About Sylvanas' motivation

[Razion]

I think her goal is for everyone to die and not get an afterlife. For death to be absolute.

Or maybe she thinks she knows better, and would want to be The Arbiter. But I'd more bank on the prior.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Yeah it's pretty crazy how the guy who, as of the Retcon lore of Shadowlands, created your mortal enemy might have the exact same ideology as said enemy.

But SURPRISED PIKACHU FACE HE SAID "SERVE"

Who'd have known the Domination guy whose aesthetic is 80% chain wasn't into freedom. Nobody could have seen this coming.

[Ivarr]

She thinks she's fighting on the side of freedom and liberty when she does what she does, and she casts her lot in with him

Her turning that dying night elf lady's head towards the burning Teldrassil and force her to watch her home and loved ones die never struck me as Sylvanas doing it for the sake of freedom and liberty. I just can't reconcile it even with the coldest pragmatism, it was gratuitous.

[Soon-TM]

Who'd have known the Domination guy whose aesthetic is 80% chain wasn't into freedom. Nobody could have seen this coming.

Say, good sir/ma'am, can I have this as my sig? It so painfully true.

[Atrea]

Her turning that dying night elf lady's head towards the burning Teldrassil and force her to watch her home and loved ones die never struck me as Sylvanas doing it for the sake of freedom and liberty. I just can't reconcile it even with the coldest pragmatism, it was gratuitous.

Is it any different than the reactions of a certain ex-President's supporters in regards to similar real life atrocities, like the murder of George Floyd? Or how about selfsame supporters attacking Asian Americans, blaming them for COVID-19?

These people, like Sylvanas, are operating with a high degree of moral turpitude, but they don't see themselves as the bad guy. They're too blinded by the belief that they are doing what is right. They think they're protecting children from sex-peddlers working on behalf of the DNC, or some other crazy nonsense, I don't know, I don't smoke crack.

From Sylvanas' perspective, since we're already slaves to the machinations of the afterlife, sending someone - or thousands of someones - to that afterlife is no different than ordering a pizza. It is only through the lens of our own perspectives that this action is seen as an atrocity.

In any case, the point is, she thought she was doing what is right. Just like plenty of otherwise "decent" people did when they voted for Donald Trump.
They're both wrong.

The parallel is very clear in my view.

[Ivarr]

These people, like Sylvanas, are operating with a high degree of moral turpitude, but they don't see themselves as the bad guy. They're too blinded by the belief that they are doing what is right.

Or at least have the right to do what they're doing due to an inflated sense of self-importance. Even if we, for the sake of argument, grant that according to Sylvanas own moral code, burning down Teldrassil was the right thing to do, then there was no need for her to relish in it. Appealing to a greater good does not give her the moral justification to needlessly exacerbate the suffering caused by pursuing this greater good.

Likewise, a confused Trump supporter doing everything they can to stop some pedophle cabal can be construed as misguided at the most generous interpretation. But a Trump supporter that knowingly involves innocent people and make them them suffer is being sadistic and self-serving in a way that some lofty motivation can't cover even when granted that same generosity.

That's the problem with Sylvanas here. A moral person with her same grand motivation would do what she did with the utmost reluctance and go out of their way to make it as painless as possible. She did the opposite.

[javierdsv]

Her motivation was her soul. It was her plan all along. She knew he would give her soul back, and opposing him would guarantee she was left behind, so we could get intel from her and stop him anyway, still having her soul back. So she actually won, and we will win thanks to her.

[Ivarr]

She knew he would give her soul back if she defied him? That's a leap.

[javierdsv]

She knew he would give her soul back if she defied him? That's a leap.

That's not what I said. Defying him would guarantee she was left behind, basically giving us a chance to stop him. Because it is clear we need her now.
If he killed her, she would just have respawned right there, remember she is still alive.

[Sondrelk]

The biggest issue with the turn is that it clashes horribly with BfA Sylvanas, who after all is the entire reason we are in this mess to begin with.

BfA Sylvanas was shown to be ruthless, uncaring if not completely evil, and intelligent(?).

