Sylvanas Character Assassination

[Jastall]

I explained what I think of her "heinous acts against the Alliance" in a previous comment.

As a Horde player, I hate it when our characters get hit with the villain bat to provide bosses for the Alliance. Just because you feel victimized by a horde hero doesn't mean that they should become a villain to their own side and that I should help you kill them. When the bloody hell are we going to feel justified in hating an Alliance character? Even Genn, who was an absolute douchebag who left the Alliance because they didn't want to genocide the orcs and hid behind his wall for the entire Scourge and Legion invasions was now retconned into a kind, wise, loyal and tolerant old man.

If you look at things from a meta-narrative perspective, you will realize that your need for satisfaction is a lot less pressing than our need to not get our first tier, interesting characters fucked over and killed time and time again. We're kind of running short on them.

Easy now, I'm a Horde player, who was mostly indifferent towards her until Wrath, started to think she was a bitch in Cata, and has seen my dislike for her only spiral out of control the moment she was made Warchief with BFA being obviously her lowest point. I'm simply saying that lots of people play Alliance and would justifiably be hugely miffed if she got a redemption, and she's not exactly the most popular character in the Horde either. Now I'm not advocating for writing by democracy, but at some point one has to consider the audience, and I doubt very many people would like a Sylvanas redemption. The Alliance because it means they yet again get to fail at striking back, the honorbro Horde because it means they were wrong all along, and the murderbro Horde because they probably don't want her to be a good person to begin with. They risk the same result as Teldrassil where nobody was happy as you said.

I think it far more likely that she's been made into a plot device. She's there to drum up hype as one of the only WC3 characters still active, do cool and dumb shit that drives the plot since she's the only one allowed to anymore, and then be jettisoned midway through the xpack, either as a raid boss or by being somehow exiled/imprisoned for future use like Illidan and the Lich King were. She doesn't even have a character anymore, her motivations are inconsistent and her actions make no sense anymore.

As for the Horde lacking personalities, no arguments here. Cairne and Vol'jin (at the very least) should never have died. But then again, Sylvanas always considered the Horde either allies of convenience or tools to be manipulated, so I barely consider a Horde character at all, in spirit at least. She was a Forsaken character first and foremost.

[Coconut]

I would like to ask a question regarding that one. Why do think a character from a playable faction shouldn't be punished if he/she pulled an Arthas on the world. Just because he/she is a part of a faction shouldn't immediately mean that he/she should have plot armor to protect him/her. The same thing goes for the whole faction. If a faction does things you would expect from the Burning Legion for example or the Scourge I don't see why that faction shouldn't pay the price a normal NPC faction usually pays. Especially when a faction endangers Azeroth many more times than it saved it then I don't see why they shouldn't take the NPC treatment. The playerbase can always keep going without a faction. The story can also be written without one.

Let me restate my example about the Worgen. Here's how it goes:

- Blizzard decides to give the Alliance the Gilnean Worgen as a new race.
- Blizzard is too lazy to make capitals for its new races, so the Worgen can't stay in their starting zone.
- Blizzard uses the Forsaken as an antagonist to justify relocating the race.
- The Alliance can't be baddies, so Blizzard makes it so that the Forsaken initiate the attack.
- Blizzard uses Sylvanas as an antagonist to provide the Worgen players with a story.
- Instead of being portrayed as the callous man he used to be (a man who voted for the genocide of the Orcs, and left the Alliance because he didn't want to pay for feeding them), Genn is whitewashed into a hero for the benefit of Worgen players and the Alliance Pantheon.
- The Horde players do not interact with this part of the narrative; even though the Horde (Orcs and Forsaken in particular) has good reason to hate the Gilneans and Genn in particular, this is swept under the rug and not explored.

So the Alliance character gets to have: a likeable faction leader to act as a protagonist, an appropriated Horde protagonist to act as an antagonist they can hate, and an emotional story arc with a long term goal (which should be retaking Gilneas first and foremost). Sylvanas's motivations and actions are written in a way that caters to the needs of the Worgen story line. On a meta level, it is not Sylvanas who took Gilneas from you, but Blizzard who was too lazy to build a capital, don't forget that.

