9.0 General Discussion

[Ersula]

Where does it say that people get send to the maw regularily before current events? The maw was reserved for the irredeemable and dangerous. Doesn't excactly sound like they had a quota before.

Then what was Arthas doing? What does the Lich King have to do with the Shadowlands, and why is that role the Shadowlands' guardian? Why did Sylvanas see the maw before she did anything evil? And that one dev calling the new blight her evil moment is bullshit, because I did that quest recently: The New Blight's purpose was specifically to destroy the undead & even after Varimathras' attempted coup the Horde AND Alliance still used the new blight to fight the Lich King

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All this justifying for one god damn Elf.

You talking about Sylvanas or Illidan?

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Stop dodging the question.

Stop ignoring my answer. The existence of the Shadowlands itself calls any morality into question. That's why they call it an "existential dilemma"

[IAMANIKOLAS]

I survived the Moffat Era of Doctor Who: I can detect a hack writer prolonging an unsatisfying twist a mile away. And that's what this is. If a writer can't portray a morally grey argument well, the next best thing they'll do is portray a character as pure evil & then reveal to us a good motivation nearing the end of the story.

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Each of the Covenants players themselves will be joining do a few of those evil things you mentioned. And we know she knew about the Shadowlands when Annhylde gave her this quest. Killing isn't as bad when there's this vivid afterlife. It's not so much murder as just teleporting people to another location. Sending people to the maw: That's pretty evil. That's what the Arbiter does on the regular. But if you have to send people to the maw temporarily in order to ultimately free them: That's justified. That's good.

Man i love what you are saying. I have been a silent advocate for Sylvanas, and been thinking that maybe there is an actual reason for the atrocoties that she has done.

Imagine if she is trying to ELIMINATE death, remove it completely. No fear for life, for those you leave behind, no death. Imagine a person like Sylvanas whom have experienced THE WORST POSSIBLE DEATH in the maw, she would do ANYTHING to avoid going there, and saving EVERYONE from it, even if it takes a genocide and a world war to do break the wheel of death.

I think that once we learn of Sylvanas motivations for it all, we will see that she was actually (i know it has been meme'd to oblivion) morally grey all along.

[TaliaKirana]

It just me or does it seem like Ersula thinks nobody should get sent to the Maw and that sending anyone there makes the Arbiter evil. Some people really do things so terrible they should be punished. Everything Blizz has said about the Maw indicates when things are working properly, you have to really work to get yourself sent there. I do think Blizz is quietly retconning the "all undead are condemned to hell" bit with Shadowlands. Sylvanas was probably yanked into the Maw by the Jailor when she suicided at Icecrown, then he sent the Val'kyr to recruit her for his plan by offering her a way out. And everything she's done since then... has been her own choice. She's forged her own chains for the Maw, heavier and stronger than anything Arthas ever did to her. The whole point of her Warbringers short was to show she's gone and become exactly like the man she hated so much.

[therumblings]

Why did Sylvanas see the maw before she did anything evil?

Source on her seeing it at her first death?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Man i love what you are saying. I have been a silent advocate for Sylvanas, and been thinking that maybe there is an actual reason for the atrocoties that she has done.

Imagine if she is trying to ELIMINATE death, remove it completely. No fear for life, for those you leave behind, no death. Imagine a person like Sylvanas whom have experienced THE WORST POSSIBLE DEATH in the maw, she would do ANYTHING to avoid going there, and saving EVERYONE from it, even if it takes a genocide and a world war to do break the wheel of death.

I think that once we learn of Sylvanas motivations for it all, we will see that she was actually (i know it has been meme'd to oblivion) morally grey all along.

No, thats just fucked up...its one thing to enjoy watching Sylvanas but don't fucking justify it. Jesus you people are nuts.

[IAMANIKOLAS]

No, thats just fucked up...its one thing to enjoy watching Sylvanas but don't fucking justify it. Jesus you people are nuts.

I don't get that attitude. How am i nuts? I try to find the reason why our "villain" is acting like "villain" Why would she do what she did? What is the reason? Whats her motivation? She hates the living and think that they deserve to die? That's weak. She has a reason for whatever it is she is doing. No one is cartoon villain bad and wants to conquer the world for some reason in a good story, they have a captivating motivation and a reason for why they are doing it, that justifies (in their mind) what they are doing. I want to know about Sylvanas motivations for allying with the maw, causing a genocide and starting ww3.

