Sylvanas conclusion is proof of bad writing *Spoilers*

[Zuben]

I'm left wondering what the Loyalist end-game is. Since there was an afterscene for us means there's more to it, but Sylvanas bugging off from the Horde for no reason than venting her in-the-moment anger feels like a fuck you to Loyalists. Because at least I wasn't loyal to Sylvanas, but to her philosophy for the Horde. Now Horde is removed from that and I'm just left a Sylvanas loyalist, which isn't what I chose.

[walle87]

Sylvanas going from a middle of the pack undead way inferior to the likes of kel'thuzad to a deus ex machina able to fight malfurion and killing saurfang in a fight is what i call bad writing.

I won't even comment on the military part of the story blizzard always make errors and retarded choice when it come down to that remember how the alliance and the horde attacked the broken shore without any strategy and got raked?

Did you even listen to the convestation after the mak'gora? Sylvanas used magic the others didn't recognize. It's clear that she has acquired new powers along the way. I think we will learn more about it later.

[Dr Assbandit]

I've found that it's usually small tidbits hidden in between dialogues that usually turn out to be the most interesting lore wise in the future. Such as when asking Anduin where Tyrande is he mentions that she hasn't been returning his missives and that vengeance has consumed her.

[tehdef]

lol you actually expect good writing from blizzard? They've got their head stuck up their own asses and have been butchering their characters personality as well as literally butchering the character themselves for so long. It's shit writing, that's all it is and that's all you'll get. They still haven't even told us who or what told vol'jin to appoint Sylvanas as the warchief.

blizzard writing is all about vague bullshit and keeping the end goal a mystery. It's the shock/surprise factor these people ride their boat on.

And yet here you are with 10 yeas of membership to a World of Warcraft forum, run by the very company you so deeply criticize.

[walle87]

I've found that it's usually small tidbits hidden in between dialogues that usually turn out to be the most interesting lore wise in the future. Such as when asking Anduin where Tyrande is he mentions that she hasn't been returning his missives and that vengeance has consumed her.

I agree. And the conversation after the mak'gora when they talked about the new magic that Sylvanas used.

[Flurryfang]

I've found that it's usually small tidbits hidden in between dialogues that usually turn out to be the most interesting lore wise in the future. Such as when asking Anduin where Tyrande is he mentions that she hasn't been returning his missives and that vengeance has consumed her.

Would be cool if Tyrande and Genn turned upon the horde in the next joint offensive and lead into an Alliance dominated Azeroth in 9.0. Then Horde would be the underdogs, fighting as rebels and the Alliance would be an empire-sort of faction, trying to keep what they gained in their victory

[Nfinitii]

I feel like the entire war had really weird story telling and writing, I couldnt follow it at all. So Horde starts out strong in 8.0 by destroying teldrassil, in 8.1 they lose their fleet and since then you keep hearing about how horde is taking a beating from every front and its only a question of when they will lose the war. Then 8.2.5 rolls in and Anduin goes "We only have troops for one attack on Orgrimmar". What?

They lost a bunch of their troops in nazjatar when the sea opened up. Seems like Sylvanas goal is to get as many ppl killed as possible. But for what we will have to c

[Timotei]

"The horde is nothing" now she said one single line and that's it, now that one line changes everyone's opinion on her. Now she's really proven that she's evil. Now we have to fight her.
Yeah, pretty clever writing team, pretty clever.
Christie Golden at it's best.

[Dr Assbandit]

Would be cool if Tyrande and Genn turned upon the horde in the next joint offensive and lead into an Alliance dominated Azeroth in 9.0. Then Horde would be the underdogs, fighting as rebels and the Alliance would be an empire-sort of faction, trying to keep what they gained in their victory

That would have made for a better story than how the current one has played out. I dunno between Legion and BFA the story seems really broken and isn't "flowing" well if I had to use a word to describe it. It seems like pieces of different plot points haphazardly joined together rather than going from point A to B to C.

[dope_danny]

Where did the meme of Sylvanas being some ice queen master manipulator come from? shes emotionally retarded and suffers from massive anger issues. She is just garrosh but instead of 'muh father' its 'muh death'. She has a singular character trait and everything else is generic, genocidal outbursts of rage.

