Talk:High General Abbendis/Archive 1

He?

Abbendis sure doesn't look like a "he" to me in that picture. Nor does it match the given description. --Xwrn

In the WorldofWacrcraft RPG books,Abbendis is a male paladin of 40 or so.

Other are almost the same: White hair, dark skin. --Xlandhenry

Abbendis, Isillien and Highlord Mograine (father) were the original founders of the Scarlet Crusade... They only turned out to be insane after Mograine's assassination. She's a rare spawn in Tyr's Hand near the Crusader Lord guy on the alter and she's NOT immune to mind control. --Angellic 00:53, 13 October 2006 (EDT)

Suggested Move

Suggested move, per Project:NAME#NPC_Articles. --Beep2 12:15, 1 January 2007 (EST)

The Two Abbendises

I am convinced that it is important to merge the two seperate articles again. Clearly, all sources show that there is only ONE Abbendis. Just because they retconned the gender doesn't mean there are two when all other facts remain the same. LoC sais Abbendis founded the Crusade, as does Fairbanks in WoW. The two articles right now are only doing two things: irritating the readers, and keeping lore facts from being applied to the Abbendis we see in WoW. Her article looks quite poor to me right now. Your opinions? --Tulon 19:30, 12 September 2007

Considering that LoC version of Abendis was cleary about a male version and none of those details were established and confirmed for the rare spawn Abendis in World of Warcraft, we can't apply them to each other (or go about modifying the quotes from its original intent). Thus one of the reasons why the RPG is given the "may not be found in other sources of lore" warning.

In the same way we can't apply the information about female abendis established in Cavern's of Time back on male abendis as the info is incompatible, and is obviously about the women. Best we can do is point out that a retcon might have occured, between the two sets of sources, in a speculaiton note.Baggins 18:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's complete nonsense. Both the LoC and the Fairbanks in WoW are talking about the same person, as there is only one Abbendis ever mentioned in either source. The informations you are talking about are not incompatible, either. The sourcebook tells us that it was High General Abbendis who founded the Crusade together with Isillien, who was a long-time partner of him/her. Now, in the computer game, we see a female High General Abbendis who fits exactly into the same role, as Fairbanks refers to her in the Ashbringer dialogue and she can be seen accompanying Isillien in the CoT event. It can't get more obvious that the gender has been retconned, can it?

Please, stay away from the Scarlet Crusade articles. You are seriously hurting the quality of them right now by implying inconsistencies when there are none as well as actually removing lore from characters players get to meet in the game - and I don't want that to happen as I am quite dedicated to these articles. --Tulon 00:45, 13 Septemper 2007

• 1. The first inconsistency, is the fact that LoC article describes Abenndis as a male. To rerwrite that info to fit a female form would twisting quotations from what was stated in the original source. Thus the warning that it comes from the RPG and may be wrong.
• 2. Another inconsistency is reference to date when Issillien met the male Abbendis in comparison to when he met the female Abbendis. According to Lands of Conflict he met male Abbendis not long before Warcraft III, he was "High General" at the time. Whereas we know in WoW, that Isselian was already with "Abbendis" long before that, at the time Abbendis was not a "High General".
• 3. Quotes will not be altered from their original source and intent, so if inconsistencies exist in the previous material as it was written, that will be come out in the articles, regardless. Its not me adding inconsistencies into the text, its inconsistencies that exist in the text already.Baggins 00:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you also insisting on two Garonas because one was described as being an orc/human hybrid and the other an orc/draenei? If you think that making a "her" out of "him" is already considered altering quotations: fine by me, then let's not flag it as a quote, but let us provide this information nonetheless. Besides, we do not know which rank Lady Abbendis held in the CoT, do we?

You take the sourcebooks far too pedantic (I remember you insisting on the language "Elven", which was replaced with "Thalassian" by later books). In my opinion, you should learn to adapt to retcons and combine the facts we collect. But: as you wish, then let's wait for the upcoming Dark Factions sourcebook to see that you were wrong. I hope it will be released soon, for I do not wish to see these articles I have worked so much on remaining "vandalized" for a long time. I'm sorry if I may sound somewhat rude now, but they do mean quite much to me. --Tulon 05:10, 13 September 2007

Your information is off, RPG had Thalassian before Elven was even mentioned. Thalassian has appeared in every single RPG book including the very first printed book, Dungeons & Dragons Warcraft The Roleplaying Game, pg, 42, 48, 104, etc. Thalassian didn't replace, "Elven" as it existed before "Elven" was even mentioned. However, Thalassian is printed alongside Elven, in the few sources where Elven has appeared, so no "replacement" ever occured.

