Sylvanas Character Assassination

[DemonHunter18]

speaking of Maw, what is her goal anyway??? does she suffer from Curse of Contradictions like Zeref from Fairy Tail???

so she went to hell because she was bad, saw how terrible it is and now she wants to make us all completely immortal so that we don't suffer the same fate as her???

hello, not everyone is bad.

those who are bad deserve to be punished, especially those who are killer maniacs.

[Yarathir]

Sylvanas was never a good person and she was presented more as a psychopathic, self-serving crone than anybody remotely benevolent, even to the forsaken.

Get over it already.

[RadasNoir]

Except @matrix123mko's list isn't comprehensive even when it comes to Alliance's unjustified attacks on the Goblins alone (they seem not to like green short folks), let alone all of their things.

Well, that is why I said it seemed like a comprehensive list. Obviously, I don't keep an as exhaustive account of the Alliance's perceived atrocities as you do.

I wonder, would you actually be able to list them all out yourself? I understand if you don't have the time or patience for it, but it might come in handy in the future; as a sort of "master list" to refer back to, when need be.

[Moonrage]

That "admission" was her trolling Garrosh. Which somehow even he was able to get.

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

Jaina's reason was everything but good and the Purge of Dalaran was portrayed as rather messy in the later novels.

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.

Which is Horde's prerogative as Alliance is not its boss and has zero authority to tell them how the Horde should react to giant swords.

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.

[Dartz1979]

she better not get killed off or there wont be no more good owmen lore characters on horde.

[Moonrage]

Sylvanas was never a good person and she was presented more as a psychopathic, self-serving crone than anybody remotely benevolent, even to the forsaken.

Get over it already.

But she's hot so she must be good.

[Theangryone]

Sylvanas isn't a villain. She's not, she REALLY isn't, despite Blizzard making you think she is. She isn't.

Let's talk about some facts here, right? Ever since... Let's say Battle for Azeroth, they've been trying hard to get you to believe Sylvanas doesn't have a good bone in her frail, withered body. Yet even if she doesn't, it's not her fault. At all. In the slightest.
She does what she does because she refuses to die. She can't, she doesn't WANT to die. Because she knows if she does, she'll be tortured for all eternity. If you knew what awaited you after death was pain and misery, would you do any different?

Cataclysm to Legion Sylvanas displayed this. It showed Sylvanas as a leader desperate to protect her people, and especially herself. She. Cannot. Die. And who's fault is it, that she is forced to live eternally?

1. If she's not a villain and none of it's her fault, why would she be tortured for eternity?

2. She's literally died twice since Arthas turned her.

[Varodoc]

speaking of Maw, what is her goal anyway??? does she suffer from Curse of Contradictions like Zeref from Fairy Tail???

so she went to hell because she was bad, saw how terrible it is and now she wants to make us all completely immortal so that we don't suffer the same fate as her???

hello, not everyone is bad.

those who are bad deserve to be punished, especially those who are killer maniacs.

She is a nihilist who believes it is futile to cling to hope and to life, so she wants to kill everyone. Her intentions are to "set everyone free from the shackles of mortality" by having Death rule over a dead world. She's become just as twisted as Arthas, as was established back in Cataclysm. The only difference is that Arthas wanted to kill everyone to unite the world against the Old Gods and Legion, whereas Sylvanas wants to kill everyone simply because she is a nihilist.

[FelPlague]

Nope its an opinion, a dumb one in your eyes but not wrong in any means.

"Torturing women and children civilians is not evil."
Yeah a dumb. And wrong opinion.

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Bael'dun is built on tauren village that contained children. Alliance also burn vulpera carriages, which likely contain children, as they are rarely depicted walking alongside adults.

As for torture, it is not only Horde that uses prisoners for target practice.

1. "They must have killed children! We don't see it but they had to have!" No.
2." They but the carriages!" After making sure to scare everyone off. Plus the carriages are supply carriages, people don't go in those... Nor do many races stuff their kids in with piles of boxes filled with explosives and weapons.

