And people called me a "crazy doomsayer".

[Powerogue]

The bleak, grim view of the Council, again nonexistant before this whole charade

Yessir, Sylvanas never once broke the will of her forsaken and ruled through silent threats and fear prior to BFA. Nottaonce.


(12:54)

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I knew they were going to Kerrigan Sylvanas.

Didn't see the Arthas parallel coming though,I guess I underestimated how much the modern WoW writers love rehashing old narratives

We still killed Arthas.

[Accendor]

I HATE when villains have motivations! Awful writing to try and make them more than muahahahah I’m evil muahahah am I right! I actually think WoW trying to give the villains understandable motivations and depth is something they’ve tried and failed to do but it seems they are actually executing pretty well this expac

Its too late for that with Sylvanas, simple as that

[Houle]

at this point its just funny btw how blizz keeps rehashing the same content over and over and over again. Now we even got a Frostmourne 2.0, which looks EXACTLY like the old one (down to the spikes on one side).
also, that blue crystal was either

a) soul of arthas
b) the same type of crystal that was used in the helm of domination, giving this sword a similar power

both possibilities would suck majorly, so be prepared

[Jackstraw]

Yessir, Sylvanas never once broke the will of her forsaken and ruled through silent threats

Oh boy, I thought Koltira apologists disappeared with the flood.

Koltira acted dumb, in a warzone, against orders, favoring the actual superpower that could claim Andoral in place of the Forsaken and the Horde in an arms race to control the entirety of the region and low key ensure the survival of the race. What was exactly supposed to happen?

[Darth-Piekus]

Oh boy, I thought Koltira apologists disappeared with the flood.

Koltira acted dumb, in a warzone, against orders, favoring the actual superpower that could claim Andoral in place of the Forsaken and the Horde in an arms race to control the entirety of the region and low key ensure the survival of the race. What was exactly supposed to happen?

That excuse reminds me the same excuse for the Arathi incidents where civilians that wanted to live with their living relatives were branded as traitors and killed but in reality she wanted to snuff out hope.

[Narkra]

I am betting so hard this will be a different flavor of a 'Darth Vader' story and Luke Skywalker story. Anduin will not become a Lich King, period. It is all for suspense. More likely he will attempt to see what this plan is and make a bargain with Sylvanas. By the end, I think Sylvanas will have a change of heart once she realizes the Jailer also had a hand in orchastrating her fate via Arthas' Lich King. She cannot be redeemed because of all shes done--she knows this. But she hopes the last her last act can somehow right some wrongs. Vader was similar. Vader killed many, many, MANY innocent people and carried out order 66. He had a change of heart, yet he wasnt celebrated as a hero.

[Dellis0991]

I'm a huge Sylvanas simp, but I really don't want her to have a redemption arc of any kind. I want her to just get written out of the story in a sensible manner, without being a raid boss and I still hope this is what they're planning for her.

That aside, I don't know how Anduin suddenly got the balls to talk back to her. At one point, I was expecting him to make a joke at her expense and finish it with a dab.

Written out in a sensible manner?!....bruh she has a big ass kill me sign stuck to her head, she did way too much to go out reasonably she either gonna be a loot piñata or blizz gonna go redemption (which is a terrible idea by the way). I hope she get splattered or chained away in Zovaal's place in the maw... can't stand that hoe.

[Traveler Voltin]

That excuse reminds me the same excuse for the Arathi incidents where civilians that wanted to live with their living relatives were branded as traitors and killed but in reality she wanted to snuff out hope.

you mean in the same place where Calia said they should join the alliance?
Calia is the reason they got killed.

[Gestopft]

What do ppl expect? What stories do they actually like? When did they actually ever like WoW - since it really never was grand and epic storytelling like you get in books or well done movies? I mean..sure...the obvious answer is "during WC3 and Frozen Throne" - but I can apply my snarkiness to that as well...how we have seen the cheese of the Prince son murdering the King Father because reasons has been done to death.

I have long gotten the sense that there is a not insignificant portion of the fan base that in their head canon thinks the lore should've stopped with WC3

[Mehrunes]

He's literally an embodiment of hope in everything he does. He's not a perfect person or perfect leader, but where he goes he inspires others to be better. It took one meeting with Anduin to convince some of Sylvanas's most stern supporters in the Desolate Council to return to Stormwind with their families. All the breaking of their wills, the sapping of their hope over years, overpowered.

He is everything she wants to destroy, because he proves her worldview wrong just by still being alive.

I absolutely still want to kill Sylvanas, but I will accept last minute backstab of main villain taking him down with her so long as we still get a boss fight of her.

I know you haven't actually read Before the Storm, but what I do not know is why the hell you have this weird need to keep making that clear to everyone. Because Anduin hasn't met with a single member of the Desolate Council. He wasn't present at the Gathering proper. He met in the meeting place with Sylvanas alone before the actual Gathering and then rushed there after she started killing the traitors, only to be too late to save any one of them. Other than that he stayed in Stromgarde and all his contact with the Council was exchanging correspondence with Elsie.

