Marius pulls Baal's soulstone out of his chest, and Tyrael tells him to take it too the hellforge, and Marius witnesses Diablo's transformation and fails to enter the portal to hell. There are some MAJOR flaws in this part of the story line...
First of all, how did Marius, a sickly, old, cowardly man, escape Tal'Rasha's Tomb, travel across the desert, find a ship to Kurast, travel through the jungle, pass through Travincal, get inside the Durance of Hate (remember, we needed Kalims flail to even open the entrance, so how did Marius get in?), go through all 3 levels, and then after watching Diablo enter the portal, travel allllll the way back to some random asylum, where, later on, Baal kills him disguised as Tyrael? There are also some chronological problems with this. Remember when we (your character) first leave Kurast and pass the Dark Wanderer (Diablo), and he spawns a bunch of demons and disappears? Well, lets look at the timeline...
1. Marius removes Baals soulstone, and is ordered by Tyrael to take it to the hellforge (this raises further questions, as how did Tyrael know that Baal, Diablo, and Mephisto would open a portal to hell in the Durance of Hate? he even admitted to the hero that.. "Though it is unclear as to what their aims are, it is certain that they must be stopped at all costs")
2. Baal and Diablo fight Tyrael, and escape
3.Our hero speaks to Tyrael in Tal'Rasha's tomb
4.Our hero sails to Kurast(sidenote: Meshif said that this was the first time he had sailed to Kurast in a very long time, so how did Marius get to Kurast?)
5. Our hero passes the Dark Wanderer outside of Kurast(who is supposedly behind Marius, as Marius left first. Also, where is baal? he and diablo were together and talrashas tomb, and were together at the portal to hell, so they presumably traveled together, but we see diablo traveling alone)
6. Marius witnesses the opening of the portal to hell
7. Diablo enters hell
8. Our hero goes inside the Durance of hate and kills Mephisto
9. Our hero goes through the portal of hell and into the pandemonium fortress
My line of reasoning is that in order to first of all reach the portal to hell, Marius would have needed a lot of help. he only made it to Tal'rasha's tomb because he was with diablo. According to the line of events, Marius left shortly before Diablo and Baal; he could have traveled with them, but not likely, as baal would have just taken the soulstone then and killed him. Assuming that he would be slow, there might have been enough time for Tyrael to speak with our hero, and then catch up to Marius and help him through the jungle, but then, why not just go into hell himself? But wait, he did. Tyrael is in the pandemonium fortress when the hero arrives in hell. that means that tyrael was the last person to leave the tomb, and the second to reach hell. this all has me extremely confused.
What I notice after writing this is the only true chronological wierdness. New timeline incoming:
1. Diablo is killed and the soulstones are destroyed.
2. The hero travels through the portal opened by Tyrael,
3. Marius tells Tyrael (Baal) that he have heard about this.
(he heard about it, so quite a while must have passed between Diablo's death and Baal's visit)
4. Baal gathers a horde of demons and makes a large scale assault on Mount Arreat.
5. The hero arrives at Harrogath.
WTF! Look at how much that happens between when the hero enters and leaves the portal. A rumor reaches Marius, Baal visits and kills him, Baal gathers a horde of demons, Baal assaults Mount Arreat and apparently leaves the scene. THEN the hero arrives. Tyrael's portals must be very ineffective.
And apparently Cain is there with him when he arrives. Conclusion? Games doesn't make sense.
this is true, the timing and timeline are horribly done, but what you have to remember is that for someone who went out and bought diablo 2 when it first came out and beat it relatively fast, it would be a whole year before diablo 2 LoD came out and, to the player, a whole year would have gone by between killing diablo and baals attack on harrogath. so heres my conclusion: blizzard made the timeline based on what the player of diablo 2 would experience, because as you play the game it all makes perfect sense, but written down it doesnt.
Ok, this is the way I think if it... Who gives half a rat's ass about all this. It's going to be a great game and you get to kill demons and whatnot. Happy ending yay
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Ok, this is the way I think if it... Who gives half a rat's ass about all this. It's going to be a great game and you get to kill demons and whatnot. Happy ending yay
Actually a lot of people have an interest in the story. At least be a bit more respectful even if you don't care.
I myself do not feel very compelled by the diablo storyline. It annoys me for some reason. All I see is a vicious circle having superior powers at struggle and with all the rest being mere collateral damage. This crap of all heroes (except barby) having gone mad after D2 really pisses me off... That might just be their catch phrase for D3 but it's still quite poor.
