Sylvanas evil ? Don't think so [Spoilers and theory crafting]

[Deleted]

If you think that burning helpless civilians and their kids as an evil fact is opened to opinions then dunno what else to say. Sure, you can say that in your opinion it wasn't evil and "that's war", but don't act surprised when so many people will disagree with you.

It's not that I THINK it's open to opinion, it very clearly IS, regardless of how far you put your fingers in your ear to not want to listen to other peoples opinions, they are just as valid as yours. This is the case in game and in the real world, every single act of good and evil, right or wrong always brings with it very different opinions and points of view, people shouldn't be forcing their views onto others and expecting them to just agree.

I fully understand that people have a different view to me, that's fine and their opinion is just as valid, but that doesn't mean that people with a different opinion to yourself are wrong.

This argument happens every single time, so many threads are like this, and it can all be solved by people being mature enough to understand that not everyone has the same point of view, nothing can be labelled as "evil" or "good" just as simply as that and what ever people consider to be "good" and "evil" are personal opinions, not absolutes.

[Haven]

You don't have to intend to destroy the entire race. You bolded that part yourself. Are you getting enough fluids? Your cognitive functions seem to be completly off. She intended to destroy Darnassus. See point (a)? Can you read it? Can you understand it? Good! And next, point (b). Can you read that too? Or do you need a break? Have a cup of coffee.

Genocide doesn't mean "Killing a race". It means "destroying a people". If that is an entire race, or the population of one village, doesn't matter. You act towards their destruction for the purpose of their destruction. That is genocide.

Again, where's the intend to destroy night elves specifically? The intend was to weaken the Alliance. She didn't care if those were night rlves, humans, or murlocs in Teldrassil. The way you make it out to be, harming any group of people is genocide. Horoshina and Nagasaki - two genocides. Like you said, "If that is an entire race, or the population of one village, doesn't matter". Camp Taurajo was genocide, attack on goblin ship was genocide, Daelin's attack on Durotar was genocide, forcing trolls to flee from their islands was genocide, Garithos' actions against blood elves were genocide... Alliance is attempting to genocide people of the Horde all the time. Point (a) and point (b).

[Rafoel]

Genn is a bit farfetched I'd admit, but he's definitely obsessed with killing Sylvanas.

Jaina on the other hand would have been a way better option. She could have easily justified it to herself.
"They've already done it (bombing theramore) once, it's only a matter of time before they do it again! What can I do to start a war to wipe them all out? "
"...I have to start the war myself, I have to do what they will do sooner or later anyway, I have to burn down teldrasil"

Never understood this line of thinking.

Sylvanas burnt the world tree full of her ENEMIES? OMG she is so evil, what is this, bad writing, Saurfang needs to kill her asap etc. etc.

It would be SO much better if instead Jaina/Genn burnt the world tree full of their ALLIES. So intriguing, such morally grey story.


No, seriously, its out of character for FRICKING SYLVANAS to burn the tree, but it makes sense for JAINA to do that? What is wrong with you people?

[Perryn]

This argument happens every single time, so many threads are like this, and it can all be solved by people being mature enough to understand that not everyone has the same point of view, nothing can be labelled as "evil" or "good" just as simply as that and what ever people consider to be "good" and "evil" are personal opinions, not absolutes.

So much nonsense.

Let's test your theory in the easiest way possible. You kill your parents, whom for the sake of this argument are good and healthy.

What is your 9.9 gymnastics for saying that this act is neither good nor evil, it's all a matter of perception, a matter of opinion?

"There are good people on both sides". Yeah.

[Skulltaker]

Again, where's the intend to destroy night elves specifically? The intend was to weaken the Alliance. She didn't care if those were night rlves, humans, or murlocs in Teldrassil. The way you make it out to be, harming any group of people is genocide. Horoshina and Nagasaki - two genocides. Like you said, "If that is an entire race, or the population of one village, doesn't matter". Camp Taurajo was genocide, attack on goblin ship was genocide, Daelin's attack on Durotar was genocide, forcing trolls to flee from their islands was genocide, Garithos' actions against blood elves were genocide... Alliance is attempting to genocide people of the Horde all the time. Point (a) and point (b).

