(SPOILERS) Chains of Domination final chapter cut-scene

[Nerovar]

I'm hard-pressed to find someone who is up for the whole 'swap out our Sylvanas for Ranger-General Sylvanas so she can escape the consequences of her retardation' story they're going for.

Make no mistake, these people definitely do exist. I can already foresee someone like Taliesin making a thirty minute video about why it's Blizzard's magnum opus of storytelling.

[Super Dickmann]

Make no mistake, these people definitely do exist. I can already foresee someone like Taliesin making a thirty minute video about why it's Blizzard's magnum opus of storytelling.

The demographic I wondered about back in the first cutscene who only care about a character called Sylvanas getting a nice ending exist. Mostly on twitter, but they do. I don't really count Taliesin since he's paid, so while his videos sometimes hit interesting points he'll be positive even if Blizz announces that Sylvanas died on the way to her home planet off-screen.

[Verdugo]

At this point I'm thoroughly convinced that the people sitting and saying "amg bad writing" and basically spewing the same nonsense are only doing it because they heard someone else say it and they're trying to be with the crowd. They can't explain or support anything they lob without saying "unfun" or "boring" and when asked to expand they use equally similar responses that lack substance as to why or easily dismantled reasons. It is in fact trolling at this point and is out of control.

You just quoted someone who keeps explaining why its bad and then you post this drivel? Why wont you explain why writing is secretely genius, never seen posts like THAT.

[Gelannerai]

You just quoted someone who keeps explaining why its bad and then you post this drivel? Why wont you explain why writing is secretely genius, never seen posts like THAT.

I mean they appropriated a dead political meme that was just as nonsensical in its heyday, so you’re probably barking up the wrong tree.

[Miriamel105]

It's not that people don't get it (it being the plot). It's more that they disagree with the premise on a more fundamental level. People disagree with the decision to design her encounter as one where she once again doesn't lose. They could have told the same story with Sylvanas being a distraction for the Jailer and still have us defeat her - you know as is customary when you beat a raid boss. They deliberately chose not to and instead had her get away scot-free for what... the fourth time now?

People disagree with the fact that a batshit insane evil character like Sylvanas always comes out on top even when you physically defeat her in the game.

People disagree with the fact that the writers are deliberately pushing her story in a direction where she can't be held accountable for her actions and will likely escape punishment.

The thing is, Sylvanas loses all the time. Her whole story seems to be that of a loser just struggeling to get further in the awful ways left.

The whole serving this Jailer thing for example is likely not something she likes to do. It's simply just the only thing left.

What are her choices? Tell people about the Shadowlands? Who would even believe her? Even more, who would help her? Being corrupted by a mourneblade since I don't know how many years, it's likely that the Jailer got some additional influence on her on top of this, up to just being able to force her, though this influence may simple not be big enough to reach all the way to Azeroth and/or would not make her strong enough to bring down Bolvar.

Same as Anduin is important so sneak into that angle fortress as someone being strong enough of light to hide the influence.

What does Sylvanas ever win? Arthas Lich King gets defeated, not through her, though, but when she tries to die it just leads to this insane revealing, that death does not give peace just more pain and desperation. She then goes along with breaking down this system, but even though she's partly treated as a partner, it does not look like being 'fun' for her at all. The reason she becomes warchief was that voodoo ghost, no and in the cutscene she looked surprised about it.

The focus on a small player like Sylvanas from horde and alliance is interesting enough, when you are capture between super powers like death, life, order, chaos and so on and their eternal war over total dominance.

That Sylvanas was corrupted by her death through Frostmourne is nothing new and good two decades old.

I'm way more surprised how many seem accept an absolute awful system like that cycle of life and death, especially when death for most people will at best send them to something like this zombie zone, where you fight until your corpse falls apart and you just cease to exist as the person you once was. I get Sylvanas intention to get rid of something that treats mortals like livestock. And when you got an endless eternity in front of you, the 'flicker of life' loses all meaning.

Just think about it, a single second, if you would know, that after your death in RL, there WOULD be something like hell. And only hell, no heaven. You will end in a soulgrinder, no matter what.

