Never in a cinematic! 
Well… I`m not that sure. Maybe Nzoth wanted us some good And I just burnt em with anime light )
Thats on her though.
The guy is so obsessed with dominating people that his whole aesthetic is dominated (hihi) by Chains and more chains…
If she let this guy, who enslaves souls for a living and collects domination runes… the guy who dominated Arthas while he killed her… and who currently dominates Anduin convince herself that he wanted to free people it only shows that nothing about her is cunning or smart and she’s just plain stupid as hell.
8 Likes
That is not true. Jailer had no direct control neither on Arthas nor on Nerzul. That is one of the reasons why they`re both in big trouble now (Nerzul is “freed” by raiders) - they acted on their own, instead of doing what Jailer wanted them to do.
2 Likes
Virgin Sylvanas:
- Is used by the Jailer
- Too stupid to realize that a guy called “THE JAILER” might not fight for freedom
- Wears some kind of full armor covering up her body
- Turns into purple farts to run away
- Is overshadowed by her own human boytoy in pure smugness
- Fails at being a warchief
The CHAD Garrosh
- Prideful until the very end
- Will never serve anyone but only himself
- No need for armor because mortal weapons are powerless against his bare chest
- Never runs away
- Uses the power of an Old God without getting corrupted by it
- Has tons of people simping for him
- Leader of the True Horde
- Has punched Khorne from Warhammer 40k in the face for being a pathetic weakling
13 Likes
Garrosh looks at all that Sylvanas has wrought and thinks : “Amateur”.
1 Like
But why? This comes across as a 10 year old writing a super villain. “Mister Evil wants to conquer the world! Why? Because he is evil, of course.”
Why is the Jailer so obsessed with controlling others? What is it that he hopes to create? A villain isn’t interesting if we can’t understand his motivations, and apparently the Jailer has been in the background manipulating things this whole time and we’ve seen zero evidence of it. This story just doesn’t work. And I truly don’t believe that there is a way to salvage this story. Even if they were to take us back to Azeroth and to a more grounded conflict how are we to forget the extreme repercussions Shadowlands has had on the world building?
Please. Garrosh’s character is in no way vindicated simply by the fact that they totaled Sylvanas’. If we take a narratological approach to the story of World of Warcraft, what is the function of his character? His character began ridden with shame and guilt over the sins of his father. Without the great mother he feared that he would be just as bad as his father was. The great mother still believed in him though, and once he learned the truth from Thrall that his father died redeemed he was reinvigorated, ready to lead his people. Perhaps his character should have ended there…
… but instead he arguably becomes much worse than what his father was and with no redemption. All he has is “GURR I’M ANGRY ORC!!”. His character development spits on the memory of Grom, it spits on the character of Thrall and, if you even care about her, it spits on the memory of the great mother. You could argue that Garrosh is a tragic character, and you know what? I would buy that. But why dig him up again?!
… It’s maddening!
1 Like
Really, by not thinking about it and not being reminded of it by the game. Sad, but it works to a great degree.
I swear if Sylvanas is (dead or alive) a friendly character/protagonist in 9.2 I’m gonna unsub
No gameplay can justify the atrocity of a story this cinematic points towards.
6 Likes
You know that it will be the next stage, right? Like it’s not even a “if” it’s a “when?”.
By the way… where is the player in that cinematic? Are we already evacuated at that point? Is that cinematic showing stuff our character can’t even know about? What’s the supposed rp angle in seeing all of this?
That is kind of what I’ve done by moving over to Classic, but it only works because the narrative developments have not yet happened. I am uncertain whether I would be able to do it for retail. The gameplay would have to be really good, and while I could go out on a tangent here I am going to stop myself. Suffice to say, I don’t think Blizzard’s regression in their class design to appeal to nostalgia did the game any favours.
Well, I’m pretty much ignoring all the multiverse questions and multiverse-spanning Legion and so on, and I feel that’s kind of the same idea. I certainly had no problem tuning it out while questing in Kul Tiras or complaining about the War Campaign.
I have a theory for you guys, before you raise your pitchforks hear me out:
Sylvanas now has blue eyes. It can’t be a coincidence that whoever is subdued by the Jailor has his eyes turned icy blue.
