Sylvanas book (spoilers)

Horrible book.

Was in the middle of A Clash of Kings (for like the 6th time) when i decided to give Sylvanas a go. Terrible book and a terrible story. Lack luster descriptions, not gripping in the least. And just felt super rushed and didnt clarify anything. Just telling us what we already knew.

And when she encountered the jailed i laughed and sighed. Just so dumb.

It’s a decent book. Comparing GRRM and Christie Golden is like comparing apples to oranges.

My biggest gripe is the story should have been told in game.

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the Sylvanas novel is amazing. I just wish she would return to the Horde and get rid of the losers who lead us now. To hell with the council.

I don’t know if you’ve read it since, but imho the book makes it quite clear that she was (and technically still is) really in love with Nathanos. Their relationship is presented as two complementary beings who were made for each other. Nathanos is to Sylvanas her only reliable fixed point. She gave him orders, as his superior, but in the book he always speaks to her honestly, as an equal, and even challenges and mocks her openly. It didn’t give me pet vibes at all. As for Nathanos being ugly, it’s not because he’s human, he’s described as having a lumpy face, as if broken bones had healed poorly. Sylvanas likes him from the very start because he was fun to be around and exchange barbs with, she enjoyed his company to the point she’d rather spend time with him than at court with Lirath. I think his uglyness plays into this: Sylvanas had come to hate the formalities she was entangled with, and with Nathanos she felt like she could be her old playful self. He’s the imperfect person she needs to be her imperfect self. Also, he understood her deeply, like no other could, he was always there for her in exactly the way she needed and she tried to do the same for him.
I always liked them, but was never entirely sold on their relationship. The book really did it for me. I hope Sylvanas finds him and can be reunited with him in some way, especially now that she’s once again completely conscious of her love for him.

Yes, there is. Her conflicts have not been resolved 100%, or rather, we haven’t seen the consequences. She’s “healing”, and imho she’s in a really good place right now (I don’t mean the Maw). She’s renounced any title or ambition for authority, she’s capable of love, compassion and hope, she’s her whole self again and doing therapy with Anduin. This means two things: it’s hard to believe we will see her take the center and spotlight of the story in such an intrusive way again, because her main conflict is resolved. But on the other hand we haven’t really seen a conclusion to her story: she still has to find Nathanos, she still has to reconcile with her sisters, we know she’s healing, but we haven’t seen her fully healed yet.
From now on she can absolutely be part of future stories (and personally I hope she will), but as a “stable” actor among others, and because of her significance to them, instead of being the conflicted center of the story.

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Which is a complete retcon of the relationship they were shown to have in game, in short stories and novels before this one. This is ridiculous :joy:

Another retcon unless the novel elaborates on how things changed at least around the start of BFA. He didn’t understand why she killed all the members of the Desolate Council and all the Forsaken present at the meeting in Arathi with humans (« Before the Storm »), didn’t fully understand her plan in « Elegy/A honorable war » and was shocked by her command of burning Teldrassil and so on. But now he understood her deeply :weary: I don’t solely blame Golden for this but WoW’s narrative team as a whole. Changing the personalities and dynamics of characters they’ve built during over a decade just to prolong WoW’s story at the cheapest cost possible.

Sylvanas and Nathanos is still an interesting couple though, here are my two favorite fan arts of them

It isn’t really: in undeath their relationship evolves into the weird one-sided business we’re accustomed to. It’s implied that Sylvanas can no longer feel what she felt before, but she still wants to keep him close, they still click together in a way. It felt perfectly compatible with everything we’ve been shown previously: there is a difference between their early relationship in life and the one they have in undeath, and I think it’s contextualised well.

Well, when I say he understood her deeply I don’t mean to say he was inside her head, nor does he always agree with her. He is attuned to her, he knows how to console her when she’s having bad moments, he helps her grow past her traumas, in ways even her family couldn’t, and even in undeath he still understands the way she thinks. Nathanos is the one person Sylvanas didn’t need to lie to. This of course doesn’t mean he knew her every thought and approved of everything she did, but he still went along with her decisions out of loyalty, trust and the memory of the love they once shared. I don’t think there’s a contradiction.

Yes, those artworks are beautiful. :heart_eyes:

I personally can’t unsee it, but you’re free to like the book

I have just reached the beginning of part two and during part one, Sylvanas was definitely not portrayed as a good child, at least not better than Vereesa who was the kind, sweet mediator of the family.

