Sylvanas Character Assassination

[Soon-TM]

How frickin unappeasable are you then?!

Blizzard continues the faction conflict: THAT FIGURES They would never do that, they aren't THAT tone deaf lmao.
Blizzard does not continue the faction conflict: IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME LOLOLOLOL Of course it's a matter of time, feel free to quote me in a couple of xpacs or so.

What in the hell do you want from them? If they can't get their !@#$ straight, I want them to refrain from lying, at the very least. Had I known that BfA was going to be MoP 2.0, Morally Grey Edition, I would have never bothered with it.

I'm not naive, I'm just not so toxic and pessimistic as to instantly decide, before even seeing it, to hate everything Blizzard does. If I genuinely hated Blizzard's story, I'd play a different video game.

After devs straight lying about Sylvanas not being a second Garrosh, I'm every bit as realistic, or "toxic and pessimistic" if you want, as I can. You have even gossip from NPCs in Boralus about how "these ceasefires with the Horde never last". Are those a red herring? Kindly allow me to doubt it, tyvm.

As I said, I admire your naivety, but given that you seem to love BfA's story, I think I'm wasting my time with you.

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It's simple. They want to be the bad guys who roll over cities and kingdoms while at the same time escaping the inevitable consequences/karma of doing genocide.

Nice strawman, but I'm not bothering any further with you. And as far as "escaping the consequences" goes, we already did lol. Everything was Sylvanas' fault, we're squeaky clean now. Who cares about those nelfs, Anduin certainly doesn't lmao.

Infracted.

[Powerogue]

After devs straight lying about Sylvanas not being a second Garrosh, I'm every bit as realistic, or "toxic and pessimistic" if you want, as I can. You have even gossip from NPCs in Boralus about how "these ceasefires with the Horde never last". Are those a red herring? Kindly allow me to doubt it, tyvm.

As I said, I admire your naivety, but given that you seem to love BfA's story, I think I'm wasting my time with you.

As far as I'm aware they never said anything about her "not being a second Garrosh". The only comparison I can recall was them straight up saying "she would say Garrosh was an ameteur."

They didn't just repeat MOP, they pulled a Suramar. Exactly as described in your sig, taking the "broad strokes" of a story they had done before and approaching that general structure differently.

Suramar is a story about a group of elves who rely on a celestial-themed well of magic power being betrayed by their leader to the Burning Legion, who is ultimately overthrown, the Legion forces defeated, and their magical addiction problem resolved. Sound familiar?

And yet, even recognizing that, I think the nightborne is one of the best stories they've ever done. On that base, they focused their narrative on things that they didn't think of the first time and took it in new and interesting directions.


And, despite still thinking my Horde pandaren giving Xal'atath to Sylvanas is the single dumbest moment in WoW canon, still feel the same way towards BFA. MOP did not have this.

[Varodoc]

After devs straight lying about Sylvanas not being a second Garrosh, I'm every bit as realistic, or "toxic and pessimistic" if you want, as I can. You have even gossip from NPCs in Boralus about how "these ceasefires with the Horde never last". Are those a red herring? Kindly allow me to doubt it, tyvm.

As I said, I admire your naivety, but given that you seem to love BfA's story, I think I'm wasting my time with you.

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Nice strawman, but I'm not bothering any further with you. And as far as "escaping the consequences" goes, we already did lol. Everything was Sylvanas' fault, we're squeaky clean now. Who cares about those nelfs, Anduin certainly doesn't lmao.

You hating cuz it's the truth. You avoided the consequences but now you cant commit genocide anymore, which ties back to your complaint about "Being ruled by Alliance sympathizers yada yada yada".

[Ardenaso]

Suramar is a story about a group of elves who rely on a celestial-themed well of magic power being betrayed by their leader to the Burning Legion, who is ultimately overthrown, the Legion forces defeated, and their magical addiction problem resolved. Sound familiar?

It's almost as if Legion was TBC 2.0

[Powerogue]

You hating cuz it's the truth. You avoided the consequences but now you cant commit genocide anymore, which ties back to your complaint about "Being ruled by Alliance sympathizers yada yada yada".