And it's not the non-existent meeting with Anduin that you pulled out of the nether that motivated some members of the Council to defect, but their desire to keep in touch with their families and the realization that Sylvanas may not allow another such meeting. Likewise, they weren't "her most stern supporters". Their very introduction was about Sylvanas getting offended that some of its members were against her plan to make the Forsaken immortal. And while BfA included a lot of Forsaken-related retcons to make Sylvanas look worse, those retcons did not include your fantasies about the members of the Desolate Council being broken in any capacity. Just the opposite, they were likely the most cheerful Forsaken we've seen in the story.

Also, Anduin isn't the embodiment of hope, he's the embodiment of braindead levels of naivety. Let's compare him to another idealist character that hoped for the better tomorrow and tried to use talk no jutsu on the villain - Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon franchise. After the first movie where he managed to get his point across and bridged the divide between his village and dragons, he tried to make the world a better place by spreading his vision of peace.

As such, when he heard of the villain of the second movie he instantly set out to convince him of his ideals, even though his father warned him not to do so, because he considered Drago a lunatic. Which ultimately cost the life of Hiccup's father. So, when movie three came around and Hiccup faced a villain woven from the same thread as Drago, did he double down on his lofty ideals and tried to talk his way into the villain's heart? No. Because the movie was written by writers that are actually competent. Instead Hiccup learned his lesson and came to accept that some people will never see eye to eye with him on the issue of dragons.

Hell, this is actually where even Anduin's much worse character was going in Before the Storm that you haven't read. The book ended with Anduin proclaiming that he'll never lose his hopeful spirit and his view that people can change, but finally admitted that some people may not want to change into a drone of his. And he said that in regards to Sylvanas.

Yet here we are where for some inane reason he tries it on her again anyway. And for an equally inane reason it somehow works this time when it failed to achieve anything even when he was throwing Teldrassil in her face, even though Sylvanas has been breaking the wills of non-Forsaken (and not even just her enemies) since her introduction in W3. So this cinematic not only disregards Sylvanas' characterization so far, it also managed to undo what little personal growth Anduin has received ever since he became a prominent character.

[TickTickTick]

Anduin convinced jailer to see things his way and now every mawsworn turned into human and honored Anduin by turning entire Shadowlands into Elwyn Forest.

Seeing as how Oribos looks like something specifically built for mortal needs and not for otherworldly, afterlife creatures, and how Oribos guards are just humans in a fancy armor, it wouldn't even surprise me.

A young human being the wow's satan's ultimate weapon should be telling enough, lmao. HuMaN pOtEnTiAl.

[Garybear]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPOvUQIbP9s
Aaaand, cut. Scene over. They officially whitewashing Sylvanas by that vomit inducing interaction with Anduin. Lets say it like that - its horrible from every angle. Its like a perfect gem made of pure crap, every side of it shines its own hue of awful.
1) Anduin still sees "some good" in her, aka the Hope or wahetever.
2) Arthas-Anduin parallel which i always found really unnecessary, not every Alliance prince should be compared to Arthas. Arthas wasnt even that great of a character (although he IS better then most current characters.)
3) Whats the point of all that grand talk of "choice" and Anduin placing HIS fate as some kind of "end line" for Evilness when uncountable legions of souls are currently tortured, broken, turned mad or enslaved by the Jailer and Sylvanas. How comes their fates were not evil enough, but if she dares touch him THEN its a Moral Event Horizon?
4) Jailer looks awful, just saying. Handsome squidward is not imposing and looks silly.
5) Kerrigan "redemption" story ahoy, here we go. *vomits*
6) All that was pretty much "foretold" before and people said that it will never happen. Well... I guess it DID happened after all!
But... It dosent make me happy, it just makes me even more disheartened since the Worst Scenario is THE Scenario we going with.

You have way too much freetime. Maybe spend your time on something else instead then.

[Mehrunes]

The gilneas one was still rather bad, she was given a weaker one to use but then even that one was banned, so she right out used her powerful one.

and nah lol, so garrosh come end of wotlk when he took role as lead, he had his men assist in diluting the plague of hers, as even fucking garrosh knew that shit was insnae, it became one that would kill then disspate quickly, but even that when tested proved to be insanely inhumane because of the horrid death it caused so he banned even that, so sylvanas went right back to her usual "lasts pretty much forever" plague, which she just decided to use in secret.

Fascinating narration. There's only one teeny tiny flaw with it. Which, you know, is the chronology. Because Gilneas happens before Silverpine. Yet it's in Silverpine where Forsaken talk about being able to use accepted strains of the Blight. So the notion that Garrosh first allowed them to use a weaker strain and decided even that is too much runs into issues with the concept of linearity of time.

So no, Garrosh didn't ban the usage of Blight in Gilneas because it was inhumane. At no point in his life has Garrosh ever let such notions stop him from doing anything. Not to mention that you made the story bit about how Garrosh tested the Blight and judged the test results up. The reason why Garrosh forbade the usage of the Blight in Gilneas and Gilneas alone, even though he didn't do so before (the off-screen attack on Southshore prior to the in-game events of Cataclysm) or after (Silverpine), is because he wanted to use the campaign to kill as many Forsaken as possible, as Sylvanas has seen in her vision. Which is also why he insisted on sending Forsaken into a meat grinder at the chokepoint in the wall breach, even though he could have just sailed around the wall just like Sylvanas has done.

