I don't think Sylvanas is really the bad villain you think she is

[Wangming]

You raise a fair point. If the evil within Shadowlands is indeed serious enough that she thought all the deaths were necessary, I could see her perspective as sound even if I don't agree with it. Sylvanas wouldn't seek alternatives if she sees a method that works.

She won't be vindicated for it, though, people are too angry, lore-characters and players alike. If there is no empathy in the decision then it's hard to feel positively about the intention. Compare to Arthas seeking to undeadify all life on Azeroth to take on the Legion.

The best way Sylvanas could go at this point is to Lelouch out, die an unsung hero. Emphasis on the unsung. All in all it looks like her battle is nearing its end.

How about she just tells everyone what she saw and comes up with a plan together? There is literally no reason to deceive, manipulate, antagonize and muder her own people. Unless she is doing all this for her own personal gain and nothing else. In which case, fuck her.

[Lord Pebbleton]

I think she chose the most obnoxious, insufferable and overall worst way to get to her goal.

Example: I need to hang a painting. I can put a nail in the wall, stick it with a hammer, and be done.

OR

I can shoot at the wall until I make a hole big enough, shove a red-hot iron rod inside without wearing gloves, and jam the painting square in the middle, then proclaim that everything was planned.

Guess which solution Sylvanas chose in comparison

[Kiivar86]

Ah, but wanna bet the story reveal is going to show us that she has been in league with the Jailor since before WoT, and her mass killing in WoT was towards this "to be revealed" end?!

We already know that, though?

They confirmed it at Blizzcon. She's been in league with the Jailer since she threw herself off ICC.

She's been working with the Jailer for a while now. She's been a part of that "problem" with the Shadowlands and the Maw taking all the souls since it started. She's not solving it, she's helping it.

[Powerogue]

Hmmmmmmm.

[Evilfish]

Yeah well whatever she is right now she remains my favorite character. The only name that gets so many people riled up and triggered upon mention aside Sylvanas is Trump.

[Zuben]

How about she just tells everyone what she saw and comes up with a plan together? There is literally no reason to deceive, manipulate, antagonize and muder her own people. Unless she is doing all this for her own personal gain and nothing else. In which case, fuck her.

That's what we'd do, come up with something together and prevail through combined strength. Never been Sylvanas's way. To her the rest are at best assets. If she saw a great threat in the death realms she probably figured the denizens of Azeroth were too ignorant or too naive to understand or be able to do what needs to be done to stop it. Talking to them about it would be a waste of time so better to just get to work. There's arrogance in her belief she can handle this herself, but that's part of her character. Or she's opting for the Lelouch choice and in some way making it possible for us to defeat the Jailer.

Shadowlands will show if this is the case. It could just be Sylvanas forsook everyone and is 100% in cahoots with the Jailer or at least using him to her own benefit. I'm humoring the possibility there's a hint of empathy in her motivations because of the Loyalist choice. Without it the Loyalists are patsies. Also, Warcraft's stories have been rather formulaic; the trope of characters coming from good starting points having redeeming qualities in the end is strong in the franchise.

[Varodoc]

That's what we'd do, come up with something together and prevail through combined strength. Never been Sylvanas's way. To her the rest are at best assets. If she saw a great threat in the death realms she probably figured the denizens of Azeroth were too ignorant or too naive to understand or be able to do what needs to be done to stop it. Talking to them about it would be a waste of time so better to just get to work. There's arrogance in her belief she can handle this herself, but that's part of her character. Or she's opting for the Lelouch choice and in some way making it possible for us to defeat the Jailer.

Shadowlands will show if this is the case. It could just be Sylvanas forsook everyone and is 100% in cahoots with the Jailer or at least using him to her own benefit. I'm humoring the possibility there's a hint of empathy in her motivations because of the Loyalist choice. Without it the Loyalists are patsies. Also, Warcraft's stories have been rather formulaic; the trope of characters coming from good starting points having redeeming qualities in the end is strong in the franchise.

They already said that the she did not care about her Loyalists and that the Loyalist choice will not continue in Shadowlands.

[Zuben]

They already said that the she did not care about her Loyalists and that the Loyalist choice will not continue in Shadowlands.

Not the point I was making, but alright.

[PuppetShowJustice]

If she saw a great threat in the death realms she probably figured the denizens of Azeroth were too ignorant or too naive to understand or be able to do what needs to be done to stop it.

Which is utter BS. The denizens of Azeroth not that long ago went to another timeline in outer space to build a forward camp to fight figures from the past. One of whom caused a demon spaceship invasion. Sylvanas knows that as War Chief the Horde will follow her, but she's written to turn on them anyways because we need a strong hook for the next expansion and Blizzard is betting people still care about Sylvanas.

