Sylvanas post helm destruction

[AlmightyGerkin]

Made zero sense.

The real reason is they wanted Bolvar as the Magni of the expansion. The anchor-NPC. They thought it was cool.

Now, in Blizzard’s Headquarters, they are trying to find a reason for that, something like 4D chess BS. They have plenty of time for that.

Of course, it won’t make any sense.

Hero, Shadowlands cries out in agony!

[kaintk]

Would like to hear theories why she didn't kill Bolvar after shattering the helm?

do you always kill an ant just because you have the power to do so ?

her goal was just to destroy the helm

without it, bolvar is just an ant for her and her borrowing shadowland power, so she dont care

[Feanoro]

Hero, Shadowlands cries out in agony!

Ye must gae farth... sorry, wrong character. You must go forth and close the wooons! I... What? We're not doing that anymore? Lines please? Uh huh... uh huh... Got it. Ok. *ahem* You must go forth and siphon anima from things we don't like to give to things we do like!

[Knslyr]

We don't know her exact goals. Perhaps it benefits her more if the living walts into the Shadowlands more than killing Bolvar. And the goal for powering the maw is probably already complete and she is just having her eyes on the her next goal.

And as for killing Bolvar just for some extra power feels like Bill Gates picking up a penny on the street to increase his wealth at this point.

So story wise I don't really mind her ignoring Bolvar. Her trusting Saurfang to finish off Malfurion though did not make sense at all, nor sending assassins after Thrall.

[cparle87]

make up shit is not what we are here for, at least not me, we can theorize upon what we have, but we don't have much to base upon because, there is lierally none, we can outight lie and take something up from our butt like saying Sylvanas is fact secretly in love with him, this don't change is bullshit


But what you are going to do when that is literally the answer? "writers didn't think trough and made just because the rule of cool"? are you denying the reality just because you don't like it?



are you joking right now? lmao

"the story isn't done" is not a excuse, because in that regard you should by now have a hint of why she left him alive, and there is none, explaining in 2 patches from now is just they making up something later.

Yes the writers are getting shit, rightfully deserved by their past record, don't pretend there is no reason for us to be skeptical, BfA was a shitshow from start to finish, especially how azerite was supposed to be such a big deal and pivotal to the expansion and was discarded in the pre-patch



in short, people want to hear lies instead of the truth?

and we didn't just type "writers suck" i said, other too, some of routes they can use later, but yeah, the answer atm is only one they didn't think trough that much and wanted him to be the new Magi.

"Make up shit is not what we're here for" followed by "we can theorize upon what we have". That's some impressive doublethink there.

Thank you for your clairvoyance in piercing time and space to read the minds of the writers so you can speak for what you want to be true is "reality."

We didn't have a clue why Gandalf didn't show up until he did and told us where he was. You're arguing against yourself. Why do we need to know NOW why she left him alive? HOW is not knowing now somehow bad writing besides you don't like it?

Yes, we want to hear in-universe guesses and possibly lies about why characters acted why they did, not out of universe commentary.

Why are you even following the lore of this game anymore if you've already decided before the story is even told that it's bad? Seems to me you're just here to hate on things since you've already made up your mind.

[Tarba]

@Syegfryed @korijenkins @Verdugo @Tarba

Sending this to all of you cause you said the same thing. WHY are you coming to a goddamned lore forums if you're not going to talk about the lore, just complain about the lore writers? Can you not live your lives without hating on something? Do you read a book, stop partway through, and come onto a forum to complain about it because you're, get this, not done with the story but still complaining that there are plot points that haven't been resolved?

This is the lore forum. We're here to talk about the lore. If you can't be bothered to talk about the lore, as in in-game actions, reactions, and ideas, then why are you even here? You're like the guys who roll on RP servers just to crash other people's events with RL politics and other BS.