Think what you want, but I am 99% you and many others will be surprised by the end of Shadowlands.

[Ersula]

It just me or does it seem like Ersula thinks nobody should get sent to the Maw and that sending anyone there makes the Arbiter evil. Some people really do things so terrible they should be punished. Everything Blizz has said about the Maw indicates when things are working properly, you have to really work to get yourself sent there. I do think Blizz is quietly retconning the "all undead are condemned to hell" bit with Shadowlands. Sylvanas was probably yanked into the Maw by the Jailor when she suicided at Icecrown, then he sent the Val'kyr to recruit her for his plan by offering her a way out. And everything she's done since then... has been her own choice. She's forged her own chains for the Maw, heavier and stronger than anything Arthas ever did to her. The whole point of her Warbringers short was to show she's gone and become exactly like the man she hated so much.

All these people in this exact same thread defending Arthas as doing nothing wrong? Clearly I'm not the only one who thinks the Maw is too harsh. Not unlike the ethical dilemma of Christianity being a religion of "forgiveness" but also having a policy of eternal damnation.

Man i love what you are saying. I have been a silent advocate for Sylvanas, and been thinking that maybe there is an actual reason for the atrocoties that she has done.

Imagine if she is trying to ELIMINATE death, remove it completely. No fear for life, for those you leave behind, no death. Imagine a person like Sylvanas whom have experienced THE WORST POSSIBLE DEATH in the maw, she would do ANYTHING to avoid going there, and saving EVERYONE from it, even if it takes a genocide and a world war to do break the wheel of death.

I think that once we learn of Sylvanas motivations for it all, we will see that she was actually (i know it has been meme'd to oblivion) morally grey all along.

Maybe not destroying death entirely, but replacing it with a new dicotomy. I keep returning to the idea that in order for there to be expansions after this one the Shadowlands have to become moot in some way: Like destroying them utterly & replacing them with a new system of life & death. If that's the goal & she succeeds, a lot of people won't feel she was justified & that's just fine, because it's still a good motivation regardless.

[Sondrelk]

Stop ignoring my answer. The existence of the Shadowlands itself calls any morality into question. That's why they call it an "existential dilemma"

The existence of an afterlife does not call morality into question. People still die. Just because several religions, and indeed several millions of people believe in the existence of an afterlife does not mean it is okay to kill people, especially when you know that killing them will bring them not to heaven, but the lowest most vile pits of hell. More so when you consider that she is the reason they are going there. She is literally killing thousands upon thousands of innocents, knowing that they go to the worst hell, where their souls will be used to power a being whose likely goal is killing everything in existence.

Stop trying to rationalize here, this is honestly starting to veer on the delusional. At least try to give a reason that would make you consider Sylvanas evil that is less evil than what she has already done. Clearly, brutality of death does not matter, since you consider being thrown into literall hell to empower yourself a morally grey act. Nor does going against your own stated beliefs for selfish gain. What could possibly be left to assume any villain is evil? If Sylvanas isnt evil after burtally killing thousands, raising the dead to kill the few survivors, and then using the sum total of the dead to then empower yourself, what could possibly any villain do that would be considered even close to morally ambigious after that?
Even your favorite scapegoat? What could the Arbiter do after this to cement her as evil that wouldnt make Sylvanas a hypocrite?

[EbaumsTipster]

Even if Sylvanas's motivation has some portion of "I'm breaking death so nobody has to die" it will still involve destroying reality or unleashing the worst parts of the Maw onto the rest of the universe. And it won't excuse her murdering and genociding to get to that point.

[Sondrelk]

I don't get that attitude. How am i nuts? I try to find the reason why our "villain" is acting like "villain" Why would she do what she did? What is the reason? Whats her motivation? She hates the living and think that they deserve to die? That's weak. She has a reason for whatever it is she is doing. No one is cartoon villain bad and wants to conquer the world for some reason in a good story, they have a captivating motivation and a reason for why they are doing it, that justifies (in their mind) what they are doing. I want to know about Sylvanas motivations for allying with the maw, causing a genocide and starting ww3.

Think what you want, but I am 99% you and many others will be surprised by the end of Shadowlands.

