Sanctum of Domination Ending cinematic

[Super Dickmann]

You know that we've really entered bizarro world territory when Sylvanas characterisation does a complete 180° every time a cinematic starts. Suddenly we go from evil villain who's taunting everyone with her evilness to misunderstood girlboss who just wanted to do what's right. I mean, we knew this was going to happen the moment we saw her talk to Anduin and give him these puppy-eyed looks but the actual execution goes beyond even my wildest dreams.

The Marvel comparisons are the most obvious, but what this reminds me of the most is the new Star Wars. Where the writers took turns and each of them was left to follow up on the broad strokes of what the previous guy left behind, all the while hating everything that guy has produced and wanting to do something entirely different with the characters. Except there it was two guys, whereas here it's either two or three, depending on how much of a role Metzen still had in Legion. Metzen was clearly building up for a legitimate faction war expansion of some kind given the cinematic he made and how he framed Sylvanas. Then Afrasiabi wanted to turn Sylvanas into Satan to serve as the Big Bad for Shadowlands and also so he could prove he could do Mists better than Kosak, taking Sylvanas being Warchief from the story but nothing else and making it clear that she was her own antagonist. Then Danuser took over and he really wanted to be with his one true waifu, WC3 Reign of Chaos Sylvanas. Being the only person in the world who cared about that incarnation of the character he was stuck with all the BFA baggage and was left to try and build some tangled drama out of it, only to fail because the twice changed foundation was going in two other completely different directions.

I don't know which version is the worst - the BFA one is obviously the most one-dimensional, but the Shadowlands one is the most pants on head retarded and incomprehensible variant yet, simultaneously having to carry pathos that may have worked in some kind of design doc in an alternate universe where BFA never happened, but since BFA did happen falls apart, yet also put into situations that are impossible to explain in any way but her being immensely stupid. Out of all characters assassinated in this expansion, Kel'thuzad takes the cake by far, in not only being entirely butchered to serve as an announcer character for the Blue Man, but also in that him and Sylvanas being in the same raid yet never referencing each other makes the already ridiculous nature of her working for this obviously, transparently villainous guy even worse.

Usually I can at least follow what the fuck the devs were trying to do even as they fail, but I genuinely have no idea how this managed to pass any kind of writer's room or how you could conceivably make it make sense. Even if BFA didn't exist and so Sylvanas' character interaction would make a bit more sense, you'd still have the Kel'thuzad retcon and the Blue Man being a charisma void to contend with. I suppose you could have her only join the Blue Man once the war effort turns to shit out of desperation but even then you'd fail because there's no way anyone meets this guy and thinks he's on the level. It's like that bit in Cataclysm where the Blue Flight usurper wants Deathwing's help despite Deathwing obviously intending to destroy the world, which no one will survive, except it's not an incidental character in a side story but every single character in the villainous cast except Denathrius.

[Mehrunes]

Guilt. Facts speak louder than words.

Bucky Barnes also feels guilty for what he did even if he was mind controlled.

Feeling guilty and outright claiming (repeatedly, by the way) that one was in control of their actions are two vastly different things. Bucky never claimed he was in control. He knew he wasn't and felt guilty despite that. Besides, as I pointed out to the other poster, Blizzard stated in interviews that Amon had no direct control over Kerrigan.

[Gorsameth]

They kinda tried it with the voice of Arthas in the background before she decides to betray him but there is no way to avoid the viewer having a massive "wtf did you think was going to happen" reaction towards Sylvanas. The problem is that the audience has 0 reason to emphasize with the Jailer, and therefor anyone working with him.

For this whole thing story arc to work and for Sylvanas change of heart to be believable the player needs to better understanding motivation beyond Sylvanas crying about how unfair death is.

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Yeah that is currently my biggest problem too.

There are characters i really like. Flynn, Shaw, Tyrande, Shandris, Lorthremas, Jaian and even Slyvannas.

