Was Sylvanas a good warchief?

[darkoms]

So, I argue with fanboy of Sylvanas and he proves to me that she is the best warchief, so I decided to find out what the Horde players think about it. Do you think Sylvanas was actually a good warchief for the Horde? We will not discuss her personality, whether she was good or evil, or what she thought of the Horde and that she actually worked for the Jailer. It's just that, looking at her ACTIONS, you would say that she has done much more good for the Horde than harm and has she accomplished more for the Horde than the previous leaders?

[Utigarde]

Purely by her actions? I would lean towards yes. Aside from Thrall, she diversified the Horde more than any other leader, and built them up to be strong enough to apparently take on both the entire Alliance and parts of the Horde had the second Siege not been stopped. If they'd stuck with her motives in A Good War, she'd have been a genuinely interesting leader in regards to questioning the morality of your actions on your enemies when it comes at the benefit of your own people.

Her motives, however, are obviously what corrupt this (inconsistent as they are), and going by her most recent ones, her reasons for building up the Horde so much wouldn't really have it last long.

[Arrashi]

Objectively asking, was anyone a good warchief? Other than Orgrim, noone of them could stop themselves from making worst decisions possible at any opportunity.

And then even orgrim had his gems.

[Mehrunes]

So, I argue with another fanboy of Sylvanas and he proves to me that she is the best warchief, so I decided to find out what the Horde players think about it. Do you think Sylvanas was actually a good warchief for the Horde? We will not discuss her personality, whether she was good or evil, or what she thought of the Horde and that she actually worked for the Jailer. It's just that, looking at her ACTIONS, you would say that she has done much more good for the Horde than harm and has she accomplished more for the Horde than the previous leaders?

When in lack of non-fallacious arguments, open another thread to non-constructively rail about ermahgerd fanboys some more? An interesting strategy to be sure. Not very effective, mind you, but interesting. In a similar vein to the Wieliczka museum in Poland. Also, given how many people on this forum get triggered the moment Sylvanas is even implied to be in a given story, WTF is this supposed to prove?

[darkoms]

When in lack of non-fallacious arguments, open another thread to non-constructively rail about ermahgerd fanboys some more? An interesting strategy to be sure. Not very effective, mind you, but interesting. In a similar to the vein of the salt mine museum in Poland.

You turned my original topic about Sylvanas vs. Malfurion into an argument about whether she is a good leader, so yes, I will create a new topic and ask the fans of the HORDE (not Sylvanas) what they think.

- - - Updated - - -

Purely by her actions? I would lean towards yes. Aside from Thrall, she diversified the Horde more than any other leader, and built them up to be strong enough to apparently take on both the entire Alliance and parts of the Horde had the second Siege not been stopped. If they'd stuck with her motives in A Good War, she'd have been a genuinely interesting leader in regards to questioning the morality of your actions on your enemies when it comes at the benefit of your own people.

Her motives, however, are obviously what corrupt this (inconsistent as they are), and going by her most recent ones, her reasons for building up the Horde so much wouldn't really have it last long.

As I said, not her merit. The Alliance won the war(Matthias Shaw and Nathanos talk about it in 8.1) until Sylvanas asked Azshara to intervene (and gave her Xal'atath in return). The Horde would have lost without Azshara's intervention. Also, those whom she took to the Horde did not follow her (like the trolls and tauren followed Thrall for helping them), but other leaders of the Horde. Thalyssra threw a tantrum over Tyrande's words and fell in love with Theron, Mayla wanted to get to know the other tauren better, the Maghars fled from the ruined world and the Zandalari and Vulpera joined because Anduin is an idiot and decided that to attack them so that they would not help the Horde, would convince them not help the Horde.

