History Literature / WorldOfWarcraftChronicle

* VirtueIsAWeakness: Justified partially due to how savage and ruthless their world and life was, but the notion of mercy was totally unknown to the Orcs as shown after the Ogres' failed attack on the Draenei, as the Orcs were totally shocked and incredulous that the Draenei chose to spare the remaining Ogres and let them leave peacefully after killing their leader and telling them to go without further bloodshed.

** [[ForWantOfANail Med'an's removal from the series lore]] means that the circumstances of Aegwynn's death are unclear.

* EvilIsPetty: The void lords motive for corrupting a world soul is that they were jealous of the power and achievements of the Pantheon and they wanted a create titan a titan who would become an instrument of their dark will and desires.

* How exactly the Night Elves joined the Alliance between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft is left unexplained, despite an entire passage explaining how the Forsaken joined the Horde.

** On the same picture, Blackhand's armor has red bits, and Cho'gall has purple face paint. These are their clans' team colors in Warcraft 2 (and both are missing from their WoW models).

** Death knights and paladins have been drawn to resemble Warcraft 2 units instead of their WoW counterparts, though one of the paladins is wearing Judgment Armor (giving the armor set an implied backstory).

* SpecialEffectsFailure: For all the awesomeness of books' art, at least one picture has a glaring flaw - at "Beyond the Dark Portal", Turalyon has mirrored "L" symbols on his shoulderpads, indicating the picture has been originally drawn with him facing in other direction, and then just receiving a very lazy edit. Also, on the same picture, Alleria is missing her Artifact bow (despite the fact that another Artifact, Jeweled Scepter of Sargeras, is present on the picture with Ner'zhul and is drawn according to ''Legion'' reference), and Khadgar looks exactly like his WoW model despite most sources indicating he was wearing different clothes and facial hair at that time.

** When they were on the verge of losing their war with the Gorian Empire, the desperate orcish shaman requested the elemental spirits destroy the ogre's capital city. Due to the Empire repeated meddling with the Throne of the Elements, the spirits agreed with the request and destroyed Goria in a devastating display of power, letting none in the city survive and leaving nothing but ash and rubble in their wake. The remaining Gorian cities immediately ceased any actions against the orcs or the elements while the shaman were left terrified of the elementals wrath.

** When Lei Shen ambitionned to take Uldum which held the Forge of Origination and Titans' machineries in order to carry on the work of the Titans and get eternal life, the tol'vir who knew that they could never stand a chance against Lei Shen's divine power and his army, used the power of the forge itself to scour the land, killing Lei Shen and everyone in Uldum and turning the region into a barren desert.

** Enraged at the orcs' actions and destruction of the lands with their use of Fel magic and desesperate to save their world, Draenor elements joined their forces together and fused into Cyrukh the Firelord with the purpose of destroying the orcs and stop their devastation. However in spite of Cyrukh's tremendous power this was for nothing as Gul'dan and the Shadow Council gathered their forces and unleashed a terrible spell that flooded Cyruhk with fel energy and shattered his physical form,, creating the fel volcano known as the Hand of Gul'dan.

* GoodIsNotSoft: Despite them preferring to avoid violence and to end conflicts with the least casualties possible the Draenei are not to underestimated when they are pushed too far. When the ogres attacked them because they believed that they had stolen magic and secrets from Goria the Draenei made short work of them with their superior magic, discipline and technology, and when the Bladewind orcs pushed them too far by kidnapping and raping Draenei females and caused the death of Maarad's sister the Draenei furiously massacred the orcs as revenge for their atrocities. Despite being greatly outnumbered the Draenei gave great difficulty to the Horde, with their defense of Karabor and Auchindoun having been such that the orcs wouldn't have been able to win without the use of the Dark Star in the first case and the accidental summoning of Murmur for the second.

** During the First War a portion of the Horde led by Killrog Deadeye and his Bleeding Hollow Clan sought to take Stranglehorn Vale because it was similar to their homeland of Tanaan Jungle on Draenor. They were quickly opposed by the local inhabitants, the Gurubashi Trolls who were still recovering from their failed invasion of Stormwind. Against the the numerical superiority of the orcs the Gurubashi Trolls used their perfect knowledge of their environment and agility to constantly ambush their foes from all sides with the orcs being unable to properly respond to them and of truly conquering any land. This guerilla was effective enough for Black Hand to order Killrog and his troops to stop wasting warriors and retreat from Stranglehorn Vale to come back to help the fight against humans.