The question is "why that stupid décision?"
The answer is "because writers are stupid".
No need to pull stupid imaginary excuses out of our asses for their retarded writting. It's like every bad cop tv show where the cop says to the culprit without much proof "I know it's you". And the bad guy answer "yeah it's me, I didn't like him because of ..." end of the episode.
That's Bliizard writting. Retarded, lame, lazy writting.
People put more effort to explain what they are writting than them. And they absolutely don't give a shit about it. So basically you want an "imaginary lore" section. Where you'll meet with the "maybe the alliance attacked first before bfa and teldrassil was a retaliation" people. And so many others.

Lore is worth talking when it is. Not for every bullshit they make. That's one.

[Mehrunes]

Why is it every time someone asks a question in the, wait for it, LORE SECTION there's always someone who comes in with a Doylian, almost universally negative, response instead of an in-universe Watsonian one?

Because there isn't one? What's next, you'll bemoan people pointing out that the only reason why Baine et al are not killed by Jailer's forces is because Bliznzard doesn't want to kill them, because from the Watsonian perspective they only served Jailer as bait (because the giant hole in the sky was apparently not enough), making their continued existence pointless to him?

If you think the above post was a "wall of text" then your threshold for walls is exceedingly low - it would make basic navigation through life very challenging, I imagine. In any case, villains leaving heroes alive is a pretty common refrain in fiction, and if your tolerance for that trope is low then I would also imagine you don't read a lot of fiction, or else your ability to suspend disbelief is compromised or completely gone.

Except villains typically leave their enemies alive because they consider them irrelevant at the given point. And sometimes because they want to gloat/torment them some more. In Sylvanas' case her not killing Bolvar goes against her way of powering herself up by feeding souls to the Maw. And since she has access to the Maw she could have gloated at Bolvar as he's stuck there forever.

She did indeed kill Saurfang once he'd goaded her to do so, but she left him alive long enough for him to form a bloody insurrection against her. She only sent *two* assassins to apparently kill Thrall, himself a formidable warrior and former World-Shaman. She entrusted the destruction of the Speaker to the Horde to an individual she knew couldn't be fully trusted (Azshara). She allowed Genn to walk away from their duel in Stormheim. Yes, she's definitely established a precedent in this regard, so her later actions with Bolvar are fully in character for her.

What precedent you've got here. Sylvanas' inconsistency about everything in BfA was one of the most criticized plot elements of the expansion. Same goes with her bout with Genn, because Sylvanas has a tendency of lashing out for much smaller slights than what Genn did and the only reason she suddenly stopped acting that way at the end of Stormheim is because Blizzard wanted him alive and in their infinite sucking at everything they couldn't have been bothered with achieving that in any other way than "Sylvanas.exe has stopped working".

Sylvanas's psychology is irrelevant as it changes to suit the needs of the writers; see her internal monologues from BTS being effectively retconned before the attached expansion is even over. There's nothing deep to explore there, Sylvanas is totally OK with killing people for any reason unless the plot needs them alive and then she's the very mother of mercy who can't be bothered to put an arrow in an easy target that she should by all rights want very much dead.

Pretty much. Case in point, Genn in Stormheim. Which has been criticized a lot in the past as plot inconsistency created just because Blizzard wanted Genn alive. Because the same Sylvanas that went on an animal murder spree because Vereesa wrote her that she remembered she had children somehow became totally chill when Genn completely fucked her over. And somehow @Aucald saw it fit to use another example of Sylvanas acting out of character to justify the nonsensical act of leaving Bolvar alive.

[Sixnalia]

I feel that the Jailer had her not kill him.

Bolvar was our main way into the Shadowlands and into the Maw.
The Jailer may have wanted us to go there.
And while there, we proved that you can escape the Maw.
AND we can take others out of the Maw.

Which may mean we could be instrumental in the Jailer breaking out.

Remember. The Jailer didn't even kill the faction leaders he captured. He was "testing" them.

[Mehrunes]

Riiiight, because this forum just shines with positivity towards Blizzard day in day out...

Anyway, there is also another possibility. My memory is not the best because that book was really forgettable, but was there any word of Bolvar still being around when Nathanos arrives in Shadows Rising? I don't think there was. Maybe he jumped off Icecrown and into a Deathgate right after the breaking of the Helmet and went away, not giving Sylvanas the chance to finish him?

