You know what, after watching most of the cinematics I can say, you’re right mate, this is crap.
I give up. Just put her down already and bury this horrible story. I’m done defending a messed up, dumb zombie who clearly has no problem with everyone serving death until the last second when they’re about to serve.
I give up, you guys are right, there’s no solution but to kill her off. No arguments can defend this, it’s absurd.
All these days I’ve bounced between cool as a cucumber and just angry as hell. I liked WoW, but WoW is no more, neither is Sylvanas. Time to close this damned chapter.
Thank you for the fun debate, hope future brings better lore for this franchise but I give up.
Sylvanas goal was to set everyone free herself.
Yeah, her plan involved using the Jailer and allying with him in order to facilitate such.
Suddenly noticing that he would go a step further beyond her liking is an entirely different matter that in no way changes her true intentions.
The goal is there, and she kept true to her motives and objectives.
She was just deceived/betrayed by the one she considered aligned with said goal.
As I said, the way Illidans arch was presented, is a mirrored scenario that mimics beat for beat, most of the rationale used to excuse said actions.
I think you should go over the cinematic.
She tries to stop Zovaal from causing unnecessary harm to those present there, while arguing that they accomplished what they wanted and there was no need to do any of it.
She looks at Anduin worriedly when he mentions how he’ll make everyone obey him and how he’ll remake reality to suit him.
Sorry, but bias aside, the cinematic signalled several times her own disagreement with causing unnecessary suffering beyond the one required to further the goal she had in mind.
Everyone could’ve betrayed anyone at any given time.
I’ll repeat that, having her fooled to believe Zovaal wouldn’t do such, isn’t on itself, something that turns her villainous.
Regardless of how dumb it is.
Remember Illidan? The Void elves?
I never said that she was just following orders.
I said that the loyalist route went along the lines of following someone that proclaimed she worked towards a greater goal. And that much was true.
Her being deceived along the way is irrelevant to both the motives that drive her character (which greatly define whether she was acting villainous or not), or how the situation ends up being from a Loyalist point of view.
So the goal she was working towards was false. Glad we agree.
That is ridiculous. Sylvanas decided to make herself arbiter of who deserved to live and die. She sent thousands of people to be tortured in chains, lifting not a finger in protest. When someone did not want to join in her quest for freedom, she took control of their mind, forcing them to do all sort of heinous acts to serve her. And she did all this while complaining about how unfair the universe is because she does not have as much control of her fate as she wanted. Sylvanas is a hypocrite thourgh and through.
No, they are quite different. Illidan was stated to be insane, struggling against the demonic force inside him. Sylvanas is in complete control of her actions. Illidan was actually willing to inform his enemies of his plan and work with them, while Sylvanas has insisted on keeping her plan a secret for no reason. Their arcs are very different.
Also, what do you think this will accomplish. Do you think I will realize that theirs acrs mirror each other and think Sylvanas is not evil beause I love Illidan so much? No, I disagree with Illidan’s actions. His motives may have benefited us, but the way he tried to bring about them were unnecesarrily cruel. He was as evil as the legion while acting as the lord of Outland.
Strange how this did not apply to the raid group she had been fighting seconds before. I think you need to go over the cinematic. Sylvanas was not “trying to stop Zonvaal from causing unnecessary harm to those present”. If you remember, she had most of those present brought into the Shadowlands. Sylvanas urged Zovaal to go as they had all they needed, and only took action once Zovaal said a word that triggered her.
Bias aside? The only reason you think Sylvanas is doing these things is because she wishes to prevent undue suffering, is because you want to see her as a character who is good deep down.
This is not who she is. We know this for a fact. While serving Zovaal she has gone out of her way to cause misery. She has made no attempt to restrain him as he tortured countless souls. She does not care about “unecessary suffering”. She looked at Anduin because she ws finally piecing together that the guy she was working for might not want whst she wants.
That is good, I guess? I never argue that was the case, but if you feel like that, then fine.
Remember John F. Kenendy? McDonalds? Those nice leather purses? What is your point?
So she was just following orders and the Horde were just following her orders, is what you are saying?