Our character was altered for your sake, instead of being solely a Horde protagonist. Your character, on the other hand... was also altered for your sake, so they can be a worthy protagonist. The Horde, while fighting in Gilneas, gets a second tier antagonist that also served as a second tier antagonist for your story, and a second tier Alliance opponent that it also fails to kill. The entire Horde story in Silverpine (itself narratively subordinated to the meta requirement of introducing the Alliance race) ends in failure, undermining one of Sylvanas's best traits, her cunning, for the sake of Alliance ego and leaving open the long term possibility that the Worgen would retake Gilneas - even though you had to evacuate the zone, we don't conquer it either.

Instead of being happy that your protagonist was given the moral high ground (undeserved based on older lore) while our protagonist was made to look evil and dumb to prop you up, and that our leveling zone and the entire area was designed around the need of introducing the Worgen race... many Alliance players wanted for the longest time to fully appropriate our protagonist to kill as your antagonist for this one zone arc that you experienced. Don't you think that's a bit entitled and greedy? As a Troll player, my starting zone was being attacked by humans, and I didn't get to kill Varian for it. The fact that Sylvanas was pushed into a villain position, if anything, caters to the incessant whines of the Alliance haters. For me, burning Teldrassil and turning against Sylvanas both sucked, I certainly didn't push for either.

[Ielenia]

Rofl... okay. The writers called her Morally Grey, you say she never has been but i guess your opinion matters more because i guess reasons.

The writers can call Sylvanas "goody green" or "baddie blue" but that doesn't make it so. What the writers said they'd make of Sylvanas and what they did with Sylvanas in the story are worlds apart. The only 'gray' in Sylvanas is her skin color. She lost all chances to actually be 'morally gray' when she outright ordered the burning of Teldrassil to burn all the innocent citizens, men, women, child and elderly, alive.

[Coconut]

Easy now, I'm a Horde player, who was mostly indifferent towards her until Wrath, started to think she was a bitch in Cata, and has seen my dislike for her only spiral out of control the moment she was made Warchief with BFA being obviously her lowest point. I'm simply saying that lots of people play Alliance and would justifiably be hugely miffed if she got a redemption, and she's not exactly the most popular character in the Horde either. Now I'm not advocating for writing by democracy, but at some point one has to consider the audience, and I doubt very many people would like a Sylvanas redemption. The Alliance because it means they yet again get to fail at striking back, the honorbro Horde because it means they were wrong all along, and the murderbro Horde because they probably don't want her to be a good person to begin with. They risk the same result as Teldrassil where nobody was happy as you said.

I think it far more likely that she's been made into a plot device. She's there to drum up hype as one of the only WC3 characters still active, do cool and dumb shit that drives the plot since she's the only one allowed to anymore, and then be jettisoned midway through the xpack, either as a raid boss or by being somehow exiled/imprisoned for future use like Illidan and the Lich King were. She doesn't even have a character anymore, her motivations are inconsistent and her actions make no sense anymore.

As for the Horde lacking personalities, no arguments here. Cairne and Vol'jin (at the very least) should never have died. But then again, Sylvanas always considered the Horde either allies of convenience or tools to be manipulated, so I barely consider a Horde character at all, in spirit at least. She was a Forsaken character first and foremost.

The hate really went out of control in BFA, when Blizzard seemed to be pushing for it. Before Legion, she used to be fairly popular with the Horde, otherwise they wouldn't have made her Warchief. A great deal of that was the mystery they set around her with tease after tease and no pay-off.

Initially, the mystery was how Vol'jin's prophecy was going to pay off, then what her deal with Helya was, then these both fizzled into irrelevance, then it was the dreadlord and old god whispers about her, then Blizzard pumped us into wondering what will make her burn Teldrassil and that was totally underwhelming, then she was supposed to have a "master plan" to win the war, then Vol'jin put the prophecy into question but we still didn't get any answers, then we thought Derek Proudmoore would lead to something but she didn't get to execute her plan, then her final loyalist quest promised that next time we saw her we would understand, then they revealed her deal with the Jailer, but we didn't even see his face and everything about him and Sylvanas's actual plans is still obscure... It's just so much that it's meme-worthy, we're carrying so many mysteries around they're slipping through our fingers, I mean Helya what? xD

From my point of view, if Sylvanas is a straight up villain, especially a first tier villain like Gul'dan, then the story is already shit by virtue of being a dragged out Garrosh 2.0. She was always a suspicious character, what's the point of the mystery if the result is the most obvious one that everyone wants? And what's the pay-off for all the mysteries? People were already disappointed with N'zoth dying into a dud raid after a lot of cryptic set up.

