Show Notes
Lore Watch Podcast starts off with a dive into the lore of the Midsummer Fire Festival, particularly since so much was added over the past few years. How has this little event about a melting ice stone grown to reflect the culture of fire and summer in the different races?
Then, we go back to the Shadowlands for the rest of the podcast. We start with actually getting there. If we were the only Maw Walker, why is there a whole portal in our capital cities for any rando to traipse into Oribos? As long as we're in Oribos, let's chat First Ones. What do we know about them, exactly? How has the lore we know about them changed what we used to think we know about Azeroth?
We wrap it up by touching a figurative third rail: what would it take to make it feel like Sylvanas coming back was earned, and not a "somehow, Palapatine returned" cop out? If you enjoy the show, please support us on Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and ad-free! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Lore Watch Podcast
Immediately after experiencing the story for World of Warcraft patch 12.1.5, Liz started yelling in work chat that she wanted to be on Lore Watch so she could yell about it there. So, as you may imagine, there are very heavy spoilers in this podcast for the campaign and raid in patch 12.1.5 -- though unless you're living under a rock you've likely heard the thoroughly negative buzz around this set of story beats. As the smoke clears, why does this set of story beats fall flat for us? What led us here? Heck, what happened?
One of the most interesting things about World of Warcraft: Forever is the possibility for new story development, and that's how we got tangled up in the question of an NPC named Shadowsong in the beta. Is it one of those Shadowsongs? Probably not. (It's a common name.) But could we see new stories about what Maiev or Jared are up to at the beginning of World of Warcraft? Maybe, and that's what makes this new offshoot of Classic so exciting for us lore nerds.
Xal'atath is the subject of the first bit of another Lore Watch Podcast. Frequent listener Daikaiju had the astute observation that Xal'atath seemed upset that the Watcher didn't pay attention to her baiting, which she's always done to throw her enemies off. That could be because Xal'atath is a literal child -- at least, mentally. Is that why she didn't just use Sargeras's sword to the center of Azeroth as a slide instead of trying to corrupt the Sunwell and use it as a portal? Probably not, as the Loremasters discuss. There's also a question about the nature of the Titans and the Pantheon we saw in Shadowlands, the latter of which were some kind of construct. Were the Titans constructed or shaped in a similar way?
Do you remember back in vanilla WoW, when we were tasked with things like bringing a guard his lunch, or trying to find some guy's wife who was taking a while to get back, and now we're spitting in the face of god and saving the soul of the world? If you miss stories like the former, how on earth would we de-escalate from the current all-encompassing world-ending conflict to just hanging with the lads and picking peacebloom? And how would one of the archetypical villains we face fit into a less cataclysmic story?
World of Warcraft: Forever is the hottest title in Blizzard's catalogue, so of course we're diving in to some of the lore of Forever in this first post-BlizzCon episode. We start with a question on the war between the Alliance and the Horde, which makes for a great excuse to recap a lot of the conflict through the whole Warcraft series. From the moment the Dark Portal opened, Orcs and Humans have had conflict -- but is that conflict truly inescapable? But that's just the start of the rabbit hole. There's Trolls and Night Elves and Stranglethorn Vale and the Forsaken, and all of them have their part to play in the lore that makes up the rich world we'll be encountering again for the first time in Forever.