The answer is that no one at WotC knows what D&D is supposed to be at this point, so the setting went through 20 years sailing with the Ship of Theseus, with a captain whose sole focus seemed to be fantasising about dark elf matriarchs dominating him. In the middle of that, the game’s Fourth Edition came as a messianic figure from the sky in both mechanics and setting, and was fittingly crucified, continuing the ever-expanding clusterfuck generously called the Forgotten Realms.
The answer is that no one at WotC knows what D&D is supposed to be at this point, so the setting went through 20 years sailing with the Ship of Theseus, with a captain whose sole focus seemed to be fantasising about dark elf matriarchs dominating him. In the middle of that, the game’s Fourth Edition came as a messianic figure from the sky in both mechanics and setting, and was fittingly crucified, continuing the ever-expanding clusterfuck generously called the Forgotten Realms.