Do most players prefer Tyrande Whisperwind or Sylvanas Windrunner if they had to pick

[intenz]

I liked Sylvanas up until they butchered all the lore around BFA (or maybe earlier). Never liked Tyrande, annoying hippy bitch.

[McNeil]

WC3 Sylvanas > WC3 Tyrande > WoW Tyrande > WoW Sylvanas

This makes it close to 50/50 about who I like the most. But since I'm so tired of seeing Sylvanas so often I'll give it to Tyrande, also she makes for better rule 34 while I'm not much into undead elves.

[SirFinlot]

Burn. Both.

[Moonrage]

Both Tyrande and Sylvanas were iconic Warcraft 3 characters, and were always very well-known and popular among their player bases -- the Alliance and the Horde, respectively. Both have major similarities -- both are millennia old, with leading roles among their peoples for generations, and are highly proficient archers and hunters, probably two of the best in existence today. Both are massively empowered by mysterious otherworldly powers with unexplained connections to the realm of Death, Tyrande by Elune, and Sylvanas by the Jailor.

Where is it stated Sylvanas is millenia old? The oldest High Elf ever recorded was Anasterian Sunstrider, who was 3000 years old and a fragile old man at the time of his death. Sylvanas is probably less than a 1000 years old, she's a child compared to Tyrande, as are most characters aside from her the Draenei and her fellow Night Elves.

However, the two characters are indeed extremely controversial as of late. Tyrande because of her unexplained absence at Orgrimmar, and her unrelenting vengeance against the Horde, an entire faction instead of just the Sylvanas loyalists.

Maybe because it wasn't just Sylvanas and her loyalists that raided Ashenvale and Darkshore and slaughtered countless innocents on their way. How dare she be angry with them.

And Sylvanas for abandoning the Horde and killing Saurfang, a revered war hero who was also popular with many players from both sides.

Gonna need some fellow Alliance players to back your claim up, because I personally despised Saurfang as a character. He may very well be a bigger war criminal than Sylvanas. On Draenor, Saurfang led forces in the sacking of Shattrath, killing many innocent Draenei. During the First War he personally hunted down humans during the siege of Stormwind. But Sylvanas killed him in a Mak'gora and now he's a martyr. Even Anduin freaking Wrynn, the king of Stormwind, carried Saurfang's corpse on his back. Varian and Llane must be rolling in their graves.

Which of the two female characters is the best-developed, and the most likable, in your honest opinion? And the most popular currently? Among the Alliance and the Horde combined player bases?

In my personal opinion, Tyrande. She's demonized because she wants to hold the Horde accountable for their actions. The horror.

[Derpleton]

So many misogynists in this thread that can handle the strong female characters Blizzard has blessed us with /s

[thesmall001]

Tyrande was a nuanced and uncompromising leader once. Since then she spent half her Warcraft career as a damsel in distress, then, much of it clumsily trying to rectify this insult by reversing it. Finally, it was decided that a good old genocide was what they Night Elves needed to fix their collective mishandling by their creators. The Battle for Darkshore lore, especially the cinematic, were a decent effort; but, they held back from awarding the Alliance a live canonical and unequivocal victory that I, even as a Horde loyalist, can appreciate they deserved and needed.

Sylvanas has fallen victim to similar bipolar mishandling. She went from power-vacuum emo chick to messiah of her kind to 4D Chess mastermind. And Blizzard's narratives just move too slowly for this careful, calculating, will-they-won't-they, mysterious motivation story-telling. By the time the next line is written people have already had 6 months to data-mine and discuss and speculate every possible permutation of the next step in the story. And, most importantly, decide which one they want to the exclusion of all others. Anything other than what they would have written is "bad writing" and if they get the one they want "it's predictable writing".

So the real losers here are the writers with the impossible job of pleasing anybody in a game that moves at this rate and can never really finish AND has to pivot as and how marketing and audience drift demands.

So I voted neither because, honestly, it's probably just time we started building up new mortal characters we can invest in rather than try to continue reconciling old legends with new stories.

[Maljinwo]

To be honest? None

Sylvanas should've died on wotlk
Never had any strong feelings for Tyrande and Blizzard's decision to make her Batman is meh

[Illusions]

So many misogynists in this thread that can handle the strong female characters Blizzard has blessed us with /s

ITT, basically, but what have we come to expect from MMO-Champion anyway?

Tyrande wins for me, but I am biased since I love the Night Elf lore. I do hate the way she was written by incompetent writers throughout WoW, but her current incarnation beats Sylvanas soundly (and if Sylvanas gets a redemption arc she's immediately Me'dan level, yeet her to space to stay with Illidan thanks pls).

I never understood the appeal of Sylvanas anyway. Do horny men really love undead chicks?

