[Spoilers] Shattered legacies (new cinematic)

[sighy]

I don't think that's really in evidence, though. Not when you have Forsaken characters like Leonid Bartholemew, Kegan Darkmar, Barnabas Grell, and alchemist Finklestein all the way back from Classic, TBC, and WotLK that prove otherwise. The Forsaken trended to self-serving evil due to their circumstances and the many traumas that gave rise to them - but there were always significant non-evil Forsaken. I think a lot of people got the idea that the Forsaken were monolithically evil because the majority of leveling quests you do are at the direct or indirect behest of the Royal Apothecary Society, which at the time was headed by a demon and his brainwashed lackey (Varimathras and Putress). So yeah, *they* are going to be pretty damned evil all in all, but they're also not the whole of the Forsaken or the non-Scourge undead.

Leonid Bartholomew is about as much of a Forsaken as Kel'thuzad given that he outright distances himself from them. (I suppose Kegan Darkmar could be depending on Blizz's current stance on the old comics, but his only noteworthy thing is going on a rage induced vengeful rampage against the Scarlet Crusade, before getting killed off for good) Finklestein and Darkmar we know literally next to nothing about. (Some people seem to forget lately that the Forsaken are specifically Sylvanas's group of undead) That said i think you misunderstand what i mean here. The Undead have always been established to think differently than the living, which doesn't necessarily imply that they are required to be evil, but they consistantly have shown an inclination toward darker side of the emotional spectrum. You never had something like Zelling, Calia, Faol and so forth, who continue along their business as if they were still alive, with a mild inconvenience of death.

Admittedly, her rage-quitting the Horde and her own people due to Saurfang wounding her was both out-of-character and very surprising (not in the good way), but contextually it does make sense given that with her more direct service to the Jailer her need to placate either group was significantly diminished. Her mind-controlling Derek, though; that's in keeping with Sylvanas' attitudes having been previously established. Sylvanas is a pretty rank hypocrite, after all, and she's more than willing to violate her own credos if it proves to her advantage.

I've been on this tangent before, but there is no circumstance where her having a huge loyal army wouldn't prove helpful toward her goals. It's just a plot contrivance to cannibalise her, in order to set up Zovaal. She had a very consistant hardline stance on mindcontrol, until that point, which is even directly told to the audience through Voss like "Hey that's not the Sylvanas we know!". (An interesting artistic choice to say the least. Not only do they force her hard out of character, but then go like "Oh look she is hard out of character!"...)

We know Sylvanas' own thoughts on the matter, so there's no real way to disentangle that from what occurred unless you willfully ignore it.

What is there to distangle? There was literally no way to prove their innocence, in a situation that was already highly suspicious before Calia's presence was revealed to her. Unless you'd like to argue that them getting the Koltira treatment would have somehow been better. IF anything the story frames it as a heat of the moment gut reaction to the reveal of Calia's presence, which cemented her already existing suspicions.

- She hopes to fix what she views as a hopelessly broken system that damned her for acts she feels were out of her control.
- She was able to commune with a god-like power who offered her power and promises of resolution in exchange for her service.
- Said god-like power successfully restructures the cosmos and frees her from her eventual fate, and maybe even restores her to herself.
- Damnation, and it oppressed her in the same way any deeply feared future fate would oppress someone as they drew inexorably closer to it.
- Not being damned, escape from eternal and endless torture in the Maw.

Basically all of that is filling the blanks through assumptions based on stuff that's sometimes not even in the game or related media like Blizzcon Q&A/Interviews, from years ago. That's not really what I'd call "In-game storytelling". Might be just me, but i think the narratively focussed game's story should be featured in the god damned game. Even if the Sylvanas novel does somehow manage to fix all the glaring issues(i doubt it) the in-game rendition of the story would still be nonsensical crap. It's possible to overlook instances as glaring as event he War Crimes novel, because they were self contained events between the expansions. But using it as a crutch for the current story is unacceptable.

[voidox]

well, there it is, danuser in the process of doing a kerrigan 2.0 for his waifu, then the datamined lines of sylvanas saying "oh I will find you my love" means he will then have her return to his self-insert

this whole "soul split" thing is such BS and real ham-fisted to try and redeem her :/ The whole point of sylvanas, before Danuser got his hands on her, was that she sacrificed herself to try and save her people, but was damned by Arthas. But she was able to break free of him and forge a new path for her new people. It was tragic and a large part of why people liked her.

the whole "oh actually Frostmourne splits souls! tee hee" was clearly done so Danuser had a way out for his waifu.

also watch how Tyrande is no where to be seen, cause she's already forgiven sylvanas and is now all about "growth" or w.e. At least Baine gave us the single good line of "maybe she shouldn't"

also on a side note, but why do the character models look so... cheap? like there's something wrong with em

[sighy]

Graphics hasn't changed for a while now, so saying it has turned into Fortnite it quite an overstatement. I dare you: take Maya or Blender and try animate a face so it shows emotions. I'll repeat what I said: art team did a good job. Wow style is cartoonish and outdated imo but it doesn't have to fit everybody's taste (I don't like it as well but it doesn't prevent me to see a job well done), just don't bash them for things they didn't do wrong.

From an artistic standpoint there is a huge stylistic mismatch, with the Warbringers's painted aesthetic, normal in game models and the custom cinematic models, which admittedly do look more like they came out of HotS or WC3R than WoW, at times. That said i thinkt he main culprits here are Sylvanas's human eyes and wierd hair, which aren't up to par with the rest of the model.

