Hello everyone!
The first Harbinger episode has been released telling gul’dan’s origin story and a few
of you asked me if I could talk a little bit about it and perhaps give some more information.
If you haven’t seen the episode yet, I highly recommend to go check it out.
It’s pretty much lords of War only now related to the legion storyline.
Link can be found in the description.
So Harbingers – Gul’dan talks about Gul dan’s early days, living as a crippled within
an unknown clan.
They’re kicking the crap out of him until the elder shaman makes them stop.
He tells gul’dan that he always believed there was greatness within him, go seek out
the throne of the elements, perhaps there you will find your destiny.
The elder shaman is showing him sympathy, but gul’dan is having none of it and he’s
cast out.
For months, starving, he wanders the wasteland, nearly giving in but in the darkness the words
of the shaman pierce through.
Seek out the throne of the elements which gul’dan does, humbled and broken he offers
himself in the service of what ever would end his anguish.
At first it seems like the elements are about to embrace him into the path of shamanism,
but just before they reach him they stop and retreat.
It’s up for interpretation why this happened, but it felt to me like the elements judged
gul’dan and despite him telling us that he was humbled and broken, his true nature
can not be hidden from the elements.
They saw the power hungry orc resting inside, they judged him and found him unworthy so
they left him to his fate.
Rage, Fury, Anguish, Gul’dan feels like the elements abandoned him, but in their absence,
other voices started whispering.
“Gul’dan….”
The Legion has found a harbinger of their fury.
Gul’dan is given the fel gift, power beyond his wildest dreams.
He returns to the clan no longer just the cripple that they remember.
Now he’s a warlock and never again would he grovel for a place in this world.
Instead he’ll forge a world that will grovel before him.
“No one living has heard of the village of my birth and no one ever will…”
And that’s pretty much the episode.
Now the major question that I’ve seen about this is how does this story fit in with the
lore.
Is this retconning the origin story of the gul’dan that we know?
And it’s not.
This is the origin story of alternate gul’dan.
Our Gul’dan found his connection to the Legion through his shamanistic mentor Ner’zhul
and he doesn’t have a roll to play in the upcoming expansion
considering all that’s left of him is his skull or perhaps just a trinket.
This gul’dan doesn’t seem to be a shaman and he finds the legion at the throne of the
elements plus he is playing a big part in the upcoming expansion since he’s the one
that opens the way for the legion to invade azeroth.
Does it fit with the lore established for alternate gul’dan?
Kinda!
If we look at the wow website with gul’dan’s character description we read about him being
part of the mystical shadowmoon clan.
I honestly think that they made a mistake and combined the information from main gul’dan
and alternate gul’dan into one.
Our gul’dan, the main gul’dan was indeed part of the shadowmoon clan together with
ner’zhul.
It’s possible that alternate gul’dan joined the shadowmoon clan after he wiped out his
original clan and village, but I don’t recall any npc like alternate Ner’zhul or Rulkhan
mentioning that Gul’dan was part of their clan.
That’s why it’s likely that the information on the wow website is mixed, not to mention
that it’s kinda weird that they don’t have 2 pages to describe this character, 1
for the main universe and 1 for the alternate.
If I missed anything, if there’s a source ingame that does mention Gul’dan being part
of the shadowmoon clan then please let me know in the comments.
There’s also the fact that if you go to the warlords of draenor website and click
on gul’dan’s profile you read the following:
Indebted to a demonic lord and pitted against the mentor he betrayed, Gul’dan is one of
a handful of fel orcs on Draenor, his visage and shamanic power twisted balefully by demonic
communion.
The outcasts he leads, the Stormreaver clan, now fight to wrest their “rightful” place
in the Iron Horde from Gul’dan’s former master Ner’zhul . . . and to tempt a great
army of orcs into infernal corruption.
I don’t recall the Stormreaver clan playing a big part during Warlords, but again I could
be wrong
Either way, being part of the shadowmoon clan or not doesn’t really matter since the next
part in his story has him deal with the pact he made with the burning legion.
He promised to raise a fell infused army and use it to invade and burn azeroth to the ground.
He himself drank from the blood of mannoroth and was planning to give this to the rest
of the orcs as well giving them incredible powers but also enslaving them to the legion.
A stranger from a whole different reality, our Garrosh hellscream prevented this from
happening and informed Grommash about Gul’dan’s true plans, prepaired the orcs to fight mannoroth
and “This was not our destiny….times change”
Gul’dan and his shadowmoon council is placed in chains, their powers used to empower the
dark portal turning it red and kicking off the expansion warlords of Draenor.
We liberate gul’dan to disconnect the dark portal, he goes about doing what he does best
until we take care of archimonde within hellfire citadel.
“Gul’dan….you made a pact…nooooo”
Archimonde sends gul’dan to our reality where he goes to the tomb of sargeras, opens
up the rift and kicks off the expansion Legion.
That’s pretty much all I can see about this harbinger episode, a last fun thing to mention
is that the staff of the video is the same as we’ve seen him use ingame and his loot
table has a special ring called Ring of the scoured clan.
“This ring is crudely engraved with an unmistakably Orcish symbol, but one you’ve never seen
before.”
So it seems like the staff of the elder shaman and this ring are all that remain of the clan
which gave birth to someone like Gul’dan.
And with that we’ve reached the end of this video so I hope you enjoyed.
I personally can’t wait for the next episodes to release, I believe they’re going to be
about Khadgar and Illidan….should be great stuff.
Again if you want to check out this episode or perhaps watch the trailer, links to that
can be found down below in the description.
Thank you very much for watching everyone, subscribe if you like my videos and until
next time guys….see ya!