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

[Dellis0991]

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?

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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.

She was a mass murderer before BFA, she killed thousand of women, children and experimented on the living. There is no amount of justification for that shit.

[Aresk]

Sylvanas is allowed to have her reasons, but that doesn't suddenly make what she does morally justifiable. Condemning your enemies to an eternity of torment to increase your own power isn't that much better than doing the same to your allies, particularly when they're enemy noncombatants. I look forward to seeing what this threat is, and I hope it's far less ignored than the big threat of "The world is dying!" in BfA, but even the best of intentions doesn't make the actions taken to get there "good."

In a world where you can resurrect people and death isn't a permanent thing. Morality of mass murder will be vastly different compared to our world.

Except we're constantly unable to resurrect NPCs that we fail to save. The rules of resurrection are so ill defined in Warcraft that it seems impossible to apply them as a counter to death. We, the PCs, have no problem coming back over and over, because otherwise there'd be no game. But an NPC who is gravely wounded often times can't be healed (unless the quest explicitly states they can), and then when they perish, can't be resurrected (e.g. the fourth whelpling in Azsuna). Bridenbrad's questline is a good example of the variable capabilities of healing people: Alexstrasza could stop the plague from killing Bolvar but not Bridenbrad. A naaru could bring a lightforged undead into being in Calia's case but not Bridenbrad.

Anyone's morality is completely fluid depending on the person writing them.

This is my biggest grievance with Warcraft. Either Azeroth just has an incredibly different sense of morality than our world, or immoral acts are just selectively retained in the world's memory. Tyrande literally killed her fellow night elves because she disagreed with the wardens that Illidan should be free. Maiev slaughtered a bunch of mages in Darnassus and then it never gets brought up again, with her lauded as a hero during Legion. Baine attacks a Horde ship, and while he actually allows a significant number of people to flee instead of killing them, he still kills the dark rangers and some of the Forsaken crew (how he thought this exploit would be kept secret when he lets most of the crew run off is beyond my understanding). I've pretty much given up on passing moral judgement on Warcraft heroes and instead taken to the cues of other NPCs as to whether actions are "good" or "evil" within the setting.

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

When was this said? I understand why they might not want to continue it (it's going to be a lot of work to continually track multiple plot threads through the narrative of forward expansions), but I never saw the official confirmation.

[Varodoc]

When was this said? I understand why they might not want to continue it (it's going to be a lot of work to continually track multiple plot threads through the narrative of forward expansions), but I never saw the official confirmation.

From Blizzcon 2019:

If you are a Sylvanas loyalist, the things she said to you at Windrunner Spire were meant to wrap up that specific storyline. She's basically saying "You were with me, you made these choices, you were on the right side of it. Those choices can't save you from what's to come." So it was meant to wrap up that arc because it was not something we wanted to carry forward.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=295990/...vanas/Saurfang

The bolded part also proves that Sylvanas never cared about the Loyalist player, and was always willing to sacrifice them to the hungering maw. Like she tried to do in 8.2, when she told Azshara she had her permission to kill the Horde champions stranded in Nazjatar.

[Kumorii]

Except we're constantly unable to resurrect NPCs that we fail to save. The rules of resurrection are so ill defined in Warcraft that it seems impossible to apply them as a counter to death. We, the PCs, have no problem coming back over and over, because otherwise there'd be no game. But an NPC who is gravely wounded often times can't be healed (unless the quest explicitly states they can), and then when they perish, can't be resurrected (e.g. the fourth whelpling in Azsuna). Bridenbrad's questline is a good example of the variable capabilities of healing people: Alexstrasza could stop the plague from killing Bolvar but not Bridenbrad. A naaru could bring a lightforged undead into being in Calia's case but not Bridenbrad.

Absolutely, although I disagree with the conclusion. Any character, people or you name it, can be returned from the dead for whatever reason. Sometimes they stay dead because of reasons... which is why it's so silly to apply real life morals to something fleeting as death or murder in world of warcraft to me. Deaths doesn't mean much to me in the warcraft universe. It's not only our players that are resurrected, we have an entire faction based on resurrected people.

Shadowlands have shown us that you get to live in an afterlife that suits you as a character and now we can traverse between the two realms basically making them one. If living can traverse from living realm to shadowlands there is no real reason why dead can't do that, especially if we defeat or usurp the jailor. Wouldn't surprise me IF Sylvanas will be painted in doing it for a bigger reason everyone who is dead will be turned alive again... because why not?

Death really has very little weight in the universe except when it fits the narrative in either direction. Which makes it less impactful. Which is why it's hard to take Saurfangs death serious for example...No one really dies unless they don't want to write anything more for the character. OR if they want to make a death impactful, that's the only time deaths seems to be death.

