I double checked and I see the book is releasing in November, which is way after the raid, so it’s probably safe to say that she will survive the encounter.
The book seems to present events that happen much later in the game. If she goes down it will happen later in the expansion.
Victory for Sylvanas 
I don’t know. They reference her attempt to ensure Anduin’s fealty, which has already happened ingame by 9.1, and flashbacks of her life and unlife. I don’t see why that couldn’t be released after her death.
Yes, the book aims to give us a deep insight to her life but that seems to be presented as a build up to our present timeline.
I don’t think the book is intended post mortem. It talks about a choice. If she’s dead, there’s no choice to be made.
Following the Blizzard fashion of writing books, this seems more like a preparation for the final events of the expansion and Sylvanas’ fate.
Unrelated to the topic, but this was when Warcraft lost me after over two decades of following the franchise. Not the stupidity that was the Cata-Mists storyline, not the time travelling alternate dimension a la creme nonsense, not the fodderization of the Legion after being the primary antagonists for ever, not the overall plot-imbued stupidity of characters or the stupidity of the main expansion storylines in general, not a lot of things anyway, but their insistence to go full cosmic and start explaining stuff there was absolutely no reason explaining, casually destroying every religion, every magic-related topic and large parts of the “background” lore of the setting and its world building that was the reason most fell in love with it.
The setting worked far better when the ceiling of our knowledge as players was Ulduar and its vastly incomplete, thus mysterious and wondrous perspective into the cosmic.
And now, they commited the cardinal sin of explaining the afterlife, dealing the setting its final blow. Elune is left as the last mystery standing and, unfortunately, her days seem numbered.
“Asgard is not a place, it is it’s people”(c).
Forsaken lost Lordaeron, but managed to save all its people. Lordaeron also is just covered by plague, and as Jaina have showed, plague can be removed. So, for Forsaken is just a question of time when they will clean the plague and return to home. As for now, ruins of Lordaeron is a reminder of a place where Forsaken managed to trick the Alliance, a reminder of a place where Forsaken have won.
While for Night Elves, their entire race is almost wiped out. Their home Teldrassil is gone 4ever. So, for Night Elves time will not going to heal. That small amount of dark eyed elves that are left, will have to leave in neutral territory, with trolls and taurens. And the ash of Teldrassil will stay there 4ever, as a reminder of their biggest humiliation, of their biggest defeat.
A choice that seems to be in the past, by the time we get the book. So I don’t really understand why her death would be relevant. We can read the details of her past choice, even if she can’t make choices anymore.
I don’t see that pattern in their books at all. Shadows Rising and Before the Storm were mostly self-contained stories that didn’t set up the following events, at most they gave some context. If you didn’t read them you didn’t miss anything necessary to understand the main plot, not even character development. As far as I understand it Illidan’s book was a prequel, explaining why we should by the retcon that he was a kinda good guy all along. Warcrimes didn’t tease the big story events, it was the big story event. Vol’jin’s novel led pretty much nowhere. Jaina’s novel gave us character development that pretty much had to be repeated again in the game, making the game- and book-versions of her strangely incongruent. And so on.
I’m not saying that they can’t tease what will happen after in their books, but I am saying that is not the way they have always been used. They have changed their ideas about what should be in the novels over time, and likely will again.
And coming at it from the other direction: If Sylvanas were ever to die, I would expect them to make a novel around the events, because she is one of their most iconic characters, and they can’t go into the depths they would need in the game, or even a pretty cinematic. But since they wouldn’t want to spoil the event, the novel would necessarily have to come out after the fact. So yeah, the novel’s date would make sense to me, if it was a post mortem.
‘Boohoo muh tree’
Cry more please.
Oh look, yet another novel about Sylvanas. Hard pass.
Lmao, how many novels does one character need? Are you going to advocate for other characters to get similar novels as well? Heavens know that there are other characters that deserve fleshing-out far more than Sylvanas does.
But the way you paint both races is quite a bit disingenuous don’t you think? You’re highlighting the positives of one side - the opposition - to incredibly hype up the dramatism of your tragedy. That is not a true comparison, that is just opinions all over again with even more throwing of theories and bias.
This is what makes it really hard to discuss because all this dramatism seems to feed is not true discussion or argumentation, but just another weep for the sake of weeping…
True honesty? Both races got ruined over. Why? Because of different reasons. And honestly, I feel for both of them on a narrative scale, which makes this weird contest of ‘who lost more’ , ‘who won more’ in the first place. In brutal honesty, these events being waved as if they were something to be tallied feels… depraved, really.
What is wrong with simply playing them out? If it is really bothering that x race has been through this tragic narrative and is destroying your ability to play or enjoy said race, then maybe it’s time to move on if you can’t make something positive out of the experience.
And no, being on some kind of high horse to verbally attack the other faction does not count.
For as long as they require it like Sylvanas mess of an arch does, yes.
This is the second novel that would arguably focus on Sylvanas.
Want to know how many focus on Thrall, Anduin, Jaina, Tyrande, Malfurion, and the rest of the main protagonist cast?
Anyway
At this point i’d take them simply having certain degree of consistency, and not have us throwing fire-grenades over some enemy troll tribe for funsies, and then take us into the tenth emotional guilt trip over that one time Theramore was bombed.
