Plot-holes (spoilers)

[snabbott]

Alexander knowing or not knowing doesn't really change the facts - though I suppose you could argue that the "writer" of the manual didn't know Manannan's true intentions.

Anyway, from what I've heard, Roberta herself wasn't overly concerned with maintaining the continuity of the "canon." (Note that I'm not trying to say anything about what she would think about this particular plot twist.) It's certainly within the developers' creative license to break continuity with the original games, especially since they have explicitly stated (multiple times) that this game is not meant to be canon. If you like it, fine. Otherwise, nobody is forcing you to play it.

There's a certain amount of literary (?) integrity involved in developing a story you know not everybody is going to like and not cave in. True, you want to please the fans, but it's just not possible to please everybody and sometimes you just have to stick to your vision.

[KatieHal]

Well-said Stephen

[Lambonius]

It's certainly within the developers' creative license to break continuity with the original games, especially since they have explicitly stated (multiple times) that this game is not meant to be canon.

Right, stated it once they were called out on how fast and loose they were playing around with established series history. 

[Cez]

It's certainly within the developers' creative license to break continuity with the original games, especially since they have explicitly stated (multiple times) that this game is not meant to be canon.

Right, stated it once they were called out on how fast and loose they were playing around with established series history.  

Right, because by originally calling it "The unofficial King's Quest IX" the day we first went live with a website, it clearly meant we thought it was fully canon.

[Roivas]

I personally always thought the Black Cloak Society was just a union of some kind for magical bastards around the world. The plot for these games are fine, I just always thought that Shadrack was just going to be a slightly more powerful wizard with a more labyrinthine plot to become king of some distant land.

The Silver Lining does have quite a few retcons to make their plot function, but they aren't so much holes as background alterations. Manannan could've been a reclusive black wizard with some good left in him and a paranoid streak a mile wide and now for the purposes of the plot he always was. Plus in terms of the story, he never actually killed Alexander, he just always seemed distant and menacing.

You have to keep in mind your hundreds of deaths throughout the series aren't considered canon.

[tslaccount]

There is a canon King's quest 3 scene that shows Mannanan has a tiny soft side towards Alexander:

If you try to walk down the mountain and the wizard is still around, he stops you, but allows you to live that one time.

Every other transgression equals death.

[Arkillian]

I don't think so. The same applies if you go into a forbidden room too often. The man doesn't want to train another baby boy how to talk and read without good reason >.>

[Damar]

Yeah, the narration if you're off in Llewdor when Manannan comes back implies that Manannan was about to off you, but then he changes his mind and just sends you back home.  So it is a brief moment of mercy.  That said, I don't think you can use that as evidence that Manannan was actually not totally evil.  After all, just because he wasn't as purely evil as possible doesn't mean that he wasn't evil.

So I'm also in the camp of seeing Manannan as very evil.  It doesn't bother me that TSL is giving him a bit of internal conflict though.  If anything, that kind of slight good side just makes Manannan all the more infuriatingly evil.  He's not pure evil, he knows what he's doing is wrong, yet he does it anyway.  He's too morally weak to take a stand and he just justifies it as following orders.  He's like the Nazi officers put on trial at the end of the war who basically had the defense of "Well, what could I have done?"  How about you do what's right?  The good in Manannan doesn't complicate the character by making him more likable.  It kind of does the opposite.  It makes him more evil, just a different kind of evil than we thought.

[Arkillian]

So I'm also in the camp of seeing Manannan as very evil.  It doesn't bother me that TSL is giving him a bit of internal conflict though. 

I feel this way too I like him having internal conflict It's some nice drama