** The Orcs and Draenei were originally in lore friendly with each other, with the Draenei helping teach the Orcs various abilities and the Orcs helping Draenei learn the ways of Shamanism. It was only when Gul'dan corrupted the Orcs through the Burning Legion that the Orcs turned on the Draenei and slaughtered many of them. Here, its made clear the Orcs were mostly hostile with the Draenei but only were pushed to slaughter them when Gul'dan was given power for it and the Legion found out about Draenor.

** Lei Shen the Thunder King, after he defeated Ra and took his power for himself, was one of the most powerful individuals in Azeroth history, being able to effortlessly crush all his rivals and resistance to his conquest and rule, the only ones who gave him a challenge were the August Celestials and even them were eventually crushed by him. Lei Shen's power and threat were such that the tol'vir had no choice to use the power of the Forge of Origination, a device capable of annhilating all life on Azeroth, to stop and kill him.
** Medivh's Guardian powers makes him the most powerful mage in existence, possibly the most powerful individual on Azeroth. He has strength to destroy entire armies in a matter of minutes and annihilate dragons with ease. He also has the power to the travel the Twisting Nether and still have more than enough strength to overpower Gul'dan. For reference, when Illidan traveled the Twisting Nether, it took a enormous amount of physical and mental energy and it left his body and spirit defenseless.

** Onyxia under the disguise of Katrana Prestor manipulated the whole kingdom of Stormwind for years, using her manipulation skills and magic to run the kingdom into the ground by aggravating the crisis between the House of Nobles and the Stonemason Guild, preventing a solution to be found between the two and leading to the riots that caused Tiffin Wrynn's death leading to the banishement of the stonemasons from Stormwind City which would lead to the creation and rise of the Defias Brotherhood, and Varian Wrynn's depression which allowed Onyxia to put him under her thrall for years until he finally broke of her control and eventually unmasked and killed her. Onyxia's goal was to weaken Stormwind enough to allow the Dark Horde led by her brother Nefarian to invade and destroy it again.

** During the First War a portion of the Horde led by the Bleeding Hollow clan tried to conquer Stranglehorn Vale as it reminded them of their home in Tanaan Jungle, only to be fought by the native Gurubashi Trolls. The two sides fought with particular brutality and savagery, though the Gurubashi were able of getting the upper hand with their knowledge of the land and guerilla, until Blackhand called back Killrog Deadeye and his troops as they were wasting many lives for no gain.

** Loken was this to Yogg-Saron at first with the old god manipulating his thoughts and feelings for Sif, Thorim's wife with who he was having an affair, to make him lash out at her and kill her by accident,before sending an illusion of Sif's ghost to manipulate him further and have him betray his fellow Titanic Keepers while also creating an army with the Forge of Wills, unaware that Yogg-Saron had planted the curse of Flesh inside the forge. Later Loken would become Yogg-Saron's servant willingly after Cho'gall and the Twilight Hammer weakened Yogg-Saron's chains and allowed him to twist Loken's mind completely.
** Azshara and her Highborne followers were this to Sargeras and the Burning Legion who manipulated them into using the Well of Eternity as a gigantic portal for the Burning Legion, with the promise of creating a perfect world devoid of all impurities, and Azshara secretly hoping to make Sargeras his mate. Sargeras had of course no such intention and planned to get rid of Azshara and the Highborne as soon as they weren't useful anymore.

** Kael'Thas is written as a far more heroic and tragic figure than ''Warcraft 3'' portrayed him as. In ''Chronicle'', he is shown to be something of an outcast to his people because he wasn't there during the siege of Quel'Thalas, yet he still returns to lead his people despite this. Furthermore, he is shown to be NotSoDifferent from Arthas during the original ''Warcraft 3'', something that was implied, but not gone much into depth with originally. He also is given a more legit reason for becoming evil and joining the Legion, as its revealed Kil'jaeden manipulated him into doubting Illidan, then revived Kael'Thas after Tempest Keep, meaning Kael'Thas was more or less dead and thus not in sound mind anymore.