Poll: Sylvanas is...

Be advised that this is a public poll: other users can see the choice(s) you selected.

Page 8 of 15 FirstFirst ...
6
7
8
9
10
... LastLast
  1. #141
    Quote Originally Posted by Hellobolis View Post
    but how many people was that really? hillsbrad was a small town. wrathgate was just some armies. teldrassil was just 50k people.

    compare it to the scourge. stratholme was 150k people and that was just one of a couple dozen cities razed.

    sylvanas sounds pretty average for a wow scale conflict.
    Where did you get those numbers from? They don't seem accurate at all. And Sylvanas is probably the biggest war criminal still alive, she's worse than Garrosh at this point.

  2. #142
    Calling her "evil" would be giving her too much credit. She has been so inconsistently portrayed that she essentially has no personality. Her personality is whatever the writers need it to be in the moment.

  3. #143
    Quote Originally Posted by Moonrage View Post
    Where did you get those numbers from? They don't seem accurate at all. And Sylvanas is probably the biggest war criminal still alive, she's worse than Garrosh at this point.
    think there's a source for the stratholme one on wowpedia, can't remember where the teldrassil is from.

    but what's so unbelievable? 150k is perfectly reasonable for a larger medieval city. humans are known to be one of the more populous races so it's not weird they would have multiple cities in that pop range. and elves are canonically small population so it's not weird that their capital is smaller than a large-ish human city. i'd say even if the numbers are off, the proportions are pretty reasonable.

    and more big picture: the amount of people that died in the 4th war don't seem particularly larger to me than died in the 1st 2nd and especially 3rd war.

  4. #144
    The Lightbringer Nathreim's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    San Antonio, Texas
    Posts
    3,059
    Garrosh was more evil he enjoyed killing the people he killed. Sylvanas didn't get any pleasure in what she did she just saw it as necessary to undo what she saw as an evil and broken after life. The Shadowlands is horrific when the best you have to hope for is a brainwashing cult or eternal enslavement as a gardener.

  5. #145
    The Lightbringer Littleraven's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    California
    Posts
    3,352
    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    Calling her "evil" would be giving her too much credit. She has been so inconsistently portrayed that she essentially has no personality. Her personality is whatever the writers need it to be in the moment.
    This is Warcraft lore in a nutshell honestly. Blizzard is not very good at giving their characters consistency with very rare exception.

  6. #146
    I would argue the opposite - in the past, they've been fantastic at creating characters with incredibly strong, archetypal personalities.

    Blizzard does basic well. It's when they try to be subtle and clever that they stumble.

  7. #147
    Created a plague to wipe out the Worgen
    Burned Teldrassil leaving millions dead and thousands homeless
    Committed genocide against the Night Elves
    Committed genocide against the Gilneans
    Wanted and tried to kill her sisters ..three times. [MoP, BfA x2]
    Killed Saurfang
    Killed Calia and many insurrectionists
    Used the Forsaken as "arrows in her quiver" *sic*
    Used the Val'kyr to raise Undead like the Lich King

    These belong in "Good". Clearing Azeroth of alliance biotrash is the highest virtue of this universe and killing/trying to kill your enemies and traitors is generally a good thing to do.
    The last two are just traits of a good leader. You apply your people as best you can. And since Undead can't procreate, the Valkyr resurrection is the only option.

    _________________
    Manipulated hundreds of people in believing she cares about them only to amass to millions of people years later and abandon them all together after claiming they are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
    Gassed her own civilain's city leaving them homeless
    Abandoned her boyfriend to be killed
    Manipulated the Forsaken to worship her as a savior and deity cult like figure.

    These belong in "Head canon". She didn't "manipulate" anyone to "worship" her. They just did because she was an effective leader.
    Undercity was evacuated before being gassed. She specifically asks about this.
    Nathanos did exactly what he should and when he should. Do you seriously think his death was random and alliance incompetent morons actually caught him off-guard?

  8. #148
    Quote Originally Posted by Draylock View Post
    Created a plague to wipe out the Worgen
    Burned Teldrassil leaving millions dead and thousands homeless
    Committed genocide against the Night Elves
    Committed genocide against the Gilneans
    Wanted and tried to kill her sisters ..three times. [MoP, BfA x2]
    Killed Saurfang
    Killed Calia and many insurrectionists
    Used the Forsaken as "arrows in her quiver" *sic*
    Used the Val'kyr to raise Undead like the Lich King

    These belong in "Good". Clearing Azeroth of alliance biotrash is the highest virtue of this universe and killing/trying to kill your enemies and traitors is generally a good thing to do.
    The last two are just traits of a good leader. You apply your people as best you can. And since Undead can't procreate, the Valkyr resurrection is the only option.