The fact that people still kick around a redemption arc for her is silly. Will Blizzard do it? Maybe, but keep in mind they don't even have to bother trying to justify it with anything. They didn't with AU-Grommash. Meanwhile, Yrel went evil. Undead Night Elves are eager to kill their own families after having been raised for six seconds. Anyone's morality is completely fluid depending on the person writing them. If Blizzard does attempt to redeem her you can bet your bottom dollar it won't be deserved and will paint the Night Elves up as jackasses for having the gall to be offended by the fact that she butchered innocents for reasons that will be entirely swept under the rug.

[Quaade]

Because blizzard has given her an iron clad reason, to do what she did - to be revealed in Shadowlands. Something that you can relate to might have been necessary to possibly save or at least bring down the barriers between life and death.


IF you had the view of the after life Sylvanas had, with the urgency of the shadowlands problem - wouldn't you think entirely differently of the value of life and change your mind on whether to take it or not As a horde leader, would it not make sense if you needed more lives sent to the Maw, to rather take the lives of your enemies and thus drum up the war.


While this is never a good thing persay, do not the circumstances warrant a re-assessment of the justification of all this? What is life anyway? If passing into the shadowlands you just transition into another role? What does it mean to live this one here like that so briefly when eternity is where your main existence lies?

- - - Updated - - -

Surely, then this life is only useful for determining what state you get in the next, and this life is where you get to choose. It's the old Christian argument on the afterlife. Where this life that you never chose to have, is given to you by God, however while you are here, you get to determine whether you spend eternity in heaven (and what degree or level or state you do so, doorkeeper or Elder etc) or in hell, tha talso has levels (the level is determined by your actions and choices in this life). Shadowlands is an alternate version of Christianity's message on after life.

The difference is that in wow, the afterlife seems more shades of hell rather than having any real heaven. But I reserve judgement until I actually see what the various covenants are.

What a load of bull. When you've committed genocide then you by default are the villain even though you had subjective reasons. Life is a series of choices, she chose to accept the deal instead of dying, as she originally had planned, because there was no sunshine and rainbows afterlife waiting for her, which we've no way of even knowing is true as the only confirmation we have of what happens to Undead when they die is from the words of the Jailer, who's de facto an unreliable narrator.

By this same logic, you can defend the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide and absolve them of guilt as they believed they were justified. I've never before felt revulsion about someone who posts anywhere and you've made me feel it. You need to reflect on your beliefs because something is wrong with them since you can find a reason to defend this. Yes, see people who do horrible things like people and also know that they did horrible things that they have to accept the consequences of.

Do you know what the most terrifying aspect of the Nürnberg Trails was? That everyone put before the judge looked so normal, looked so much like you and me instead of as the propaganda had portrayed them. At the end of the day, it was ordinary people who had participated in genocide because of ideology or work ethics. Forget human ethics or moral ethics as you so clearly do in your post.

[Varodoc]

Not the point I was making, but alright.

If they are not continuing the Loyalist choice, which they aren't, then there is not empathy in her motivations like you said.

[Wangming]

They already said that the she did not care about her Loyalists and that the Loyalist choice will not continue in Shadowlands.

Which could be a lie just like a whole bunch of things they said about BfA.

But yes. She is an arrogant bitch who thinks she knows better than anyone and is either sacreficing millions for her own selfish goals, or thinks that it is a good idea to double cross a millenia old entity who is the source of her power and can probably take it back any time he wants. Either way, we will be better of when she is gone.

[-aiko-]

She massacred thousands of innocent elves.

So, yeah, she is a super villain. I don't care what Blizzard tries to pull in Shadowlands.

[Edward Wu]

At this point I'm fairly sure people would still defend her even if she ate a baby whole in a future cinematic.

"B-but you don't see her real goal!"

[Zuben]

If they are not continuing the Loyalist choice, which they aren't, then there is not empathy in her motivations like you said.

The Loyalists being a factor in Sylvanas's empathy is more a nod to Blizz not declaring half its Horde players patsies. Otherwise I meant Sylv would feel some semblance of empathy towards mortals at large or something. She cared about her people in life, so it would go against the trope to completely devoid herself of that. I would be surprised if that was the case.

[Varodoc]

The Loyalists being a factor in Sylvanas's empathy is more a nod to Blizz not declaring half its Horde players patsies. Otherwise I meant Sylv would feel some semblance of empathy towards mortals at large or something. She cared about her people in life, so it would go against the trope to completely devoid herself of that. I would be surprised if that was the case.

But that is the case. So much so that after the Loyalist questline she reveals that for years she thought the Forsaken were fools, for clinging to hope, for clinging to life, for disregarding what she "taught" them. She even tried to kill Alleria and Vereesa, both of whom were her sisters and merely wanted to see her again. Though she ultimately couldn't bring herself to do it, that didn't stop her from trying to kill Alleria later on at Lordaeron.