@OP: I'm being off-topic here. Sorry for that- but am not willing to delve too deeply in diablo lore because I'll most certainly find a few plotholes(like you did) that will further mess up the already underwhelming story for me.
Hmm guys.. I just thought about something while reading all this.. I don't know if it's been said before but.. you know how Baal pretends to be Tyrael? Well maybe Tyrael got possessed or some shit. Maybe when he destroys the worldstone.. it actually isn't him, maybe it's Baal.. Would explain why nobody even found or heard of Baal's soulstone.. cuz maybe, just maybe Baal never even died and what we killed was just a "copy" of himself.(you know that trick he does where he summons a clone of himself) Just a thought, might not make sense.
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I was going to give you a reply, but there are a lot of problems which I blame on game constraints and poor timeline check by Blizzard. They simply didn't notice the inconsistencies, or didn't deem them interesting.
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PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Oh, there's a plot hole. Oh, there's another one. Oh, so many plot holes.
One thing though, and I'm not trying to ignite debate:
I think the reason that Tyrael knew there would be a portal is because it seems that the Pandemonium Fortress is in it's own plane of existence (along with Hell). I mean, you're going down into Hell from the fortress, so it kinda makes sense that...
Oh wait, then how does the crack in the earth come about in D1? IT'S ALL TOO CONFUSING!
*offs self*
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
If you think about, Blizz has never been too interested in keeping a coherent in game lore. They're much more interested in game play mechanics.
Some examples of this (beyond what has been mentioned):
In War3, the hero description of the demon hunter makes it seem like there are a decent number of them, yet in game, there is only one.
In SC and Warcraft, you have the whole size issue with ships and dragons and boats and what not.
Similarly, in the story, infantry has no hope vs dragons, capital ships, tanks, ultralisks, etc, but in game, mass marines tend to counter almost all air.
Again, similar to above, in SC1, the lore about the wraith is that they were used because they could "dodge" the capital ship energy weapons, thus deal damage over time to a ship and not get killed. In game this "dodge" mechanic consists of them sitting in place and getting shot.
Why are the heroes from D1 who become D2 mini-bosses so easily killed? Blood Raven is killed by lvl 4-6's, and the false summoner is killed by lvl 12-15ish.
In D2, why exactly does the Pally voluntarily fight? He's a member of the Zakarum, shouldn't one of the corrupted leaders have said "uh, go do something else"?
Anyway, this is probably why Blizz decided that books are canon (at least, I'm pretty sure they said that), cause the writers are better at creating a coherent lore.
There's a difference one has to make between game limitations and obvious lore blunders. The former are most of what you point out: problems that they do not want to fix because it would affect gameplay negatively. Introducing all thousands of Night Elves who obviously fought against the Burning Legion wouldn't have worked very well in the WC3 engine.
The situation with Marius however is only told through cinematics, which stick to believability (you never see marines shooting at battlecruisers in the cinematics). Blizzard could have fixed this if they'd just sat back and said "hey, this doesn't make any sense at all" and it would not have had to effect the actual gameplay of D2. Rewrite the script for the cinematics, change some npc conversations, remove the Dark Wanderer from the Spider Forest, done.
In War3, the hero description of the demon hunter makes it seem like there are a decent number of them, yet in game, there is only one.
There are more demon hunters, a few appear in WoW. Not a whole lot, but more than one. And whatever we see in WC3 isn't everything that's happening, and obviously not to scale. Or did only 50 Night Elves fight against 50 Undead in the Battle for Mount Hyjal?
In SC and Warcraft, you have the whole size issue with ships and dragons and boats and what not.
Similarly, in the story, infantry has no hope vs dragons, capital ships, tanks, ultralisks, etc, but in game, mass marines tend to counter almost all air.
Again, similar to above, in SC1, the lore about the wraith is that they were used because they could "dodge" the capital ship energy weapons, thus deal damage over time to a ship and not get killed. In game this "dodge" mechanic consists of them sitting in place and getting shot.
A doge mechanic would probably have made the wraith too powerful, since it wouldn't be that hard to actually implement. Perhaps the Wraiths started with a dodge function in an alpha version.
Why are the heroes from D1 who become D2 mini-bosses so easily killed? Blood Raven is killed by lvl 4-6's, and the false summoner is killed by lvl 12-15ish.
