I recommend watching youtube videos by Pyromancer about sylvanas 
he is really great! He also have alot of other videos about lore/charactersâŚ
I miss when both sides could murder each other like civilised grown ups.
Sylvie is gonna die, but going to die a hero. Menethil is gonna return to lordaeron as a ruller, but Sylvie will remain a hero of the forsaken and will still be an icon for them.
Sheâs still evil though. The âitâs normal during wartimeâ ainât changing the fact sheâs evil. She was always evil leaning, even in life, with her disregard for the lives of her soldiers. She was cold and calculating, her undeath just made these parts of her more prominent, making her an evil character.
Her motivations is to never die, her people are tools for achieving that goal, or, were before legion and bfa.
Sooo, cold, selfish, calculating, has no regard for life or safety of anyone including her own people. Yup, sounds lot like an evil character.
But sheâs gonna get a âredemptionâ story before she dies.
Why?
Because bliz likes 'em, even if they make little sense.
Because âvictory for sylvanasâ means theyâd have to either record new voice lines for the forsaken, or have it as is and stick out like a sore thumb, or in case of âredemptionâ just shift meaning a bit and still fit.
And because of her fanbase.
Thats because the very people who accuse Sylvannas that she not politically correct live in a peaceful world and dont realize that War is ugly, costly and full of Death.
Also, her act of killing Forsaken in Arathi was judged ONLY by the Alliance. Th entire Horde was like âso she killed of a few traitors mehâ
So mate the true reason she is considered evil on forums, is because she is mopping the floor , predicting Alliance at every turn. Just wait for the final humiliation of the Boy King. It will be glorious
Yeah, she is very effective and tbh, I think the Horde needs a strong leader who gets sh*t done, so that they can unite and become strong again.
And since I KNOW someone is gonna say it, no, that does not make her Garrosh 2.0, he tore the horde apart by turning on everyone not on his side. Sylvanas decisions may be questioned by some, but she has not attacked her own allies.
Didnât she even look the other way when they free Baine?
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But she has.
âIâve heard these discussions on the internet about âsheâs going off the railsâ, but is she? Iâve been writing Sylvanas personally since 2006, and this is pretty much - the Wrathgate and the Blight and the Forsaken - in character. Those were all under Sylvanasâ orders. What weâre seeing now is an escalation of the plans Sylvanas has, clearly, and weâre in the middle of that.â
Said by Alex Afrabiasi in this interview about Sylvanas:
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Itâs a pretty far stretch to say that committing genocide and plotting world domination by killing everyone and raising them as undead is not evil. And you argue that she is in the right because she is in the middle of war, and that it does not matter how she fights, as long as the conflict is brought to a quick end? Nice one. Who started the war? Maybe itâs just me, but from what I remember, the Horde army marched to Darkshore on Sylvanas orders.
Next youâll argue that others have done similarly horrible things, which for some reason absolves Sylvanas of her sins. But to me, that just sounds like bad logic. If you have two evil people, comparing their atrocities does not suddenly make them good.
And Iâll just say this: I think evil is a subjective term. However, if the majority of people deem someone as evil, they usually are. If you donât think Sylvanas is evil, thatâs fine, but I would question your morals at that point. What would need to happen for you to deem her as evil? If thereâs nothing that would do it for you, then I believe youâre being disingenuous.
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I want to know more about this book and the circumstance in which Sylvanas said that she wanted to take over the world. Maybe she said it in anger or have since changed her mind? Where in the timeline was that uttered? Donât just say it out of context as some sort of blanket argument.
Your post was long so instead of quoting it all Iâll just add some comments in no particular order. But yes, Sylvanas is crazy levels of evil - not an evil genius but a completely irrational maniac.
On war:
- âSuch things happen in warâ is not an excuse. We have the critical thinking skills to look at war and see that the terrible things being done are terrible. Genocide during war, chemical weapons during war, civilian attacks during war, arenât any less evil just because it was war. The concept of war crimes exists for a reason.
- Thereâs especially no defending her actions when it is a war that she started. Someone canât just start an unprovoked war by committing genocide against a World Tree and a species and shrug âit was warâ. It was a war that was entirely unnecessary, it was a war of her own doing, it was an unprovoked attack on a civilian target.
On Jaina:
- Your comparison with Jaina doesnât work. First of all, Jaina was provoked, her entire city was annihilated. She was going to retaliate, and prevent the Hordeâs aggression from taking even more lives. Sylvanasâs actions on the other hand were neither provoked nor did they have a pre-emptive goal (e.g. the Night Elves unchecked wouldnât have attacked a single soul, vs. the Orcs and Garrosh unchecked who continued attacking many after Theramore).