[Nerovar]

<snip>

None of what you wrote in that post really relates to my last reply.

It was their choice to center the entire narrative of the last expansion and the premise of this expansion around Sylvanas' choices and schemes, riling up the playerbase with maximum shock value advertising only to not follow the story through to its logical conclusion. Not only are we supposed to believe that Sylvanas has secretly furthered the Jailer's plans (despite all the lore that contradicts this) for all these years gleefully committing genocide in the process but we're also supposed to buy that over the span of two short cinematics she suddenly starts developing moral qualms over the mistreatment of Anduin and so she suddenly turns on the guy she just helped achieve godlike power. Give me a break.

The entire story of Shadowlands is set up in a way that diminishes Sylvanas' agency and renders her past actions inconsequential. This is a deliberate choice and it's dogshit.

Just think about it, a single second, if you would know, that after your death in RL, there WOULD be something like hell. And only hell, no heaven. You will end in a soulgrinder, no matter what.

So the solution is to make a deal with the devil in order to bring you back to life only to then send more people into hell?

[Gelannerai]

it seems you dont really understand what it exactly is, that pisses ppls of.

all what you said above is, imo, legit. but exactly thats the problem:

Sylvanas, described in BfA as „da masta planer“, worked with a factor 1000 more powerful god. as a partner. and that super smart Sylvanas never thought about for the slightest, that she is just a tool and he could betray her??? really???

its simply unreliable that a clever smart-ass, like Sylvanas was portraited, believes for even 1s she is a loyal partner, having equal rights, of some semi god. thats just dumb as fuck. and the unreliability in that, is what ppl made declaring it as a cheap shit story.

It goes back further than that. Trying to portray Sylvanas Windrunner as some sort of galaxy-brained genius isn’t going to work well because she has consistently been portrayed in multiple games as being a drooling imbecile. At no point did she score any military/strategic victories over Arthas Menethil in WCIII, and Arthas was a freaking meathead. She trusted a Dreadlord to be her subservient right-hand in Undercity. She implicitly trusted a laughably evil being to not attempt to enslave the multiverse with the ultimate MacGuffin she and Anduin so painstakingly secured for him. We’re told she’s a cold, calculating schemer that never lets emotions cloud her judgment, but then she consistently throws violent temper tantrums at the slightest provocation (tearing wildlife apart, burning trees, blighting her own army, abandoning said army in favor of reeeeing into the evening sky like Team Rocket, etc.). Only by making every other sentient being in the story a smooth-brained paperweight does a story about Sylvanas being a cunning strategist work.

[Miriamel105]

None of what you wrote in that post really relates to my last reply.

It was their choice to center the entire narrative of the last expansion and the premise of this expansion around Sylvanas' choices and schemes, riling up the playerbase with maximum shock value advertising only to not follow the story through to its logical conclusion. Not only are we supposed to believe that Sylvanas has secretly furthered the Jailer's plans (despite all the lore that contradicts this) for all these years gleefully committing genocide in the process but we're also supposed to buy that over the span of two short cinematics she suddenly starts developing moral qualms over the mistreatment of Anduin and so she suddenly turns on the guy she just helped achieve godlike power. Give me a break.

The entire story of Shadowlands is set up in a way that diminishes Sylvanas' agency and renders her past actions inconsequential. This is a deliberate choice and it's dogshit.



So the solution is to make a deal with the devil in order to bring you back to life only to then send more people into hell?

Uh, sorry, but as far as I know the story isn't finished yet? So how do you even want to know that?

I also don't understand the whole 'dimish' thing. Dimish what? Since I don't play the game, can you explain this? From what I know, Sylvanas had first an agenda against the lich king and pro... forsaken was it, right? When Arthas died she was force to see, that the afterlife is an even worse place than life, so her agenda was to use the little possibilities trying to bring this system down. What of this was dimished?

