New Interview: Sylvanas ordered the Wrathgate?

[omeomorfismo]

Nope, they don't. I have addressed the quotes you brought up in a previous post (this) and pointed out that there are ways to interpret them to fit with what Afrasiabi just said recently, but in case you missed it, I will post those interpretations again (keep in mind that it's just *interpretation*, I'm not claiming that they must be fact).

Firstly, the Forsaken Intro cutscene:

The facts we get from this:
- The Forsaken were betrayed by Putress at the Wrathgate.
- Sylvanas didn't know or expect Putress and Varithmaras to have taken over Undercity.
- The Forsaken were wrongfully blamed for those traitors (Putress and Varithmaras)' atrocity.

However, none of those explicitly stated, without any other possible interpretation, that Sylvanas wasn't behind the Wrathgate incident in any manner. For a simple example, Sylvanas could have ordered Putress to carry out the Wrathgate incident, and then betrayed by Varithmaras who made use of the situation to carry out his own plan. In that case, all of those three facts mentioned above would still fit: Putress still betray Sylvanas and the Forsaken at the Wrathgate; Sylvanas still didn't know about the traitors' plan to seriously attack her and took over Undercity until it was too late; And the Forsaken were wrongfully blamed for the traitors' atrocity, as that was never the Forsaken's plan, just Sylvanas' and later, Varithmaras & Putress'. See? All fit, just with extra bit of information that Sylvanas was involved in the Wrathgate's incident.

You can use the same interpretation to explain Chronicle 3 away - i's actually easier because there isn't any need to interpret it in a special way for the Forsaken to be uninvolved (as that simply wasn't mentioned). The only truths in Sylvanas' account of Undercity's rebellion were just Putress had attempted to overthrow her, and Varithmaras carried out his plan to claim the Forsaken for the Legion. The fact that it didn't mention Sylvanas's involvement in those truths, while bringing up that "Whether she was aware that Putress and Varithmaras were planning to use the concoction remained a mystery" put some doubts in the matter. Normally, it wouldn't be enough to fairly suspect Sylvanas, but now we get Afrasiabi's statement - assuming he didn't misspoke, that is.


Again, I'm not saying that the interpretation I brought up must have been truth. It's very possible that Afrasiabi just misspoke and turned it into a retcon, but my point is that it isn't necessarily so. It can be fully explained within the scope of current lore. I'd love to see any official sources stating that Sylvanas had no involvement whatsoever to the Wrathgate's incident without any other possible explanation because, well, I can't recall any (although I could have simply missed that).

so basically all your argument is that sylvanas isnt a forsaken because reason?
she is the queen, it is like saying than queen Elizabeth 2 isnt british...

[Deleted]

Maybe you people should play WoW Classic once it comes out and experience firsthand that Sylvanas always planned to betray and murder the Horde.

The retcon is not that she ordered the Wrathgate, at the time the retcon was that she wasn't responsible. Putress and Varimathras were blamed, but it always made sense for Sylvanas herself to be behind it.

All the Forsaken lore in vanilla is about creating this plague that could kill the Scourge as well as the living, and time and time again the other Horde races show distrust for the Forsaken, and rightly so because in Swamp of Sorrows a captured Human soldier is willing to testify to his Orc guards that the Forsaken plan to betray and murder the other Horde races... but he's assassinated by a Forsaken before being able to spill the beans.

This is very likely about the Wrathgate event, Sylvanas was already planning that as far back as vanilla, when she just joined the Horde out of convenience. She is using the other Horde races out of convenience right now as well, everything is a tool to her grand scheme. She is betraying everyone and everything to reach her personal goal. The Horde is nothing to her but a means to an end.

There is no retcon in any of this, she was always evil. The only retcon is blaming everything on Varimathras and Putress when she herself was behind it all. But that could be explained as a failed coup and taking the time to lick her wounds and regain trust. Only to take another shot at it in a later expansion.

[Qualia]

so basically all your argument is that sylvanas isnt a forsaken because reason?
she is the queen, it is like saying than queen Elizabeth 2 isnt british...

No, I'm saying that a single person - even a leader - 's action do not necessarily reflect the entire race's stance. Especially in this case where the Forsaken wasn't aware of her plan to begin with. During the Forsaken's introduction cutscene, the narrator was talking about the Forsaken as a race, not the Forsaken as any individual person belongs to that race.

Imagine, for example, if tomorrow one of the leaders suddenly press the nuclear button and bomb an entire country without anyone else in his country (or maybe only his close followers) being aware about that. Would it be right to blame the country? Not really, the fault would lie in said leader, although the country would have a hard time convincing the rest of the world otherwise.

[omeomorfismo]

No, I'm saying that a single person - even a leader - 's action do not necessarily reflect the entire race's stance. Especially in this case where the Forsaken wasn't aware of her plan to begin with. During the Forsaken's introduction cutscene, the narrator was talking about the Forsaken as a race, not the Forsaken as any individual person belongs to that race.

Imagine, for example, if tomorrow one of the leaders suddenly press the nuclear button and bomb an entire country without anyone else in his country (or maybe only his close followers) being aware about that. Would it be right to blame the country? Not really, the fault would lie in said leader, although the country would have a hard time convincing the rest of the world otherwise.