Dude, you fail to grasp the meaning of the word 'intent'. Intent, legally speaking, means "the decision to bring about a prohibited consequence." This is from canadian legislature, but the same meaning holds true for all nations, bar rogue states. I'd be happy to look it up for whereever you come from. Russia? Here you go.

"Article 357. Genocide
Actions aimed at the complete or partial extermination of a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group as such by killing its members, inflicting grave injuries to their health, forcible
prevention of childbirth, forcible transfer of children, forcible resettlement, or by any other
method of creating living conditions meant for the physical destruction of the members of this
group,
Shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of 12 to 20 years with restriction of
liberty for a term of up to two years, or by deprivation of liberty for life, or by capital punishment. "

Russian criminal code of law, as of June 1996. Took me 10 seconds to find it.

Intent stands opposite to bringing a prohibited consequence due to neglect, or due to accident. She doesn't have to care whom specifically she kills. She kills for the sake of killing. She kills to bring destruction towards the people of Darnassus. There is no other goal here that cannot be met by other means. That constitutes genocide. If Hitler hat decided to weaken his enemies to the east, and proceeded to kill romanians, chechs and polish for that reason, it is genocide. This isn't MY interpretation It is THE interpretation It is THE law. It is a law YOU live by.

And no. You can not. I'm sick and tired of repeating the facts over and over again and again because you cannot be bothered to do five minutes of research and look it up for yourself. Either that, or your cognitive capabilites aren't enough to understand the fine points of the law. Bombing a city during war is not considered genocide. Burning the giant magical tree the city is built upon, which woll indubitably result in ALL OF THEM DYING is genocide.

And for the completion of the argument, there are many historians and students of the law who DO consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki genocide.

And no. Not all acts of war are genocide. If, for example, civilians are killed as part of combat actions. Which wasn't the case in Teldrassil: No combatants in the city, of either side, bar wounded. If you aim to destroy enemy war machine or infrastructure, specifically, and kill civilians in the process. But Sylvanas doesn't do that. She destroys not only the traninig grounds, barracks, armory, etc, nor does she target them and accepts collateral damage. Can you name a single instance where members of the alliance killed members of the Horde for no other reason then them being members of the Horde, on orders of their superiors? Without the goal to capture territory, resources or information? Or to defend territories, resources or information? No. But here, we have the Warchief of the Horde ordering the destruction of Teldrassil with all inhabitants, for no other reason than to destroy it.

She aims to destroy it all. Root and stem, literally. Along with its people. She accepts their death as a consequence of her action. She accepts that there is no way for them to escape. She could have warned them. Could have given them time to evacuate. Could have taken them prisoners. But she didn't do any of that.

She killed them. Ruthlessly, indifferently. And that is genocide.

[Byleth]

In my personal opinion, she did the right thing, this is war, not a mass meet up of people wanting to hold hands.

Cool, so you're down with Genocide. We're done talking.

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So did the allies in ww2.

But the Nazi's did nothing wrong, right?

[Biowned]

Talking about genocide is stupid in this case. She can always raise all of them as an army of undead. It's quite obvious that she finds more value on the dead. If you have the power to raise the dead, conquering the biggest Alliance settlement on your continent AND increasing your troop numbers seems like the right choice. As Saurfang said, this is about persevering.

Unless for some lore reason she can't raise elves, then the plot is garbage and she's evil.

[Quaade]

Laniano the human mental pretzel.

Your core argument is flawed. You say ruling is Machiavelli bla bla edgy shit. You confuse, like so many others, good with naive.

If you know Discworld you know that Carrot Ironfunderson is good. He is in no way naive. He dispatches a villain who had commited murder and threatened to kill his friends, the only future for him was at the end of a rope, so he runs him trough with a sword. No mologue about how great he is, no gloating, just straight up killing him. Which according to the law would had been the result anyway.

Then he makes someone else let him in or "I will regrettably have to follow my orders."

The orders were "leave if they refuse to let you in." The othe guy think it involves violence and a future where has a lot less teeth. So instead asking what the orders were, he lets him in.

Another charater then thinks that it was like bluffing in poker without even having a hand.

Far too many confuse good with naive and fail to realise just how efficient a good, non naive ruler would be.