- Jaina also isnât âleading the Kirin Tor against the Hordeâ. She was the leader of the Kirin Tor for years and hasnât launched a single offensive against the Horde. If you mean the Sunreaver purge, that was simply her reasserting control over Dalaran after the Sunreaver portal mages helped the Horde assault Darnassus from Dalaran. So again her actions were in retaliation to the Hordeâs crime, and to prevent Dalaran from being misused for Horde attacks again.
On why Sylvanasâs actions make no sense even from a war standpoint:
- Her rationate for starting a War against the Alliance was (allegedly) to prevent a war in the future. This makes no sense. It was Sylvanas who started to make a weapon out of Azerite, not the Alliance. Anduin was concerned about Azerite being misused. Magni warned everybody that it was the blood of the planet. Malfurion and Tyrande have never led an attack against Horde lands, Horde races, in fact they get long quite well with Tauren, their neighbours in Kalimdor. There was no reason to âstart a war to prevent other warsâ, because without Sylvanas there wouldnât have been a war at all.
- The best way to prevent future wars is with diplomacy⌠not by starting a war. With Anduin being King, this would have been the perfect time to prevent all wars. But instead, Sylvanas commands Baine to stop communicating with Anduin. Obviously sheâs not interested in whatâs best for the Horde, she just wanted a war and started one for no reason.
- She launches an attack on Darnassus⌠forgetting that two of her own cities are in the Eastern Kingdoms. Silvermoon and the Undercity are incredibly vulnerable to Alliance counterattack⌠which will of course happen if you provoke them by starting a war, duh. She also forgot about the Exodar⌠if this war was about strategic targets, then perhaps she should have targeted the laser-nuking space-traveling technology of the Exodar which recently crafted the Vindicaar and would be a far more important military target than⌠a stationary tree. Sheâs not only evil, but she canât read a map, and canât think of her own cities, lol.
- Her initial plan was to occupy Darnassus and blackmail the Alliance with the hostages. If the Alliance had to worry about the civilians who were stuck surrounded by the Horde, they would have been far more cautious. But instead, she killed them all, and lost any advantage the Horde would have had.
- Her reasoning for burning down the Tree are incedibly idiotic too. To destroy the Night Elveâs hope? Really? Someone should open a history book, because the Nelfsâ home was destroyed by the Sundering, and they were fine. Then Vordassil got corrupted by Yogg Saron and had to be cut down, and they were fine. Then the Legion attacked Mount Hyjal, but they were fine. Recently Shaladrassil was corrupted by the Nightmare and⌠the nelfs were still fine. Obviously losing a tree isnât going to make Nelfs lose hope it will just galvanize them and rally the Alliance against the Horde. Which did happen. And all the Nelf archers assaulting the Undercity sure as hell didnât look like they had lost hope. Sylvanas started a war and gained nothing, and lost her own city. Hardly brilliant.
Various other acts of villainy and stupidity:
- Sheâs been looking for a way to stay alive ever since she got resurrected by the Valkyr after WotLK. You know whatâs a good way to stay alive? Donât start a war. But instead, she threw the lives of her people away, provoked an Alliance attack, blighted her own soldiers, killed her own civilians. These actions are evil as well as idiotic.
- She states in Before the Storm that she wants to invade Stormwind while the Alliance is recovering from the Legionâs defeat, and she wants to raise them as Forsaken. Pretty evil considering the humans werenât a threat to the Horde ever since Varian struck that agreement with Voljin. Also, apparently she can resurrect Night elves⌠but instead of getting Nelf corpses to resurrect, she burns them all to useless cinders, simply because she wanted to destroy their hope. Lol. Once more, evil and idiotic.
- She is a menace to her own people. If you think Sylvanas is some strong leader that gets results for the Horde, boy do I have news for you. The Horde had a peace agreement with the Alliance ever since the end of MoP. The Horde wasnât threatened by the Alliance. Most Horde and Alliance leaders actually get on very well. Instead of decades of peace, Sylvanas threw the lives of the Horde way on a failed attempt to occupy Darnassus, failed to capure the tree which resulted in an Alliance counterattack in the Eastern Kingdoms, she made the Horde lose one of its Capitals, with countless of people dying in its defense, many more Horde soldiers died in the following War Campaign and Warfronts, all for a war that she started. Sylvanas serves Death nothing else. She even says so in the Three Sisters comic. âIn time, all will serve Death⌠all will serve me.â Sounds evil yet? Tyrannical, genocidal, on the level of Yogg Saron and the Lich King, pretty much. Except far more idiotic with far less victories lol.