And a picture with literally 0 context.

[Coconut]

She is a nihilist who believes it is futile to cling to hope and to life, so she wants to kill everyone. Her intentions are to "set everyone free from the shackles of mortality" by having Death rule over a dead world. She's become just as twisted as Arthas. The only difference is that Arthas wanted to kill everyone to unite the world against the Old Gods and Legion, whereas Sylvanas wants to kill everyone simply because she is a nihilist.

How do you know what her motives are when Blizzard is keeping everything about the Shadowlands and the Jailer close to their chest?

Don't you think the morality of death would be altered by the clear and explicit existence of souls and an afterlife plane? While we don't know much about how the Shadowlands work yet, we can infer some pretty concerning things from previous lore:

- Living being have souls that end up somewhere after they die.
- Souls, however, are NOT eternal; they can be consumed by demons to power fel magic or by void beings such as corrupted Na'aru. If your soul is destroyed, there is no afterlife, you are just gone, as is the case with Varian.
- Even if your soul ends up in WoW's version of Heaven, it is NOT safe there. Anyone with middling necromantic powers can yoink it back into a corpse, not just immediately, as we saw with Arthas and Sylvanas, but even years or decades later, as seen with the Four Horsemen raised by the DK player or Derek Proudmoore raised by one of the val'kyr.
- The afterlife plane itself is subject to major upsets, such as the recent development of every soul getting to the Maw.

Under these circumstances, would you be content with ignorance and hope with regards to the afterlife? Or would you try to do something to fix Death so that you know that your soul - and everyone else's - will be safe for the eternity to come? And if doing so required you to get a great deal of people killed quickly, well... they would have died anyway eventually, and then their souls would have been fucked. How is this morally different from Illidan "forcing fate's hand" so we could have a decisive battle with the Legion? Surely a lot of people died because he left that portal to Argus opened, and they didn't choose to sacrifice themselves... Yet, even Velen treats Illidan like a hero.

Of course, we can't say with any certainty that Blizzard is planning to give Sylvanas a redeeming motivation. They seem to be pissing the story in the wind these days, so I expect a lot of retcons and intricate backwards rationalizations will go into justifying whatever they decide to do next. Still, the mechanics of the Shadowlands, whatever they may be, should raise some complex philosophical questions about the ethics of death and afterlife in WoW. It will be pretty much the worst outcome possible if they just expect us to ignore them and treat the expansion like a bunch of cool new zones and nothing more, like we did with Draenor and alternate universes + time travel.

[Yarathir]

she better not get killed off or there wont be no more good owmen lore characters on horde.

Avatar checks out.

[FelPlague]

speaking of Maw, what is her goal anyway??? does she suffer from Curse of Contradictions like Zeref from Fairy Tail???

so she went to hell because she was bad, saw how terrible it is and now she wants to make us all completely immortal so that we don't suffer the same fate as her???

hello, not everyone is bad.

those who are bad deserve to be punished, especially those who are killer maniacs.

Her goal is to never die, and to end all life it's that simple. I don't see how it's confusing as was said "you are at war with the living."

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Dark? Yes. Ruthless? Yes. An "the ends justify the means" character? Yes. Full blown psychopathically evil? Not until the trainwreck that constitutes the "lore" of BFA

She was torturing and experimenting on civilians since vanilla. Yes. Psychopathic ally evil. Stop pretending her and her undead have been perfect faries till now

But literally moments after the Lich King. Died. And she started comparing herself to him. 10 years later maybe. Seriously?

[omeomorfismo]

"Torturing women and children civilians is not evil."
Yeah a dumb. And wrong opinion.

i mean, for us there is a clear motivation because women and children are viewed differently (and mostly because empathy). but for undeads, even ignoring all the different emotional behaviour, why it should still be true? they dont have children, they arent breaking any taboo and effectively they havent any necessity to spare them to expect the same from the enemies. damn, valkyries (their version of moms) are always focused. is still "evil" considering all these differencies?