[Super Dickmann]

From an artistic standpoint there is a huge stylistic mismatch, with the Warbringers's painted aesthetic, normal in game models and the custom cinematic models, which admittedly do look more like they came out of HotS or WC3R than WoW, at times. That said i thinkt he main culprits here are Sylvanas's human eyes and wierd hair, which aren't up to par with the rest of the model.

It's beside the point in any case. Whether they meant to make living Sylvanas look like a potato in the Teldrassil sequences or not, they succeeded. Kyrian Uther looks fine and so do all the other characters in Oribos, but in part due to the shading next to the tree in part due to the hair texture that's at odds with her version on the cot, it just looks weird. It's better in motion and she looks fine in Lordaeron when the lighting suits the model, but it's really bad especially with how well the lighting suits Warchief Sylvanas.

[Gref]

Graphics hasn't changed for a while now, so saying it has turned into Fortnite it quite an overstatement. I dare you: take Maya or Blender and try animate a face so it shows emotions. I'll repeat what I said: art team did a good job. Wow style is cartoonish and outdated imo but it doesn't have to fit everybody's taste (I don't like it as well but it doesn't prevent me to see a job well done), just don't bash them for things they didn't do wrong.

Yes they are doing nothing wrong. They are just making lazy job. It is a fact. It can be still difficult but they are getting paid for that? no? are we talking about blizzard or some crappy publisher? I cannot do anything that is a fact as well. I have no education no experience in that. I am not saying I can do better. It is THEIR job to do better. There is simply no detail no intricacy no soul with what they have done. I have no problem playing with fall guys or fortnite or bazillion other games with those same graphics. As I pay little or nothing at all. But blizzard? come on, they cannot do this. I have been paying 15 bucks every months since day one. That is 17 years. There are millions paying for this and the result is some cheap ass graphics. I am not disliking it, I am not satisfied with their lazy job. I do not want to pay 15 bucks and expansion money for soulless, without any detail, all polygonal environments and characters. That is not wow. There are bazillion games I can and do play with those graphics. I can see for a fact that the industry itself is going that graphic direction but blizzard cannot do that. Not with wow. They can make a new game using that but not wow. I cannot accept it. I will be playing the game and satisfied with the raid, not with its art. and many people here said wows art team is what is carrying wow. If that is gone as well then it is not far that we will end up raiding with cubes and circles only.

[Mehrunes]

Sylvanas culled the entirety of the Desolate Council on trumped-up charges of betrayal without any kind of evidence and only the loosest of rationales. She denied the Forsaken as a whole any kind of indulgence into their former lives, opting instead to force them to cultivate new identities (centered around her and her goals). She turned the raised Derek Proudmoore into a weapon, attempted to have Saurfang and Baine killed, and so on.

This is an outright fabrication, as there were multiple members of the Desolate Council surviving. On top of that, non-Elsie members that were killed were, as per Calia's remark, visibly defecting. And all of them merrily ignored the rules set up by Sylvanas beforehand that they were to retreat immediately after the horn signal or face the consequences. Even Elsie who did not want defect and called the retreat on the Gathering's side of things did not heed her own command and continued arguing with Calia instead. And Baine and Saurfang were literal traitors, with Saurfang killing an entire team sent out by his Warchief to escort him back to Orgrimmar and Baine attacked and killed Horde members to free the brother of an Alliance leader. And Sylvanas was right to kill him by Baine's own standards. As for Derek, I'm not sure how he relates to any of that, especially given how he was never even asked to join the Forsaken in the first place.

As for this overall narrative of yours that Sylvanas always exterminated any dissent, that's just more fabrication. Koltira betrayed her as well by making an unauthorized truce with the enemy he was ordered to eliminate, which ultimately cost Sylvanas one of her Val'kyr when the Alliance predictably broke that truce and stabbed Koltira in his naive face. Yet she merely imprisoned him. Multiple Forsaken openly discontent with Sylvanas left to join the Scarlet Crusade and they weren't given as much as a harsh-worded letter. Contrary to your stories, before BTS tried to turn the Forsaken into a comically totalitarian state where even going to the top side was verbotten (never mind that that's where the most important Forsaken festival had always taken place, with Sylvanas personally leading the celebrations, but one can't expect Golden to know shit about the setting she's hired to write about), there was no race with as many characters that "stepped out of line" as the Forsaken. Yet the only ones that were outright exterminated like you're saying were those who openly rebelled, defected to the Alliance or, in one case, broke fundamental Forsaken rules pertaining the specifics of practicing necromancy.

Marcus Redpath was basically raised in an insane state, which is something that can occur with newly raised Forsaken. He was allowed to go his own way under the auspices of free will (an idea that Sylvanas at least paid lip service to), but when he became a legitimate if minor threat he and his Rotbrains were culled by the Deathguard.

Which is completely in line with Forsaken conditions that those who don't want to join them are free to do whatever they want as long as they don't oppose them. Voss rejected the Forsaken until BfA and she was left alone, just as she left the Forsaken alone.

