Is Sylvanas the most evil character ever in WoW or just misunderstood?

[bloodmoth13]

Yes, yes they would. She literally send children to hell. There is no guarantee that even if they can be freed and revived they will be able to live normally ever again after the kind of torment that was inflicted upon them.

For one, the only reason that so many souls are going through eternal torment at the moment is because of Sylvanas herself and the breaking of the machine of death that surely she has had a hand in one way or another. Otherwise only the worst of the worst of people would go to the Maw.
And secondly, Sylvanas has lied to everyone for decades. She is simply not trustworthy and any world she thinks might be an improvement does not have to be for any of us, especially if it is bought with the suffering and blood of everyone except for herself.
If her goals were noble she could have come to us and explained them, but instead she tried to murder us all, first in a war then by unleashing an Old God. This makes any sort of reasoning she delivers now very suspect. Which is actually pointed out by Anduin laughing in her face when she tries and fails to convince him.

It's a simple case of "too little, too late".



Again, the eternal torment part only happens because Sylvanas and her new boyfriend wrecked the system that was in place otherwise good people would be send to their fitting afterlives, not a torture dimension.



1) I never entertained the idea that Illidan was redeemed. We used him for his knowledge and power. Fighting fire with fire. He hasn't suddenly become a hero. Of course, that does not make the actions of Xe'ra any better.

2) Stratholme is a veeeery different story. Arthas killed the people there out of mercy, because otherwise they would have turned into zombies and forced to kill their families and friends. He saved them from a horrible fate and saved Lordaeron from being overrun by the undead. If he had not succumbed to his ego and fallen into Mal'ganis trap, the Scourge would have ended there.

honestly i think its pointless to discuss this till her arc is over, and that is next patch. You just justified arthas's actions because the means justified the ends, we still dont know what her ends are to be frank. The universe could be broken on a cosmic scale that her means would be justified by the ends.

What we can argue though is whether the storytelling has been satisfying, and it hasnt. Sylvanas has come off as unhinged, stupid and irredeemably evil. IMO the story is a fucking mess and whatever writer is grinning thinking 'ooh nobody will expect this coming!' is an idiot.

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If, yes. But those aren't the options. The Shadowlands as they were may not have been perfect, but they were hardly "eternal torment" unless you end up in the Jailer's domain, in which case he's the one responsible for the torment, too. That is, if he didn't obliterate your soul to use as raw materials.

So now we have Sylvanas not only damning people people to torment and possible cessation of existence when previously they would simply have gotten something where they can engage in an activity they sought out in live for eternity, she wants to doom those that already got the old deal to that torment and cessation as well. That's not a very good image.

The current state of things isnt the end goal, we still dont know what her vision was other than breaking the afterlives, and revendreth was already corrupt where they harvested the evildoers to oblivion.

I find it hard to believe sylvanas is on zorvals side and isnt using him as a means to an end. But applying logic to this story at this stage is kind of moot since blizz are trying to play sneaky sneaky and subvert expectations by giving us nothing to work with.

[Varodoc]

I find it hard to believe sylvanas is on zorvals side and isnt using him as a means to an end. But applying logic to this story at this stage is kind of moot since blizz are trying to play sneaky sneaky and subvert expectations by giving us nothing to work with.

We literally see that Sylvanas is genuinely deluded that Jailer is the good guy who will save everyone. That's why she's starting to doubt her path and is visibly confused after her conversation with Anduin the child.

Sylvanas is literally the opposite of what you're proposing, it is the Jailer who is using this gullible banshee. Sylvanas is the opposite of a 1000 IQ tactician, she's the dumbass who is being played like a violin by Totally-Not-Satan.

The funny thing is that Jailer himself isn't even that smart, it's just that with these kids it's too easy.

[Le Conceptuel]

And here's where you lose all your credibility and start sounding like a typical "objective" alliance fanboy. "Proudmoure did nothing wrong". And concentration camps are cool too if it's humans making them. And murdering orcs over some trees is ok too, obviously, trees are more important than sentient creatures. And treating High Elves like trash is also ok. After all, anything alliance does is always good.

Let me explain it to you in simpler terms - in war, there are no civilians. You either support your side by remaining with them, or you defect to neutral/other side. Night elves in Teldrassil supported Tyrande/Malfurion. They paid the price. Even though it was a tactical mistake to burn that tree, using them as hostages would yield much better results.
And yes, she attacked first. So what? That's what you do with enemies. Also, there's this little caveat of SI:7 agents killing goblins in Silithus first, but who cares about that, it's ok if greenskins die.
It's not my moral compass that's wrong, it's your extreme bias, naive worldview, and simplistic white/black understanding. Try taking off the paladin pink sunglasses and understanding that the kind of merry tea party with Anduin and Baine that they are forcing on us is not to anyone's taste, who's older than 20 and has any experience with how conflicts really work, not how some idealistic kids view them. Especially since one of the sides, as you are clearly showing, is completely unable to see any fault of their own.
You can keep whining about "kill bad, family good" stuff, but I bet you had no issues with Velen green-lighting the "murder" of his brothers, for example? Cause why would you? All this classical alliance moral talk only works when it's in your favor.