If she's supposed to have a reason that I'm expected to understand and maybe get on board with, that sounds more interesting, and it would be more subversive. I mean, I know they said he's the main villain (they said the same thing about Grom in WoD anyway), but when a guy called The Jailer is in chains, you can't help but wonder if maybe the inmates are running the prison, you know what I'm saying? And a satisfying resolution for the Alliance, which I would vastly prefer to killing Sylvanas and moving on, would be to resurrect all the Night Elves she killed. We're going in to the afterlife after all, and Tyrande will show up in a zone that is all about the spirits of nature and rebirth. It's not like we don't expect to get anyone back (we kinda have to if we're going to have any more conflicts in the future, since pretty much every race is spent...).

[Jastall]

The hate really went out of control in BFA, when Blizzard seemed to be pushing for it. Before Legion, she used to be fairly popular with the Horde, otherwise they wouldn't have made her Warchief. A great deal of that was the mystery they set around her with tease after tease and no pay-off.

Initially, the mystery was how Vol'jin's prophecy was going to pay off, then what her deal with Helya was, then these both fizzled into irrelevance, then it was the dreadlord and old god whispers about her, then Blizzard pumped us into wondering what will make her burn Teldrassil and that was totally underwhelming, then she was supposed to have a "master plan" to win the war, then Vol'jin put the prophecy into question but we still didn't get any answers, then we thought Derek Proudmoore would lead to something but she didn't get to execute her plan, then her final loyalist quest promised that next time we saw her we would understand, then they revealed her deal with the Jailer, but we didn't even see his face and everything about him and Sylvanas's actual plans is still obscure... It's just so much that it's meme-worthy, we're carrying so many mysteries around they're slipping through our fingers, I mean Helya what? xD

From my point of view, if Sylvanas is a straight up villain, especially a first tier villain like Gul'dan, then the story is already shit by virtue of being a dragged out Garrosh 2.0. She was always a suspicious character, what's the point of the mystery if the result is the most obvious one that everyone wants? And what's the pay-off for all the mysteries? People were already disappointed with N'zoth dying into a dud raid after a lot of cryptic set up.

If she's supposed to have a reason that I'm expected to understand and maybe get on board with, that sounds more interesting, and it would be more subversive. I mean, I know they said he's the main villain (they said the same thing about Grom in WoD anyway), but when a guy called The Jailer is in chains, you can't help but wonder if maybe the inmates are running the prison, you know what I'm saying? And a satisfying resolution for the Alliance, which I would vastly prefer to killing Sylvanas and moving on, would be to resurrect all the Night Elves she killed. We're going in to the afterlife after all, and Tyrande will show up in a zone that is all about the spirits of nature and rebirth. It's not like we don't expect to get anyone back (we kinda have to if we're going to have any more conflicts in the future, since pretty much every race is spent...).

Blizzard can't keep Sylvanas's motivations consistent from Before the Storm to 8.0's launch and kept flip-flopping them afterwards. They can't keep major events like the War of the Thorns consistent in between the pre-patch and A Good War which released like two weeks apart. I absolutely do not trust them to reveal Sylvanas having some grand master plan that makes any sort of sense whatsoever and fits her character. Sylvanas is no savior, she's always been a selfish bitch, with some good sides to her that have been steadily purged in the name of making her edgier than Frostmourne. Turning her into one would make as much sense as turning Anduin into a creepy serial killer.

If this were another company, I'd agree with you that a more morally grey narrative would be better. Blizzard can't convincingly write that sort of thing for shit, so I'd rather we kill the big evil baddies and be done with it, thanks.

[Coconut]

Blizzard can't keep Sylvanas's motivations consistent from Before the Storm to 8.0's launch and kept flip-flopping them afterwards. They can't keep major events like the War of the Thorns consistent in between the pre-patch and A Good War which released like two weeks apart. I absolutely do not trust them to reveal Sylvanas having some grand master plan that makes any sort of sense whatsoever and fits her character. Sylvanas is no savior, she's always been a selfish bitch, with some good sides to her that have been steadily purged in the name of making her edgier than Frostmourne. Turning her into one would make as much sense as turning Anduin into a creepy serial killer.

If this were another company, I'd agree with you that a more morally grey narrative would be better. Blizzard can't convincingly write that sort of thing for shit, so I'd rather we kill the big evil baddies and be done with it, thanks.

If they can't keep her motivation consistent, they can do literally anything with her. She can become a druid for all we know.

