Sylvanas Is Evil, Just Admit It

[Vakir]

Feel free to point to a single piece of fiction where a character grows stronger WITHOUT a glowy core of power in their center.

That's my point. If the Jailer is evil, it's completely possible the orb was taken to prevent his release being easier in alignment with his imprisonment.

This is some Occam's Razor shit. This entire cockamamy fan-fiction invented from literally two incomplete models is a good example of how out of touch people are. People are more willing to trust generic one-liners that can have a lot of meanings, including some extremely dark ones ("I will set us all free!") rather than look at all the evidence because they're more predisposed to projecting onto vagueries.

Again, if they aren't just contrarians and trolls, which many of them are.

In any event, this thread is about Sylvanas, not the Jailer - I was using the heavy-handed nature of the Jailer as antagonist as an example to illustrate how weaksauce people are at reading the damn room.

If you can't die, why would you need resources like food/water? You're applying too much bias. You're assuming because there's more people, that we'd then need more resources which is blatantly false. Immortality literally answers all your what ifs. "Forcing a lot of innocents to live in misery" is 100% a speculation.

The entire thematic point of the Shadowlands is that death is only the start of a new journey and there's entire cultures and civilizations beyond the veil.

The character trying to abolish a fundamental thing that we can't get rid of is probably supposed to be wrong, especially when she made her own bed to go to Super Hell now in the first place.

It would be cool if, say, the Elric Brothers could bring back the dead, but whether that's something that would be nice or not, you fucking can't. When a narrative introduces an absolute, it's usually putting characters who don't accept that absolute through the wringer. They're not getting rid of death in WoW. So the lady trying to abolish death is probably, at best, wrong, and more likely an antagonist.

[Varodoc]

Even then it doesn't sound evil to me. Arthas's quote of "All will serve Death, all will serve me." sounds evil because he clearly has intention of having people serve him, almost like a dictator. I'm not arguing that sylvanas is a bad person, but "free them from the shackles of mortality" doesn't scream evil to me. She's intentions and end goal isn't to cause harm, it's to still liberate people. Like I said before, she just has as skewed moral compass and wants whats best for everyone regardless of what they think or feel. Again, we're not arguing about whether she's good or not, I just don't think it comes off as evil. We have to look at intentions here, that's where we'll decide if someone is evil, which clearly her intentions don't come off as evil.

Slaughtering a city of innocent people doesn't sound evil? And as I said she literally says in Three Sisters "All will serve Death, all will serve me". If that made Arthas evil, it also makes Sylvanas evil.

This is your argument right now, I hope you realize this:

If you can't die, why would you need resources like food/water? You're applying too much bias. You're assuming because there's more people, that we'd then need more resources which is blatantly false. Immortality literally answers all your what ifs. "Forcing a lot of innocents to live in misery" is 100% a speculation.

Except that you'd also be forcing people to live in an overpopulated world where there is literally not enough space for everyone, since billions upon billions of people died throughout history, so imagine if all those people were not underground right now. You didn't think this through that much, did you? And besides you'd still need food to not look like a skeleton, you just wouldn't die from starvation.

Your point is moot too, since we already know Sylvanas' goal is not to defeat Death. Quite the opposite, she wants Death to reign supreme. Refer to her statement at the end of Three Sisters.

[Nagawithlegs]

It's probably going to boil down to an Order v.s Chaos thing. Arbiters way of Death is that people have a place based on what they've done: Jailer rule will likely be a "everyone is equal, chaos reigns" type thing. They are clearly Light and Void oriented with their respective leanings.

Some people might argue that the proposed Jailer style is better... but it goes against the foundations of WoW. Blizzard is never going to say a pious and loving Paladin and Twilight Cultist sharing the same fate is a good thing. Villains always get punished (eventually) in Warcraft.

[Kumorii]

Evil, yes... I don't however think she is evil for the sake of being evil like most believe since that's just not a good reason. So I do think there is more to her motives than we know, but for some reason the "Sylvanas is evil"-crowd seems to think that having motives means you can't be evil since they often jump in to say she is when someone mentions motive or reason.

[Nefarious Tea]

I mean, there are also those who side with Sylvanas BECAUSE she is evil and aren't in denial about it. I have more respect for those people than the others who side with her.

