Sylvanas Character Assassination

[Ardenaso]

Excited where? Lordaeron? They were already pushed to the east. And Dalaran was already reclaimed by Garithos and was being used as a shelter for refugees.

I don't know what you are talking about with Orgrim and Alterac. What bargain did he refuse to uphold?

It wasn't yet. Garithos even sent the Blood Elves on a suicide charge against Dalvengyr's meat grinder and the other passive undeads at the site would've been brought to his side or the other dreadlords when Illidan completely removed the Lich King's control over them.

Orgrimm turned away the Alteraci seeking for refuge and protection after they got sacked by the Alliance of Lordaeron. There's a reason why the Syndicate hates the Horde too

[Maljinwo]

wasn't there a dying mother with her son in the Darnassus Temple and then Elune intervened to make their deaths painless

"Yes my child. Your death will not be painful. Your soul being sent into the maw? That's going to be terrible though. Man, I am such a great Goddess"
-Elune

[Ardenaso]

yeah, but Illidan isn't trying to destroy Azeroth.

he simply didn't think about consequences.

that doesn't make him evil as Sylvanas.

I can give you countless of other characters that don't think about consequences but it doesn't make them evil.

btw, a huge bulk of the Scourge was with Arthas in the Easter Kingdoms.

the whole stuff with the restless Scourge is BS.

we will see that in SL.

Arthas can't command the Scourge if the Lich King doesn't exist. It's literally the main point of The Flight From Lordaeron. Either the Dreadlords take them or they be feral, Arthas would be fukked

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"Yes my child. Your death will not be painful. Your soul being sent into the maw? That's going to be terrible though. Man, I am such a great Goddess"
-Elune

^^

10 characters

[Varodoc]

It wasn't yet. Garithos even sent the Blood Elves on a suicide charge against Dalvengyr's meat grinder and the other passive undeads at the site would've been brought to his side or the other dreadlords when Illidan completely removed the Lich King's control over them.

Orgrimm turned away the Alteraci seeking for refuge and protection after they got sacked by the Alliance of Lordaeron. There's a reason why the Syndicate hates the Horde too

It was already reclaimed by Garithos by the time the Human campaign starts. Also, I'm sorry, I dont understand what would change. Those undead were already controlled by the dreadlord, the Lich King's death wouldnt change anything. And that strike force wasn't that impressive anyway, since they got beaten by Kael's and Vashj's forces.

I can't find that information anywhere on Wowpedia. Pretty sure Syndicate hate the Horde simply because they are a generic evil faction that seems them as nothing more than beasts who should be enslaved.

[Ardenaso]

It was already reclaimed by Garithos by the time the Human campaign starts. Also, I'm sorry, I dont understand what would change. Those undead were already controlled by the dreadlord, the Lich King's death wouldnt change anything. And that strike force wasn't that impressive anyway, since they got beaten by Kael's and Vashj's forces.

I can't find that information anywhere on Wowpedia. Pretty sure Syndicate hate the Horde simply because they are a generic evil faction that seems them as nothing more than beasts who should be enslaved.

I mean the principle is still there - Dalvengyr's strike force is a meat grinder but you're right I see.

It's from the RPG but since there's no other sources that refutes this, it's most likely that it's canon as well. Unless the Syndicate were those from Blackmoore's racist ideals

[Aucald]

"Yes my child. Your death will not be painful. Your soul being sent into the maw? That's going to be terrible though. Man, I am such a great Goddess"
-Elune

Fortunately their stay won't be overlong, given that come Shadowlands we're probably going to be sorting out the situation with the Jailer and the Maw on a more permanent basis.

[Varodoc]

I mean the principle is still there - Dalvengyr's strike force is a meat grinder but you're right I see.

It's from the RPG but since there's no other sources that refutes this, it's most likely that it's canon as well. Unless the Syndicate were those from Blackmoore's racist ideals

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I mean the principle is still there - Dalvengyr's strike force is a meat grinder but you're right I see.

It's from the RPG but since there's no other sources that refutes this, it's most likely that it's canon as well. Unless the Syndicate were those from Blackmoore's racist ideals

Garithos was never taking Dalvengyr seriously anyway. He had many forces he refused to give Kael just to be a dick. If Dalvengyr actually posed a threat to him, he wouldn't dealt with him personally or would have given Kael a lot more forces. Either way, the Scourge in Lordaeron at that point did not really threaten that much the New Alliance. What fucked them were Sylvanas and the dreadlords.

