Sylvanas Character Assassination

[TigTone]

The forsaken can finally build a culture that isn’t blind devotion to some elf banshee.

[Aucald]

as a mathematician, semantics and pedantry hide the most important stuffs
anyway that could condivisible speaking about humans, or at least a sufficient similar group. we cant agree when completely alien races and physics exist. thing like magic and real miracles completely change the landscape, races with completely opposite needs even more. when forsaken are presented as ressurected with an addiction for the human flesh, that use the corpses of the livings to reproduce and heal themself, tons of our moral is instantly thrown away.
we can argue that blizz never will thought anything outside the human (real and azerothian) pov, but then we can simple cut the lore section at this point.

Unfortunately, mathematics can speak little of the affairs of human ethical philosophy - with no fixed values you can have no sensible equations of the human soul.

We're not really arguing whether or not the characters internal to the story see Sylvanas as evil, good, or otherwise - we're arguing about what Sylvanas is to ourselves as external observers of the story, from an external perspective. I am saying Sylvanas is an evil character, not my character, in this context. That being said, the morality and ethics of the Warcraft universe aren't really very far from own in most cases - they still hold most of the things we do as immoral or reprehensible, and generally uphold the same virtues as we do, in general.

[omeomorfismo]

Unfortunately, mathematics can speak little of the affairs of human ethical philosophy - with no fixed values you can have no sensible equations of the human soul.

We're not really arguing whether or not the characters internal to the story see Sylvanas as evil, good, or otherwise - we're arguing about what Sylvanas is to ourselves as external observers of the story, from an external perspective. I am saying Sylvanas is an evil character, not my character, in this context. That being said, the morality and ethics of the Warcraft universe aren't really very far from own in most cases - they still hold most of the things we do as immoral or reprehensible, and generally uphold the same virtues as we do, in general.

i dont know, ethic is more or less an axiomatic system that should follow inference...

but thats the problem. i havent frames to judge undead beings, or ever long lived like draenei and elves. i mean, basically scourge and post cata forsaken are a parassite specie. are parassites evil in doing what they do? or even are we evil because our heterotrophy? are the orcs with their bloodlust evil when we saw that without it they couldnt even survive as one of the weakest beings on draenor?
or the king example: is the forsaken plague evil when
A) it doesnt have any drawback of our chemical weapons (thats the only reasons why we dont want use them)
B) litterally every other magic has worse effects (even arcane)
C) their enemy have a real mass destruction weapon as the paladins?

[Aucald]

i dont know, ethic is more or less an axiomatic system that should follow inference...

but thats the problem. i havent frames to judge undead beings, or ever long lived like draenei and elves. i mean, basically scourge and post cata forsaken are a parassite specie. are parassites evil in doing what they do? or even are we evil because our heterotrophy? are the orcs with their bloodlust evil when we saw that without it they couldnt even survive as one of the weakest beings on draenor?
or the king example: is the forsaken plague evil when
A) it doesnt have any drawback of our chemical weapons (thats the only reasons why we dont want use them)
B) litterally every other magic has worse effects (even arcane)
C) their enemy have a real mass destruction weapon as the paladins?

I hold that nothing of ethics is truly axiomatic - the universe has no baked-in ethical considerations, it is up us to create and uphold them, because nothing else will.

No one can really hold a non-intelligent "being" as evil, because they are unaware of the consequences of their actions and have no agency. This is not true for the Forsaken, who are both sentient and self-aware, fully knowledgeable of the nature of good and evil and fully able to choose to act in accordance with that knowledge. The Scourge is a better quandary, and I would say on the individual level they are blameless for their actions because they are slaves to the will of the Lich King, but the Lich King himself (at least Arthas and Ner'zhul before him) *are* evil.

[omeomorfismo]

I hold that nothing of ethics is truly axiomatic - the universe has no baked-in ethical considerations, it is up us to create and uphold them, because nothing else will.