In Shadowlands they decided to give her a redemption, which essentially required her to be neither of those things. She needed to be both misguided and not particularly bright.


Also the comparison to Trump supporters are not that apt honestly. Those people tend to be motivated by racism, inferiority and a lack of critical thinking skills. Not to mention they are being actively lied to.
At best Sylvanas is not thinking straight. The Jailer might be lying, but it isn't a particularly obfuscated lie, the giant river of tortured souls is right there staring at her.


However it is true that if we ignore BfA then we only need to assume Sylvanas is acting irrationally. At least then we can ignore the worst of the iffy moral questions.

[Super Dickmann]

BfA Sylvanas was shown to be ruthless, uncaring if not completely evil, and intelligent(?).

BFA Sylvanas was a blithering moron, just marginally less stupid than most other participants in the plot and significantly less stupid than her SL incarnation. Sparing Malfurion, not killing Sadfang or Baine, losing her shit because someone mentioned hope instead of having the Horde/Alliance forces kill each other etc.

It's true though that most problems for her SL characterization come as a result of BFA existing, a tragedy for all, to be sure, and from the Jailer retcon being introduced in such a fashion that we only ever see their relationship at its most unequal and unconvincing with zero of the grounding to understand how she came to the positions she did.

[Sondrelk]

BFA Sylvanas was a blithering moron, just marginally less stupid than most other participants in the plot and significantly less stupid than her SL incarnation. Sparing Malfurion, not killing Sadfang or Baine, losing her shit because someone mentioned hope instead of having the Horde/Alliance forces kill each other etc.

It's true though that most problems for her SL characterization come as a result of BFA existing, a tragedy for all, to be sure, and from the Jailer retcon being introduced in such a fashion that we only ever see their relationship at its most unequal and unconvincing with zero of the grounding to understand how she came to the positions she did.

She was claimed to be intelligent then, and most of her gambits did seem to work out to some extent.
It also is prudent to consider that her biggest moments of stupidity in BfA came from the loyalist subplot being shoehorned in. If we discount that then she does come across as reasonably intelligent. Yes she failed in destroying Teldrassil but she did cause mass death and conspired with Azshara to release N'zoth, just failing because she is a villain and have to for the story to work.

Also even with that. She might not have been shown to be completely untouchable from a tactical standpoint, but she did come across as coherent enough to be assumed to know better than to trust the Jailer.


I guess a consistent issue with Sylvanas is that she is almost always told to be smarter than she is. But when you look at her achievements they seem to almost always come from either being callous or cruel. She didn't gain Lordaeron from being particularly intelligent, she got it from betraying her ally. And while she failed in defending Silvermoon her plan did mostly just seem to be to send more bodies at Arthas until he got bored.
In that regard I guess her being stupid in SL makes sense. He intelligence has almost always amounted to being more evil than her adversaries, and she lost here because the Jailer is more evil. (Even if only because Sylvanas is suddenly good)

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Say, good sir/ma'am, can I have this as my sig? It so painfully true.

If you like.

[ohwell]

I believe her perspective is supposed to be extremely warped, intentionally, by the Jailer and that she is unaware of this manipulation. If I recall correctly, as far as Sylvanas knows, she believes that her soul was doomed for the Maw solely because of what the Lich King did to turn her into a banshee. That all of her actions in life and undeath ultimatly had no meaning because some external entity decided her fate for her based on some unforeseeable bias.

She has that perspective specifically because the few times she's had a glimpse into the Shadowlands the Jaile's minions were there to torment her soul so that she equates death with eternal suffering. Whatever events lead to her meeting the Jailer specifically, idk, but he evidently sold her a bill of goods "see how unfair this system those self righteous gods made is? See how they mistreated me too, just like you were mistreated? But if we work together, we can find justice for all!" I'd assume he doesn't really tell her the truth about the Arbiter, or that he is responsible for her Shadowlands experiences thus far.

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This too. Blizzard sold us on Sylvanas being a cunning and manipulative 4D chess player...and then had her being played like a fiddle with such a childish level of naivete.

