the horde loyalist decision

[Mehrunes]

I hate to say this but we all know in the end the loyalist probably gonna get the last laugh.

The fact that Blizzard is continuing the farce that is the loyalist route even now instead of simply "forgetting" about it or making it "do the exact same thing as the traitors and tag 'lel playing along' tag on it" as it has been until now may indeed indicate they are planning something here. Particularly, some kind of a twist. Which is a dreadful prospect because they are atrocious when it comes to twists.

[Bigdoser]

The fact that Blizzard is continuing the farce that is the loyalist route even now instead of simply "forgetting" about it or making it "do the exact same thing as the traitors and tag 'lel playing along' tag on it" as it has been until now may indeed indicate they are planning something here. Particularly, some kind of a twist. Which is a dreadful prospect because they are atrocious when it comes to twists.

Sylvanas is going to be right in some capacity when it comes to dealing with N'zoth. Plus that's the route that gives us relevant story information. The other side is PEACE, PEACE, HONOUR, HONOUR, PEACE!

[Super Dickmann]

Eh, I know it sounds as utter insanity after the last cinematic but I would be cautious in labelling Sylvanas as a guaranteed villain to fight and kill eventually, I've got this feeling that something is a bit "off" about the whole situation. I'm not even trying to say that Sylvanas is an hero in disguise which I don't definitely think she is, but until we don't know what Sylvanas precisely wants to achieve with her plan and how, I'll prefer to just "wait and see" rather than expecting Sylvanas to be the next raid boss or something.

We'll know by Blizzcon. There's ways to interpret her spiel in light of Three Sisters that's less than 100% negative, but I've come thus far being right about her being a cartoon baddie for kicks and I'd rather not spoil my good track record by making predictions that don't hold water. My only hope is that, like Garrosh, now that she's out of the playable factions and the mystery box has almost run its course, they can get back to writing her properly - which is to say writing her at all as the protagonist of her own story instead of a strawman in that of other characters.

A Hellscream or something like Gul'dan's portion of the Tomb of Sargeras story from her perspective as she goes about her evil plan would do wonders to make her properly palatable as at least a better baddie, given what a mess BFA has made of her even in her intended function as an antagonist by being too rarely seen, too vaguely motivated and not especially effective.

@Carolus Rex

Sylvanas confirms she's not an Old God puppet, that she pities the Forsaken but dislikes the living because they cling to hope and 'life' and that the war was done to up the casualty rate so as to feed the souls to an unclear hungering darkness. She intends for the Horde and Alliance to fight N'zoth and for both their dead and for N'zoth himself to end up aiding this capital D death. I'm honestly skeptical as to how much Death is a separate entity, and how much it really is just the domain itself and this whole thing is akin to Odin's plan in American Gods where these deaths empower her personally on her ascension to becoming a Helya or Bwon-style death entity with her own fiefdom in the Shadowlands. The latter is just speculation though.

[mickybrighteyes]

What exactly is happening in the loyalist version? I can't play through that right now. Any important info?

nothing really. Walk in on her and Nathanos sharing some sort of farewell and a continuation of how death is inevitable and that there's no hope to stop what is coming and see walks down and then pops off into the sky cartoon style....

IMO I liked it more than Saurfang's funeral procession but it didn't really shed light on much of anything.

[Carolus Rex]

@Carolus Rex

Sylvanas confirms she's not an Old God puppet, that she pities the Forsaken but dislikes the living because they cling to hope and 'life' and that the war was done to up the casualty rate so as to feed the souls to an unclear hungering darkness. She intends for the Horde and Alliance to fight N'zoth and for both their dead and for N'zoth himself to end up aiding this capital D death. I'm honestly skeptical as to how much Death is a separate entity, and how much it really is just the domain itself and this whole thing is akin to Odin's plan in American Gods where these deaths empower her personally on her ascension to becoming a Helya or Bwon-style death entity with her own fiefdom in the Shadowlands. The latter is just speculation though.

Is there a transcript of this? This does not fit in with how she was presented in the cinematic.

[Mehrunes]

Eh, I know it sounds as utter insanity after the last cinematic but I would be cautious in labelling Sylvanas as a guaranteed villain to fight and kill eventually, I've got this feeling that something is a bit "off" about the whole situation. I'm not even trying to say that Sylvanas is an hero in disguise which I don't definitely think she is, but until we don't know what Sylvanas precisely wants to achieve with her plan and how, I'll prefer to just "wait and see" rather than expecting Sylvanas to be the next raid boss or something.