[Darknessvamp]

Although I'm pretty adamant they're going with a glowing Kerrigan Redemption Arc for Sylvanas with the possible irony of becoming Elune's Glowing Wisp Touched Chosen or some shit in the end, she's still a pretty bad big bad Villain as of BfA. The lack of writing contributing to that narrative during this expansion (unfortunately burning down Darnassus isn't as far out of left field in Sylvana's playbook as people might think) from the complete lack of her development during the War Campaign's Questlines (as well as Loyal/Traitor Quests) is further compounded by the asspulled Retcons of events from the end of Wrath to try and make what happened make sense resulted in a frankly terrible setup for the next "major villain" regardless of whether it'll turn out for the sake of the "greater good" in the end. Especially as it ignores previous moments which directly contradict her current characterisation and motives which even occurred within the time span that she was supposedly opposed to everyone and even worked massively to her detriment.

In other words, it's pretty shitty writing.

From Blizzcon 2019:
https://www.wowhead.com/news=295990/...vanas/Saurfang

The bolded part also proves that Sylvanas never cared about the Loyalist player, and was always willing to sacrifice them to the hungering maw. Like she tried to do in 8.2, when she told Azshara she had her permission to kill the Horde champions stranded in Nazjatar.

Honestly when I read that part it felt more the developers saying "Thanks for screwing up our story punks, you get nothing for it. Sylvanas is still going to be the big bad even if we have to force you to understand that."

[Wangming]

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.

Even Edda is a better villain than Sylvanas. Her tragic descent into madness was one of the most compelling sublots of the ARR era. I just mentioned Emet-Selch, cause if you want to copy how to write a villain from FFXIV, might as well copy the best one they have written so far.

[Justpassing]

Even Edda is a better villain than Sylvanas. Her tragic descent into madness was one of the most compelling sublots of the ARR era. I just mentioned Emet-Selch, cause if you want to copy how to write a villain from FFXIV, might as well copy the best one they have written so far.

Personally I've never been into JRPG's and their stories but Emet really was something.

WILLIE STILL LOVES YOU, O GREAT ONE!

[Florena]

Even Edda is a better villain than Sylvanas. Her tragic descent into madness was one of the most compelling sublots of the ARR era. I just mentioned Emet-Selch, cause if you want to copy how to write a villain from FFXIV, might as well copy the best one they have written so far.

True. God I hope they don't try to copy Zenos if they do lol.

[Mehrunes]

In a world where you can resurrect people and death isn't a permanent thing. Morality of mass murder will be vastly different compared to our world.

Even if they want to take Sylvanas the redemption route, Imma take a hard pass on Rinne Tensei no Jutsu.

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.

Technically some of the Forsaken NPCs have dialogue (typically their death dialogue) indicating that Sylvanas did tell them what she saw. Generally the Dark Rangers. But Blizzard being Blizzard nothing came out of it and Dark Rangers joined the spineless Baine regime because why not.

[DemonHunter18]

She massacred thousands of innocent elves.

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

best defending argument for Sylvanas from her fans

Night Elves are lame so who the hell cares.



personally, I don't care.

just fix the gameplay!!!

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I mean, if Sylvanas survives this expansion then I think this forum will crumble to dust

[Mehrunes]

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.

She made an accord with the Jailer after WotLK but she wasn't feeding him souls all that time. The Shadowlands' souls engine broke only later on.

[Nathasil]

OP is totally right, burning innocent children is quite possibly the most morally ambigious thing ever. Especially compared to what all the other "evil" beings in the franchise ever did to any playable race during the lifetime of WoW.

Oh, wait...

[DemonHunter18]

OP is totally right, burning innocent children is quite possibly the most morally ambigious thing ever. Especially compared to what all the other "evil" beings in the franchise ever did to any playable race during the lifetime of WoW.

Oh, wait...

I think demons are actually good.

[Mehrunes]

This is my biggest grievance with Warcraft. Either Azeroth just has an incredibly different sense of morality than our world, or immoral acts are just selectively retained in the world's memory. Tyrande literally killed her fellow night elves because she disagreed with the wardens that Illidan should be free. Maiev slaughtered a bunch of mages in Darnassus and then it never gets brought up again, with her lauded as a hero during Legion. Baine attacks a Horde ship, and while he actually allows a significant number of people to flee instead of killing them, he still kills the dark rangers and some of the Forsaken crew (how he thought this exploit would be kept secret when he lets most of the crew run off is beyond my understanding). I've pretty much given up on passing moral judgement on Warcraft heroes and instead taken to the cues of other NPCs as to whether actions are "good" or "evil" within the setting.

What makes it even better is that Baine himself effectively argued during Garrosh's trial that treason against the Warchief warrants the death penalty and got Vol'jin - the Warchief at the time - to confirm that. And he did that publicly, in front of all Horde leaders and other important members (as well as Alliance and Pandaria's ones). And his example was Vol'jin merely threatening Garrosh as opposed to openly rising against him, sabotaging his war campaign and killing Horde soldiers.

