How do you imagine Sylvanas would die?

Zarao: “I want Sylvanas’ conclusion to satisfy Alliance players too.”

Also Zarao: “Sylvanas should pay for her long list of war crimes by becoming a redeemed goddess.”

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The middle ground here isn’t the one we find between “she dies a villain” and “she dies a hero”. No.

As things are at the moment, you either have “I want to completely and utterly destroy her character for what she did” and “I want her character to be hailed as an everlasting hero that saved us all and lead us to victory”.

Her dying, and therefore, not having either of these scenarios, is on itself, already a compromise on some people’s part.
The scenario I described, made said death somewhat more palatable, to both players and the character that was sacrificed in the current altar of awful storytelling.

Why is a middle ground better than completely screwing over one side? Simple.

If you want to see it from an entertainment perspective, you are more likely to keep your whole audience hooked, if you don’t screw up completely 50% of it.

Yes, everyone might end up kind of miffed about not having their expectations completely fulfilled, but in the other case you’d be actively downright punishing half of it directly, potentially risking losing half your public in the process.

Entertainment is measured in a scale. Not in binary.

Giving 10s and 0s possibly makes the ones with zero quit.

Giving all 5s is more likely to keep everyone on board.
Yes, even if not completely, this is still a derivative from the prisoners dilemma.

As I said, if we are to assume and acknowledge how realistic the above is, then this entire thread is without purpose.
Because you know what? That view Aeula posted is far from being the only one.

Personally, I’m already feeling like giving waaaay to many “concessions” and sacrificing much of my “satisfaction” with this story as things are at the moment.
But, if I am to debate the thread, my first post is my take on it.

The scenario you described doesn’t have her die at all, it just has her ascend to become a higher being.

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What are you talking about? I described an instance where she is basically Ysera’d.

And there is your misunderstanding. Especially for Alliance players the emotional connection to Sylvanas doesn’t really come from an opinion on her character. If she were a meanie who plotted on Horde side and did evil things they wouldn’t really care. Their connection to Sylvanas comes from the connection Sylvanas has to our characters and the characters we care about. So the focus really isn’t on her at all. It’s on what we do about her. It’s not about what “happens to her” it’s about punishing her for what she has done. If she dies because she had an accident, it wouldn’t work towards Alliance satisfaction at all. And if she dies a hero it actively works against Alliance satisfaction. Her not dying at all would be preferable.

The “middle ground” would have been something between redemption and punishment, not between death and life.

Edit:
Or since, as noted below, I’m actually not sure if there is anyone who actually wants her redeemed, maybe it’s just between full punishment and avoiding punishment.

Based on a failed understanding of the positions, and thus unsurprisingly not in the right direction.

Again, just restating your claim, really, not a new argument.

Fist: No, it doesn’t necessarily. If there are other games that can give you 6 or 7, 5 isn’t enough, and five 10s give you the money of 5 people, while ten 5s might give you none. This isn’t a simple prisoner’s dilemma.

Second: You ignored the second argument, where I said that trying to go for the distribution instead of whatever makes sense for the writing could hurt the quality of the story, making it worse in sum.

Yes, I think it is.

No, you described a scenario where she is redeemed in the eyes of the forsaken and goes on to become a val’kyr, so basically a demi-god.

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Sylvanas has already had too many deaths for me to give a single f*** how they do it this time.

Honestly, she could slip on a banana peel, fall off Windrunner spire, and have her corpse eaten by the murlocs gathered below, and that’d be about as satisfying an ending as that trash, garbage character warrants.

Sylvanas is 100% a flat, cardboard cartoon villain whose sole purpose is to make the Horde turn evil for a bit. If anything, her death should be humiliating so that it infuriates the weirdos who somehow convinced themselves she’s “oh, so complex and deep you guys just don’t get it”.

Because there’s truly no more sublime subtlety than “Nyarharharhar! I want to KILL THE WOOOORLLDD!!”

And what exactly has she done to deserve that? What Forsaken in their right mind would want that?