Because people don't level up in a "real world". That's solely a gameplay mechanic, if it hadn't been a game then all heroes would already be "high-level", and they would not have to run through Nightmare after killing Baal.
And besides, who said the Rogue and Sorcerer did a good job in D1? Perhaps they died to the Butcher?
In D2, why exactly does the Pally voluntarily fight? He's a member of the Zakarum, shouldn't one of the corrupted leaders have said "uh, go do something else"?
This actually isn't a blunder. The Paladin belongs to an off-shot of Zakarum warriors who disagreed with the harsh methods of conversion the church employed. When the Zakarum became more and more fanatical, the group the Paladin belongs to set up shop in Westmarch instead. The guys in Kurast would probably label him rebel or heretic. Though I agree it is never made explicitly clear. It's in the manual though.
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Blizzard could have fixed this if they'd just sat back and said "hey, this doesn't make any sense at all" and it would not have had to effect the actual gameplay of D2. Rewrite the script for the cinematics, change some npc conversations, remove the Dark Wanderer from the Spider Forest, done.
Well, if you look at it, it can make sense. We know that since Marius survived Tristam, he is at least somewhat capable of keeping himself alive, even if it's just running from the monsters. I always figured the cinematics implied he snuck in, and that much of the demons only really manifested themselves AFTER the wanderer passed by.
As to the wanderer right outside the docks, yeah, that's not well explained. While there are ways to justify it (some plausible, some not so much), I just chalk it up to poor communication between the cinematic team and the map team.
There are more demon hunters, a few appear in WoW. Not a whole lot, but more than one. And whatever we see in WC3 isn't everything that's happening, and obviously not to scale. Or did only 50 Night Elves fight against 50 Undead in the Battle for Mount Hyjal?
There were? Sorry, I never played WoW, and was going soley based on how the campaign portrayed Illidian (what with the way people responded to his particular powers)
And besides, who said the Rogue and Sorcerer did a good job in D1? Perhaps they died to the Butcher?
I thought it was generally accepted that the warrior was the wanderer, the rogue was blood raven, and the wizard become the false summoner. And if they did die to the Butcher, why is BR described in D2 as a great captain in the fight against Diablo in Tristram?
This actually isn't a blunder. The Paladin belongs to an off-shot of Zakarum warriors who disagreed with the harsh methods of conversion the church employed. When the Zakarum became more and more fanatical, the group the Paladin belongs to set up shop in Westmarch instead. The guys in Kurast would probably label him rebel or heretic. Though I agree it is never made explicitly clear. It's in the manual though.
Well, if you look at it, it can make sense. We know that since Marius survived Tristam, he is at least somewhat capable of keeping himself alive, even if it's just running from the monsters. I always figured the cinematics implied he snuck in, and that much of the demons only really manifested themselves AFTER the wanderer passed by.
I agree with that. But Kurast sure as hell was filled with nasty monsters and fanatics by the time Marius got there, and this time he was not traveling in the protective company of Diablo.
I thought it was generally accepted that the warrior was the wanderer, the rogue was blood raven, and the wizard become the false summoner. And if they did die to the Butcher, why is BR described in D2 as a great captain in the fight against Diablo in Tristram?
Oh right, I forgot that "great captain" part.
Still, my point of game mechanics and heroes not actually levelling applies. If anything, Hell difficulty should be viewed as closest to how things did go down.
Perhaps they made a fake Wanderer when they left the Kurast Docks and when someone would come close it would spew out monsters to kill them/slow them down? And I'm not saying this because we're now questioning the logic of it all... I actually thought this is what happened the first time I encountered the thing and have never actually thought it was really Diablo who we were catching up to :/
I am going to doubt that is what actually happened purely based on the hoops we have to jump here to actually make this story fit together
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Ha, I just read this thread, quite interesting. One thought about the problem with the portal - one year being in between the killing of Diablo and LoD. What if portals also have the ability to manipulate time? It sounds like a cheap solution, but surely if teleportation is possible, then time travel could be as well? (I think in real life some form of time travel, especially to the future, might even be easier to achieve than that kind of teleportation). Probably half of what the NPC's say still won't make sense, but I guess it might be possible that Tyrael, who obviously knows more about the laws of the universe than you do, would be able to send you to the place and time where you're needed? It would also make sense that he doesn't start explaining to the hero like "yeah uhm, trouble only starts in one year, but I must make sure you stay in good shape, so just in case I'm uhm... gonna send you one year into the future if you don't mind".