[DemonHunter18]

Arthas can't command the Scourge if the Lich King doesn't exist. It's literally the main point of The Flight From Lordaeron. Either the Dreadlords take them or they be feral, Arthas would be fukked

Lol now that I think about, Illidan should have helped the Dreadlords with the LK.

[Varodoc]

By the way I just want to point out that Ner'zhul made it clear that in WC3 the Scourge would've been undone if Illidan won. And I dont think that's a retcon from WotLK "There must always be a Lich King". It's just that the Scourge in WC3 was much smaller. Between WC3 and WotLK there were many years in which the Scourge remained dormant, biding its time, and increasing its numbers for war. So it's not that far-fetched to believe that the Scourge still didn't have the numbers to destroy all life on Azeroth back in WC3.

Point is, Illidan's victory would've fucked only Ner'zhul and Arthas.

[Ardenaso]

By the way I just want to point out that Ner'zhul made it clear that in WC3 the Scourge would've been undone if Illidan won. And I dont think that's a retcon from WotLK "There must always be a Lich King". It's just that the Scourge in WC3 was much smaller. Between WC3 and WotLK there were many years in which the Scourge remained dormant, biding its time, and increasing its numbers for war. So it's not that far-fetched to believe that the Scourge still didn't have the numbers to destroy all life on Azeroth back in WC3.

Point is, Illidan's victory would've fucked only Ner'zhul and Arthas.

I see. I guess if Illidan indeed naenae'd Ner'zhul maybe Bael'gun would've still held off Yoggy and his squids

[Ielenia]

<< snip >>

Your entire argument fails because you're basing it on a premise of "the end justify the means" which is not a good foundation to build our points on.

The reason for her actions don't matter as much as her actions. And the reason for her actions are selfish, from the get-go. She's torturing and damning people just so she doesn't get tortured and damned.

Sylvanas has always been shown as a villain, only a more low-key villain because what she did was in the shadows. Even back in Vanilla she was already capturing humans and dwarves and making horrible Blight experiments on them. In Cataclysm, Sylvanas was forcefully raising humans into undeath, condemning them into an "un-life" of torment and damnation. But then in Legion she was put under the spotlight, much of her schemes couldn't be done in secrecy anymore.

Arthas Menethil, the guy who brought her back from the dead and forced her to assist him in the assault on Quel'thalas. By all accounts, Sylvanas is a victim,

I'm sorry, but "victim mentality" like this doesn't work. That's like saying child molesters shouldn't be condemned if they were molested when they were a child.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Barrens is entire zone. Darnassus is just a village with some ruins.

Darnassas was a city the equivalent of any other teldasil was a whole zone The equivalent of the barrens or elwyen forest.

So you agree that Alliance killed Horde children?

It’s incredibly likely but Probably not in the places you’re saying.

[Soon-TM]

Sylvanas = Orgrim Doomhammer.
One is praised the other one is hated. Why? Racism?

Maybe because Doomhammer was much less cringeworthy than Sylvanas, and also because his ultimate motivations didn't change 3 times in 1 year or so. Although had the Golden of today put her filthy paws on him... /shudder

[Mirn]

I think what most people are really mad about is just how badly Sylvanas as a character has been handled.

Whether you see her as a villain or a misunderstood victim/hero, the culmination of her story has felt very, very cheap. So much so that Garrosh 2.0 has become synonymous with her.

Personally I've felt that Sylvanas has been handled badly ever since WoW started expanding on the world and story. I feel like WC3 Sylvanas was indeed ruthless, cunning, morally VERY questionable but you could still empathise with her to a degree. Like you might with a victim of abuse who lashed out, even if you can't forgive their actions you could understand the motive. I feel like this aspect of Sylvanas and the Forsaken has been increasingly absent from their characters. Even if this was planned as a way to show some kind of fall into darkness, I think all it really achieved was to rob Sylvanas and the Forsaken of a key aspect that made them interesting in the first place: Undead that are empathetic and not just batshit crazy, baby-eating murderers for no other reason than they are the undead. Honestly, I feel like this has been falling out of the Horde as a whole, but most egregiously in this place.

