Sylvanas is a Mary Sue

[Valkarra]

Sylvanas would have dominated the 2 of them without any kind of power up. Try harder next time.

Spotted the necrophile.

[Derpleton]

Sylvanas is overconfident/quick to anger and it cost her at Orgrimmar and caused her to burn Teldrassil. So he at least has a flaw. However, as far as the asspull of "lol here's moar power" all of Blizzard's lore operates under the rule of cool and not logic, thus we have things like Void Elves suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

[Miseration]

Spotted the necrophile.

Ur cool bro. we spotted the tool in the thread too. on a side note. saurfang deserved his death as a traitor. i wish she would have decapitated him or ruined him so much they couldn't even bury him.

[Kithelle]

Luke got his ass handed to him and his hand lopped off.

Exactly...he suffered failures, Rey didn't.

[StillMcfuu]

Spotted the necrophile.

If anything Bolvar and Saurfang are the necrophiles because they were fucked by a dead elf.

[Kithelle]

Sylvanas would have dominated the 2 of them without any kind of power up. Try harder next time.

Saurfang possibly, Bolvar I would question...she has gotten her ass handed too her so many times including by old man Greymane just a expansion ago. She isn't as powerful as people would make her seem pre-Jailer...so she really isn't a Mary Sue.

[Devonitar]

I shudder every time I see avatar like the OP's.

And on topic: Sylvanas may be or may be not a Mary Sue, but she is a terribly written character. Which, at this point, is pretty much a given when it comes to Warcraft characters.

[Trassk]

Indeed, that's probably what annoys me the most about Sylvanas. Her very real flaws don't matter. She's a sociopath but the Forsaken still loved her. She's a generally poor tactician but nobody ever exploits that, and she even wins by going up against worse ones (such as at Lordaeron). She's not very respectful of her superiors but aside from Garrosh calling her a bitch nothing comes of it despite her flagrantly disobeying a direct order from him. She's overconfident but wins anyway because she's so stronk. She has poor judgement when it comes to raising underlings but has a ready-made resurrection button to undo that. She's impulsive but whenever it causes her plans to go belly up, it turns out she has a new plan and didn't need the old one anyway.

The only time her flaws really set her back is in Legion, when her underestimating Genn and gloating to him allowed the man to smash her lantern... but as I said it turns out she's backed by a superpowerful entity and doesn't need no stinking lantern.

She's not a Mary Sue in the traditional sense. But she's a different type of character that just as annoying and detrimental to the story.

Really perfect sum up. The good thing these days is we've had years to look at how the characters 'developed' and just why she's a continued irritation, showing up the poor level of writing there is.

There was a time I might have actually liked her thinking things could improve with her, but post wrath those days ended and she just got worse and worse, and her fans didn't even notice

[bloodmoth13]

villians cant be mary sues. antiheroes dont get to be mary sues either and sylvanas is one of those 2, so no she isnt a mary sue.

I dont know why people are surprised she beat old saurfang and fake lich king, she has a source of power and she has fed the heck out of it. Her beating those two isnt any surprise especially considering sourfang got neutered hard.

You dont like sylvanas, thats fine, but dont tack things on to her that dont make sense. she has enough legitimate faults to rip on that you dont need to make things up.
Dont be blinded by your bias, she is an accomplished warrior and a veteran of many wars before she even died to arthas and would be a match for those two without her power ups. She got arguably more powerful after death and became more and more powerful following that. Also people over exaggerate her stomping bolvar, she won, get over it.

[Life-Binder]

caused her to burn Teldrassil..

but that gave more souls to the Jailer, so it a W for her

[Quaade]

She dominated Saurfang and Bolvar in each fight. She one shot Saurfang with her shadow magic and she utterly dominated Bolvar. The guy couldn't do anything against her.

Now some people will claim that she is not a Mary Sue, because her new powers are explained to originate from the Jailer, since when he grows in power, so does Sylvanas.

But that only proves that she is a Mary Sue. Mary Sue's always have justifications for their powers. It's just something the writers pull out of their ass.

What goes against this is that pretty much everything she's ever done has been utterly stupid. Yet they succeed because of her massive plot armour. Sylvanas is lss of a Maru Sue and more of an r/imverysmart and both her and Blizzard think she is despite that everything shown in-game probably would leave her outwitted by Demona. She would be utterly annihilated if she was pitted against someone like Xanathos and he would make her think she was winning while she was on fire.

[Valkarra]

What goes against this is that pretty much everything she's ever done has been utterly stupid. .

She just manhandled the Lich King in that cinematic. She's stupid because the writing is stupid. She's able to dominate powerful lore figures because she is a Mary Sue.

[StillMcfuu]

Saurfang possibly, Bolvar I would question...she has gotten her ass handed too her so many times including by old man Greymane just a expansion ago. She isn't as powerful as people would make her seem pre-Jailer...so she really isn't a Mary Sue.

Thrall, without seeing Sylvanas since CATA or MOP stated outright to Saurfang that he can't beat her. Doesn't even hesitate to think about it.