Her reasoning is stupidly simplistic. She was given a vision of Heaven, most likely Bastion after being killed by Arthas, and after being released and doing horrible acts like performing live human experimentation on innocent farmers for the purpose of developing an extremely lethal plague, she was horrified to realize she was going to superhell when she commited suicide in Icecrown.
After that her actions are quite simple. Prevent death indefinitely so she does not have to go to hell. You don't get a backstory much simpler than that.

[FlubberPuddy]

It just me or does it seem like Ersula thinks nobody should get sent to the Maw and that sending anyone there makes the Arbiter evil. Some people really do things so terrible they should be punished. Everything Blizz has said about the Maw indicates when things are working properly, you have to really work to get yourself sent there. I do think Blizz is quietly retconning the "all undead are condemned to hell" bit with Shadowlands. Sylvanas was probably yanked into the Maw by the Jailor when she suicided at Icecrown, then he sent the Val'kyr to recruit her for his plan by offering her a way out. And everything she's done since then... has been her own choice. She's forged her own chains for the Maw, heavier and stronger than anything Arthas ever did to her. The whole point of her Warbringers short was to show she's gone and become exactly like the man she hated so much.

No, I don't think that's what Ersula thinks. I think it's a simple case of having a warped sense of a specific character (Sylvanas) that somehow led to the thinking of "this is a character who is Good. Does things for the Greater Good. Is just a misunderstood Anti-hero."

I think because it's like this: Some people want evil characters to turn out to be good (there's some Arthas fans out there like that), and it's because they didn't realize that the purpose of that character was already determined to end up as a villain/evil person.

So in order to cope with that reality they have to headcanon a lot of justifications in hopes that in the end what's been the writing on the wall for so long isn't true.

Ersula isn't solely to blame here tho. Blizzard are intentionally placing bits and snippets here and there that gives people ammunition to keep believing the aforementioned description above. That encouragement doesn't help and it's because Blizzard wants to egg it on in order to act like there's some surprise to be had at the end.

Think back to the "who burned the tree" and devs saying it wasn't her. Think back to people saying Sylvanas is Garrosh 2.0 and devs going 'nope she ain't' only to later be like 'lol jk we did plan that to be the case'. Think back to everyone and their mother already knowing ahead of time (back in 8.1 probably even 8.0) that Sylvanas wasn't staying Warchief and was going to leave the Horde.

[EbaumsTipster]

Ersula has spent the last several days trolling as well. Corona quarantine's a bitch.

[Cosmic Janitor]

It just me or does it seem like Ersula thinks nobody should get sent to the Maw and that sending anyone there makes the Arbiter evil. Some people really do things so terrible they should be punished. Everything Blizz has said about the Maw indicates when things are working properly, you have to really work to get yourself sent there. I do think Blizz is quietly retconning the "all undead are condemned to hell" bit with Shadowlands. Sylvanas was probably yanked into the Maw by the Jailor when she suicided at Icecrown, then he sent the Val'kyr to recruit her for his plan by offering her a way out. And everything she's done since then... has been her own choice. She's forged her own chains for the Maw, heavier and stronger than anything Arthas ever did to her. The whole point of her Warbringers short was to show she's gone and become exactly like the man she hated so much.

It's just another hardcore fan with some cognitive issues, this board is full of them. The best is just to pretend they don't exist and moving on, otherwise you end up like some others and start 50 page quote-wars with them where they end up dissecting each others posts fractal sentences at a time. You can see a stunning display of that in the necromancer thread.

Edit: Not saying that Blizzard is above extremely shitty writing. I have to agree with him on that. Just remember Kerrigan and "Draenor is free!".

[FlubberPuddy]

Even if Sylvanas's motivation has some portion of "I'm breaking death so nobody has to die" it will still involve destroying reality or unleashing the worst parts of the Maw onto the rest of the universe. And it won't excuse her murdering and genociding to get to that point.

We also know that's not her true motivation since in Three Sisters she repeats "in the end they will all serve ME". Sure doesn't sound nefarious at all and is completely an altruistic motivation with no selfish desires at all! /s

[Sondrelk]

All these people in this exact same thread defending Arthas as doing nothing wrong? Clearly I'm not the only one who thinks the Maw is too harsh. Not unlike the ethical dilemma of Christianity being a religion of "forgiveness" but also having a policy of eternal damnation.