I am still ready to believe that she is just to arrogant to care about him, but it could be something much simpler.

Right after he was sprawled on the ground, massively depowered in a forceful fashion and with "I can chain you to the floor at will bro" arrows still sticking out of his body? I never knew Bolvar "the burning wreck of man" Fordragon was the Usain Bolt of Azeroth. Very unexpected. But I guess you learn something new every day.

[Aucald]

Except villains typically leave their enemies alive because they consider them irrelevant at the given point. And sometimes because they want to gloat/torment them some more. In Sylvanas' case her not killing Bolvar goes against her way of powering herself up by feeding souls to the Maw. And since she has access to the Maw she could have gloated at Bolvar as he's stuck there forever.

Bolvar's a single soul, essentially de-powered without the Helm - I would imagine she weighted the humiliation of ignoring him like he were nothing to be greater than the bit of anima he might contribute to the Maw. That kind of arrogant and shortsighted calculus is exactly the form of thinking that's framed Sylvanas for some time now.

What precedent you've got here. Sylvanas' inconsistency about everything in BfA was one of the most criticized plot elements of the expansion. Same goes with her bout with Genn, because Sylvanas has a tendency of lashing out for much smaller slights than what Genn did and the only reason she suddenly stopped acting that way at the end of Stormheim is because Blizzard wanted him alive and in their infinite sucking at everything they couldn't have been bothered with achieving that in any other way than "Sylvanas.exe has stopped working".

Genn was poisoned by Sylvanas' black arrows and very nearly died at the Alliance encampment - it's more likely that Sylvanas thought she finished him, and like with with the rest of the examples above simply failed to follow through, as previously noted.

[Mehrunes]

Arthas wasn't a nobody, either; even just as a DK (the one who killed her in life, no less). Neither was Genn, Malfurion, or Saurfang - and still her casual arrogance and its accompanying lapse in judgment ensured they all survived to bedevil her later. You may call it "writer laziness" and dismiss it, but I see it as just more of her continued characterization moving forward. I mean sure, from a Doylist standpoint we all know she left Bolvar alive because Bolvar is necessary to the story - it's the same reason why Obi-wan leaves Anakin alive (to become Darth Vader), or why Gollum decides not to immediately kill and eat Bilbo. But from the Watsonian standpoint, those characters' actions are in keeping with their character, and my argument is that the same is true of Sylvanas vs. Bolvar. Bereft of the Helm and humbled by her power, Sylvanas dismisses Bolvar as a threat to either her or her benefactor - leaving him to wallow in his defeat, simply unable to offer any real opposition to their plans. She's wrong, of course, the same kind of wrong that made her spare Genn, hesitate with Arthas, or trust Saurfang to compromise his own strongly-held cultural ethics.

Your insistence on bringing up Arthas somehow makes even less sense than your Genn example, even though she acted completely out of character in regards to Genn. She didn't just peace out after incapacitating Arthas. Just the opposite, she wanted to take her sweet time killing him. That's the complete opposite of what happened with Bolvar where after she broke the helm the thought to kill him didn't even cross her mind and she basically stopped even registering him as a thing that exists. That she got interrupted by Kel'thuzad does in no way, shape or form make these two comparable.

And by focusing on just that he was no longer a threat you are merrily ignoring the other side of the coin about how killing him would still benefit her because of him serving as Maw fuel. Still merrily ignoring it, that is, because it's already been pointed out on page one. It's almost as if Sylvanas torched an entire world tree of not-a-threats or something. Because threat or not, killing them still was in line of her goals and motives.

And the fact that as part of Maw's forces she could see him wallow in his defeat in the Maw has also been pointed out on page one. Which you also chose ignore. Just to maintain the fantasy there must be a logical justification for this and that thinking otherwise makes one a cynical, jaded hater because Blizzard, with its amazing track record, obviously wouldn't make this mistake (yet again). In the same exact expansion where we have Jailer not killing Baine and the rest of the twerps, even though the moment Azeroth's forces took the bait it was no longer necessary for the bait to remain alive. And in this case Jailer actually didn't just leave them be because "lel, not a threat". He still left them under supervision of his goons.