Sylvanas was not deceived, no more than the Horde was deceived by her. To deceive someone, one must disguise ones true intentions. Zovaal’s true intentions were obvious to everyone. Sylvanas true intentions were obvious to everyone. Sylvanas however, because she enjoys causing suffering, enjoys taking people’s freedom away, enjoys seeing people die, does not pick up on any of these thins as red flags when Zovaal does them.
As I pointed out, and which you neglected to respond to. Sylvanas did not need to start the war to serve the Jailer’s will. She could have just waited for people to die naturally. Instead she chose to commit genocide and fight a pointless war. The only reason one would do such a thing is because one enjoys causing suffering.
Same with the Horde. The Horde loves genociding. Their faction started out for the sake of causing genocide, and were enthustastic about doing it again once Sylvanas gave them a vague reason. Obviously, Sylvanas had no intention to benefit the Horde. The Horde went along with it, because it meant doing what they loved.
This is why “just following orders” does not hold up in a court. Getting a vague promise of “things will be better” and then going out of your way to cause unecessary suffering in service of that goal, when that goal is so clearly a lie, is very clearly the actions of a malevolent mind who relishes in causing people pain. It does not matter how good Sylvanas intentions were. She never made any attempt to realize those intentions in a good way. She never bothered to get assurance the Jailer was honest. She made sure everyone who had to suffer for her plan suffered maximally. Having good intentions is not an excuse for genocide.
No…
The goal would only be “false” (if i’m interpreting right what you mean by said tag) if we had a clarification that Sylvanas wasn’t in fact working to accomplish what she said about fixing the death system.
Having the Jailer deceive her, doesn’t make her end-goal “false”.
It just means she was deceived to believe someone who she thought worked towards the same goal, wasn’t doing such.
I honestly do not see how is that of any relevance regarding whether she was indeed working towards a specific goal, or the Loyalist point of view.
I don’t want to go on a tangent regarding how bad she behaved while aiming for her goal, or how much evil she deemed necessary to accomplish her particular view of a greater good.
Point remains, that the character truly believes that the death system was borked, and needed to be fixed.
And the loyalist route simply parts on the premise that a bunch of Horde people thought that she was indeed working towards a greater goal that would fix something that had been broken.
That’s about it. Nothing was “false” in any of the above.
Yes, she was.
0:41 onward.
She protests about him simply relishing on his new power and toying with Thrall, Bolvar and Jaina. Reminding him that they already have what they need, and there is no need to do any of that.
This stance is further reinforced a few seconds later when she glances worriedly at Anduin while Zovaal rants on about domination and destroying reality.
No. I’ve just pointed his case as a way to showcase that there have been several instances of characters that caused great suffering, while going through some sketchy agenda that painted them as villains, even if they were ultimately working for a greater goal.
And to prove that your statement about it “obviously never going to end well” loses credibility after siding with the likes of Illidan even after all the stuff he did to Outland and others.
What? No.
I thought you did, here:
That everything about them “screamed villain”. And yet, they are not treated as such.
I could also add Warlocks, DKs, DHs, and plenty other characters to said list.
No, the goal would be false if the guy who would bring that goal to reality was in fact lying, which he was.
It very much does. That is what her goal being false means.
You said she satyed true to her motives and objectives. I disproved it. That is the relevance.
That is literally what this argument is about. This is literally what we use to determine if she is evil or not.
No one is denying that. Problem is, she sought to replace it with something even more broken.
No, they fought for her, thinking it was somehow in the Horde’s best interest.
Except for the part where she never revealed her true motives, lied to the Horde and was herself lied to by Zovaal.
She protest about him staying around when they have already won. She says nothing about him being unnecessarily cruel towards the people present.
The damage was already done, by her. If she thought it was unecessary, Anduin would not be standing there.
As I stated above, and which you conventiently ignored, if Sylvanas wanted to prevent unnecessary suffering, Thrall, Jaina, Bolvar and Anduin would not be present. Teldrassil would still be standing. Thousands of Alliance and Horde would still be alive.
You are just seeing what you want to see.
And I pointed out that Sylvanas is not such a case.