Maybe not destroying death entirely, but replacing it with a new dicotomy. I keep returning to the idea that in order for there to be expansions after this one the Shadowlands have to become moot in some way: Like destroying them utterly & replacing them with a new system of life & death. If that's the goal & she succeeds, a lot of people won't feel she was justified & that's just fine, because it's still a good motivation regardless.

Christinaty is a religion of forgiveness, which is why Hell is reserved for those unrepentant and unwilling to face the consequences of their actions.
Unless you know what you are talking about, don't bring in Christianity and a 15 year olds idea of Atheism, it just makes you look like you are the kind of person who louly exclaims their idea that religion is stupid and that Atheism is the only way forwards.


The way teh Shadowladns works at this point is:
People live in the various worlds around the cosmos, when they die they are put into an afterlife befitting the life they lived. Those selfless and commnited to acts of kindness and nobility get sent to Bastion, where they are given the choice to serve the universe forever. Those who lived flawed lives are sent to Revandreth, where they are punished for their crimes until they are ready to rejoin a different afterlife. Those wholly evil and unrepentant get sent to the Maw, where they are punished for all eternity for their sins.
Presumably there are also an infinite amount of other afterlives tailored to all kinds of people, but those are probably not as interesting.

When the souls have served their purpose in the afterlife, their soul gets reborn into the regular world to continue the cycle. And no, this does not mean that what Sylvanas does is in any way justified, she is still killing them, preventing them from making a mark on teh world of the living, and living up to their full potential. This is basic philosophy here.

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Ersula has spent the last several days trolling as well. Corona quarantine's a bitch.

Ahh, now it all falls into place. Was starting to fear i was talking to someone with actual delusions, good to know it is most likely someone trolling. At least that brings my view of him slightly up.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

No, I don't think that's what Ersula thinks. I think it's a simple case of having a warped sense of a specific character (Sylvanas) that somehow led to the thinking of "this is a character who is Good. Does things for the Greater Good. Is just a misunderstood Anti-hero."

I think because it's like this: Some people want evil characters to turn out to be good (there's some Arthas fans out there like that), and it's because they didn't realize that the purpose of that character was already determined to end up as a villain/evil person.

So in order to cope with that reality they have to headcanon a lot of justifications in hopes that in the end what's been the writing on the wall for so long isn't true.

Ersula isn't solely to blame here tho. Blizzard are intentionally placing bits and snippets here and there that gives people ammunition to keep believing the aforementioned description above. That encouragement doesn't help and it's because Blizzard wants to egg it on in order to act like there's some surprise to be had at the end.

Think back to the "who burned the tree" and devs saying it wasn't her. Think back to people saying Sylvanas is Garrosh 2.0 and devs going 'nope she ain't' only to later be like 'lol jk we did plan that to be the case'. Think back to everyone and their mother already knowing ahead of time (back in 8.1 probably even 8.0) that Sylvanas wasn't staying Warchief and was going to leave the Horde.

Even before Teldrassil Sylvanas is not someone to be trusted, she just isn't a good person. That is what her character is good at which is fine. After Teldrassil....well of course she's evil, as far as the world is concerned she killed thousands and thousands of innocents in the tree, familes destroyed and a lot of heartache and never to be seen again. Even arguing "Yeah well they're just teleported to the Shadowlands."

No mortal is supposed to see that place at least before death so in fact its a horrible thing Sylvanas has done. She oked the creation of a plague that kills life yet claims to work with a faction full of living beings. RED FLAG

Sylvanas is not a good person and any writer trying to redeem her at this point is stupid or claim "WE JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND111111"

Blizzard are intentionally placing bits and snippets here and there that gives people ammunition to keep believing the aforementioned description above.

Mostly so they don't look like they're bashing Sylvanas fans for liking her. Which I don't blame them for doing it, nobody playing a video game like this anyways, wants to feel like a bad guy(Inb4 someone says WELL I WANT TO BE EVIL).

[Valysar]

Only one of the 2 does.

Oups, I haven't woken up yet

[FlubberPuddy]

Even before Teldrassil Sylvanas is not someone to be trusted, she just isn't a good person. That is what her character is good at which is fine. After Teldrassil....well of course she's evil, as far as the world is concerned she killed thousands and thousands of innocents in the tree, familes destroyed and a lot of heartache and never to be seen again. Even arguing "Yeah well they're just teleported to the Shadowlands."