Sylvanas has fought DK Arthas as a living being, and made it so hard for him to get to the Sunwell that he raised the entire city, because of Sylvanas' defense.
As a Banshee, she beat DK Arthas with a single arrow.

Hell even the Bolvar fight, she doesn't do anything in line with "new powers" until she uses the chains. She intentionally doesn't kill Bolvar, only hitting him in his armor so she can take the helm.

The issue with the Bolvar fight is we apply Arthas to the mix. Arthas and Frostmourne were the dangerous ones, otherwise Ner'zhul would have never lost a battle of wills or even need Arthas.

[Valkarra]

Ur cool bro. we spotted the tool in the thread too. on a side note. saurfang deserved his death as a traitor. i wish she would have decapitated him or ruined him so much they couldn't even bury him.

You're mentally defective.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Spotted the necrophile.

Yea, the master of debate here folks, just played his ace.

While we're all here getting destroyed by OP's facts and LOGIC, we can play the guessing game of who's alt account they are.

[exochaft]

Rey is 100% a mary sue, sylvanas not so sure. She became overpowered and yes, many mary sue-warnings are really loud tingling, but she has actually a story, a background and maybe even a good reason for her powers. Rey not so.

The big difference we have when it comes to Sylvannas is the medium through which the story is being told: a game with long breaks between major plot developments due to how game content is released. With that in mind, development takes a reeeeeeeally long time, so getting the full story and background as to what is happening can take years or several expansions. As far as I know, we still don't know what the deal between Sylvannas and Helya really was about, and there are hints that it'll affect Shadowlands... but that seed was sown last expansion, and this plot thread is taking years to resolve. So when it comes to video game character powers, they tend to appear out of nowhere just because how story development is constrained by content release schedules.

At the very least, there has been tons of foreshadowing and build-up about what's happening with Sylvannas, with her most recent powers only being explained slightly because of sneak peeks at the upcoming expansion that'll resolve why/how she has said powers. She also has had failures and setbacks to major plans, and it doesn't feel the entire world is revolving around her to make her perfect, either. Just because she's a central figure in the story now and has a huge power bump doesn't make one a Mary Sue, and by the time her story arc is resolved I have a sneaking suspicion she's going to lose or suffer major losses. If anything, I think the story is being crafted to make Sylvannas look like she's insanely powerful from the perspective of people native to Azeroth and this realm so she can be a threat, but we're going to find out later that there's a cost/price to said power. Even now we already know that she's beholden to someone even stronger than her most likely, because the powers are coming from someone else.

If you want to make a Rey comparison, her arc is done with the most recent movie, not ongoing like Sylvannas. Unlike Sylvannas, most of her power buildup and skills aren't founded in any sort of logic or even foreshadowed/built up in most cases. Also, it does feel like the universe exists only to raise up Rey as character that hasn't had any major setbacks or failures in her entire story, through gaining/demonstrating new powers at the right time to facilitate the plot and most people directly surrounding her usually too inept or only there to support her. Basically, Rey is the result of bad writing.

The real difference between the story creation of Sylvannas and Rey? Blizz actually has a plan for where the story is going and already has a general idea how this story surrounding Sylvannas will resolve... Disney didn't go in with a plan for the Star Wars trilogy involving Rey, and the result is bad writing leading to her being a Mary Sue. Just because someone suddenly becomes powerful and unbeatable doesn't necessarily make them a Mary Sue, it's the amalgamation of everything around them that creates the Mary Sue. If the Sylvannas story ended just now, you could make the justification of Mary Sue... but her story isn't over yet, tons of characters from varying mediums have had similar power-ups and combat dominance out of nowhere that are not considered Mary Sues because of how things resolve or are eventually explained. Let the Sylvannas story finish at least.

[Oakshana]

It was a fan fiction story written by a female.

You're sort of right. But you're also mostly wrong. It was "fan fiction" written by Paula Smith in the early 70s for Menagerie magazine (a Star Trek fanzine, and her own publication). But it was 100% written as parody.

If you want to die on this hill, go ahead. But you're wrong.

EDIT: Aren't you also Anduin Menethil just posting in a new, new account? Didn't you get banned ages ago?

[Kyphael]

Can a villain be a Mary Sue?

[Lochton]

She dominated Saurfang and Bolvar in each fight. She one shot Saurfang with her shadow magic and she utterly dominated Bolvar. The guy couldn't do anything against her.

Now some people will claim that she is not a Mary Sue, because her new powers are explained to originate from the Jailer, since when he grows in power, so does Sylvanas.

But that only proves that she is a Mary Sue. Mary Sue's always have justifications for their powers. It's just something the writers pull out of their ass.

Got a non-Mary Sue to compare with?

[Oakshana]

Can a villain be a Mary Sue?

By defintion, not really. Mary Sue's are generally "hero characters". Because they are perfect and do no wrong, have all the perfect abilities and skills, and everybody loves and adores them. Me'dan is a classic example of a Mary Sue character.