At no point has being undead or specifically Forsaken been retconned into being "without torment," either. Everything about the condition of corporeal undeath is horrifying, from the deadness of one's senses to the notion that you can feel the rot and carrion insects active in your flesh. So when it comes down to that I don't really know what you're referring to. I was referring to the notion that some people want the Forsaken to be a monolithically evil race with no redeeming qualities or the like - basically, all of them being extracts of evil in terms of alignment (lawful evil, chaotic evil, and neutral evil). I don't think that was ever true of them, though; not in Classic, not as of Sylvanas' change of heart in Cata, and not now. The trendline seems to be slowly shifting, perhaps; but that's what it always was: a trend.

And this is just a straw-man of yours. That you continue pushing for god knows what misbegotten reason even though people like @Super Dickmann told you time and time again (including just few posts before you made this comment) for literal years by now that this is by no means their view on the Forsaken or the issue in the difference in their BTS and pre-BTS characterization, yet you continue projecting this nonsense on them all the same.

Please, don't attempt to patronize me - I've completed all of WoW's quests and story elements on both Horde and Alliance characters, including both pre and post-Cata revamp, for every expansion, including every Legion Class campaign and Shadowlands Covenant campaign. So yes, I've played all Forsaken zones in all their various incarnations. Hell, my main back in Classic up until WotLK was a Forsaken Warlock.

As for the substantive portion of your reply, how exactly would Koltira Deathweaver ever have stood in for the Desolate Council? He's not even a Forsaken himself, just an Ebon Blade mercenary contracted by Sylvanas to lead the campaign in the Western Plaguelands and subsequently jailed in the Undercity for what Sylvanas viewed as being too chummy with the enemy leader (his friend Thassarian). The Desolate Council's formation and existence make fine sense in the context of the power vacuum Sylvanas left behind when she became Warchief, no longer able to focus her attentions on the Forsaken due to leading the entirety of the Horde from Orgrimmar. Sure, it's definitely a plot device, but what isn't when you get down to it?

You just shot yourself in the foot with the bit about Koltira. You showed that even if you totally played those quests, you haven't paid any attention to them whatsoever and that @Jackstraw was right to "patronize" you. Nowhere in the entire WPL questline is it even remotely indicated that Koltira is merely a mercenary all the while the complete opposite is indicated or outright stated on multiple occasions.

Koltira is called her majesty's top death knight, which shows a formal position within the Forsaken military, not that of a mercenary. Other Forsaken Death Knights are also stated to be Sylvanas', not just paid reinforcements. Koltira himself explicitly refers to Thassarian as an old counterpart of his, with the old bit indicating their camaraderie as fellow members of the Ebon Blade is a thing of the past. Which is reaffirmed by Thassarian in turn, who - even more explicitly - outright states that they aren't brothers anymore and that they are members of the Alliance and the Horde. Members, not hirelings of.

And this level of attention to what's going on seeps out from every nook and cranny of your narrative about the Forsaken and the supposed perfect cohesion of their BTS portrayal with their previous lore and why this narrative is constantly collapses on itself. Vide the tale that every member of the Desolate Council was killed. Or your earlier statements that they were progressively growing more disillusioned with Sylvanas throughout the book, when aside from one point of contention where some members were against Sylvanas' goal of making the Forsaken truly immortal, at the very start of the book no less, even those that were killed were praising her even at the Gathering itself and then some of them made a spur of the moment decision to go with their family members because they realized there may be no such an event again and that they preferred to be with their loved ones in that case. And the Elsie that you used as one of the named examples actually refused to defect.

[Vasilisa]

Yes they are doing nothing wrong. They are just making lazy job. It is a fact. It can be still difficult but they are getting paid for that? no? are we talking about blizzard or some crappy publisher? I cannot do anything that is a fact as well. I have no education no experience in that. I am not saying I can do better. It is THEIR job to do better. There is simply no detail no intricacy no soul with what they have done. I have no problem playing with fall guys or fortnite or bazillion other games with those same graphics. As I pay little or nothing at all. But blizzard? come on, they cannot do this. I have been paying 15 bucks every months since day one. That is 17 years. There are millions paying for this and the result is some cheap ass graphics. I am not disliking it, I am not satisfied with their lazy job. I do not want to pay 15 bucks and expansion money for soulless, without any detail, all polygonal environments and characters. That is not wow. There are bazillion games I can and do play with those graphics. I can see for a fact that the industry itself is going that graphic direction but blizzard cannot do that. Not with wow. They can make a new game using that but not wow. I cannot accept it. I will be playing the game and satisfied with the raid, not with its art. and many people here said wows art team is what is carrying wow. If that is gone as well then it is not far that we will end up raiding with cubes and circles only.

Blizzard is a husk of once great company, don't expect miracles from them. You may dislike Wow's art style but the movie fits quite well and you should not criticize this particular animation but Shadowlands art style as a whole.

[Mehrunes]

The arrow analogy is one she has used in a variety of contexts, from her own Rangers to Garithos's company, even to chide Garrosh about carelessly wasting her forces. Gonna take your word for it about the specific BtS parts given it's been years since i read the book and I'm not particularly inclined to do it just for the sake of this discussion. For Sylvanas's part i recall distinctly that while she had a negative first reaction to it she came around to the idea of the Desolate Council and even suggested them for the meeting hoping they would be spurned just like she was during War Crimes to a mixed result.

