I still can’t believe Blizzard thought that “twist” was a good idea...

[Malania]

Look; you don’t need a fortune teller to see where the story is going. Having Sylvanas just decide “actually the Jailer IS evil, sorry y’all”, that was genuinely one of the most cringe-inducing videos I could imagine.

Like... we know Blizzard has talented writers. How the fuck does a cutscene like that even happen? How many people had to green light every step of the process for that stupid cutscene become reality?

This is like Diablo 3 (vanilla)’s story all over again. The “greatest tactician in Hell” giving you constant updates on his plans, the “Lord of Lies” is so obviously communicating to you the whole time in Act 2.

Did Blizzard just forget that a lot of their fans are adults now, and that we appreciate a little bit of nuance or moral ambiguity?

Why? It was telegraphed right the way through 9.0 that she was having second thought's. That everything she was doing was just in service to a new master who acted just like the Lich King. What were you really expecting?

[Pheraz]

Her problem isn't that she realized the Jailer was evil. She realized full and well that he was doing some shady shit. The issue she took with him? She's not his equal, which she had apparently been assuming up until now? Even though he's a "titan++ level being" and she's just an undead elf with a bow, this falls perfectly in line with how prideful Sylvanas was in both life and death.

Notice her specific phrasing when calling him out: "I will never serve." Not "I won't let you do this" or "I thought you were better than this", but instead, something that focuses squarely on her own subservience to him. She has no problem forcing others to serve her, as was the case with Derek Proudmoore and Anduin Wrynn, but the moment someone wants HER to serve? That's where she draws the line; a vain and conceited hypocrite until the very end.

Now watch as she magically becomes "good" all of a sudden now that she's been reunited with the other half of her soul - even though she literally just revealed to everyone her ability to display free will and disobey the Jailer and not serve as his puppet - and everyone suddenly decides she deserves a second chance because "it wasn't really her this whole time, you guys!"

My problem is how unclear the character sylvanas is. First they re-introduce her as the ultra master tactican, who is always one step ahead, no emotions, just smart. But then she makes crap all the time because she yet again has some emotion. That dying nelf in darkshore, tyrande triggering her and the jailor who seems to be the most evil thing until now. I mean, how can you team up with the devil and expect the devil to be not the devil? This is not smart. This is not tactical. This is idiotic and inconsistent. I think this is my personal problem with this whole Sylvanas thing. I see no reason to center almost two full expansions around this idiotic character.

In comparison look how good they portrayed Azshara. She teamed up with N'zoth but always made it clear that she is the Queen. Azshara is a consistent character. Even if one mind not like her, at least she is consistent. Everything she does she does to be the supreme ruler of... uhm... whoever she thinks her underlings are

[Th3Scourge]

*since vanila
story in wow was always mediocre at best, only exception being wrath, but there they were just wraping up story from w3

The story in vanilla was great. What made it so good was that it was very disconnected, stories were more localised to zones which imo is much better than some grand baddie that has the power level to remake reality. It's just not interesting

[Ivarr]

This is it right here, it is the same thing Azshara did

"I will not serve you as a pawn, i will be your equal as a queen"
And yet once nzoth forced her out of her role as queen, transforming her into nothing but a pawn, she betrayed him.

At least Jaina earned her growth somewhat, so I don't want to throw it all out either.

Still it's insulting the way Blizzard keeps writing these female characters. Someone else provides them power, power goes to their head, power is taken away, woopsie.

[Smallfruitbat]

I think the answer is that "Blizzard" know all of the intricate details that we don't. They know all of the motivations they haven't bothered to share with us. -I'm not defending the writing or the cinematic but I see how they can let it go through. I'm sure they genuinely think they are shocking people and putting in plot twists, telling a story that everyone is going to love in the end. The problem is, its so badly told and paced that people will start putting it down and looking for a better option.

[Daffan]

I think they are wrecking the lore on purpose so that they can flip flop later, and sell 'the return of the spirit of warcraft' back to us for $80

If it's a big enough overhaul it'll be worth it, purely because still to this day, nearly every other MMO on the market is bad.