Ha, I just read this thread, quite interesting. One thought about the problem with the portal - one year being in between the killing of Diablo and LoD. What if portals also have the ability to manipulate time? It sounds like a cheap solution, but surely if teleportation is possible, then time travel could be as well? (I think in real life some form of time travel, especially to the future, might even be easier to achieve than that kind of teleportation). Probably half of what the NPC's say still won't make sense, but I guess it might be possible that Tyrael, who obviously knows more about the laws of the universe than you do, would be able to send you to the place and time where you're needed? It would also make sense that he doesn't start explaining to the hero like "yeah uhm, trouble only starts in one year, but I must make sure you stay in good shape, so just in case I'm uhm... gonna send you one year into the future if you don't mind".
that is plausible, but you can't say blizzard intended to secretly make portals like that.
I think there are ways to explain the story that would potentially even be quite plausible or logical and are in fact sometimes the way I thought of it when I first saw it. That of course doesn't change the fact that the storytelling could have been done much better than it was. The fact that you don't encounter Marius during the game at all makes it hard to have a notion of what happen when in the cinematics. As I see it this is the story from Marius' perspective:
Marius was living quite peacefully in the Rogue Monastery. Then the Dark Wanderer came and ransacked the place with swarms of demons behind him forcing the rogues to flee. While most of the rogues fled to the west to try and take back their home, Marius managed to flee to the east before the Monastery gates were closed and Andariel was put in place to guard the passage to the east. Marius fled to a pub where we see him in the first intro. The Dark Wanderer finds him there and the two journey towards Lut Gholein. (Meanwhile the D2 hero starts his quest to clear the Monastery, free Cain, kill Andariel yada yada)
Marius and the Wanderer make their way to Lut Gholein. They journey through the desert and search for one of the Horadric staves. (Meanwhile Jehryn orders Meshif to stay docked as monsters follow in Diablo's wake, the hero arrives and starts searching for one of the staves as well.) Diablo finds Tal Rasha's tomb after searching through all of them and uses the staff to open the path to Baal. (Meanwhile the hero is running around the Palace and the Arcane Sanctuary searching for the Journal). Since I doubt the only barrier standing between the orifice and Tal Rasha's chamber was a normal wall (you could break through that with a hammer) the entrance is magical and reseals itself after Diablo leaves with Baal. Marius however leaves before them after freeing Baal since IMO the talk between Marius and Tyrael happens mentally rather than in reality. That's why we see the conversation while things happen rather than after Baal disarms Tyrael and the two Evils leave...also that part of the cutscene looks more like a vision to me rather than what really happens afterwards. After Marius runs away following Tyrael's orders, Baal and Diablo summon Duriel to their side to guard the Tomb. After Diablo and Baal leave, the entrance reseals itself because all the people who entered have left again (both Marius and Diablo). This would explain why the entrance doesn't reseal itself in the game. You are unable to climb back up from there, because Duriel has made his lair in there and probably destroyed whatever path lead to the exit in the process.
Diablo and Baal leave the desert and find another boat (Lut Gholein is surely not the only city on the shores of the sea). Meanwhile the hero kills Duriel and frees Tyrael. Marius travels across the Twin Seas either aboard another boat as well or is hidden on Meshif's ship and travels with you as a stoveaway. Diablo and Baal journey through the jungle and are close to reaching Kurast. The moment you enter the jungle, you encounter Baal (not Diablo) who is standing there to see if they are being followed (or, if he knew they are, how much time they have before you catch up with them). He summons demons (as he does in the Worldstone Keep) to kill you/slow you down and teleports back to Diablo to report about your progress (since Baal is the only one with teleportation abilities it must either be him or his clone). While you run through the jungle (which is corrupted by Mephisto's powers) Marius secretly leaves the ship and follows the path you have cleared. Diablo and Baal reach Travincal and with the help of the High Council enter the Durance. The Horadrim meant Mephisto to be kept inside. Therefore, they blocked the entrance down to Mephisto only so that humans with the know-how could enter. Sankekur and others from the council had to get to Mephisto somehow to be corrupted by his soulstone, right? They were left in charge of Mephisto and must have known the way down there. You clear the jungle, Marius still secretly in your wake and destroy the compelling orb, opening the entrance. While you are clearing the Durance of Hate, Marius rushes through quickly, past the enemies, to the deepest level and witnesses the opening of the portal. Since he can't make himself enter the portal, he runs away, while you make your way down to kill off Mephisto and enter the portal. You kill Diablo while Marius reaches the asylum, Baal (after sending his armies from Hell to Harrogath) is in his wake, searching for his Soulstone.