Yeah, no, you absolutely shouldn't. Parqual's "intense opposition to Sylvanas" for example constituted him disliking the policy of abandoning their Lordaeronian heritage to the point of Sylvanas forbidding reading books about it or going topside. Which, as we all know, is totes legit in line with their previous characterization *cough* Sylvanas herself leading the Hallow's End festivities in the upper ruins *cough* the quest literally called Lordaeron that's all about Sylvanas' grand declaration of Lordaeronian revanchism to refocus the Forsaken after Arthas' fall *cough* And even if you could still try to paint that as "being easily being thought of as traitor"in a vacuum, in context of the book it is a massive flop. Because the book specifies that Parqual had already been caught violating just that and had already been punished. And the dreadful punishment worthy of being a traitor (and remember that according to Aucald Sylvanas exterminates any Forsaken that steps out of the line and always had) that he received was... a verbal admonishment and a confiscation of his books.

I would say you've got it a bit backward, myself. Sylvanas' views on the Forsaken pre-Cata were a bit more equitable, even with her obviously using them to her advantage. It wasn't until Cata and Edge of Night that we really see the extent to which she presupposes them as tools, first as arrows in her quiver and then as her bulwark against fate (in this case being tormented in the Maw). Like I said previously, she did have some regard for them beyond simple utility - but even still, she left them easily enough, and right when they arguably needed her most what with having lost their own homeland. It was definitely a largely one-sided and toxic, almost parasitic relationship, but I do think she had some minor pangs about ultimately leaving them to their own devices.

Stellar chronology you got there. Because her calling them arrows in her quiver was a flashback to the very formation to the Forsaken. So how could she have been more equitable towards them only before Cata, when you have her viewing them as tools in totally different fashion to how she viewed the High Elven military as tools on both ends of that period? Also, Sylvanas was trying to achieve things for the betterment of the Forsaken as late as Legion and she was visibly upset when she learned that some Desolate Council members were against her plans of securing immortality for them.

If she only killed Parqual this might stand, but she butchered the majority of them, including their leader who had emphatically declared her loyalties only moments ago. It was the cold action of a tyrant, delivering swift death without trial, question, or appeal. You might say she has the right, and as an autocratic tyrant I guess that's true - but that's pretty damned far from a good thing, and anyone who believes in the essential rights of personhood or individual freedoms is going to have a dim view of her actions. It's in that capacity that I'm sitting in judgment of her.

And since Sylvanas doesn't have super hearing and couldn't even remotely know about Elsie's declaration, all she saw was the leader of the Council openly disregarding the orders about the retreat, which was to be immediate upon hearing the horn signal. Meanwhile between hearing the signal and Elsie's death the following had happened:
1. Sylvanas chatted about the potential reaction of would-be-defectors with Nathanos;
2. A Forsaken Priest arrived back from the Gathering and told her about Calia;
3. Sylvanas gave the orders to the Dark Rangers;
4. Dark Rangers flew all the way to the Gathering site and only then shot Elsie.

And in all that time Elsie remained in the exact same place and continued doing the exact same thing that she was doing when she heard the signal, i.e. arguing with Calia. And unless you want to tell me that Forsaken bats move at light speed and Sylvanas had some time freeze bubble on Thoradin's Wall, none of that was even remotely instantenous. Yet Elsie disregarded the orders she heard twice, once upon her own inquiry (after which she herself thought that the repercussions for violating that order would be dire due to the potential ramifications of the international relations variety).

That's not really what I'd call "coming around to the Desolate Council," either. She was hoping they'd be spiritually and philosophically crushed, making them far more pliable and less of a thorn in her side, more or less. She got her wish, too - some of them demoralized by their living relatives' inability to accept them, becoming more loyal to Sylvanas as a result, and the rest conveniently butchered on the fields of Arathi.

Sylvanas' negative remarks towards the Council prior to the end of the Gathering ranged from being shocked that they don't want to be immortal to finding their name self-pittiable. At the same time she stated it's not unreasonable for it to have formed in her absence and agreed with Nathanos' assessment that they are not a bunch of radical traitors and are loyal to her. A thorn in her side indeed.

We know Sylvanas' own thoughts on the matter, so there's no real way to disentangle that from what occurred unless you willfully ignore it.

And the very first thought that popped up into her head was that she didn't know whether they were returning out of loyalty or out of fear, because contrary to your determined attempts at pretending otherwise, Sylvanas can't read lips from a mile away to know squat about Elsie telling Calia that she wants to remain loyal to Sylvanas. Aligning perfectly with what @sighy was saying. What were you even trying to achieve there other than your ironic relationship with the second half of this sentence?

[Aucald]

"U mad bro?", swallowed dictionary edition. Also, that's not how you use "i.e.". Presumably you wanted "re" or "regarding".

Not really, no. Wanting a token evil race is fine enough of a desire, and understandable given that a few uniformly good races also exist such as the Draenei. The issue is that I believe people though tthe original Classic Forsaken were that nigh uniformly evil race, when their lore and the characterization of many of their NPC's don't really bear that out.

[Gref]

Blizzard is a husk of once great company, don't expect miracles from them. You may dislike Wow's art style but the movie fits quite well and you should not criticize this particular animation but Shadowlands art style as a whole.

I absolutely did criticize them for 9.2 art style. It was one of the topics here posted before. as soon as I saw zereth mortis, I knew something was off and immediately came to the conclusion that there are either 2 art teams or they are wholly switching to this cheap style. I am not saying anything about the story. I always enjoy a new lore whether it makes sense or not. I just go with it.