And the very existence of an afterlife with its specific rules and problems has the potential of redefining the morality of life and death. People around here conveniently judge all her transgressions based on how we understand death in the real world, but Shadowlands may very well turn everything on its head - i.e., what if we are headed for an impending, unavoidable Reorigination of Azeroth, and the Shadowlands are the only safe place for everyone to retreat to, and the twist is that everyone who ISN'T there at that time gets erased completely? There are a lot of spins they can put on it.

[Jastall]

If they can't keep her motivation consistent, they can do literally anything with her. She can become a druid for all we know.

And the very existence of an afterlife with its specific rules and problems has the potential of redefining the morality of life and death. People around here conveniently judge all her transgressions based on how we understand death in the real world, but Shadowlands may very well turn everything on its head - i.e., what if we are headed for an impending, unavoidable Reorigination of Azeroth, and the Shadowlands are the only safe place for everyone to retreat to, and the twist is that everyone who ISN'T there at that time gets erased completely? There are a lot of spins they can put on it.

That honestly sounds a plot point conjured out of thin air to make Sylvanas right, considering we're in control of the Forge of Re-Origination come 8.3, we made friends with the remaining entities that understand it the most, we have an artifact that grants some degree of control over it, and the Titans are too busy jailing Sargeras to nuke the planet for no real reason. To say nothing of the fact that everyone sent to the Shadowlands now is dumped into a place that makes the Christian Hell look pleasant, thus sparing people from annihilation only leads to them being eternally tortured. Yay?

Not that conjuring that sort of plot point to brute force their chosen narrative is out of character for Blizzard, of course, but it doesn't make for satisfying storytelling at all.

[Soon-TM]

Turning her into one would make as much sense as turning Anduin into a creepy serial killer.

While Anduin will never do anything wrong (and if he ever does, the narrative will just ignore it), I can see very well Danuser trying to Kerrigan-ise Sylvie, for some reason.

[Coconut]

That honestly sounds a plot point conjured out of thin air to make Sylvanas right, considering we're in control of the Forge of Re-Origination come 8.3, we made friends with the remaining entities that understand it the most, we have an artifact that grants some degree of control over it, and the Titans are too busy jailing Sargeras to nuke the planet for no real reason. To say nothing of the fact that everyone sent to the Shadowlands now is dumped into a place that makes the Christian Hell look pleasant, thus sparing people from annihilation only leads to them being eternally tortured. Yay?

Not that conjuring that sort of plot point to brute force their chosen narrative is out of character for Blizzard, of course, but it doesn't make for satisfying storytelling at all.

It was just an example. What I'm saying is that in an expansion where we are visiting the afterlife (and we at least will be able to go back and forth), we should take this whole "killing people" thing with a grain of salt until we learn what's going on in there.

[Niwes]

just jumped in to keep that up on top:

„morally gray“



thx for listening.

[Gref]

of all the things aside, i could never understand why she is going to be tormented forever in maw.
If I remember correctly she died in combat trying valiantly to save her people. she died for a noble cause.
then she realizes she is going to be in maw forever after icc events? why? after she was raised a banshee, again all she did was to free people and fight against the demonlords and arthas. still a noble cause?

why eternal damnation awaits her? because she didn't die naturally because of reasons outside her? what kind of judgement system is this?

[Minikin]

I explained what I think of her "heinous acts against the Alliance" in a previous comment.

As a Horde player, I hate it when our characters get hit with the villain bat to provide bosses for the Alliance. Just because you feel victimized by a horde hero doesn't mean that they should become a villain to their own side and that I should help you kill them. When the bloody hell are we going to feel justified in hating an Alliance character? Even Genn, who was an absolute douchebag who left the Alliance because they didn't want to genocide the orcs and hid behind his wall for the entire Scourge and Legion invasions was now retconned into a kind, wise, loyal and tolerant old man.

If you look at things from a meta-narrative perspective, you will realize that your need for satisfaction is a lot less pressing than our need to not get our first tier, interesting characters fucked over and killed time and time again. We're kind of running short on them.

while i agree with the rest of the post, i think the bolded part is an exaggeration. Out of all those Genn might be shown as loyal or at TIMES kind. But hes definitely not wise of tolerant. Even with him accomplishing his goal in Stormhiem of stopping Sylvanas, it must be noted that a guy lost a floating AIRCRAFT CARRIER two three SHIPS that he shot first at. That doesnt show wisdom, instead colossal failure. As for tolerance, I mean he has frequent outbursts and gets told to shut up multiple times.