[gaymer77]

It was genocide.

The actual canon novella calls it that itself.

You dont get to just wave your wand and go, "Nah its cool she murdered thousands of civilians, its war brah!" ESPECIALLY when she started the war on absolute bullshit reasoning.

I do think its funny that you're trying to argue what is or is not genocide and pretend that the person you're talking about who committed it isn't evil. I think maybe when you're trying to parcel out why something TECHNICALLY isn't genocide, you've already lost the argument.

If the war ends with Sylvanas being Warchief still and having faced no consequences, I know a hell of a lot of people who are going to just quit, including myself, because the story will have been destroyed so much to keep this one horribly written character around that its not worth even devoting time into keeping up on.

The war did not start with the burning of the tree. The war started when the asshole Genn & the idiot king Anduin decided to send SI:7 troops to Silithus after the goblins mining. They even said themselves that they didn't know what the Azurite is for but felt the need to go to Silithus to stop them from mining it. Sylvanas & Galywix never said they were going to use the Azurite on the Alliance (watch the cutscenes). Genn & Anduin decided to break the peace by sending SI:7 over there. Sylvanas was just looking out for the Horde and trying to stop the war before it went any further.

Also if you (and others like you) quit the game because you feel she didn't get punished for doing what she did, feel free to save your money now & just leave the game now. It might be better off without people like you playing it. Make sure you also don't frequent this website and other fansites after you quit too because if you do all you're doing is trolling the sites.

[Necroxis]

The war did not start with the burning of the tree. The war started when the asshole Genn & the idiot king Anduin decided to send SI:7 troops to Silithus after the goblins mining. They even said themselves that they didn't know what the Azurite is for but felt the need to go to Silithus to stop them from mining it. Sylvanas & Galywix never said they were going to use the Azurite on the Alliance (watch the cutscenes). Genn & Anduin decided to break the peace by sending SI:7 over there. Sylvanas was just looking out for the Horde and trying to stop the war before it went any further.

I mean this is just false. Did you read the novellas? The idea that the Alliance were the big bad aggressors and Sylvanas was just trying to save the Horde instead of being the actual aggressor whom even SAURFANG had to be convinced into attacking Teldrassil through a long, methodical, speech by Sylvanas is ridiculous. As is her entire speech to her about why somehow its necessary to hold Teldrassil hostage.
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Is there a way to turn off notifications because goddamn.

[Deleted]

The war did not start with the burning of the tree. The war started when the asshole Genn & the idiot king Anduin decided to send SI:7 troops to Silithus after the goblins mining. They even said themselves that they didn't know what the Azurite is for but felt the need to go to Silithus to stop them from mining it. Sylvanas & Galywix never said they were going to use the Azurite on the Alliance (watch the cutscenes). Genn & Anduin decided to break the peace by sending SI:7 over there. Sylvanas was just looking out for the Horde and trying to stop the war before it went any further.

Also if you (and others like you) quit the game because you feel she didn't get punished for doing what she did, feel free to save your money now & just leave the game now. It might be better off without people like you playing it. Make sure you also don't frequent this website and other fansites after you quit too because if you do all you're doing is trolling the sites.

The goblins attacked the explorers league and killed sentinels first.

[Haven]

Dude, you fail to grasp the meaning of the word 'intent'. Intent, legally speaking, means "the decision to bring about a prohibited consequence." This is from canadian legislature, but the same meaning holds true for all nations, bar rogue states. I'd be happy to look it up for whereever you come from. Russia? Here you go.

"Article 357. Genocide
Actions aimed at the complete or partial extermination of a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group as such by killing its members, inflicting grave injuries to their health, forcible
prevention of childbirth, forcible transfer of children, forcible resettlement, or by any other
method of creating living conditions meant for the physical destruction of the members of this
group,
Shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of 12 to 20 years with restriction of
liberty for a term of up to two years, or by deprivation of liberty for life, or by capital punishment. "

Russian criminal code of law, as of June 1996. Took me 10 seconds to find it.