Edit: oh, and speaking of torture - wasn't that exactly what night elves did to undead? In "A Good War". Genocide - Camp Taurajo and Bael Modan. But I guess those are justified somehow.

That's literally a war crime. "There's no civilians" is totally untrue and usually a basis to excuse war crimes. We call gassing people and killing civilians war crimes, for context as to what a war crime is. Did I say "war crimes" yet? I'm sure you know very well what a war crime is, right?

This is all 100% things that would get you on trial in the Hague, and if Garrosh counts as a war criminal in Azeroth when he didn't even touch chemical weaponry, then Sylvanas deffo counts as one. There's literally no argument against that. If you kill civilians, you're definitely a war criminal.

Both sides are supposed to have a lot of skeletons in their closets, but there's no denying, at all, based on the fact that, again, the Hague would define these as war crimes and the Azerothian understanding of war crimes is the same, which it seems to be going off Garrosh using a WMD being a war crime, that Sylvanas is a war criminal and consequently a villain.

Oh, and also, your idea of taking all the civilians on Teldrassil hostage?

For the purpose of this Statute, ‘war crimes’ means:
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:
Wilful killing
Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power;
Wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial;
Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;
Taking of hostages.

As per the United Nations on war crimes. Notice how this very list also includes biological experimentation, which Sylvanas oversaw and permitted, personally overseeing the new plague on two hostages, combining the two, and also extensive destruction and appropriation of property, which I'm fairly certain happened en masse at Teldrassil, given all of the civilian properties there, and also Southshore.

Here's a full list, most of which Sylvanas has done.
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We literally see that Sylvanas is genuinely deluded that Jailer is the good guy who will save everyone. That's why she's starting to doubt her path and is visibly confused after her conversation with Anduin the child.

Sylvanas is literally the opposite of what you're proposing, it is the Jailer who is using this gullible banshee. Sylvanas is the opposite of a 1000 IQ tactician, she's the dumbass who is being played like a violin by Totally-Not-Satan.

The funny thing is that Jailer himself isn't even that smart, it's just that with these kids it's too easy.

Honestly, Zovaal was a lot of wasted potential. I've rewritten him a few times because I love the idea of this kind of death-associated antagonist who doesn't represent undeath like the Lich King does, but has association with the inevitability of death. That would have gone hand-in-hand with a portrayal of a highly intelligent, patient villain.

I'd say if they did him right, he could have become a very iconic villain, even if it would be a one-shot wonder. Yogg-Saron barely had foreshadowing save for a bit of Ulduar mentioning in late BC in flavor text in Karazhan and he's also one of the more iconic villains in the game. An entire expansion of buildup would have been more than enough, especially if he were a behind-the-scenes sort of puppetmaster.

[baskev]

Evil:
Created a plague to wipe out not only the Scourge but all of the living as well.
Created a plague to wipe out the Worgen
Used the Val'kyr to raise Undead like the Lich King
Allied with literal WoW Satan
Started a war involving the cosmic powers of Death
Used living humanoids to experiment on and then experimented on DKs after WOTLK
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.
Used the Forsaken as "arrows in her quiver" *sic*
Burned Teldrassil leaving millions dead and thousands homeless
Committed genocide against the Night Elves
Committed genocide against the Gilneans
Committed genocide against wild life
Allied with Azshara to kill as many people as people causing N'zoth to be free and also kill as many as possible
Started a war to kill many people as possible
Gassed her own civilain's city leaving them homeless
Abandoned her boyfriend to be killed
Killed Saurfang
Wanted and tried to kill her sisters ..three times. [MoP, BfA x2]
Manipulated the Forsaken to worship her as a savior and deity cult like figure.
Killed Calia and many insurrectionists
And she killed Sparky too.

Neutral:
Called for a tactical retreat on the Broken Shore which caused many Alliance deaths including Varian Wrynn and Tirion Fordring* (Could've been saved if we would've killed Gul'dan and rescued him from Krosus's pool)

Good:
Gave the Forsaken a new purpose
Protected their ancestral homelands
Avenged Vol'jin ..technically speaking by sending Horde heroes to help Nightborne, aid Kirin Tor, and to kill Gul'dan.

she is pure evil.

Lets take a look at your neutral/good things:
- retreat only because several people where hurt ( or she let hurt) still think volj'in got hurt because she wanted/needed the mantel. And she did not alert the alliance or even help them so its also evil act.
- forsaken's new purpose was to create more bile so she could use it to kill more people. And to have army to use and kill more people for the jailor.
- protected, you do know she killed them when they tried to meet with their relatives that where still alive?
- more death to feed her masters power. And a death she most likely caused.