[kuhntasmash]

If they wanted Horde to feel more like the bad guys (and not the Dick Dastardly mustache twirling villians like Sylvanas) I think Hellscream was the best one for the horde. However, parts of Mist of Panderia felt like a knee jerk reaction to some of the negativity Hellscream received when it was announced he was replacing Thrall. Almost a complete 180 on his personality from cata to mop.
But Blizzard really hasn't been known for it's long term story telling and make shit up on the fly to "please" its fanbase.

[vipers]

Is it good leader if on purpose kill own people and own soldiers who fight for him

[VladlTutushkin]

If we talking the “final summary” then no, she wasnt.

Her plans were never to leave a strong, dominant Horde after her rule. And if we go by her story arc in Shadowlands then her plans never even had Horde’s long term stability or survival in them.

She used Horde’s classic lack of self control, extreme bloodlust and desire for conquest to lure them into a meatgrinder war…

Which she intended to end with N’zoth unleashed and destroying both factions to maximise the soul harvest for the Jailer.

She failed in this last part, but still supplied Jailer with enough souls to allow all this bullshit in Shadowlands to happen.

So no, good Warchief she was not.

Only problem here that Anduin is even worse High King so even a shaved ape would look impressive in comparison.

[sighy]

Probably depends on what you consider a good leader. She was competent, capable, had speeches to rally troops for days and ultimately got her faction ahead despite the best efforts of her dissenters.

It's no secret that BfA's storytelling was a dumpster fire since basically the prepatch, in retrospective, but she did manage to achieve what she set out to do, even if the Horde's terms are masochistic Anduin falatio, with a butt cactus, on top of her secret agenda.

Overall I'd say the poll is missing a "Kinda... it's complicated" option

[Talrath]

Pre legion.... hell no, pre legion no1 liked her, every non forsaken knew she was a cunning B. Suddenly after she said "who will avenge your warchief" everyone became pro Sylvanis and did everything she asked. So during legion she became the best leader the horde had, that is what you never hear me saying with full conviction. She was not a good leader.... but the reasons are also different than just genocide etc.

Yes she made the horde stronger than the alliance and had the support of the majority of the horde, but it felt as if danuser was shoving the idea that the majority of the horde liked her to our throat. And we had to like her aswell, we might have better called the expansion Battle for sylvanis since the expansion was concentrated on her, hell even in the final raid you see an illusion of her. Point is that everyone got dumbed down HARD to make her a ''good leader'' for the horde. If the characters were written right, i think lorthemar would have been a far better warchief. He is in a far better position to lead the horde, while sylvanis has only looked out for herself and some forsaken. Think the story would have been much better if lorthemar became warchief where he and sylvanis play the cat and the mouse game. She does something evil but he is a step behind since he has more things on his mind and cant just improsin sylvanis without definitive proof.

[Niroshi]

She rammed the Horde into a war that it lost. So no.

[Maljinwo]

Lost a capital city
Had another capital sieged
Left the Horde

Nothing was gained from Sylvanas being warchief.

[Super Dickmann]

Sylvanas expanded the Horde with a bunch of races and then went into a war that she threw away the victory of because of her inability to shut the fuck up. Worse than Garrosh and Orgrim, slightly worse than Thrall, better than Vol'jin or Blackhand. 4/10 would not re-elect.

It's worth saying that while purposefully trying to fail to appease Satan she did better at recruiting the allied races than her successors. Compare the Zandalari to Baine and the vulpera.

[Jshadowhunter]

Lost a capital city
Had another capital sieged
Left the Horde

You forgot to add 2nd capital siege.

[Skirdus]

I don't think this is as simple as a "Yes" or "No" question. It's actually discussed fairly well in the "Negotiation" cinematic.