Regarding the last sentence:

Sorry, but from the PoV of an ingame person who does not know that the player character somehow has to be on the winning side, the jailer was mainly a prisoner himself, imprisoned by the people who run that system that also uses mortals as livestock, draining them of everything they are (= anima) then maybe throw them back to gain new anima in a new life. The jailer hasn't chosen to 'rule hell' and he wasn't the one who had invented domination magic, that was also one of the guys who run the whole system. He simply has learned to use those chains as tool for his freedom, you know, like in an X Com game, when you kill aliens and then research their technology to use it against them.

From our easy peasy player PoV, we just know, that 'we' somehow will always end up on the good and winning side. But if you discuss lore and story, you have to look at things from an IG point of view. And especially from someone who has been turned from a high elf into a forsaken, something like the jailer isn't that obvious evil. Sylvanas was a banshee queen who had ruled over beings most human would instantly see as evil by their look alone. And regarding his and her deeds, she saw it as some necessary evil to break the prison and the system. The souls going to the maw? Fuel. Like mortal souls are also mainly fuel for the running system above anyway.

I don't defend this, but it's simply not hard to understand and it's not like it's so obviously black and white. From what I know the whole WoW universe isn't that simple.

[Jastall]

It goes back further than that. Trying to portray Sylvanas Windrunner as some sort of galaxy-brained genius isn’t going to work well because she has consistently been portrayed in multiple games as being a drooling imbecile. At no point did she score any military/strategic victories over Arthas Menethil in WCIII, and Arthas was a freaking meathead. She trusted a Dreadlord to be her subservient right-hand in Undercity. She implicitly trusted a laughably evil being to not attempt to enslave the multiverse with the ultimate MacGuffin she and Anduin so painstakingly secured for him. We’re told she’s a cold, calculating schemer that never lets emotions cloud her judgment, but then she consistently throws violent temper tantrums at the slightest provocation (tearing wildlife apart, burning trees, blighting her own army, abandoning said army in favor of reeeeing into the evening sky like Team Rocket, etc.). Only by making every other sentient being in the story a smooth-brained paperweight does a story about Sylvanas being a cunning strategist work.

The only time she showcased actual cunning was in TFT where she managed to outplay the Dreadlords in Lordaeron. At every other major point in her story- be it the Wrathgate and its fallout, not even being present at Arthas's demise, the assault on Gilneas, Stormheim, all of BFA- she has failed. But in the process she's 1. being the most lolevil character to ever be part of a playable faction and 2. fail upwards, as in she consistently evaded any consequences for her actions. The story presents us a Stupid Evil incompetent thug and wants to not only ensure she doesn't suffer any comeuppance but requires the audience to sympathize with her, seemingly for the sole reason that she had sad faces at Anduin. It's the BFA sadfang plotline only not as big budget and even dumber.

[Niwes]

It goes back further than that. Trying to portray Sylvanas Windrunner as some sort of galaxy-brained genius isn’t going to work well because she has consistently been portrayed in multiple games as being a drooling imbecile. At no point did she score any military/strategic victories over Arthas Menethil in WCIII, and Arthas was a freaking meathead. She trusted a Dreadlord to be her subservient right-hand in Undercity. She implicitly trusted a laughably evil being to not attempt to enslave the multiverse with the ultimate MacGuffin she and Anduin so painstakingly secured for him. We’re told she’s a cold, calculating schemer that never lets emotions cloud her judgment, but then she consistently throws violent temper tantrums at the slightest provocation (tearing wildlife apart, burning trees, blighting her own army, abandoning said army in favor of reeeeing into the evening sky like Team Rocket, etc.). Only by making every other sentient being in the story a smooth-brained paperweight does a story about Sylvanas being a cunning strategist work.

100% agree. just have a look at the burn-the-tree scene and how it was portrayed: totally impulsive. unplanned. agressive. next cutscene: sylvanas is the master planer. mmmk. 2-3 patches later: it was all planned, to send souls to afterlife. mmmkkk.

same as you said: she never acted like the master planer genius. solely BfA started portraying her like that. which in itself was stupid enough, as you said.

but i not even talked about this, in my post. i not even wanted to mention all that hillarious, irational and unbelievable character development switches. i just looked at it, solely from a „BfA to SL“ point of view. like, in example, rather new/young players, that just saw BfA and SL Sylvanas. and even just for that tiny character development timepsan, its unbelievable BS. not even considering what ppl like me think, playing since 16 years without interruption. and i read all books.

its a hard proof, how cheap shit story telling is, when even ppl playing the game for 2 years go „wtf?“. not even considering how large the „wtf?“ is, by ppl like you or me.

its crazy, HOW shitty that story telling and char progression is. even a 12 year old kid, with a notepad and a pencil, could do a better job than i.e. Danuser.