[Le Conceptuel]

Look at how people raged when they simply gave her some stomach protection? Imagine the explosion if she was actually killed

Oh, I forgot about that. B-but ... every soldier exposes themselves in war! Every single one of them!

I mean, I suppose if this medieval/technically more like World War I-era fantasy setting has suddenly regressed into a coterie of bulging-eyed Celtic Barbarians, but at least they bothered with war paint.

[Thrif]

She's evil. Once you commit genocide there is really not much leeway for anything else no matter how you spin it.

[Dimmak]

Good va Evil. Altruism vs Selfishness. ID vs Ego.

There was a time that Sylvannis was good. Her actions motivated by helping others even at the cost of herself. But at some point ahe valued her self over all others even Nathanos.

Now her motivation are truly for her own gain. Driven by fear of annihilation or slavery in the maw she is willing to burn it all. She doesn't do it to save others, she does it for herself.

And that perhaps makes her more evil than any other mass murderer. Her genocide isn't out of some confused understanding of another people as a threat, no its done on a whim or worse to deliberately push on the borders of life and death. Her actions are not for the greater good and hence bow those small vestiges of redemption are all but snuffed out in her quest for personal freedom and power.

[ashblond]

She is not only evil, but also stupid.

If she is misunderstood, she has 3 expansion time to explain her intention and purposes.

But she is clearly too stupid to do so.

[Draylock]

That's literally a war crime. "There's no civilians" is totally untrue and usually a basis to excuse war crimes. We call gassing people and killing civilians war crimes, for context as to what a war crime is. Did I say "war crimes" yet? I'm sure you know very well what a war crime is, right?

This is all 100% things that would get you on trial in the Hague, and if Garrosh counts as a war criminal in Azeroth when he didn't even touch chemical weaponry, then Sylvanas deffo counts as one. There's literally no argument against that. If you kill civilians, you're definitely a war criminal.

Both sides are supposed to have a lot of skeletons in their closets, but there's no denying, at all, based on the fact that, again, the Hague would define these as war crimes and the Azerothian understanding of war crimes is the same, which it seems to be going off Garrosh using a WMD being a war crime, that Sylvanas is a war criminal and consequently a villain.

Oh, and also, your idea of taking all the civilians on Teldrassil hostage?



As per the United Nations on war crimes. Notice how this very list also includes biological experimentation, which Sylvanas oversaw and permitted, personally overseeing the new plague on two hostages, combining the two, and also extensive destruction and appropriation of property, which I'm fairly certain happened en masse at Teldrassil, given all of the civilian properties there, and also Southshore.

Here's a full list, most of which Sylvanas has done.
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That's all very interesting and would definitely be a valid argument if we were discussing Earth's villains. With Earth's rules. With Earth's Hague, United Nations, statutes, rules, and consequences to actions.

What happens when a chemical weapon is used in real life? Besides the obvious damage to intended targets, there's collateral to your own troops, poisoning of ground and waters in it which kinda makes the land uninhabitable. Lots of bad shit, basically. Hence, humans agreed to avoid using such weapons. The "de jure" reason is all that nonsense about "inhumane weapons" and whatnot, the "de facto" reason is complete impracticality. Just like nuclear weapons.

Now, what happens in WoW when people get gassed? A shitty arrogant mage snaps her fingers and all the gas is immediately blown away. And that's that. This means that the same preventing factor of impracticality doesn't apply here. Now stop your moral posturing for a second and think - would there actually be the same convention on Azeroth as on Earth with the above-mentioned? Just like you can't judge real-life humans of the past by the standards of humans of the present, you can't judge a fantasy world by the rules of the real one.

As for civilians, I'll repeat again - is a blacksmith that arms the military really a civilian? Is a farmer that feeds them? Engineers, that build machines of war? You could say that children don't fit into any of these categories and are completely innocent, which they are. But that's about it with civilians. And as we've all seen, there are about 100 children in the whole of Azeroth anyway.

But that's neither here nor there. Understand this - there are no morals in a war. It's an immoral act by definition, and there's no honor in it. The only thing that matters is if you're willing to do anything to win. Including said "war crimes". Just like alliance did pretty much all of those things in the list you linked. And I have no problem with that. War is war. My problem is that alliance fanboys won't see it point blank. And will keep insisting that they are the knights in shining armor. And if that fails - the shinier of two turds.

[vsb]

She's good because she wanted Horde to be great again and wipe out Alliance. Too bad that traitors sabotaged her actions. Sarafang, Trall - those are true evil of Azerot.

I cancelled subscription until writers return my hero to her side. I'll do what must be done.

[Le Conceptuel]

That's all very interesting and would definitely be a valid argument if we were discussing Earth's villains. With Earth's rules. With Earth's Hague, United Nations, statutes, rules, and consequences to actions.