It is telling when "alliance sympathizer" is thrown around but winds up just meaning "any Horde characters who do not condone evil, even when it is being commanded by their evil leader." It makes Thrall, Gazlowe, Chen, Saurfang, and Rexxar, who founded the Horde as we know it "the bad guys."

[huth]

They worked back in classic I think due to their human arch-nemesis being the Scarlet Crusade which had at least some lose connections to the Alliance. Remember, the Alliance Storyline nearly had your character even joining the Crusade and it was on the behalf of a former Scarlet who I think was also a member of the Argent Dawn, that your got the job to assassinate them.

When was that ever an Alliance storyline? You had a Scarlet Ambassador asking for help, but got told to ignore that and take the fight to them pretty much immediately. There was never any indication of joining them, nor any even suggested way for you to do so.

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As far as I'm aware they never said anything about her "not being a second Garrosh". The only comparison I can recall was them straight up saying "she would say Garrosh was an ameteur."

And for good reason. Garrosh failed. Sylvanas successfully completed her plan and still had a significant part of the Horde on her side until she straight-up abandoned them.

[Dartz1979]

sylvanas is always my queen and jaina too.

[matrix123mko]

It is telling when "alliance sympathizer" is thrown around but winds up just meaning "any Horde characters who do not condone evil, even when it is being commanded by their evil leader." It makes Thrall, Gazlowe, Chen, Saurfang, and Rexxar, who founded the Horde as we know it "the bad guys."

They are traitors. This is how we call people who kill their allies to lose a war effort.

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And, despite still thinking my Horde pandaren giving Xal'atath to Sylvanas is the single dumbest moment in WoW canon, still feel the same way towards BFA. MOP did not have this.

I hated helping Baine the most.

[sam86]

Did we? Sylvanas was (is) Garrosh on steroids, she even opened a portal to another dimension lolz.

best line here

[Super Dickmann]

As far as I'm aware they never said anything about her "not being a second Garrosh". The only comparison I can recall was them straight up saying "she would say Garrosh was an ameteur."

They didn't just repeat MOP, they pulled a Suramar. Exactly as described in your sig, taking the "broad strokes" of a story they had done before and approaching that general structure differently.

Okay, I'll bite, since you know full well I loathe Mists and BFA. But genuinely, what makes you think that BFA is better than Mists? Mists had better pacing, more coherent storytelling and a vastly more compelling antagonist, along with more fleshed out side material. Yes, the Sadfang cinematics are extremely high-res and Old Soldier and Reckoning are very good and a servicable popcorn video respectively, but Mists had stories for every single side faction that fleshed out the setting. It also had a tie-in book that while suffering from many of the same problems as the literary abortion that is BTS actually reflected the content of the expansion to come and built up to it rather than setting up things that end up entirely perfunctory to the ongoing conflict as well as providing character insight that ends up entirely off base.

Also Suramar was an intricately plotted waste. Unlike BFA it was actually very well executed - like BFA and like its TBC progenitor story, it ultimately produced a bland, thoroughly uncompelling result. The Nightborne at the end have no more story hooks that couldn't be achieved just as well with blood elves. Or, pains me as it does to admit it and agree with @Mace, Alliance-side so they can play off of the Night Elves in a way that's different to what the blood elves already provide.

[Jastall]

I'm going to bite the bait, since you know full well I loathe Mists and BFA alike. But genuinely, what makes you think that BFA is superior to Mists? Mists had better pacing, more coherent storytelling and a vastly more compelling antagonist, along with better side material. Yes, the Sadfang cinematics are extremely high-res and Old Soldier and Reckoning are both very good in a vacuum, but Mists had stories for every single side faction that fleshed out the setting and a tie-in book that while suffering from many of the same problems as the literary abortion that is BTS actually reflected the content of the expansion to come and built up to it rather than setting up things that end up entirely perfunctory to the ongoing conflict as well as providing character insight that ends up entirely off base.