[Gaidax]

i wanted to respond to this with a "yes we do know", but then i got to thinking about it and realized i couldn't wholly justify that based on what's in game.

the impression i've gotten is that sylv is basically azrael from dogma - the ultimate plan here is to cause a situation which effectively undoes the whole of existence.

seems an easy extrapolation, but this could be pure bias from my own personality:
undead sylv's whole shtick is hating her very existence, she's had lines of dialogue since wc3 stating this flat out.
she briefly had some sense of purpose in the forsaken, at least insofar as organizing them into a tribe, and then once they were going along as their own kingdom she lost the distraction of bringing them together and resumed her whole "fuck everything" attitude.

Well I think somewhere along these lines, with a bit different paths, but overall you get the vibe of there not being enough revealed yet to completely understand why she went for the whole thing.

We can assume only for now.

It is likely her plan to save her own ass from being doomed to the maw, but is that only that?

We knew that from WoTLK that she was destined to the realm of torment and not because of her deeds/misdeeds but purely because of reasons outside her control. Same goes for all unwilling Scourge members, they are doomed to maw no matter what. This begs the question whether Forsaken are ultimately the same.

And then what about the others, not everyone is exactly psyched about their fate in the maw. In between dead souls turning into blue humans or being surprise chucked into Maldraxxus like Mograine who questioned and loathed the whole thing, even if he came to accept it. Or who knows what other Shadowlands realms that exist for its purpose, which might not be what the actual being sent there wants, despite earning decent afterlife.

So what Sylv might have meant to do is to reorder the whole thing, because there is in fact a lot to fix there if you look at the thing a bit.


So she found a way to do something there, got in cahoots with Jailer who sold her some story about how he found a way to fix everything and subsequently got "betrayed" last moment, even if the red flags were all there already and she was aware of it, but blinded by goal nearly achieved.

And the fun part this all too is speculation, because we simply don't know her exact motives just yet. Who knows what she might reveal in 9.2, which is making it interesting for me.

Ultimately I believe Blizz will "Kerriganize" her, there were hints already about her being key player vs the Void, which appears to be our big bad existential threat we are yet to really tackle (we killed a few nascent blobs whooptiedo, compared to what we seen in the background of throne of Titans).

So yeah some memes are warranted, but not all for sure.

- - - Updated - - -

Her problem isn't that she realized the Jailer was evil. She realized full and well that he was doing some shady shit. The issue she took with him? She's not his equal, which she had apparently been assuming up until now? Even though he's a "titan++ level being" and she's just an undead elf with a bow, this falls perfectly in line with how prideful Sylvanas was in both life and death.

If my hunch is correct she decided for herself that a decade of atrocities is better than eternity of atrocities.

She just probably misjudged Jailer as a character and it's really not that surprising, it is very understandable that when your ultimate goal is in sight and that carrot is dangling right in front of your nose - even more intelligent and calculating people might get a bit of a tunnel vision.

It is clear that Jailer wasn't pushing his "hurr durr I gonna be master of all, all shall serve me" agenda right in everyone's face. He instead constructed a story that duped quite a few notables as we have seen. Take Devos for example, Jailer convinced her to join forces by revealing some sort of injustice. Sold her a story, same goes for Sylvanas who probably thought they have similar goals and it's worth the (temporary?) atrocities.

Overall these things that one can completely understand. She got jebaited into doing this whole mess for her misguided reasons with goal that might actually be a good or reasonable goal. Then she had a whole sunk cost fallacy episode and despite red flags forged forward.

So this all clearly backfired and I'm looking forward to 9.2 to hear what she has to say for herself, as well as what was the actual goal all along.

I think your point where she in her pride and vanity thought she was smarter and more cunning than everyone else to the point it blinded her is true too.

[Eggroll]

I still do not see the reason why Sylvanas would team up with the very entity who is responsible for her torment, who is responsible she ended up a banshee to begin with.

Bad case of Stockholm sydrome or just stupid OVER 9000! ?

- - - Updated - - -

At least Jaina earned her growth somewhat, so I don't want to throw it all out either.

Still it's insulting the way Blizzard keeps writing these female characters. Someone else provides them power, power goes to their head, power is taken away, woopsie.

IKR? IMO they are legitimate misogynists. The way they write female characters just proves it.