[Aucald]

Stellar chronology you got there. Because her calling them arrows in her quiver was a flashback to the very formation to the Forsaken. So how could she have been more equitable towards them only before Cata, when you have her viewing them as tools in totally different fashion to how she viewed the High Elven military as tools on both ends of that period? Also, Sylvanas was trying to achieve things for the betterment of the Forsaken as late as Legion and she was visibly upset when she learned that some Desolate Council members were against her plans of securing immortality for them.

I'm referring to the way she was subjectively evaluated in the story from the standpoint of the lore - since her calling them "arrows in her quiver" wasn't a known aspect of how she viewed the Forsaken until around Cata with Edge of Night. Probably what you'd call a retcon. Prior to Edge of Night that element of her callousness toward her adopted people wasn't known, so the general view of her was a bit more positive, at least in terms of how I saw it. Also, Sylvanas' attempts to "better the Forsaken" were part and parcel of her self-serving goal to preserve herself using them as her bulwark. Sure, they benefit in the passive sense (save those who didn't actually want to be eternally undead, but that's another issue) - but it's also manifestly not about them. As soon as Sylvanas found another way to presumably make herself immortal or save herself from damnation, by joining Zovaal, she abandoned "her people" readily enough.

And since Sylvanas doesn't have super hearing and couldn't even remotely know about Elsie's declaration, all she saw was the leader of the Council openly disregarding the orders about the retreat, which was to be immediate upon hearing the horn signal. Meanwhile between hearing the signal and Elsie's death the following had happened:
1. Sylvanas chatted about the potential reaction of would-be-defectors with Nathanos;
2. A Forsaken Priest arrived back from the Gathering and told her about Calia;
3. Sylvanas gave the orders to the Dark Rangers;
4. Dark Rangers flew all the way to the Gathering site and only then shot Elsie.

And in all that time Elsie remained in the exact same place and continued doing the exact same thing that she was doing when she heard the signal, i.e. arguing with Calia. And unless you want to tell me that Forsaken bats move at light speed and Sylvanas had some time freeze bubble on Thoradin's Wall, none of that was even remotely instantenous. Yet Elsie disregarded the orders she heard twice, once upon her own inquiry (after which she herself thought that the repercussions for violating that order would be dire due to the potential ramifications of the international relations variety).

Justify it all you like, Sylvanas made the cold calculus to kill them all for entirely self-serving reasons, and all to her benefit. We know that Elsie/Vellcinda was loyal through and through, and Sylvanas should've known well enough that a chaotic situation could cause delays in ordered retreat from the field. Of course she didn't care about that, and I highly doubt that the Desolate Council members really thought she'd kill them all out of hand for what amounts to tardiness. There's a reason everyone else there, including Nathanos himself, reacts with shock or horror at the nature of Sylvanas' orders and their outcome.

Sylvanas' negative remarks towards the Council prior to the end of the Gathering ranged from being shocked that they don't want to be immortal to finding their name self-pittiable. At the same time she stated it's not unreasonable for it to have formed in her absence and agreed with Nathanos' assessment that they are not a bunch of radical traitors and are loyal to her. A thorn in her side indeed.

Yet her treatment of them, and her machinations prior to the majority of their deaths (e.g. secretly hoping that rejection would crush their hopes), don't bear that out in the slightest. We may never known her own thoughts on the matter beyond what's related in Before the Storm, but given what she does later on in regards to feeding Death, I'm somehow disinclined to view anything she did there in the best light possible.

And the very first thought that popped up into her head was that she didn't know whether they were returning out of loyalty or out of fear, because contrary to your determined attempts at pretending otherwise, Sylvanas can't read lips from a mile away to know squat about Elsie telling Calia that she wants to remain loyal to Sylvanas. Aligning perfectly with what sighy was saying. What were you even trying to achieve there other than your ironic relationship with the second half of this sentence?

What I'm saying here is that beyond Sylvanas' inability to read lips from a mile away, she didn't actually care about the specifics of the situation or approach it with anything resembling carefulness. She saw a chance to end what she considered a potential threat to her influence and she took it - I don't believe for one moment she ruminated on, or cared about, the Forsaken unlives she was ending. Her rationale to Nathanos is equally hollow. The only way to really reach the conclusions you do here is to extend Sylvanas the benefit of the doubt several times, and view everything she did here in the best of lights, something I'm simply unwilling to do knowing both how she views the Forsaken in her own mind, and doubly so now that we know what her ultimate trajectory in Shadowlands. Context and hindsight simply don't bear out the supposition that her actions were justified or even necessary.

[geco]

My interpretation of all of this is that the whole point is of the cinematic that yes, it is her. The half that the jailer had frozen this whole time is just Sylvanas as she was when she died, and the only thing that makes them different is that the "good" Sylvanas (really just pre-death Sylvanas) was the lucky half that didn't experience undeath and everything that came after it. That half has to accept that the "evil" half is honestly just "the other half", and that it didn't matter which one ended up walking that path, the result would have been the same. They are one being, just at different points in time, and the only thing that makes the other half the "good" version is that she hasn't had any path to go down since she died to be able to make any bad decisions or be tainted by undeath. In order to merge and wake up, the "good" Sylvanas has to accept that they are really just one person, and all "bad" Sylvanas' crimes are exactly what she would have done if she'd been the half raised as a banshee instead.

Your performance is great. But did blizzard interpret it that way?
What are they going to tell us with this that in truth the "bad Sylvanas was doing well and is the genocide justified because bad things happened to her?"
Or are they going to discard the bad to give us the good?