It feels like what made these factions and characters interesting in Warcraft 3, has been slowly pushed out in favour of having the generic 'Tyrant' orc, the generic 'Psychotic' undead' the generic 'Savage' troll, the generic 'Callous' elf. Etc etc... I think a lot of Horde players are feeling this, as far as I'm concerned, unwanted dumbing down of their faction and its races and leaders. Yes, Sylvanas can very easily be seen as nothing but budget villain-in-a-can with her track record and it's more and more difficult to find the things that used to make us sit back and think a little more before slapping that label on her. But the fact that this is, increasingly, becoming the rule and not the exception with the Horde, the more people are not going to be willing to accept it. The more it happens, the more it's going to upset people and the more they are going to clamour to either reject it and defend what's left or just try and rail against it.

Especially when it is done this badly. I think the Alliance are feeling something similar, perhaps with how everything is human-centric and almost entirely reactive and Lawful Boring.

TL;DR

I think this is more about the execution and less about the content of Sylvanas, as a character and in terms of what looks to be the culmination of her story. Perhaps exacerbated by the general 'villain batting' of the Horde that's been taking place over the last few expansions.

[Varodoc]

I think what most people are really mad about is just how badly Sylvanas as a character has been handled.

Whether you see her as a villain or a misunderstood victim/hero, the culmination of her story has felt very, very cheap. So much so that Garrosh 2.0 has become synonymous with her.

Personally I've felt that Sylvanas has been handled badly ever since WoW started expanding on the world and story. I feel like WC3 Sylvanas was indeed ruthless, cunning, morally VERY questionable but you could still empathise with her to a degree. Like you might with a victim of abuse who lashed out, even if you can't forgive their actions you could understand the motive. I feel like this aspect of Sylvanas and the Forsaken has been increasingly absent from their characters. Even if this was planned as a way to show some kind of fall into darkness, I think all it really achieved was to rob Sylvanas and the Forsaken of a key aspect that made them interesting in the first place: Undead that are empathetic and not just batshit crazy, baby-eating murderers for no other reason than they are the undead. Honestly, I feel like this has been falling out of the Horde as a whole, but most egregiously in this place.

It feels like what made these factions and characters interesting in Warcraft 3, has been slowly pushed out in favour of having the generic 'Tyrant' orc, the generic 'Psychotic' undead' the generic 'Savage' troll, the generic 'Callous' elf. Etc etc... I think a lot of Horde players are feeling this, as far as I'm concerned, unwanted dumbing down of their faction and its races and leaders. Yes, Sylvanas can very easily be seen as nothing but budget villain-in-a-can with her track record and it's more and more difficult to find the things that used to make us sit back and think a little more before slapping that label on her. But the fact that this is, increasingly, becoming the rule and not the exception with the Horde, the more people are not going to be willing to accept it. The more it happens, the more it's going to upset people and the more they are going to clamour to either reject it and defend what's left or just try and rail against it.

Especially when it is done this badly. I think the Alliance are feeling something similar, perhaps with how everything is human-centric and almost entirely reactive and Lawful Boring.

TL;DR

I think this is more about the execution and less about the content of Sylvanas, as a character and in terms of what looks to be the culmination of her story. Perhaps exacerbated by the general 'villain batting' of the Horde that's been taking place over the last few expansions.

I mean, if you see her as a misunderstood victim/hero, it's kind of a problem.... since a misunderstood victim/hero does not commit genocide.

[Coconut]

Maybe because Doomhammer was much less cringeworthy than Sylvanas, and also because his ultimate motivations didn't change 3 times in 1 year or so. Although had the Golden of today put her filthy paws on him... /shudder

Speaking of Sylvanas's constant motivation changes, there is an interesting point to be made. At the end of 2016, a few month into Legion, Dave Kosak stepped down from the WoW Lead Narrative Designer position to move over to the Hearthstone team. Not sure who followed him, or if the position was occupied right away, but Danuser has been Senior Narrative Designer since October 2017 and Lead Narrative Designer for the last year or so.

Blizzard said they plan two expansion in advance, so while working on Legion they already had a vague idea that the following expansion would be about the faction conflict. They set up the seeds of this conflict with Varian's death being blamed on the Horde and characters like Genn and Admiral Rogers full on breaking the truce to go after Sylvanas, even though she had been named Warchief. Both Sylvanas and Anduin were also set up to face certain challenges as rulers, Sylvanas because of the lack of trust the other Horde races had towards her and her past transgressions towards the Alliance coming back to bite her, and Anduin because he was too young to have been thrust in such a position at such a difficult time.