Him losing his son and being cursed did change him from back when he decided to go behind his wall. But the issue is, it might have been different if Garrosh and Sylvanas hadnt done to Gilneas what they did do. Therein also lies the issue. If undercity would have happened BEFORE teldrassil, this story might have been wildly different.

edit:
Mind you. part of the problem are also the horde loyalists who
1. want a warchief
2. want to constantly fight

removing the position of warchief might just be the best damn thing thats happened to the horde. Since now no one goof will be able to rough shod their agenda and everyone be forced to follow cuz bLoOd OaTh.

[Soon-TM]

removing the position of warchief might just be the best damn thing thats happened to the horde. Since now no one goof will be able to rough shod their agenda and everyone be forced to follow cuz bLoOd OaTh.

As if having a council instead of a single figure of authority would somehow prevent Blizz for villain-batting the Horde yet again when they see fit.

[FelPlague]

of all the things aside, i could never understand why she is going to be tormented forever in maw.
If I remember correctly she died in combat trying valiantly to save her people. she died for a noble cause.
then she realizes she is going to be in maw forever after icc events? why? after she was raised a banshee, again all she did was to free people and fight against the demonlords and arthas. still a noble cause?

why eternal damnation awaits her? because she didn't die naturally because of reasons outside her? what kind of judgement system is this?

She killed herself. She didn't die valently defending her people. Unless you are talking about her original death. But since then she has done a ton of fucked up shit.

[Minikin]

As if having a council instead of a single figure of authority would somehow prevent Blizz for villain-batting the Horde yet again when they see fit.

at this point bro all we can do is hope. because at least we can get off the track of:

ITS HORDE SEASON
no its WARCHIEF season
ITS HORDE SEASON
no its WARCHIEF season!

hopefully we are done with the faction war because honestly not once have we reached a good conclusion. and if we do go into it, i wish it wouldnt be the usual shock value morally grey confusion finally ending with "we are happy with how it turned out!" while everyone else is shaking their heads.

The horde lost two main characters and got basically lectured sternly. again.
The alliance got slapped about, came out with a win. lectured the horde, again.

[Gref]

She killed herself. She didn't die valently defending her people. Unless you are talking about her original death. But since then she has done a ton of fucked up shit.

yes I am talking about her original death. also i see her icc death is like terminator lowering itself into that cauldron. after that she did pretty evil shit, i do not deny that. But up untill icc i see nothing wrong?

[Jastall]

It was just an example. What I'm saying is that in an expansion where we are visiting the afterlife (and we at least will be able to go back and forth), we should take this whole "killing people" thing with a grain of salt until we learn what's going on in there.

I mean, it's not just the killing people thing. The dead are sent straight into the Maw, Sylvanas knows it, and she knowingly and willingly made a bargain to kill as many people as possible in order to empower herself. All that shit goes way beyond just killing your enemies in war. Blizzard has tons of stuff to explain (served with the usual healthy helping of retcons of course) if they want her being a good guy to make any sort of sense. Which is why I'm having a very, very hard time keeping any sort of open mind.

[Minikin]

As if having a council instead of a single figure of authority would somehow prevent Blizz for villain-batting the Horde yet again when they see fit.

it will reduce its chance. and thats about as ideal a scenario as it gets.

but hey if even after all thats happened and the whole netflix series with saurfang, the horde still continues down that route. well....... /shrug and embrace it?

[Thage]

yes I am talking about her original death. also i see her icc death is like terminator lowering itself into that cauldron. after that she did pretty evil shit, i do not deny that. But up untill icc i see nothing wrong?

You should probably level in undead zones in Classic sometime, and take time to read the quests and stick around for the RP events. Take a look around Undercity, too. Turns out the powers that be in Warcraft's cosmology consider experimenting on sentient creatures to perfect a plague that can kill everything, with the stated goal of using it to kill everything, and allowing the spread of slavery among your people (including lovely examples like Theresa, who was lobotomized, force-fed alchemical concotions, and tortured into a mindless puppet with no self-actualization to be found) pretty significant moral failings worthy of being chucked into the Maw.

[FelPlague]

yes I am talking about her original death. also i see her icc death is like terminator lowering itself into that cauldron. after that she did pretty evil shit, i do not deny that. But up untill icc i see nothing wrong?

Torturing captured civilians, man, woman, and child through experimentation to try and invent a stronger and stronger plague.