How is that playing her like a fiddle? He could EASILY have made that decision once he actually had the power and had every intention on following through until it actually came to fruition to where he was like hmmm well why not then. Just sounds like more "wah writers bad" nonsense if you ask me.

[Pheraz]

her motivation doesn't make sense because she went out of her way to condemn countless innocent people to suffer in the maw. if she wanted to free us all from an eternity of suffering then she is the biggest fucking idiot in the history of Warcraft. that, or the writers have no idea how to handle a story with characters that have complicated motivations.

Yes. They should rather keep the old "has gone mad" pattern for the villains and keep them out of our faces

[Super Dickmann]

She was claimed to be intelligent then, and most of her gambits did seem to work out to some extent.
It also is prudent to consider that her biggest moments of stupidity in BfA came from the loyalist subplot being shoehorned in. If we discount that then she does come across as reasonably intelligent. Yes she failed in destroying Teldrassil but she did cause mass death and conspired with Azshara to release N'zoth, just failing because she is a villain and have to for the story to work.

Also even with that. She might not have been shown to be completely untouchable from a tactical standpoint, but she did come across as coherent enough to be assumed to know better than to trust the Jailer.

She was definitely made dumber by the loyalist plotline having to exist which makes her inexplicably sabotage her own plans. If you take that out her biggest moments of stupidity come to sparing Malfurion for no adequate reason, which she at least kicks herself about in the novella, inexplicably sending two assassins to go after Thrall for no reason and everything regarding Baine, who she could always have offed as well as not actually launching any attack on Thunder Bluff. It's true that when you look back from the point of view of just racking up bodycount her plans hold together marginally better. N'zoth though deserves a special mention:

Sylvanas's plan re: N'zoth if we couple it with taking her request for Azshara to kill the PCs at face value, as it was likely intended, was the single most monumentally stupid decision she's made in canon. Only the PC can stop N'zoth and even that required both Wrathion and Azshara giving opportunities to make a window. No Azshara means no knaifu, which means Wrathion can't get into carapace. No Wrathion means everyone goes inside. And even with both taken into account, N'zoth was within seconds of slurping up Azeroth's soul in that janky LOTR rip-off cinematic. Sylvanas had absolutely no way of knowing that these factors were in play or any way to stop N'zoth herself if Azshara had actually killed the PC. Sylvanas's plan re: N'zoth going off without a hitch would result in her and everyone else being Void Lord chow. She and the Blue Man dodged a bullet thanks to factors they had zero control over.

It is true though that BFA Sylvanas was out for herself and said as much and she wouldn't have taken Super Satan at face value.

I guess a consistent issue with Sylvanas is that she is almost always told to be smarter than she is. But when you look at her achievements they seem to almost always come from either being callous or cruel. She didn't gain Lordaeron from being particularly intelligent, she got it from betraying her ally. And while she failed in defending Silvermoon her plan did mostly just seem to be to send more bodies at Arthas until he got bored.
In that regard I guess her being stupid in SL makes sense. He intelligence has almost always amounted to being more evil than her adversaries, and she lost here because the Jailer is more evil. (Even if only because Sylvanas is suddenly good)

I mean, defeating all the Dreadlords and then removing your only other opposition required both actual success in combat and cunning in knowing when to throw Garithos under the bus. And when it came to Quel'thalas, both Bob and Arthas himself have very high opinions of her defense given one mentioned they'd be extinct without her and the other went out of his way to punish her for fucking him over at every turn. The line about arrows in the quiver when it comes to the living rangers doesn't mean she was using human wave tactics - we know for a fact she relied on guerillas. It means that she was knowingly using them as distractions to give time to prepare for defenses further off.

Powersliding on a sword is pretty low IQ though, but then again how could she have known that Arthas' horse can teleport past the waves of skellies he had a few frames ago.

[czarek]

Imo they create her idea and apperently didnt know how to move forward with it. They made it so infantile and dumb. She wants to take her soul back and thats it ? Jailer just throw her soul back to her? Or is it Arthas soul? Or Arthas soul is in Anduin ? Its a mess. We still know shit about Jailers intensions.