As for Garona, no published source has said she's half-draenei, infact the only published source to bring it up, Horde Player's Guide said she wasn't "half-draenei". More importantly from an in-universe standpoint its confirmed that her race is argued over, as to what her other half might be. The concept that some believe her to be half-human is very much still part of the history. Also race differences is a bit different than sex differences. Gender bending completely changes context. Especially when you have quotes that state, the "two men leaving together" in relation to "Isillien" and Senior "Abbendis", and other masculine terms.

Lady Abbendis was just "Abbendis" in Caverns of time. She was not listed with any rank.

All Dark Factions might prove is that Senior Abendis doesn't exist. However that still means that quotes from the book can't be altered from their original source. To show that something has been changed in literary history. Just in the same way we still list Warcraft II quotes, old Eredar history (a retcon that originated out of a mistake, as Metzen admitted), and other similar material in their original context. It shows a accurate portrayal of the evolution in the Warcraft publishing record, and of mistakes, retcons, and other things that have occured over time, since the series began.

If you accuse adding cited quotes as being vandalism, you are breaking one of the Terms of Service against name calling and accusations.Baggins 06:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I am far from generally accusing adding cited quotes as being vandalism - but what you are doing right now is terminating a whole chunk of good lore from the RPG books as being appliable to WoW, by pulling well-written articles apart and marking whole sections of them as invalid. Not only with Abbendis, but also by quoting that the Scarlet Monastery is located in Tyr's Hand, which simply isn't the case as we all know. I'd like to hear the other users opinion about that, as I simply can't believe this is being appreciated.

And by the way, "Elven" is no longer a existent in the RPG. If indeed "Thalassian" didn't replace it, then it was apparently removed, as no race in the 2nd edition RPG books is speaking it. Tulon 14:30, 13 September 2007

I'm not seeing a problem with the current setup, though the two articles in question could do with more overt linking to each other and back to this article. Tulon, there is a limit to how much we can interpret from the lore - Garona's race is something for discussion in the Garona article, whereas whether someone is the same person as someone else isn't going to make as much sense for a single article, especially if we find that they are actually different. User:Kirkburn/Sig3 16:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

"as no race in the 2nd edition RPG books is speaking it."

Actually its said to be one of the languages spoken on Mount Hyjal (next to Darnassian) in the Second Edition book, Lands of Mystery.Baggins 17:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Both LoC and WoW claim that it was High General Abbendis who founded the Crusade, so logically it has to be one and the same person in each source. But, seeing that we won't get anywhere with this, I'll wait for Dark Factions until participating in (and, probably, reworking) the Crusade articles again.

As for that "Elven" issue - the Core Rulebook indicates that neither High Elves nor Night Elves have such a language as either automatic or bonus language, and it is also completely missing from the language table. Therefore it seems to have been an accidental remnant of the 1st edition (or it is simply the same as "Thalassian"). But thanks for pointing out the reference to LoM nonetheless, I have not noticed it until now. --Tulon 00:00, 14 September 2007

I'm also picking up Dark Factions, and will be making sure that cited and quoted material isn't removed. What will happen is a chronological publishing history will be pointed out showing where more than one sources differ from each other as far as written lore, and later retcons and such. Just as we do for all articles. We don't hide where Blizzard has changed its story we point it out. It allows for complete publishing data, and the full record. Which means if it gives a new backstory to female Abbendis, and completely denies the existence of the male abbendis then that will be reflected in both pages. However, the fact that a male Abbendis was written about will still exist on the Wowwiki in order to correctly portray the publishing record, and that retcons have occured.

As for languages, the RPG, has alot of languages that aren't part of the "core language" groups they show up in random places in other books. "Elven" has never been a specific language for any of the core races, its always been some kind of obscure side language. On a related note we know that there are four, count that four, elven languages according to Cycle of Hatred. We know of three elven languages, including, Nazja, Darnassian and Thalassian. The fourth would either have to be Elven or some currently unknown and un-named language. Its not a Satyr language, as satyrs speak Eredun the demonic language. Whatever the fourth language is it has to be pretty obscure. On a related note there is no high elves living on Hyjal Summit due to the night elves distrust towards them, and Thalassian is a language that developed millenia later by the highborne that landed in Lordaeron. For anyone taking note the current redidents of Hyjal Summit include;

"30% demon, 20% night elf, 17% dryad, 11% blue dragonflight, 10% red dragonflight, 9% bronze dragonflight, 3% keeper of the grove."