I don’t think he actually let her go. Watch the cinematic again. When he chains Bolvar, Thrall and Jaina, their eyes turn blue as well. Anduin has blue eyes. And they specifically showed her eyes at the end of the cinematic.
This other soul she got, it’s under his control.
3 Likes
Dunno dude/dudette… kinda lost hope with the writing. The players seems to come with better stories.
4 Likes
I noticed it too, but have been (perhaps foolishly) dismissing it an unfortunate coincidence for Blizzard, since they (presumably by accident) associated the icy blue with both elven eyes and the Lich King.
Crazy ramblings of a stupid person follow about possible futures for Sylvanas:
• She goes the way of Illidan. That is to say the original way. 10,000 years of isolation inside a Watcher prison.
• She sacrifices herself and is then ‘judged’ by the Arbiter. To Revendreth for many centuries of re-education?
• She becomes the new Jailer. Perhaps a fate worse than many others for her as she becomes an instrumental part of the machine she railed so hard against?
• She becomes the new arbiter. I think this might not be that far-fetched. There could be some scenario where the current arbiter steps down, or is unable to continue to serve for some other reason, then Sylvanas is chosen as its replacement as the person most qualified to judge souls. As one who has both committed terrible atrocities, now regrets all the pain she caused and, apparently, has been championing ‘fairness’ all this time. Again has her becoming part of the system that she fought against.
Here’s a strange thought: What if it ISN’T Sylvanas’ soul that has been given to her? What if the Jailer fused her with someone else to torture her? Nathanos maybe?
I think that Garrosh being unrepentant and destroying himself is supposed to show why Sylvanas is not Garrosh 2.0. Because he did everything willingly and fully in possession of all of his faculties. Sylvanas gets the ‘insanity’ plea.
I’m interested in whether or not the whole death system changes by the end of the Expac. Because if it doesn’t and if Sylvanas does become part to it somehow, Blizzard could be making a wider-reaching statement about the whole Cosmos. That it exists as it does for a reason. That you can not, or should not, change it. *
*Crazy concept - Azeroth’s world soul represents such a swing in cosmic power that we have to destroy her? She is WoW’s final boss?
You know what could be a little more interesting? Sylvanas dies there or during the fight–Being killed by Jailor or Anduin is also fine. We think all is lost but learn of Sylvanas’s other part, and hunt down for it etc. At least that would have given the satisfaction of the guilty one dying…
2 Likes
End of Shadowlands: Sylvanas strikes the mortal wound on the Jailer, killing him but in the process is mortally wounded herself. She lies on the ground, coughing. Thrall and Jaina kneels beside her, she says “I’ve freed myself” where as Thrall responds “No, you’ve freed us all”. Then she dies and is celebrated as a hero of the Horde.
Bonus: We see her spirit floats away into the arms of Nathanos and the 2 disappear in a puff of white smoke, embracing each other.
5 Likes
For the hype setted up by the devs, with the finale of the raid changing oh so much, it felt boring and underwhelming.
I liked the Zovaal’s voice change to more drust like when he said “once again… mine”. That’s about all I liked about the cinematic.
Other feelings: boring, misleading, more of Sylvanas again, tunnel vision on the story the dev want, ignoring what it does tp the community, “it was a fake Sylvanas”, suddenly she cares after acting just like Arthas at his worst, poor timing to start this story arc.
It’s just like that of Lady Waycrest to me. The entire zone, all the experience before the finale is telling about how terrible she is and her actions. Then in the end suddenly the game expects me to show sympathy. But at this point I do not even care.
NElves get not resolution. Loyalists get that they had a “wrong” Sylvanas. What for? So that the devs say they’re oh so great storytellers, I suppose. Is it worth it? Idk. The activision-blizzard leadership will decide based on if the players want to support such narrative with $.
gl hf
4 Likes
Except Garrosh I suppose. Apparently not as relevant of a character from the dev PoV.
Feels better than the Sylvanas one. Among all the flassid redemption stories he till the end denies the devs warping his story, and the fake “redemption” of Revendreth.
He stayed true to at least a part of who he was (given the “Stonetalon was a mistake”). Which is more than what is usually allowed to characters in the current retcon parade.
gl hf