No one can really hold a non-intelligent "being" as evil, because they are unaware of the consequences of their actions and have no agency. This is not true for the Forsaken, who are both sentient and self-aware, fully knowledgeable of the nature of good and evil and fully able to choose to act in accordance with that knowledge. The Scourge is a better quandary, and I would say on the individual level they are blameless for their actions because they are slaves to the will of the Lich King, but the Lich King himself (at least Arthas and Ner'zhul before him) *are* evil.

thats exactly what we mean with axiomatic.

to be simpler, our being heterotrophic is only a glorified parassitism, it dont change anything other than the parassited being are us (or playable race in wow). then its more "evil" defiling a corpse to reproduce the forsaken race or let the forsaken die out? its better sparing an human or use his corpse to replace forsaken bodyparts/use their vital essence to heal? its evil satiate an addiction of human flesh when this one is instilled by another being (lk) and let you going crazy and mindless?
then i doubt that undeads are fully knowledgeable of good and evil. they are naturally prone to hate the livings, their entire mind is warped around amplified violence and dulled to nothing empathy. thats a big deal

[Aucald]

thats exactly what we mean with axiomatic.

to be simpler, our being heterotrophic is only a glorified parassitism, it dont change anything other than the parassited being are us (or playable race in wow). then its more "evil" defiling a corpse to reproduce the forsaken race or let the forsaken die out? its better sparing an human or use his corpse to replace forsaken bodyparts/use their vital essence to heal? its evil satiate an addiction of human flesh when this one is instilled by another being (lk) and let you going crazy and mindless?
then i doubt that undeads are fully knowledgeable of good and evil. they are naturally prone to hate the livings, their entire mind is warped around amplified violence and dulled to nothing empathy. thats a big deal

The Forsaken remember their lives as former Humans, however; and while their current state impels them towards cruelty or callousness they are *aware* that their actions are cruel and/or callous, and they know and are aware of what the opposite of that is. They define themselves by their willpower (in this case the willpower to never again bow to a force like the Lich King's control), but hypocritically don't use said willpower to avoid succumbing to their baser selves or the call of their own darker natures (that of undead beings saturated with Necromantic or Shadow energies).

They know good from evil, and they're aware of the ethical content of their own actions accordingly. We have ample evidence they can overcome their own impulses as well - so I would say if they indulge in said impulses, they rationally and willfully choose evil.

[omeomorfismo]

The Forsaken remember their lives as former Humans, however; and while their current state impels them towards cruelty or callousness they are *aware* that their actions are cruel and/or callous, and they know and are aware of what the opposite of that is. They define themselves by their willpower (in this case the willpower to never again bow to a force like the Lich King's control), but hypocritically don't use said willpower to avoid succumbing to their baser selves or the call of their own darker natures (that of undead beings saturated with Necromantic or Shadow energies).

They know good from evil, and they're aware of the ethical content of their own actions accordingly. We have ample evidence they can overcome their own impulses as well - so I would say if they indulge in said impulses, they rationally and willfully choose evil.

why hypocritically? we can see it easily by being free of emotions and whatever. exactly what sylvanas says. after all they survived the scourge, the scarlet crusaders and the ally being the ruthless douchebags they are. without their dark nature they would never developed the plague and their massive army.
without the lies to garithos at best they wouldnt have a place to stay, at worst they would have to fight him in the civil wars.
anyway they would die out, and that would be the biggest evil possible

[Aucald]

why hypocritically? we can see it easily by being free of emotions and whatever. exactly what sylvanas says. after all they survived the scourge, the scarlet crusaders and the ally being the ruthless douchebags they are. without their dark nature they would never developed the plague and their massive army.
without the lies to garithos at best they wouldnt have a place to stay, at worst they would have to fight him in the civil wars.
anyway they would die out, and that would be the biggest evil possible

But they're not free of emotions - they experience the same emotional range as standard Humans, only with a marked pull or inclination toward the lower registers (anger, hatred, sadness, despair, etc.) Plagues and massive armies have also been developed by beings without such inclinations, as well. The Forsaken, emotionally and intellectually speaking, are not far at all from the Humans they once were - their differences are mainly political in nature, due to the events that led to the Forsaken's creation as a state.