As you can see, no high elves. Baggins 23:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The Two Abbendises, Part II

I have rephrased the "relation" of both characters, since I think it is quite important to note that both the LoC and WoW describe "their" High General Abbendis as a founder of the Scarlet Crusade. However, according to your wishes, I have left it a speculation - so it's up to the readers now to make their conclusions. I hope that all sides are content with this edit now. --Tulon 22:30, 21 September 2007

The way you phrased it, made it sound like to doubt them being the same was stupid. What was wrong with the original text which explained both stories and then talked about the situation? User:Kirkburn/Sig3 21:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, to put it simple: there can only be one High General Abbendis who founded the Crusade, isn't that true? Both sources are overlapping each other with the background and title for this character, they only differ in gender. I have rephrased my statement that the character IS the same, but I think it is quite necessary to note that it is VERY likely that this is the case (considering two different Abbendises with the SAME title, the SAME background and the SAME relation to Isillien are somewhat far-fetched), considering both character's background. The original text left too much open considering this, which is why I thought it necessary to change it according to what we can read/see in LoC and WoW. --Tulon 12:00, 22 September 2007

"Well, to put it simple: there can only be one High General Abbendis who founded the Crusade, isn't that true?"

Well, hypothetically there could be two Abbendises existing at the same time: who both help in the founding of the crusade. The only difference is you have a character like Brann who was interested in only the male Abendis's history at the time, since he met the guy in his travels, and not interested in "daughter"/"wife", etc etc, and chose not to bring her involvement up, perhaps because he didn't meet her, perhaps during his research he overlooked her, or perhaps because he thought the male more important than the woman at the time (during his research at the time he apparently overlooked Highlord Morgraine's involvement with the formation of the Crusade as well). Whereas its possible that Fairbanks told the history of the female, either because he considered her more important to the foundation, or because he never met the man, or didn't know his history in the crusade. Issilien himself could have met both Abbendis in his time, first the daughter, and later the man, along with Mograine's help, they all helped found the crusade. The man held it at one point and so did she at another point in time. That is generally the problem with in-universe historical documents and claims, different people or different scholars with different levels of knowledge with different interpretations on history may tell different stories.

For that matter stuff like this occasionally happens in real life between historians, where someone will argue the importance of one person while ignoring the contributions of another (sometimes never mentioning the other), if they feel that one person was more important than the other. Can there be generals from the same family who share the same rank? Yes, that's not impossible. It could happen in most real-world military institutions as long both proved themselves to earn the position they held. As for same background, as I said before there are some unique differences, especially with the timing of when the events took place, and how and when Issilien met each Abbendis.

Will male Abbendis be retconned/ignored in later history? At this point I think probably, but the articles will remain in order to show the differences between the two. Presumeably the Female Abbendis will receive an extended detailed history in the Dark Factions but all details are currently unknown. However if it is in the book, we may find that it may be nothing like the one written up for the male Abbendis, due to new authors, retcons by Metzen and World of Warcraft, or whatever reason.

On a related note this happened in star wars once where one author had a male character, and another author used the same name but thought the character was female, both had similar positions but in different points in history, a few years apart. Lucasfilm later chose to say that both existed, and one was the daughter of the other.Baggins 14:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm seeing your point - it's just that everything is pointing towards a retcon, especially the CoT event concerning the Ashbringer. And whilst I would agree that relatives from the same family could share the same military rank, I'd highly doubt they would also share command of the same garrison (Tyr's Hand).

Alas, please forgive me for being somewhat bullheaded concerning this issue, I'm just somewhat committed to this section of lore and did not like that parts of it were being "split up" between a character we know exists in the game and another character which most likely is the same. I was (or still am) under the impression that lore was getting lost.

But say, once Dark Factions is out and will probably clarify this question, it will be possible to merge the lore of the "male" Abbendis with the female one again, won't it? As long as the new lore won't contradict it, of course. --Tulon 18:00, 6 October 2007

I think it depends on who ever writes the Abbendis material, and Metzen. If its a different author from who ever wrote the original material, and/or if Metzen has changed the history since Lands of Conflict was written, it may not be able to be merged. We know Metzen and other designers/writers "forget" previously written lore on occasion, just look at history of the Eredar now (you might remember Metzen claimed to have "forgotten" what Warcraft III manual said). Also, there are times when World of Warcraft in general contradicts other sources when it comes to details. Actually retcons, continuity errors, and screwed up timelines are fairly common when it comes to Blizzard's material. It even happens occasionally across the RPG books, where a bit of obscure history mentioned in one book isn't necessarily mentioned or supported by another. Just look at each consecutive warcraft game and their manuals, and later timelines. I don't think there are two timelines that match up 100%. In anycase anything Dark Factions says about the female Abbendis will go into the female Abbendis article, of course paraphrased to make it more formal and less like Brann's style.--Baggins 18:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Its interesting, but apparently Balnazzer (Saiden Dathrohan) helped found the crusade as well. Yet he doesn't appear in either Brann's accounts or Fairbanks.Baggins 04:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The Two Abbendises, Part III

"But say, once Dark Factions is out and will probably clarify this question, it will be possible to merge the lore of the "male" Abbendis with the female one again, won't it? As long as the new lore won't contradict it, of course."

It appears that Dark Factions took the route of making them seperate characters. It confirms that male High General Abbendis was the father of current High General Abbendis. He died fighting the scourge.Baggins (talk) 03:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)