Sylvanas Character Assassination

[Soon-TM]

When will people realize that Sylvanas is nothing more than an evil villain.

That's exactly the problem with Sylvie. She used to be an interesting villain, now she's almost a caricature of her early (TFT-WotLK) self.

[Ersula]

In WC3 Arthas had the numbers and his cunning. His armies were endless while every dead Blood Elf became an undead creature under the Lich King's will. The same happened with Lordaeron. A light user can be effective but how much though when Arthas had endless numbers. Even the Horde and Alliance combined had no chance of beating him in Northrend. He let them approach him so he can get their best champions as commanders of the Scourge.

In this situation the Horde is not the same as Arthas's Scourge. We are talking about a faction made from low population races that are finite streched too much after countless wars against the Burning Crusade, the Lich King, Deathwing, Garrosh's Civil War and WOD War. Need to mention how many times should Sylvannas have died had the game been written with lore over gameplay. Especially the Makgora was the epitome of idiocy. Two full armies were looking Sylvannas monologuing and escaping like idiots.

Sylvanas ordered the development of a new blight that was specifically designed to hurt the undead. This is for some reason described as her defining evil moment, even though the Alliance & Horde benefitted from it's use, even after Wrathgate, where it was used in Icecrown. Here you make the argument why Sylvanas is generally helpful to the player side of the story.

Also now that we know about the Shadowlands, we now have more context toward the events of Stormheim: Helya's Lantern can control a powerful Valkyr. Helya was forced by Odin to create Valkyr because he could not. We now understand Helya & the Valkyr are powerful Kyrian & Odin is just a Titanic Watcher. They have the power to call people forth from the Shadowlands as well as preventing them from returning to there. Now, we should assume Sylvanas knows about the Shadowlands & their inner workings since Annehylde the Caller & the other Valkyr originally offered their services to her after Arthas died. (Edge of Night)

So, Sylvanas as long as she's known about the Shadowlands, has been trying to bring people forth from there. And only started sending people there once Helya's Lantern was destroyed & that stopped being an option, instead beginning a plan that would bring down the barrier between these two worlds.

If the Jailer is trying to be free. As well as players freeing souls from Torghast. Much like the Forsworn who rebel against the Arbiter's grand design, it appears that we begin Shadowlands agreeing with Bolvar's stance on the shadowlands (Warden of souls) to aligning more with Sylvanas' stance on the shadowlands by endgame (Liberator of souls, "Set us all free") when we enter Torghast

[Varodoc]

Sylvanas ordered the development of a new blight that was specifically designed to hurt the undead. This is for some reason described as her defining evil moment, even though the Alliance & Horde benefitted from it's use, even after Wrathgate, where it was used in Icecrown. Here you make the argument why Sylvanas is generally helpful to the player side of the story.

Also now that we know about the Shadowlands, we now have more context toward the events of Stormheim: Helya's Lantern can control a powerful Valkyr. Helya was forced by Odin to create Valkyr because he could not. We now understand Helya & the Valkyr are powerful Kyrian & Odin is just a Titanic Watcher. They have the power to call people forth from the Shadowlands as well as preventing them from returning to there. Now, we should assume Sylvanas knows about the Shadowlands & their inner workings since Annehylde the Caller & the other Valkyr originally offered their services to her after Arthas died. (Edge of Night)

So, Sylvanas as long as she's known about the Shadowlands, has been trying to bring people forth from there. And only started sending people there once Helya's Lantern was destroyed & that stopped being an option, instead beginning a plan that would bring down the barrier between these two worlds.

If the Jailer is trying to be free. As well as players freeing souls from Torghast. Much like the Forsworn who rebel against the Arbiter's grand design, it appears that we begin Shadowlands agreeing with Bolvar's stance on the shadowlands (Warden of souls) to aligning more with Sylvanas' stance on the shadowlands by endgame (Liberator of souls, "Set us all free") when we enter Torghast

The plague was also designed to hurt the living, there's a reason why the RAS were making experiments on the living to create said plague. The blight was also tested on both a forsaken and a living human in Sylvanas' presence. She ordered Putress to unleash it at the Wrathgate knowing full well that it was lethal to the living too and that there would likely be a lot of victims to friendly fire by the end.

Also, I don't understand, Sylvanas is setting people free by sending millions of innocent souls to the Maw

[Darth-Piekus]

Sylvanas ordered the development of a new blight that was specifically designed to hurt the undead. This is for some reason described as her defining evil moment, even though the Alliance & Horde benefitted from it's use, even after Wrathgate, where it was used in Icecrown. Here you make the argument why Sylvanas is generally helpful to the player side of the story.

