The War of the Ancients

The War of the Ancients trilogy by Richard Knaak is a Warcraft novel set in the Warcraft Expanded Universe. It chronicles the events of the titular War of the Ancients where the Night Elves fight against the Burning Legion and attempt to save the planet from total annihilation. The story is noteworthy for the fact that it stars three characters from the present day Azeroth time line who travel back to the event and enact subtle changes. Many believe that the book was written to actually justify some of the changes to the Warcraft time line. However, few of the retcons are related to the most egregious retcons that remain unanswered.

Tropes used in The War of the Ancients include:

• An Axe to Grind: Broxigar's weapon of choice.
  • After he loses his personal battle axe, Cenarius makes one for him from wood, albeit enchanted wood that makes it stronger and sharper than any metal. After Brox's Heroic Sacrifice, Krasus manages to recover the axe and gives it to Thrall for safekeeping.
    • How strong and sharp is this axe? Well, it manages to wound Sargeras himself.
• The Archer: Lady Vashj and Shandris Feathermoon.
• Artifact of Doom: The Dragon/Demon Soul.
• Badass Normal: Jarod Shadowsong. With Ravencrest, he's the only character with no magic powers or super strength (like Brox and the Taurens), but is a very good strategist, a good fighter and in the end faces Archimonde himself.
• Big Bad: Sargeras, or that's what he thinks...
• Bodyguard Crush: Varo'then toward Azshara, but only on this side.
• Came Back Wrong: Xavius. Not that he was good before...
• Capital City: Zin-Azshari.
• Continuity Cameo: Maiev Shadowsong, Lady Vashj, Dath'Remar Sunstrider and Shandris Feathermoon, while being more than just cameos, may count as this.
• Deadly Decadent Court: The Highborn seem to be almost uniformly evil and willing to kill over the slightest changes in status.
  • Although to be fair about 1/3 do realize that Azshara has lost it.
• Death Seeker: Brox. He got better, though.
• The Devil: Sargeras.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: How the heroes try to stop Sargeras from coming in Azeroth. Combined with...
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Brox actually manages to wound Sargeras by driving his ax into the Titan's foot. To put this in context, Sargeras is The Devil of Azeroth. Of course, even with the help of a magical ax given to him by a demigod he only manages to give him a small scratch, but that's very impressive nonetheless.
  • It's actuallyt the only thing that manages to hold off Sargeras long enough for the portal to close. Not because it hurts him in any serious way, but because of sheer surprise that it happened.
• The Dragon: Sargeras has Archimonde, who himself has Mannoroth and Hakkar. Azshara has Xavius and Varo'then.
• Egopolis: Zin-Azshari, or "Glory of Azshara". Not enough for Azshara though, who wants it renamed "Azshara", period.
• Eldritch Abomination: The three Old Gods responsible for Neltharion's corruption and the whole time travel
• Even the Girls Want Her: Vashj and Tyrande experience this when they meet Azshara.
  • In fact, demons want her too.
    • Let me state this in clear detail. Demons in Warcraft are beings who cannot think of anything but pure, unfiltered hatred for all living things. They fall in love with her. That she thought she could woo even Sargeras is less a display of egotisim and more of a sultry self confidence.
    • To be fair in one scene with Illidan it's implied that she's enhancing her natural sexy with magic, but so subtly that nobody actually notices. So technically using magic to make the girls, boys and demons want her for her own gain
• Fantastic Racism: Most of the Night Elves, even the non-evil ones.
• Fate Worse Than Death:
  • For Illidan. Being locked up in a cave for the rest of your life is bad enough. But when you're immortal then it is just insane.
  • Also, in World of Warcraft, you can find Varo'then's ghost. Apparently, his punishment for betraying Kalimdor was literally to roam the earth forever after his death. When you find him in World of Warcraft, it's been more than 10.000 years since the War of the Ancients!
  • Xavius experiences this after Furion defeats him the first time. Apparently Sargeras wasn't terribly happy about the first portal's destruction.
• Flanderization
• Foregone Conclusion: If you are familiar with the Warcraft games, you should know the fate of Illidan and Azshara, or how the war ends.
  • However, due to the time traveling involved, several things are different from the backstory given in the Warcraft III manual. Whether or not this has any impact on the characters involved going forward is debatable
• Friend to All Living Things:
  • Played with Queen Azshara who, as a sorceress (and one of the most powerful magic-users), easily makes friend with monstrous felhunter demons.
  • Played straight with Cenarius.
• General Failure: Desdel Stareye doesn't know a thing about how to fight a war yet thinks he should be in charge by virtue of being a nobleman. This is even more jarring since there are noblemen who know how to fight, like Lord Ravencrest, who, unfortunately, ends up being killed by one of Azshara's assassins. His "brilliant" plan involves marching straight into enemy lines, which results in many casualties when the demons spring their (fairly obvious) trap. The only consolation is that Stareye himself dies as a result, leaving the much more competent Jaron Shadowsong (a commoner) in charge. Additionally, his Fantastic Racism results in him putting the Tauren, Furbolg, and Earthen (proto-Dwarves) forces in the support role, when they're much more useful on the front lines.
• God Save Us From the Queen: Everyone loves Queen Azshara, despite the fact she's totally bat**** insane.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Brox, and possibly Malorne.
• Hope Spot: For the night elf army, Neltharion/Deathwing annihilating the demon army with his weapon. Cool, we are saved! Wait, what is he doing? Oh Crap.
  • There's another one, when Stareye's simple battle plan appears to be working with his "wedges" breaking through the demons' lines... then the demons spring their trap.
• It Has Been an Honor: Broxigar quotes this almost word for word before leaping through the portal to his inevitable demise via Heroic Sacrifice.