[Jackstraw]

I'm referring to the way she was subjectively evaluated in the story from the standpoint of the lore - since her calling them "arrows in her quiver" wasn't a known aspect of how she viewed the Forsaken until around Cata with Edge of Night. Probably what you'd call a retcon. Prior to Edge of Night that element of her callousness toward her adopted people wasn't known, so the general view of her was a bit more positive, at least in terms of how I saw it. Also, Sylvanas' attempts to "better the Forsaken" were part and parcel of her self-serving goal to preserve herself using them as her bulwark. Sure, they benefit in the passive sense (save those who didn't actually want to be eternally undead, but that's another issue) - but it's also manifestly not about them. As soon as Sylvanas found another way to presumably make herself immortal or save herself from damnation, by joining Zovaal, she abandoned "her people" readily enough.

This is a pretty bold interpretation of Edge of Night when put in context with the entire Silverpine campaign. Sure, could somehow fit with BtS at hand, but the symbiotic relationship between Sylvanas and her Forsaken holds up until the whole Horde is nothing quip.

And that's another thing: we will never really know what the relationship is. The last line Sylvanas addresses to anybody of her perceived fold is that nonsensical dialogue at Windrunner Spire if you're a loyalist, dialogue that's more useful to estabilish once and for all what's her deal with Nathanos, at least in his eyes. Even then Nathanos got lost in the tragicomedy that's Shadowlands.

One more thing: the comment on Draeneis being pure good has no legs to stand on.

[Aucald]

You just shot yourself in the foot with the bit about Koltira. You showed that even if you totally played those quests, you haven't paid any attention to them whatsoever and that Jackstraw was right to "patronize" you. Nowhere in the entire WPL questline is it even remotely indicated that Koltira is merely a mercenary all the while the complete opposite is indicated or outright stated on multiple occasions.

Koltira is called her majesty's top death knight, which shows a formal position within the Forsaken military, not that of a mercenary. Other Forsaken Death Knights are also stated to be Sylvanas', not just paid reinforcements. Koltira himself explicitly refers to Thassarian as an old counterpart of his, with the old bit indicating their camaraderie as fellow members of the Ebon Blade is a thing of the past. Which is reaffirmed by Thassarian in turn, who - even more explicitly - outright states that they aren't brothers anymore and that they are members of the Alliance and the Horde. Members, not hirelings of.

Calling someone "her majesty's top Death Knight" doesn't show any kind of formal position at all, and given that Thassarian later leads the Deathlord in a clandestine mission to save "his brother" from captivity in the Undercity pretty much tosses out the idea that he stopped viewing Koltira as a brother or his kinsmen in the Ebon Blade. Thassarian's statement is to underline that they're currently working for opposing factions, and so they can't fall back on "brotherhood" as means to cease the conflict or throw the battle, or at least that Thassarian himself is unwilling to do so. Death Knights in the Ebon Blade also never formally leave their order or, to my knowledge, formally declare sole allegiance to the Alliance or Horde, either. Their use has always been as virtual proxies and specialists, which is shown again in Legion when the Ebon Blade is very much active and pursuing its own agenda without oversight. It's in Sylvanas' nature to declare ownership over something she's current in charge of, even if Koltira was simply on loan from the Ebon Blade like the rest of the Death Knights serving the primary factions.

And this level of attention to what's going on seeps out from every nook and cranny of your narrative about the Forsaken and the supposed perfect cohesion of their BTS portrayal with their previous lore and why this narrative is constantly collapses on itself. Vide the tale that every member of the Desolate Council was killed. Or your earlier statements that they were progressively growing more disillusioned with Sylvanas throughout the book, when aside from one point of contention where some members were against Sylvanas' goal of making the Forsaken truly immortal, at the very start of the book no less, even those that were killed were praising her even at the Gathering itself and then some of them made a spur of the moment decision to go with their family members because they realized there may be no such an event again and that they preferred to be with their loved ones in that case. And the Elsie that you used as one of the named examples actually refused to defect.

The progression of their disillusion with Sylvanas wasn't confined to the book but rather a gradual thing over the course of their own unlives following the death of Arthas. Elsie/Vellcinda herself relates the subject in the sense that some Forsaken don't want to be eternally undead like Sylvanas plans for them - they find the state repellent, and now that they've presumably ended the threat of the Lich King they want to either die, or resume their old lives to the degree that's possible, both of which run counter to Sylvanas' desires for them (having them persist forever as her personal shield against damnation). Absent Sylvanas' cult of personality and her domineering influence on Forsaken culture, such as pointedly discouraging their re-embrace of their former human lives, it seemed more and more of the Forsaken were slowly becoming cognizant of the fact they were simply being used to further an agenda that wasn't in their best interests. Obviously they weren't there quite yet, with many of them still loyal to Sylvanas despite their misgivings about her plans (such as Elsie/Vellcinda herself), and then they were conveniently executed by Sylvanas save for those who got their hopes crushed and could more easily be manipulated into being Sylvanas' unquestioning tools once more.

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This is a pretty bold interpretation of Edge of Night when put in context with the entire Silverpine campaign. Sure, could somehow fit with BtS at hand, but the symbiotic relationship between Sylvanas and her Forsaken holds up until the whole Horde is nothing quip.

And that's another thing: we will never really know what the relationship is. The last line Sylvanas addresses to anybody of her perceived fold is that nonsensical dialogue at Windrunner Spire if you're a loyalist, dialogue that's more useful to estabilish once and for all what's her deal with Nathanos, at least in his eyes. Even then Nathanos got lost in the tragicomedy that's Shadowlands.