What happens when a chemical weapon is used in real life? Besides the obvious damage to intended targets, there's collateral to your own troops, poisoning of ground and waters in it which kinda makes the land uninhabitable. Lots of bad shit, basically. Hence, humans agreed to avoid using such weapons. The "de jure" reason is all that nonsense about "inhumane weapons" and whatnot, the "de facto" reason is complete impracticality. Just like nuclear weapons.

Now, what happens in WoW when people get gassed? A shitty arrogant mage snaps her fingers and all the gas is immediately blown away. And that's that. This means that the same preventing factor of impracticality doesn't apply here. Now stop your moral posturing for a second and think - would there actually be the same convention on Azeroth as on Earth with the above-mentioned? Just like you can't judge real-life humans of the past by the standards of humans of the present, you can't judge a fantasy world by the rules of the real one.

As for civilians, I'll repeat again - is a blacksmith that arms the military really a civilian? Is a farmer that feeds them? Engineers, that build machines of war? You could say that children don't fit into any of these categories and are completely innocent, which they are. But that's about it with civilians. And as we've all seen, there are about 100 children in the whole of Azeroth anyway.

But that's neither here nor there. Understand this - there are no morals in a war. It's an immoral act by definition, and there's no honor in it. The only thing that matters is if you're willing to do anything to win. Including said "war crimes". Just like alliance did pretty much all of those things in the list you linked. And I have no problem with that. War is war. My problem is that alliance fanboys won't see it point blank. And will keep insisting that they are the knights in shining armor. And if that fails - the shinier of two turds.

But we are talking about Earth's rules. Again, I point you toward Garrosh's trial. Although I will actually concede that it was considered proper form to imprison enemy rulers and nobles rather than kill them, (which I address later, though, as actually being support for my point) and they did use the medieval juristic system, I must remind you that it was a war crimes trial at all. Those did not exist at the time. Azeroth is far more globalized than the real-life medieval era. There's an entire novel about it. Aside from environmental damage, there is indeed a moral reason not to use chemical weapons, which is due to the extremely inhumane way in which they kill. Whatever relativist dross you've been entertaining, it is simply immoral on every level due to the severe pain and deformity it inflicts relative to conventional weaponry (yes, even relative to, say, losing your legs to a bomb). Nuclear weapons may be more of an example where it's out of practicality, admittedly, because of the threat of mutually-assured destruction.

Furthermore, yes, it is objectively wrong to kill civilians for simply participating in the war machine. I do not think this is something that usually has to be said anywhere other than an actual debate with fascists or radical militarists.

War is bad, that is correct, but there is a certain way of going about war while inflicting the least destruction. Although it is true, admittedly, that there are many practical reasons for sticking to a strictly-regulated form of war, such as preventing serious infrastructural damage that prevents a war from benefitting anyone, it does seem rather peculiar that we don't see people launching around nukes as a last stand if that's the only reason. Human psychology is naturally hardwired such that people are inherently revulsed by excessive violence without necessity, and killing civilians would absolutely count as that.

Furthermore, civilians do absolutely count as civilians regardless of their position in the war machine. It is true, admittedly, that it may be wise to assault supply lines, and I will even give you blacksmiths, since that is an accepted military tactic. Bombing factories has always been a pretty big centerpiece of war. However, farmers are solely consequential. They do not present an active threat and starving a military force would be gradual and near-impossible unless they were encircled or the country were already undergoing severe famine. Killing Farmer #389 is going to make no difference to the war machine of the other faction.

Nonetheless, this is all irrelevant relative to the simple fact that if we were to declare all morality simply relative, or even simply to limit it to the relative morality of "the enemy is bad", who would be evil? Once again, I hate to invoke Godwin's Law, but what would make Hitler evil save killing his own citizens if we were to pretend that there were no moral compass by which humans are inherently followed to obey on a moral level? Sure, he killed plenty of civilians and dissidents, but the Desolate Council were dissidents, and that justified killing them. The common rationalization was that the civilians could, say, be traitors or rise up against Nazi occupation, even accounting for his obvious added intentions of total genocide (which, even then, Sylvanas has been planning since Vanilla; "death to the Scourge, and death to the living!"). Although I admit this may seem a bit meandering, the point is simply that genocide, killing your own civilians on the basis they might become traitors in the future, and killing enemy civilians who pose no active threat are all evil.

Even if we were to pretend Azeroth was a remotely accurate medieval setting, there were still common codes of honor to war. It's not to say that mass murder wasn't common, but peasants were not slaughtered left and right in many circumstances; the rules of chivalry dictated you don't kill civilians and you take prisoners if necessary. If a man-at-arms surrendered, you had to oblige him. Moral relativism, even in war, is nonsense. Humans are inherently hardwired to respond with revulsion to excess violence and to experience empathy. A good leader would feel these things and reconcile them with necessary actions, not completely ignore them. A good example of a good leader in Warcraft lore would be Thrall, who was willing to go to war when necessary, while opting for peace when necessary.