    _________________
    Manipulated hundreds of people in believing she cares about them only to amass to millions of people years later and abandon them all together after claiming they are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
    Gassed her own civilain's city leaving them homeless
    Abandoned her boyfriend to be killed
    Manipulated the Forsaken to worship her as a savior and deity cult like figure.

    These belong in "Head canon". She didn't "manipulate" anyone to "worship" her. They just did because she was an effective leader.
    Undercity was evacuated before being gassed. She specifically asks about this.
    Nathanos did exactly what he should and when he should. Do you seriously think his death was random and alliance incompetent morons actually caught him off-guard?
    Remember, it is okay to kill people en masse because they're your enemies. Obviously, when Hitler started World War II, it was okay because they were all his enemies (or people he erroneously believed to be his enemies), and Papa Stalin was just getting rid of traitors. It's good leadership, obviously, not genocide, because they're your enemies and consequently the baddies. In all earnest, I am actually pretty certain that clearing the planet of "biotrash" is usually known by the name "genocide" in the vernacular of a war crime trial.

    Also, yes, she explicitly abandoned Nathanos because he fucked up. The pre-Shadowlands book makes that pretty clear. Even if she didn't manipulate the people to develop her cult of personality, using your own people as cannon fodder is considered bad leadership, another one of the reasons that Stalin guy isn't liked much anymore.

  9. #149
    Quote Originally Posted by Le Conceptuel View Post
    Remember, it is okay to kill people en masse because they're your enemies. Obviously, when Hitler started World War II, it was okay because they were all his enemies (or people he erroneously believed to be his enemies), and Papa Stalin was just getting rid of traitors. It's good leadership, obviously, not genocide, because they're your enemies and consequently the baddies. In all earnest, I am actually pretty certain that clearing the planet of "biotrash" is usually known by the name "genocide" in the vernacular of a war crime trial.

    Also, yes, she explicitly abandoned Nathanos because he fucked up. The pre-Shadowlands book makes that pretty clear. Even if she didn't manipulate the people to develop her cult of personality, using your own people as cannon fodder is considered bad leadership, another one of the reasons that Stalin guy isn't liked much anymore.
    The comparison to Hitler or Stalin is a complete miss here. Azeroth does not operate on the same rules as real life and comparing alliance to Jews in this case or USSR dissidents is also a very bad one. Neither Jews nor the freedom fighters in USSR deserved their fates at the hands of those murderous maniacs. First were just living their lives, second were fighting for freedom from an oppressive regime. On the other hand, alliance trash deserves every last bit of suffering for all they did, despite constant whitewashing by Blizzard. Racism and concentration camps are cool if they are done by the ever-glorious 13 y.o. paladins, right? And Daelin Proudmoure is a hero for them.

    I'll be honest, I didn't read the pre-SL book. "Before the Storm" was such a giant disappointment with horrendous writing and Sylvanas character assassination by turning her into an evil equivalent of alliance unidimensional "good" guys that I just couldn't bring myself to read another one of those alliance sycophant fanfictions. Maybe I'm wrong about this one though.
    Also, I disagree that "arrows in the quiver" = "cannon fodder". In my opinion, the arrows thing is about using your resources efficiently. She's a ranger, after all, to her arrows are one of the most important resources at hand. Stalin on the other hand was an incompetent, malevolent moron, who's pride cost my country alone 20 million lives. And that's just a fraction of the total losses of the nations confined in the USSR.
    Last edited by Draylock; 2021-04-12 at 06:25 PM.

  10. #150
    Quote Originally Posted by Draylock View Post
    The comparison to Hitler or Stalin is a complete miss here. Azeroth does not operate on the same rules as real life and comparing alliance to Jews in this case or USSR dissidents is also a very bad one. Neither Jews nor the freedom fighters in USSR deserved their fates at the hands of those murderous maniacs. First were just living their lives, second were fighting for freedom from an oppressive regime. On the other hand, alliance trash deserves every last bit of suffering for all they did, despite constant whitewashing by Blizzard. Racism and concentration camps are cool if they are done by the ever-glorious 13 y.o. paladins, right? And Daelin Proudmoure is a hero for them.