Also now that we know about the Shadowlands, we now have more context toward the events of Stormheim: Helya's Lantern can control a powerful Valkyr. Helya was forced by Odin to create Valkyr because he could not. We now understand Helya & the Valkyr are powerful Kyrian & Odin is just a Titanic Watcher. They have the power to call people forth from the Shadowlands as well as preventing them from returning to there. Now, we should assume Sylvanas knows about the Shadowlands & their inner workings since Annehylde the Caller & the other Valkyr originally offered their services to her after Arthas died. (Edge of Night)

So, Sylvanas as long as she's known about the Shadowlands, has been trying to bring people forth from there. And only started sending people there once Helya's Lantern was destroyed & that stopped being an option, instead beginning a plan that would bring down the barrier between these two worlds.

If the Jailer is trying to be free. As well as players freeing souls from Torghast. Much like the Forsworn who rebel against the Arbiter's grand design, it appears that we begin Shadowlands agreeing with Bolvar's stance on the shadowlands (Warden of souls) to aligning more with Sylvanas' stance on the shadowlands by endgame (Liberator of souls, "Set us all free") when we enter Torghast

Not really. I didn't made any argument at all. Sylvannas is a villain. The plague was created to kill both undead and living. I would have agreed if she used the Blight for the good of Azeroth but she didn't. Her Blight damaged Azeroth everywhere she went. She indeed knew of the Shadowlands but all that theory you mentioned is headcanon. She sent all these people there to gain more power. She is a selfish b grade villain and I will enjoy ending her before ending whoever is her master.

[Varodoc]

Not really. I didn't made any argument at all. Sylvannas is a villain. The plague was created to kill both undead and living. I would have agreed if she used the Blight for the good of Azeroth but she didn't. Her Blight damaged Azeroth everywhere she went. She indeed knew of the Shadowlands but all that theory you mentioned is headcanon. She sent all these people there to gain more power. She is a selfish b grade villain and I will enjoy ending her before ending whoever is her master.

How does one use a chemical weapon of mass destruction for the good of Azeroth?

[Darth-Piekus]

How does one use a chemical weapon of mass destruction for the good of Azeroth?

Well if it was used against the Legion or the Scourge only it could be beneficial for Azeroth but we all know it wasn't even used against them as much as on the living

[Varodoc]

Well if it was used against the Legion or the Scourge only it could be beneficial for Azeroth but we all know it wasn't even used against them as much as on the living

The mere use of the blight is toxic to the land. It can take decades for its effects to vanish and the soil to heal. For example, Gilneas is still a toxic wasteland after like 4 years.

[Darth-Piekus]

The mere use of the blight is toxic to the land. It can take decades for its effects to vanish and the soil to heal. For example, Gilneas is still a toxic wasteland after like 4 years.

I completely agree but what if it was used only against areas already damaged by the Scourge or the Legion or the Old Gods.

I have to agree though that the forces of Azeroth didn't need the Blight to win.

[Varodoc]

I completely agree but what if it was used only against areas already damaged by the Scourge or the Legion or the Old Gods.

Well she could've used it at the Broken Shore I guess, but didn't.

[Darth-Piekus]

Well she could've used it at the Broken Shore I guess, but didn't.

True. She could have used it to protect Azeroth as also her other assets but she didn't. She could have also talked about the whole ordeal with the Jailer and her plan to stop death with the rest if she is supposed to be valorous. Did she do it? Hell no. She went full villain.

[omeomorfismo]

Well she could've used it at the Broken Shore I guess, but didn't.

the boats full of laboratories and barrels were in preparation, broken shore was more a blitzkriege.
after this "someone" decided to going full kamikaze and destroyed the forsaken navy

I completely agree but what if it was used only against areas already damaged by the Scourge or the Legion or the Old Gods.

I have to agree though that the forces of Azeroth didn't need the Blight to win.

to be fair every human land is an area damaged by old gods influence (curse of flesh) trolololol xD

[Darth-Piekus]

A foolish logic.Everyone is infested more or less by this logic and that includes Forsaken. However the old God's damage minds.

[Traveler Voltin]

The mere use of the blight is toxic to the land. It can take decades for its effects to vanish and the soil to heal. For example, Gilneas is still a toxic wasteland after like 4 years.

gilneas will recover long before south shore though.

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Well she could've used it at the Broken Shore I guess, but didn't.

Well Genn kind of attacked them and made them lose it all in(maybe just most of it) Stormheim.