Furthermore, Warcraft is set in a universe where Anduin of all people can adequately lead a nation. If a golden boy can just peace and love his way through leading a hereditary dictatorship with minimal resistance worthy of military retaliation, I'm fairly certain that someone as charismatic as Sylvanas could work it out.

Finally, as the usual reason presented that she is simply trying to ensure her race's survival, that's simply nonsense. For one, that's a mindset that's never really been legitimate in real life (see: Hitler, again) and, even in a case where it is admittedly more true with some groups, it seems not to really apply to anyone in the Alliance other than Turalyon, who seems to be going pretty hard on the "I'm going to be a military dictator!" train. The Alliance has never made any attempts to reclaim Tirisfal from the Forsaken, but instead Sylvanas sought to reclaim what she viewed as lost territory for the rightful citizens of that territory from ... other rightful citizens of that territory (see: Southshore, which was made of people who were native to the area and not an Alliance military fortress). Oh, and also, reclaiming lost territory was another one of the things that Hitler guy used to excuse his expansion up until he suddenly decided he wanted France and Poland, too, because he couldn't stand Germany being cucked by the French (i.e. the defending party) during WWI.

Yes, if you believe in any code of morals to begin with, Sylvanas is objectively evil. Not killing civilians has always been a moral code throughout history, even if it was not always obeyed (and the people who disobeyed it were viewed as evil, too). Genocide was always viewed as evil in any circumstance save for by people who were in control of the narrative at the time, like the British Empire and other colonialists, and even then they weren't outright just exterminating every island they conquered (much less with the explicit purpose of killing the morale of everyone of that group not currently on said island) with everyone on it then shrugging it off and moving on.

[Broken Fox]

basically this. She's gonna get a pass because she's valuable as free advertising at this point... either because she's too many fan's favorite or because they've invested too much development solely in this mess and can't simply Garrosh another character again without fucking things up more.

Yeah, there's really no one left that can mascot for WoW like she can. Thrall I guess, but he's been so gutted and it seems they've retired the character anyway.

Everyone else is dead.

[Souflikar]

Don’t care if she’s evil, gets redeemed or dies. She just needs to go away for a very long time. Enough is enough!!!!!

[Raisei]

honestly i think its pointless to discuss this till her arc is over, and that is next patch. You just justified arthas's actions because the means justified the ends

What? No. I said he killed the people in Stratholme out of mercy, to spare them from a much more terrible end. That is not "means justified by the ends". He does in that direction later when he burns the ships of his army and has them slaughter the mercs that helped him, but at this point he is still acting out of kindness, to spare his subjects the horrible death through the plague.

we still dont know what her ends are to be frank. The universe could be broken on a cosmic scale that her means would be justified by the ends.

Maybe so, but if that is the case, she should have informed us. We could have worked together if her goals were truely positive then there was no need to hide them. I mean, we beat Titans, Old Gods, some of the most powerful beings in the universe, yet she cannot trust us to deal with another crisis? She will need an extremly good reason why specifically the murder of the Nightelfs helped her in saving the universe and I just do not see it.

What we can argue though is whether the storytelling has been satisfying, and it hasnt. Sylvanas has come off as unhinged, stupid and irredeemably evil. IMO the story is a fucking mess and whatever writer is grinning thinking 'ooh nobody will expect this coming!' is an idiot.

Well, this would assume that Sylvanas hasn't always been unhingend and irredeemably evil and I don't think that is true. She has commited dozens of evil acts ever since regaining her free will and she has been mighty stupid at times too.
However I agree that her writing is painful. Danuser expects us to believe in her redeemabilty after the mass-murder at Teldrassil and Brennadan and when the community mocks him for it, he blames us for having made our minds up too soon. It makes me angry because I know she will get redeemed no matter what the community thinks, simply because he will not allow his favourite character to end as a villain. To hell with all the people she killed on the way, who cares about the Night Elves if only the Dark Lady gets her due.

I find it hard to believe sylvanas is on zorvals side and isnt using him as a means to an end. But applying logic to this story at this stage is kind of moot since blizz are trying to play sneaky sneaky and subvert expectations by giving us nothing to work with.

I found that hard to believe too, but who knows. My problem is that her "end" makes me just as nervous as Zovaal's. She has spend the last decades doing nothing but spreading death and misery and already clearly stated that she cares nothing for the living. I simply cannot seperate that from her character now just because Danuser tells me to. Believing that she would do anything in our best interests feels very naive to me.
Just as I said earlier, there has not been any sign that she is interested in improving anything for decades just as there has been no sign of the Ranger General that Anduin suddenly found, so I will not trust her and I will be royally pissed if my character is forced to believe in her redemption.

[bloodmoth13]

What? No. I said he killed the people in Stratholme out of mercy, to spare them from a much more terrible end. That is not "means justified by the ends". He does in that direction later when he burns the ships of his army and has them slaughter the mercs that helped him, but at this point he is still acting out of kindness, to spare his subjects the horrible death through the plague.

