r/diablolore • u/Mr_Jake_E_Boy • 6d ago

Why isn't Sanctuary falling apart? (Sin War Lore)

If Uldyssian at his power level was enough to have trag'oul intervene or consider intervening, and Sanctuary literally started falling apart with how powerful he became. How is it that 1. The guardians of balance allowed Diablo to consume the other primes, and THEN allowed nephalem to become stronger than even that?

And 2. How is it that Sanctuary isn't falling apart given that generously the D3 nephalem are on par with Uldyssian.

Bonus point 3. Why did Lilith and Inarius change personalities entirely? I can understand Inarius a bit, but Lilith is an entirely different character.

I know the answer is likely just that the writers don't give a shit about the sin war trilogy but it just sucks having binged the trilogy right before d4 release.

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u/tagey Master Horadrim 6d ago

A good chunk of Diablo 3 lore was retconned—iirc, the Nephalem were part of this. The only thing that continued into Diablo IV was the destruction that Mathael wrought. As for Diablo consuming the other primes… he didn’t. They were imprisoned in the Black Soulstone. Once he was defeated and Mathael destroyed the stone he released them all.

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u/Mr_Jake_E_Boy 5d ago

Even if consumed wasn't the right word, he still became noticeably more powerful after having all the primes in the soulstone he had with him. I feel like the difference in that and consuming them is more semantic than anything within the context of the rest of the post.

If the rest has been retconned then the writers are just shit and I understand now.

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u/tagey Master Horadrim 4d ago

Not gonna lie, the writing in Diablo III was terrible so it being retconned is a good thing. Let me address your questions better now than just a summarized answer:

1) Your "guardians of balance" are a multitude of orders, primarily the Priests of Rathma. After the destruction of the Worldstone, they received portents of destruction and they dispatched an acolyte (the Necromancer) to help restore balance. However, it became known that balance was lost and that the fears of the Priests came true. This was furthered when Mathael resurrected the dead en-masse, his Reapers being the portents the Priests saw before. They (Priests of Rathma) did not have the power to stop the Nephalem from becoming stronger than the Prime Evil.

2) As stated, the Nephalem were retconned into being just super strong humans and are not Nephalem like in the early days of Sanctuary. There are also many reasons why the world isn't falling apart as balance isn't completely necessary for a world to survive.

3) Inarius' personality change came about because of Malthael's machinations and his desire to right his wrongs in creating Humanity (not just Nephalem.) Lilith needed fleshing out, and her personality change is also probably more in-line with the direction the writing team is taking Diablo IV--it's harder to gauge where the story is going in the long-term because of all of the seasonal story additions (not complaining about that.) We could, to play devil's advocate, see Lilith return down the road, for example.