There's some rather large plot holes that concern me, almost a repeat of "oops we forgot" on the Draenei.

1) Alexstrasza claims that the Aspects "have fulfilled their ancient charge" which simply makes no sense.

The "ancient charge" is either defeating Deathwing or it is not. If it is DW's defeat, then the immediate question is why on earth the Titans put him in place to begin with. Certainly, given Algalon's speech, we know they have little to no faith in mortals, which argues against a grand plan to strengthen us into taking on the Aspects' roles.

If the charge is protecting Azeroth and serving as Old God jailers, then this also makes little sense, as there's the full knowledge that the Legion and at least N'Zoth are still there. Given that we're clearly told our victories against C'Thun and Yogg are only pushing back weak avatars, not actually destroying them, this seems a very short-sighted claim of victory by Alex.


2) There's no clearly stated reason for power loss, if indeed it is loss and not just a temporary weakening.

At best, there's a weak implication that they poured a great deal into defeating DW, which exhausted them. There is, however, almost deliberate vagueness about it being merely a weakening or a permanent loss of Aspect-hood.

I agree with Mr. Crow that they're clearly trying to make the players feel more heroic (albeit echoing Medivh's final WC3 lines), but it leaves the door open for the Aspects to regain strength. Blizz is after all notorious for never quite pinning things down.


3) One of the main properties of the Demon Soul is that DW did not contribute to it and was therefore immune to it.

Somehow though, it's the only weapon that can possibly be used to defeat him? Barring some revelation within the raid, this seems like another huge "we forgot".


4) Even if we accept the Soul being used against DW, the understanding was that we were borrowing it from the timeline in the WoE 5man to replace it once we were done. Doing so apparently takes Nozdormu's personal intervention, but now he may or may not have lost his Time Lord powers. How then do we return the Soul and avoid a gargantuan paradox?

Thank you for the link, not sure how I missed that. (Insert standard comment wishing Blizzard was a bit more proactive ensuring that lore was clearly "advertised".)

I'm going to have to disagree with your reading that the Aspects' duty is specifically to prevent the Hour. I presume you refer to this:

As I read that, it means the original duty as written years ago, the preservation of Azeroth. Noz is reluctant to retrieve the Soul, as he's been highly tempted to alter the timeline at that event. This would be directly confronting that possibility, in which he fears he will fail. Yet doing so is the only way to stop DW and prevent the Hour, which is an instance of preservation, not the entire duty.

Again, if the original duty was solely to prevent the Hour, it's nonsensical as it would mean that the Titans knew Neltharion would fall and so forth, but empowered him anyway. Given their characterization of cold logic (Algalon was sent to see if the world needed to be reset/destroyed), as well as the clear statements that they had to struggle to imprison the Old Gods, it does not make sense that they would deliberately set up guardians that would pose a risk to that imprisonment.

Algalon also indicated surprise when defeated. Along with us repeatedly upsetting Old God plans, it is clear that neither side of the Titan-Old God chess game is perfect. Both have made mistakes, such as failing to anticipate the other side's plans, and we are effectively a random element in the game.

As stated before, my hope for the over-arching storyline is that they haven't simply removed the dragons, but simply exhausted them for a time period. It's more than possible to strike a middle ground between "players are distractions until LoreHero arrives" and "players are gods".

Their sacred duty is to preserve the world. I think you're reading what has been said too literally.

The Hour of Twilight will end the world, therefore it's their duty to stop that from happening no matter what.

I don't think the Titans told them millennium ago that "OK you guys, at one point or another the Hour of Twilight is gonna happen, you guys gotta stop that."

Actually, I'm arguing against a literal reading of "their duty is to stop the Hour."

The question for the dragons going forward is, how do they respond to the next world ender? I've already stated that there are plenty of threats that still exist. Yes, we've faced them, but always in a severely diminished manner. Again, I understand one goal is to encourage the players who just earned Chin loot, but unless they drastically revise power levels, we still very much need the Aspects and other powers. Remember Hyjal questing?

So let's say Theramore isn't favoritism - Forums - World of Warcraft

Zarhym appears to be on the verge of a Tseric-like breakdown over the Theramore issue. That said, though, he's expecting people to draw the "correct" conclusions despite us only having half the facts, and the growing Alliance sentiment of only existing to give the Horde someone to punch seems to be erupting like a volcano.

I don't think they did either, but when you put the words of the story and the cinematic (which I finally watched) together, it's pretty clear that this is Blizzard's intent. "The Dragon Aspects have saved the day and the world is safe, now we've run out of steam and it's up to you guys to stop the next Big Bad from wrecking the place. Good luck!" Of course, we have the World-shaman and the Guardian of Tirisfal, so who knows? Maybe the mortal races will produce replacements for the other Dragon Aspects.

Maybe this was N'Zoth's plan all along? And heck possibly even Yogg-Saron's?

Alexatrasza did play a roll in purifying the Lich King (the new one, that is). And of course the Dragon Aspects were involved in sealing C'thun.

On a random note, if Nozdormu is depowered does this mean Murozond will not come to be? Or is this exactly the reason Murozond comes to be? But how? Does he turn evil and steal power from elsewhere? Also, what happens to the Emerald Dream.

Thinking about Murozond and any time-space changes will only give you a headache.

"If we are to acquire the Dragon Soul, we mussst first journey to the future I have foreseen: the end of time itself," Nozdormu said. "By destroying the infinite dragonflight and its leader, who lord over the apocalypse, the timeways will be reopened, allowing usss to slip into the past and retrieve the Dragon Soul."

And of course when you defeat him Murozond:

"Still, in time, I will... fall to madness. And you, heroes... will vanquish me. The cycle will repeat. So it goes."

So basically, we forced Nozformu's hand in taking out his future crazy self, to open the timeways and rewrite a few things, because as Alexstraza pointed out he wasn't just given control of time to watch it get wiped away, but it's inevitable that he's going to go mad and we'll have to kill him again, just not in the way we just did.

Keep in mind I think that's mainly so if Blizzard chooses they can make more CoT instances, they're by far the most popular instances each expo.

The way I see the Nozdormu issue playing out, he'll end up deciding that the only way to prevent himself from dying is to drain the Bronzes' timey-wimey powers to re-empower himself as an Infinite. Imagine him saying to Chromie "pop by in a week or so, I'll have something for you" just before his powers fade away and then Chromie turns up to see what the deal is and then BAM! Murozond.

He referred to it as a loop, after all. He didn't say anything like "You've broken the cycle!"

I don't think it's a permanent loss. Or, at least, not an involuntary permanent loss. The aspects are apparently fully empowered (if exhausted) until Alextrasza gives her speech about "seeing through mortal eyes". And the other aspects concur after that and shut down (eye glow cue).

The only aspect that appears "damaged" is Nozdormu, whose nice-looking shoulder-pad is leaking its sands of time.

I'm just confused as to why the Aspects were apparently empowered to combat the Hour of Twilight--likely an event prophesied by Aman'Thul--when it was Neltharion's Titan-granted connection to the land to begin with that allowed the Old Gods to corrupt him and make the Hour of Twilight possible in the first place.