Personally, the only thing that differentiates them for me is that there were still characters I liked. I liked Vol'jin, Saurfang hadn't been flanderized yet, Lor'themar had just gotten some much needed focus, Baine wasn't pussy-whipped by the story in full, Alliance side I liked Varian even if his development came at other's expense and even his kid showed some promise. Hell I also liked Taran Zhu to some extent. BFA has... er... I guess Talanji and Bwonsamdi are cool and Lor'themar still exists. That's more or less it. End of the day, characters drive the story, and if they are either blandified or turned into mustache twirling borefests then the story needlessly suffers as a result.

Mists had cool world-building with the Mogu and Mantid, true, but BFA also had that with the Zandalari and, to a lesser extent, Kul Tirans. Even Mechagon wasn't that bad, by Blizzard standards anyway. Purely in terms of world building, I'd venture to say BFA is one of the stronger expansions. It fumbled more or less everything else, mind, and it failed at that particular aspect when it came to Nazjatar and Ny'alotha. But 8.0 was really solid on that front if you ask me.

Then again, we could say that for every expansion, couldn't we? The best WoW stories were more or less always in smaller scale side content.

TBC had some decent stories in Nagrand or Netherstorm, but the overarching plot was just an excuse to give us big names to loot in raids.
Wrath had awesome side content, in Ulduar especially, but the Lich King was made into a far more cartoonish monologue-spouting villain and it all ended with There Must Always Be A Lich King nonsense.
Cata was... well IMO Cata was just mediocre to bad all over, maybe some zone stories were half decent like Silverpine, but that was counterbalanced by the Worgen pretty much not having a dedicated zone or even a settlement beyond squatting in a tree on top of a tree.
Even WoD had good stuff in Frostfire Ridge, Shadowmoon Valley and Spires of Arak. The main plot was an hilarious disaster, but still.
Legion was full of cool shit, like Stormheim, Suramar, Velen's arc, and a good amount of the class stories. Main plot still ended up being Illidan worship and Argus (both planet and big boss man) were woefully underdeveloped.

I really can't name a single expansion that had a good, thematically coherent, satisfying plot. Wrath came the closest but fumbled at the finish line. Then again that's still better than Cata, Mists or BFA that were shot in the leg before the race even started.

[Super Dickmann]

Personally, the only thing that differentiates them for me is that there were still characters I liked. I liked Vol'jin, Saurfang hadn't been flanderized yet, Lor'themar had just gotten some much needed focus, Baine wasn't pussy-whipped by the story in full, Alliance side I liked Varian even if his development came at other's expense and even his kid showed some promise. Hell I also liked Taran Zhu to some extent. BFA has... er... I guess Talanji and Bwonsamdi are cool and Lor'themar still exists. That's more or less it. End of the day, characters drive the story, and if they are either blandified or turned into mustache twirling borefests then the story needlessly suffers as a result.

Mists had cool world-building with the Mogu and Mantid, true, but BFA also had that with the Zandalari and, to a lesser extent, Kul Tirans. Even Mechagon wasn't that bad, by Blizzard standards anyway. Purely in terms of world building, I'd venture to say BFA is one of the stronger expansions. It fumbled more or less everything else, mind, and it failed at that particular aspect when it came to Nazjatar and Ny'alotha. But 8.0 was really solid on that front if you ask me.

I heavily disagree regarding BFA and Mists being anywhere close worldbuilding-wise or in terms of thematic execution and overall plot.

Mists had a single continent which had every race present on it fleshed out with its own backstory and place in it, plus its individual organisations that were fleshed out with their own agendas and quirks in their side-stories. More than that, their presence wasn't just a backdrop - their characters and their themes tied into what the story wanted to tell you. The sha as an antagonist built off of the human flaws that got the story going. No one within said story, not even the most flanderized version of Garrosh in Tides of War up to 5.1 was motivated solely by being the devil incarnate who's tricked a bunch of innocents into doing his bidding the way the farcical Sylvanas story goes. They all, Horde-side at least, had some kind of identifiable personal agenda that made them take the choices they did and shifted their allegiance. See Bob going from okay with Garrosh in ToW, to skeptical of Garrosh to ultimately hostile to him and pondering allying with the Alliance to ultimately deciding to stick around because of the Purge. Just that one side-story regarding the allegiance of what was previously a non-character stressed the actual human and racial motivations of war and faction allegiance, how the cycle of conflict first brought him to one point and then another and how said cycle of conflict has an actual consequence. That his story didn't just end with him being the victim of whoever the Bad Warchief of the Week was what made it better.