Ah yes, it went so well. Illidan died, thousands of Outlanders were opressed and killed, leading them to turning on him, his plans were set on hold, without leadership for years, the Burning Legion invaded Azeroth again, Sargeras mortally wounded Azeroth and Zovaal used the fallout to try remake the Universe. And all this required us to resurrect Illidan so he could fix his mistakes.
Then why are you yammering on about her good intentions?
I argued that her idiocy was not argument against her being malevolent, but rather illustrated how malevolent she truly is. Not that her being a moron makes her evil.
I do not remember Illidan and the Void Elves commiting genocide to send thousands of souls to be tortured for eternity when the only thing they had to do was sit and wait.
It was indeed very simple, and it was simply wrong. She is a full-blown villain, because all her plans would have succeeded, had she just waited. Instead she chose to make others suffer. She should have realized her allies had no good intentions in mind, as they made it extremely obvious, yet she went along with their villainy without question, because that is just the sort of thing she is completely happy with doing.
Again, having good intentions, some final outcome that benefits all, does not excuse one from being a villain. One must also be able to bring about those goals in the most moral way possible, Sylvanas chose the least moral route.
And mind you, we still do not know what Sylvanas’ goal is. She says that she wants to set everyone free, yet with her actions she shows that she is happy to throw away others’ freedom for her own benefit. All the evidence suggests her ideal world would be terrible and only meant to please her.
That…doesn’t make the goal “false”. She wasn’t lying, the Jailer was.
In this situation, thing is that she discovered that she used the wrong means to try and achieve it. But the endgoal she had, and the motivation to get to it, remain the same.
English isn’t my first language, but i’m starting to suspect that neither it is for you. And that you are mixing things up.
A goal is only “false” (weird way to phrase it, but nevermind), if its proven that it was but a ruse or a deception that hid a different objective.
As you are describing it, you are trying to equate having Sylvanas use the wrong means to work on said goal, as a way to showcase how she wasn’t in fact pursuing said goal.
That’s a really weird and incorrect take on it, if it’s intentional.
How? By pointing out she behaved badly while working on said objectives? How is that relevant to the fact that she was still working towards the same objective with the same motives?
You are being blatantly disingenuous here.
The cinematic quite obviously signals her stance when having her speak up against Zovaal randomly deciding to showcase token samples of cruelty against those present there.
That’s the whole point of having her rush up to scream about how they already have what they needed whilst glancing at those that Zovaal just chained up.
Yes, it ended with a personality cult called the Demon Hunter class taking onto said philosophy as a valid approach regarding the issues at hand, and with several playable races tagging along Illidan in his final assault against the Legion.
Plus, a novel and several quests, showcasing how everyone misunderstood his motivations to some degree, which even if they were objectively seen as “evil”, ended up mostly accepted as a necessary one.
To the point he became instrumental in the Argus onslaught.
I do. Or at least, token samples of similar mindset.
I remember a particular instance where Illidan sacrificed scores of Draenei and Broken to feed a portal network that opened the way to get the Sargerite Keystone.
And i also recall how he fully endorsed the likes of Vashj thirstying the planet into submission or death, or how he was complacent enough about turning capture maghar orcs into frenzied fel aberrations for the sake of having an expendable army in case the Legion felt like attacking.
I also remember having a quest Umbric gave me, about using portals to throw goblin civilians into a hungering void that obliterated their souls.
And i’m not counting any of the other Warlock, DK, or DHs shenanigans.
The above doesn’t “scream villain”, given the standards you’ve just set?
She is a villain because she didn’t go about her endgoal (which in essence defines largely whether we are to consider her one or not), the way you think it was better?
And who is to say that it wasn’t the only way for it to happen? In order to boost the Jailer enough to pose a challenge, he needed copious amounts of souls. He also needed something that automatically “disconnected” the Arbiter.
It’s very much possible that in order to kickstart the events, once the Arbiter was out, they all needed to act quickly before the covenants could react.
This lot seems like tons of speculation and headcanon. You are again weirdly trying to make it seem as if she not realising that the Jailer could’ve deceived her, makes her even more villainous (???).
Also, happy??
That’s not what i gather from cinematics like these:
Being determined to follow through isn’t the same as joyfully going along it.
