[SPOILERS]Burning of Teldrassil: What if...

[Deleted]

And they said Garrosh was evil, he was quite sweet compared to Sylvanas.

Rip another warchief.

Fully agree. Garrosh was Just a tyrant. And a rasist. but he still liked " strong" races, the better races in his eyes, Tauren, trolls and orcs. but he liked those, he was a simple evil.

sylvanas is comicbook level of evil" oh i can't destroy your hope with war? let me burn down the world tree" She only cares for herself and then, 5% the forsaken.

[Highwhale]

Guys. Just let it go. Admit Sylvanas is evil. Stop it. Please.

She burned the tree out of spite. She was pitied by some random nobody and she got mad. Thats all.

[Twdft]

Nope. You can literally see moment when Sylvanas come up with idea of burning the tree. She's just evil.

Burning down a tree of that size needs some real firepower. Which was already there. Sylvanas didn't decide in that moment, she wanted to burn it down from the beginning.

[THEORACLE64]

It could be a front she puts up to make people believe this is the only way, and that it is her goal to carry it out.
She is known to be deceitful, but keeping (what she thinks is best for) the Forsaken's best interest before anything, which can also be seen in Before the Storm.
Maybe the Azerite helped her see this.

No. Her intention, even at the start of the cinematic, was to invade the tree - you literally saw the moment she decided to. She did not know she was going to talk to Delaryn, she did not know what Delaryn was going to say, she did not go there with the intention of burning Teldrassil. You saw the moment she decided to. These 2 brain celled theories are getting old already.

[ophion1990]

Yeah the best way to paint this is it's about the Red and Blue continents. That the only way to secure Kalimdor for the Horde was to take away the last thing the Night Elves would fight for.

Though that still contradicts her actions at the Battle for Undercity.

Is Teldrassil really the last thing they'd fight for? The tree isn't even 20 years old, the Night Elves should care a whole lot more about the forests of Ferelas, Ashenvale, Darkshore and, you know, Hyjal. Considering those are the places where they've lived for, like, 10k years.

[Anjerith]

Is Teldrassil really the last thing they'd fight for? The tree isn't even 20 years old, the Night Elves should care a whole lot more about the forests of Ferelas, Ashenvale, Darkshore and, you know, Hyjal. Considering those are the places where they've lived for, like, 10k years.

If someone blew up Vatican city, I promise you that Catholics would be bothered a lot more by it than if someone blew up a random Catholic neighborhood.

Teldrassil is the spiritual capital of the Night Elves regardless of its age.

[Highwhale]

Is Teldrassil really the last thing they'd fight for? The tree isn't even 20 years old, the Night Elves should care a whole lot more about the forests of Ferelas, Ashenvale, Darkshore and, you know, Hyjal. Considering those are the places where they've lived for, like, 10k years.

Imagine if ISIS bombed Jerusalem or Vatican. Yea what kind of shitstorm it would caused in our world?

[Evilfish]

Imagine if ISIS bombed Jerusalem or Vatican. Yea what kind of shitstorm it would caused in our world?

Honestly I think you need to cut this line of thinking. This isn't the real world. The Vatican wasn't burned, it was the Teldrassil, a giant tree from a fictional world.

[Highwhale]

Honestly I think you need to cut this line of thinking. This isn't the real world. The Vatican wasn't burned, it was the Teldrassil, a giant tree from a fictional world.

Yea and i'm talking about Night Elves people who also fictional characters and race.

[Flinchyy]

Guys. Just let it go. Admit Sylvanas is evil. Stop it. Please.

She burned the tree out of spite. She was pitied by some random nobody and she got mad. Thats all.

"wahhhh!! please stop disagreeing with my opinion, my opinion is the only opinion and is fact"

That's how you sound. This is more than likely nowhere near as clear cut as you're making it out to be. What's wrong with people trying to look for logic in what she's doing?

[XDurionX]

If this had been the case, she could just have told Malfurion and Tyrande instead of killing everyone on sight.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry but you expect too much from current age blizzard writers. This will just be another garrosh 2.0 but even worse

[Kathranis]

Either her motivation is what she said it was, in which case it's weak reasoning on her part that undermines her own plans, and also vilifies her and the Horde by extension.

-or-

Her motive will be retconned to acting for the greater good, in which case she was putting on an act for a random dying night elf on the beach.

Either way the writing is tired, poor, and unoriginal, and leaves the Horde's players and its other leaders complicit in yet another war crime. Even if she is eventually given a better reason for doing it, everyone else is still forced to go along with it in the meantime, which arguably makes them worse than her, because they were willing to stand by.

[ophion1990]

If someone blew up Vatican city, I promise you that Catholics would be bothered a lot more by it than if someone blew up a random Catholic neighborhood.

Teldrassil is the spiritual capital of the Night Elves regardless of its age.

The age doesn't matter but you use an ancient city as an example. Either way, see below.

Imagine if ISIS bombed Jerusalem or Vatican. Yea what kind of shitstorm it would caused in our world?

The Vatican is a difficult example by itself because it's an independant state, unlike Teldrassil, which is 1 town off the coast of a large part of Night Elven land. If the vatican gets sacked and the rest of Rome or even all of Italy get taken, it seems unlikely that the Italians would just abandon all of that land, even if the Vatican is gone, right? They'd find tooth and nail to get it back, because even without the Vatican, that's their ancestral land.

[pacotaco]

Am I the only one who sees the Burning of Teldrassil as a parallel of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Both acts of massive, sudden, unthinkable destruction to render the opponent hopeless in the name of a dubious justification of shortening the war and reducing losses on both sides against an enemy that would never surrender.

You could argue: "yeah, they should never do that", but there are not many alternatives:
- You retreat, the Alliance arrives and help the elves, and then they strengthen their position and end controlling the west coast of Kalimdor.
- You siege Teldrassil indefinitely (it's auto-sufficient), the Alliance arreives, and you end fighting a double front war: The elves on one side, the Alliance on the other, with you in the middle. And I tell you, that is very, very bad.

It looks like this was the only way for Sylvanas to win this battle, and it's highly reprobable at the same time. So: Morally grey.