[omeomorfismo]

A foolish logic.Everyone is infested more or less by this logic and that includes Forsaken. However the old God's damage minds.

infact thats the reason why humans clinge to hope and life instead to be the automatons they should be, a trait that even the gift of undeath couldnt cure apparently
only trolls and proto dragons are the pure and true life forms, death to everyone else! ( /s because apparently it wasnt enough obvious)

[Minikin]

The fundamental mistake here is to believe that an Horde vs Alliance war must always be an affair where one faction is evil and warmongering while the other is passive and good. Even the war instigated by Sylvanas was initially built over a comprehensible ground, reason why even the oh-so-heroic Saurfang was on board with it.

My point isnt that it should be pigeon holed into a good vs bad. My point is, my faith in them writing it any other way is absolutely gone after BfA. And i would rather they use those resources elsewhere and just wash their hands off this inconclusive back and forth.

The issue here is that Blizzard had to make things overly bloated as ever by having Sylvanas acting like a genocidal maniac, which is precisely what led Saurfang astray (even though I will admit that the justification for the war remained pretty weak nonetheless, Sylvanas' reasoning was compelling but starting a new conflict right after the war with the Legion out of cynical predictions of the future is still quite preposterous, at least given the context of a world that dealt with the Garrosh way too recently, but I do not surely intend to use BfA an even remotely decent example of how to handle a war story, regardless of Sylvanas herself).

the interesting part is. Even before Teldrassil if you go to Astrannar BEFORE Teldrassil, it is FLOODED with wisps. Like overwhelmed with a stream of them. Basically we get the message that the horde is massacring night elves in DROVES. Yet it was teldrassil that tipped the scales. Makes one wonder why. Was it the cinematic? Or was it because after Astrannar you would think that would be it and it cant possibly happen again? I mean civilians were killed in Astrannar too. Or was it because of the scale of Teldrassil compared to Astrannar? 2 towns and one major city vs one town on the outskirts?

Thing is Teldrassil had all of those boxes checked.

Put it this way. They started the mini series thing back in WoD with Lords of War. We had an animation showing us what we were up against. In Legion we got khadgar, illidan and guldan. In a simple summary, khadgar was the good guy, illidan the neutral do what must be done good guy, guldan the bad guy. In BfA we got three warbringers. Again in a simple summary relative to each other, Jaina the good guy who is no longer going to hold back, Azshara the deal maker evil schemer, and Sylvanas the genocidal dictator lol. Its shocking right? They made Azshara look better than Sylvanas. Cuz in the end even she at least was shown to be defending a square of people, but has a feeling of being accused by her people and saying "this isnt the deal I made". While sylvanas starts with defending her people, losing hope and as a result goes against life itself? Heck. at least one could even stretch and say, Azshara at least tried to attack Nzoth, Sylvanas does what? Orders Brennadam and tells the horde that they were just nuggets to feed into her chicken frier in the Maw so she can unlock that last talent row?

How do you even come back from that? You still want to trust them with this? This is rocket ship levels of acceleration towards villany. Yet we still get threads like:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...u-think-she-is
or posts where players want to play an evil faction but at the same time want to reserve the right to be offended if you call them evil. It all contributes to the same thing. Wanting an impossibility. If people want an even skew, they need to let go of the "i want to go out on a killing me spree, but stop calling me evil man wtf its my character!"

Another mistake is to deem such a war always a matter that needs "conclusion". It doesn't need to. Conflicts and wars in such a world should erupt quite easily and they don't have necessarily to be overblown affairs, the only reason they are in WoW it's because Blizzard has excessively embraced a comic book-style of writing that always have to make things "big", as seen in BfA where the whole war has been basically a game of Sylvanas to gather souls for her own schemes; no shit that with such a stupid premise the entirety of the conflict looks idiotic as well.

Here is where we fundamentally disagree. War requires a winner. And so long as there are winners there must be losers.

However, I am not a developer or writer, neither are you. So me wanting a conclusion or you not wanting one has no real effect on the outcome. But we can infer from the past on how wanting a no conclusion setup goes. Badly. Again, ill repeat. I am not saying we merge the factions and smoke a peace pipe. Just that the major plot point should no longer be based out of a faction war. Because lets be honest. They have to dig as deep as Arthas to find something wrong with the alliance. They only have to look in the past couple of patches to find something wrong with the horde.

Put it this way. the needle is so far skewed that for the alliance to be as bad as the horde right now, it would require:
1. Starting a war as revenge for teldrassil
2. Follow that war with another war without provocation.

That alone cannot be done in one expansion. And they might not even do it back to back. So we are looking at resources dispensed over this crap at minimum two expacs AFTER shadowlands, or max three, leaving a gap in the middle. Thats nearly a DECADE. A DECADE of resource to clean up this mess? again ill ask. You want to trust them with this after BfA? 10 years?