Could be she's trying to pull a Lelouch. For all the ranting parts of the whole ordeal she did pause a bit and pondered on the situation after the initial "the Horde is nothing" outburst. Only to then continue with the spiel even though, as someone has pointed out in another thread (could have been @Super Dickmann actually) if she wanted to she could still have made a save at that point, following the "Horde is nothing" with something like "a Warchief that doesn't lick Alliance's boots like you love to" or whatever. So her following the outburst even after a moment of thought on the issue could have been to deliberately rile people up against her.

Not that a Lelouch is needed given how the Alliance and the faction formerly known as Horde are singing kumbaya together while snorting Anduin's magical bone dust even though in the first cinematic of this godforsaken patch Saurfang was just talking about how the divide between the factions is too large, both him and Anduin mentioned some of the shit their faction has done to the other and even though even at the start of the second cinematic most of the Horde stood behind Sylvanas and her war. But then again it's Blizzard so rational thought flies out of the window and they could still make their "grand" twist in regards to Sylvanas a Zero Requiem no matter how redundant it is at this point.

But whatever it is, chances are the "grand" twist is coming. They made a loyalist quest that isn't just a carbon copy of the traitor one with "lel play along" at the end of it for the first time for a reason.

Is there a transcript of this? This does not fit in with how she was presented in the cinematic.

There's a cinematic for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AUpwFZKC38

[Super Dickmann]

Is there a transcript of this? This does not fit in with how she was presented in the cinematic.

Here's a video of it.

[oplawlz]

To be fair I don't care about the horde either - I just want to kill gnomes and dwarves.

[Estravolt]

faction formerly known as Horde

This salt tho.

Amazing.

[Life-Binder]

This salt tho.

Amazing.

keep asking Anduin how high you are supposed to jump

[Estravolt]

keep asking Anduin how high you are supposed to jump

Thanks for adding to the pile, I suppose?

Not to mention, pretty rich coming from someone about to become a mindless servant.

[Carolus Rex]

There's a cinematic for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AUpwFZKC38

Ah thank you. I guess it makes more sense to me when I listen to her say it. So ultimately she just wanted for more and more people to die so she could feed them to her master.

I would assume that master is Helya and that she made that bargain with her in order to stay out of that same hungering darkness she is feeding souls into.

[Mehrunes]

Sylvanas confirms she's not an Old God puppet, that she pities the Forsaken but dislikes the living because they cling to hope and 'life' and that the war was done to up the casualty rate so as to feed the souls to an unclear hungering darkness. She intends for the Horde and Alliance to fight N'zoth and for both their dead and for N'zoth himself to end up aiding this capital D death. I'm honestly skeptical as to how much Death is a separate entity, and how much it really is just the domain itself and this whole thing is akin to Odin's plan in American Gods where these deaths empower her personally on her ascension to becoming a Helya or Bwon-style death entity with her own fiefdom in the Shadowlands. The latter is just speculation though.

There's a chance she's talking about herself. The Windrunner reunion comic had her say the same "all will serve death" bit, followed by "all will serve... me". Having equated death with herself before and now referring to Death with capital D, it could be that she found a way to use the energy generated by throwing souls into the Shadowlands as a power boost for herself and is indeed trying to ascend or whatever rather than serving some other entity.

Like I said in another thread, the idea of Sylvanas serving some powerful entity from the Shadowlands doesn't sit well with me and I'd have actually preferred if she was an ally of N'Zoth after all (though like I said, I didn't think she'd be given her reaction to Alleria getting Void-ified). Because Sylvanas' primary motivation since Arthas' death was avoiding the shithole that is Shadowlands. And given how she tends to operate, i.e. how she blamed the entirety of humankind for Arthas, she'd have blamed the lords of Shadowlands for that place being a shithole.

So it wouldn't make much sense for her to work for someone she'd dislike for the current thing motivating her. Now, I know she worked with Helya, but Helya was forced into that position by Odyn and, even more importantly, had Val'kyr, making Sylvanas' pragmatism win there (plus she also could have planned to fuck Helya over like she did for N'Zoth later on).

Going back to the idea of Sylvanas personally feeding on that energy, now that I thought about it some more, there's also the bit from Bwonsamdi who said that Sylvanas has a habit of keeping those she kills and we haven't exactly seen all that much of Val'kyr resurrection this expansion. On top of that in Darkshore the surviving Val'kyr mentioned that there is still more to their pact with Sylvanas and that the one who died there didn't get to fulfill her part.

[schwank05]

I will follow her or any other of her replacement's as long as I get the play the evil race/ faction. That is after all why I choose Horde way back when anyway. I will loyally serve her in hopes that I get to gain even a fraction of her power in the end.

[Mehrunes]

This salt tho.

Amazing.

What salt? It's now led by traitors that sold their faction out to the Alliance. That makes it Alliance's doormat.

Ah thank you. I guess it makes more sense to me when I listen to her say it. So ultimately she just wanted for more and more people to die so she could feed them to her master.

