Why didn't Sylvanas ever simply tell the Alliance and the Horde her real plans?

[OwenBurton]

There is a major plot hole that some people seem to have largely ignored or overlooked:
Sylvanas Windrunner's speech to Anduin was about breaking the system and improving it with a far better and fair one - she spent hours and hours attempting to convince him of the rightness and necessity of her plans and strategies, of the cruelties of fate.

Why didn't she just tell the Alliance and the Horde the same thing?

Let's time travel back to after the Legion's defeat - the Alliance and the Horde are not at open war with each other. Why not tell Alleria and Vereesa at their reunion what she experienced at the Maw - why not at least confide in her older sister, who has seen infinite possibilities, who understands the cosmic imbalance and injustice of the Light and has fought another cosmic power for a thousand years - someone who adapts her worldview to change and circumstance, who knows about sacrifices in the name of the greater good, and who "questions everything", and who at that point still does not hate her younger sister? She didn't need to assassinate them - she could have simply explained her complicated views and real plans, and then waited for their reactions.

Sylvanas could have explained her true motives and experiences to the two people she trusted most deeply, her belief in the injustice of death and afterlife, the flaws of the Pantheon of Death and the Shadowlands - Vereesa herself cares deeply for her even now, and possibly Alleria, despite her fierce attitude. Sylvanas: "I do not ask you trust the Jailor, my sisters...but I am asking you to place your trust in me." And perhaps they might have listened?

A Good War might have been this:
1. Sylvanas summons Varok and the Horde leaders to Orgrimmar - then uses her Banshee powers to show them the reality of the Maw, what she personally experienced, and the imperfect nature of the Shadowlands. She could have turned to Saurfang: "High Overlord, your son was taken by Death - do you wish for him to be trapped in fate's bondage forever? Or do you wish to unshackle him - just like Grom unshackled your race from another overbearing and controlling cosmic power long ago? Surely you as an orc understand the value of personal and individual freedom, and the necessity of change in the face of tyranny - whatever the cost and whatever the price and the odds against your people? Old soldier, the opportunity to act is here - the time to act is NOW. Together, we can break the cycle forever and bring freedom to all those who crave it most! For the Horde!"
2. Then she asks Alleria and Vereesa to return to the other Alliance leaders with her revelations. Most of them have no fondness for the Shadowlands, no affinity for any of its rulers - they would have no reason to trust Sylvanas, but at least they are familiar with her, unlike with the mysterious otherworldly powers none of them have ever heard of or imagined.
3. Sylvanas asks them to have Bolvar hand over the Helm of Domination, or otherwise, they all attack him and overwhelm him, and Sylvanas breaks the Veil anyway, minus the Fourth War which depleted both factions needlessly.

Her objective is basically achieved, without a massive global war that divided the Horde or destroyed her leadership and her reputation completely, or convoluted and unreliable bargains with Azshara and Priscilla Ashvane, without overcomplicated deceptions and schemes which alienated most of her sympathizers and supporters, including the Forsaken, including most of her dark rangers, and blood elves; if she desperately needs souls, she could ask them to wipe out the Twilight's Hammer, the Scarlet Crusade, or the naga, sethrak, and the hostile drust populations, or attack Outland and eliminate the hostile, dying races and species there, for example, there are other sources of power other than the Alliance and the Horde on their planet, surely?

Then as Warchief of the Horde, and all the Horde races behind her, Sylvanas invades the Shadowlands - with the Alliance and her sisters at her side, or without them.

I am not arguing Sylvanas is a benevolent ruler - but she is still a relatively popular character. Even one of the polls showed most Horde players willing to support her despite her abandonment. She has committed crimes, and has long has harbored ulterior motives. But she is not hurting people because she enjoys hurting them; she has always had some kind of...complicated purpose to her schemes. She believes that she is trying to do the right thing - in an impossible situation that most people in our world cannot relate to properly, because no equivalent is remotely comparable.

If she is so utterly convinced in the rightness and necessity of her actions - why did she not EVER attempt to convince her allies and her own people of their necessity and rightness, why such subterfuge? She explained her plans to the Horde loyalists at the end of the last expansion - so she should have done likewise to the entirety of the Horde, when she still enjoyed massive and overwhelming popular support, and when the night elves were more or less relatively indifferent towards her. If they still supported her after Teldrassil and Lordaeron - how many more would support her had she NOT caused the destruction of both cities, and focused solely on destroying the Shadowlands' flawed order immediately after the Legion was defeated - especially as some of their realms, such as Bastion, ARE genuinely flawed in their policies, and probably would have blindly imposed them had the mortals not intervened after thousands of years?