You should have no respect for people who are evil.

[taishar68]

I don't get how wanting to free the world from death makes one evil.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[crakerjack]

Slaughtering a city of innocent people doesn't sound evil? And as I said she literally says in Three Sisters "All will serve Death, all will serve me". If that made Arthas evil, it also makes Sylvanas evil.

This is your argument right now, I hope you realize this:





Except that you'd also be forcing people to live in an overpopulated world where there is literally not enough space for everyone, since billions upon billions of people died throughout history, so imagine if all those people were not underground right now. You didn't think this through that much, did you? And besides you'd still need food to not look like a skeleton, you just wouldn't die from starvation.

Your point is moot too, since we already know Sylvanas' goal is not to defeat Death. Quite the opposite, she wants Death to reign supreme. Refer to her statement at the end of Three Sisters.

You're still assuming too much. You're looking at the actions and wanting to judge that rather than intent. If someone tries to stop a robber from robbing a store and fires his gun and hits a bystander, is he evil because of his actions? It's almost like the word "Intent" is absent from your vocabulary. This is how I see the burning of teldrasil: It's like a train that has 2 different tracks, one track has one person on it and the other has 5. Burning teldrasil is like switching the track to run over the solo person and not burning teldrasil is like running over the 5 people. The 5 people are the entirety of Azeroth. That's a speculation, but we honestly have no clue what would have happened had Sylvanas not committed the genocide, but we do know that because she did, she made the Jailer in the Maw more powerful, which in turn made her more powerful. Since we have on record of her saying how she wants to free us all, implying free everyone, it leads me to believe that she's gaining power so that she can liberate us all. You're just hungup on the fact that certain actions needed to take place in order for her to accomplish her goals. You keep overlooking intentions and that's where we're stuck at the crossroads. Evil people do evil stuff because they have evil intentions. Liberating the entirety of Azeroth doesn't scream evil and never will.

[Vakir]

It's probably going to boil down to an Order v.s Chaos thing. Arbiters way of Death is that people have a place based on what they've done: Jailer rule will likely be a "everyone is equal, chaos reigns" type thing. They are clearly Light and Void oriented with their respective leanings.

That contradicts what the Jailer is about, though. The Jailer has the power in the Maw. The Jailer deals out torments in the Maw. The Jailer continuously does terrible things. The Jailer oppresses anything that contradicts his will. The Jailer is doing evil things to try and be free, and characters with vastly more knowledge than us, including ones we can most likely trust (such as Bolvar) all say that he is not someone that should be free.

Order vs. Chaos is explored in fiction, but people who consume that fiction rarely get it right, prime example here. There is no "Everyone is equal, chaos reigns" if you're a despotic leader who snuffs out resistance, this is not chaos, and nobody is equal.

It's the same idiocy where people say that the Old Gods are "Chaos" because "The Shadow sees all possibilities" except N'Zoth literally makes everything in his image and wants you to, per the command board, solely "OBEY." This is authoritarian and homogenized, not chaotic.

[CalamityHeart]

Sylvanas is inarguably evil. The problem is that she's being written in such a sporadic way between expansions that her evil has stopped being compelling. Legion Sylvanas was the most compelling she's ever been, imo. BFA Sylvanas is a fucking murder-clown. And SL Sylvanas, just from what we've seen of her so far, seems to differ from both iterations of her the past two expansions.

I don't know what the hell Blizzard is doing with her, but they'll be hard-pressed to make me care at this point. The most I can hope for is that the Jailer betrays her and ends up striking the killing blow and claiming her soul, sparing us the eye-rolling image of Genn or Tyrande's back as they're walking away from her corpse.

[Varodoc]

You're still assuming too much. You're looking at the actions and wanting to judge that rather than intent. If someone tries to stop a robber from robbing a store and fires his gun and hits a bystander, is he evil because of his actions? It's almost like the word "Intent" is absent from your vocabulary. This is how I see the burning of teldrasil: It's like a train that has 2 different tracks, one track has one person on it and the other has 5. Burning teldrasil is like switching the track to run over the solo person and not burning teldrasil is like running over the 5 people. The 5 people are the entirety of Azeroth. That's a speculation, but we honestly have no clue what would have happened had Sylvanas not committed the genocide, but we do know that because she did, she made the Jailer in the Maw more powerful, which in turn made her more powerful. Since we have on record of her saying how she wants to free us all, implying free everyone, it leads me to believe that she's gaining power so that she can liberate us all. You're just hungup on the fact that certain actions needed to take place in order for her to accomplish her goals. You keep overlooking intentions and that's where we're stuck at the crossroads. Evil people do evil stuff because they have evil intentions. Liberating the entirety of Azeroth doesn't scream evil and never will.