    I'll be honest, I didn't read the pre-SL book. "Before the Storm" was such a giant disappointment with horrendous writing and Sylvanas character assassination by turning her into an evil equivalent of alliance unidimensional "good" guys that I just couldn't bring myself to read another one of those alliance sycophant fanfictions. Maybe I'm wrong about this one though.
    Also, I disagree that "arrows in the quiver" = "cannon fodder". In my opinion, the arrows thing is about using your resources efficiently. She's a ranger, after all, to her arrows are one of the most important resources at hand. Stalin on the other hand was an incompetent, malevolent moron, who's pride cost my country alone 20 million lives. And that's just a fraction of the total losses of the nations confined in the USSR.
    Hoo boy. I love that textbook demonstration of the "glittering generalities" fallacy. It's not a genocide because they're bad. It's not using human wave tactics, it's using your resources efficiently. It's different. Why? Because it is.

    Add to that how you've called it "character assassination" when she's literally always acted exactly like this. I'm not going to deny she was flanderized to no end, courtesy of Shadowlands and BfA, from her previously-pragmatic self, but she's always been a rebel leader who acts like, well, a real-life rebel leader should; self-obsessed and utterly consumed by a single-minded pursuit of vengeance. She was always an arrogant manipulator who was concerned with vengeance alone, and this then changed to being consumed with the desire not to die, then it came to be the "we live in a universe" scheme of destroying the entire natural order because bad things happen to people sometimes.

  11. #151
    Eh, we find out next patch. Honestly shes done a lot of shitty things but like illidan if they are done for the right reason players seem to think its ok.
    Illidan tried blowing up the polar ice caps which would have destroyed azeroth just to kill the lich king. He blew up an entire planet and he enslaved and corrupted the hellfire orcs. Villian, except it was in the context of defeating the legion.
    Sylvanas? we still dont have her context, all we have is the BS she has done without any damn context. That is blizzards failing, they never framed her actions, or they falsely framed them in a way that made no sense.

  12. #152
    Quote Originally Posted by bloodmoth13 View Post
    Eh, we find out next patch. Honestly shes done a lot of shitty things but like illidan if they are done for the right reason players seem to think its ok.
    Illidan tried blowing up the polar ice caps which would have destroyed azeroth just to kill the lich king. He blew up an entire planet and he enslaved and corrupted the hellfire orcs. Villian, except it was in the context of defeating the legion.
    Sylvanas? we still dont have her context, all we have is the BS she has done without any damn context. That is blizzards failing, they never framed her actions, or they falsely framed them in a way that made no sense.
    The whole bit where he permanently destroyed the souls of his own and Maiev's fallen troops, plus the draenei slaves he had going and his vat-grown army of drugged up orcs to open the way to Nathreza is a bit overlooked as is almost destroying the world because Kil'jaeden told him to. The main difference between the two is that Illidan's added in motive in Legion also came with an IQ transplant and he actually knew what he was doing. Sylvanas on the other hand has become dumber and dumber over time, culminating with the whole bit about serving a giant blue man presiding over a permanent torture dimension, who just so happens to employ the people who ruined her life. What also doesn't help her is that Illidan's actions were against NPCs and not the player factions and that he pivoted between personalities three times, one of which was widely shat on, that being TBC. She on the other hand has been different in every other piece of media, from BTS to BFA to Shadows Rising and now Shadowlands.
    Last edited by Super Dickmann; 2021-04-13 at 06:50 AM.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  13. #153
    Quote Originally Posted by Draylock View Post
    Created a plague to wipe out the Worgen
    Burned Teldrassil leaving millions dead and thousands homeless
    Committed genocide against the Night Elves
    Committed genocide against the Gilneans
    Wanted and tried to kill her sisters ..three times. [MoP, BfA x2]
    Killed Saurfang
    Killed Calia and many insurrectionists
    Used the Forsaken as "arrows in her quiver" *sic*
    Used the Val'kyr to raise Undead like the Lich King

    These belong in "Good". Clearing Azeroth of alliance biotrash is the highest virtue of this universe and killing/trying to kill your enemies and traitors is generally a good thing to do.
    The last two are just traits of a good leader. You apply your people as best you can. And since Undead can't procreate, the Valkyr resurrection is the only option.
    Wow. Haven't had a post that made me sick to my stomach like that for a while. Calling the targeted slaughter of civilians "clearing bio trash" is disgusting but then again not really surprising. Sylvanas attacks the Nightelves, slaughters them, steals their land and burns their civilians and you are applauding her for this "virtue".
    The Horde is truely drawing the most wonderful people to it's playerbase. Glad I am not there.