In my opinion, Sylvanas could have remained an interesting and complex character, with shades of grey in her morality - not one so controversial and reviled, and whose development has arguably been ruined?

[Steelangel]

If she is so utterly convinced in the rightness and necessity of her actions - why did she not EVER attempt to convince her allies and her own people of their necessity and rightness, why such subterfuge?

Because Sylvanas's concept of "rightness" is not too far from the Cult of the Damned. I've been convinced for years that she orchestrated the Wrathgate debacle, and when it went sideways, she made her underlings take the fall for it. If she came out and talked about how she was working to make death more fair and just and put a power hungry death god in charge of the full machinery of the cosmic power of death, she'd have been a raid boss 4 expacs ago.

[gcsmith]

Because the Alliance and Horde would rightly call her a moron. The plan is stupid, especially when it involves rank hypocrisy.

[Varodoc]

Because that would require Alleria to receive story development, and Alleria is the most hated character by Blizzard. This patch is literally about stopping Sylvanas Windrunner and Alleria WINDRUNNER is nowhere to be seen.

Even in BfA all Alleria did was stand on a boat in Boralus. Blizzard had the audacity to not even mention her in the patch about N'Zoth, instead choosing Anduin's boyfriend as the main protagonist of the patch.

Even Vereesa is being treated better than Alleria, since she appears in the new book where she has that dream about Sylvanas' soul.

[Kithelle]

Because...they don't want to kill her so all the sudden everyone is going to forgive her because they either don't want to bother or are incapable of writing better.

[Super Dickmann]

I can see that going well.

"Hi, all your religions are fake and gay and the afterlife is actually decided by a giant robot. That robot put me in hell and ergo she'd surely put everyone in hell. We can stop this and make things better but you have to send all your guys to die in a messy war so that I'm powerful enough to get us into the afterlife and fix it all. Just trust me, bro, a giant Blue Man operating a dimension of endless torure told me so."

Out of story it helped that the writers hadn't come up with it yet, so it wasn't even her goal known to her in her own mind in the book meant to set up BFA, let alone earlier.

[Villager720]

Who would actually have believed or trusted Sylvanas? And how could she have shown them the Maw, and even if she somehow did, who would believe it wasn’t some fabrication to sway them?

Even Anduin, the most ‘give anyone a chance’ loon in the Lore, when locked in the Maw and able to see that she wasn’t just making up unverifiable nonsense, still didn’t buy into her plan/motivations.

Sylvanas kept all this secret because (in reality the writers probably hadn’t come up with it yet) she knew no one would trust her and would probably actively oppose her.

[Darknessvamp]

Simple because at that time that wasn't her plan. Sylvanas had no notion or even an inkling of getting involved in the machinations and processes of the Afterlife because that would involve stuff after she died. She had no intention of dying or staying dead, instead it's clear she wanted to achieve some form of immortality. She also wanted to secure a sustainable and exploitable means of raising and maintaining Forsaken into undeath/unlife/whatever you prefer.
She literally didn't care about powering up or freeing some ancient potentially besmirched and falsely imprisoned bald blue boy or completely changing how the Afterlife works until she cocked up outside of Orgrimmar by running away instead of interpreting her statement in a way that was useful to herself and acceptable by the Horde.
e.g. Sylvanas: "The Horde are Nothing! .... Don't you see how the Alliance grinds us down with the help of insurrectionists and deceives us into betraying one another? We are literally facing our fellow soldiers duped into trying to kill us and attack our city. How can the Horde be something if there is nothing of unity!" or some similar wankery.

[Maljinwo]

She explained her plans to the Horde loyalists at the end of the last expansion - so she should have done likewise to the entirety of the Horde

-Thanks for following me, you are gonna die though, lmao

[Wangming]

Likely cause she didn't know what her plans were at that point. Or rather Blizz didn't know.