At the time she left Saurfang, she operated from the position that he'd be going to his warrior's death.

Hell, Saurfang thought he was going to his warrior's death. And the only reason he ultimately did not is because Anduin knew Orcish honor better than him.

[Aucald]

Your insistence on bringing up Arthas somehow makes even less sense than your Genn example, even though she acted completely out of character in regards to Genn. She didn't just peace out after incapacitating Arthas. Just the opposite, she wanted to take her sweet time killing him. That's the complete opposite of what happened with Bolvar where after she broke the helm the thought to kill him didn't even cross her mind and she basically stopped even registering him as a thing that exists. That she got interrupted by Kel'thuzad does in no way, shape or form make these two comparable.

And by focusing on just that he was no longer a threat you are merrily ignoring the other side of the coin about how killing him would still benefit her because of him serving as Maw fuel. Still merrily ignoring it, that is, because it's already been pointed out on page one. It's almost as if Sylvanas torched an entire world tree of not-a-threats or something. Because threat or not, killing them still was in line of her goals and motives.

And the fact that as part of Maw's forces she could see him wallow in his defeat in the Maw has also been pointed out on page one. Which you also chose ignore. Just to maintain the fantasy there must be a logical justification for this and that thinking otherwise makes one a cynical, jaded hater because Blizzard, with its amazing track record, obviously wouldn't make this mistake (yet again). In the same exact expansion where we have Jailer not killing Baine and the rest of the twerps, even though the moment Azeroth's forces took the bait it was no longer necessary for the bait to remain alive.

The example with Arthas speaks to her arrogance - instead of quickly dispatching him while she had him at her mercy, in the narrow timeframe she had while he was weakened and unattended, she instead lingered to gloat over his prone form, which *gave* all the time necessary for Kel'thuzad to show up and ruin her plans. Like a typical Bond villain, she monologued at Arthas just long enough for something to happen to happen to free her quarry. The same arrogant shortsightedness informed that action the same way it did with Genn, and later with Bolvar.

I already addressed your "Maw fuel" critique above, so far from ignoring it. It probably would've been better that she had done that, but Sylvanas didn't want to give Bolvar the relative honor of death. She likely also wants the remaining leaders on Azeroth to see him broken and humbled as well, to know that with her current power she could even humble a Lich King singlehandedly (such that Bolvar merits the title). Either way, the narrative tells us why she did it - her rationale is clear enough.

[Mehrunes]

This is the lore sections. If someone asks a question to something, sure, go ahead and make up headcanon hypotheses. That's great, that's what we're here for. Then we can talk about them months down the line when the questions are answered and about how right or wrong we were. Going "because the writers are crap" or "they completely forgot about it because they're shit" is not what we came to these forums to hear.

Imagine reading Lord of the Rings, reading Gandalf tell Frodo he'll meet him in Bree, then getting to those chapters and no Gandalf. You then go onto the forums to whine about the shit writers who can't even remember what they wrote and keep it straight. That's what's being done. The story isn't done, plotlines haven't been answered, yet the writers are being lambasted.

Given how your tune is the exact same in regards to any and all plotline of WoW, no matter how done the given story is, the impact of what you're saying here is somewhat diminished.

TLDR Yes, coming up with headcanon explanations is what we want. Not out of universe "the writers suck" crap.

Um, no. If you want to spread headcanon take that to fanfiction.net. You said it yourself, this is the lore section. And headcanon is not lore. It is the antithesis of lore and as such is infinitely less relevant to the issue of lore than the reasons why writers wrote X thing in an Y way.

[Syegfryed]

"Make up shit is not what we're here for" followed by "we can theorize upon what we have". That's some impressive doublethink there.

no no, there is a diference between making shit up thinking its the reality and theorizing knowing they are not real at all

Thank you for your clairvoyance in piercing time and space to read the minds of the writers so you can speak for what you want to be true is "reality."

then reality is what? some theory a dude made up in a forum?

