Before The Storm (minor spoilers) - why is Sylvanas even on the cover?

[Jastall]

Seems to largely be a replay of what we already know about Anduin's character, but there are some elements that make me wonder about the actual purpose of the book.

Spoiler: 

Anduin now has a spidey-sense that guides his judgment and we see a lot of Light-related stuff like Alonsus Faol, Calia and the resurrection of the latter into a holy undead of sorts. Perhaps that was the prime purpose of the book, to establish how broadly people accept the Light as something that's good and natural around them, that even when a previously unthinkable thing such as a holy undead happens, they immediately accept it because it's Light-related. The book's over-emphasis of the saintness of characters other than Sylvanas would be looked at differently, if we learn they are like that, because they are blind the danger right in front of them and their actions are discreetly nudged by the Light. Calia's sudden realization and dedication to help her people defect and Anduin's spidey-sense in particular feels like manipulation.

That or Sylvanas is just evil and Anduin is just a great guy and everything is just boring.

I'm pretty sure it's not your spoiler. Anduin is 100% a saint, it's his entire character and there's not much more to it, and in both the book and the game (and that comic where the best thing you can say about her is that she didn't murder her sisters after planning to), Sylvanas is clearly portrayed as so callous, ruthless and amoral that if she's not evil, she's so close that the distinction barely matters.

So yeah, it's boring. Just like I expected this faction war crap to be.

[Viconia]

i mean there is nothing boring with the villain being evil and Anduin being a great guy? Like i fully believe this is a set up by the light, but wtf does that have to do with anduin? in that scenario he'd be a victim of its corruption.

Do...do people not realize "characters acting with consistent behavior, as the situation allows" is good writing and "people doing things out of character for literally no reason" is horrible writing? cus all that i've seen it seems to be the opposite.

like since the 80s we've had "oh the good guys were the bad guys all along" b.s. boring stories created by edgelords that think they were the first one to do it.

Nuance never stops being interesting.

[Voltsmasher]

I didn't feel like Anduin was a saint really. I mean he was very preistly but I viewed him more as a child than anything.

He refused to look past his ideals even ignoring the blatent troubles of Calia's political position for a weak vow of not causing trouble for the gathering. I felt like this was an attempt to have Anduin grown-up a little. (Not sure of the success of that)

Sylvanas could have been written better if it wasn't spent looking down on every race that was not forsaken. Kinda wasted the chance of exploring her motivations more in my opinion.

[Vyah]

Oddly, even though she was featured a lot less, it still felt she was a good centerpiece of it. I didn't even notice how little she was featured until this post, maybe it's the way the book flowed to me