Talanji's freedom from Stormwind invalidates a number of quests during the Alliance introduction. The need for a fleet to rival the Zandalari's is what first stirs Jaina to approach her former homeland and beg them for aid, despite their hatred of her at that point in time. In this new timeline, Jaina would have already been Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras, and their fleet would have instead been a problem that the Horde would be needing to solve. Additionally, it raises the question of where the Horde's war campaign was operating from, as the events at max level with Nathanos originally occurred from their base in the Port of Zuldazar.
Perhaps this was simply an error of wording on Blizzard's part, as it makes no explicit mention of changes to these quests or cinematics, but seeing as other areas of the book make use of the "Meanwhile, elsewhere..." writing trope, the cause-and-effect nature of this revelation will certainly leave raised eyebrows without some kind of clarification.
Miscellaneous Changes
In addition to the more striking timeline changes above, there are also various small tweaks to storylines to make them fit the current interpretations of events. Rather than exhaustively talk about them, here is a quick list of the various changes that have happened in each expansion across the book's covered history.
Rather than being referred to as slumbering Titans as in previous installments of the
Chronicle
series, the entities buried within planets such as Azeroth and Argus are now simply referred to as Worldsouls, with their ability to become Titans now considered a
potential
path for them to take when they finally awaken.
While identical otherwise, the infamous cosmic chart now refers to the primary force of Death as the Eternal Ones, rather than merely 'undead' like the chart from the first three volumes.
N'zoth is now referred to as one of
five
Old Gods who ruled over the Black Empire, but it is still remarked that the Titans found and imprisoned four when they first discovered Azeroth, implying that a fifth member of their cohort was killed or disappeared prior to the Ordering of Azeroth.
The events of the
Sylvanas
novel are now recognized, with Sylvanas' internal thoughts regarding the Jailer and her brief time in the Maw noted at the beginning of the book, as well as various points across it such as during the events of
War Crimes
, her ascension to warchief at Mueh'zala's hands, or her true motivations for burning Teldrassil and starting the Fourth War.
Mists of Pandaria
In the wake of the story in Ardenweald that explains how Wild Gods are traditionally reborn, the unique life cycle of the Jade Serpent Yu'lon is explained as being a result of a great wound she suffered in her defiance of Lei Shen's tyranny, one that requires her to be reborn within a jade effigy or else be lost forever.
Rather than simply 'looking the other way', the Sunreavers are now actively involved in Garrosh's theft of the Divine Bell from Darnassus, making them more explicit culprits in the betrayal of the Kirin Tor that Jaina Proudmoore uses as justification to enact the Purge of Dalaran.
Unlike their description as grievous wounds he may never heal from during
War Crimes
, Anduin's injuries from the Divine Bell at the hands of Garrosh during Landfall are now merely described as ones that will need a 'long rest to recover from'.
Rather than merely happening upon one another as the story progressed, the fateful meeting of the two princes Anduin and Wrathion is now described as Anduin actively seeking the black dragon out in an effort to understand the son of Deathwing and his motives.
To match with his characterization in Battle for Azeroth, Rastakhan's involvement with Zul and his Golden Fleet during the events of Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria is now severely reduced, with his knowledge kept to a bare minimum as to not only Zul's true intentions, but his actions as a whole in resurrecting Lei Shen and attempting to claim Pandaria for trollkind.
Mention of Lei Shen's anima golems is almost entirely omitted from this book (beyond a brief mention of the Dark Animus), and similarly the requisition of the Thunder King's technology at the hands of the blood elves is also not mentioned, in contrast to the explicit mention of Jaina Proudmoore's draining of his power in the Alliance's equivalent questline.
Warlords of Draenor
Rather than perishing at the hands of Kargath Bladefist, the uncorrupted alternate version of King Terokk that we meet in Spires of Arak now survives the encounter, simply being banished back to the shadow realm he was trapped in before communing with the player character.
A brief mention of a second named void lord with the moniker of Invalidus is mentioned during the description of Nagrand's leveling story, though its status as a proper Void Lord on the level of Dimensius is left unclear.
Further reasoning is given for the alliance with Grommash Hellscream at the hands of Durotan and Yrel during the events of Hellfire Citadel, with his usefulness in combat as well as his ability to sway the former members of the Iron Horde in the direction of peace earning him a place in the newly united Draenor in the wake of Archimonde's defeat.
Legion
A description of Thrall's actions prior to disappearance during Legion, with his last act being to advise Saurfang to "keep watch over their people and to not let them be swayed from their path again", citing a distrust of Sylvanas in the wake of his experiences with Garrosh.
New motivation is given to Helya and Sylvanas during the events of Stormheim, with their 'bargain' being replaced by a mutual desire to serve the Jailer and subjugate the val'kyr for their needs.
Battle for Azeroth
Further exploration is given to the backstory of the Drust in Drustvar, with the aggression leading to war being placed more firmly on the side of Gorak Tul and his people, rather than the former Gilneans coming to settle within their lands.
Genn Greymane's involvement in the Battle for Dazar'alor and subsequent assassination of King Rastakhan is omitted from this book, with the blame being firmly placed on Jaina Proudmoore to line up with stories such as
Shadows Rising.
Zekhan's involvement with the Horde war campaign is clarified slightly, with him now being directly initiated into Sylvanas' mission to find Saurfang rather than inexplicably showing up in Redridge to warn the Horde player of Sylvanas' intentions.
Further information is given on the armistice that is put in place at the end of Battle for Azeroth, with a note being made about the displeasure of many members of the Alliance due to the lack of punishment given to the Horde for their actions during the Fourth War.
Despite being available for players of both factions, the questline that culminates in the freedom of Xal'atath at the Crucible of Storms is now solely completed by the Horde player character in canon. Sorry, Alliance-only players.
Shadowlands
Light is shed on the nature of the appearances of Varian Wrynn and Saurfang during the events of Sepulcher of the First Ones, with their existence being described simply as visions from the Light given to Anduin, rather than spirits or echoes as some speculated in the past.
Confirmation is given on the motivations of the dreadlords (for now), in that rather than serving a master plan under Denathrius to use the Jailer like many have speculated, they and their master were genuinely loyal to Zovaal's cause and stuck with him until the end, leaving their current motivations unclear.
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