yeah true, Sylvanas is getting little bit stagnant, though if the closure comes in next pac I am fine whit it, would not even be supriced if she gets removed in middle of the expac already.
Regarding Bolvar again, I would not eighter be to supriced if he lost on purpose to her, so she could open the gate eighter.
I said ââpeopleââ because yes, Iâm not the only one. You missed a key word in my quote, ââCINEMATICSââ but people are also sick of her in the story.
I hope sylvannas is the guldan of this expansion and that just like how illidan comes in and kills guldan, I hope bolvar gets his revenge 
Hell yeah I am brother.
Ofc he is.
Chas is killing Bwonsamdi in the upcoming Novel before shadowlands.
Dont mess with Chad
Because the people you have just listed either grew into that power level or were already established with that tier of power.
Malfurion, the most powerful and wisest of all Druids. Thrall, the Earth Warder.
Sylvanas on the other hand? She is suddenly able to solo the Lich King and any Scourge defense that might have existed in Icecrown at the time of the trailer. Could you truly point at Sylvanas and make the case she was always established like this, or through any event we were shown, she grew to that high a level? I donât think so.
Sylvanasâ power level is explained retroactively through her deal with the Jailer, but up until then it had gone unaccounted for (like blasting Saurfang with a death ray), besides, to this day we still donât know what that power boost or the deal it came from entails. Itâs incredibly vague and most of it is poorly handwaved, I think this to be the main reason players take issue with it. We were never shown Sylvanas experience any growth that would justify her soloing Bolvar and all of the Scourge in Icecrown.
It would be the equivalent of Anduin walking down Stormwind Keep tomorrow and oneshotting all of the elemental lords by snapping his fingers, then Blizzard justifying it with âWell you see, he had actually made a deal with the Naaru Light God and every morally good act he accomplished through his life secretly empowered himâ.
That would be confusing writing at best. And it is what we have had with Sylvanas.
Part of this is because blizzard have now moved into another form of storytelling. I think it is fair to say that blizzard have moved into episodic storytelling, from lack of knowledge of different storytelling methods.
Blizzard have in the past told stories only concerning the current expansions, TBC, Wotlk, Catalysm, none of these had any planned ties to each other as the stories were written. In MoP blizzard started moving more so into the episodic storytelling, which have lead to today where we should expect to not get an explanation to something before further down the line.
Aka. Sylvanasâ power was planned to be explained in Shadowlands, if not earlier due to cut content (Who knows.)
Weâll see more and more of this as time goes on, where each expansions needs to have a red herring of some sort to tie expansions together, rather than just being a new story to be told in the World of Warcraft.
I donât think heâs gonna kill him. It was confirmed that we will meet Bwondsamdi in a Shadowland dungeon.
The fact that she has been apparently leeching from the anima/death powers from the Shadowlands.
And the suddenness is also apparent in most of the powerhouses in the game.
Thrall became the Earth Warden in a single expansion because somehow he was the only one capable of wielding the elemental magic in such way. Even if there were like a hundred other shamans more experienced than him.
Malfurion had his pump in the WotA books, and became the living embodiment of a literal Plot Nuke that jumped from a Druid student to âOverwhelming powahhâ capable of drowning demons by the thousands.
And donât get me started on Jaina.
Or killing a Dreadlord by himself. Or mass-healing an entire army.
There are several examples of it already.
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In short, I repeat that I donât think Sylvanas portrayal was any different from the usual power ramping that writers often throw about when they need it because of plot. Itâs about as terrible as almost every other example we can think of.
Tirion managed to defeat Arthas with a similar Mc Guffin.
Yes that dungeon is called âThe Other Sideâ as all troll references mention like Talanji when you compete quests âmy people deserve a safe passage to de oder sideâ.
So it actually makes perfect sense for Bwonsamdi to âdieâ for us to meet him there.
The question is what actually Bwondsamdi is. I mean he can already swap through different realms, so why should he be killed in the first place to be there if he donât have to?
Well we are in the realm of speculation already, so my guess would be that Sylvannas doesnt want Death entities that can go back-and-forth in the Shadowlands meddling with her plan.
So since we know she âdisablesâ the Lich King, disabling Bwonsamdi beforehand sounds very logical to procceed with her plan. Whatever that isâŚ
Plus, it could be used to further develop Nathanos as being more powerful than estimated, or even being something else entirely in league with the Jailer etc.
Lets see.
I donât think that her plan was to dismantle the Lich King. It was more later likely just for destroying the pillar between both realms. If Bwondsamdi is killed on this place or just try to protect the other side from servants if the Jailor is unknown yet.