This sort of appretiation you are making seems purely born out of your own bias and the way you want to interpret things.
If something has defined the latest development regarding her, is her growing doubts and her waning commitment (given the price) to the goal she initially had.
I mean, in one of the cinematics above, you have her saying with a quivering voice and through clenched teeth :
I’ve not come this far to falter now…
To the point even Anduin notices how she is hesitating.
What makes you think he could’ve chosen a different one?
Also, i find this logic quite strange.
Are you then considering every character that uses questionable methods to achieve a greater positive goal, as downright and full-blown villainous?
You are posting on a Horde toon by the way.
I honestly don’t know if that’s the rationale being used here. See the vids above, she is constantly talking in plural. About setting EVERYONE free.
The best you can argue here, is that she is patently shown willing to throw away some peoples freedom for the sake of the rest.
Again, this is the only take to be left with after the clarifications given:
She very famously lied repeatedly. And the fact that the Jailer lied to her makes that goal false. Sure, Sylvanas honestly thought her actions were for the best, but that “best” did not exist, making her goal false.
That is the point, the goal she was searching for did not exist.
Exactly, making Sylvanas goal of “freeing us all” false, as that was a ruse by the Jailer.
No I am not. I am saying she was chasing a false goal and she went the wrong way about it.
It is not. That is not the point I am making. You said she stuck true to her motives and goal, I pointed out that she
A) She endeavoured to free everyone while taking their freedom away, meaning she did not stick true to her goals.
B) Got no assurance that the Jailer would follow their agreement, which is the bare minimum needed to ensure her success.
Meaning she did not stick to anything she preached and is thus a massive hypocrite.
“Quite obviously” is the callsign of a person who knows they are wrong but won’t admit it. You are being blatantly disingenuous here. As I pointed out, Sylvanas has herself enacted numerous cruelties on the people present. It makes no sense for her character that she would suddenly have a change of heart. Nowhere does she call Zovaal out on his cruelty. Simply saying I am “disingenuous” for pointing out the absence of evidence for your claim, while not actually providing any rebuttal to it, is disingenuous.
No, the point of this is that Sylvanas wants to leave a finished battle quickly.
You are just reading secret motives to her actions based on your headcanon of her personality. The only reason you are arguing this is because you have decided that Sylvanas is the kind of person who tries to avoid uneeded cruelty. This is objectively untrue as I have illustrated numerous times.
If Sylvanas did not want Thrall, Jaina, Anduin and Bolvar to suffer, she would have never brought them to the Shadowlands.
Which would had happened a lot sooner if Illidan did not fight anyone not in his army on Outland.
I remember the person saying he was misunderstood famously tried to brainwash him when he rejected her.
Which, again, would have happened a lot sooner and smoother if he had actually worked with us from the start instead of trying to opress everyone on Outland, forcing us to confront him.
So you don’t.
I have already said numerous times that I found Illidan to be villanous. And his actions as you described them were nowhere near as horrendous as those of Sylvanas, which was my point.
It was almost as if he were at war with a faction that commited genocide.
We do not “largely” define whether someone is a villain by their endgoal. Nearly every villain has an endgoal they think is better for the world. What makes them a villain is the degree to which they ensure their plans do not harm people. Sylvanas goes out of her way to ensure they do. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is just thay SYlvanas paved that way for everyone else.
Which would have happened if people died naturally.
Which he had already accomplished.
By the time we arrive, two of the covenants are effectively serving Zovaal, and the other two were not even aware of what was happening, and not making any attempts at finding out, while also trying to solve internal struggles, with there being no communication between the covenants. In fact, the whole reason why any of it failed is because Sylvanas made an enemy of us, hastely entered the Shadowlands and unnecessarily drew world leaders there to make them suffer.
The Maw is being fed by every world. Teldrassil was a drop in the ocean. If she really needed a lot of souls quickly, she could have asked the forsaken to volunteer. Literally everything would have worked better if she did nothing.
Yes! Exactly. Any non-villanous person would have seen a fraction of what the Jailer did as a massive giveaway. Sylvanas did not, because she is immensly comfortable with what the Jailer is doing.