- Before, she used to do terrible things in the interest of her people. Now, she makes stupid decisions that do the opposite of what theyâre supposed to achieve, and it doesnât benefit anybody. In Before the Storm, she agreed to let her Forsaken talk to Humans - and when she called them back with a horn, and they started to come back, she killed them anyway. Who kills her own people, who do what she tells them to? Evil people, thatâs who.
Itâs obvious Sylvanas has some plan with Death or with the Void (Helya, Xalathath, whatever), because her actions donât make any rational sense. And sheâs obviously more interested in causing Death - amongst the Alliance and the Horde, than to represent the interests of the Horde at all.
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It wasnât traitors she murdered. A bunch of Forsaken went to meet their living families, and she allowed it. She told them itâs all good, just come back when I signal that the meeting is over. When she blew the horn, many Forsaken - most in fact - started to go back to her as she commanded. A few tried to leave with their families instead, you may think thatâs a âtraitorâ thing to do (weâll disagree), and she killed those. But she also killed them all. Even the ones that came back to her. So if you want to defend her at least get the facts straight.
This quote is sad because it shows that Blizzard have no understanding of the characters they are writing. BfA Sylvanas isnât an escalation of WotLK Sylvanas. Itâs a complete change and screw-up.
The Wrathgate was an assault on the Lich King - at the cost of the Alliance and Horde fighters there too, yes, but ultimately Sylvanasâs goal and the goal of all Forsaken was to take revenge on the Scourge. Arthas personally shows up at the gate? Weâll blight him, even if all the living soliders die too. That is the ruthless pragmatism that makes sense.
However, after Arthas died, did Sylvanas start to murder the living as part of her secret plan? No. Because that has never been her plan. She just wanted revenge on the Scourge, and when that was done, she killed herself. She had no other plans, nothing to live for, no elaborate scheme. She just committed suicide and wanted to be at peace. Does that sound like BfA Sylvanas at all? Obviously not. So it would be nice if the devs could stop pretending that Sylvanas was always like this; she wasnât.
That quote is from person who has, like he says in that quote, âbeen writing Sylvanas personally since 2006â so i take what he says over what you think about the character. Not because i wouldnât care what you say but because Sylvanas (being product of imagination and not real person whose memorials are written) is exactly what they write her to be. We can view and judge those events from our own point of views and speculate with them and share our opinions, but on the end writer knows the truth.
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Of course sheâs evil. Itâs extremely rare you can get away with using literal necromancy and not be.
Even if sylvanas is working with helya to funnel souls into the afterlife for an army to fight big bads, that doesnât make her slaughtering people any less morally dubious. Its very rare youâll find someone who is evil who doesnât protest they were âdoing it for the right reasonsâ. Sparking a war to purposefully cause death to have people conscripted into some ghostly army? Thatâs not morally noble at all. Now if she were actually sharing her plans and taking people willingly, thatâd be totally different.
If this is true, it simply changes her from moustache twirling villainy into nobody understands me so I must decide for them villainy. I mean Thanos is a bad guy isnât he? Technically heâs âdoing the right thingâ but the whole part about making people pawns in this grand plan because he and he alone has decided it is necessary makes it a sinister thing to do. But as said, he would not call himself evil, very few villains do. Except the Skeletor kind.
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No, that is gaslighting. Trying to convince people that a past event happened differently from how it did. Characters are a product of writing. If the writing suggests one thing (Sylvanas wanting peace, and commiting suicice), you canât insist that Sylvanas has always been the way she is in BfA. There is direct evidence to contradict it.
Show, donât tell. And what they showed in WotLK (even in Cata) is drastically different from BfA, and what that interview is pretending. Has there ever been any evidence, a single shred of Sylvanas writing that would suggest she had some âplansâ that are now being escalated? No. She killed herself. I donât care who wrote her back then, they didnât write the same character as she is now and pretending otherwise is gaslighting.
Sylvanas, in Edge of Night, after WotLK, preparing to die in peace: âShe backed away from the throne and slowly turned to survey the cold gray world all around her. Her thoughts returned to that place of bliss, her half-remembered glimpse of what lay beyond. Home. It was time.â Sylvanas in BfA: âHope is a disease, death to all- what are you talking about of course I was always like thisâ 
Sylvanas, letting Darius Crowley and his daughter Lorna go: âI now present you with a choice - a choice I was never givenâ. Sylvanas in BfA: âKILL THEM ALL! HOPE MUST DIE! And especially raise that one elf that defied me.â
Sylvanas, from Vanilla all the way to BfA: âWhat are we if not slaves to this torment? What joy is there in this curse?â Sylvanas in BfA: âAll will serve Death!!! All will serve me!!!â
So no, just because a writer says that she was always this way, doesnât make it true. And pretending that Wotlk Sylvanas and BfA Sylvanas had the same plan, the same motivations, the same characterisation is simply gaslighting.