[Otrew]

The main problem with sylvanas for me is BFA is a nonsense. Sylvanas was choosen warchief and she did not do anything for the horde. Baine said in some moment that she lead the horde against the legion but we never saw that beside the opening cinematic. The only thing she did in legion was making a pact with helya and figth alliance in the moment of the biggest threath again azeroth.Horde following her in bfa after learned to no follow blindess the war chief after garosh, after she killin thei own troops an rising them in the battle of lordareon, after telldrasill, etc.. is a fucking non sense. Horde suppose to be heroes.

If sylvanas just fleed away after we release she make a pact with helya and bfa it would have been a old god xpac. Shadowlands would have a lot more of sense and the cinematic could be worked a incoming redemption arc

[Nynax]

How is that playing her like a fiddle? He could EASILY have made that decision once he actually had the power and had every intention on following through until it actually came to fruition to where he was like hmmm well why not then. Just sounds like more "wah writers bad" nonsense if you ask me.

Because all the signs were there? your argument seems to be "maybe the Jailer had good intentions all along, but flipped the moment he had the power." So he really just wanted to do what's best for the universe, in spite of continuing to torture souls into servitude, forcing Domination on Anduin and others, literally not giving 2 shits about Denathrius as soon as he isn't useful. She ignores every action and command that is anti-free will and buys some line about "but we will be free eventually!" You would think she would be one to take the phrase "actions speak louder than words" seriously.

Literally nothing about this guy says he would ever do anything that isn't self serving, not a hint or shadow of mercy or compassion (even giving Sylvanas her soul back out of the assumption that Azeroth would enact revenge). But he's a good guy, really, you'll see!

Ya know, Sagaras wanted what he was best for the universe too. At least his servants knew exactly what they were about.

[ohwell]

Because all the signs were there? your argument seems to be "maybe the Jailer had good intentions all along, but flipped the moment he had the power." So he really just wanted to do what's best for the universe, in spite of continuing to torture souls into servitude, forcing Domination on Anduin and others, literally not giving 2 shits about Denathrius as soon as he isn't useful. She ignores every action and command that is anti-free will and buys some line about "but we will be free eventually!" You would think she would be one to take the phrase "actions speak louder than words" seriously.

Literally nothing about this guy says he would ever do anything that isn't self serving, not a hint or shadow of mercy or compassion (even giving Sylvanas her soul back out of the assumption that Azeroth would enact revenge). But he's a good guy, really, you'll see!

Ya know, Sagaras wanted what he was best for the universe too. At least his servants knew exactly what they were about.

Ummmm yeah even in our own history people have accepted terrible things that people have inflicted upon others in order to achieve a goal. Did the Allies leave the US after dropping the atomic bombs?

Also I love how you're privy to communication between the two of them that the rest of us are not....

You've LITERALLY heard nothing really of what the Jailer ever said or wanted to do and you're judging him by head canon. As far as putting the pieces together, yes he DID flip when he got to where he was going in terms of what we've been told and shown in game. But hey I'm sure you're also one of those "oooo look generic villain that does nothing to us and has only big mean bad guy motivation" when he ignores us and doesn't tell us anything because we're insignificant and he actually does have a valid motive.

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The main problem with sylvanas for me is BFA is a nonsense. Sylvanas was choosen warchief and she did not do anything for the horde. Baine said in some moment that she lead the horde against the legion but we never saw that beside the opening cinematic. The only thing she did in legion was making a pact with helya and figth alliance in the moment of the biggest threath again azeroth.Horde following her in bfa after learned to no follow blindess the war chief after garosh, after she killin thei own troops an rising them in the battle of lordareon, after telldrasill, etc.. is a fucking non sense. Horde suppose to be heroes.

If sylvanas just fleed away after we release she make a pact with helya and bfa it would have been a old god xpac. Shadowlands would have a lot more of sense and the cinematic could be worked a incoming redemption arc

....the alliance fought her not vice versa. What game were you playing?