That is what I got from her gloating about how she would torture and brainwash Koltira and Derek, burning Teldrassil, taunting Delaryn at her deathbed, taunting the Alliance as she escaped their attempts to stop her, decided to fight Saurfang when he pointed out she wanted to make him suffer etc.
Correct. Going out of your way to maximize suffering and compromising the plan in the process, all while joyfully watching the people you are tormenting is.
This sort of appretiation you are making seems purely born out of your own bias and the way you want to interpret things.
She does not score any points for acting way too late when she personally begins struggling.
The fact that she could. Like the Maw would have been fueled regardless of her actions. She decided it jsut was not enough suffering.
No. When a person has no other choice, it can be an excuse for villainy. Sylvanas had multiple choices, and consistently chose the one that maximized misery, regardless if it helped her or not.
So are you.
YES! She is TALKING about setting everyone free. She is not actually setting anyone free. You yourself admit she was witholding information from the Horde, why would that change now? Give me one reason why anyone should, based on Sylvanas actions to bring about this freedom, believe her.
No, the best I can argue here is that she has absolutely no commitment to freedom, and in fact works against it.
A person who actually believed in freedom would endeavour to minimize the degree to which they take away other people’s freedom. The only time Sylvanas even hesitated to do this was when she would feel more emotionally fulfilled by her target willingly joining her, and even then that did not stop her.
No, the take left is “Sylvanas is a full-blown villain, and stupid enough to believe Satan”.
Looking back at the ending of the loyalist campaign, Sylvanas clearly says the same thing Denathrius says at the end of Revendreth’s campaign.
“In the end, all shall serve Death”
This sounds like she was perfectly aware of everyone being turned into servants by the end of this and was perfectly fine with it.
This is more consistent with how all of BFA and most of SL story happened and it really doesn’t hold the whole “she didn’t know what she was doing” theory.
You’re right, no matter how hard they try to portray her differently, facts are facts.
Yeah, I’m out. Won’t go on a mile long quote tree.
I’m sorry but you are grasping.
You’ve tried to somehow argue that having Sylvanas deceived by the Jailer somehow affects the goals SHE initially had.
“False Goal”, as weird as the term is, only exists if the PERSON (Sylvanas) having said goal is LYING about IT (Changing Death System). She wasn’t.
Having the Jailer lie to her does NOT change the motives, or the goal Sylvanas had.
It was HER goal, and she used the Jailer as a means towards it because she thought that they both wanted the same. Which obviously wasn’t the case.
That’s why she isn’t a full-blown villain like the Jailer.
About the rest…i won’t spend a single minute longer explaining the obvious. We’ve had several cinematics portraying varying degrees of regret and doubt with Sylvanas.
Enough to discard the fact that she would randomly take joy in any of this, beyond the usual grim determination that her character usual sports with any endeavour or task.
We all know about the retcons BfA required in order to have their villain impersonation and how they made the character be for the sake of plot, but I’d also take into account the new developments given to her in the current expansion, as they are the ones that close the character arch.
As i’ve repeatedly said, the character arch was huge mess that needs closure asap.
But if we are to have as a whole, we are to take it entirely, not just the interpretations that best suit our preconceived ideas.
Because yeah, BfA retconned Sylvanas into a villain, but then SL retconned her to have a step back. And that’s the note were are left hanging from as of now.
Me? Grasping? You were the one inventing motives for why Sylvanas wanted to leave. You were the one who consistently ignored how Sylvanas went out of her way to maximize suffering when everything would have worked out better for he if she did not. And when you eventually responded to it, the only thing you could muster up was
“Well maybe she had to do it.”
That is grasping.
No, I argued that her goal would obviously never be realized, she went along with it anyway because she is personally so attuned to evil she did not realize this and that she went about the worst possible way to achieve this false goal.
This is again, you grasping.
No, it exists if the goal presented, in this case “freeing everyone” is false, which it was. Zovaal never had any intention of realizing it.
Great, because I never argued that. You are grasping here.
Yes, because the goal Zovaal presented her was obviously false. He used her as a means to an end.
No she is not a full-blown villain like the Jailer, but she is a full-blown villain.