[epigramx]

Sylvanas had a STUPID arc from the start for 9.x. First: if she is so evil and self-centered and she wants to own everyone: why would she band with an OBVIOUS narcissistic megalomaniac who was laughing hysterically and spamming the chat with evil things every 2 seconds he was on screen?

The ONLY way this makes sense is that: "yes: Sylvanas IS stupid and she understood how destructive that dude was in the end": but the problem with that is that it makes Sylvanas completely uninteresting because she's not even a child (this is level of stupid that no leader-adult can have).

[username993720]

I still do not see the reason why Sylvanas would team up with the very entity who is responsible for her torment, who is responsible she ended up a banshee to begin with.

Bad case of Stockholm sydrome or just stupid OVER 9000! ?

Because the end justify the means?

[Temp name]

Like... we know Blizzard has talented writers.

We do? Could've fooled me.

Did Blizzard just forget that a lot of their fans are adults now, and that we appreciate a little bit of nuance or moral ambiguity?

These are the same guys who said that Sylvanas was a "morally grey" character.. Right before she committed genocide, for what could only at the time be described as spite.

- - - Updated - - -

I still do not see the reason why Sylvanas would team up with the very entity who is responsible for her torment, who is responsible she ended up a banshee to begin with.

Bad case of Stockholm sydrome or just stupid OVER 9000! ?

Maybe she, for some reason, doesn't know that Jailer is responsible for the Lich King, or Arthas going all wack..

But she sure as fuck knows who Kel'thuzad is, and why she'd ever accept working with him is beyond me.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Maybe she, for some reason, doesn't know that Jailer is responsible for the Lich King, or Arthas going all wack..

But she sure as fuck knows who Kel'thuzad is, and why she'd ever accept working with him is beyond me.

Let's not forget the whole mourneblade part.. nor the striking resemblance between torghast and ICC.

[ablib]

I'm confused why anyone is expecting good writing from a video game. It's like you are all Uwe Boll fans.

[Ivarr]

These are the same guys who said that Sylvanas was a "morally grey" character.. Right before she committed genocide, for what could only at the time be described as spite.

It's that spite part that destroyed any path back to redemption. They could have written that scene as if she did it with enormous reluctance, as if it hurt her more than anyone else. Just a subtle tell that there was more to it. But instead the scene unequivocally portrayed it as her burning down the tree just because some random night elf taunted her. Sylvanas relished in the act and that made any rationalisation afterwards moot.

I'm confused why anyone is expecting good writing from a video game. It's like you are all Uwe Boll fans.

https://twitter.com/horseysurprise/s...96296663531523

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm confused why anyone is expecting good writing from a video game. It's like you are all Uwe Boll fans.

The problem is simply that it's badly written, but also in such a way that it wants the viewer to take it seriously, as if it has meaning, hence why it is judged in such a way. If this was the backstory of banjo-kazooie no one would give a toss, but WoW somehow pretends that it tells an epic story.

[Ivarr]

Right, if they turned the whole thing into satirising themselves, like Fast & Furious or Black List is doing then at least it would've been enjoyable. At this point the lore has become so radioactive that satire might just be the only way out of this.

[Darththeo]

We don't know the full story at this point.

It is clear at least to me that Sylvanas joined the Jailer because she was going to be doomed to the Maw and felt that the Jailer was going to break that and allow people control over their destiny. Through Shadowlands she learned that the Jailer had plans that didn't align with hers. They hinted at this turn with her cutscenes with/about Anduin.

It is well written? Absolutely not. Does it make no sense? Absolutely not.

[Muxtar]

Like... we know Blizzard has talented writers.

Now that was fun.
This is not the case for about 5-8 years now.

[Palapop]

WoW has talented writers. But sadly they are not working on the main story. All "main" plots since BfA (warcampaign and SL main story) were utter bullshit. BfA had some good writing. Drustvar was super cool, to name one example. But there isn't a ounce of cohesion in Sylvannas' entire arc, books and game don't align, even BfA and SL don't align. It's just nonsense. The writers responsible for that are not good.

What WoW lacks is a proer senior writer, who decides which writer is good enough to write the main story, and which should rather work on smaller quest chains.

You think Legion had good main story?

[s_bushido]

In what world is this a "twist" when it was specifically set up in those Sylvanas/Anduin cinematics from the Torghast questline?