[Nerovar]

Uh, sorry, but as far as I know the story isn't finished yet? So how do you even want to know that?

I also don't understand the whole 'dimish' thing. Dimish what? Since I don't play the game, can you explain this? From what I know, Sylvanas had first an agenda against the lich king and pro... forsaken was it, right? When Arthas died she was force to see, that the afterlife is an even worse place than life, so her agenda was to use the little possibilities trying to bring this system down. What of this was dimished?

You don't see the problem with recontextualizing everything she did after the end of Wrath of the Lich King to be in service of some hidden entity only to turn on that entity the moment it achieves absolute power in a last second change of heart which results in her getting the missing part of her soul back? All the while the person most damaged by her actions (Tyrande) "chooses" to abandon her quest for vengeance against Sylvanas. I mean, we're entering speculation territory here but what exactly is the point of these stories if not to lay the groundwork for a reformed Sylvanas that can't really be held responsible for everything she did in the last 10 years due to missing her soul, being manipulated etc. (even though she already was a piece of shit before she served the Jailer).

Sorry, but from the PoV of an ingame person who does not know that the player character somehow has to be on the winning side, the jailer was mainly a prisoner himself, imprisoned by the people who run that system that also uses mortals as livestock, draining them of everything they are (= anima) then maybe throw them back to gain new anima in a new life. The jailer hasn't chosen to 'rule hell' and he wasn't the one who had invented domination magic, that was also one of the guys who run the whole system. He simply has learned to use those chains as tool for his freedom, you know, like in an X Com game, when you kill aliens and then research their technology to use it against them.

From our easy peasy player PoV, we just know, that 'we' somehow will always end up on the good and winning side. But if you discuss lore and story, you have to look at things from an IG point of view. And especially from someone who has been turned from a high elf into a forsaken, something like the jailer isn't that obvious evil. Sylvanas was a banshee queen who had ruled over beings most human would instantly see as evil by their look alone. And regarding his and her deeds, she saw it as some necessary evil to break the prison and the system. The souls going to the maw? Fuel. Like mortal souls are also mainly fuel for the running system above anyway.

I don't defend this, but it's simply not hard to understand and it's not like it's so obviously black and white. From what I know the whole WoW universe isn't that simple.

The Jailer wasn't the one who invented domination magic but he was the one responsible for bring it to Azeroth by creating Frostmourne and the Lich King. His schemes are the reason why Sylvanas is undead to begin with and both Ner'zhul and Kel'Thuzad are his minions. This is about as absurd as Sylvanas switching sides to Arthas because he tells her they're going to make a better world.

And yes, it's as black and white as it gets. Just because a character has motivations (and really poor ones at that) doesn't mean whatever they're doing isn't unambiguously evil (like burning down Teldrassil or siding with the guy who is responsible for everything bad happening in the Warcraft universe).

[Miriamel105]

You don't see the problem with recontextualizing everything she did after the end of Wrath of the Lich King to be in service of some hidden entity only to turn on that entity the moment it achieves absolute power in a last second change of heart which results in her getting the missing part of her soul back? All the while the person most damaged by her actions (Tyrande) "chooses" to abandon her quest for vengeance against Sylvanas. I mean, we're entering speculation territory here but what exactly is the point of these stories if not to lay the groundwork for a reformed Sylvanas that can't really be held responsible for everything she did in the last 10 years due to missing her soul, being manipulated etc. (even though she already was a piece of shit before she served the Jailer).