But the problem Blizz always has, is that they make twist and turns in their story seeminly out of nothing. Sure it is realistic that we do NOT know why Sylvannas does somethign until she tells us... but that does not make it ok if said thing is going on for 2,5 expansions with no explanation whatsover. In anything.
I hope she getting her soul back means she will tell the protagonists a bit more her motivations. And maybe Blizz will finally give us some answers instead of answering every question with another fucking question.

Like now: Did we learn ANYTHING new in this patch? Like at all. We still have not one bit of a clue what the jailor did and what he wants to do. ALso we have still no real clue why Sylvannas did what she did. We know now she did not care as much if it is evil becuase she had a split soul. But that is it.

Edit: As people are talking about it: FF14 story is still cringy as fuck, sorry not sorry. I take wow story over whatever FF14 does anytime. I still like to play it from time to time though.

Filling in the blanks after the fact is so very unrewarding tho.

If done well by a really really good writer it can work in a movie where its full of little hints that you will completely miss on a first viewing and then bam a big twist at the end that you don't see coming and the viewer then being filled in so that you want to see the movie again to spot all the little hints that meant nothing the first time but now add a much deeper meaning to the entire movie.

But that doesn't work for a game medium when you spend half a year waiting between chapters.
(and the WoW writers are not remotely competent enough to pull it off anyway)

[Nerovar]

Usually I can at least follow what the fuck the devs were trying to do even as they fail, but I genuinely have no idea how this managed to pass any kind of writer's room or how you could conceivably make it make sense.

"Specifically with World of Warcraft, our creative director Alex [Afrasiabi] said a wonderful thing. He said our story rooms are dojos. They’re sacred places. And we try to tell a story as best we can and to make our players as happy as we can. But we try not to let the negativity enter the dojo"

They tried to warn us. We never paid any heed to the ancient prophecies.

[Uzkin]

Sylvanas doesn't need any redemption. In every fiction where the concept of 'soul' is real, losing it changes a person -- and generally, for the worse. Now that she got her soul back her personality is again that of the Ranger General of Quel'Thalas, hero of the blood elves (modified by her memories from her time as undead, of course).

Sylvanas is pretty much like Spike and Angel from BtVS.

[Aliven]

I mean, FFXIV is really really really childish and you being the ultra god champion there isn't any better, it's just fresher in your eyes so you didn't get quite as jaded yet.

It has better written characters, for starters. That actually go through a journey through the story. Change. In a believeable way.

And FFXIV actually tackle a serious issues, not like wow when everything is either 100% good or 100% corrupt :P

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Ah yes, FFXIV where CGI cinematics have characters with a clear Japanese aesthetic that speak in cringe British accents while butt-rock music plays in the background as they anime fight.


That FFXIV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tyuIh12_HU

How can you watch this and not cringe.

Well you have space marine as a avatar picture which are bereable only as Angry Marines, i dont think you are equipped to point out cringe.

[Smallfruitbat]

"Specifically with World of Warcraft, our creative director Alex [Afrasiabi] said a wonderful thing. He said our story rooms are dojos. They’re sacred places. And we try to tell a story as best we can and to make our players as happy as we can. But we try not to let the negativity enter the dojo"

They tried to warn us. We never paid any heed to the ancient prophecies.

Perfection!!

There's a divide in the player base, some love Sylvanas, some hate her and some are pretty ambivalent, those opinions came from watching her story unfold. To be honest, trying to justify all the stuff she did 'she didn't mean it bruh' cheapens the whole story.

What I liked about her and what I liked about Garrosh was that neither apologised for their actions. She was a pragmatist, that much was clear from the Legion scenario. Both her and Garrosh did what they did and to hell with the consequences, putting a redemption arc in and mitigating factors is trying to get everyone to like her. Having her take an arrow for Varian at the start of the Legion invasion would have made more sense.