Insofar as Garithos goes, Sylvanas could've mercy-killed while he was a thrall of Detheroc insofar as that goes, but she needed him to achieve her own objectives. She let him think he would have some kind of reward (in this case all Lordaeron itself) to gain his temporary allegiance, and then callously ordered his murder when it was done. I won't deny her actions weren't ruthlessly cunning and calculated, but they were still evil. The only mitigating circumstance here is that Garithos was such a scumbug of a person that it's barely possible to have any kind of sympathy for his plight as a character. I certainly don't, but again, that doesn't change the nature of Sylvanas' actions either.

[Coconut]

The races suit certain fantasies and aesthetics. The depth is indeed secondary to the niche they feel. The Forsaken niche was extremely clear for a very long time. Mad science, necromancy, black humor and the Tim Burton buildings have been synonymous for a very long time, as has Sylvanas. These are features, not bugs. There's more to them than that, but those things are essential. Ditto with being a native american stereotype pastiche is for the tauren and being warlike Lok'Tar Ogar-ing dudes is for orcs. What's the premier argument for the tauren constantly bending over? That that's key to their identity and the fantasy they represent - reasonable gentle giants. It's also why no matter how hard the story goes in on making the orcs go on about learning peace farming and so forth they will be there in the next expansion chopping heads and calling people weaklings. You nix these things and the race isn't the race.

@DemonHunter18

Good times. And look how far we've come - now she's literally grey.

On point and entertaining as usual, Super Dickman. Your posts over the last couple of pages have been a pleasure to read. You are of course right that the Forsaken have a particular aesthetic to which Sylvanas has been integral since the beginning, and using a character like Lilan Voss (who was never affiliated with the Forsaken until BFA) and a token flag bearer to represent a general departure from that is simply not sufficient (nor is the departure desirable to begin with).

@Aucald Sylvanas betraying Garithos easily falls in morally grey territory. I think it is borderline intellectually dishonest to outright call it evil... I mean, can your bar for what qualifies as evil be any lower? Maybe not brushing her teeth? I'm Romanian, and we consider someone like Vlad the Impaler a national hero around here.

In a world where you are caught between Arthas's loyalist Scourge, the Dreadlord forces and a bunch of racist humans bent on destroying everything Undead, you do what it takes to survive. If there had been even the slightest chance for them to maintain a working alliance after retaking Lordaeron if she hadn't betrayed him, I would have understood your stance. As is, she read who she was dealing with correctly and did what she had to do to gain the upper hand with minimal losses. The whole theme of her campaign is that she has to use unorthodox methods to come out on top, and that's what I found cool about her, and wanted to see more of.

That being said, the reason I'm commenting is to bring up these little tidbits from T&E's interview with Steve Danuser:

- He's been at Blizzard for nearly 5 years.
- He worked first on quests and Legion content (Hunter Order Hall, artifacts), and now he's Lead Narrative Designer.
- For his current job, he meets with many teams to hear their ideas and "just vibing" to come up with the best storyline.

So it's pretty clear, like I was saying earlier in this thread (if I'm not mistaken), that he wasn't involved in Sylvanas's story in Legion, and he's also not the kind of guy to stick to an arc set up by his predecessor. Chances are pretty high that the the arc she was supposed to have as Warchief was hijacked into villainy by this new team.

Also, this little gem is worth mentioning:

The team likes to see what stories players gravitate toward and change plans for future stories accordingly.

Remember, kids. The more you scream for the outcome you'd like to see, the more likely you are to get it! Narrative integrity isn't worth two frozen shits. All this the Sylvanas haters knew what they were doing!

[Aucald]

Sylvanas betraying Garithos easily falls in morally grey territory. I think it is borderline intellectually dishonest to outright call it evil... I mean, can your bar for what qualifies as evil be any lower? Maybe not brushing her teeth? I'm Romanian, and we consider someone like Vlad the Impaler a national hero around here.

In a world where you are caught between Arthas's loyalist Scourge, the Dreadlord forces and a bunch of racist humans bent on destroying everything Undead, you do what it takes to survive. If there had been even the slightest chance for them to maintain a working alliance after retaking Lordaeron if she hadn't betrayed him, I would have understood your stance. As is, she read who she was dealing with correctly and did what she had to do to gain the upper hand with minimal losses. The whole theme of her campaign is that she has to use unorthodox methods to come out on top, and that's what I found cool about her, and wanted to see more of.

