That’s 2-4 years. I doubt they actually know what will happen then at this point, at least not to the point where they know what characters will feature.
Apart from that, there are novel spoilers going around, and this close to the release it’s not exactly unexpected or unbelievable. And the ending does sound as if it could end Sylvanas’ story conclusively enough, if the devs wanted to leave it at that.
Of relevance to this thread is that a big part of Sylvanas’ motivation to tear the afterlife system down (and to do everything necessary to do it) was that it was unfair in general, sure, but more so that it usually didn’t allow you to be with your loved ones, keeping you apart eternally.
But the novel seems to end on more of a hopeful note, with Sylvanas being more or less optimistic about finding Nathanos in the Maw and essentially being able to spend eternity with him.
You could compare her current situation to post-Cata Thrall, in more ways than one. He was back after his Green Jesus phase by the end of MoP. The kind of unfortunate elephant in the room is that her and Thrall are basically the only Horde characters left, with any real marketable name value so her staying on the sidelines for good is something i’d see as pretty unlikely.
Where it seems to be headed based on the datamining leaves her in a spot,w here she could very well just end up, but if the story is right she could easily enough come back. (Like Thrall in MoP)
This is hardly a satisfying ending. This means that Sylvanas can and will likely come back at some point in the future. Even the dialogue from her sisters hints at this.
She should never return from the Shadowlands. If she comes back, she will not be the Sylvanas those who loved her as the Banshee Queen knew, and those who can’t stand her will have to suffer her presence yet again. Bringing her back would not satisfy anyone except perhaps the tiny minority of players who liked the Ranger General Sylvanas, a character that existed for less than three Warcraft 3 missions.
Tyrande says Sylvanas is to wander until she is the only soul left down there, and her novel sets her up for an eternity there with her boyfriend, when not being able to be with your loved ones was one of her biggest gripes with the Shadowlands.
Sure, in theory the door is open for her to come back. But this is essentially a comic book story. Anyone could come back, if the writers want them to. Killing her wouldn’t have changed that, either. So… this ending is about as definitive as they could have gotten, since it closes all her plot lines. Sylvanas’ story is done. We have a book that describes her life from start to finish. The way of her eventual redemption has been chosen, her kind of happy ending as well.
I see absolutely nothing in this ending that hints at her coming back into the story, if we aren’t going to the Maw again. And I don’t see that happening.
Before Shadowlands I was certain that Blizzard would tell a story where Sylvanas would be vindicated.
The world is a prison. I’m going to set us all free. You’ll see. All I’ve done has been for a greater purpose. I’m not the hero you want, but I’m the hero you need.
That kind of story.
And I thought Blizzard were onto something. They could cut a corner out for Sylvanas where she could be a hero, but a different kind of hero than the goodie-two-shoes like Thrall and Jaina.
Not a story of redemption, but a story of vindication. Clever!
But they didn’t go for that… although in light of recent speculation and leaks, then it does seem as if it was their initial plan before it was changed for whatever reason.
During Shadowlands it became clear that Sylvanas was just going to go down this evil and destructive path, so okay, Blizzard are going for a different story.
And I thought there was only one plausible story they could pursue: The story of the prodigal son.
Sylvanas would at some point recognize all the wrong she had done and would ask for forgiveness. And the other characters – Jaina, Anduin, Tyrande, Thrall, and so on – they would forgive her. And Blizzard would do a bit of moral preaching to the player about what it means to be good.
It’s the afterlife and the concept of God is an all-compassionate and all-loving being who forgives all.
And I thought Blizzard were being bold and going for a very adult theme with a tough moral question of whether players could forgive Sylvanas of her sins like God forgives man of any of his sins.
A story of atonement and absolution, love and forgiveness. A biblical story.
But they didn’t go for that either.
What they did go for is just… Disappointing as a word doesn’t really cover it.
It’s one of those cases where I feel very confident in saying that anyone here could have written a better story than what Blizzard ultimately wrote.
The story does nothing for me. It does less than nothing.
With Warlords of Draenor I could somewhat easily brush the terrible story aside, because it was all this alternative universe stuff, so it didn’t really matter that Grom Hellscream was yelling that Draenor was free. Whatever, we’re moving on!
But Shadowlands is not Warlords of Draenor, and it’s not so easy to just brush this aside. It will linger.
