Who says that i’m defending they kept Sylvanas in her current form?
The way they’ve tuned her character, has made it completely incompatible with the rest of the story. As it is now, it needs to go.
But i don’t blame characters per se, i blame how the story treated them and how it transformed them.
Just like i don’t blame Vol’jin’s character for being painted weak, or gullible to the point he facilitated all this. Much like i don’t blame Malfurion “The Character” for being turned into a Plot Device that Blizzard switches on and off at will.
“Malfurion The Plot Device” (The Super Druid) is an ailing that affects negatively the story. Much like the current “Sylvanas The Spawn of Satan”, does.
Problems come when Blizzard decides to keep this sort of stuff around, while trying desperately to juggle the rest of story elements.
This maybe unpopular idea, but just because Sylvanas ditched Forsaken and Horde doesn’t really make her badly written.
Considering she had achieved her goal in in undeath, faced the vision on Icecrown and ran from death, the horrors of Maw. It’s really not that surprising to make death Jailer as an ally for exchange to avoid eternal damnation. Or even better - replace him.
You made the argument that Malfurion should be removed, because he is a damaging element to the narrative.
Yet, when it comes to Sylvanas being a damaging element to the narrative, you are exhibiting a completely different type of behaviour. Expressing that a fictional character shouldn’t be blamed.
On Malfurion:
On Sylvanas:
Your comments speak for themselves, as I have called you many times before, I will call you again: biased.
She has new model in SL, so it’s almost guaranteed that there’ll be no cinematics with her (as cinematics are made for a long time and it’s very labor-consuming to draw new CGI model for character that already has one).
Cause she was commanding that assault. And that was right decision as she was both Hordes` best tactitian and fighter. Vol’jin was more political leader, rather than a field commander.
The fact that she has been retconned to the point they’ve surgically removed every remotely positive aspect of her character, as well as having her dial up to eleven everything that could be exploited to turn her into a villain, is what turned her character into a badly written one.
Well written characters do not need to have retcons all over their past, nor contradictory pieces of the story added in order to fit with what you want of them in the future.
Indeed.Some people say she was a great character that got ruined, but I disagree.She had a purpose in WCIII for helping narrative, in WoW, she was mostly in the sidelines, until the story team got obsessed with her in recent years.Character’s written past is also meh, Mary Sue best of the best Ranger in all of Quel’thalas, best soldier across the kingdom, with ofcourse a forbidden non-elf love interest in a xenophoboic elven kingdom.It doesn’t get more generic then that.
She was like a discount Maiev, obsessed with pursuing her villian, Arthas.Was perfect chance to conclude her arc and give her a satisfaying closure in Wotlk.But they kept at her, and so far brought us here.
There is a list regarding several displays in quests and novels. To extensive to elaborate while typing on phone.
I’ll come back to this post later when I’m able to expand on several examples of it.
But yes, from the Horde side of things, there are. Quite a few really.
EDIT:
Ok, let’s expand on positive traits that have been completely trashed for the sake of villainy with Sylvanas character:
Certain degree of care regarding the Forsaken faction (even if in her own way). You had quests:
And inner thoughts in novels:
She would have given me the Val’kyr for all eternity. “None of my people would have ever died again.” She paused. “I would have saved them”.
Not one for speeches, Sylvanas merely nodded back and turned to the group of Forsaken. They stood patiently, as always, and she was proud of them for that. But she could not show favoritism, not here.
She would prefer to dissuade Forsaken—any Forsaken—than destroy them.
Respect for the Horde. Acknowledgement regarding its merits as well as its flaws, and in her own twisted way, certain degree of loyalty.
Again, in quests:
And in novels:
Vol’jin had been someone she respected, although they had clashed on occasion. He lacked the abrasiveness that so often characterized orc leadership. And she had been genuinely sorry he had fallen—and not just because of the responsibility he had placed on her head.