Not brushing her teeth does no one besides her harm - I'd argue your comparison is intellectually dishonest if it weren't hyperbole for effect. As for Vlad Țepeș, I've heard your argument for him being a hero many times, and my argument there would be that "heroism" and "good" are not as equivalent or necessarily co-dependent as most people believe or maintain. But we're talking about fiction here, where people are seldom as nuanced as real life, and where both context and circumstance are obviously less dense. This is why conflating fiction with real-world examples is often a fool's game.

Survival, too, is a matter of degree - an argument can easily be made that survival is achievable without resorting to underhandedness, cruelty, or outright monstrosity. We have no idea if there was any chance for them to maintain a working alliance after retaking Lordaeron and Capitol City - we *do* know that Sylvanas never intended to try, based on her speech to Varimathras about honoring her side of the "deal" she struck with the Grand Marshal. So really, your example here has no real basis in fact as conciliation was never on the table (for her and probably not for Garithos either, as is likely). She also could've exiled Garithos under threat of death if he returned, or imprisoned him and his few remaining soldiers, or any number of alternative means of dealing with him. Even killing him if she felt forced to, but Sylvanas neither considered nor cared about alternative means, and she orders his murder without much thought - he was a tool that had served her purposes, after all, and beyond that his life didn't matter to her. I call that evil, and I think the vast majority of people would agree. Her being right about Garithos doesn't change that, nor does the fact that Garithos was also pretty evil himself.

I also don't think "coolness" and "evil" are mutually exclusive, either. This entire back and forth has been about how Sylvanas can be cool while also evil, and that's fine - it's cool to have evil characters, and even to like them, within the realm of fiction. I am saying that there's no call to rationalize or whitewash Sylvanas' evil to make her cool, she can be cool because she's evil, and that's fine. Basically put, just call her what she is: evil.

[omeomorfismo]

But they're not free of emotions - they experience the same emotional range as standard Humans, only with a marked pull or inclination toward the lower registers (anger, hatred, sadness, despair, etc.) Plagues and massive armies have also been developed by beings without such inclinations, as well. The Forsaken, emotionally and intellectually speaking, are not far at all from the Humans they once were - their differences are mainly political in nature, due to the events that led to the Forsaken's creation as a state.

Insofar as Garithos goes, Sylvanas could've mercy-killed while he was a thrall of Detheroc insofar as that goes, but she needed him to achieve her own objectives. She let him think he would have some kind of reward (in this case all Lordaeron itself) to gain his temporary allegiance, and then callously ordered his murder when it was done. I won't deny her actions weren't ruthlessly cunning and calculated, but they were still evil. The only mitigating circumstance here is that Garithos was such a scumbug of a person that it's barely possible to have any kind of sympathy for his plight as a character. I certainly don't, but again, that doesn't change the nature of Sylvanas' actions either.

i mean, the range could be even the same, but the fact the distribution is so warped is meaningful. having basically echoes of happiness and joy overshadowed by tsunami of hatred and jelously isnt the same thing of having them intact. its like remembering a love when you are discarged by your mate. you can still remember, but anyway you will hate her/him and your heart will be broken and you cant do anything about it, only thats not a short time, but how your consciousness will work forever and everything.
and the fact that exception like voss and the desolate council seems to be sadsacks still dont overshadow the literally entire forsaken cast in game and other stories that are blatantly sociopaths and without any empathy

frankly i have hard time to see as evil using someone, clearly douchebag, in the middle of the apocalipse, in the verge of the annihilation, moment after being freed by a monumental mindcontrol that compelled you to genocide 2 kingdoms just months before. yes that could be the epithome for "the end justifies the means" but in fact thats the point of playing an amoral race, absolutely dont care about ethics.

[Mehrunes]

I would say becoming the Warchief, or the High King, of a given faction is a pretty massive development for any character. Stormheim is quite important, too; especially to the level it still gets discussed even today in terms of how it played into the Horde/Alliance conflict that became the showpiece of BfA. I'm not saying that Sylvanas' role in Legion is as large as it was in BfA or likely will be in Shadowlands, but she still took a central placement in the ongoing narrative by dint of becoming the Horde's Warchief, and her actions in Legion shaped the narrative-arc of WoW across the next few expansions more than any other character in Legion.