I would assume that master is Helya and that she made that bargain with her in order to stay out of that same hungering darkness she is feeding souls into.

In regards to the video, there's also a bit happening before the cinematic. Primarily the farewell between Nathanos and Sylvanas. I think also some other gossip text.

[Estravolt]

What salt? It's now led by traitors that sold their faction out to the Alliance.

And that's somehow worse than someone trying to sell them to her master as flesh and souls?

[mickybrighteyes]

What salt? It's now led by traitors that sold their faction out to the Alliance.

The attitude people have about it all is still Salty as fuck. The writers have shown a lot of us our place that's for sure.




I guess it's going to save many players money on the next expansion.

[Super Dickmann]

There's a chance she's talking about herself. The Windrunner reunion comic had her say the same "all will serve death" bit, followed by "all will serve... me". Having equated death with herself before and now referring to Death with capital D, it could be that she found a way to use the energy generated by throwing souls into the Shadowlands as a power boost for herself and is indeed trying to ascend or whatever rather than serving some other entity.

Like I said, the idea of Sylvanas serving some powerful entity from the Shadowlands doesn't sit well with me and I'd have actually preferred if she was an ally of N'Zoth after all (though like I said, I didn't think she'd be given her reaction to Alleria getting Void-ified). Because Sylvanas' primary motivation since Arthas' death was avoiding the shithole that is Shadowlands. And given how she tends to operate, i.e. how she blamed the entirety of humankind for Arthas, she'd have blamed the lords of Shadowlands for that place being a shithole. So it wouldn't make much sense for her to work for someone she'd dislike for the current thing motivating her.

Going back to the idea of Sylvanas personally feeding on that energy, now that I thought about it some more, there's also the bit from Bwonsamdi who said that Sylvanas has a habit of keeping those she kills and we haven't exactly seen all that much of Val'kyr resurrection this expansion. On top of that in Darkshore the surviving Val'kyr mentioned that there is still more to their pact with Sylvanas and that the one who died there didn't get to fulfill her part.

Yeah, I've thought about the Bwon thing as well and was referencing that part about how she equates Death with herself. It'd be my preferred reading of it, simply because it maintains Sylvanas as someone out for herself above all, rather than being anyone's lackey. It also gels with some of the other phrasing used. Like how N'zoth says that the Light has made a bargain with the enemy of all or Alleria's whispers telling her the same. In that case it's also referring to the entire cosmic force of the Light, the Void, Death etc. not to a specific entity and the same might apply here.

I don't think it's a Lelouch plot, mind you, but in as much as they might try to salvage it later, I'm amenable to the thought of her being okay with bailing, since she tipped her Dark Rangers off before then was a way of ensuring her goal didn't backfire. In the sense that while it'd get her a bunch of souls to fuel her power to have the rebels, alliance and Horde duke it out, even if she wins, which is likely, she'd then be leading an overall weaker force vs. N'zoth and by virtue of who she is, not have access to the various plot magic like Wrathion or Magni that'll inevitably be used to resolve N'zoth. So it works out for her to let the Unifaction take out N'zoth, adding both more of them and him to the pile.

It'd also explain another inconsistency, which is why Sylvanas has barely raised anyone in BFA and rejects the Forsaken, which, provided she's the one nomming on souls is because raising them puts them into her domain politically and physically, but not spiritually and so doesn't enhance her power or her chance of ascension and thus permanently escaping hell.

@Estravolt

In an in-story sense, no, of course not, being Anduin's groupies is better for them. But in a metanarrative sense, yes, having an actor who enables conflict is better than not having it. A story without conflict isn't a story. And that is the current state of the Horde-Alliance Unifaction. Barring Tyrande it simply has no realms for conflict or difference.

[Evilfish]

Thanks for adding to the pile, I suppose?

Not to mention, pretty rich coming from someone about to become a mindless servant.

I'm sure Anduin's following would welcome us to the mindless minion club. Are you part of the welcoming committee?

[Aucald]

Ah thank you. I guess it makes more sense to me when I listen to her say it. So ultimately she just wanted for more and more people to die so she could feed them to her master.

I would assume that master is Helya and that she made that bargain with her in order to stay out of that same hungering darkness she is feeding souls into.

Sylvanas isn't very forthcoming about whether or not she serves a "master" (presumably some entity which has authority over her), or if she's in the service of a specific force or power - meaning she has no master aside from the accumulation of that power. It's kind of hard to tell based on her words, and if she is in someone else's service she likely wouldn't be keen to admit it (the same as Azshara refused to bow or scrape before N'Zoth during the Sundering).

Possible it's an entity, and it's possible Sylvanas is simply looking out for and enriching #1, as it were - directly feeding on Death as a power source to empower herself directly.