I mean, Garrosh was trialled and found guilty of carrying out war crimes such as using certain magics (Void and forbidden shamanism), just to then have both deployed as natural means of war in the attack against Zuldazar.
As i said, the framing of any action seems the lone factor that determines how players are to feel regarding any character.
Take in consideration their actions alone, and you’ll have to deal with spades of incongruity.
That’s why i find the whole “She was always a game villain”, as a predicament lacking on actual founding.
She was “made” a game villain only whenever the Writers willed her into being one and started signalling that she was to be questioned as such.
Her actions alone remain par on the rest of the story cast that delves on a more morally questionable line of work.
The line between villain and hero in the setting is drawn depending on whether they put the benny hill tune while you chase down and kill murloc tadpoles, or if you put a sad chorus over a quest about rounding up cowering night elf kids.
OMG, OMG, what great secrets will Christie Golden reveal this time? Was there a love triangle between Arthas, Nathanos and Sylvanas while Arthas visited Quel’Thalas, as mentioned in Warcraft 3? What did Arthas do with the vial of Sylvanas’ blood? Did he create Sylvanas clones? Will there be a detailed chapter about Sylvanas’ surprisingly deep feelings for her mount, the Hawkstrider “Bulletproof”, which she raised since he was a little chicken? My hands are shivering, I preorder right now!
A lot of them require it.
Yes. That is what sets the line here. And no should or could will change that. Sylvanas is a villain because they presented her actions as villainy, and she has been one for a long, long time, because they are retconning her past to make that clear. There is no consistency between different chapters of the plot, and you can’t really introduce it after the fact. So the discussion is useless.
They started presenting her actions as villainy, and i mean the sort of villainy that not even the Horde can frame as necessary, in BfA. That’s not a long time ago.
Retconning her past in order to fit her BfA impersonation, was but a layer they decided to lay on top of the characterisation of her past actions.
It can as easily change back again, or be moderated to acceptable levels, with another hand of fresh paint that portrays it differently (if the novel wishes to expand further into the hows of it).
That’s the thing with leaning exclusively on perceptions or emotional weight in order to label anything: these can be molded back in an instant as soon as writers decide such.
Sure, but that wouldn’t restore continuity, it would only change the lore again. And if you wanted to make it halfway coherent, you would have to retcon the current stuff to fit the newly restored old version of events. Continuity in this plot is dead. You can’t bring it back, no matter how much you look at the past.
And if we aren’t talking about continuity, we aren’t talking about something we share, we’re just talking about the paintjob we personally prefer on the story.
Continuity isn’t exactly toping the list of things to fix. That ship sailed long ago.
What this “renewed” take would probably accomplish, is to (1) offer a more palatable future for the themes that were so thoroughly harmed by the previous coating, and (2) salvage something resembling a proper farewell to the character.
This isn’t about selling some used car by covering its scratches with paint and promoting it as fresh new.
This is putting some make-up on a corpse before showing it to the family, to help them move on without being scarred for life.
Having Sylvanas go down the way she was painted in BfA, has repercussions beyond those of the character itself.
Continuity? Who the F cares about that anymore, when not even the games writers do.
I can just pretend BfA and SL were but a lucid dream i can forget about.
What matters now is the aftermath.
If you want them to move on, you might want to bury the corpse at one point. And for me personally the corpse isn’t just Sylvanas, it’s the entire main plot. Putting make-up on Sylvanas’ corpse, while clowns are still doing a slapstick routine around her, isn’t exactly making anything more dignified.
Then why the heck ould you ever argue facts, like you do in almost every thread? I totally agree, continuity isn’t an issue. That’s why I almost exclusively argue about the narrative, and my personal preferences by now. If Sylvanas was alwas bad is totally irrelevant, if continuity doesn’t matter. Your point it that you didn’t feel like she was comperatively bad before, and you want what you felt acknowledged. Nothing more than that. That’s not a bad thing, but that makes arguing about what you feel, while cloaking it in a factual disagreement, kinda useless.
I hope the writers do not try to jump the shark with Sylvannas and claim she was mind controlled or has been “missing” since Legion and the Sylvannas we see now is not the real Sylvannas.
There are some clues to this after all why has she not noticed that the Jailer is the one actually responsible for her being a banshee?? After all it is the Jailer who made the runecarver create the helm of domination and frosmourne which gripped Arthas in its power.
I always thought the writers were trying to worm their way out of things as we have Anduin aka little Lich King 2.0 in 9.1 and it has been carefully written that Anduin is being mind controlled.
Because I often meet with people that try to explain this whole angle, factually.
As in “Yeah, it’s obvious that she was to become a villain because of that time she did X”…and they do such while ignoring that other dude did the same while being shown in an entirely different light.
Oh, the corpse is being buried alright. Sylvanas is done as a character.
The only thing left to decide is whether have her thrown in a mass grave alongside most of the fantasy themes of her race, or in a way that spares them from being buried alive and enables them to continue developing as part of the narrative.
Regarding how much of the main plot is to go down with her, it’s up to personal opinions.
As I said, if they handle it right, I can pretend Azeroth took a 4 year hiatus that included several characters dying peacefully in their sleep.