[Shiza]

The problem is not her motivation. The problem is that she has been acting as a cheesy comic book villain. Compared to saaaay Emet-Selch her writing in BfA had been laughably bad.

By the way, depending on her end goal, her entire plan might have been unnecessary. Just saying.

Though I also feel like with Emet-Selch, there was also the difference that SE never tried to sell to us, that he is actually a morally grey guy or not so bad or anything. He is clearly a Villain and when he became antagonistic to us, he clearly enjoyed acting like a theatric villain. He is just open with his ambitions, he wants his friends and family back and he doesn't view the lives on anyone on Eorzea worth living and therefore, he is just unable to care in the slightest about all the suffering he causes. Together with his actually intelligent scheme and his great personality, I think this makes him so great. There is not trying to sell him to us as a secret good guy or morally grey. We can understand his desire to be re-united with his people, but his utter lack of empathy and care towards mortals and the way he is open about building a gigantic expansionist empire for the sole cause of causing global genocide makes him just morally black. Though I have to say, I enjoy Zenos more. He is clearly overpowered to an insane level to the point where he can scare an Ascian away without even being in his real body, but Square is able to make it work, while Sylvanas being overpowered comes off as nothing but cringy. And he is able to be an interesting Villain despite the fact, that he is just utterly chaotic evil. I also loved how he actually was able to steal the victory from us back in the 4.0 MSQ simply by commiting suicide to escape justice.

I generally feel like Blizz could learn a ton from FF14s writing. I mean, look at Alphinaud, he started basically as an elf version of Anduin and his character development since then was just incredibly.

[Thage]

Even he is the clear villain of the movie version (haven't seen the series yet, sorry) and in the end everyone but Rorschach simply agreed that at this point, it would be better to go with his narrative and blame the bombings on Dr Manhattan, who wanted to leave Earth anyway, than to attempt to take Ozymandias to justice.

That doesn't mean they wouldn't have attempted to prevent the events, if given another chance.

It's been a while since I saw the movie, and haven't gotten around to the series yet (my watch list is longer than my arm). In the comic, he created fake monsters and caused widespread deaths in order to unite the world behind a false alien/eldritch threat, to avoid the Cold War's rapidly-approaching nuclear exchange (the metaplot of Watchmen is that Ozy gathered the most famous heroes to try and avoid nuclear war; unfortunately most of the people he recruited were nihilists like The Comedian and Rorschach,, racist reactionaries, or adrenaline junkies like Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II). This is an understandable goal with noble intentions, accomplished through monstrous ends. It makes Veidt an extremely morally grey character, one who knows what he just did is unforgivable and the peak of unethical.

Sylvanas is no Veidt. Her actions are borne of a fear of eternity in the same hell she's blithely damned countless others to, soldier and civilian alike. Even if the authors pull something out of their ass where she was playing a long con and needed an army in the Shadowlands to stop the Jailer, she still spent the past half-decade or so in lore feeding the Jailer so many souls that he's disrupted the balance of power and proper processes in the Shadowlands.

What baffles me is that people twist themselves into pretzels to find reasons she isn't evil even after she practically put a flashing neon sign reading 'I'm the new metaplot villain' over her head.

[Soon-TM]

Sylvie was never a nice person, but in BfA writers went quite out of their way to make sure that she's no longer a shadowy, dubious, selfish !@#$% (anyone knew that already from freaking Vanilla) but 200% EEEEBUUUUULLLL, Saturday morning cartoon villain-tier. Hell, even in BfA itself, folks like Zul or King Mechagon are better written than Sylvie. Also, her having maybe the thickest plot armour in the entire game certainly doesn't help, to the point that makes me think she will be Kerriganised by the end of SL.

[Florena]

I'm actually sad he is gone. But also glad that he didn't get the chance to overstay his welcome. I could probably make a seminar out of his reveal to the players. Hell he could be used to show how N'Zoth was a failure as a villain. Are there far greater threats than Emet-Selch? Fuck yeah there are. Is he still threatening? You bet. Did he have a decent plan? Well duh. He actually won. Compared to the parasyte with no character who got yeeted cause he didn't read the Evil Overlord list and got us into his inner sanctum.
As for Sylvanas. We can't judge her plan yet, but so far she just seems to be an impulsive mass murderer. It's a bit telling that in Emet's case even the heroes agree with his goals, but don't like his methods.

I'd even say that Elidibus is a better schemer villain than Sylvanas as of this latest patch. They resist the urge to fall into the 'everything was a part of his master plan' trope for the most part and instead allow him to have actual failures while mostly not making him look like an idiot either. Outside of his confrontation with Zenos anyway, he didn't come out of THAT confrontation looking good, but still.