[OCoyne]

Golden liked this tweet so I’m guessing the next patch will lead up to some self-reflection(pity) storylines for Sylvanas as she struggles to come to terms with what she’s done.

https://twitter.com/daughterof_seas/...701718534?s=21

I like the take tbh. A full mental breakdown guilty conscience

[Ethas]

So, a great ranger general decides to turn against the guy who just become over9000 stronger and uses puny arrow. Right.
And nothing happens. Hiatus in the story for another year. This is just stupid.

[Razaron]

I like the take tbh. A full mental breakdown guilty conscience

I'd of prefered that her story came to a close with her dying on her sword, realising at the end that she was wrong. It would be tragic end to her character, now all I see is her self-sacrifice to try and make amends for what she's started.

It'll be a bit like a fire she's started, she'll put it out but that doesn't excuse the damage the fire caused.

[Civciv]

Chill out people, this is WoW Lore thread. No need to be dick .

[Kumorii]

I have a feeling we will find out a lot more over the coming weeks as the questline progresses.

You would think this would be obvious, but apparently it's not. We are clearly gonna see what's gonna happen between Sylvanas and rest of the cast as well as reflection on what have transpired.

[ArenaDk]

It has better written characters, for starters. That actually go through a journey through the story. Change. In a believeable way.

And FFXIV actually tackle a serious issues, not like wow when everything is either 100% good or 100% corrupt :P

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Well you have space marine as a avatar picture which are bereable only as Angry Marines, i dont think you are equipped to point out cringe.

What? I finished heavensward and half of stormblood and its really not much charaxter growth or good writing. Its just a repeat of we collect stuff, we fight, lose, we collect again , we win. Oh wait Nidhogg is back for the 20 times oh no. Now he is gone and our friend is saved happy after

[Mehrunes]

The few positive things I can say about Sylvanas in this expansion, besides having arguably more depth than BFA to go with her 100 point lower IQ is that the animations are a lot better.

Also, she's been wearing skulls for fifteen years so that's not a tell. The whole plotline collapses because the guy barely even pretends to be anything but comically fucking evil at every turn. It's one of the funny aspects of the cinematic actually - when she calls him out, he isn't angry, just sort of confused, like he was surprised she expected anything else. Maybe if the Maw was running on autopilot and he was a prisoner going 'woe is me' it'd work marginally better but even then it's impossible to present this character as a viable schemer or even an average intellect when the story rotates around her trusting this obviously incredibly evil dude.

While this is not a defense of this joke by any means, I think people are going too far with this "how could Sylvanas trust his obviously evil plan". First of all, Sylvanas wouldn't give a single fuck about it being evil, as long as it was for the "greater good" and the personal "I'm pissed off about my lot in undeath/afterlife" she hides beneath that.

If I had to guess I'd say the Jailer sold her the pitch akin to that of of Lucifer in the show Lucifer about how him being in dominant position in the Maw was just a job forced on him after he was betrayed and kicked out of his rightful place. With the ones who forced it upon him being either by the Eternal Ones that did the aforementioned betraying or even the First Ones (he did just show he has a beef with them) that meddled after the fact. And that he's punishing wicked souls because he has to. Probably also something about the current system being false and artificial, vide the robotic Arbiter.

Now, it's still rather silly that she believed him given how he's a vampiric-looking blue Sargeras wannabe that wears metallic, spiky gimp-suit (and has a significant amount of control over what's going in the torture dimension), but then again she's a banshee that possesses her own corpse, wears skulls as ornaments and for quite some time has lived in a sewer where the closest thing to water was poisonous sludge, she couldn't be the best judge in that regard.

Anyway, it's obvious that the Jailer told her the main part of the plan, i.e. that once he completes his Infinity Gauntlet and then gets to wherever he needs to go (probably the Sepulcher mentioned throughout 9.1) he will be able to alter reality more to their liking. All those talks with Anduin about how through the Jailer she will able to break the wheel (wait, wrong garbage story, but you get the point), her urging Zovaal to proceed with the plan because the Gauntlet is complete and so on. And whatever he may have planned to change, she viewed it as the better alternative because she hated the current state of things. It's just the Jailer had an additional objective of "mwuahaha, I will reshape the cosmos for my benefit alone", i.e. how everyone will now serve him instead of fucking around in the engine of death.