[erifwodahs]

Because Blizz has been pushing that bullshit since WC3. "Don't blame the Horde, it was Blackhand/Gul'Dan/Orgrim/Garrosh/Sylvie! The Horde was holding peaceful protest picnics against the extremism! Noble shamanistic society!"

Tyrande finally sees the Horde for what it is, so of course she's immediately portrayed as unstable/crazed/vengeance obsessed/etc rather than absolutely correct. Every character that so much as says the Horde might not be the best thing since sliced bread is promptly declared crazy or is soon lobotomized to accept that bending over to mass murderers is morally correct.

Just to remind you, Arthas and Kaelthuzad were humans :> So was Medivh and Aegevyn.

[bagina]

I never understood the appeal of Sylvanas anyway. Do horny men really love undead chicks?

I know it's hard to not look at world through the lenses of sex 24/7 but trust me not everything's about how much you want to fuck someone/something. Sometimes people like characters because they find them compelling and interesting, not because they want to fuck them. Humanity has always loved tragic and tortured characters. They're usually among the most interesting and relatable. Brooding and flawed characters have a lot of potential and room for development, as opposed to perfect and fully realized characters that have nowhere left to go.

[gcsmith]

Where is it stated Sylvanas is millenia old? The oldest High Elf ever recorded was Anasterian Sunstrider, who was 3000 years old and a fragile old man at the time of his death. Sylvanas is probably less than a 1000 years old, she's a child compared to Tyrande, as are most characters aside from her the Draenei and her fellow Night Elves.



Maybe because it wasn't just Sylvanas and her loyalists that raided Ashenvale and Darkshore and slaughtered countless innocents on their way. How dare she be angry with them.



Gonna need some fellow Alliance players to back your claim up, because I personally despised Saurfang as a character. He may very well be a bigger war criminal than Sylvanas. On Draenor, Saurfang led forces in the sacking of Shattrath, killing many innocent Draenei. During the First War he personally hunted down humans during the siege of Stormwind. But Sylvanas killed him in a Mak'gora and now he's a martyr. Even Anduin freaking Wrynn, the king of Stormwind, carried Saurfang's corpse on his back. Varian and Llane must be rolling in their graves.



In my personal opinion, Tyrande. She's demonized because she wants to hold the Horde accountable for their actions. The horror.

I only play Alliance, but I did respect Saurfang until BFA. His whole "Pigs squeeling" and actually hating the atrocities of the old horde and not buying into Thrall's "Honour the monsters" crap made me respect him. Especially since he actually showed respect when Varian said he should be allowed to take his sons corpse away.

Then in BFA he quickly fell in line and slaughtered a bunch of Night Elves, prompted by the attack in Legion, which had nothing to do with NE's, and was prompted by Sylvannas' scheming.

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Just to remind you, Arthas and Kaelthuzad were humans :> So was Medivh and Aegevyn.

Your point? None of them are current alliance aligned. And are you forgetting the mind control parts of Medivh and Arthas' story? Meanwhile Sylvannas got worse under her own free will?

[Beuargh]

I don't like that asspull of a story arc they gave Tyrande to make her look more edgy but she's still preferable to Danuser's favourite child. It always struck me as comical that Blizzard puts on this progressive veneer but they're still physically incapable of writing female characters that don't act in completely hysterical ways.

I don't know, I'm not going to say that blizzard writing is good but, replace both those bitches by male characters doing the same shit, same lines etc, convert Nathanos into thanatas and Malfurion into Femaluria, and it's not gonna change my opinion on all of those characters....

[wysimdnwyg]

Sylvanas: Pre-Legion, was largely boring, if somewhat sympathetic. Players (mostly Horde players) liked her because she was a bit of a badass. And her toon is hot. Post-Legion, has a big role (faction leader, loads of story built around her), but has turned evil. Her toon is still hot.

Tyrande: Pre-Legion, booooring. Was largely non-existent until Cataclysm, then had to share top billing for NEs with Malfurion. In Legion became a meme due to the quest to find Malfurion and all her whining. Oh, and she couldn't help but piss off Thalyssra, which some players saw as childish. In BfA she finally got some serious backbone in becoming the Night Warrior, but she's still emo with it.

For many, the decision is which is worse: Sylvanas evilness, or Tyrande's emo-ness. If I had to choose, I'd pick Tyrande because she's not out there committing genocide for no reason. But you gave us a "neither" option, so I took that.

[Corseth]

As characters or morally? People tend to take "I find that character interesting" to be the same as "I agree with that character." So just setting that first that I am answering which character I find more fun to see, not which I morally agree with.