And I remember who Dargrul was.

Stormheim being discussed and it being important to the story are two vastly different things. In story it has been completely brushed under the carpet by the writers, because they are brainlets that don't even understand WTF they are writing at any given moment so the logical ramifications of an event like that flew parsecs above their heads. And instead of a significant political crisis that should follow we have Anduin's flashback on how he slapped Genn and Rogers on the wrists for that and that was it.

[Coconut]

Not brushing her teeth does no one besides her harm - I'd argue your comparison is intellectually dishonest if it weren't hyperbole for effect. As for Vlad Țepeș, I've heard your argument for him being a hero many times, and my argument there would be that "heroism" and "good" are not as equivalent or necessarily co-dependent as most people believe or maintain. But we're talking about fiction here, where people are seldom as nuanced as real life, and where both context and circumstance are obviously less dense. This is why conflating fiction with real-world examples is often a fool's game.

Survival, too, is a matter of degree - an argument can easily be made that survival is achievable without resorting to underhandedness, cruelty, or outright monstrosity. We have no idea if there was any chance for them to maintain a working alliance after retaking Lordaeron and Capitol City - we *do* know that Sylvanas never intended to try, based on her speech to Varimathras about honoring her side of the "deal" she struck with the Grand Marshal. So really, your example here has no real basis in fact as conciliation was never on the table (for her and probably not for Garithos either, as is likely). She also could've exiled Garithos under threat of death if he returned, or imprisoned him and his few remaining soldiers, or any number of alternative means of dealing with him. Even killing him if she felt forced to, but Sylvanas neither considered nor cared about alternative means, and she orders his murder without much thought - he was a tool that had served her purposes, after all, and beyond that his life didn't matter to her. I call that evil, and I think the vast majority of people would agree. Her being right about Garithos doesn't change that, nor does the fact that Garithos was also pretty evil himself.

I also don't think "coolness" and "evil" are mutually exclusive, either. This entire back and forth has been about how Sylvanas can be cool while also evil, and that's fine - it's cool to have evil characters, and even to like them, within the realm of fiction. I am saying that there's no call to rationalize or whitewash Sylvanas' evil to make her cool, she can be cool because she's evil, and that's fine. Basically put, just call her what she is: evil.

Too much rhetoric here for my liking. I don't like these discussions where we start splitting hairs until we forget what our original arguments were. This isn't about "heroic" vs "good". You said "evil". You are conflating "evil" with "bad", "ruthless", "pragmatic", "vindictive", "cold" etc.

Now you want to define the standards for nuance in fiction. How about A Song of Ice and Fire for fiction? What Sylvanas did was very much in line with the first lesson from that series (which she learned losing to Arthas): "When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die". It's naive to think she could have kept the moral high ground while playing with the likes of Balnazzar and Garithos. She would have ended up like Ned.

Or how about the opposite? "This is fiction, not a moral treatise", to quote the lesser known gem of a film, Quills. Fiction isn't nuanced, so why get hung up on what she did to Garithos? Our characters kill people constantly, and I can remember plenty of quests where we used lies and subterfuge to achieve our ends. Are we evil too? Or perhaps it's all spin, and you're only bringing up Garithos because it suits you?

You're free to have your opinion, of course. If you played through Sylvanas's TFT campaigns and your conclusion was that she was evil because she betrayed and murdered Garithos, that's fine. But guess what? I and many others did not, and there's no spin about it. While the campaign has Varimathras telling her that "she looks more like one of [them] with every passing day", it also says that "her heart is still elven" (something toughed upon again in WoW with Lament of the Highborne), so it certainly doesn't pass any final judgement. For me, it would have been nice to see that internal struggle instead of straight up cartoon villainy. If you find it hard to understand why that is, I won't insist on explaining my position, as I doubt it would help anyway. People around here are way too partisan and set in their ways.