  14. #154
    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    The whole bit where he permanently destroyed the souls of his own and Maiev's fallen troops, plus the draenei slaves he had going and his vat-grown army of drugged up orcs to open the way to Nathreza is a bit overlooked as is almost destroying the world because Kil'jaeden told him to. The main difference between the two is that Illidan's added in motive in Legion also came with an IQ transplant and he actually knew what he was doing. Sylvanas on the other hand has become dumber and dumber over time, culminating with the whole bit about serving a giant blue man presiding over a permanent torture dimension, who just so happens to employ the people who ruined her life. What also doesn't help her is that Illidan's actions were against NPCs and not the player factions and that he pivoted between personalities three times, one of which was widely shat on, that being TBC. She on the other hand has been different in every other piece of media, from BTS to BFA to Shadows Rising and now Shadowlands.
    Again, we still dont know what the fuck her plans are. something something this world is a prison blah blah.

    If nobody knew anything about the burning legion throughout wows history illidan would just look stupid evil, like absolutely retarded. The burning legion existing made him so much more interesting as an antihero.

    Atm we still dont know anything about zorval or what his actual goals are. The reason i think story immersion this xpac is undermined is due to the lack of direction. I dont have a fucking clue what zorval wants, what sylvanas is doing or MOST IMPORTANTLY why i should fucking care.
    Baldie kidnapped some people and i had to jump into a black hole and make friends with weird people in a plane of existence that i shouldnt be able to enter. Whats my next step? i dont know, kill raid boss of the month? hoof boy shot some red goo into hell and thats not good so i kill him and everything is now good.

    The issue is that zorval is stuck in the maw and i as a player dont have a clue how he gets out and actually threatens anything i care about. I dont know what power he wields (other than 'It RiVaLs ThE lEgIoN') or what he even wants to do with it.
    Sargeras didnt even have all that much development, sure he has been in the story since forever but as a character i dont know him, and i dont need to, i just need to know he can slice planets in half and he wants to do that to my planet. I dont have that relationship with zorval.

  15. #155
    Quote Originally Posted by bloodmoth13 View Post
    Again, we still dont know what the fuck her plans are. something something this world is a prison blah blah.

    If nobody knew anything about the burning legion throughout wows history illidan would just look stupid evil, like absolutely retarded. The burning legion existing made him so much more interesting as an antihero.

    Atm we still dont know anything about zorval or what his actual goals are. The reason i think story immersion this xpac is undermined is due to the lack of direction. I dont have a fucking clue what zorval wants, what sylvanas is doing or MOST IMPORTANTLY why i should fucking care.
    Baldie kidnapped some people and i had to jump into a black hole and make friends with weird people in a plane of existence that i shouldnt be able to enter. Whats my next step? i dont know, kill raid boss of the month? hoof boy shot some red goo into hell and thats not good so i kill him and everything is now good.

    The issue is that zorval is stuck in the maw and i as a player dont have a clue how he gets out and actually threatens anything i care about. I dont know what power he wields (other than 'It RiVaLs ThE lEgIoN') or what he even wants to do with it.
    Sargeras didnt even have all that much development, sure he has been in the story since forever but as a character i dont know him, and i dont need to, i just need to know he can slice planets in half and he wants to do that to my planet. I dont have that relationship with zorval.
    Jailer is as bad as Sargeras because while he dosent (yet) messed up with our plane of existence personally he was behind the Scourge and also turns Afterlife into one huge hell so every soul (yes, even yours) who will go there will get the most obscenely cruel torment imaginable and then will be either destroyed or enslaved.

  16. #156
    She killed undead trying to reunite with their living families... along with many atrocities and perversions of nature.

    She's pure evil.

  17. #157
    Quote Originally Posted by bloodmoth13 View Post
    Again, we still dont know what the fuck her plans are. something something this world is a prison blah blah.

    If nobody knew anything about the burning legion throughout wows history illidan would just look stupid evil, like absolutely retarded. The burning legion existing made him so much more interesting as an antihero.
    This is true. However, the crimes she commited make that point unimportant. She is a psychopathic mass murderer that wanted to kill everyone on Azeroth and happily send them to the Maw where they could enjoy torture for the rest of their existance.

    Seeing as this is the case... who the fuck cares about her reasons? There is no reason that would justify these unmitigated evil acts. Danuser in his fanboyism might think that with the right explanation we would all cheer for his beloved Banshee and feel super bad about being mad at her, but no, it's just not gonna happen.