Sorry, what's the problem with it? It's not the usual, bland, everyone knows everything of past, present, future and just got one (mostly stupid, never working, but still for fictional reason succeeding) plan following this from end to start. Nothing was changed. It would actually be far more stupid, far, far, far more stupid, if all this was just the doing of a single mortal, even more in a high fantasy setting like warcraft with those super powers involved.

It feels more like many people are so used to the usual dumb cartoon/anime plot lines, that they just can't think outside these lines anymore - while that outside makes much more sense. Do you think life is about having one plan and go through with it to the absolute end? I mean, sure, actually many people who be so fixated on being right, that they indeed wouldn't turn aroun. Milgram experiment showed this again and again. People continue to torture people up to their death, just because they got the order and getting against this order and against their want to be 'on the right side', no matter how evil it is, is something they just don't want to do.

Sylvanas could just have walked with the Jailer and be one of the biggest winners, even if things changed a little. People don't seem to get what her 'I will never serve' means. It's her standing true to HER plan. From the jailer PoV nothing has changed much. He saw her as servant before and would see her as servand after that. There would be no need to brainwash her, she's a direct underling. Sylvanas' PoV is, that they worked together to free him and then free everyone from that system, including herself of course. Since the Jailer just said: Nah, now that I'm free, that system will be kept in place, we or better I will just run it instead, that goes against her idea so much, that she wasn't willing to go along, even though this means to lose all support. Probably dumb, sure, being a powerful general of a super god or being a powerless prisoner of some in comparison impotent mortals, it's clear what most people would choose. It's still understandable. Sylvanas simply say with that: I did all these terrible things to reach ONE goal and now you take this goal from me, I don't care about the power you gave me, I never did, just as everything else, it was just a tool to reach this goal. If you deny it, I won't follow you anymore. And it's not even taking her time. She instantly is doing this the moment he betrays 'this' goal.

Anduin's "Look around you' is not really powerful. The maw is a prison created by the people she fights. And she knows well, how much domination magic distorts you. Quite sure that the high elf Sylvanas would have lived quite differently than the banshee Sylvanas, same for all her forsaken. To come up with something like this is not really a good argument when you talk to a forsaken "Look around you! Your place looks and smells like shit!". As far as I remember, she answers this with "We were never free" or alike and that all this is just the system 'they' want to bring down.

Again: people seem to talk about this from the PoV of a player who just sits in his/her comfy chair at home and can feel good about being invincible anyway and so on. But if you discuss story and lore, you have to get rid of such thoughts. In the story, there is no magical knowledge, that this is the good side and this is the bad side and it's absolutely clear that this side must win because some 'game'/story has to continue. Yeah, sure, the player don't need to care about a terrible afterlife, because it's fake. It's not like the player will ever land there after their RL death. But if you want to discuss lore/story, you have to treat it like that, you have to think about this insane nightmare, that every mortal being lands in this place when the die, including yourself.

The Jailer wasn't the one who invented domination magic but he was the one responsible for bring it to Azeroth by creating Frostmourne and the Lich King. His schemes are the reason why Sylvanas is undead to begin with and both Ner'zhul and Kel'Thuzad are his minions. This is about as absurd as Sylvanas switching sides to Arthas because he tells her they're going to make a better world.

And yes, it's as black and white as it gets. Just because a character has motivations (and really poor ones at that) doesn't mean whatever they're doing isn't unambiguously evil (like burning down Teldrassil or siding with the guy who is responsible for everything bad happening in the Warcraft universe).

I don't know, how he told the story about it, will likely be told, since they for sure gonna interrogate Sylvanas now, but let's just create something fast and easy: Jailer is imprisoned there, he wants to get out, so he uses what he got down there for this to get people from the outside helping in breaking the prison. The plague itself, it came from one of the other guys above, no? House of Plagues or what it was called. And Arthas? Did he really follow the jailer when he did all this? No matter what exactly happened, it's quite easy for the jailer to say, that the tool he created was abused. As far as I remember, she for example calls Bolvar an usurper? And calls icecrown citadel a 'monument to our suffering', the 'veil between life and death'. So she does not see anything good in the whole Lich King thing, so it's quite clear, that whatever story the Jailer told her, it wasn't one of 'yeah, that Lich King thing was totally my plan'.