Yet when Baine did a much worse thing than Vol'jin, when even Vol'jin's actions already warranted the death penalty according to Baine himself all the Horde leaders that previously heard him argue that notion in court decided that Sylvanas merely imprisoning him is a dark turn for the Horde and other shit like that.

And that Vol'jin example showcases the real problem with morality in WoW. The problem is that if the authors decide the given character is in the right, they face no consequences. Following basic logic there was no reason why Vol'jin went unpunished for threatening his sovereign with death. But by that point the writers were already working on MoP and knew where Garrosh's direction would go. And since Garrosh was in the wrong long term, anyone opposing him would get off scot-free, even though Vol'jin would get "vindicated" years down the line.

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.

What plot armor? When would that plot armor be even applied when she barely did anything in BfA?

[Veluren]

I'm going to quote myself here from the last "Is Sylvanas actually evil???" thread that popped up because I feel like it still hits the nail on the head in regards to this post as well.

They've pretty much wrote her into dying as a villain at this point. At the very least if she finds any measure of redemption it needs to be in death or otherwise something that will remove her from the story without overtures of being able to break her out the next time we cross a danger threshold like we did with Illidan.

By having the Burning of Teldrassil be an act that was implicitly done out of petty spite instead of something well intentioned or not being herself because of outside corruption, and then doubled down on that and everything else she's done by revealing her allegiance to the Jailer, she's crossed a line where if the writers DO try to redeem her - regardless of their intention or not - it's going to be them implicitly saying that someone committing an act of hatred driven racial genocide (and near succeeding) is something that can be forgiven. Within both real life subtext and in the context of WoW (Daelin Proudmoore and Garithos springs to mind) that's a very dangerous line to let your narrative walk.

[Makabreska]

#sylvanasdidnothingwrong

[Minikin]

best defending argument for Sylvanas from her fans

Night Elves are lame so who the hell cares.



personally, I don't care.

just fix the gameplay!!!

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I mean, if Sylvanas survives this expansion then I think this forum will crumble to dust

i have had my flotation tube ready since the start of BfA for the tidal wave of tears.

honestly though what i want to know is. IF they do give a plausible reason for her burning teldrassil and eveything else, and since somehow they have parallels running to the nephalim in diablo and darksiders, would teldrassil become a reasonable course of action?

or

complete tin foil hat mode. if the bronze dragons get their timeways power setup back and you get a CoT version of Teldrassil where you make sure that Sylvanas does get to burn it and you help her do so.

[Shelly]

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.

You are aware she's WORKING for the evil within the Shadowlands right?

Like her actions for the benefit of the Jailer are literally sucking all the life out of the Shadowlands and funneling it all directly into the Maw.

There is no vindication for it, she's been actively working to keep Azeroth in a state of war since Cataclysm at the latest. She abandoned the Broken Shore not to save the Horde but to increase the overall death toll for the Jailer. She participates in the overthrow of Garrosh to increase conflict and the death toll.

Yes she's been exposed as a comic book villain in BfA, but frankly people aren't looking back long enough. Like Garrosh was definitely up to a lot of shady stuff in Cataclysm, so why was everyone surprised when he went off the rails in MoP?

[DemonHunter18]

i have had my flotation tube ready since the start of BfA for the tidal wave of tears.

honestly though what i want to know is. IF they do give a plausible reason for her burning teldrassil and eveything else, and since somehow they have parallels running to the nephalim in diablo and darksiders, would teldrassil become a reasonable course of action?

or

complete tin foil hat mode. if the bronze dragons get their timeways power setup back and you get a CoT version of Teldrassil where you make sure that Sylvanas does get to burn it and you help her do so.

I mean, they literally gave Sargeras and Illidan reasons for all the shit they did then they will do for Sylvanas as well.

I'm half expecting for Sargeras to join us against the Void Lords and will be forgiven.

they'll probably even forget that he wrekted half of the Universe.

[Kithelle]

Thanos wanted to save the universe from overpopulation and resource scarcity. Instead of snapping unlimited resources into being, he decided to obliterate half the universe, unaware or uncaring that trillions more would die as collateral damage. Sylvanas has been sending everyone who died in the Fourth War to hell and wiped out an entire city where the majority of the population were civilians guilty of nothing worse than maybe missing church once in a while. She knowingly threw the Horde into an absolute meat grinder and damned countless brave warriors to Hell for her own personal benefit, the Horde be damned.

Giving an evil psychopath an understandable motive doesn't make their actions justified or them any less evil or psychotic. Let's not pretend she's Adrian Veidt or something here.

^ This

I wish people would stop trying to find or create silly loopholes to try and make Sylvanas look like a innocent little flower...she isn't. She is selfish and has craved power for years...she even flat out abandoned her helpers in BfA, she is in this for herself and sending people to hell isn't doing anyone any favors.