The cycle of hatred is what led to this vicious war, it is what made Saurfang so readily attack the nightelves, this cycle of hatred is just like Saurfang said borne out of the lies both Horde and the Alliance told themselves.
The horde claimed honor while they slaughtered innocents, waged wars and pillaged, they often fought amongst themselves when things got out of hand yet they were always ready to go back at it again, their definition of honor is blurred.
The Alliance claimed honor while they never took steps to coexist with the horde, the dwarves tried to drive the orcs out of alterac, the humans hunted the forsaken on sight, the night elves were too selfish and self centered to try and see the other sides point of view, every crime went under the rug and every righteous act was echoed as a justification, a clear example was Gen’s attack on Sylvannas, the fact that it cost both the alliance and horde a lot and that a lot of horde innocents were killed were swept under the rug because see Sylvannas is evil!
Saurfang stated it perfectly, the cycle of hatred must be broken and to break it the horde and alliance have to denounce them selves, they are no longer horde or alliance rather inhabitants of Azeroth A force that defends azeroth!
So how did it all come to this?
I think Sylvannas is a martyr whose sacrifice shall never be known.
So what do I mean by this?
After rewatching the BFA cinematic trailer, Sylvannas said it herself :-
" Ours is a cycle of hatred. Alliances forged and broken. We have paid the price for sharing this world and we have forgotten what makes us strong. "
Me thinks Saurfang and Sylvannas are in on this debacle, the Villain that slays the Hero while showing it’s true colors, causing both sides to question their own moralities and join together.
Now if this is true then Sylvannas should’ve fought and died right there after Saurfang dies, or set it up so that they both kill eachother.
But! that didn’t happen, so why did she do that? simple.
The only character that ever went to death and came back is Sylvannas windrunner, if you think about it the undead were all brought back but they know nothing about the afterlife and they all came back changed, scarred, furious and wicked.
Sylvannas knows something we don’t know, and inorder to combat it the very famous 3D/4D/xD chess jokes are being thrown around.
I think Sylvannas isn’t serving death, rather she is acting as a double agent, just like Illidan however she’s far more subtle about it and she knows she can’t be discovered.
Reasons I say this are :-
- Sylvannas threw herself off ICC after killing Arthas, if she was always planning to stay alive and rule she wouldn’t have done that
- Sylvannas stated explicitly during the war campaign that she wants to MASTER death, not serve it.
- Sylvannas doesn’t kill the loyalist player and infact gives them a kind of goodbye.
- The way Nathanos talked to Sylvannas and she talked to him in the loyalist quest was with a sad tone, as if they were preparing to die or are going to lose eachother, as you arrive Nathanos confirms to her that there will be no hesitation once they start.
- Like others have pointed out, if she really wanted max body count, she would’ve killed Saurfang fairly and annihilated the horde and alliance then turned on the remnant loyalist hordes and killed them.
- Sylvannas finally made the Horde and Alliance admit to their mistakes, see their own mistakes and understand that they aren’t flawless and aren’t always the good guys
- Sylvannas prevented the war that was going to come the real war that she talked about to saurfang that would come soon once both sides has recuperated and that war is going to be far more gruesome than what we’ve seen, on a bigger scale than just burning teldrassil
So what is the outcome of this? I’m thinking Sylvannas will betray death and backstab it to kill it, kind of like how Loki wanted to do Thanos in the avengers.
Why does she want to do this? I’m thinking Sylvannas knows that not only do the undead get put in that horrible realm of torment, rather everyone that dies, and inorder to end that realm of torment Sylvannas wants to kill it’s master, so that souls of the dead can finally be free to rest for eternity and she with them, Sylvannas wants to die in peace, we know this because she killed herself after achieved her goal ( in killing Arthas ) but she can’t have that because " Death " is out there waiting for her to torment her.
Tl;dr
The whole Mak’gora was planned, the whole finale was planned, Saurfang / Sylvannas / Nathanos are in on this, they did that because she wants to get " deaths " trust and unite the horde and alliance, she played the Villain and at the final moment she will betray “death” and kill it and die with it, no one will know but the fact that the villain Sylvannas died.