And that is where the whole thing collapses on itself. No, not because Sylvanas herself already served Jailer as many people said here. Blizzard was rather insistent on saying that she is allied to him. Given how she's Sylvanas, she probably outright saw herself as his equal. And since, again, it's Sylvanas, it'd actually be in character for her to object to her serving him. No, it's the part where it's somehow tied to Anduin, vide the longing look she gives him the moment before.

Because, just as they tried to do with her earlier exchange with Blanduin where he told her that she's supposed to be a champion of free will, this is Blizzard trying to turn her into something she's never been. They are trying to portray her as some libertarian/anarchist from Revolutionary France fighting for absolute freedom for everyone.

Because that Sylvanas never existed before. She was about freedom for the undead. And even then only in the sense that they would be free from mental slavery to the Lich King or other necromancers, because when it came to running her state she went with a monarchy. Pretty much an absolute one at that. Everyone else? That she didn't give a fuck at best. At worst she violated their will to achieve her goals just fine. And she started doing that already in W3.

Her getting furious because he crossed her would have made sense (even though her putting her faith in him has flaws). Her instantly going "oh noes, we can't let him win my friends, he will do an evil thing and I care about that deeply" does not. Now, when she said that part (paraphrasing, obviously) she already merged with good Sylvanas that no one cares about two decades, but the sentiment was already there when she decided to go Hunger Games' ending on him.

Her reacting negatively to the Jailer's petty posturing after he upgraded his gimp-suit to a plate version also makes little sense given how petty she is herself.

[Varodoc]

The problem with this story arc is that the Janitor is a generic pure evil monster, his motivations can essentially be summed up as "I want everyone to serve me", which is the blandest type of villain archetype imaginable.

If Janitor was really like Thanos, so a misguided/morally grey villain who genuinely thinks they are doing the right thing, then it would be easier to understand why Sylvanas would fall for him (she's still dumb). But right now Sylvanas essentially trusted a guy who is literally Satan, the dude is even more evil than Sargeras, because at least Sargeras thought he was doing the right thing.

"BUT A VILLAIN DOESN'T NEED TO HAVE COMPLEX MOTIVATIONS!!!!!", false, any mature/adult villain needs complex motivations. Especially if you want to sell the idea that Sylvanas looked at this guy and thought "Hm, this guy has a point".

[username993720]

aiiight, its out.
and its 100% what literally everyone predicted.
nothing surprising, nothing unexpected.

Is he seriously wearing a Maw Raid set?

They couldn't even come up with a cool and unique armor set for him?

Did anyone notice that his chest area has wood and bark like those of the Drust?

Is he the real leader of the Drust?

The Portal behind seems like something that was taken out of the Bronze Dragonflight. Maybe he's preparing to change reality by going to another one.

Many don't seem to understand that according to the cinematic, she was doing all she did to get her soul back from Zovaal. That's all that interested her, in the end.

But, seeing her pity Bolvar, Thrall and Jaina is cringy, because she looked like that when she burned Teldrassil:

[Varodoc]

I need to kill 1000000 elves for my master to win.

Sylvanas: I sleep.

Anduin talks to me for 5 minutes.

Sylvanas: Wait... maybe the Jailer isn't the good guy... Oh shit I've been tricked.

Garbage character lol.

[bagina]

They'll never show Sylvanas' first meeting with the Jailer because there's no way in hell they'd be able to convincingly show her agreeing to work with him.

[ParanoiD84]

Hah what a joke.

[salate]

In this moment, I am euphoric.



Now that he's got the...... uhm..... eh.... he's going to do the thing to the........... uhm....

At least he's not bald anymore.

Finally off to Azerotian Barber Shop?

Sounds like a valid reason to be mad!