Nothing here is obvious. Sylvanas always hid her true motives, and she still does. You are just refusing to admit and confront your own biases when challenged by putting up a wall and saying everything you believe is “obviously true” without even defending it.
Regret one does not act upon means nothing. The fact that she went along with everything, even with her regret just makes her more evil.
aAgain, you could not give me a single reason as to why anyone should believe Sylvanas when she talks about freedom, considering all she has done the last 4 years is try take it away from everyone. How is that “obvious”?
Maybe you need to take a look at that cinematic, because ultimately, she decides to dominate the mind of ANduin. She has a choice, she cose evil. ENd of discussion.
Which means we would have to accept some sort of “She had a change of heart” theory. Because if we’re looking at her arc entirely, you have an angry Sylvanas that wants to wipe out life and have a pure universe with only Death as the driving force.
Then in SL she gets the “I just want to see the eternity fixed for us” theory and then slowly but surely signs of her turning against the Jailer at some point.
When you compare the loyalist cutscene with the latest cinematic, you have a serious problem.
In the latest cinematic, Zovaal pretty much betrayed and lied to her, when the old cinematic clearly states that she knew his plan all along and was fine with it (so who betrays who?).
This is a hard retcon. Like literally one day she is okay with it and the other day she isn’t. It’s just one of those things that you simply can’t wipe with the retcon sponge. This is very recent development, not something that happened 10 years ago.
I mean they went out of their way to portray her as a villain, with the whole Wrathgate retcon. They did everything in their power to make her evil.
No, they don’t deserve to get away with this. They committed to making her evil and now they’re backtracking on it because they’re scared of the community’s reaction. The community is already enraged, no matter what they do.
That’s why i think its futile to try and build a continued reasoning or arch regarding her character.
Given the twists and turns she’s been forced through, at this point the only alternative left is to work on the latest “version” writers decided to leave in place.
Honestly, the only way the character sticks to a somewhat plausible development, is if we skip on BFA completely, completely ignore the iteration we had there for her, and just take into account the shady (although defensible up to some point) stuff she did prior.
Unless we can split her soul in half again and kill the evil side.
She’s gotta swing.
I don’t care if the voices in her head told her to do it. She performed those actions, so she either get’s slapped into a crystal like illidan. So we can try and redeem her through some wibbly wobbly souly wouly bullshoot.
Or she swings for the acts her evil side did, because like it or not, it’s still her. Even if it is the half of her soul, It’s still her soul.
That’s like me performing dentistry with a shotgun and telling the cops, it’s ok I came back to my senses after the 12th kid.
The point is, we can’t let her get away with this, even if she helps us kill the jailer. Or takes his place after they reset the universe because… yer sure why not.
According to the pre-Shadowlands dev interview, she “had a hand” in breaking the system, whatever it end up meaning.
There were options, but the timing makes the whole thing a falure. I tried to think of a way to make the “redemption” story work. In case you’re interested.
But the main problem that this story should’ve started like 2 years ago. Trying to pull it off now just creates more negative experience for the playerbase overall.
The story never had to go the way it did. But we have what we have. Which is to me is another confirmation that the current narrative team is a problem, somewhere between conduit energy and the lack of commitment to what Torghast is supposed to be, turning it into “chore-ghast” instead.
Old WoW is dead indeed. There is always a chance for the future. So, maybe someday.
The 1st question from me is: where are all the rest characters that should be in Oribos at the time.
How good her end goal might be is not necessary something relevant for those who ended up being turned into Tortured Amalgamation. Hence whether or not what her goal is has any relevance is not too clear IMO.
Which has next to 0 chance to be takes seriously because of how she treated those captured, even not too long ago, in BfA. Including the night elves exploited to make them fight agains their kin like she was forced by the Lich King (arguably Arthas, but the side influence was there too).
Which should’ve happen halfway through BfA to work. All it does now is convinces quite a few people that there is no competent narrative team at blizzard atm.
I recall the comment of Danuser (link to the french article is in the 1st post), that what they do is not retcons, it all is just PoVs. I guess contradicting inner monologues from Before the Storm are also considered to somehow be that way.
(when the current devs talk about unreliable narrator I am not sure they understand what it is)
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