Ah yes, crushing childrens skulls with kindness. It was necessary for a number of reasons and lets not pretend he did it to spare peoples feelings, it was the pragmatic move that disabled the scourge and saved lives.

Maybe so, but if that is the case, she should have informed us. We could have worked together if her goals were truely positive then there was no need to hide them. I mean, we beat Titans, Old Gods, some of the most powerful beings in the universe, yet she cannot trust us to deal with another crisis? She will need an extremly good reason why specifically the murder of the Nightelfs helped her in saving the universe and I just do not see it.

Yes i agree completely with this. Its going to be a hard sell by blizzard to 'redeem' her when she informed us nothing. I guess it could be a part of earning the jailors trust and perhaps having everyone antagonistic towards her is necessary for her plan idk, i dont even know if blizz plans on redeeming her or they just throw her under the bus and leave her to rot in shitty villian hell.

Well, this would assume that Sylvanas hasn't always been unhingend and irredeemably evil and I don't think that is true. She has commited dozens of evil acts ever since regaining her free will and she has been mighty stupid at times too.
However I agree that her writing is painful. Danuser expects us to believe in her redeemabilty after the mass-murder at Teldrassil and Brennadan and when the community mocks him for it, he blames us for having made our minds up too soon. It makes me angry because I know she will get redeemed no matter what the community thinks, simply because he will not allow his favourite character to end as a villain. To hell with all the people she killed on the way, who cares about the Night Elves if only the Dark Lady gets her due.

From war3 to WotLK her goal was always to end the lich king, yes she was nast about it but the lich king needed to die and nothing she did was for personal gain. She wasnt greedy or selfish she just wanted arthas dead so she could enjoy a proper death (if she died before he did hed just raise her up again)

She was focused on that goal and being undead doesnt leave much sympathy for the living. Once arthas died she commited suicide to enjoy her afterlife, and here is where the story starts to suck.
She was an antihero, doing the right thing the wrong way, she certainly wasnt a villian till arguably cataclysm, but there were some shitty story beats from that point like blizz being inconsistent with many things.

I found that hard to believe too, but who knows. My problem is that her "end" makes me just as nervous as Zovaal's. She has spend the last decades doing nothing but spreading death and misery and already clearly stated that she cares nothing for the living. I simply cannot seperate that from her character now just because Danuser tells me to. Believing that she would do anything in our best interests feels very naive to me.
Just as I said earlier, there has not been any sign that she is interested in improving anything for decades just as there has been no sign of the Ranger General that Anduin suddenly found, so I will not trust her and I will be royally pissed if my character is forced to believe in her redemption.

I think you can easily interpret this another way.
Sylvanas is dead, and she actually wants to stay dead, but she cant. There are some shitty things going on in the afterlife and she simply cant die. She doesnt care for the living doesnt mean she wishes ill on them. What she does care about is the dead, thats where she wants to be. From that angle a lot of her actions make sense, she really doesnt care about the living, politics, faction wars etc, she cares about what happens afterwards where she intends to be, and at some point everyone dies. Everyone is preocupied with life where death lasts a lot longer and could be eternal suffering.

The story could be wrapped up nicely and for everyones sake i hope it is. I dont have much faith that it will because the current groundwork is REALLY shakey.

Im going into the next patch with very low expectations, i think even with my theories they could have told the story much better. BFA was a friggin mess because they made sylvanas so stupidly evil and didnt give us any context to her actions and forced the horde to go along with clearly evil actions just after we dealt with the fallout of our previous warchiefs evil actions. That narrative was awful. They could have fixed almost every issue with BFA by doing battle for lordaeron before teldrassil. Absolutely nothing else needs to change but suddenly the whole narrative makes sense. Also they really didnt need to kill voljin till the start of BFA, sylv did nothing as a faction leader during legion and it would have done a lot for voljin to be warchief for at least one expansion (warlords was AU so didnt count) and dying at the start of BFA would have been HUGE.

[Raisei]

Ah yes, crushing childrens skulls with kindness. It was necessary for a number of reasons and lets not pretend he did it to spare peoples feelings, it was the pragmatic move that disabled the scourge and saved lives.

I think if I had the choice between being eaten by my friends and family only to rise and eat some of them myself and a big hammer to the head, I would choose the hammer. At least it's fast and the pain will be over quickly. Don't forget we are talking a setting that is comparable to the middle ages. Humane ways of mercy killing do not exist yet or at the very least they were not in reach for Arthas. Maybe Jaina could have frozen them to have them die from hypothermia instead, which is supposedly like falling asleep, but she wasn't able to make that decision (not that I blame her, it was a horrible decision, even if it was the right one).