As a result, the Forsaken were wrongfully blamed for the traitors' atrocities. Though the Undercity was eventually retaken, Sylvanas and her followers still bear the weight of Putress' sins

you have to stretch semantic so hard with your distinction of "race" and "any individual belongs to that race" to believe that sylvanas, that was blamed for the atrocities, wasnt intended to be included in the pretty clear "Forsaken were wrongfully blamed...". blizz could use a more generic plural or i dont know, be clear about it if they want at least hint that thing, like they were with the clear distinction between Forsaken and traitors...

btw you are basically saying that wasnt US that nuked japan but only the president and project manhattan... completely ignoring that said president was elected in a popular supported democracy. more or less like sylvanas is massively worshipped in her tiranny (that ironically is, after the gnomes, the most "democratic" system of warcraft)

[Qualia]

you have to stretch semantic so hard with your distinction of "race" and "any individual belongs to that race" to believe that sylvanas, that was blamed for the atrocities, wasnt intended to be included in the pretty clear "Forsaken were wrongfully blamed...". blizz could use a more generic plural or i dont know, be clear about it if they want at least hint that thing, like they were with the clear distinction between Forsaken and traitors...

So you are admitting that there are possible way to interpret it to fit the story. Whether it's, quoting you, "stretch semantic so hard with your distinction of "race" and "any individual belongs to that race"" is just your opinion. I, for one, see that it's perfectly reasonable if the race was neither involved in, nor aware of it. Do you blame entire North Korea for what their government do?

btw you are basically saying that wasnt US that nuked japan but only the president and project manhattan... completely ignoring that said president was elected in a popular supported democracy. more or less like sylvanas is massively worshipped in her tiranny (that ironically is, after the gnomes, the most "democratic" system of warcraft)

You do realize that it was a valid point of view, right? As stated in "Life"'s article in 1945 (you can look it up as there is a copy on the Internet, only about 6-7 pages long) that most people involved in project Manhattan was *innocent*, that "probably no more than a few dozen men in the entire country knew the full meaning of the Manhattan Project, and perhaps only a thousand others even were aware that work on atoms was involved". It wasn't stated in the article, but if the author of that (whoever he was) considered people who involved in the project without knowing what they were working on, innocent, I doubt he / she'd be blaming the entire country for the same thing.

Of course, "Life" is, after all, just a newspaper. It's not like that the view that the country / faction have to shoulder the responsibilities together with its leader is completely invalid just because a newspaper article didn't share that view. However, it showed that that isn't the only way people can look at it. You can just google whether a country's citizens should be responsible for their leaders' actions and - unsurprisingly - you will find many different opinions of the matter.

[Deleted]

There isn't one single reason for Sylvanas doing or ordering something that retarded. Its only the retarded writing style, which is so incompetent, that they have to make Sylvanas responsible for every evil and stupid thing in the world, so she can become the incompetent villain. Its the same with Garrosh and his Heart of Yshaarj nonsene and him going mustache twirling evil-mode times ten. Or the writers retconning things in Chronicles, so Garrosh does look more like main and only problem, even if he wasn't. All of that isn't the sign of good writing, its the complete opposite.

[omeomorfismo]

So you are admitting that there are possible way to interpret it to fit the story. Whether it's, quoting you, "stretch semantic so hard with your distinction of "race" and "any individual belongs to that race"" is just your opinion. I, for one, see that it's perfectly reasonable if the race was neither involved in, nor aware of it. Do you blame entire North Korea for what their government do?


You do realize that it was a valid point of view, right? As stated in "Life"'s article in 1945 (you can look it up as there is a copy on the Internet, only about 6-7 pages long) that most people involved in project Manhattan was *innocent*, that "probably no more than a few dozen men in the entire country knew the full meaning of the Manhattan Project, and perhaps only a thousand others even were aware that work on atoms was involved". It wasn't stated in the article, but if the author of that (whoever he was) considered people who involved in the project without knowing what they were working on, innocent, I doubt he / she'd be blaming the entire country for the same thing.

Of course, "Life" is, after all, just a newspaper. It's not like that the view that the country / faction have to shoulder the responsibilities together with its leader is completely invalid just because a newspaper article didn't share that view. However, it showed that that isn't the only way people can look at it. You can just google whether a country's citizens should be responsible for their leaders' actions and - unsurprisingly - you will find many different opinions of the matter.

im not admitig anything, unfortunately ordinary language isnt mathematical logic and so it is full of ambiguity and can be easily distorded. in the full sentence there isnt a single hint about excluding sylvanas from forsaken, so your try to extrapolate your conclusion with pure semantic is so factitious that is basically an argumentum ad ignorantiam.
and yes, older north koreans fought with their communist party to make north corea, so it is on them the blame of the actual state of government. younger ones are another topic, because hardly they can be associated with a so coesive group as the forsaken (that is the main focus here).

same with democracies. what the point in election if then the president is only a free for all scapegoat. for example nobody denied that germany at the time was responsible for ww2 and asked war repairment even if probably nobody thought that their vote to hitler could spiraled so out of control...
but effectively my bad to have use real example here, iwould prefer to stop before draw the attention of some moderator

[Slyme]

I know this isn't relevant at all but, how did we go from the lore that Legion gave us to this??

[Phunkle]

So has there been any follow up on this interview? I don't really have the time to go through the whole thread, but I'm curious whether or not this is just a case of bad wording/quoting or an actual retcon.

[Super Dickmann]

So has there been any follow up on this interview? I don't really have the time to go through the whole thread, but I'm curious whether or not this is just a case of bad wording/quoting or an actual retcon.

There's been no more said on it. Though given the track the writing has taken I expect her to reveal she not only was behind killing Saurfang's son with the plague but she also dug up his body and ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

[Deleted]

Noose around Sylvies neck is getting tighter as expected. I'm about to make some popcorn.