Brox: Farewell, wizard! It is my honor to have fought beside you and the rest!

• Karmic Death: Varo'then says he doesn't care if Kalimdor is destroyed. His death at Malfurion's hands is said to be Kalimdor rejecting him in turn.
• Love Triangle: Illidan wants Tyrande, who loves Malfurion instead and gets together with him.
• Meaningful Name: The "ronin" were masterless samurai in feudal Japan. The mage Rhonin is a maverick, trusting his own opinion more than that of his superiors.
• Name's the Same: The demon Hakkar has apparently nothing to do with the troll god Hakkar from World of Warcraft.
• Neck Snap: This is how Archimonde kills Malorne, the White Stag. Subverted in that it takes even the demon a lot of effort to do so. Then again, killing a demigod should not be easy.
• The Obi-Wan: Krasus toward Malfurion. Rhonin tried it on Illidan, but failed.
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Burning Legion in a nutshell.
• Portal Cut: Sargeras is halfway through the Well of Eternity's portal when it's forcefully closed, causing him to "cease to be" (although his spirit has shown up later in The Last Guardian).
• Orphaned Etymology: Night elf society is refered to as "draconian" in the first book.
• The Punishment: Done to Illidan in the end.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Brox.
• Spanner in the Works: The heroes may have won the war against the Burning Legion, but what stopped the Old Gods from breaking out of their prison was that they didn't expect Deathwing to be so much attached to the Dragon Soul.
• Supporting Leader: Jarod Shadowsong in the last battle.
• Temporal Paradox: Averted. Apparently, you can change the past. A powerful Demon Lord is killed before the Second War and the Blue Dragon Flight is saved from total annihilation. Nothing of "real" consequence actually occurs, though.
  • Until World of Warcraft. Thanks, Krasus. You owe me my repair bill from pre-nerf Oculus.
  • To expand on that, the blue dragonflight was wiped out in the original timeline, but eggs were saved in the altered one. This helps Malygos become sane again, and in his sanity, he starts doing his job again: which amounts to banning magic under penalty of death, and disposing of the magic in a way that will accidentally blow up the world. If the eggs were never saved, he would still be depressed and reclusive, as well as having no minions.
  • However, this action restored his dragonflight, but his insanity is later retconned into still being fully around until Tyri brings the nether drakes to the Nexus much later.
• This Is Your Brain On Magic
• Time Police: The role of the Dragon Aspect of Time, apparently.
• Time Travel: see above.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Until the very end, the main characters are the only ones who know Azshara is not captured by the demons. A few do suspect so, but decide not to bring it up because it would turn pretty much everyone else against them.
  • Which makes everyone confused when an assassin kills Ravencrest while screaming her name.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Neltharion, at first. Also some of the Highborn.
• Whip It Good: Hakkar. He can summon demons with it.
• World Tree: in the end, how the dragons deal with the new Well.
  • There was also another one before it, which acted as Heaven for all winged creatures (including dragons). Unfortunately, when the demigod who created it was killed by the demons, the tree died. A seed was left that was used to create the one over the new Well.
• Xanatos Gambit: The plan of the Old Gods for their come back. One could think it is more like a Xanatos Roulette as they need Illidan to be driven by Xavius to go with the Legion, where he could think of using the Dragon Soul to open a portal, then succeed finding where it is hidden and stealing it from Deathwing before the good guys. However, as they are apparently able to modify history and influence events and peoples, it is entirely plausible.
  • It was originally a lot more simple, actually: influencing Neltharion/Deathwing to create the Dragon Soul and bringing it near the well where they could use it's power to free themselves and at the same time fatally weakening the Dragon Flights, their worst enemy. It's when Neltharion grows too attached to the artifact to give it up that they have to improvise.
• Yandere: Lady Vashj tries to kill Tyrande out of jealousy, wanting to be Azshara's favored.
• You Shall Not Pass: Brox, fighting demons in their homeworld after being through the portal.