    Even before Teldrassil it was nearly unfathomable how she could be accepted as the leader of a non-evil faction, now it is is downright laughable. If Danuser wanted her to be redeemable, then maybe he should have given her some relatable and positive qualities, instead of just decrying that we don't understand her, not like he does.

    And now we have an arc where the same Sylvanas that murdered thousands of Nightelven children without so much as flinching looks very sad about mind controlling Anduin and we are supposed to believe that it is because there is something of the Ranger General left. Riiiiight.

    Tldr: Danuser will make up some reason for it all and expect us accept it as redeeming, even if that train has left the station years ago. The only reason for that being that he cannot accept that his Dark Lady will die as the villain she always has been.

  18. #158
    Quote Originally Posted by bloodmoth13 View Post
    Again, we still dont know what the fuck her plans are. something something this world is a prison blah blah.

    If nobody knew anything about the burning legion throughout wows history illidan would just look stupid evil, like absolutely retarded. The burning legion existing made him so much more interesting as an antihero.

    Atm we still dont know anything about zorval or what his actual goals are. The reason i think story immersion this xpac is undermined is due to the lack of direction. I dont have a fucking clue what zorval wants, what sylvanas is doing or MOST IMPORTANTLY why i should fucking care.
    Baldie kidnapped some people and i had to jump into a black hole and make friends with weird people in a plane of existence that i shouldnt be able to enter. Whats my next step? i dont know, kill raid boss of the month? hoof boy shot some red goo into hell and thats not good so i kill him and everything is now good.

    The issue is that zorval is stuck in the maw and i as a player dont have a clue how he gets out and actually threatens anything i care about. I dont know what power he wields (other than 'It RiVaLs ThE lEgIoN') or what he even wants to do with it.
    Sargeras didnt even have all that much development, sure he has been in the story since forever but as a character i dont know him, and i dont need to, i just need to know he can slice planets in half and he wants to do that to my planet. I dont have that relationship with zorval.
    The TBC trio of Kael, Illidan and Vashj are why I can't take anyone going on about how Sylvanas is irredeemable seriously, seeing as how they all intended to either destroy the world, destroy the universe, punt people's souls into the Void or in the case of the former two actually did permanently destroy people's souls to fuel their tools and they mostly got a good shake. What sets Illidan apart from Sylvanas, besides the Doylist part that people take what she does more seriously because she does it to playable factions as already said, is the coherence of presentation. Illidan in WC3, TBC and Legion might be three separate characters, but within each individual product they're entirely coherent. Sylvanas has played coy for ages for no real reason other than that the writers had no idea what they wanted to do with her and still don't. That's why a reveal doesn't really work for her case. If her goal, as she alludes to with Anduin is really that the afterlife is fucked and so she intends to destroy it all and then sort out people's souls, with the Jailer as a means to an end, that's megalomaniacal and evil, but also allows us to get some point. But unlike Illidan, she's cast as a clueless dupe who is inexplicably trusting of the Jailer. The Maw, unlike Legion soul destruction has the rather obvious get out of jail free card that anyone there can also be dragged out and put somewhere else, but the story doesn't bother with this.

    And even then, this is her third grand goal in as many years. She went from wanting to destroy Stormwind and take over the world for the Horde in her mind, to wanting to become mistress of death and killing everyone to now only wanting to kill people out of solidarity, with actions associated with each of these portrayals. But these actions don't make sense for either other version of the character. In BFA she was built up so monotonously to be pure evil for no reason in that expansion that any motive retroactively added to her can't shovel its way out. Illidan didn't have this problem because he always used the most extreme methods possible and the only thing that they needed to change was to give him a goal. On the other hand, Shadowlands Sylvanas who gets to actually have the VA deliver lines with some measure of nuance even if they're nonsense and gets some interiority instead of twee one-liners is difficult to parse doing what her BFA version did, ditto the other way around. Does anyone seriously think the Sylvanas who spoke exclusively in smarmy villain monologues of BFA/Shadows Rising would feel bad about enslaving Anduin when she ditched her family and lover and torched a city's worth of people for a 1-up?

    Afrasiabi and Danuser were both taking the character in shit, but mutually exclusive directions, as was Golden in the book. Afrasiabi's version in BFA is by far the worst one on her lonesome, but any version needs to deal with the baggage of the other two, hence any reveal will be incoherent no matter what it is. Illidan never had this problem and that, not morality, is the difference between recontextualizing him and recontextualizing Sylvanas.
    Last edited by Super Dickmann; 2021-04-13 at 12:29 PM.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  19. #159
    No and no, She is not the most evil character and her intentions are clear as day, but she is not good enough to be called an anti-villain.