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But the thing is, there is no consensus amongst players that it suggested what you talk about here. Judging just by this thread most seem to be on same line with what the writer says. Even many those who support Sylvanas think she is evil and that is sometimes even the reason why they support her. I wouldnât quite call it gaslighting when most players understood the character same or similar way that writer wrote her and then some others bit differently. I would call it âexplainingâ instead.
She hasnât been a main star on all expansions but there has been always on the background her worry about forsaken not being able to reproduce (so dying race) and finding ways to make more new forsaken. It has come up in many of the expansions we been going trough (where other things have been in main focus).
And for the last but very important. When i talk about Sylvanas being evil, i am not saying she is not interesting, that she cannot be liked, that she should be removed or anything other than, as a character she is evil one doing evil deeds on her evil plans. Remember that even the most evil acts always have motive, purpose and benefit someone/some group. What makes them different from non evil acts is the ways how to get to the goal.
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So that means that Anduin is also evil.
He did take part in Caliaâs ritual after all.
Unless ânecromancy from the lightâ qualifies as good necromancy somehow.
No it hasnât. Sylvanas, before Cataclysm has never ever cared about the Forsaken. She used them as her personal army to take revenge against Arthas, but staying alive, and keeping the Forsaken alive wasnât her focus at all. She died. And didnât care about anybody, any plan, anything else.
I wasnât making the case that Sylvanas isnât evil, or hasnât been evil.
I was making the case that Sylvanasâs current actions are absolutely not a continuation and an escalation of her WotLK character. Thatâs why I replied to that quote of yours, in which Afrasiabi said:
And thatâs wrong. Sylvanasâs motivation at the Wrath Gate: it wasnât to kill hope and life and so that all would serve her. She wanted to take revenge on Arthas and the Scourge. She wasnât planning on prolonging the life of Forsaken. They were just âarrows in her quiverâ. And once she was done with that goal, she wanted to die in peace. I literally provided all evidence for this. This isnât a matter of how people interpret things, it isnât a matter of fact. Itâs a clear matter of Wotlk Sylvanas =/= BfA Sylvanas.
I never claimed that Sylvanas wasnât âevilâ before, clearly she used people for her own ends, and she was ruthless, and she didnât care about a loss of life. But her ruthlessness in pursuing revenge against Arthas and wanting to die afterwards have nothing to do with her post-WotLK character wanting to prolong her own life and wanting to keep the Forsaken alive - as a bulwark against the infinite btw - and with ending all hope and killing everything so they all serve Death. Thatâs not a matter of interpretation.
You ok bub? Thats a nasty cough you have there. Here, have a throat lozenge, compliments of the royal apothecary society.
You were replying to thread discussing if Sylvanas is evil and my reply with the quote was to guy who said Sylvanas hasnât attacked her own allies (which she did in wrathgate). You know to the one who thinks she is not evil. So i was just pointing out that quote to show it has been confirmed that she was behind wrathgate and she has been harming her own allies. So i was not talking about the subject you were making your case, sorry for confusion. No wonder you didnât make sense to me.
That being said, i am happy to talk about those plans of her as well, just from how i see it. I see that quote the way, that the plans Alex is talking about are not something she has been planning ever since character was made. First part of the quote explains about Sylvanas always being evil and second plan about her plans escalating (but not saying these plans have been there since her beginning). It is possible that events in end of the Wotlk opened her eyes into something that gave her new purpose to live for. It is very common way that characters develope, trough big events that change them and build characters further.
I noted extremely rare. As in note all situations will, only most.
Also âliteral necromancyâ - some may disagree here but I donât consider using holy magic to bring back the dead necromancy. I would consider what happened to Calia as kind of perverted halfway house between necromancy and resurrection.
I havenât read enough of BtS to know details. I mean was she âup for it?â or brought back unwillingly? If she was up for it thereâs a massive difference already.
Iâll add I donât consider sylvanas ressing forsaken who âconsentedâ evil. But what we have is evidence that in later patches sheâs skipping on the free will thing, which is what Iâm referring to as her evil necromancy use. Again, when I refer to âliteral necromancyâ in the classical sense Iâm referring to where the person is raised against their wishes as thatâs traditionally how it works.
So Anduin, Iâd say nah. Now umbric and his void raised dinosaurs? Yeah Iâd consider that morally dodgy territory for sure. Even if they are only dinosaurs.
What I will say is that greater levels of mass murder that included many innocents have happened irl. Why doesnât everyone hate America because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Why didnât their own people tear them apart over it?
Maybe because the enemy was capable of evil things as well, and the cost was too high to take the moral road. Sounding familiar yet?
Yes. War is evil. Make your own minds up on if the people who do the awful things in it are also truly evil.