Intent stands opposite to bringing a prohibited consequence due to neglect, or due to accident. She doesn't have to care whom specifically she kills. She kills for the sake of killing. She kills to bring destruction towards the people of Darnassus. There is no other goal here that cannot be met by other means. That constitutes genocide. If Hitler hat decided to weaken his enemies to the east, and proceeded to kill romanians, chechs and polish for that reason, it is genocide. This isn't MY interpretation It is THE interpretation It is THE law. It is a law YOU live by.

You judge a fantasy universe characters, applying modern IRL legislation? Oh god. Well, here's another way to apply modern IRL legislation: you literally can't hold Sylvanas responsible. She is not alive. And dead people can't be brought to court.

And no. You can not. I'm sick and tired of repeating the facts over and over again and again because you cannot be bothered to do five minutes of research and look it up for yourself. Either that, or your cognitive capabilites aren't enough to understand the fine points of the law. Bombing a city during war is not considered genocide. Burning the giant magical tree the city is built upon, which woll indubitably result in ALL OF THEM DYING is genocide.

So where exactly does the Geneva Convention mention magical trees with cities on it? I'm genuinely interested. Or portals, through which people evacuated. Which obviously were there. Because it's a capital. It did happen in Alliance scenario. Just saying.

And for the completion of the argument, there are many historians and students of the law who DO consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki genocide.

And no. Not all acts of war are genocide. If, for example, civilians are killed as part of combat actions. Which wasn't the case in Teldrassil: No combatants in the city, of either side, bar wounded. If you aim to destroy enemy war machine or infrastructure, specifically, and kill civilians in the process. But Sylvanas doesn't do that. She destroys not only the traninig grounds, barracks, armory, etc, nor does she target them and accepts collateral damage. Can you name a single instance where members of the alliance killed members of the Horde for no other reason then them being members of the Horde, on orders of their superiors? Without the goal to capture territory, resources or information? Or to defend territories, resources or information? No. But here, we have the Warchief of the Horde ordering the destruction of Teldrassil with all inhabitants, for no other reason than to destroy it.

She aims to destroy it all. Root and stem, literally. Along with its people. She accepts their death as a consequence of her action. She accepts that there is no way for them to escape. She could have warned them. Could have given them time to evacuate. Could have taken them prisoners. But she didn't do any of that.

She killed them. Ruthlessly, indifferently. And that is genocide.

Like I said several times before: the goal was to deny Alliance azerite supply line. I have easier job because I have only to repeat one thesis from the novella, rather than write walls of text full of emotional outrage.

[Tydrane]

I deal with legal documents every day of my professional life. Not criminal prosecution, though.

I can tell you what the condition for intent is in german law. It is "the decision to bring about a prohibited consequence." You have to know about the consequences and their illegality, and you have to want them. She knew about the illegality of her action, and she wanted the outcome.

Is intent different in Australia? Or do you think she intended something else when she torched the city? Maybe fireworks?

I'm not so sure German law would be so proscriptively ambiguous, so I'm quite sure you're probably not entirely accurately framing that definition. Intent, in the capacity to which laws deal with it, is the mens rea component of a crime. It is not, to paraphrase your definition, "the decision to do something bad", rather it is the specific internal directive to bring about a specific result. This is why there are different classifications of criminality when you occasion the death or injury of another person. As I said, you cannot accidentally commit genocide, it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that your intention explicitly genocidal.

Yes, Sylvanas' orders resulted in the death and injury of many Night Elves, but it is abundantly clear that her objective was not to exterminate Night Elves. Her objective was to destroy an important location of significant cultural significance, as well as strategic utility. Mass murder is hardly any better than genocide, it's at least as bad. She did commit mass murder. She didn't commit genocide. The issue now is that you are wrong, you misused a word and you just refuse to admit that you did so through ignorance. I understand you don't want to look stupid, but that ship has sailed. At this point you're just adding intractability to that.

[Deleted]

It's suprises me that actually nobody focused on the real point of this post that is theory crafting for the future.
Anyway, a lot of people live still in a black and white point of view.

What I think, it's kind of scary, is that you use the word genocide for every act that it's considered as "evil". Well, the indiscriminated use of the word genocide is a very bad thing, because it banalise a very precise word that have very precise historial meaning.

I have been playing Wow for 12 years, since Burning crusade, and I honestly think that this pre patch may be the better written one until now.