Marius hides in the asylum and hears about you killing Diablo. After some time, Baal finds him, kills him, takes the stone and travels to Arreat (again using his teleportation abilities and the powers of the soulstone in his possession to get from the asylum to Arreat where his armies are already laying siege to Harrogath.) The hero reaches Harrogath some time afterwars as Tyrael's portal doesn't actually send him all the way to Harrogath, and the hero must journey some more before reaching the city. Don't forget that for example after entering the gate to hell you start off in Pandemonium Fortress - however I seriously doubt that's where Diablo and Baal appeared after entering the portal, thus the portal must take you to somewhere in hell and from there you have to reach the Fortress on foot (with Tyrael probably guiding your way with his powers).
At least, that's my take on all this. It's not the most elegant explanation I guess but it makes sense. Hopefully.
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First of all, how did Marius, a sickly, old, cowardly man, escape Tal'Rasha's Tomb, travel across the desert, find a ship to Kurast, travel through the jungle, pass through Travincal, get inside the Durance of Hate (remember, we needed Kalims flail to even open the entrance, so how did Marius get in?), go through all 3 levels, and then after watching Diablo enter the portal, travel allllll the way back to some random asylum, where, later on, Baal kills him disguised as Tyrael? There are also some chronological problems with this. Remember when we (your character) first leave Kurast and pass the Dark Wanderer (Diablo), and he spawns a bunch of demons and disappears? Well, lets look at the timeline...
1. Marius removes Baals soulstone, and is ordered by Tyrael to take it to the hellforge (this raises further questions, as how did Tyrael know that Baal, Diablo, and Mephisto would open a portal to hell in the Durance of Hate? he even admitted to the hero that.. "Though it is unclear as to what their aims are, it is certain that they must be stopped at all costs")
2. Baal and Diablo fight Tyrael, and escape
3.Our hero speaks to Tyrael in Tal'Rasha's tomb
4.Our hero sails to Kurast(sidenote: Meshif said that this was the first time he had sailed to Kurast in a very long time, so how did Marius get to Kurast?)
5. Our hero passes the Dark Wanderer outside of Kurast(who is supposedly behind Marius, as Marius left first. Also, where is baal? he and diablo were together and talrashas tomb, and were together at the portal to hell, so they presumably traveled together, but we see diablo traveling alone)
6. Marius witnesses the opening of the portal to hell
7. Diablo enters hell
8. Our hero goes inside the Durance of hate and kills Mephisto
9. Our hero goes through the portal of hell and into the pandemonium fortress
My line of reasoning is that in order to first of all reach the portal to hell, Marius would have needed a lot of help. he only made it to Tal'rasha's tomb because he was with diablo. According to the line of events, Marius left shortly before Diablo and Baal; he could have traveled with them, but not likely, as baal would have just taken the soulstone then and killed him. Assuming that he would be slow, there might have been enough time for Tyrael to speak with our hero, and then catch up to Marius and help him through the jungle, but then, why not just go into hell himself? But wait, he did. Tyrael is in the pandemonium fortress when the hero arrives in hell. that means that tyrael was the last person to leave the tomb, and the second to reach hell. this all has me extremely confused.
this is true, the timing and timeline are horribly done, but what you have to remember is that for someone who went out and bought diablo 2 when it first came out and beat it relatively fast, it would be a whole year before diablo 2 LoD came out and, to the player, a whole year would have gone by between killing diablo and baals attack on harrogath. so heres my conclusion: blizzard made the timeline based on what the player of diablo 2 would experience, because as you play the game it all makes perfect sense, but written down it doesnt.
Actually a lot of people have an interest in the story. At least be a bit more respectful even if you don't care.
I myself do not feel very compelled by the diablo storyline. It annoys me for some reason. All I see is a vicious circle having superior powers at struggle and with all the rest being mere collateral damage. This crap of all heroes (except barby) having gone mad after D2 really pisses me off... That might just be their catch phrase for D3 but it's still quite poor.