  20. #160
    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    The TBC trio of Kael, Illidan and Vashj are why I can't take anyone going on about how Sylvanas is irredeemable seriously, seeing as how they all intended to either destroy the world, destroy the universe, punt people's souls into the Void or in the case of the former two actually did permanently destroy people's souls to fuel their tools and they mostly got a good shake. What sets Illidan apart from Sylvanas, besides the Doylist part that people take what she does more seriously because she does it to playable factions as already said, is the coherence of presentation. Illidan in WC3, TBC and Legion might be three separate characters, but within each individual product they're entirely coherent. Sylvanas has played coy for ages for no real reason other than that the writers had no idea what they wanted to do with her and still don't. That's why a reveal doesn't really work for her case. If her goal, as she alludes to with Anduin is really that the afterlife is fucked and so she intends to destroy it all and then sort out people's souls, with the Jailer as a means to an end, that's megalomaniacal and evil, but also allows us to get some point. But unlike Illidan, she's cast as a clueless dupe who is inexplicably trusting of the Jailer. The Maw, unlike Legion soul destruction has the rather obvious get out of jail free card that anyone there can also be dragged out and put somewhere else, but the story doesn't bother with this.
    This is the most weird thing and I sure hope it gets explained. How does she justify to herself working for the guy responsible for her life going to shit? Did Zorvaal tell her that he wasn't really controlling Arthas or something or is she at this point so far beyond reason and logic that she does no longer care? Or does she really not see the connection? Sylvanas is many things but she is neither stupid nor forgiving so there better be some pay off for this.
    She does seem to assume a sort of loyalty that the Jailer extented to his allies/underlings, otherwise her asking after a plan to free Denathrius would make no sense and it's quite ironical that as someone who has systematically betrayed everyone that ever took her side, she is now the one witnessing the betrayal. So does she really believe in this guy?

    I suppose it depends on the big secret that we have yet to learn: The reason why he is imprisoned in the Maw. He was apparently able to frame that into a tale of "great injustice" that Devos eagerly ate up, probably Sylvanas knows it, but for some reason we do not. Do the Eternal Ones actually have a reason to believe we would take his side too if we knew? It reaaaally seems unlikely and I am not really believing in big twists in WoW stories anymore but...

    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    And even then, this is her third grand goal in as many years. She went from wanting to destroy Stormwind and take over the world for the Horde in her mind, to wanting to become mistress of death and killing everyone to now only wanting to kill people out of solidarity, with actions associated with each of these portrayals. But these actions don't make sense for either other version of the character. In BFA she was built up so monotonously to be pure evil for no reason in that expansion that any motive retroactively added to her can't shovel its way out. Illidan didn't have this problem because he always used the most extreme methods possible and the only thing that they needed to change was to give him a goal. On the other hand, Shadowlands Sylvanas who gets to actually have the VA deliver lines with some measure of nuance even if they're nonsense and gets some interiority instead of twee one-liners is difficult to parse doing what her BFA version did, ditto the other way around. Does anyone seriously think the Sylvanas who spoke exclusively in smarmy villain monologues of BFA/Shadows Rising would feel bad about enslaving Anduin when she ditched her family and lover and torched a city's worth of people for a 1-up?
    Depending how much Danuser wants to piss us off, he might just declare that during BFA the Jailer was "assuming direct control" of her and thus Teldrassil and all that are not her fault. Frankly, by now, I believe there is nothing he won't do to give her a redemption arc.

    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    Afrasiabi and Danuser were both taking the character in shit, but mutually exclusive directions, as was Golden in the book. Afrasiabi's version in BFA is by far the worst one on her lonesome, but any version needs to deal with the baggage of the other two, hence any reveal will be incoherent no matter what it is. Illidan never had this problem and that, not morality, is the difference between recontextualizing him and recontextualizing Sylvanas.
    I agree on the baggage. Danuser seems to want to pretend that BFA and Teldrassil never happened, so he can tell the story of the tragic anti-hero he wants her to be. Unfortunately for him, that just won't work. The players, especially on the Alliance side, do not forget shit like this.
    As I said above, it's nearly impossible to explain away a genocide, especially when it is directed at one of the player factions. Illidan did not have that issue and even then I would not call him redeemed. He was a useful weapon that we turned against our enemies, but that was pretty much it. If he had returned to Azeroth we would likely have imprisoned him again.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •