The "real" Sylvanas Windrunner and "death"

Lore Story
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Hello everyone. I kept this idea of a topic on my tongue for quite some time now, and decided to let it lose for good. I stitched some clues together Pyromancer style, put my tinfoil-hat on and came to an conclusion.

Our favorite character most players love to hate on, or actually love(If they are Forsaken fans). Sylvanas Windrunner. Wherever you might stand on her, she has done alot controversial actions in the past years, that kept her from being redemable step by step. But. The teached eye might have noticed, that if you know all of her background story, you could might say, that Sylvanas is acting heavily out of character despite her portrayal from the past. The Burning of Teldrassil, the use of Valkyr to raise more undead, her being scared of returning to the afterlife, seeing undead as superior life form, instead of torment.

Those are the major hints for me, that something is not quite right about her characterization. I learned about her as someone, who is not acting irrational or out of rage. Rather being an very evil, but cold blooded and rational, fighter who schemes behind the scenes to archieve victory. Teldrassil made her look like a random Orc Warlord. So? What are the main points to look at in making my point? Let’s make a quick check-list.

  1. Dying Delryan Summermoon talking to Sylvanas about hatred and rage at Teldrassil.
  2. Sylvanas meeting with the Val’kyr and suddenly, after impaled by Saronite spikes, seeing undeath as something positive(Nothing to do with her quest for immortality, that’s an entire different topic).
  3. Sylvanas attacking the sworn enemies of old gods, the titanic watchers, for personal reasons at first sight in Stormheim(Odyn and Valarjar).
  4. Sylvanas making a pact with a being from the shadowlands(Helya) with so far unknown requirments to the eyes of the PCs.
  5. Sylvanas, who used to hate being a monster and hated everything the Scourge represented, not only the Lich King but also all the mindcontrol stuff, admitting to Garrosh how similar they are in Silverpine forest.
  6. Sylvanas in the PTR talking about the coming “Endgame”, to focus on.
  7. still no clear fix of the situation free will vs mind control(Cornerstone of Forsaken society etc. etc. you get the deal).

These are just the biggest major breaks of Sylvanas and “Sylvanas” when you try to lay those two personalities next to each other.

So what happened to her? Is it just the fear of dying the ultimate death and stranding in shadowlands hell forever, or is there more behind it? Well here comes the reveal. The Sylvanas we met once Cataclysm started, stopped being the Sylvanas we knew from Warcraft 3, when she died her second time. Well. Now she is what exactly? If you look closely at the event of states and compare it to Sylvanas’ current characterization and quotes you might find some similarities.

  • Trust is your weakness.
  • Hope is an illusion.
  • There is no escape. Not in this life, not in the next.
  • Kill them all before they kill you.
  • Look upon the true face of death, and know that your end comes soon!

You thought this is from Sylvanas? Well no, these are quotes from either none other than Yogg-Saron in both his true form and his avatar form “Sara” who oddly enough is female too. And that my dear friends is what happened here too. Yogg-Saron now uses Sylvanas’ physical body as vessel/avatar. Until he is actually strong enough(by killing as many people as possible via war) to return in his full glory, as an actual old god. For the purpose of fightning against his Nemesis N’zoth. Which is the true battle for Azeroth. Our planet used as battlegound N’zoth vs Yogg-Saron and all their minions. An ultimate plot twist, good and big enough to subvert expectations that nobody saw coming. Like, I know it sounds odd and crazy, BUT remember also this quote:

“Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh’ongg w’ssh.”

translates to

“The shadow of my corpse will choke this land for all eternity.”

he said this, when he is defeated in the raid. That was it which gave it away for me, to come up with this theory. Sylvanas = Yogg-Saron. Nathanos MIGHT know about it and aids “Sylvanas” regardless to prevent any harm coming to her(Yoggi threatened her soul with suffering if he should step out of line).

So that’s it. It took me some time to piece it together but I think it was worth it. What do you guys think?

Bal’adash.

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This thread has been written for 4 months. Be nice.

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It does make sense, but it’s demoralizing thing about Horde if it turns true. Another Warchief turning to Old God’s tool which happened within one expansion break to some sort of normality.

However, the last questline with Vol’Jin made me believe we might deal with another new death entity. Whatever it turns out, we need to remember that at this point everything is decided already and I really fear the outcome. Let’s brace ourselves :confounded:

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This is so far one of the best theories i ever read. I always felt that Sylvanas right now is out of character. And with this plot twist, it does make a lot of sense.
Old gods are known for their whispers in the mind of mortals. That can explains the “Spirit” Vol’jin heard and which he made Sylvanas the warchief based on it and not anyone other and more suitable like Baine or Saurfang.
Also if he was Yogg-Saron, then the voices of the void that Alleria heard and demanded her to kill Sylvanas is actually the voices of N’zoth or his minions, since i can imagine he don’t want his rival ( If not enemy ) to win.
This can also be another plot twist in the theories of the ( Death is the ultimate enemy of the void ) if you got what i mean.
But yeah, this is pretty nice theory to see :slight_smile:

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  1. I don’t think Sylvanas is acting out of character. I have no problem with her becoming a paranoid control freak after noticing that dying after she got her revenge was no way out of her suffering. And after that the authors gave us a few scenes to push her further down this path, like Godfrey’s betrayal and, more importantly, Vereesa going back on her word.
  2. We have seen quite a few of chapters in her point of view. If she wasn’t herself, or there was some internal battle going on, we should have seen it, at least in hints that would be clear in hindsight. But we haven’t.
  3. As far as we can tell it was N’zoth who compelled the player to bring Knaifu to Sylvanas. That wouldn’t make much sense, if she was host to his enemy.

I would actually like to see some old god politics going on, Yoggy and big N plotting against each other and using us as pawns. And it would be nice if Sylvanas was caught up in that. But I’m not seeing it.

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Sylvanas has always been crazy, the proof is how she gleefully watched two prisoners get melted by the Blight during the Rise of Arthas. Someone right in the idea doesn’t take pleasure in such a gruesome death, even if it is two prisoners (one of which is an innocent woman). Furthermore, even before that, she considered the humans an “infestation”, hence why she sent her dog Varimathras to kill them, and in addition even in Warcraft III she herself aknowledged that she was a monster and was pretty much willing to do anything for revenge.

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I know people are free to discuss whatever lore aspects they like. But damn it, I’m so sick of hearing about Sylvanas.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait, you are serious?

We literally have Sylvanas’ pov in Before the Storm and a Good War. Nowhere is it shown, or even implied that anyone, much less Yogg-Saron, is the one doing it. Of all the goalpost-shifting excuses I see people make to absolve Sylvanas, this is the dumbest and craziest. Why? Because Yogg-Saron and Sylvanas share some similar perspectives, also shared by several other characters? Hey, why not argue that Sylvanas is actually Deathwing in disguise? This is honestly laughable. Did you forget that Yogg-Saron is itself dead? Is it that hard to admit that Sylvanas is an evil, genocidal fascist?

This is honestly frightening.

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Give Erevien a break, it’s his first serious thread of the year.

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It is about as good as I expected.

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See Alleria is a very interesting point and I’d like to expand on that.

“The Void” in its very core and prospect, is defined by the Void Lords. Beings who need to consume matter endlessly to retain their physical manifestation, thus created the Old Gods, to accomplish said mission of corrupting a world soul.

Now the very core of void energy, as the voidlords agenda aligns with, is chaos. Thats why during Black Empire the Old gods would wage endless war at one another.

BUT as we have seen through the Emerald nightmare, who Yogg-Saron accesed first, but sort of “allowed access” to the others as well, to corrupt.

So I like to think of this old god “teamwork” more along the lines of supremacy. Like “ok they got me, but here have access to the emerald dream so you can mess them up N’zoth”.

As such, its not likely for the whispers in Allerias head to be N’zoth. A void lord? More likely. The very void philosophy mentality energy? (Similarly to how the Light commands obedience) likely as well.

So if anything I personally (would like ) to believe that even IF Sylvannas is controlled/affected by a force, its more likely for it to be a force of “Death” and not void e.g. namely Shadowlands Helya etc

There are many gaps we havent seen there!

  1. Lich King - Originally created by Kiljaeden. Essentially meaning the Legion can tap into Death energy and a good amount of it considering the Lich Kings power!!!
  2. Yogg claims to be the God of Death etc etc
  3. Helya - The first Valkyr BUT very importantly, a Titan Keeper (former or not) is now considered pretty much a God of Death.
  4. Bwonsamdi - a mysterious figure commanding Death
  5. The Shadowlands - a supposedly opposite to the Emerald Dream realm we have pretty much no clue of, or very little information.
  6. Lightforged Undead and the “The light has struck a bargain with the enemy of all”

So as seen above we have major players from all the forces that shape reality in Azeroth, vying for control of Death , Legion (Kj Lich King) , old gods, trolls, Sylvannas, the Light etc.

My theory is that Sylvannas vies for such control as another player of many, for the purpose of dealing Death in huge scale (thats why she collects souls from said war as is implied) for the purpose of succesfully “Killing an Old God”.

A feat previously believed by the Titans impossible due to the catastrophic events the death of Yrsaarj caused. So they resorted to imprisoning them.

However it is implies that this had a time-limit and they eventually would re-emerge.

What if that is her goal? It the Book Before the Storm it is referenced when she touched Azerite “she felt like a Godess of Destruction and Creation and saw for the first time how the two were intertwined”

So it makes sense if she goes Lelouch Code Geass style “We need to “destroy” this world (whether thats factions/systems/old gods etc) to build a new one.

And who better than Anduin to take up center stage with all life forces after she has done the dirty work , admittedly

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I just thought of this when I read this quote

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But your theory speaks against “Edge of Night”, were us wash shown that it was still she who decided to life a third time. I don’t think that Yogg Saron is so stupid to take gifts from his enemy N’zoth.

If he would be killed it would we would see something similar like the Sha as consequence.

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Undead cannot be controlled by the Void.

Sylvanas isn’t being controlled by Yogg Saron because the Void has no power over death, Sylvanas being a genocidal maniac is entirely within character (are we just going to forget the fact that she was more than willing to completely wipe out Gilneas with Blight despite Garrosh explicitly stating that she was forbidden to use it?).

Yogg-Saron isn’t dead, we defeated it and got it’s prison back up and running but it’s still very much alive.

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No, it is very much dead. We kill it in Ulduar.

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Read it again. I never denied that Sylvanas is evil.

Y’shaarj was dead too. Still what was left caused enough havoc and he kept whispering to Garrosh through weapon and heart.

If you have nothing nice to say, you might say nothing at all :slight_smile:

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That’s not really true, there are plenty of undead among Twilight’s Hammer.

Also in Nazmir near the 2nd Seal you see plenty of undeads that were disturbed by the corruption. You could argue it was G’huun but everywhere around were void portals.

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You attribute all her evil deeds to another character.

Yes, in the general area around its heart, which is what allowed it to do so. Sylvanas, if you have not noticed, Sylvanas is nowhere near its corpse.

You go first.

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What was evil about her already existed pre cataclysm. I say that all the stuff since Gilneas made her look too for front and orc like to her previous characterization.

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Ofc it can.

Now hold on. How you can be sure that Yogg Saron is dead if even the Titans let him alive because his dead would cause too much damage to Azeroth?

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