[Coconut]

Her goal is to never die, and to end all life it's that simple. I don't see how it's confusing as was said "you are at war with the living."

What insight does Delaryn have into Sylvanas's motivations at that point though? She is her foe and her victim - it's natural for her to assume the worst, but that doesn't mean she is correct. Not that I'd put it beneath Blizzard to give us a character's thoughts through the words of a different character who doesn't really know them well, but that would be pretty shitty writing, and it's rude of you to assume they're not capable of more... ^^

[Yarathir]

Her goal is to never die, and to end all life it's that simple. I don't see how it's confusing as was said "you are at war with the living."

Well, I mean.. I know she said she wanted to kill everyone, but I'm sure what she really meant was that she wants to throw the whole world a birthday party! I-I know she really means well! She has to!

[FelPlague]

i mean, for us there is a clear motivation because women and children are viewed differently (and mostly because empathy). but for undeads, even ignoring all the different emotional behaviour, why it should still be true? they dont have children, they arent breaking any taboo and effectively they havent any necessity to spare them to expect the same from the enemies. damn, valkyries (their version of moms) are always focused. is still "evil" considering all these differencies?

"They are undead they don't get the concept of..."
You fucking serious? They are undead not aliens. They still know how fucking humanity works my dude. And they know you don't do that shit. But did it and hid it from the other factions cause they knew it was wrong.

You serious? "Undead don't have children" holy fuck. I don't have kids so if I go murder kids that's fine cause I don't get the concept of killing kids is wrong?

They were mortal, some of them were kids. Some of them had kids. Some of them were women. And some of them had wives. Again these are people raised into undeath, not aliens who see a smaller human and go "oh just a small person" the level of stretching here to simp for sylvanas and her scourge 2.0 is hilarious.

[Gurluas]

Sylvanas was Grey before Cataclysm. She was a dark character bent on vengeance while protecting her similar and hating her curse and what had happened to her.
Cata turned her Black when she "embraced" her curse and started turning others into Undead while slaughtering innocents left and right.

The moment that happened there was no doubt about the fact that she's a villain.

[FelPlague]

What insight does Delaryn have into Sylvanas's motivations at that point though? She is her foe and her victim - it's natural for her to assume the worst, but that doesn't mean she is correct. Not that I'd put it beneath Blizzard to give us a character's thoughts through the words of a different character who doesn't really know them well, but that would be pretty shitty writing, and it's rude of you to assume they're not capable of more... ^^

Idk if you know. But a person having simple motives it not shitty writing. Just like a major life charecter just dying outta no where is not shitty writing. It's called realistic writing. Sometimes people die for stupid reasons. Some times people make stupid choices. And some times a women who had everything taken from her, wants to take everything from everything else. Pair that with her being scared of the maw, therefore she wants to be immortal.

[Coconut]

Idk if you know. But a person having simple motives it not shitty writing. Just like a major life charecter just dying outta no where is not shitty writing. It's called realistic writing. Sometimes people die for stupid reasons. Some times people make stupid choices. And some times a women who had everything taken from her, wants to take everything from everything else. Pair that with her being scared of the maw, therefore she wants to be immortal.

It's not shitty writing for a character to have simple motivations, no (as long as they make sense in context, ofc).

It's shitty writing to have a third party with no insight express those motives instead of the actual character, or someone close to them, just because you can't think of a better way to communicate them to the player. You quoted Delaryn as if her line was 100% positive proof of what Sylvanas is after, when if the writing is any good, it shouldn't be. That line only tells us what Delaryn thinks Sylvanas is after.

[Kithelle]

Full blown psychopathically evil? Yes.

- Ordered Varimathras to wipe out the "human infestation" in Hillsbrad (i.e. mostly refugees fleeing from the Scourge);
- Sadistically smiled when two people melted due to the blight;
- Vowed to exterminate the gilnean people;
- Blamed the fucking Lich King for creating "weak death knights" and vowed to correct his mistakes by "perfecting" Koltira.

Some people just can't handle the truth, that their best girl isn't the innocent flower that they want her to be.