Part one still show that Vereesa and Sylvanas are closer to each other than they are with Alleria, the age difference between her and them clearly has something to do with it. Sylvanas and Vereesa stayed rather close, but Sylvanas was the closest to Lirath.

Being kind and being the perfect child are two different things.

Sylvanas blamed Vereesa for the death of Lirath, instead of blaming the orcs who did it. Why even Vereesa was brought into that whole story of lirath’s death in the first place? Is the Blame being shifted from the orcs (horde) to the alliance (Vereesa)? This was not the case before the novel came out, the main cause of Lirath’s death was always described as the orcs/Horde in black and white. One of the many reasons Vereesa and Alleria are both alliance. But this whole thing with Sylvanas wanting to punish whoever trained Lirath further shows Vereesa is not the perfect child.

she was also shown being impatient in training, as people called her acting like the impatience of a human. Thus showing her imperfection.

what is Sylvanas thinking.

That’s kinda my point. Why is Vereesa and Lirath are both shown being closer to sylvanas, where is Alleria in the picture? It’s ironic that now after many years Vereesa and Alleria are the closest, despite Vereesa still remembering the days when she looked up to Sylvanas.

Again, sylvanas being the favorite of each sibling. Sylvanas being the least problematic seems to be the theme of their early elven childhood. Up until the whole Jailer thing.

Alleria has always been portrayed as a loner who would rather do things on her own. We don’t know what their age difference actually is, but she was an adult at the beginning of the book whereas Sylvanas and Vereesa were still kids and Lirath wasn’t even born.

There’s nothing ironic in that, it just shows how the characters and their relationships have evolved

I have yet to see Alleria mention Sylvanas as her favorite sibling. Even Vereesa doesn’t say or show that she likes Sylvanas more than Lirath.

I suggest you read part one again because this is absolutely not true. She causes problems everywhere she goes and leaves her family, Lor’themar and once even Kael’thas himself pick up the pieces of the damages she caused. The only ‘problematic’ Windrunner child in Sylvanas memories is Alleria because of her constant arguing with their mother and loner attitude. Like I said before, Vereesa was the mediator, the one who stepped in to help end fights and Lirath was the treasured child, the only one their mother showed actual kindness to.

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I will give it a read again. Thanks for the insight. I guess I had high hopes for the book as for a long time Alleria was my favorite of the three. But the more I read, the more I realize Vereesa might be my favorite after all along with Lirath. Of course, I don’t like any of the choices she made in Dalaran during the purge, but I’m talking more about her early story.

Overall it is a great book and it finally gives a name to their unnamed father and more of a backstory to the four siblings in general, especially loved Lirath’s story with the whole musician thing.

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I doubt that. She was someone who believed In being secluded, meaning you focus only on the elves and their interests.

Don’t forget that the horde’s hardest attack was on Windrunner village killing her brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and her son Lirath. And that’s not easy to forgive. Even Sylvanas herself wanted to join the alliance at first, but she’s a undead and couldn’t do that.

well, it depends by the personal point of view of Lireesa, if maybe as the former Ranger-General, she had put the fate of her kingdom and people first like you said, maybe she could have indeed become a Blood Elf…even Vereesa in a past book (I think Day of the Dragon) admitted that if she had not been pregnant in Dalaran at the time, after the fall of Quel’thalas she would have joined Prince Kael’thas and the Blood Elves in order to not suffer from her magical addiction (and therefore, by proxy, the Horde later).

Also it’s hard to forgive because the Windrunner sisters hold on onto their grudges for a long time, even among elves…we should remember that it was not just the Blood Elves who forgave the Orcs for the sins of the Second War, in a lesser way it was also the Orcs who forgave the people of the Blood Elves when they let them join the Horde, so it was something kind of mutual, because of the necessity of both races …the High Elves killed a lot of Orcs too (especially the ones of Alleria) even furiously hunting them down when the war was already over, and Prince Kael’thas himself was of the opinion of killing all the Orcs rather than to put them into camps like Terenas…so if it was for Kael, the Orcs would have been exterminated…

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You make a good point. It could go both ways honestly, but we may never know as she died.

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Oh I forgot to mention even if she did survive the second war, she would have to survive the third war too, and let’s assume she was still the Ranger general at the time, she would have been killed and raised as a dark ranger, thus become part of the horde.

Can’t believe that part slipped my mind.

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