But you missunderstand my point. It's not a mercy killing to spare people feelings, but to spare them from a very horrible death with a lot of physical and emotional suffering, plus the fate of becoming an undead. Of course it was also necessary to stop Mal'ganis, but Arthas was at that point not yet someone that would throw away his people's lifes for that alone. He knew that the people were about to die horribly and he wanted to spare them from that as much as he wanted to stop the Scourge. It's the unconditional love for his people that the Dreadlords used to corrupt Arthas.

Yes i agree completely with this. Its going to be a hard sell by blizzard to 'redeem' her when she informed us nothing. I guess it could be a part of earning the jailors trust and perhaps having everyone antagonistic towards her is necessary for her plan idk, i dont even know if blizz plans on redeeming her or they just throw her under the bus and leave her to rot in shitty villian hell.

I am 99% sure we are running into a redemption arc. The whole discovery of the Ranger General in her and those sad eyes she has when seeing MCed Anduin make that nearly unavoidable and it annoys me because that comes so very much out of the left field. We are supposed to believe that the same Sylvanas Windrunner who grinningly awaited Anduin on Lordaerons throne to gloat over the thousands of people she burned to death now feels sad that she had to mindcontrol her enemy? The only thing more ridiculous would be that she secretly fell in love with Anduin.

From war3 to WotLK her goal was always to end the lich king, yes she was nast about it but the lich king needed to die and nothing she did was for personal gain.
She wasnt greedy or selfish she just wanted arthas dead so she could enjoy a proper death (if she died before he did hed just raise her up again)

Mhm, not really. You are right about her goal, but she did not want the Lich King dead because he was a threat to the world that needed to be removed. She wanted him to die because of what he did to her personally. Vengeance. In fact in Edge of Night she is quite pissed that Tirion and we stole her chance of revenge. So I would say her goal was quite selfish even if it would have also helped the world.

She was focused on that goal and being undead doesnt leave much sympathy for the living. Once arthas died she commited suicide to enjoy her afterlife, and here is where the story starts to suck.
She was an antihero, doing the right thing the wrong way, she certainly wasnt a villian till arguably cataclysm, but there were some shitty story beats from that point like blizz being inconsistent with many things.

Have to disagree here. The Ebon Blade clearly shows that even though Undead have trouble relating to the living, they can still work for the them and act to benefit the world without developing a new plague with human guinea pigs. Sylvanas could have acted differently, but she chose these means, which makes her a villain. Just because a bigger villain was on the field at the time, does not make her an anti-hero.

I think you can easily interpret this another way.
Sylvanas is dead, and she actually wants to stay dead, but she cant. There are some shitty things going on in the afterlife and she simply cant die.

Oh she can die. The Saronite spikes did her in just fine. The problem is, she feels she deserves a happy afterlife even after all the crimes she commited and found it unfair that it was not to be. However I still believe the Jailer tricked her at this point, somehow dragging her to the Maw instead of having the Arbiter judge her. I am realtively sure she would have been send to Revendreth first. The Arbiter does not seem to damn people to the Maw without a chance for redemption first.

She doesnt care for the living doesnt mean she wishes ill on them.

All evidence to the contrary. We had an entire expansion where tried to get us to kill each other and when that did not work she unleashed an Old God on the world to finish the job.

What she does care about is the dead, thats where she wants to be. From that angle a lot of her actions make sense, she really doesnt care about the living, politics, faction wars etc, she cares about what happens afterwards where she intends to be, and at some point everyone dies. Everyone is preocupied with life where death lasts a lot longer and could be eternal suffering.

True. But her problem is that she thinks everyone should think like that and not give a crap about that "momentary flicker" as she calls it. And all of this because she experienced death as suffering (because of meddling of her new boyfriend for sure) so everyone else MUST be experiencing it too. And that is despite her knowing of the much more pleasant places like Ardenweald and Bastion.

The story could be wrapped up nicely and for everyones sake i hope it is. I dont have much faith that it will because the current groundwork is REALLY shakey.

Yes, I agree. The build up in BFA was for a villain to become universal threat. Danusers sudden turn to redemption will make it so that neither the Sylvanas fans (who want her evil and alive) nor her enemies (who want her evil and dead) will be satified. As @Super Dickmann said, he is only gonna please himself with that story, creating a redeemed Sylvanas that will likely die a hero.

[Super Dickmann]

True. But her problem is that she thinks everyone should think like that and not give a crap about that "momentary flicker" as she calls it. And all of this because she experienced death as suffering (because of meddling of her new boyfriend for sure) so everyone else MUST be experiencing it too. And that is despite her knowing of the much more pleasant places like Ardenweald and Bastion.

Yes, I agree. The build up in BFA was for a villain to become universal threat. Danusers sudden turn to redemption will make it so that neither the Sylvanas fans (who want her evil and alive) nor her enemies (who want her evil and dead) will be satified. As @Super Dickmann said, he is only gonna please himself with that story, creating a redeemed Sylvanas that will likely die a hero.