[Aeula]

Hope is Sylvanas' trigger word. She always lashes out and does something stupid when someone mentions it around her.

But yes, the writing is terrible as always. We all expected this, let's be real. Nothing in 8.2.5 was in any way surprising.

[Trbn]

Where did the meme of Sylvanas being some ice queen master manipulator come from? shes emotionally retarded and suffers from massive anger issues. She is just garrosh but instead of 'muh father' its 'muh death'. She has a singular character trait and everything else is generic, genocidal outbursts of rage.

from wc3 obviously

[Khaza-R]

This whole ending fealt like: "Oh shit, we have to wrap up the faction war quickly to make room for the N'Zoth raid, but we don't have any dungeons or raids or even battleground in it. Quickly, do something."

Yeah totally. Because it’s so easy to rush produce 6 minute cinematic cutscenes of that quality

[tyrlaan]

Sylvanas is not ice cold and unemotional

She is highly emotional and utterly destroyed and sick inside.
That's why she is so dangerous. Super sick personality + an army under control = bad things happen
Now that clever orc grandpa knew it and tricked her into losing the last bit of that warchieve mask

Simple but good plot. Nothing fancy.. but on that Hollywood level of marvel films.
What do you expect? Nobel prize winning literature level story?

Yup pretty much this.

I really only have one quibble - I wish that by the end of this arc that the Horde had established its new leadership.

Nothing too surprising in this ending, I think. I would hardly think that they would end her just like that, but she was turned too evil and an enemy of the "good guys" so exile would be the most plausible outcome. If they keep being obvious, then it will turn out that she (and probably Nathanos) is possessed by some Old God. At any rate, what pisses me off a bit about the ending is that Thrall doesn't take on the role as Warchief again, even though that obviously was the last wish of Saurfang.

She's almost certainly not possessed by an old god since she explicitly talks about her plan to us N'zoth.

I also doubt that Saurfang's last wish was for Thrall to lead again. They had that conversation in the previous cinematic and Saurfang made it pretty clear he wanted Thrall to help push out Sylvanas but didn't care if he came back to lead the Horde.

I'm left wondering what the Loyalist end-game is. Since there was an afterscene for us means there's more to it, but Sylvanas bugging off from the Horde for no reason than venting her in-the-moment anger feels like a fuck you to Loyalists. Because at least I wasn't loyal to Sylvanas, but to her philosophy for the Horde. Now Horde is removed from that and I'm just left a Sylvanas loyalist, which isn't what I chose.

Yeah, it's cool on one hand - because it appears that path will continue and I'm curious to see where it goes (enough so that I'll be churning through the war campaign on an alt I choose to be a Sylvanas loyalist) - but definitely awkward too, for the reason you lay out here.

Part of me wonders if the Sylvanas loyalist vs Saurfang loyalist split will serve as the genesis of a new faction divide many folks have been predicting. Especially considering the dialog of the Saurfang/Anduin cutscene and the Sylvanas cutscene, it really feels like they're laying the groundwork to replace Horde vs Alliance with Life vs Death.

I agree. And the conversation after the mak'gora when they talked about the new magic that Sylvanas used.

Indeed. I have to assume she used "death" magic.

[Wangming]

Yeah totally. Because it’s so easy to rush produce 6 minute cinematic cutscenes of that quality

So they rushed the writing cause they needed time to make the cutscene. Gotcha

[Grosbill]

Oh damn, you sure got me there!
Truth is I just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE blizzard! Teehee. That's why I complain online!

Get your shit together if you're going to stupidly point at something that has no relevance to the discussion. Yes I've been a member for 10 "years". Have I been active for those 10 years though? Majority of it I wasn't using this website at all because I wasn't playing wow.

You have an average of 2.5 posts a day over the past 18 months (what posting history shows)

That’s prety active tbh

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

She has never been shown in game or the books as "ice cold... etc"

Mak-Gora is also pretty important to Horde culture...

[Satelliteyears0o]

How the hell did she lose???

Lor’themar said in 8.2 no less that Sylvanas had the support of the people. Anduin even says «Is that all?» to Saurfang when he sees their warcamp.