[sam86]

because she didn't know it herself
I mean we have inner dialogue from her for decades, yet she never even thought about that idea
she only 'discovered' pre-bfa that her 'long' dream was to invade Stormwind, a dream so hidden that she had no fucking idea about it just 3 years earlier
bashing aside because fuck shitcons, a more serious answer is who exactly will trust her?

[BaumanKing]

Because that would require Alleria to receive story development, and Alleria is the most hated character by Blizzard. This patch is literally about stopping Sylvanas Windrunner and Alleria WINDRUNNER is nowhere to be seen.

Even in BfA all Alleria did was stand on a boat in Boralus. Blizzard had the audacity to not even mention her in the patch about N'Zoth, instead choosing Anduin's boyfriend as the main protagonist of the patch.

Even Vereesa is being treated better than Alleria, since she appears in the new book where she has that dream about Sylvanas' soul.

Why do you want Alleria to become Sylvanas' satellite character so much? Be glad she isn't based around her sister and has a future storyline of her own with the Void.

[Varodoc]

Why do you want Alleria to become Sylvanas' satellite character so much?

Because she's her sister.

and has a future storyline of her own with the Void.

Yeah, because we saw how big of a role she played in 8.3, the Void patch revolving around the final Old God.

Oh wait...

[Razion]

One of the potential lies Sylvanas put forth to her sisters was that she still wished she was alive. As we know the answer was that she was planning on betraying them, we cknow she still wishes she was alive and could feel - so, her decision to execute her plans may have taken place after the meeting with her sisters. (Perhaps even, as a result of it.) But that's just one possibility.

[FelPlague]

Because of she did they would refuse and ruin her plans.

If you plan to do something is it better to tell other people your plans and hope they help? Well if they do that's great. If they don't you get arrested, and even if they don't get you, they now know your plans, so you either have a much harder job, or gotta come up with a new plan.

So nah usually not worth the risk. Especially with her plans being ones a lot of people would not agree with.

[Aleksej89]

because Daloser can't write better than a 12y old and his stories contain more holes than plot.

[Sondrelk]

Simple because she was written to be evil, not intelligent. In BfA especially she was written as the most diabolical villain since mecha-godzilla got really into Mein Kampf.
As it is currently she should have, but that is because she was written differently back in BfA than she is in SL because in this one she is supposedly supposed to be redeemed somehow.

If we tryo to apply logic then we could assume she didnt tell anyone because she didnt care about them, and indeed knew that her plans were omnicide which noone would be down for.
Consider for instance Saurfang. While he might be swayed by talks about his son being metaphorically being held prisoner by fate, he would likely be happier with that than complete and utter destruction of the universe.

[thefinalwarden]

Honestly, it is a trope that tv and writing falls into where Communication is the enemy of tension when you have a deadline for writing a script. People don't talk, don't explain, don't do anything and that is what drives the plot. It is an easy trope to do but look at any sort of entertainment media and wonder how many problems would be solved, or at least lessened if people just talked to each other about what's going on.

Sylvanas has been one hell of a rollercoaster of a character who went from moustache twirling Skeletor to a person who would protect her people/horde by any means necessary so many times that you get whiplash each expansion seeing what route they were going to take next. I think BfA was the last straw for a lot of people with her, and while they might have had a plan all along for her to be like this, it comes off instead as inconsistent.

Honestly, her acting as an anti-villain who had the hordes best interest at heart was her best, while murderhobo dumpster fire is just fun to watch. At this point, I hope they do not do a redemption arc (They will, they already have with several villains that they shat on in the past), and instead I want it all to blow up in her face as she realized she done screwed up bad.

Then again, I am one of the ones who hopes that N'zoth made everyone believe he died considering he is the old god of being a deceptive twat, and thought Kil'jaeden should have been the final fight of Legion to act as a full circle story arc of BC.

[Soon-TM]

Because maybe the whole "I am the Blue Man's geisha" nonsense of SL wasn't written yet, not even as a !@#$ing draft.

[Myradin]

Except the reality of the maw is very, very few normally get sent there. Revendreath has literal destroyers of worlds being redeemed there. She'd actually have to show them parts of the afterlife she had no experience with.

Similarly siding with the Jailor is just a dumb idea, he's an evil blue man who's very powers are known as Domination magic. I'm sure this dude is a total liberator of the cosmos.

The Shadowlands may be flawed, but so is the rest of existence. Its a high-magic concept that'd be hard to sell people on with no real guaruntee you can do better.