That this was a recton after around 2 decades, of course, no one planes two decades in advance. For a retcon it was just a quite well made one, it fits together, it does not just create something completly new, shadowlands, Death as one of the big powers and so on, that all existed for a long time, it was just woven together.

Nothing of this is absurd. It seems you guys just just WANT to see in the most dumb way. And yeah, sure, in that case you can ruin every story, even more one in which the big things are still not told yet.

The question would be: why. Why do you guys have this burning feeling to hate on some fiction that much, that you get this nuts about it.

I get, when a story is indeed just dumb and makes no sense at all, no matter what, that you then say: this is just dumb and makes no sense. But it's quite easy to see the sense in Sylvanas' story, you just don't want to. I mean, fine, if that's your thing, but it's quite a waste of energy, isn't it? To just make up nonsense so you can hate some fiction. For what?

Okay, better than to make up nonsense to hate on something in RL probably. So, okay, better hate on fictional people than on real ones...

"And yes, it's as black and white as it gets" - no, it's not. Not at all. It's not enough to say that. You have to make an argument for it. And you don't.

- - - Updated - - -

2-3 patches later: it was all planned, to send souls to afterlife. mmmkkk.

This is never said. Why do you people make up bullshit just to spit on stuff? Do you really have nothing better to do? I really would like to understand that, because so pointless.

But again: better stay here and spit on fictional people (okay, you do spit on real people, since you spit on the writers...) than do the same in RL in be one of those racists who do exactly the same, just with real people... :/

[bagina]

This is never said. Why do you people make up bullshit just to spit on stuff? Do you really have nothing better to do? I really would like to understand that, because so pointless.

Um, bitch?


You can enjoy SL story but please don't try to tell anyone it's good. It's not. It insults intelligence of the audience.

[Smallfruitbat]

The question would be: why. Why do you guys have this burning feeling to hate on some fiction that much, that you get this nuts about it.

I get, when a story is indeed just dumb and makes no sense at all, no matter what, that you then say: this is just dumb and makes no sense. But it's quite easy to see the sense in Sylvanas' story, you just don't want to. I mean, fine, if that's your thing, but it's quite a waste of energy, isn't it? To just make up nonsense so you can hate some fiction. For what?

Why do people hate on 'some fiction?'

Because its a story they have followed and cared about for years and right now the writers are doing a bad job both with the plotline and the execution of it. People are frustrated because characters they have enjoyed for years have been neutered and in some cases have had all sense of agency destroyed.

Instead of allowing an evil action simply be evil because the character has the tendency to be a bit of a cunt at times, Blizzard have gone the route of trying to justify it as part of some cosmic master plan. Instead of allowing a characters choice (vengeance) to have consequences, Blizzard have come in heavy handed with the whole 'renewal' narrative. Instead of telling a simple story about the struggles on Azeroth, Blizzard are constantly expanding the universe to the point that they need to back it up with an out of game compendium.

People are frustrated that the story-telling is so fractured you have to either run four alts to see the entirety of the covenant campaigns or switch and regrind. People are frustrated that the story is drip fed in weekly installments only to lead to another bunch of cliffhangers with no resolution. People are frustrated at Blizzards seeming fascination with one particular character and providing a redemption arc for her.

[Niwes]

Sorry, what's the problem with it? It's not the usual, bland, everyone knows everything of past, present, future and just got one (mostly stupid, never working, but still for fictional reason succeeding) plan following this from end to start. Nothing was changed. It would actually be far more stupid, far, far, far more stupid, if all this was just the doing of a single mortal, even more in a high fantasy setting like warcraft with those super powers involved.

It feels more like many people are so used to the usual dumb cartoon/anime plot lines, that they just can't think outside these lines anymore - while that outside makes much more sense. Do you think life is about having one plan and go through with it to the absolute end? I mean, sure, actually many people who be so fixated on being right, that they indeed wouldn't turn aroun. Milgram experiment showed this again and again. People continue to torture people up to their death, just because they got the order and getting against this order and against their want to be 'on the right side', no matter how evil it is, is something they just don't want to do.