No mortal is supposed to see that place at least before death so in fact its a horrible thing Sylvanas has done. She oked the creation of a plague that kills life yet claims to work with a faction full of living beings. RED FLAG

Sylvanas is not a good person and any writer trying to redeem her at this point is stupid or claim "WE JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND111111"

Well the main thing I was trying to illuminate was that her character motivations/personality/ideologies has been long-established that many players were able to catch onto what was happening so quickly and how it was blatantly obvious.

Because like you said she's not a good person, and that's easy to point out becomes it was established more than a decade ago and has only continued along that avenue.

[IAMANIKOLAS]

Her reasoning is stupidly simplistic. She was given a vision of Heaven, most likely Bastion after being killed by Arthas, and after being released and doing horrible acts like performing live human experimentation on innocent farmers for the purpose of developing an extremely lethal plague, she was horrified to realize she was going to superhell when she commited suicide in Icecrown.
After that her actions are quite simple. Prevent death indefinitely so she does not have to go to hell. You don't get a backstory much simpler than that.

What you're saying makes perfect sense to me. Could also be the reason why she allied herself with the Jailer, in order to get out-of-jail card when her end is near. But i personally believe that there is more to it. Personally very focused on the "I will set us all free" quote from the trailer. Setting someone free is arguably a positive thing, if she is freeing people from the "shackles of life" there gotta be a good reason for it i assume. It also serves as the last thing you hear in the cinematic, so I suppose that there is some weight to the quote, and a reason for her motivations.

There's no ambiguity to it. She says everyone will serve death, and serve her.

"This world is a prison. And I will set us all free."

This either means that life, i.e. existence as we know it for all mortals, is a "prison" full of metaphorical shackles holding us back, and she intends to make sure everyone dies to "save us from it". Or it means that the world is somehow corrupt without us knowing it, for example if Azeroth has been corrupted and turned into a Void Titan, or if we are all being kept in some sort of trance (dream) while there is fuckery going on in the waking world.

There is a very slight chance that she does want to rid Azeroth of something which we do not yet comprehend. Perhaps the Jailer is harvesting souls into the Maw to feed a Void Lord, and maybe she's trying to surpass him in power in order to defeat him. But it is undeniably true that she is being an evil prick committing horrible atrocities.

Actually a great point about "All will serve death" i totally forgot about that. Can't really come up with a proper argument against it currently.

I agree that Sylvanas is an evil prick committing horrible atrocities, absolutely. What she has done is completely wrong. What I am getting at is that she probably has her reasons for it. Possibly as you say, something that we cannot quite comprehend, or something that we would not understand if we hadn't been in her shoes.

Even if Sylvanas's motivation has some portion of "I'm breaking death so nobody has to die" it will still involve destroying reality or unleashing the worst parts of the Maw onto the rest of the universe. And it won't excuse her murdering and genociding to get to that point.

I am not sure if we know what will happen by (as you put it) destroying reality. Is it confirmed that the worst of the worst from the Maw will be released, or is it just speculation?

This may be farfetched, but in my opinion. If she commited these horrible crimes, for a good reason like replacing the current system of life and death (as Ersula suggested). Currently in the afterlife people who are considered GOOD gets the memories whiped in order to stay "pure" with the Bastions. Being a clone of everyone else in the afterlife for purity FOR ALL ETERNITY. And this is where the "good guys" go. Imagine what Revendreth and Maldraxxus does to you? Not to mention the Maw. Replacing this horrible system that turns us in to a drone, tortures us or worse FOR ETERNITY is in my opinion very justified. Cuz the afterlife is the endgame FOR ALL OF US, where we will spent the rest of eternity and I'd hate for my afterlife to be in the current shadowlands.

So with this in mind, that we are talking ETERNITY and big picture stuff. (This is going to sound cynical, but bear with me) What does it matter that tens of thousands of souls spent some time in the Maw, if the rest of eternity will be in a better place?

Yeah yeah I know i know, I sound crazy, and like a fanboi.. I guess I am, I want to see that one of my favorite characters have understandable, and reasonable motivations for doing horrible acts, because anything else would be a waste of a great character.

[vertigo12]

Where does it say that people get send to the maw regularily before current events? The maw was reserved for the irredeemable and dangerous. Doesn't excactly sound like they had a quota before.

Dead Night Elf wisp flushed directly to the Maw when Teldrassil burned sounds more than a the quote you're asking for. So instead of going to Ardenweald , to the Maw you go.