Interesting theory regarding Sylvanas's fate in Shadowlands

Lore Story
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I don’t take credit for this theory. People in the US-forum came up with it and I mostly summarize all the different ideas which came together there, but I wanted to know what the EU-forum thinks about this.

So, the theory goes back to the interview with Danuser a few days ago, where he made the statement that they never do anything without a purpose. Now, people connected this with the “Uther”-cinematic where his soul got split into two…and I think you now know where this is going.

The situation with Uther’s split soul was done in order to create a precedent (even though it would have not been necessary, as “soul splitting” is not something completely new in the story) for Sylvanas. When this split happened exactly is not entirely clear, but most people argue that it occurred during ‘Edge of Night’ as Blizzard themselves stated it to be the starting point of the relationship between Sylvanas and the Jailer. (The impact on the saronite might have been enough to crush her soul, maybe it was “Jailer-magic”, or the Val’kyr got involved, or “it’s magic!”)

So, we essentially would have followed the ‘evil’ Sylvanas around who was in charge since Cataclysm. And we have the ‘good’ (which is a relative concept in this case) Sylvanas from Warcraft 3 to Wrath of the Lich King.

The idea is that we find the ‘good’ Sylvanas at some point within the Shadowlands. She was just chilling there, after getting her revenge against Arthas, accomplishing what she wanted and being essentially retired. (Or maybe she is trapped somewhere which is more likely but it does not really matter.) Maybe we convince her to come back in order to stop her evil-counterparts plans or something else happens.

At the same time it’s highly likely that the ‘evil’ Sylvanas will be killed at some point. What then happens to the two souls hasn’t been decided yet. Merging them is probably terrible, because while ‘good’-undead-Sylvanas was pretty ruthless…I’d argue even she would be somewhat horrified by the idea that another part of her killed tens of thousands of innocent and raised several of them as undead. (Her quote would still hold true, “What are we if not slaves to this torment?”)

Now…this idea is stupid. It’s stupid as hell…but at the same time it’s also one of the better theories I’ve read so far, because it is able to dodge some of the problems created by the writing. Alliance and other factions would still be able to get their revenge against her, while there would still be a good Sylvanas around in some way or another.

Your opinions?

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wouldnt her " good " side just be reunited with her soul when she entered the shadowlands though?

also i feel like this would just be a massive scapegoat for all the bad stuff shes dont , people would be mad

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So… essentially bringing back Sylvanas, while also totally rewriting her character, because all the worst stuff has been taken out. Heh. Sounds like a great idea, I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. :rofl:

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This.

So we had to wait all this time for that ?

As Wimbert said a couple of months ago, this type of plot could work if WoW wasn’t a story that has been going on for 15 years !

This isn’t a show we have to wait for the next week to see what will happen.
We have to wait for years !

Makes me wanna forget about everything and come back and revisit it in 20 years.
Maybe, just maybe by that time this game has ended and I can finally read the summary. :unamused:

Cheers.

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Well, I can see it as a easy way out for them.

Alliance gets to go monkey mode on her and splat her into oblivion and her fans find their goodie goodie Sylvanas and give her a hug.

:call_me_hand:

I’m tired…

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It will be great with a minor adjustment. The evil part was the one that remained in Shadowlands.

I will also write a serious answer.
I was supposed to answer the OP. I misclikced.

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They write the story so they can pull out whatever they want. If there isn’t any hint or foreshadowing about the split it will be cheap and i will not like it.

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People will be mad regardless, but the problem remains that they have essentially written themselves into a corner right now. Do not kill Sylvanas and you piss of many Alliance as well as several Horde players; kill her and her fans will be angry. Creating two Sylvanas’s on the other hand will help them essentially resolve this problem by giving the players who want revenge someone to kill, while her fans have the WC3-Wrath Sylvanas to follow around.

It’s similar to Battle for Azeroth: Instead of pleasing either side of the conflict, both sides get similarly shafted!

Can we really expect anything else after BfA though?

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Its basically a retcon that aims at rewriting the previous retcons and character twists that they forced upon the character in BfA.

And as a side note, i’m part of the collective that thinks that Sylvanas didn’t turn ‘evil’ until her latest character butchering in BfA.
Up until then, she behaved as i’d expect a Forsaken character to.

So yeah, at this point i rather give her the mercy kill with an end like MU Grom. Hopefully, redeeming herself in the eyes of the Forsaken faction.

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Not really, though. It would just be one fragment, the “better” fragment, of her soul in the proposed scenario, wouldn’t it? Instead of a twisted super psycho version it would be a twisted nicer version. People who liked any former version of Sylvanas still wouldn’t get what they want.

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The Forsaken are free!!!

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Let’s do it, then!

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I personally don’t like all these parallel worlds, splitted souls, different threads of the soul e.t.c.
With all this :poop: its impossible to kill someone. Blizzard just can tell that we have killed different thread of character souls, and just return char into game…

Basically if Sylvanas really is evil, and we going to kill her, we will just going to kill one of her threads, and Blizzard will return another Sylvanas whenever they want…

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I returned to the game before BfA release. At start i thought they will ditch Sylvanas, she is a fraction leader since vanilla era, it was time to freshen up the ranks.
After i realised how popular she is, it was hard to believe that they wrote BfA without planing her way out.
We’ll see

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(insert darth Sidious “Good…” meme)

If she set the alliance free from Anduin I could forgive her. Not that I terribly hated her before, but still.

gl hf

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Uther’s soul split because of the Light’s intervention. The Light wouldn’t intervene for Sylvanas.

Her soul factually did not split. Rewatch Warbringers: Sylvanas.

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This is not ment as an attack, but do you have a source for that, or is this headcanon?

Why do you think the Light wouldn’t intervene for Sylvanas, in her living form she fought for her people and fell fighting one of the most evil things in the world, why wouldn’t the Light intervene in her favour?

Just because we didn’t see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Just my two cents.

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This is not ment as an attack, but do you have a source for that, or is this headcanon?

He literally says in the cinematic “Light, save my soul.”

Why do you think the Light wouldn’t intervene for Sylvanas, in her living form she fought for her people and fell fighting one of the most evil things in the world, why wouldn’t the Light intervene in her favour?

That doesn’t make her special in any way. Shall the Light start saving the souls of literally everyone who died in the defense of their land? Because there’s billions of them.

Uther was one of the first paladins in history and one of the most blessed champions of the Light. Sylvanas was just a normal archer.

Just because we didn’t see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

You… you do realize that there is a visual indicator when the soul splits, yes? We literally saw Uther’s soul SPLIT, we didn’t see Sylvanas’ split, what does that mean to you?

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That could be retrocatively added anyway if the devs would want to.

I don’t think there is, other than the observation that there was the above mentioned phrase, and Light is known for soul interactions (Bridenbrad, Uuna, Argus spirit healers, etc.)

I guess because Sylvanas herself was not really into “light” herself. Maybe there is some requirement on the “receiving end” of the deal to make it work.

gl hf

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And Sylvanas sais that she will save us all, just because he sais it, doesn’t make it a fact.

The visual indicator could be a later thing that was made up for the Uther-video, thinking of the time before bfa i think they changed many of their plans on a relatively short notice.