When it comes to plotting, Mists has a coherent throughline that is advanced in every patch. It begins with the setup of the conflict - the Alliance-Horde war, the land it'll be waged on and the antagonist - Garrosh and ultimately ends with a resolution to all three, having developed all three of these throughout its runtime. Even the Thunder King patch, which could just as easily have been an Ulduar-style diversion instead sets up one set of characters from their role in a previous patch to their role in the finale, while also having the background material leading up to the ultimate plan of the antagonist. By contrast BFA switches drastically between settings, tones and areas, characters picked up and abandoned. Whether you start with BTS - which has the Alliance-Horde story as its core or the Burning of Teldrassil - which has Sylvanas's uber secret plan as its focus, the ultimate resolution ultimately goes "lol, see you later" to both of these topics and instead the ending is about Old Gods. Hell, as I was writing this post lambasting it, I suddenly remembered azerite was a plotline as well and despite the Old God having nothing to do with it, at the end it has a handwave. Mists on the other hand has the sha and Y'shaarj as a consistent throughline from 5.0 to 5.4 with an ultimate resolution to it that also gels with the thesis of the story.

Mists is a story that manifestly shouldn't have been told, but in terms of plot development, character and an ending that, within its own context, was earned, it stands head and shoulders over BFA and most other expansions. BFA has no identifiable context because things like the cycle of hatred, the azerite arms race, Sylvanas as a solo agent of death and the Old Gods, there's no consistent throughline. The expansion picks one thing up, waves it around a bit, gets bored and carries on. Cata has no main plot except that Green Jesus nonsense nobody gives a fuck about, the game included given that it switches gears to be about Ragnaros and some druids instead for its best patch, WoD doesn't bear description, and Wrath and Legion come close, but in Wrath's case still shows signs of the early WoW storytelling hangups, like how the middle two raids don't develop the main plot.

[Varodoc]

sylvanas is always my queen and jaina too.

Jaina is hotter than Sylvanas though so are they really comparable

[Super Dickmann]

Jaina is hotter than Sylvanas though so are they really comparable

Azshara is the patrician's waifu.

[Vampyrr]

It's almost as if Legion was TBC 2.0

ehhhhh more like the wow introduction of the Legion. For those of us who didnt play Warcraft this was our first real insight into the Legion as a group in TBC. I see WoW: Legion the expansion as a continuation of the story rather than a remake of TBC. There arent as many parallels between the two other than Sunwell had demons so anything else with demons is a remake!

The Sylvannas Story and Garrosh Story are dramatically similar in contrast.

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/snip

Agree with some disagree with others. I feel BFA's story was not as bad as you make it out to be. It was conflict driven and the story did work there. Infact the story was more or less fine until 8.3, N'zoth's story feels rushed and tacked on and does not really fit well with the expansion at all. It is incomplete and fell quite flat. Mists as a story was decent but definitely not the best expansion story at all. Cata definitely had a main plot so I am not sure how you can make that statement at all, you are dealing with agents of Deathwing the entire time; yeah they went a little hard in the paint with Thrall but he was still heavily rooted in the overall story. But specifically Firelands has Ragnaros working WITH Deathwing to burn down Hyjal and Nordrassil so we had to stop him.

Theres definitely some rose tinted glasses going on with Mists though. I feel it was one of the three worst expansions WoW had.

[Super Dickmann]

ehhhhh more like the wow introduction of the Legion. For those of us who didnt play Warcraft this was our first real insight into the Legion as a group in TBC. I see WoW: Legion the expansion as a continuation of the story rather than a remake of TBC. There arent as many parallels between the two other than Sunwell had demons so anything else with demons is a remake!

The Sylvannas Story and Garrosh Story are dramatically similar in contrast.

