Originally Posted by
goldentforce
I love slyvanas prior to bfa, i think she was definitely evil/malicious but less of a villain with her loyalty to the horde, actions against garrosh. She has a unique mindset a video game can have where things like death don't matter if you can convert them to your side as a result. I think even though its hugely flawed, if she actually wanted to eliminate the alliance for a true horde azeroth, its a conquerors mindset, but still fairly justifiable. But the context that shes been getting people killed for some master we know nothing about, that everything she has done has the asterisk on it. Everything from bfa makes slyvanas either seem like a puppet or a selfish bitch, and it makes slyvanas extremely unlikable. Its also not helpful that blizzard gives her thought processes in the book, then has extreme actions in the game, to then throw out the motivations in the finally having her join the jailor a character they won't give context for till a year after the drop.
You can see the thought process of if the horde and alliance will always fight and you want to end it here and now, crushing the night elves, killing malfurion, and truly ending the war before it began could be a strategy. And slyvanas is always a character that can be very extreme and irrational in moments of weakness/panic/things not going to plan, so you could see slyvanas thinking burning the tree and razing a city as the next best thing in her mind. Im not saying this is what a good person would do, but a malicious character that believes the ends justifies the means and is truly wanting the horde to endure. There are plenty of historical characters who are heroes to their country but pretty villainous to those on the receiving end, its not some unthinkable horror. But when they reveal that slyvanas doesnt care for the horde, doesn't care for the war, actually wanted as many people to die as possible (then why would you try to end the war in one sweep with malfurion, it just doesn't make sense), you are just contradicting the character.
Im not saying slyvanas is a good person or stable, and she definitely is a villain in the perspective of the alliance. At least from a horde point of view prior to bfa, you can justify her as a ends justifies the mean brutal conquerer, who has a warped perception of live and death unique to her, that wanted the horde and the forsaken to succeed, But with the context of bfa, it seems slyvanas is a massive bait to everyone, where blizzard is trying to portray her as evil as possible, with some revelation at the end that makes her understandable or acceptable as a character progression (not that her actions are acceptable). But I really think that the amount of time it takes for the audience to see this pay off is way too long, 4/5 years of this weird character acceleration for a plot twist that seems smarter than it actually is something i hope they never do again, at most it should be a 1 expansion thing, or a 2 parter with there is a further progression of a character after a settled character arc. But in addition the contradictions of character DURING bfa, the acceleration of comcial evil slyvanas goes through, and the variety of sources of slyvanas info to get this characters recent arc is just bad writing and presentation, not just an unlikable character.
Hopefully they never do something like this again to a character. This was a character who fans had connection to and with the lore path they took, its basically impossible to justify that with the bfa actions because they the story is so confusing, plot-twisty, and has over use of misinformation/lack of full picture, that it makes everything seem stupid for 2 expansions. It feels bad, and if slyvanas is just a villain to be killed, at least with that you can be like well that if what they made her so at least that part makes sense. But if shes a character that will continue to have influence, as a harbinger into the cosmic part of wow, they better give a lot of explanation, slyvanas' honest opinions/thoughts/feelings on what shes done and who she's done it to, and have a convincing ends justify the means explanation to make any hope for her, or else the story will greatly suffer from an unlikable,poorly written, anger inducing character existing.