To note, the goal isn't to have Sylvanas evil and alive, though she's always been a bitch. It's that for a character who's defined by her self-actualization from Day 1 is made a goonof some dude who didn't exist until a year ago. All for the sake of making her a victim so that she can then become a good girl damages the crux of the character beyond repair in a fashion that only pleases the head writer, none of the audience. Were she to have a point with her positions and be her own actor, then be it as a baddie or an ally, alive or dead, she'd be what her fanbase is after. Obviously, anything short of being her cartoonish BFA self would not satisfy those who dislike the character, whereas a route of her redemption after being an agency-less dupe tricked by the least trustworthy person out there satisfies somewhere between zero to one people. Notwithstanding the Schadenfreude of the most insufferable Unifaction advocates having to take the ! from the top of her head and bring her 10 mawbear asses.

To add to what @bloodmoth13 said, it's not actually all that hard to spin it if Blizzard wanted, though I doubt it would happen. The points she raises in the Anduin cinematic are correct, life is finite, the afterlife isn't, the means of weighing the soul are unknown to anyone who's actually around and the afterlives aren't overseen by infallible beings but by other mortals. Ergo, not only is the fate of the unlearned applied to every soul, since no one anywhere has any idea how the Arbiter makes her decision, but those decisions are themselves dubious - why is Voss's dad burning in hell whereas Krastinov is getting redemption? Why is Vashj, who tried to end the world on behalf of both the Legion and the Void and ran a slave territory based on hoarding all the region's resources in Maldraxxus? What happens if those in the afterlife just don't like you very much and decide to punt you into hell. Sure, Uther needed to be corrupted by the Maw to dunk people in hell, but Devos didn't and she was selected for that afterlife. Denathrius went corrupt entirely on his own and started dunking people in the Maw and even before he did, what was redeemable and wasn't was up to the Venthyr, who had particular preferences. Fallible people administer an equally fallible system, with the consequences being not temporary suffering in life, but eternal, ergo unquantifiably large suffering in the afterlife.

A character who sets out to oppose this can easily be either a compelling antagonist or a compelling protagonist given the endless amount of ammo she'd have. It writes itself, from the positives (wanting to take down something that's obviously busted) to the negatives (what woul you replace it with? who makes you the authority to decide kids gets to 'temporarily' be cooked in satan's torture chambers until you get the power you need to bust it etc.) Where they've failed with Sylvanas is that she comes fresh out of a story that existed to cast her as the worst person on the planet so whiplash is inevitable if she has any interiority at all, as well as that her method (help Satan unreservedly as his toadie) and allies (Satan and the people who ruined her life) don't gel.

[mickybrighteyes]

Yeah, there's really no one left that can mascot for WoW like she can. Thrall I guess, but he's been so gutted and it seems they've retired the character anyway.

Everyone else is dead.

Thrall basically got gutted when they made him leave to go marry some orc girl and leave everything to Garrosh and only come back for bullshit token savior moments.

And then we look deeper at his penance ideas and it's all "really dude?!"

Well horde side we got no good options to step up as leadership anymore and the OG characters are all villain troped or trashed.... I mean sure we could maybe rally on Lorthemar... but really? an elf? Zappy Boi has a better backing and he's literally a meme.

[TheFirstOnes]

Sylvanas is a bitch. That is all.

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Thrall basically got gutted when they made him leave to go marry some orc girl and leave everything to Garrosh and only come back for bullshit token savior moments.

And then we look deeper at his penance ideas and it's all "really dude?!"

Well horde side we got no good options to step up as leadership anymore and the OG characters are all villain troped or trashed.... I mean sure we could maybe rally on Lorthemar... but really? an elf? Zappy Boi has a better backing and he's literally a meme.

The Horde is a Council.

[mickybrighteyes]

To note, the goal isn't to have Sylvanas evil and alive, though she's always been a bitch. It's that for a character who's defined by her self-actualization from Day 1 is made a goonof some dude who didn't exist until a year ago. All for the sake of making her a victim so that she can then become a good girl damages the crux of the character beyond repair in a fashion that only pleases the head writer, none of the audience. Were she to have a point with her positions and be her own actor, then be it as a baddie or an ally, alive or dead, she'd be what her fanbase is after. Obviously, anything short of being her cartoonish BFA self would not satisfy those who dislike the character, whereas a route of her redemption after being an agency-less dupe tricked by the least trustworthy person out there satisfies somewhere between zero to one people. Notwithstanding the Schadenfreude of the most insufferable Unifaction advocates having to take the ! from the top of her head and bring her 10 mawbear asses.

don't forget that there had to be some very blatant retconning for inner monologues from post Icecrown motivations during the cataclysm era.

- - - Updated - - -

The Horde is a Council.

And that has what at all to do with the fact that council has no good characters to sit on it and represent the horde?

The best horde rep that's gonna wind up on it was a steamwheedle cartel trade prince... and that's not a horde faction