Mark my words, Sylvanas will either die a hero or do something very much heroic before the end of BfA.

I'm very happy that Blizzard is actually writing mature content for once.

[LuminaL]

oh dear, people still write walls of text to defend sylvanas which we clearly saw is evil.

still you see people connecting sylvanas actions with old gods. " no it was old gods whisper in her ears and mind, its not her" BULLSHIT ! she is undead, undeads are pretty much immune to old gods corruption, then again, deathwing also went mad by old gods whispers, changed the face of azeroth for ever, does it mean he is not evil? just because someone drove him mad means he is not evil ?

you dont start a war, destroy more than 3 villages, destroy druids of cenarius, burn a whole zone, one city and 2 villages inside just so you can "kill hope". then when you are confronted by true might of your enemy, you kill your own soldiers and nuke your own city just so they cant have it.
whispers or not, manipulation or not, you are accounted for your actions. and you dont exactly see remorse or regret in her for what she did.

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It's suprises me that actually nobody focused on the real point of this post that is theory crafting for the future.
Anyway, a lot of people live still in a black and white point of view.

What I think, it's kind of scary, is that you use the word genocide for every act that it's considered as "evil". Well, the indiscriminated use of the word genocide is a very bad thing, because it banalise a very precise word that have very precise historial meaning.

I have been playing Wow for 12 years, since Burning crusade, and I honestly think that this pre patch may be the better written one until now.

Mark my words, Sylvanas will either die a hero or do something very much heroic before the end of BfA.

I'm very happy that Blizzard is actually writing mature content for once.

theory crafting should make sense tho, am I right?

[Tydrane]

oh dear, people still write walls of text to defend sylvanas which we clearly saw is evil.

still you see people connecting sylvanas actions with old gods. " no it was old gods whisper in her ears and mind, its not her" BULLSHIT ! she is undead, undeads are pretty much immune to old gods corruption, then again, deathwing also went mad by old gods whispers, changed the face of azeroth for ever, does it mean he is not evil? just because someone drove him mad means he is not evil ?

you dont start a war, destroy more than 3 villages, destroy druids of cenarius, burn a whole zone, one city and 2 villages inside just so you can "kill hope". then when you are confronted by true might of your enemy, you kill your own soldiers and nuke your own city just so they cant have it.
whispers or not, manipulation or not, you are accounted for your actions. and you dont exactly see remorse or regret in her for what she did.

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theory crafting should make sense tho, am I right?

I think I'm one of the only people willing to admit freely that she is evil, that this comes as no surprise, that her actions are evil and have ruinous consequences.

I just take issue with the misuse of language. It's incredible that people think that mass murder isn't good enough, that they need to keep trying to find a way to make 'genocide' fit, having been proven wrong by the very sources they cite for their definition of the term. Enough is enough, this has become less about condemning Sylvanas' actions and more about Skulltaker's inability to admit being wrong.

[Aleksej89]

Intentionally massacring countless civilians is evil and clearly a war crime by IRL standards (and perhaps warcraft standards as well).

Especially because Sylvanas knows full well what a civilian is considering she was raised/educated as a high elf.

[HavokHeart]

She had the defenders of Darkshore beaten. She could have gone on to occupy Darnassus and Teldrassil. She could have gained her tactical advantage.

Instead, she butchered them. Are you saying she wasn't clear on the outcome of what would happen if the tree is burned? No, I didn't think so. There was no conflict to be won. It was a wanton act of destruction that killed the population of one of Azeroths biggest cities. Genocide.

If you want to keep this discussion going, stop arguing with your feelings, and how you'd call it. Start using facts.

Occupation takes resources. Completely destroying a flammable city gives the same advantage at no cost.

[Syegfryed]

Occupation takes resources. Completely destroying a flammable city gives the same advantage at no cost.

conquering a city, give you their resources, their treasures and their natural resources like hunt, woods and minerals, there was no advantage in burning the city

[Deleted]

Maybe making the whole world hate her is Sylvanas actual plan.There is an anime called "code geass" whose protagonist hatches a similar plan.Its a must see anime but if u do not and dont mind spoilers google "zero requiem" it will explain many of her actions.