I'm not assuming anything. She said many times that she wants to kill everyone so that Death reigns supreme.

You still don't understand the true meaning of her "freedom" quote. By "freedom" she means "death", as I proved earlier by citing Before the Storm. Your comparison doesn't make sense at all, because we know what Sylvanas really means by freedom. There is no mystery here.

Funny how you claim Arthas was evil when he also had similar intentions, since he wanted to "free Azeroth from all injustice and war" by turning everyone into undead. You are so biased and contradictory, like all Sylvanas apologists.

There's only one way to look at Teldrassil, and it's as evil genocide.

Do you know what would've happened if she never burned Teldrassil? THERE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN A WORLD WAR. Oh that would be so horrible, truly I am glad Sylvanas gave the order.

[Arbs]

Don't worry people will try to find a way to blame someone else & say she was doing this the whole time to save everyone because she is the only one who could.

Ya pls no WoW Kerrigan thank you.

[Raisei]

I don't think she's evil. Evil would imply her intents are to cause harm and suffering. I don't think that's remotely close to what her intents are. She clearly says in the Shadowlands that she wants to set us all free. Someone trying to free us doesn't come off as an evil person, they come off as a liberator. I think her moral compass is different, but that's why she's able to make extreme decisions for the better of Azeroth. We can discuss speculations and what not, but when someones intent is to set us free, that doesn't scream evil to me. To each their own though, some people are just biased and hate having a story that revolves around her. I personally haven't cared significantly ever since Wotlk ended, so for me it's about hopping on the ride and enjoying the time. I care more now about how the story is told and how we as players engage it rather than the actual lore behind it. Just have cool cut scenes.

Ye I am sure those Night Elven children and other civilians were glad to be set free by her while they burned or choked to death. No harm and suffering done AT ALL.

No, my friend, she is objectively evil. At this point that is just fact, not opinion.

[CalamityHeart]

You're still assuming too much. You're looking at the actions and wanting to judge that rather than intent. If someone tries to stop a robber from robbing a store and fires his gun and hits a bystander, is he evil because of his actions? It's almost like the word "Intent" is absent from your vocabulary. This is how I see the burning of teldrasil: It's like a train that has 2 different tracks, one track has one person on it and the other has 5. Burning teldrasil is like switching the track to run over the solo person and not burning teldrasil is like running over the 5 people. The 5 people are the entirety of Azeroth. That's a speculation, but we honestly have no clue what would have happened had Sylvanas not committed the genocide, but we do know that because she did, she made the Jailer in the Maw more powerful, which in turn made her more powerful. Since we have on record of her saying how she wants to free us all, implying free everyone, it leads me to believe that she's gaining power so that she can liberate us all. You're just hungup on the fact that certain actions needed to take place in order for her to accomplish her goals. You keep overlooking intentions and that's where we're stuck at the crossroads. Evil people do evil stuff because they have evil intentions. Liberating the entirety of Azeroth doesn't scream evil and never will.

There are quite a few issues with believing that "the ends justify the means" is a good needle to put on your moral compass...

The biggest one is that as an outsider, someone who's not inside the head of the one enacting those means, you have no idea what those ends actually are until they're reached, and so you have no idea if those means are actually justified until it's too late.

"But she told us what her end is!"

And you believed her? You trusted the word of someone who would commit genocide on a whim?

"But what if it turns out that murdering a bunch of civilians and children actually was the right call to make?"

Then you're vindicated. You did it. You walked blind into the correct door. You turned your brain off and placed your bets on the morality of genocidal actions, and in the end, you won. Congratulations.

My question to that is, what if it turns out that murdering a bunch of civilians and children actually wasn't the right call to make? What if there was a better solution? Do you not see the problem here?