Forsaken players either want to just get rid of her, or to have the old status quo restored where the Forsaken are unapologetically evil, so how does bullsh-t “redemption” work for them?

It would please Lswindrunner, that’s about it.

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True. I’m not sure who actually wants redemption for her at all…

So I guess I was wrong in saying that a “middle ground” for player satisfaction would be between redemption and punishment, really… but more between punishment and avoiding punishment, I guess?

I think the only way to have a “middle ground” is to have her killed by someone who doesn’t represent either Horde or Alliance.

Alliance players want her killed by the Alliance as punishment for everything she’s done to the Alliance. Horde players… want her killed by the Horde for everything she’s done to the Horde.

If the Alliance kills her, Horde players will feel like “Oh, once again the Alliance comes to solve the Horde’s problems” and on the other hand, if the Horde kills her, Alliance players would feel like “So, what about OUR vengeance?”

Tyrande is probably the best candidate though. Or maybe even a redeemed Delaryn? That would kinda be a good middle-ground.

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I agree. A cartoon anvil should smash her during a dramatic speech.

…ok, that can’t be it, I would certainly be satisfied with that. xD

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Personally, I’d say the best end for her would be to just die unceremoniously in a side quest.

With such a death, everyone would expect, nay, be absolutely sure she’d return.

And then she just… doesn’t.
The corpse remains persistent in the world, to fuel the crazy theories and plans for her grand return. But nothing happens. Patches and expansions go by and loyalists visit ever so often to pay respects to the corpse. Their prayers go unanswered.

The story moves on. At the next faction war expansion, noone knows who Sylvanas is anymore. We make war and peace again, as we always do.

Then, one day, she is found standing in the Archerus, casually talking with a ghoul. Her old fans will cheer, her enemies revolt and a lone guy in a red shirt will visit the next blizzcon to ask:
“Wasn’t Sylvanas dead?”

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Having thought about it, Delaryn Summermoon kinda works.

She’s “Alliance”, sort of. But she’s also Horde. She’s been directly, personally victimized by Sylvanas both as a Night Elf, and as an enslaved Undead used and betrayed.

She could very well be a stand-in for both Horde and Alliance players seeing Sylvanas destroyed. Even Loyalists, who I guarantee Sylvanas will betray before she dies, would be able to connect with Delaryn.

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ShE’s NoT eNsLaVeD, sHe HaS fReE wIlL !

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Godfrey 2.0.

Return of imba headshot. The more hilarious the death, the better. She doesn’t deserve anything epic.

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+1 for Delaryn.
Night Elves and Forsaken are the big losers of bfa’s story, and she is both. She should get the kill.

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Epic showdown with Genn wounded on the ground, Sylvanas mocking him while closing in for the kill… and then…

“FOR GILNEAS!”

// Sylvanas takes a shotgun blast to the back of the head, flips over and dies on the spot //

Lord Godfrey, though still in his Forsaken form, helps Genn up, “My King.”

And then everyone applauds.

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I agree.//

How is that affected by a scenario that has her character redeemed solely from the Forsaken’s point of view?
I really hope that said satisfaction isn’t contingent to someone else’s dissatisfaction.

I wouldn’t say that the scenario i mentioned would in any way harm this one. At this point, it would be but a mercy kill that at least didn’t completely ruin 15 years of race history.

Regarding the rest, lets just agree to disagree.

PS:

Like Vol’jin? Rather not.

Vol’Jin’s death shouldn’t happen, Sylvanas was long overdo. You were arguing with me for saying that she should’ve died at the end of WotLK. Now it wouldn’t be so bad, eh? At least people would associate her for her WC3 career. Now majority hates her guts.

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It’s one thing to make a story where she isn’t punished. It’s another to make a story where it seems she isn’t really worthy of punishment that is asked for, since not only do the “victim”-identified players not get their wish, it’s also devalued.

And that has nothing to do with the players, it’s just about our relation to the character.

I would. And not because she dies - which, by the way, you had called a compromise in her enemies’ favour before.