One more thing: the comment on Draeneis being pure good has no legs to stand on.

Not sure how the Silverpine campaign really contrasts with Edge of Night considering that it chronologically follows on its heels? Sylvanas isn't going to allow Garrosh to waste the Forsaken in a feckless conflict because that's not in keeping with her new plans for them (e.g. bulwark vs. arrows) - she was fine with expending the Forsaken on killing Arthas because she had no reason for them in the aftermath, but the events of Edge of Night changed that, and it shows in Silverpine. The main mistake here would be in thinking that this new regard is in any way altruistic on Sylvanas' part when it's still as self-serving and utilitarian as her previous MO.

This is not to mention that Sylvanas was just fine with expending her Forsaken in what would've been her approach to the battle against N'Zoth, having more formally joined with Zovaal and serving as his general, she was fine with feeding both the Horde (including the Forsaken) and Alliance to the Maw. It's in that context that I don't really see much merit in feeling moved by Sylvanas' crocodile tears at having abandoned her people after the Mak'gora against Saurfang.

The Draenei aren't 100% pure good, either; but they're about as close as you can get to a uniformly good race considering that most of their evil members had already become demons at this point. I'd argue they're still a lot more monolithically good in a racial sense than the Forsaken are monolithically evil, but YMMV.

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Leonid Bartholomew is about as much of a Forsaken as Kel'thuzad given that he outright distances himself from them. (I suppose Kegan Darkmar could be depending on Blizz's current stance on the old comics, but his only noteworthy thing is going on a rage induced vengeful rampage against the Scarlet Crusade, before getting killed off for good) Finklestein and Darkmar we know literally next to nothing about. (Some people seem to forget lately that the Forsaken are specifically Sylvanas's group of undead) That said i think you misunderstand what i mean here. The Undead have always been established to think differently than the living, which doesn't necessarily imply that they are required to be evil, but they consistantly have shown an inclination toward darker side of the emotional spectrum. You never had something like Zelling, Calia, Faol and so forth, who continue along their business as if they were still alive, with a mild inconvenience of death.

Distance doesn't make him less of an example, though - he's undead and he shares their basic origins, but didn't agree with Sylvanas' tack and sought to go his own way. Kegan Darkmar also isn't from the comics, but rather a drawn-out questline from the Classic version of Hillsbrad where he and his companions are kept at an internment facility overseen by an Alliance warden who comes to view them not as a monsters but people in their own right. While Leonid left the Forsaken to join the Argent Dawn, he's still what I consider racially Forsaken, the same as Kegan Darkmar. I don't consider being Forsaken to be a solely political identity in the same way I don't consider an Orcish exile to no longer be an Orc, or an exiled Troll to no longer be a Troll. That being said, "newer" Forsaken like Zelling and Faol relate their own issues into coming to grips with their undead state - it's worth noting that we know little of Faol's earlier days in undeath, and Zelling entered into the state willingly and with full foreknowledge of what it meant, making him something of an outlier on its face (and he still had to deal with instability and emotional problems). Calia is entirely something else, and I wouldn't even call her Forsaken either. She undead, certainly, but the nature of her undead existence and the very manner of her creation sets her pretty far apart from the rank and file Forsaken.

I've been on this tangent before, but there is no circumstance where her having a huge loyal army wouldn't prove helpful toward her goals. It's just a plot contrivance to cannibalise her, in order to set up Zovaal. She had a very consistant hardline stance on mindcontrol, until that point, which is even directly told to the audience through Voss like "Hey that's not the Sylvanas we know!". (An interesting artistic choice to say the least. Not only do they force her hard out of character, but then go like "Oh look she is hard out of character!"...)

About the only thing different here is that Sylvanas basically stopped hiding her hypocrisies as she entered more and more into Zovaal's service - as it became increasingly unnecessary for her to do so. The first step happened when she became Warchief, and the necessity of reliance solely on the Forsaken diminished. This was exacerbated by her formally joining Zovaal's cause, and her enthusiastic embrace of feeding both factions to the Maw. From Voss' perspective this is all out of character and strange, but with full knowledge of what's going it's decidedly less surprising.

What is there to distangle? There was literally no way to prove their innocence, in a situation that was already highly suspicious before Calia's presence was revealed to her. Unless you'd like to argue that them getting the Koltira treatment would have somehow been better. IF anything the story frames it as a heat of the moment gut reaction to the reveal of Calia's presence, which cemented her already existing suspicions.

They shouldn't have to "prove their innocence," because innocence is generally the default assumption - this is the reason we have trials, courts, and the trappings of justice to begin with. Not that Sylvanas gave a fig for their innocence or their guilt, really - her only determination was "well they didn't retreat on the first sounding of the horn, time to butcher them all." Calia was also a third party to the goings-on before the reveal that she was Calia, as one of Faol's novices providing services to the assembled Horde and Alliance delegations. Calia declaring her intent might've been due cause to execute or apprehend her, but it's not really cause for Sylvanas to slaughter her own out of hand. It was obviously a chaotic situation with a lot going on she wasn't privy to, and she didn't even care to find out what was going on - her immediate response was "kill them all." A just leader might've actually gotten involved and made a determination with at least some of the facts as opposed to issuing execution squads their kill orders.