We didn't have a clue why Gandalf didn't show up until he did and told us where he was. You're arguing against yourself. Why do we need to know NOW why she left him alive? HOW is not knowing now somehow bad writing besides you don't like it?

Knowing who Gandalf was, what he was doing, he can have a hint of why he didn't, its not something absurd to happen since is on Gandalf Character, he is not an asss to just give then the middle finger. Totoally different from Queen evil doing things for the rule of cool, since goes against her character like its being explained

And what the hell is this argument, we do know why gandalf didn't show up, if it was wow writers they only would explain why he didn't in the third book or in the silmarilion because reasons, saying "what if we remove key elements on purpose making lotr bad like wow?" is not an argument.

Yes, we want to hear in-universe guesses and possibly lies about why characters acted why they did, not out of universe commentary.

have at it dude, topic is full of then, if 3 responses in a thread of 6 pages trigger you so much you can just ignore the users, even i did theorize a bit about it.

Why are you even following the lore of this game anymore if you've already decided before the story is even told that it's bad? Seems to me you're just here to hate on things since you've already made up your mind.

because old lore is cool and we all have slightly hope for getting better.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

She doesn't care why waste time killing Bolvar when you can go back to your "master" to tell him things are going as planned, she beat him and without Lich King powers he's not really a threat. The only "problem" is his knowledge but the Jailer knows way more so you can infer they got the advantage and such. Yes obviously they wanted to keep him alive to see him but....what purpose does killing Bolvar do? What does it gain her? At that point nothing really and since we know Sylvanas likes to be sadistic, you could make her spare him only to attempt to kill him later in front of us(Or in front of Taelia cause suffering).

Really people need to chill.

[Garthul]

Has anyone considered that maybe she COULDN'T kill Bolvar, or that maybe it would be incredibly difficult to do?
He may not be powerful enough to beat her, but he is infused with the flames of the Lifebinder.
Perhaps that's why Arthas didn't kill him in the first place either, he literally couldn't. Arthas had no compelling reason to keep Bolvar alive and torment him, as they don't have any significant history together that I'm aware of. Maybe he kept him because he was unable to destroy him.

[Aucald]

Has anyone considered that maybe she COULDN'T kill Bolvar, or that maybe it would be incredibly difficult to do?
He may not be powerful enough to beat her, but he is infused with the flames of the Lifebinder.
Perhaps that's why Arthas didn't kill him in the first place either, he literally couldn't. Arthas had no compelling reason to keep Bolvar alive and torment him, as they don't have any significant history together that I'm aware of. Maybe he kept him because he was unable to destroy him.

That's actually pretty horrific to think of, really. Imagine Bolvar torn apart, his head over at the edge of the pinnacle of Icecrown and his arms and legs scattered about, but all of him still alive and in pain - the power of Life so strong that he simply can't die normally even due to massive injury.

[keldarepewpew]

Gonna have to go with bad writing here. Bad guys leaving a defeated good guy alive so he can power up and win later is an extremly over used trope. Luckily recent fiction is starting to move away from using this. Blizzard however like always is slow to adapt and loves using it.

[Garthul]

That's actually pretty horrific to think of, really. Imagine Bolvar torn apart, his head over at the edge of the pinnacle of Icecrown and his arms and legs scattered about, but all of him still alive and in pain - the power of Life so strong that he simply can't die normally even due to massive injury.

Well he's literally burnt into a hunk of charcoal and still alive, not to mention Sylvanas peppering him with arrows (that can cleave stone like butter) until he looks like a porcupine and he's still moving.
I don't think its unreasonable to believe he can't die.

[Aucald]

Well he's literally burnt into a hunk of charcoal and still alive, not to mention Sylvanas peppering him with arrows (that can cleave stone like butter) until he looks like a porcupine and he's still moving.
I don't think its unreasonable to believe he can't die.

It's within the realm of possibility, I agree. I was never sure if Bolvar prior to taking up the Helm of Domination was alive, or undead, or something entirely else - he's definitely not what he was before being bathed in the life-giving flames of the Red Dragonflight, but what that entails or whether or not he can truly die now is an open question.