@OP: I'm being off-topic here. Sorry for that- but am not willing to delve too deeply in diablo lore because I'll most certainly find a few plotholes(like you did) that will further mess up the already underwhelming story for me.
Embrace this moment. Remember...
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
Next question: Did he also bring with him some stonemasons to fix the hole in the wall after using the stave to open Tal Rasha's Chamber?
One thing though, and I'm not trying to ignite debate:
I think the reason that Tyrael knew there would be a portal is because it seems that the Pandemonium Fortress is in it's own plane of existence (along with Hell). I mean, you're going down into Hell from the fortress, so it kinda makes sense that...
Oh wait, then how does the crack in the earth come about in D1? IT'S ALL TOO CONFUSING!
*offs self*
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
Some examples of this (beyond what has been mentioned):
In War3, the hero description of the demon hunter makes it seem like there are a decent number of them, yet in game, there is only one.
In SC and Warcraft, you have the whole size issue with ships and dragons and boats and what not.
Similarly, in the story, infantry has no hope vs dragons, capital ships, tanks, ultralisks, etc, but in game, mass marines tend to counter almost all air.
Again, similar to above, in SC1, the lore about the wraith is that they were used because they could "dodge" the capital ship energy weapons, thus deal damage over time to a ship and not get killed. In game this "dodge" mechanic consists of them sitting in place and getting shot.
Why are the heroes from D1 who become D2 mini-bosses so easily killed? Blood Raven is killed by lvl 4-6's, and the false summoner is killed by lvl 12-15ish.
In D2, why exactly does the Pally voluntarily fight? He's a member of the Zakarum, shouldn't one of the corrupted leaders have said "uh, go do something else"?
Anyway, this is probably why Blizz decided that books are canon (at least, I'm pretty sure they said that), cause the writers are better at creating a coherent lore.
The situation with Marius however is only told through cinematics, which stick to believability (you never see marines shooting at battlecruisers in the cinematics). Blizzard could have fixed this if they'd just sat back and said "hey, this doesn't make any sense at all" and it would not have had to effect the actual gameplay of D2. Rewrite the script for the cinematics, change some npc conversations, remove the Dark Wanderer from the Spider Forest, done.
There are more demon hunters, a few appear in WoW. Not a whole lot, but more than one. And whatever we see in WC3 isn't everything that's happening, and obviously not to scale. Or did only 50 Night Elves fight against 50 Undead in the Battle for Mount Hyjal?
Right. But solely a gameplay issue.
A doge mechanic would probably have made the wraith too powerful, since it wouldn't be that hard to actually implement. Perhaps the Wraiths started with a dodge function in an alpha version.
Because people don't level up in a "real world". That's solely a gameplay mechanic, if it hadn't been a game then all heroes would already be "high-level", and they would not have to run through Nightmare after killing Baal.
And besides, who said the Rogue and Sorcerer did a good job in D1? Perhaps they died to the Butcher?
This actually isn't a blunder. The Paladin belongs to an off-shot of Zakarum warriors who disagreed with the harsh methods of conversion the church employed. When the Zakarum became more and more fanatical, the group the Paladin belongs to set up shop in Westmarch instead. The guys in Kurast would probably label him rebel or heretic. Though I agree it is never made explicitly clear. It's in the manual though.
As to the wanderer right outside the docks, yeah, that's not well explained. While there are ways to justify it (some plausible, some not so much), I just chalk it up to poor communication between the cinematic team and the map team.
There were? Sorry, I never played WoW, and was going soley based on how the campaign portrayed Illidian (what with the way people responded to his particular powers)
I thought it was generally accepted that the warrior was the wanderer, the rogue was blood raven, and the wizard become the false summoner. And if they did die to the Butcher, why is BR described in D2 as a great captain in the fight against Diablo in Tristram?
Thanks, didn't know that.
Oh right, I forgot that "great captain" part.
Still, my point of game mechanics and heroes not actually levelling applies. If anything, Hell difficulty should be viewed as closest to how things did go down.
I am going to doubt that is what actually happened purely based on the hoops we have to jump here to actually make this story fit together
that is plausible, but you can't say blizzard intended to secretly make portals like that.