I tend to agree that they should be more at "edge" if a massive war means forcing embarassing attempts of peace, love and forgiveness at the end of these conflicts, but we should not forget that BfA was a fucking failure because the entire premise was moronic, all the way back to when Sylvanas was made Warchief and especially the asinine way she was made so (even more asinine considered the newest datamined revelations). The Garrosh's arc was far from being perfect but it was tolerable, it had its overblown ending but it was decent for what it was. BfA though? Not only repeating the same storyline but worse was an unforgivable sin to begin with (yeah, right after Garrosh make the Horde evil and aggressive AGAIN) but such thing was done to push forward a storyline regarding Sylvanas and "Death" that had honestly bullshit to do with Blizzard's pretentious intention to "teach" something to the Horde after they apparently failed to do the same thing with Garrosh. Everything about the BfA's faction war, from Sylvanas to her opposition, looked beyond idiotic.

See iam in complete agreement here. But interestingly enough, remember when they said in an interview that to Sylvanas, Garrosh would look like an amateur. Now one must ask. Why the hell would he look like an amateur? If his war is more relatable and based out of necessity [horde perspective] misunderstanding [alliance perspective] then why would be look like an amateur? He wanted a safe space for his people. He wanted them to live and flourish. He got carried away at the end but he started with wanting a thriving land for the horde rather than dirt and drought. But somehow he is an amateur? Is it cuz shes set out on a goal that LOOKS like its "for the horde" but its actually "for the dark lady".

Yeah, that's the point. This so called "faction war" became an overly exaggerated mess from the moment Sylvanas blew Teldrassil up and made it abundantly clear that she had goals in mind that effectively had nothing to do with the war itself. That's the point where things went brutally downhill. So much that it managed to cheapen in such an atrocious way the sacrifice of everyone, especially on the Horde side, who fought this war believing they were fighting for something. Even Garrosh's lunatic followers were less deluded than everyone who fought for Sylvanas, not to mention, as already said, the absolutely cheap way she, of all people, was made Warchief out of some ass-pulled nonsense.

Do I trust them after BfA? I don't know. I know for sure that a proper faction war can and should be done, as much as I am sure of how Blizzard got all the worst ideas for BfA and unfortunately used them all.

you have more faith that I, good sir. For me after the day they opened up characters on opposing factions on the same server started the end for faction loyalty. And BfA ended any faith in a proper faction war story.

[Darth-Piekus]

infact thats the reason why humans clinge to hope and life instead to be the automatons they should be, a trait that even the gift of undeath couldnt cure apparently
only trolls and proto dragons are the pure and true life forms, death to everyone else! ( /s because apparently it wasnt enough obvious)

How about Sylvannas and her crappy toxic part of her fanbase dissapear to oblivion and leave the rest alone?

[omeomorfismo]

How about Sylvannas and her crappy toxic part of her fanbase dissapear to oblivion and leave the rest alone?

rotfl, ok ok, i wont anymore making jokes about wow setting inconsistencies.

[FlubberPuddy]

I never understood if she cared to much about not dying, just leave, go AWOL and build a farm in like Grizzly Hills or some shit who gives a fuck you can't die and you get to just hang out.

Because it's not just not dying. She's also become jaded and hates that the living can enjoy life and then die.

Living can go ahead and have marriages/children/ etc all the regular different 'milestones' that life brings before dying. Whereas when you're undead some of those things are unattainable.

So it's not merely being able to survive, she's become a character who's jealous of those that get to experience "life's joys" too.

[Minikin]

Because it's not just not dying. She's also become jaded and hates that the living can enjoy life and then die.

Living can go ahead and have marriages/children/ etc all the regular different 'milestones' that life brings before dying. Whereas when you're undead some of those things are unattainable.

So it's not merely being able to survive, she's become a character who's jealous of those that get to experience "life's joys" too.

Not to mention, having to have corpses to maintain a population number to remain a faction. Can't have forsaken undead if not killing living and raising them.

Honestly after before the storm they should just make it a choice. If you die do you want to be raised as a forsaken?

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How about Sylvannas and her crappy toxic part of her fanbase dissapear to oblivion and leave the rest alone?

Don't worry. If anything can be celebrated is that a certain subset will constantly be unhappy because they want everyone else to be unhappy but the rest of the populace would rather not join in the cacaphony.

[Not A Cat]

I think she's a villain, but not as one dimensional as people want to believe. Granted they don't do enough in game to show how unhinged she actually is. All of her calculating and scheming is a result of her fear of Death II: The Deathening. When she tried to kill herself after Arthas died, she saw something that terrified her. Who knows, maybe that's what the Maw is going to be and that's what enabled her to seek out the Jailer.

Either way, I think she's just batshit insane and is doing everything to avoid death squared