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Agree with some disagree with others. I feel BFA's story was not as bad as you make it out to be. It was conflict driven and the story did work there. Infact the story was more or less fine until 8.3, N'zoth's story feels rushed and tacked on and does not really fit well with the expansion at all. It is incomplete and fell quite flat. Mists as a story was decent but definitely not the best expansion story at all. Cata definitely had a main plot so I am not sure how you can make that statement at all, you are dealing with agents of Deathwing the entire time; yeah they went a little hard in the paint with Thrall but he was still heavily rooted in the overall story. But specifically Firelands has Ragnaros working WITH Deathwing to burn down Hyjal and Nordrassil so we had to stop him.

Theres definitely some rose tinted glasses going on with Mists though. I feel it was one of the three worst expansions WoW had.

Mists had solid gameplay. Its story is bad when put into overall context, but its story execution was among the best handled. It had a clear A leads to B, B leads to C feel to it, with every character action following into something else. It was very on the nose, and the setting, as lovingly as it was made, is a matter of taste, especially the Pandaren who grate on me as well, but that can be directed at most of Warcraft.

Setting aside the execution of BFA, its place in overall canon or the dog's breakfast it makes of both factions, even taken into a vacuum its thematic pieces just don't work - worse than that, they clash. If the story is about the cycle of hatred - about how the individual grievances of the races and peoples because of all that's gone on lead them into conflict, even when the world is dying, as represented by the azerite, then a story where no one actually wanted conflict at all and were perfectly willing and able to shake each other's hands and be friends if it weren't for just one bitch flies in the face of that, because she's an entirely out of context entity. Sylvanas doesn't represent the misuse of the Warchief spot because she's completely alien to it and people's allegiance to her being based on that is nonsense, something early material like BTS are aware of but the story forgets as it goes on and is made even worse once the use of the safeguards to the Warchief position is what resolves the conflict in a story about how the traditions and structures of the Horde are wrong and must be eliminated.

Double all of that when it comes to N'zoth - you can make a case that Sylvanas is using the aforementioned cycle and exploiting everyone to do her bidding. Even then you'd have to disregard how allegiance to this ideology was so firm that people were willing to wage a genocidal war on the basis of her agenda yet so flimsy that her spazzing out immediately makes them okay with the faction they were waging that war of extermination on entering their capital city and adopting its leadership system. What you can't make a case is that the Old Gods being manipulative and benefitting from war or whatever has any resonance when N'zoth had no involvement in starting the war whatsoever, he had no relation to azerite whatsoever and his being freed is based entirely on the cooperation between the races - he goes free because Jaina and Bob and by extension the PC worked together and went into it rather than leaving all of Nazjatar to go fuck itself. Their cooperation caused the problem, despite the story being all about love and peace. Compare and contrast how the equivalent story in Mists with the Thunder King had them unable to achieve their goal until they agreed to stand out of each other's way. This makes N'zoth's story fall down like a damp rag because for all that it's not all that badly executed, it's completely perennial both thematically and plot-wise. The end boss is some side bitch you clear out on the basis of his prior name value and the culmination of his plan is achieved by an unrelated evil conspiracy that got one over on him and our heroes' pathological altruism while the actual initiator of the conflict flees after an anti-climax one patch earlier. Then the representation of the cycle of hatred and the temptation to escalate and mistrust - azerite, gets written off as being related to the Old God, despite having fuck all to do with N'zoth either plot or theme-wise.

[Dartz1979]

Jaina is hotter than Sylvanas though so are they really comparable

If jaina was in a bikini like outfit as her wardrobe yes but sylvanas and even ysera is hotter looking

[Purpleisbetter]

Just want to point out that with Sylvanas gone, the most notable horde characters are the two npcs sitting in front of Orgrimmar's gate.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Sylvanas was ruined post WotLK. She was never a good person post-banshee but she was much more sympathetic. There was an element of tragedy and mourning for her lost life still there. This was perfectly shown with The Lament of the Highborn quest in BC. There was also a case for her having care for her people pre-Edge of Night "arrows in her quiver".

[Doffen]

I don't care about the story anymore, whats interesting in this thread is the discussion about how hot these gurls are.

Jaina and Valeera are my favorites. Dayum! They were together in a dream I had, that was lovely.