During the Legion pre-patch and intro, which were 100% done under Dave Kosak's leadership (it's possible even that he handled most of Legion, since the narrative can be penned out before patches enter production), Sylvanas is presented as more sympathetic compared to previous expansions:

- She saves Varian's life from the infernal during the Legion cinematic.
- She has a healthy banter with him during the Broken Shore push.
- She risks her Val'kyr to rescue the other Horde leaders, and seems genuinely concerned when Vol'jin falls (the Lead Narrative Designer is instructing voice actors what emotions to give their characters).
- At the end of the Horde Broken Shore scenario, she seems frustrated that she had to abandon the Alliance.
- She once again shows sympathetic emotions during Vol'jin's speech: she is angered when he says he never trusted her, surprised when he acknowledges her as their savior, pensive when asked to step out of the shadow (a risk for someone whose main goal at the time was to stay alive).
- The speech itself is played straight. Vol'jin doesn't just name her Warchief, he sell his vision ("Many will not understand" implies that he, at least, does understand), and the swelling music tells the viewers that they should be on board with Vol'jin's decision.
- Sylvanas's character brief at the start of Legion said that she has to "decide how far she'll go to protect her people... and whether they're more precious to her than her soul". This implies that Sylvanas is at least somewhat interested in protecting the Horde (or at least the Forsaken) and that they are at least somewhat precious to her. The question wouldn't even need to be raised if Sylvanas was a selfish psychopath - it would be her soul by default, or rather her existence.

A more sympathetic Sylvanas - from the perspective of the Horde player - was in tune with the rest of the expansion, which went hard for Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne nostalgia. Not only Sylvanas was dusted off and made more likeable, but other popular anti-heroes from the RTS game as well, such as Illidan (previously depicted as a cruel and insane warlord) and Maiev (previously a murderess of Highborne mages, and a character Malfurion had warned might turn evil at the end of the Night Elf campaign). We also got a demon hunter leveling experience reminiscent of the Black Temple mission, a returning sibling to Arthas, a bunch of artifacts sourced from classic characters, as well as many more nostalgic hooks to older RTS games and WoW expansions.

The BFA cinematic trailer, which would have had to enter production much earlier than its release at Blizzcon 2017, also presents Sylvanas as a genuine Horde hero, and in a nostalgic position (the battle for Lordaeron was her climactic mission in TFT). She gives a bitter speech about broken alliances that makes no sense whatsoever given her current motivation, and is seen reluctantly jumping into the fray, risking her life to embolden the Horde, including Saurfang. That Saurfang would rally and charge with a raised banner at Sylvanas's call after the Old Soldier cinematic and before his disobedience at the end of the battle is absurd, suggesting that the original narrative intent was different.

Other details from the expansion reveal hint at this too, such as the blurb from the announcement page:

Azeroth paid a terrible price to end the apocalyptic march of the Legion's crusade—but even as the world's wounds are tended, it is the shattered trust between the Alliance and Horde that may prove the hardest to mend. In Battle for Azeroth, the fall of the Burning Legion sets off a series of disastrous incidents that reignites the conflict at the heart of the Warcraft saga.

In the actual expansion, the war is straight up "ignited" by Sylvanas, specifically to collect souls for the Maw as we later learn. There is no "series of disastrous incidents", but a barely provoked attack against a racial capital followed by the genocide of its innocents. The "shattered trust" is downplayed to the minimum (it's basically the SI-7 spying on some goblins) and never brought up afterwards.

What's more, the newly introduced Alliance faction, Kul'Tiras, was the most staunchly anti-Horde of the human kingdoms, and Jaina's character had been developed into a firm Horde opponent as well, to the point that she abandoned the Kirin Tor for working with the Horde during an apocalyptic Legion invasion. The return of the Kul'Tirans would be a nostalgic jolt for any old Horde player, reminding them of the Founding of Durotar campaign, the very story that made the Horde into what it was at the start of WoW, a story in which the humans were the initiators of the conflict and the Horde were the justified defenders. Any player who was hopeful of a retelling of that story and weary of a Garrosh 2.0 was woefully disappointed.

Once Dave Kosak left, the tone shifted and much of the set up was thrown away (the Broken Shore retreat, Genn's unprovoked attack and even Sylvanas's failure to obtain more Val'kyr barely factored into the reasons for the war; it was all rationalized as a preemptive attack by the Horde, retroactively motivated by Sylvanas's Shadowlands goals).