Basically all of that is filling the blanks through assumptions based on stuff that's sometimes not even in the game or related media like Blizzcon Q&A/Interviews, from years ago. That's not really what I'd call "In-game storytelling". Might be just me, but i think the narratively focussed game's story should be featured in the god damned game. Even if the Sylvanas novel does somehow manage to fix all the glaring issues(i doubt it) the in-game rendition of the story would still be nonsensical crap. It's possible to overlook instances as glaring as event he War Crimes novel, because they were self contained events between the expansions. But using it as a crutch for the current story is unacceptable.

I don't really confine myself to solely "in-game storytelling," though; I like my context to include as much of the material as there is from canon sources, including comics, novels, short stories, and developer statements. All of these things provide additional clarity and nuance to the narratives, whereas if you confine yourself solely to in-game lore it's going to be fragmentary and patchwork at best. It's my view that the in-game lore isn't really up to the task of relating the whole story, for better or worse. A lot of IP's have supplementary and tie-in material like this to both enhance and improve the game's story. I do think WoW leans a bit hard on its tie-in material like the novels, though; and that's a valid critique in my view.

[Izalla]

Your performance is great. But did blizzard interpret it that way?
What are they going to tell us with this that in truth the "bad Sylvanas was doing well and is the genocide justified because bad things happened to her?"
Or are they going to discard the bad to give us the good?

Pretty sure they straight up said that no, it isn't justified. Just because she went through terrible things doesn't mean she is allowed to do terrible things without it being evil. That is why they keep saying "what Sylvanas did is unforgivable, but we need the information she knows so we can defeat the jailer."

[Tanaria]

Meh - it was good to see Ranger General Sylvanas in Quel'Thalas, but that's as far as it goes.

[geco]

Pretty sure they straight up said that no, it isn't justified. Just because she went through terrible things doesn't mean she is allowed to do terrible things without it being evil. That is why they keep saying "what Sylvanas did is unforgivable, but we need the information she knows so we can defeat the jailer."

What you tell me makes me think several things. But when applied to the current plot.

Wasn't it better just not to put any of this thing about the two split souls and just that the original Sylvana and help us out for revenge?
The same with or without function if she does not end up dead we would be forgiving her.

[sighy]

What you tell me makes me think several things. But when applied to the current plot.

Wasn't it better just not to put any of this thing about the two split souls and just that the original Sylvana and help us out for revenge?
The same with or without function if she does not end up dead we would be forgiving her.

That'd mean they would have to actually dedicate time to her, establish her role within the story past the inciting incident and let her grow as a character. A narrative where we'd see her dream crumble around her, if not have her outright give it up to face up to and correct the mess she made could have legs in it.

The Soulmerge business is a bit wierd, in that Blizzard claims there isn't a good half and a bad half, but more of a current half and frozen in time half, which forces the character to reflect on their past actions and/or attitudes. Instead of allowing such reflection to occur naturally, for some reason.

[mysticx]

That'd mean they would have to actually dedicate time to her, establish her role within the story past the inciting incident and let her grow as a character. A narrative where we'd see her dream crumble around her, if not have her outright give it up to face up to and correct the mess she made could have legs in it.

The Soulmerge business is a bit wierd, in that Blizzard claims there isn't a good half and a bad half, but more of a current half and frozen in time half, which forces the character to reflect on their past actions and/or attitudes. Instead of allowing such reflection to occur naturally, for some reason.

It’s either disinterest (Too complex and subtle for the writing team), or they’re rushing the story along to wrap up this mess of an expansion while they still have subscribers…

[bagina]

That'd mean they would have to actually dedicate time to her, establish her role within the story past the inciting incident and let her grow as a character. A narrative where we'd see her dream crumble around her, if not have her outright give it up to face up to and correct the mess she made could have legs in it.

The Soulmerge business is a bit wierd, in that Blizzard claims there isn't a good half and a bad half, but more of a current half and frozen in time half, which forces the character to reflect on their past actions and/or attitudes. Instead of allowing such reflection to occur naturally, for some reason.

The cinematic shows us one thing and tells us another. It shows as that one half is unambiguously evil and the other is unambiguously good. It shows us the the halves are pretty much two different people. It shows us the good one has been physically separated from the bad one and had zero control over anything and therefore can't be by any stretch of logic condemned for the bad one's crimes. What it tells us is the opposite. It tells us that yes the good half should be condmened, that they're actually the same person.

It's so stupid because by claiming that it's a "past" and "present" Sylvanas they create a paradox. They claim that it's a "past Sylvanas" and "present Sylvanas" but present Sylvanas only exists because of the absence of "past Sylvanas". The "past Sylvanas" would have never turned out that way had she remained whole. "Present Sylvanas" is not actualy the future of "past Sylvanas". It's actually IMPOSSIBLE for "present Sylvanas" to be future "past Sylvanas", because the only reason "present Sylvanas" exists is because the "past Sylvanas" died (by died I mean got trapped in a crystal LOLL). The only reason one can exist is if the other doesn't. They only way either can exist is if the other doesn't. We didn't see an actual future "past Sylvanas" because she doesn't exist. If "past Sylvanas" was able to stay in her body, she would have turned out to be an entirely different person. Therefore "past Sylvanas" should absolutely not be associated with "present Sylvanas" because they literally can't be the same person.

And if they say "yeah well they're still the same person" then why do this idiotic exercise with splitting her soul in the first fucking place? It achieves absolutely nothing.