The rest could be boiled to some other “minor” stuff, such as being less blatantly evil even if she remained mischievous.
But all of the above encompasses broadly most of the issues derived from retconning her entire arch in order to fit the current “You are all nothing!” walking parody she’s become now.
I said discount.As bland as she is and obsessed, I atleast have a respect for Maiev for being the most transparent lore character who fulfilled her role.She didn’t take the story as a hostage to build’‘hype’’ for the next expac.Also her HotS quotes are hilarious.
I wasn’t literally saying that Slyvanas the fictional character, somehow manifested herself through the fourth wall and actually took actions in Blizzard HQ.
Lol it’s kinda silly I got to type this out.I meant the story team who got obsessed with the character since the last recent years didn’t do much good for WoW’s story lately, its a saying to imply I am not currently happy with it.
I think the issue why Sylvanas was shown in movies so many times, is really not in her popularity and even not in the lore. The answer is in the model.
How do developers create such movies? First they create a movable model. That model is the hardest thing to create. Then they just copy paste and reuse the model in different poses and scene’s.
So, the reason why Sylvanas is in so many movies, while such heroes like Tyrande, Malfurion, Jaina, and many others are missing, is because Blizzard is a very small indie company, they can’t afford to paint every main hero. They reuse already existing ones as many times as possible.
The same thing happened with Saurfang.
I guess the main problem is that her motivation, as well as some other characters, is rather too unclear to evoke much sympathy. Maybe she has good reasons to do what she does, but when no one knows that, response from the player base won’t be too positive.
Whether or not she is the best is debatable, but Sylvanas is certainly used as a character to more move the plot forward, so we’re likely going to see her many times in the future.
Yes these things bring up some weird qualities of Sylvanas, but you know it better then I do, as fan, that Sylvanas whole overarching story was to stay alive after Arthas, it was to escape that horrible vision to now known Maw. And it was also previously long stated thing that her people “were arrows in the quiver” none the less if she cared for them or not. Arrows that she would use to avoid death and yet in process care for them in her own way. And overall her attempts to get permenant lifesource for them she failed over and over again, her Valkyrs dwindling, she would die sooner or later. Up until Jailer deal comes up and she gets cornered as Warchief, thats why when she is cornered to choose she ditches everyone, because lets be honest Sylvanas cares for herself more then she cares for anyone.
She still keeps her loyalists by herself and we yet do not know what her actual end goal is.
As for respect, yes she maybe had some biases and ideas about certain members of the Horde, hell she even went on extent to reunite with Varessa once, in her own twisted way. Same can be said about some Alliance characters having respect to Horde members. But the question is the loyalty - and Sylvanas never had any loyalty except for her own and thats what made her character interesting in WC3, I do not understand why all of a sudden she is perceived otherwise by the fans.
That whole overarching goal, was brought out of a single piece of narrative that had heaps of additions via quests and novels as complementary material to expand.
I think that trying to define an entire character through a single piece, is quite some flawed way to go about.
The wider picture showed regarding Sylvanas, added certain degree of nuance to said predicament. And yes, it included several redeeming gradients to her motives.
Just as Edge of Night goes down said direction, we have quests and novels that point elsewhere. Why not take the bits where she genuinely cares about the Forsaken future? The ones that have her wanting to fight for their cause, honor their dead, respect the Horde/Vol’jin, and so on?
In all, people should get everything out any character. And that means taking into account both the condemning and the redeeming pieces of lore that tackle it.
Horde characters do not need to follow on the “good guy” template in order to present certain appeal for players.
The charm with them often comes from the fact that Blizzard tries to juggle with obvious “bad guy” traits, and certain degree of redeeming qualities that make spectators sympathise with them.
The issue with Sylvanas in BfA (much like it happened with Garrosh in MoP), is the fact that Blizzard proceeded to retcon and remove all the remotely redeeming values her character had. To the point they laid ex post facto predicaments that destroyed any remotely good action she may had done in the past.