Also, the only "lasts pretty much forever" strain of the Blight was the one used at Southshore and it was that strong by accident. Gilneas was already cleaned up and populated by Forsaken during Silverpine storyline. Then it was taken back by GLF and then taken over by Worgen controlled by the Black Dragonflight in 4.3 after GLF was forced to withdraw. And then it was taken by Forsaken again.

[Headayke]

Anduin should have mentioned everything Sylvannas did to lead up to this moment. Instead of depict her as sad and unwilling "the choice she never got to make". She is reminded by someone in Shadowlands that knows what she's done. All the liberating in Tirisfal, the pillaging of Gilneas, claiming The Western Plaguelands.

Then he mentions Arthas and it triggers The Jailors hold on Sylvannas and the cinematic ends exactly the same.

The difference is the player cares about Azeroth as if it's still a character that Blizzard didnt just forget about.

[Mehrunes]

Man...Anduins exposition didn't feel natural at all. But ofc he knows everything why someone else does something... ugh.

His holy bones leveled up so now they are not just morality detectors, but also allowed Anduin to become the greatest psychotherapist of all time.

[Lei]

Does it matter if she gets redeemed or not? if she doesn't, and we kill her, will she be back in the maw? She is already in the maw and likes it. Revendreth? Not so bad if things work as they should.
From player perspective, those who seek revenge and justice for Sylvanas' actions does it matter? With us in the shadowlands, it all became... meaningless?

[Newname1234567890]

Cool at best she'll kill herself over us killing her. She's not "good" she's just not "totally" 1D.

Why does a god of death entire plan hinge around making a pretty powerful mortal preist his tool. Like Andiun has never been all that powerful compared to others. This is a very joker-harvey dent plan. Which doesn't really work for a death god....

[Devvra]

Plus we do know that being undead does not stop you from being a good person, take a look at Faol for example.

Yes, but Faol was Random Killed Person From Lordaeron no. 38292, not the Ranger-General of Silvermoon, who was punished for standing on Arthas' way.

She was made a pawn during unspeakable tortures. Arthas took care for her suffering. He killed her, unmake her, and then made her kill her own people. She witnessed not only the Quel'Thalas fall, he forced her to participate. And even after, Balnazzar was saying that her heart is still elven. Until Wrath of the Lich King, she was mostly sad, sometimes suffering and angry, remembering everything. After that, she commited suicide.

And in the Maw, the story goes full circle, she was going to be tortured yet again.

After that, she was not the same. Not ever again. She was not only twisted by being undead, she was twisted by Arthas and Jailer, inspired to do unspeakable horrors to others. She became Arthas himself when she destroyed Teldrassil and when she made a monster of Delaryn. After Arthas she probably didn't believe that she ever had a choice (of course she had, but that's the other matter), until now.

And now only the death remained. Sylvanas won't make it. Writers are fattening and preparing her for the Midsummer Feast, when she will be sacrificed into some weepy scene when she probably saves Anduin and goes to oblivion forever, but that was her choice and this is her story. All she wanted is to have peace, I do not think she would mind becoming a shish-kebab on Tyrande's glaive. Not anymore.

[Aucald]

I'm not yet willing to buy in that this is tantamount to a redemption arc for Sylvanas - that Anduin is able to see something of her former self in her isn't really beyond the pale, especially for someone as generally positive (and naïve) as Anduin often is. But on the heels of that, we *know* some aspect of Sylvanas' former self remains. We see it in War Crimes in the sentiment she expresses towards Vereesa, and we see it again in Dark Mirror where some lingering love for Nathanos is shown. The fact that Sylvanas isn't a completely external evil is what makes her all the more tragic, and all the more monstrous - she's not an otherworldly or inscrutable villain like the Jailer or Sargeras (prior to Chronicle), she's a human monster in the real-world sense of the term.

Sylvanas becoming aware of what she's done and where her choices have inexorably led her isn't redemption; at least not until she takes the next step to make amends for what she's done, something many might say is itself an impossible feat. Anduin is a good vehicle for her to see her own evil projected back at her, as well. In many ways the two characters stand as polar opposites - with even their flaws inverted and made apparent to one another. Anduin is hope personified, even in a case where it approaches the utterly irrational, whereas Sylvanas is the nadir of pragmatism absent any moral quandary or guidance.

[VladlTutushkin]

Does it matter if she gets redeemed or not? if she doesn't, and we kill her, will she be back in the maw? She is already in the maw and likes it. Revendreth? Not so bad if things work as they should.
From player perspective, those who seek revenge and justice for Sylvanas' actions does it matter? With us in the shadowlands, it all became... meaningless?

She is scared shitless of the Maw. More then anything else actually. She just safeguarded of it by the Jailer. If she enters it as a "prisoner" and not "cronie of Jailer" she will suffer and pay for her crimes. Us being in Shadowlands changes nothing, justice and retribution are still as viable as ever.