In a nutshell, Saurfang admits that Sylvanas is a proper successor in terms of the Old Horde's Warchiefs - like Blackhand and Doomhammer - in that she (seemingly) prioritizes the needs of the Horde above all else, and is willing to throw the Alliance under the bus if it means the Horde's survival. That gets challenged by the fact that the "current" Horde isn't the same as the Old Horde, and brings up the question of whether or not the Horde in its current state should adopt new beliefs at the risk of their own survival or stay true to a foundation originally built upon lies and deception.

but hey then it turns out sylvanas didn't actually care about anyone but herself and was actually working for the literal satan of the wow universe so yeah

[Super Dickmann]

but hey then it turns out sylvanas didn't actually care about anyone but herself and was actually working for the literal satan of the wow universe so yeah

The fact that the ostensible conflict between visions for the Horde ended up being bunk because neither side actually represented any vision for the faction in favor of Saurfang's own overbearing guilt and responsibility shifting to Anduin vs. Sylvanas being a literal agent of the devil is among the many, many missed beats of BFA. It also hollowed out the message because by repeatedly reiterating that Sylvanas' public position of war and expansion to the benefit of a Horde hegemony is popular while at the same time not centering her defeat around rejection of that message but of her as an individual the actual conflict is never resolved. Saurfang doesn't defeat Sylvanas by reinforcing his own vision, in as much as he doesn't have any anyway, but by revealing that she isn't a genuine believer of that position. A hypothetical Sylvanas who did all the same things, but unironically, would not be rejected in as much as the narrative shows us and so the ending rings hollow even outside the context of the debate of which party better represents what the Horde 'should' be.

[Grazrug]

She was the very best. If she wasn't so falsley villain batted the people of the Horde would have errected her a statue in Orgrimmar for her great deeds. All hail Sylvanas. May she forever save the Horde.

[Mehrunes]

Oh, since I missed that before: I didn't even argue that she was the best Warchief. I argued against the notion that she was the worst, then against the idea she's done nothing for the Horde. That moment when you get so salty about a fictional character that you can't even understand what you're arguing against... Then again when your argument is this weak and so blatantly false that even the previous Warchief of the Horde contradicts your fanfiction I guess you don't have any other option than to lie out of your ass when you get called out on that.

[Jastall]

She spent the Legion invasion pursuing her own agenda/fighting the Gilneans (not entirely her fault, but still) and then threw the Horde into a war it couldn't really win, losing key positions of her own race in the process, and left when her emotions got compromised. And to cap it all she wasn't even working for the Horde all this time but for literal Satan. She can arguably be called the worst Warchief because of this, even moreso than fools like Blackhand or do-nothings like Vol'jin, at least the rest worked for the Horde even if they had different interpretations of what this meant.

As for recruiting Allied Races, that was gameplay mechanics more than anything else (Thrall got several of non-playable races in there like Ogres or Taunka, for example) and she barely had a hand in it at all beyond pitching the initial idea to a council, and anyway one can easily twist it as her wanting more bodies to throw into the Maw, not any genuine desire the strengthen the Horde.

[VladlTutushkin]

The fact that the ostensible conflict between visions for the Horde ended up being bunk because neither side actually represented any vision for the faction in favor of Saurfang's own overbearing guilt and responsibility shifting to Anduin vs. Sylvanas being a literal agent of the devil is among the many, many missed beats of BFA. It also hollowed out the message because by repeatedly reiterating that Sylvanas' public position of war and expansion to the benefit of a Horde hegemony is popular while at the same time not centering her defeat around rejection of that message but of her as an individual the actual conflict is never resolved. Saurfang doesn't defeat Sylvanas by reinforcing his own vision, in as much as he doesn't have any anyway, but by revealing that she isn't a genuine believer of that position. A hypothetical Sylvanas who did all the same things, but unironically, would not be rejected in as much as the narrative shows us and so the ending rings hollow even outside the context of the debate of which party better represents what the Horde 'should' be.

Problem is - for this plot to become reality Alliance would also need to have a brain , so to say. And actually function as fantasy NATO and not some… Hell, its not even Justice League its a punching bag.

So, if we talking “better plot” then with Alliance operating with the same level of “betterment” she wouldnt be nearly as successful to begin with.