We dont know that for sure. Nor do we know if Bwonsamdi or the Lich King have the power to upset her plans.
It is not uknown actually. Bwonsamdi on the Voljin questline does say that he is no friend with the Warchief and also says âBalance be importantâ.
Which means he is aware of what Sylvannas is doing, and doesnt agree with it. So pretty sure âkilling â bwonsamdi would simply restrict him to the âOther Sideâ and not kill kill actuallyâŚ
On Voljin questline we basically encounter the three entities controlling Death: Lich King, Bwonsamdi and Eyir.
If Sylvannas goal is to âMaster deathâ as she often mentions, it makes perfect sense to cull the competition.
P.S. Edit: lets remember here she also tried to control Eyir in Legion.
We already know that Bwondsamdi offered Talanji to bring him her head, thatâs true. The Lich King was pretty lazy in this case, even if he res new DKs because darkness is incoming or sth.
Oh yeah, the good olâ Eyir. I remember she had different plans in BtS with her but hey, they probably retconned it avain!
In a single expansion?
You mean a single expansion spanning several patches and two novels, the Shattering and Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, along with a short story and a few questlines?
And the same Thrall who in the end still had to resort to using an ancient, almighty artefact to actually defeat Deathwing, with the combined support of all the remaining Aspects.
The same Malfurion who was chosen by a Demigod to be the first of his kind and learned to be so attuned to the Emerald Dream and nature through the span of a trilogy of books, where it was established that such was his bond that nature became a living manifestation and reflection of his emotions and he, in turn, became a living manifestation and reflection of nature?
Not that it mattered in the War of the Thorns, or any following event.
The same Jaina that was taught by one of the most prodigious Archmages to ever live and that now wields the Staff of Antonidas inbued with the remnants of the Titanic powers originally wielded by Lei-Shen, the Thunder King?
Or resurrecting his father, or being trained by the Prophet of the Draenei.
Still a far cry from easily mopping floors with god-tier characters I used in my example.
Hardly a plot MacGuffin, the Ashbringer was built upon since Vanilla, itâs a legend that has been continuously growing and developing in-game and in comics.
If there existed any holy weapon capable of matching Frostmourne, it was the hallowed sword capable of reducing throngs of Undead to ash. Itâs baffling how you could even imply that the Ashbringer was a sudden MacGuffing popped out of nowhere to defeat Arthas, this artefact saw years of lore to expand upon its incredible origins and powers, which made it able of destroying Frostmourne a truly believable and amazingly cathartic moment.
I beg you to reconsider. Never was Sylvanas actually shown anything warranting the levels of power she now wields, itâs the writers retroactively handwaving it as âItâs all Jailerâ and none of us even know what that means.
Whether or not obnoxiously powerful characters are damaging to a narrative is a different debate, but you could make an argument, while taking an in-depth observation of the pre-established lore, that these characters somewhat earned their powers. Sylvanas, as we see her appear in the story, simply suddenly has the power to match gods whereas earlier she was far from being anything else than an extremely skilled Dark Ranger with Banshee powers.
In the war crimes novel Sylvanas starts to dabble with magic. Which hints that she was becoming more the a skilled Dark Ranger with Banshee powers.
Because contrary to several other examples, her power ramp was showcased to forebode the explanation behind it.
And just as you are assuming that any picked background could explain the power leaps for the aforementioned examples, Blizzard exposed the reasons as to why Sylvanas was able to do what she did.
Malfurion wasnât taught to beat Xavius and make the Wells gateway implode. And still he managed to do so in the same book that introduced him as a Druid student.
Thrall never showed any kind of special trait that would turn him into the perfect candidate to replace the Aspect of Earth. And in fact, he went over several more experienced shamans to do so.
There is an explicit lore piece that goes against what Tirion managed to pull in Icecrown. One that points at the Light being expressively weak in said area. Still, Plot happened.
And Antonidas certainly didnât show Jaina how to make boats soar the skies, freeze entire sea portions or counter the use of Plague in vast areas.
If he had, it sure seems convenient to throw said abilities around just now, and not against the Scourge, Garrosh, the Iron Horde or the Legion.
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All characters made power leaps when the plot needed them to.
Sylvanas isnât any different.
Just as you are linking events that seem logically tied to you, Blizzard also facilitated a set of reasons that couldâve explained her power escalation.
Much like other characters had explanations during, before or after, they made her character lean on a set of abilities that drew on previously established traits. And then multiplied them by ten in order to create the foundation that introduced the upcoming expansion.
She knew how to blast someone with Black Arrows, she knows how to fight on an agility based style, and she wasnât fighting to win but to contain. Also, she fought someone that arguably could be much weaker than his predecessor.