I think there are ways to explain the story that would potentially even be quite plausible or logical and are in fact sometimes the way I thought of it when I first saw it. That of course doesn't change the fact that the storytelling could have been done much better than it was. The fact that you don't encounter Marius during the game at all makes it hard to have a notion of what happen when in the cinematics. As I see it this is the story from Marius' perspective:
Marius was living quite peacefully in the Rogue Monastery. Then the Dark Wanderer came and ransacked the place with swarms of demons behind him forcing the rogues to flee. While most of the rogues fled to the west to try and take back their home, Marius managed to flee to the east before the Monastery gates were closed and Andariel was put in place to guard the passage to the east. Marius fled to a pub where we see him in the first intro. The Dark Wanderer finds him there and the two journey towards Lut Gholein. (Meanwhile the D2 hero starts his quest to clear the Monastery, free Cain, kill Andariel yada yada)
Marius and the Wanderer make their way to Lut Gholein. They journey through the desert and search for one of the Horadric staves. (Meanwhile Jehryn orders Meshif to stay docked as monsters follow in Diablo's wake, the hero arrives and starts searching for one of the staves as well.) Diablo finds Tal Rasha's tomb after searching through all of them and uses the staff to open the path to Baal. (Meanwhile the hero is running around the Palace and the Arcane Sanctuary searching for the Journal). Since I doubt the only barrier standing between the orifice and Tal Rasha's chamber was a normal wall (you could break through that with a hammer) the entrance is magical and reseals itself after Diablo leaves with Baal. Marius however leaves before them after freeing Baal since IMO the talk between Marius and Tyrael happens mentally rather than in reality. That's why we see the conversation while things happen rather than after Baal disarms Tyrael and the two Evils leave...also that part of the cutscene looks more like a vision to me rather than what really happens afterwards. After Marius runs away following Tyrael's orders, Baal and Diablo summon Duriel to their side to guard the Tomb. After Diablo and Baal leave, the entrance reseals itself because all the people who entered have left again (both Marius and Diablo). This would explain why the entrance doesn't reseal itself in the game. You are unable to climb back up from there, because Duriel has made his lair in there and probably destroyed whatever path lead to the exit in the process.
Diablo and Baal leave the desert and find another boat (Lut Gholein is surely not the only city on the shores of the sea). Meanwhile the hero kills Duriel and frees Tyrael. Marius travels across the Twin Seas either aboard another boat as well or is hidden on Meshif's ship and travels with you as a stoveaway. Diablo and Baal journey through the jungle and are close to reaching Kurast. The moment you enter the jungle, you encounter Baal (not Diablo) who is standing there to see if they are being followed (or, if he knew they are, how much time they have before you catch up with them). He summons demons (as he does in the Worldstone Keep) to kill you/slow you down and teleports back to Diablo to report about your progress (since Baal is the only one with teleportation abilities it must either be him or his clone). While you run through the jungle (which is corrupted by Mephisto's powers) Marius secretly leaves the ship and follows the path you have cleared. Diablo and Baal reach Travincal and with the help of the High Council enter the Durance. The Horadrim meant Mephisto to be kept inside. Therefore, they blocked the entrance down to Mephisto only so that humans with the know-how could enter. Sankekur and others from the council had to get to Mephisto somehow to be corrupted by his soulstone, right? They were left in charge of Mephisto and must have known the way down there. You clear the jungle, Marius still secretly in your wake and destroy the compelling orb, opening the entrance. While you are clearing the Durance of Hate, Marius rushes through quickly, past the enemies, to the deepest level and witnesses the opening of the portal. Since he can't make himself enter the portal, he runs away, while you make your way down to kill off Mephisto and enter the portal. You kill Diablo while Marius reaches the asylum, Baal (after sending his armies from Hell to Harrogath) is in his wake, searching for his Soulstone.
Marius hides in the asylum and hears about you killing Diablo. After some time, Baal finds him, kills him, takes the stone and travels to Arreat (again using his teleportation abilities and the powers of the soulstone in his possession to get from the asylum to Arreat where his armies are already laying siege to Harrogath.) The hero reaches Harrogath some time afterwars as Tyrael's portal doesn't actually send him all the way to Harrogath, and the hero must journey some more before reaching the city. Don't forget that for example after entering the gate to hell you start off in Pandemonium Fortress - however I seriously doubt that's where Diablo and Baal appeared after entering the portal, thus the portal must take you to somewhere in hell and from there you have to reach the Fortress on foot (with Tyrael probably guiding your way with his powers).
At least, that's my take on all this. It's not the most elegant explanation I guess but it makes sense. Hopefully.