Why did this happen? There are multiple potential reasons:

1. Blizzard was concerned with the Horde being significantly more popular among high end players, so they didn't want to give them the Founding of Durotar 2.0 with a sympathetic Sylvanas while making the Alliance look like the baddies (a misguided choice imho, as the lack of shades of grey and internal conflict is exactly what makes the Alliance boring).
2. Blizzard reacted to all the Sylvanas haters on the forums, and gave us what they thought the players wanted.
3. Since they plan two expansions in advance, they came up with the idea for Shadowlands while working on BFA and change Sylvanas's character and motivation to serve as a lead-in into that expansion (potentially their early plans were to go with BFA with key Alliance leaders influenced by N'zoth -> Old God Expansion, but change their minds because everyone had guessed the Old Gods theme pretty early on and also because of 1.)
4. The new senior developers had a different creative vision and gave in to their biases instead of following the narrative that had been set up previously.

I think debating whether or not Sylvanas's actions in BFA are justified is besides the point, especially in a thread about her "character assassination". Most should agree that genocide is evil - the Horde players and former Warcraft III Sylvanas fans such as myself are annoyed that she was taken in that direction in the first place, especially after they were teased with something different.

And considering I already believe that World of Warcraft's story has no narrative integrity, even between its latest expansions (I'm already lenient when it comes to long term continuity), I wouldn't really mind if they came up with a reason in Shadowlands to redeem Sylvanas and justify her actions. It would be bullshit, of course... just like Illidan's transformation was bullshit. But then again, her current development was bullshit as well, and clearly tonally dissonant for Horde players, and I'm not going to feel guilty if I have my way through bullshit narrative as long as Sylvanas haters don't. Given the subject matter of the expansion, it might even be plausible bullshit.

[Cathululock]

They needed a villain because they ran out of them, she fit the bill. They ruined her character way back during the fanfic novel after Wrath. She has been crap ever since, same thing they did to Kael'thas.

./thread

10char

[TickTickTick]

snip

Very interesting reply. What I think is the biggest issue in all of this is that the lore entries Blizzard produces (cinematics, books, important game events) often times feel like "Jebaited" moment when looking back at them after even one expansion. It's almost as if Blizzard intentionally made misleading stuff in order to achieve their "plot twists".

But even with that in mind, Sylvanas story made at least a little bit of sense, up until Shadowlands. Shadowlands completely break her character. Sylvanas attitude in Legion, her inner thoughts in the book - nothing of it implies even a little bit what is her plan. And while maybe they didn't plan for all of it to go this way when they released these entries in the past, it's definitely a bad writing deciding to throw all of it into a trashcan, write in a new thread out of nowhere and say "plot twist!" or "it was the plan all along, noone knew!". Yeah, like not even Sylvanas knew apparently? Up until Shadowlands that is.

[Mehrunes]

Even if it was "trolling" my point still stands. Killing humans and raising them as undeath soldiers is exactly what Arthas did.

Except for the part where they got incorporated into the Scourge hive mind to exist as nothing more than an extension of the Lich King's will.

She already got backstabbed by the Horde in Theramore, and again in Dalaran. If anything, blame Vereesa and the Silver Covenant. At least Jaina was only killing the ones that resisted and imprisoned the rest.

Why would I blame Vereesa when Jaina was so unhinged during the Purge that even someone like Vereesa questioned some of her methods? And her getting backstabbed in the past doesn't change anything. During Theramore debacle the Sunreaver agent got caught red-handed. In this case Jaina had no actual evidence. She also wasn't interested in gathering any. She had no authority to perform the Purge as the leader of the Council of Six is only a representative function and they have so little additional power in regards to Dalaran's own business they don't even get a tie-breaker vote. And, finally, she broke Dalaran's neutrality first by aiding the Night Elves.

Well not then, but now they do. Also the Explorer's League arrived in Silithus first and they were attacked by Bilgewater Goblins. So yes, the killing of those miners was justified.

Holy hell, how can it be that the claims of Alliance posters on this site about Silithus keep getting even further from the truth each month? Not only was the Explorer's League sent halfway into BtS and after SI:7, the whole origin of Alliance sending anyone to Silithus is because the Horde's already ongoing operation in there caught their attention. It's almost as if there was an Alliance cinematic about that or something.

[Ardenaso]

Weven someone like Vereesa questioned some of her methods?

where can I read this one