Wow, this book about Sylvana is really something, it basically proves Jailer to be right about flawed unjust universe. Like all introductory quests for covenants, Kyrian ones especially, proves that. Some souls pass kyrian trial, but some locked away in it for eons, suffer endlessly in torments, just to force themselves to forget about their families and relatives. And all because some dicks decided for them to where their souls will go. Why are we defending this order of things again? What great purpose we server? I mean we did changed SW already a bit (new arbiter with different values, kyrian allowed to keep their memories), but so what? Why blizzard focus on side staff like Sylvana/Aleria FEEELINGS instead of actualyl important staff ;/
Sylvanas was indeed right about the cruelty of the afterlife as family members will likely never meet again after they die, another example of this fact is Lady Liadrin will never meet her (adoptive, IIRC) father Vandellor who was a High Elf Priest who taught her everything about the Light because after he died to the Scourge he became a Kyrian and had his memory removed so he doesn’t remember her… that’s very sad…
…but the execution of the plan of Sylvanas in order to change things was flawed, she should have found another way rather than joining the Jailer overall…and eventually she ended in the place she wanted to avoid anyway ( the Maw)…but at least she avoided the physical torments there now without the Jailer I guess…
That’s not how it works, though. We can argue about how good of a concept the “giving up on your identity”-thing is, but no one is forcing it from you in Bastion. Everyone who got rid of their memories there had to work to achieve that. Because the people who are supposed to go to Bastion are supposed to be selfless to the point of giving up a lot their identity for service. Might sound like a mental illness, but that’s what they’re going with.
So… is it better or worse that he WANTED to forget her, when he did?
But really, there was no way to design an afterlife that didn’t look like someone’s hell anyways. So which system exactly wouldn’t feel broken?
and I talked about the Kyrians but it’s more about a general problem of the Shadowlands, I guess. A person who will be sent to Revendreth will likely never meet one of his/her family members who ended in Ardenweald. And this is made much, much worse by the fact that the Shadowlands are actually made by an indefinite numbers of realms …that’s the “Lava Eel” conundrum of Sylvanas in the book I guess.
But this is also a big problem in the afterlife of Christianity, Islam, or other monotheistic religions, object of discussions creating doubts in quite a lot of faithful people around the world…
for example, if Heaven is really divided into (7, I believe) heavenly “circles”, how are we suppose to believe after our death there’s a realistic chance we will meet again our family or friends again? I might end in a virtous circle that is different from the rest of my family…and there’s exactly the same problem exists for the circles of Hell as well… so Sylvanas was right about the afterlives being “prisons”, even if she of course didn’t have the right solution about freeing us…
Well, not during an artificial Anima drought, but there were multiple references that pointed to people usually being able to visit other realms. So… I’m not sure how true that is. We know that there are no barriers from travel other than the Anima necessary. And afterlives aren’t even necessarily final. The devs have said that you could move on to a better afterlife after your redemption (if you didn’t choose to become Venthyr instead), and they alluded to Drakka’s “tour of duty” having a possible end point after which she might have time for Durotan.
We haven’t seen the Shadowlands in their “usual” state. We came there during very extraordinary circumstances. And well… the Jailer and his minions depicting it one way isn’t exactly hard evidence.
Did the novel give us any idea of what she thought what she was doing? Yeah, I get the “burning down the system”, but neither the Jailer nor her have stated any positive plan that they wanted to replace it with, did they? Not even an utopical one?
For me it doesn’t matter. Bigger question for me is “What is a purpose of mortals and Shadowlands, so it all worth all this eternity of torments for mortal souls being caught in endless circle”. Lore-wise. And unless there is some good reason for all of this, - any system would be better that the one SW got. Also why Azeroth is at the hearth of the Shadowlands and how control over it can remade Universe? Does it has even been explained?
The moral of the expansion is that the Shadowlands weren’t unjust at all and that Sylvanas, despite being downgraded to a remorseful C-Tier villain, is getting a worse ending than Sargeras after Legion, framed by fans as “letting her go off the hook”. Peak storytelling.
The Shadowlands is a damned mess, but if there was to be a single moral to point out then it would be that nobody is beyond redemption and that good intentions pave the path to hell.
The issues Sylvanas&co had with the system, which Jailer exploited were legit and their actions directly served to enable them to be addressed, which vindicates basically everything that happened up to the breaching of Zereth Mortis, at the end of CoD. With the judgement basically leaving Sylvanas alone to work on freeing everything from the maw, which was part of her plan to begin with, in a roundabout way…
They actually went exactly on that line, she did save us all from an eternity of being separated from our loved ones in the Afterlife, as the Arbitrer was a broken automa, had no compassion, while its other half was a meglomaniac bent on forcing all the universe into his domination.
While she will now serve her penance and will be rescuing all those damned by the Jailer, offering them a new eternal future in the Shadowlands, this time judged properly.
A story of atonement and absolution, love and forgiveness. A biblical story.
I wish they can go back to good storytelling and not this stuff a crazy fan fiction hero writes on some wordpress.
I just want a believable world, without robots and humans killing titans, old gods etc. After the latest expansions everything feels weak and useless. How can I ever get back to Feralas or Arathi and taking the dangers lurking there seriously?
We are so high above all other living beings right now that I expect them to build me a city, with a great temple and serve me all day.
And still in the next expansion someone (me) has to scrap mud from a farmers boots because he won’t help me otherwise.
till your afterlife comes, at which point …whether you like it or not its the Shadowlands