Sylvanus by far for me there. Tyrande never clicked with me, between her "love" for Malfurion feeling way more like obsession, and dipping really hard into the "Snooty immortal elf" personality, followed by a bunch of damsel-in-distress. We didn't have much time with mortal Sylvanus, in comparison, but she got a really short stick from Arthas. I admit I would have rather seen her story in WoW be one where she learned to cope with her vengeance and control obsessions in a post-Arthas world, whereas she's instead fallen entirely into them, but that's how it goes. That might just be that "lost opportunity" feeling - the idea of a sneaky, rogue-style Warchief struggling to perform in a role that expects "STRENGTH AND HONOR!" and trying to find ways to keep her faction together while not herself understanding the core beliefs sounded like a cool 'political' story, but I forgot WoW is more wizards and demons than politics at heart, and the story you imagine is always "better" than the one you get anyway.

I don't see anything over-archingly 'wrong' with the Night Warrior thing - in a way it's an echo of Sylvanus now, where her life was destroyed and between desperation and anger she's turned to powers that will use her, in revenge. And it could be a good story about using Sylvanus's descent into atrocity to warn Tyrande that, even justified revenge can make a monster out of a person, which is a good lesson to remember.

I think ultimately the problem is for me, that Tyrande is annoying to me and that makes it hard for me to invest in her stories though. I enjoy scenes with Sylvanus in them; she's hammy and chews the scenery and I really like her voice acting. Tyrande's dialogue always makes me wince in comparison, especially any time she talks about Malfurion.

[erifwodahs]

I only play Alliance, but I did respect Saurfang until BFA. His whole "Pigs squeeling" and actually hating the atrocities of the old horde and not buying into Thrall's "Honour the monsters" crap made me respect him. Especially since he actually showed respect when Varian said he should be allowed to take his sons corpse away.

Then in BFA he quickly fell in line and slaughtered a bunch of Night Elves, prompted by the attack in Legion, which had nothing to do with NE's, and was prompted by Sylvannas' scheming.

- - - Updated - - -



Your point? None of them are current alliance aligned. And are you forgetting the mind control parts of Medivh and Arthas' story? Meanwhile Sylvannas got worse under her own free will?

Exactly. Thralls Horde had nothing to do with Guldan or Blackhand.

[saintminya]

Sylvanas 100% Tyrande is just insufferable. She went from a decently powerful character in the RTS', to a joke, to an outright meme with wildly fluctuating power levels that sat around doing nothing for her people and then threw a hissy fit when a significant chunk were slaughtered and toasted. She then proceeded to fail imo at vengeance, and openly defied her king...

Sylvanas is unquestionably self-serving now, but her character and underlying motives have at least remained consistent.

[Nerovar]

Tyrande: Pre-Legion, booooring. Was largely non-existent until Cataclysm, then had to share top billing for NEs with Malfurion. In Legion became a meme due to the quest to find Malfurion and all her whining. Oh, and she couldn't help but piss off Thalyssra, which some players saw as childish. In BfA she finally got some serious backbone in becoming the Night Warrior, but she's still emo with it.

I mean, Tyrande pissing off Thalyssra only made the latter seem like a stupid child. It went like:

"Ok, a Night Elf druid helped in restoring our degenerate people to no longer be mana addicts and Darnassus helped in freeing our city from its tyrant and the Burning Legion but Tyrande compared us to the Highborne and called our trustworthyness into question so we joined the Horde instead. Blood Elves are much nicer anyway and they're also ex-addicts just like us!"

And immediately after in the next expansion, they partake in the genocide of the Night Elves.

[Pawpurr]

I kinda like new murder machine Tyrande, Mostly just because it connects to the "End Times" vision of her. I don't think Blizzard has done a good job of showing how she got there until Legion/BFA, so the transition period is awkward.

I think anyone expecting the old Tyrande will be disappointed, but so would anyone expecting the old Sylvannas. Actually the most recent cinematic is the most like "old" sylvannas we've seen, so maybe those folks will luck out, we'll have to wait and see.

Thus, I voted the 3rd optin.

[tumppu]

Tyrande has become Genn times ten.

Sylvanas has become Garrosh times ten.

Can´t really say I am a fan of either. If I had to make a choice somehow, I´d say Sylvanas get´s slightly better cutscenes (thematically, if not artistically), but that´s it.

[Illusions]

I know it's hard to not look at world through the lenses of sex 24/7 but trust me not everything's about how much you want to fuck someone/something. Sometimes people like characters because they find them compelling and interesting, not because they want to fuck them. Humanity has always loved tragic and tortured characters. They're usually among the most interesting and relatable. Brooding and flawed characters have a lot of potential and room for development, as opposed to perfect and fully realized characters that have nowhere left to go.

It's the only way I can rationalize people liking Sylvanas, as all you've listed won't apply to Sylvanas now. BfA Sylvanas lost any interest in creative writing, so clearly the only reason people would like her character would be her sex appeal.

She might've been more interesting (equally so as Tyrande I'd say) before when she was in the background like the rest of the Forsaken, clawing for their survival etc. Legion onwards? Trash.