Sylvanas could just have walked with the Jailer and be one of the biggest winners, even if things changed a little. People don't seem to get what her 'I will never serve' means. It's her standing true to HER plan. From the jailer PoV nothing has changed much. He saw her as servant before and would see her as servand after that. There would be no need to brainwash her, she's a direct underling. Sylvanas' PoV is, that they worked together to free him and then free everyone from that system, including herself of course. Since the Jailer just said: Nah, now that I'm free, that system will be kept in place, we or better I will just run it instead, that goes against her idea so much, that she wasn't willing to go along, even though this means to lose all support. Probably dumb, sure, being a powerful general of a super god or being a powerless prisoner of some in comparison impotent mortals, it's clear what most people would choose. It's still understandable. Sylvanas simply say with that: I did all these terrible things to reach ONE goal and now you take this goal from me, I don't care about the power you gave me, I never did, just as everything else, it was just a tool to reach this goal. If you deny it, I won't follow you anymore. And it's not even taking her time. She instantly is doing this the moment he betrays 'this' goal.

Anduin's "Look around you' is not really powerful. The maw is a prison created by the people she fights. And she knows well, how much domination magic distorts you. Quite sure that the high elf Sylvanas would have lived quite differently than the banshee Sylvanas, same for all her forsaken. To come up with something like this is not really a good argument when you talk to a forsaken "Look around you! Your place looks and smells like shit!". As far as I remember, she answers this with "We were never free" or alike and that all this is just the system 'they' want to bring down.

Again: people seem to talk about this from the PoV of a player who just sits in his/her comfy chair at home and can feel good about being invincible anyway and so on. But if you discuss story and lore, you have to get rid of such thoughts. In the story, there is no magical knowledge, that this is the good side and this is the bad side and it's absolutely clear that this side must win because some 'game'/story has to continue. Yeah, sure, the player don't need to care about a terrible afterlife, because it's fake. It's not like the player will ever land there after their RL death. But if you want to discuss lore/story, you have to treat it like that, you have to think about this insane nightmare, that every mortal being lands in this place when the die, including yourself.





I don't know, how he told the story about it, will likely be told, since they for sure gonna interrogate Sylvanas now, but let's just create something fast and easy: Jailer is imprisoned there, he wants to get out, so he uses what he got down there for this to get people from the outside helping in breaking the prison. The plague itself, it came from one of the other guys above, no? House of Plagues or what it was called. And Arthas? Did he really follow the jailer when he did all this? No matter what exactly happened, it's quite easy for the jailer to say, that the tool he created was abused. As far as I remember, she for example calls Bolvar an usurper? And calls icecrown citadel a 'monument to our suffering', the 'veil between life and death'. So she does not see anything good in the whole Lich King thing, so it's quite clear, that whatever story the Jailer told her, it wasn't one of 'yeah, that Lich King thing was totally my plan'.

That this was a recton after around 2 decades, of course, no one planes two decades in advance. For a retcon it was just a quite well made one, it fits together, it does not just create something completly new, shadowlands, Death as one of the big powers and so on, that all existed for a long time, it was just woven together.

Nothing of this is absurd. It seems you guys just just WANT to see in the most dumb way. And yeah, sure, in that case you can ruin every story, even more one in which the big things are still not told yet.

The question would be: why. Why do you guys have this burning feeling to hate on some fiction that much, that you get this nuts about it.

I get, when a story is indeed just dumb and makes no sense at all, no matter what, that you then say: this is just dumb and makes no sense. But it's quite easy to see the sense in Sylvanas' story, you just don't want to. I mean, fine, if that's your thing, but it's quite a waste of energy, isn't it? To just make up nonsense so you can hate some fiction. For what?

Okay, better than to make up nonsense to hate on something in RL probably. So, okay, better hate on fictional people than on real ones...

"And yes, it's as black and white as it gets" - no, it's not. Not at all. It's not enough to say that. You have to make an argument for it. And you don't.