Now what am I trying to say? Sylvanas losing was fucking stupid. Anduin literally says the Alliance army is shattered, the night elves and worgen are stuck fighting in Darkshore

Sylvanas controls Orgrimmar, a city that literally was rebuilt by Garrosh to become an impenetrable fortress. Its not the Horde and Alliance vs Orcs and mercenarius anymore, Its the Alliance Vs the Horde.

So whats the problem? Blizzard butchered her character. There was NO reason for her to accept the Mak’gora, and even when whe kicked Saurfangs ass, they still made her throw it by saying that the horde is nothing. I dont care if she thinks so. Shes an icecold, calculated manipulator, she would have kept her mouth shut if she was in character.

She could have blight bombed their entire army from the comfort of their walls and send out the horde to clean up whats left. If Jainas ship return, just blow it to bits with the Bilgewater Cannon.

I am so tired of Blizzard lying constantly. «The Iron Horde will become the greatest threat we’ve ever faced». Literally every leader save 2 die before 8.1

«Greatest Legion invasion ever» Literally never leaves an Isle and gets their ass kicked by covert groups at the tomb compared to thousands of demons and archimonde killing everything and pouring out of the well

«Sylvanas will make Garrosh look like an amateur» LMAO! GARROSH MADE HER LOOK LIKE AN AMATEUR!

If you had been paying attention at all since wrath you would know sylvanas is very much an emotionally driven individual and as much as you would like to think she is a brilliant strategist, which she is in her own right, she has done some really stupid things like kill both alliance and horde at the wrathgate, then plays it off like it was a coup cuz she made an idiotic call. In Teldrassil she decided to go 1v1 against Malfurion whom she got rekt by only to play it off like she had the upper hand the entire time, once Saurfang came to her rescue, then made a stupid decision to burn the tree down to kill hope just to spite Delaryn and try to hammer the message home to everyone present. It remains a leading theme, which she wants to kill hope to arrest everyone to despair in preparation for the inevitable, that we will all die and in the shadowlands is where we need to fight because thats where the old gods are.

All she ended up accomplishing was riling up the alliance, losing lordaeron, getting the hordes ass handed to them during 8.1, creating all this negative turmoil due to emotionally charged decisions which she is apparently prone to (remember the windrunner comic where she stays execution of her sisters because of what Vereesa said to her at the end got to her).

She had definitely decided to kill saurfang, but the moment he retaliated and struck her she lost it (she got emotionally comprised...again) and gave away her true nature on where she really stood. She used the horde merely as canon fodder and views our squabbling as futile for the inevitable fate that is closely coming.

Saurfang sacrificed himself and outed Sylvanas to everyone, horde and alliance. She then proceeded to cheat by using an unknown source of power, killing saurfang then flying off.

[Aphrel]

Shes an icecold, calculated manipulator, she would have kept her mouth shut if she was in character.[/B]

She hasnt given that impression at all this expansion nor in the earlier ones.
Not even in warcraft 3 campaign where she was first introduced living and breathing or in the campaign after where shes undead.

Shes always been a hothead driven by her emotions (mostly anger).

[Unlight]

Sylvanas is not ice cold and unemotional

She is highly emotional and utterly destroyed and sick inside.
That's why she is so dangerous. Super sick personality + an army under control = bad things happen
Now that clever orc grandpa knew it and tricked her into losing the last bit of that warchieve mask

Simple but good plot. Nothing fancy.. but on that Hollywood level of marvel films.
What do you expect? Nobel prize winning literature level story?

Sylvanas is not ice cold and unemotional anyway since her Retcon by Blizzard during BFA.

Show me a proof she's highly emotional and utterly destroyed and sick inside during Vanilla, BC or WOTLK? You simply cannot because she was not write like that at all.
Otherwise, if she was really so emotionally retarded, like she is in this expansion, she would be the first boss of Burning Crusade because with this quality of writing she would not be able to hide her intent more than 5 min.

And not that's not a good plot, when you retcon all the personality of a character because you need a boss it's not a good plot. At this rate, in 2 expansions, Thrall will be a Void Lord because they need something surprising and "no one know what he did during his time in Draenor".

Oh and if "Morally Grey" is that for Blizzard then Grey and Black are the same color.