Which is exactly what makes it confusing, sudden and inexplicable with the lore weâre given.
A power ramp of that scale should be preceded by a growth of character, not vaguely explained through unrelated, unsupported hints.
I call back to my Anduin example, ending all of the elemental lords with a snap of his fingers. Well, werenât you paying attention? The mass heal and all the morally good deeds heâs accomplished empowered him by the Light, like clearly, the build-up leading to this moment was all there.
Retroactively, rather than showing a development of power for her character. A character established to be skilled at best, not omnipotent expansion end boss levels of powerful.
Thatâs a blatant misrepresentation of the lore provided. Malfurion is introduced as a student in the first book and defeates Xavius in the third, in a far more advanced stage of his training and attunement with nature.
There is no recipe for exploding portals (At this point I feel I need to mention Malfurion did such using the Demon Soul, not through his powers alone, while being aided by Illidan) or beating Satyrs. It was simply a reasonable outcome of a fight based on what we came to know of Malfurion as a character.
âAs Thrall and the other Aspects, including the newly-elevated Kalecgos, debated on how to defeat Deathwing, the shamanâs spirit communed with the earth and took an earthen form. It was there that he encountered Deathwing, using the power of the Old Gods to imprison his spirit within. The corrupted Aspect mocked Thrall, believing that the Aspects sought to replace him as Earth-Warder with the mortal shaman, and claiming that the âgiftâ he had been granted by the Titans - his charge to defend Azeroth - was, in fact, a curse, imprisoning him to his duty. To demonstrate, he allowed Thrall to experience what it was like to have the weight of the earth on his shoulders, claiming that this was what the Aspects wanted - âto damn you to a life of eternal tormentâ, as Deathwing stated it. He then unleashed a series of scathing attacks against Thrallâs earthen form; because the shaman had embraced Azeroth, and Azeroth embraced him, his âwoundsâ materialized in the physical world in the form of earthquakes. Finally, the Aspects called on the Earthen Ring and the Cenarion Circle to break Deathwingâs hold, bringing Thrall back to himself.â
Source: Charge of the Aspects, Cataclysm Short Story.
This is true and it is reiterated within the same raid where Tirion is able to defeat Arthas.
Tirion who is imprisoned in ice for the entirety of the fight, unable to contrast the Lich King and only on the verge of his final victory, as he is within grasp to turn the champions into Undeath does Tirion invoke the Light:
âLight grant me one final blessing. Grant me the strength, to shatter these bondsâ
It was a miracle of the Light, granted once before in Lightâs Hope with the bladeâs purification and the destruction of the Undead in two different occasions accompanied by the legendary might of Ashbringer.
It made sense and it delivered on catharsis because we:
This is not the case for Sylvanas, we donât know her deal, we donât know her powers or how exactly she took them, we barely know the Jailer, itâs a gaping hole of lacking information of a crucial part of her character when she transitioned from Banshee Queen to Death Goddess.
She could turn Jaina into a piglet and have her explode with void and that could still be excused under the Jailer.
With the power of Lei-shen she makes the affirmation she is capable of bringing down Orgrimmar with ease, a floating boat should be hardly a challenge compared to that.
The fact she hasnât is much an argument as is the reasons why the Vindicaar hasnât bombarded the Horde from orbit, or why the cannon from Bilgewater Harbour hasnât nuked Stormwind or why Malfurion didnât drown the entirety of the Horde army in a hurricane like you mentioned he did in the WotA with an army of demons.
Weâll agree to disagree then.
Its not confusing. Its intended.
There is actual signalling from a narrative standpoint, that has Blizzard aiming at creating the suspense regarding why/how did Sylvanas become as powerful as she currently is.
Before even releasing the cinematic about Bolvar, we already have Thalyssra and Jaina wondering about what power did Sylvanas use to defeat Saurfang.
In this scenario, the series of events surrounding her character were given this specific order intentionally in order to build on what would follow.
Thatâs VERY different from a sudden/forced empowerment that Blizzard needs then to clarify with additional information.
We knew Sylvanas was agile. We knew she wielded dark magic.
Escalating on either trait, and doing so with obvious intent to create âhypeâ around the reasons that explain such, isnât the same as randomly pumping a protagonist because of favouritism (thus creating inconsistency).
In the first book, he manages to shut the portal by infiltrating the Highborne base through the Emerald Dream. Then, he shatters the entire tower Xavius uses, and literally disintegrates him with nature energy.
And did so while still being a student under Cenarius.
In the third, Xavius returns as a satyr as âpunishmentâ for his failure and ends up beaten again.
Thatâs what i was talking about.
But iâll too let it be and agree to disagree.