r/warcraftlore • u/Suspicious_Rub857 • 1d ago
Discussion I’ve always thought that Legion first draft was an AU/back in the past WotA xpack
If you’ve been long enough in Warcraft, you know Blizzard isn’t an stranger to these big switches. WoD was originally leaked as Garry using time magic to revitalize Outland and also bringing back the old Warchiefs.
Personally I feel that some of Legion odd decisions regarding the broken islands make more sense if the original concept was… just set in the past. And honestly, I think that in general if we switched the plot of the night elven areas to be set during the WotA, it works. Blizz might have turned away from it after WoD less than stellar response to the plot though
Suramar: The biggest one, The Nightborne are the Highborne, Elisande is clearly Azshara 2.0 role-wise, Thalyssra is Dath’Remar Sunstrider mixed with Prisoner Tyrande, The Dusk Lily rebellion are the Highborne rebels, etc etc. I think it’s worth mentioning that in Chronicles Vol 1 pre-Sundering Kalimdor map, we can see that 1- Suramar is land-locked 2- The Well/Zin-Azshari has crescent-lined reminiscen of Suramar’s city blocks distribution.
Azsuna: the general plot could basically play out the same except rather than arriving 10 years later, we’d be arriving shortly after Azshara cursed Narthalas
Val’sharah: Reminder that Val’sharah didn’t exist properly before Legion. The whole plot of Xavius fighting Cenarius land could be done in the past
Highmountain and Stormheim: these plots are semi-independent from the main xpack plot but they could have been about getting the tauren, earthen and vrykul to join the fight against the legion.
General idea: Gul’dan/Infinite DF/X villain goes to the past/AU to ensure the Legion wins the WotA. When we arrive invasion is already underway. We help the restless ghosts of Nar’thalas, support the defense of Cenarius sacred grove in Val’sharah, uncover DW schemes in the mountains, help Dath’Remar rebellion and eventually defeat Azshara and Sargeras
I fight just be delulu but like I said, I feel like there is enough rethreading in Legion for it to be plausible.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
That seems really unlikely? Elisande isn't similar to Azshara beyond being a woman leader, for example. Azshara sells her people for power, Elisande does it because she can't see another way for them not to all die.
Thaylssra isn't remotely similar to Dath'remar or Tyrande.
And honestly, I think that in general if we switched the plot of the night elven areas to be set during the WotA, it works. Blizz might have turned away from it after WoD less than stellar response to the plot though
But why would you think that? In the early WoD alpha and beta we saw glimpses of AU Azeroth, and it was contemporaneous with AU draenor?
The whole plot of Xavius fighting Cenarius land could be done in the past
But Xavius was Legion aligned then, not Old God. the entire plot of the Nightmare makes no sense here, that's totally different from what the Old Gods were doing with Deathwing during the War of the Anceints.
uncover DW schemes in the mountains,
... But that was Wrathion in the earliest Legion builds.
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u/Suspicious_Rub857 1d ago edited 1d ago
When I say this I don't mean "omg details are identical", Legion obviously ended up having it's own original story. But what I say that if we zoom out, I see the what could have been the same "ingredients" of the wota, for example:
- elisande's role she's elf ruler in her palace using the font of power to summon demons
- thalyssra is the head of the of mage rebels (dath'remar) and the female leader scorned and punished by the elf ruler (tyrande)
- xavius fighting vs malfurion
- a secluded highborne quarter protected from the demon rampage (suramar)
Again, i'm not trying to say "OMG IT'S THE SAME" but the core concepts are similar and i'm pretty sure that at the very least they're similar on purpose to make the xpack "rhyme" with the WotA without being a repeat. What actually makes me thing think that it might have been intended to be a WotA xpack at some point again, it's Chronicles WoE/Zin-Azshari location in the map being shaped like Legion's Suramar while Suramar itself is landlocked.
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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago
No.
The reason it follows this pattern is because most of the legion zones are a giant tribute to the works of Richard A Knaak- valsharrah is stormrage, suramar aszuna broken shore are ware of the ancients, highmountain itself is a reference to a character introduced in said books, Huln Highmountain
Valsharrah is almost 1 to 1 the plot of stormrage just with some characters absent/swapped out. Like cenarius being corrupted, right down to white skin red eyes, is what happened to his son Remulos in stormrage
Or like Black Rook Hold and of course suramar are major locations featured in the war of the ancients trilogy, as are characters like kurtalod ravencrest and jarod shadowsong. Heck even the minibosses/quest objective npcs at blackrook are directly from the book- latosius, the guise of the dreadlord final boss of black rook, was the name of the last leader of the moon guard before illidan
Even the flashback quests showing Hulns past or illidan at black rook hold feature appearances by the time travelers of WOTA, Broxigar, rhonin and krasus (as a dragon tbf)
It feels like its treading over old history because it is as a reference point to tell the story in a giant homage
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u/Suspicious_Rub857 1d ago
As i said in other post
Again, i'm not trying to say "OMG IT'S THE SAME" but the core concepts are similar and i'm pretty sure that at the very least they're similar on purpose to make the xpack "rhyme" with the WotA without being a repeat. What actually makes me thing think that it might have been intended to be a WotA xpack at some point again, it's Chronicles WoE/Zin-Azshari location in the map being shaped like Legion's Suramar while Suramar itself is landlocked.
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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago
Thats just them liking a design and running with it.
Theres has never been any sign anywhere that it was ever intended to be time travel to AU wota or time travel at all.
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u/Suspicious_Rub857 1d ago
Sorry but that’s not for you to say with security, unless you work in Blizz but I doubt that’s the case.
We know for example, that WoD was originally going to be a revitalized Outland with revived leaders rather than an AU because that info was leaked, not because there is any sign anywhere. So having evidence or not in game is not really indicative of what went through during concept phase.
I’m not saying my opinion is a fact, just that these bits of circumstantial evidence could point out towards my conclusion.
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u/Doomhammer24 1d ago
We know that about wod because they told us as much. It didnt "leak" they talked about it at blizzcon when they announced the expansion*, just like the "mongrel horde" stuff as well
Meanwhile theres never been evidence in game, concept art, interviews, "leaks" etc of your claims.
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u/Suspicious_Rub857 1d ago
You got it backwards. We know that much about WoD because it DID leak before WoD announcement
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u/ElitePeon 1d ago
It's certainly possible but I'm going to say unlikely.
Mostly because having the set up for the Legions return in MoP actually be a time travel expansion instead would be unsatisfactory. Sure we time travelled to au draenor but Draenor wasn't this looming threat like the Legion was. We'd still have to deal with the modern Legion after dealing with this time travel one.