[Mehrunes]

Screen time is seldom the sole arbiter of how important a character is to the narrative, and what constitutes their time "in the spotlight" so to speak. Kind of like Thrall in Cata - he looms absolutely large in the story-arc as the World Shaman, but his screen time isn't actually that great (appearing in a handful of quests, one dungeon, and one raid).

As well as two books and multiple short stories and multiple patch trailers (including ones where his presence was severely hamfisted). In the span of one expansion Thrall had more exposure than Sylvanas had in two.

The matter of Stormheim specifically is more or less settled in "Before the Storm," but the implications are far-reaching and still resonant today - and if you're trying to tell me that's not the case, I'm just going to say that you're wrong and end the matter there.

Except it really isn't, because in her near-infinite incompetence Golden wrote multiple remarks indicating the conflict (that started in Stormheim as there was no other starting point for once between the start of Legion and Before the Storm) is still ongoing. And the fact that Blizzard wrote that yet it didn't actually register with them and they repeatedly pin the war on Sylvanas and Sylvanas alone instead really should tell you what importance they put on the events of Stormheim (hint: it's none whatsoever).

I still disagree, the loyalist route clearly shows Orgrimmar comparatively vacant, littered with anti-Sylvanas "propaganda", and people simply walking out to join the rebellion and encouraging others to do the same. Behind the facade of the wall, they were struggling to maintain order through force and resorting to conscripting their remaining civilians.

Meanwhile what's left of the Alliance and Horde forces, fairly scarce, gather outside the wall. We're clearly meant to believe that this final fight would have destroyed both sides and left no one to stand against N'zoth.

Your still disagreement still goes against the commentary of the anti-Sylvanas side itself.

[Mehrunes]

Since Cataclysm, I would say Sylvanas was a solid 8 witch monkeys out of 10. Now? She's far worse.
I still like her though, but I am sad to see one of my old favorites turned into the grand villain the expansion demands. The trade off is Kael'Thas' redemption, so I can live with the loss.

Given how Kael willingly joined an omnicidal Fel cult, his lol-redemption makes the ending of WoD look like a masterpiece by comparison. And also showcases how Blizzard's world building for Shadowlands doesn't make sense.

[Stelio Kontos]

How is it character "assassination" for a villain to be written as a villain?

[Mehrunes]

the fact that those players who went with the loyalist path still root for Sylvanas even after she literally wanted them dead is beyond me

The End Times must be brought upon the Warcraft setting.

[Rozz]

Given how Kael willingly joined an omnicidal Fel cult, his lol-redemption makes the ending of WoD look like a masterpiece by comparison. And also showcases how Blizzard's world building for Shadowlands doesn't make sense.

I really don't mind retconning all of BC and WoD into something more sensible, so it's a welcome change to me.

[Mehrunes]

I really don't mind retconning all of BC and WoD into something more sensible, so it's a welcome change to me.

Making two nonsensical stories won't result in the nonsense cancelling itself out and resulting in a sensible storytelling, especially if the second story is nonsensical because of it completely ignoring the first story that serves as its background. Just because Blizzard squandered Kael in TBC doesn't make their "but what if we pretended the story we wrote didn't happen (so we can milk that Kael nostalgia for extra cash)" an effective solution to anything. Especially since it's just that, pretending. I doubt they'll actually retcon him joining the Legion and whatnot. That it's basically guaranteed we will see a "it was merely a setback" because of how "sublime" Blizzard's humor is in there only makes it all the worse.

[Rozz]

Making two nonsensical stories won't result in the nonsense cancelling itself out and resulting in a sensible storytelling, especially if the second story is nonsensical because of it completely ignoring the first story that serves as its background. Just because Blizzard squandered Kael in TBC doesn't make their "but what if we pretended the story we wrote didn't happen (so we can milk that Kael nostalgia for extra cash)" an effective solution to anything. Especially since it's just that, pretending. I doubt they'll actually retcon him joining the Legion and whatnot. That it's basically guaranteed we will see a "it was merely a setback" because of how "sublime" Blizzard's humor is in there only makes it all the worse.

Considering what they did in Legion, I'm not opposed to hard or soft retcons if they improve the current experience or fix a past mistake.