- - - Updated - - -



This is never said. Why do you people make up bullshit just to spit on stuff? Do you really have nothing better to do? I really would like to understand that, because so pointless.

But again: better stay here and spit on fictional people (okay, you do spit on real people, since you spit on the writers...) than do the same in RL in be one of those racists who do exactly the same, just with real people... :/

you need to get help. soon.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

The only time she showcased actual cunning was in TFT where she managed to outplay the Dreadlords in Lordaeron. At every other major point in her story- be it the Wrathgate and its fallout, not even being present at Arthas's demise, the assault on Gilneas, Stormheim, all of BFA- she has failed. But in the process she's 1. being the most lolevil character to ever be part of a playable faction and 2. fail upwards, as in she consistently evaded any consequences for her actions. The story presents us a Stupid Evil incompetent thug and wants to not only ensure she doesn't suffer any comeuppance but requires the audience to sympathize with her, seemingly for the sole reason that she had sad faces at Anduin. It's the BFA sadfang plotline only not as big budget and even dumber.

Yep Sylvanas is far from a great strategist or tactician or particulary charismatic leader and yet the writers try, very poorly, to make us believe that she's a military genius and an almost unstoppable threat and she perpetually avoids a real defeat or true consequences for her poorly-thought and petty actions and crimes. A true creator's pet.

[Combatbutler]

Yep Sylvanas is far from a great strategist or tactician or particulary charismatic leader and yet the writers try, very poorly, to make us believe that she's a military genius and an almost unstoppable threat and she perpetually avoids a real defeat or true consequences for her poorly-thought and petty actions and crimes. A true creator's pet.

Problem is rampant in the entire warcraft universe, the usual brain cell count of a warcraft character is roughly about one. Mouth-breathers the whole lot of them, then you have the whole bias thing on top with screecher and new elsa being the main offenders..

[Nerovar]

<snip>

I don't know why you keep writing these large walls of text that convey nothing at all and don't even address the points I made. Also the concern trolling bit about "spitting on real people" by disliking a story is a really nice touch.

Sylvanas goals flip-flop rapidly depending on where Blizzard wants to take the story. At the start of BfA she still wanted everyone to serve her as revealed in the Three Sisters comic. Then a bit later in BfA she just wanted to wage a war against the Alliance to sack Stormwind and create more Forsaken as revealed by her own inner monologue in Before the Storm. Then at the end of BfA/beginning of Shadowlands she just wanted everyone to die to "feed death". That's 3 motivations swaps in less than 2 years. And now she has abandoned her latest cause after realising that the "hungering darkness" she fed wasn't really interested in making the afterlife better for everyone (shocker) and instead just wants everyone to serve him instead (reminder: this was her own stated goal less than 2 years ago).

All this accomplishes is:
A) reframe Sylvanas actions as being well-intentioned after the last expansion told us non-stop how evil she is
B) lessen Sylvanas' responsibility by revealing that she was missing a part of her soul and was ""manipulated"" by the Jailer all along
C) make Sylvanas look extremely stupid/naive for not predicting that the guy who centered his entire identity around domination would strive for the actual domination of others
D) lay the groundwork for a potential redemption of Sylvanas

There is no consistency or continuity in this story. It's a mess stitched together by at least three different authors who all had conflicting visions for the character and tried to unmake the previous writers' story. It completely falls apart even at first glance. That's why no one can or should take it seriously.

[lucky4]

dang i see spoilers and i still watched it lol

[Powerogue]

Honestly I really love it. Anduin really got a good stab at Sylvanas's shriveled husk of a conscience with "Is this what you felt when Arthas raised you, Sylvanas?" and especially with "Not what you made me to be." OOF. Anduin's compassion and hope are gone, and seeing him brought this low is rough.

Though it reiterates what I've been saying for 2 expansions now: We should not redeem Sylvanas in any way that does not first involve a large bladed weapon and a neck.

It's not vengeance. Justice.



(and yeah I've played the Uther chapter where he thinks back on this, but that's still posthumous. No one's regretting stopping the Lich King from conquering the world into a zombified hellscape....except me, that prepatch event was pretty fun.)