[Justpassing]

Pretty much.

[Varodoc]

She's more of a character that had her entire character assassinated and made into a bland villian. Before she wasn't evil but she wasn't good either, just very self serving and cloak and dagger. Then she got war chief and things went down hill and gave her a mustache to twirl and an evil laugh. She stopped being all behind the scenes and went "EVERYONE LOOK AT ME AM EVIL"

That already happened in Cataclysm, when she tried to exterminate the gilneans and ravaged many innocent towns. Garrosh even points out how she is becoming very similar to the Lich King. This was set up for years.

[The Emperor]

Yeah and that is perfectly okay. I'm tired of hippie goody two shoes muh honor racial leaders. I want to be a non-apologetic neutral evil type of character, and Sylvanas is a perfect embodiment of my ideal racial leader. Fuck Ion for taking her away from the undead, and fuck him for trying to portray undead as anything but total jackasses.

And fuck Calia two times, she should just be killed trying to 'redeem' forsaken

[Kallisto]

I'm not assuming anything. She said many times that she wants to kill everyone so that Death reigns supreme.

You still don't understand the true meaning of her "freedom" quote. By "freedom" she means "death", as I proved earlier by citing Before the Storm. Your comparison doesn't make sense at all, because we know what Sylvanas really means by freedom. There is no mystery here.

Funny how you claim Arthas was evil when he also had similar intentions, since he wanted to "free Azeroth from all injustice and war" by turning everyone into undead. You are so biased and contradictory, like all Sylvanas apologists.

There's only one way to look at Teldrassil, and it's as evil genocide.

Do you know what would've happened if she never burned Teldrassil? THERE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN A WORLD WAR. Oh that would be so horrible, truly I am glad Sylvanas gave the order.

Genocide means intent purpose of wiping out everyone in the species. Hint she wasn't marching on parts of the world night elves lived elsewhere. Burning of Teldrassil is nothing more than bombing of cities allies and axis did in WW2. Are those genocide. If Yes then we need to start calling on investigations into how we teach the allied perspective in WW2, if no then sorry Sylvanas just dresdened a city at worst.

- - - Updated - - -

That already happened in Cataclysm, when she tried to exterminate the gilneans and ravaged many innocent towns. Garrosh even points out how she is becoming very similar to the Lich King. This was set up for years.

And if you bothered reading her short story you'll realise the reason behind this was use blight or let Garrosh exterminate the Forsaken.

[Doffen]

She's more of a character that had her entire character assassinated and made into a bland villian. Before she wasn't evil but she wasn't good either, just very self serving and cloak and dagger. Then she got war chief and things went down hill and gave her a mustache to twirl and an evil laugh. She stopped being all behind the scenes and went "EVERYONE LOOK AT ME AM EVIL"

This. Sylvanas was my favorite character in WoW, together with Grom, Illidan and Jaina. And up to BfA Sylvanas was the one they managed to be most consistent with. In BfA they made sense into Jaina. Illidan and Grom got destroyed(well Illidan had some redeeming stuff) But with Sylvanas...

LOOK AT ME, EVUL BRUH, just like you said it. I mean yes, blizzard maybe had to use her more. But for me I just lost interest. She was the cunning one, the clever, the ruthless but also passionate about the forsaken and I really liked that Sylvanas. From Warcraft III. And now she didn't care shit about the Forsaken and they just blew her up. Or so it seems, because in before Kerrigan redemption act 2.0 where she proves that she does care! :P

[Kallisto]

"But she told us what her end is!"

And you believed her? You trusted the word of someone who would commit genocide on a whim?

Here's the problem with your rebuttal. What she told us is us the player and reader in books and in her thoughts. If she is lying to the reader itself then she has Deadpool powers. There are times even in Before the Storm she states how much she actually wants what's best for the horde, to herself, in her own head. No to some other character. She even to herself stated she wanted Blood elves and forsaken front and centre of her horde.

[Doffen]

That already happened in Cataclysm, when she tried to exterminate the gilneans and ravaged many innocent towns. Garrosh even points out how she is becoming very similar to the Lich King. This was set up for years.

Still just some side story though, nothing like now. But yes, it was inevitable that they used her for more stuff during the years.

And about that Cata incident, that questline was awesome.