Why did Sylvanas burn Teldrassil? Plothole

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Which is silly writing. Which isn’t just a Sylvy problem… We all remember it taking the Horde and Alliance to siege Orgrimmar.

Which was equally as stupid. They had the numbers to just utterly roflstomp his army. After US Orc fans kicked off about being made to be the baddies it was suddenly changed to “N’no, just some Orcs are bad, most are still Horde loyal, not Garrosh followers” Which made it even more laughable.

The real reason there was probably that it would be really bad vibes to have a player character race working for who they had basically set up as a pastiche of Silly Moustache Man…

Sadly the main reason has already been touched upon. Blizz just aren’t very good at writing female characters.

We know her original intention was to occupy Darnassus. Everyone knew it. Tyrande even knew it, her Army knew it, Sylvanas even says in the world tree cinematic at the very start “Prepare the boats for invasion”.

At this stage she makes no coherent ‘play’ at all. She’s scared of the Maw, we know this from ‘Edge of Night’ So she decides the smartest thing to do would be to make the Maw even more powerful?

That’s like going “Well I was going to slide down this bannister, but it looks a bit risky at the other end, I know what I’ll do to improve the situation! I’ll glue razorblades down the top of the bannister! Yeah!”

Then some of her idiotic dialogue is just absurd. “Life, is a prison, and I will set us all free!” Yes, by ripping a massive hole to the world of the dead, finding a guy who is -called- the Jailor and making buddy with him. Does she not know the correlation between the words ‘Jailor’ and ‘Prison’? I mean even if she skipped those pages in the dictionary, this dude has a Gods Damned Prison…

What is going on in her head?

There’s very few decent female characters in WoW, and one the ones they had, they just killed off!

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Blizzard has changed the meaning of the burning of the tree multiple times. In the other thread I explain my reading of the original intention, which was to have the Fourth War using inspiration and making analogies to WW2. Azerite being nuclear power for example. America, I mean Sylvanas burning down Hiroshima and destroying Nagasaki. The destruction of Darnassus makes sense from a strategic point of view. The burning of the Tree was to send a message.

I firmly believe Blizzard did not think of the connection to “Death with a capital D” and Sylvanas making a deal with Zovaal up until 8.2 came out. They invented that for 8.2.5.

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I know, but with so many retcons lately, we know that she doesn’t care for Horde but I remember reading in “Before The Storm” that cares about the Horde deeply.

So basically in 2 years her character completely changed, because she has been working with The Jailer since end of Wrath, so we are getting those retcons all the time.

So basically I know that she wanted to “kill hope” whatever that means to her honestly she was never this life hater, she was always cunning and smart about her decisions.
But then we learned that is not true and she wanted to kill as many people as possible to fuel the Maw, that’s why Teldrassil burnt.

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Maybe the Jailer had a hunch. He does know Elune.

I mean, what exactly did the Jailer have to lose? it doesn’t bother him any if they remain as wisps.

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Cause she was all this time making deals with Elune for UD to procreate, Elune just shortcircuited and forgot. Its all a clever ploy to kill the Jailer, free Bolvar from the crown so she can have babies with him.

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Actually Sylvanas is one of the characters that has a healthier reaction to the latest revelations that come from the shadowlands. Her objective was to bust the current system because of how controlling it is and unfair towards the souls.

What happened with Elune underlines that notion. Sylvanas burned the tree, but Elune, as she says hand a hand in it at least. She says she sent the souls of the victims to her sister in the Shadowlands but that didn’t happen cause as Sylvanas says, the system is broken, can be exploited easily and the people who were supposed to oversee that system are in shambles as we are the ones who are supposed to fix their issues as we quest through the Shadowlands.

Also Sylvanas didn’t commit genocide.

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What is this belief based on?

I lean more toward The Jailer being fairly recently aligned with Sylvanas.

I get that there’s a desire to connect The Jailer to everything in the past, but it honestly makes more sense if Sylvanas’ actions are primarily driven by her own motivation - I would say up until around the time she blasts Saurfang with her newly borrowed power.

I don’t think The Jailer has influenced the actions of Sylvanas since the end of WotLK. It doesn’t really make sense to actively insert him into the storyline that early on.

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The explanation is simple, a tree was blown up when Garrosh was chief and so Sylvanas needed to one up that because she’s petty.

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https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Zovaal

“Sylvanas Windrunner allied with the Jailer after her suicide at Icecrown Citadel.He sent a group of Val’kyr to make a pact with her and allow her to return to the world of the living, so that she could ultimately claim the Helm of Domination from the “false king” Bolvar.Sylvanas and the Jailer have been working toward a common end ever since.”

I believe it was said by Steve in one of the interviews.

So every one of her actions after wotk is based on her working with the Jailer.

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It was Elune’s fault the whole time.

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She was feeling cold that night, being undead after all.

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Because that elune cut scene is a way of redempting an unforgivable character.

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You know when you had a perfect history to tell to people and then people after hear the story they go like ‘‘ok that was perfect and then what?’’
You realize that you never really thought about what happens after but because you have an audience now the show must keep going some how?

That is wrath of the lich and then shadowlands.

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She did it out of spite cause the dying Night-Elf said: You can’t kill hope… and: I weep for you… She got crazy salty about the convo with the N-Elf and decided to burn it instead of invade it

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“Let the Gilneans enjoy their small victory, not even their bones will remain by tomorrow”.

“Burn it! BURN IT!”

“Death to the living”

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But this is not Sylvanas we know, she is not a hothead, she is cunning, smart, patient and waits for the right moment to do things.

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Let them gloat there is one obstacle undeads and that banshee can’t get rid , we did not commit genocide twice or even once on the forsakens it was well deserved not only they are usurpers and betrayers following a murderer and illegitimate pseudo queen ranger but all undead are by nature evil and must be purged by force ! Not your Lordearon , my Lordaeron ! Do a kiss to the only true queen Calia Menethil that poison is our gift undeads ! :kissing_heart:

If danuser think humans will be at peace with undeads because tyrande must choose he is wrong , we humbled you in the past and as long as i live you will suffer undeads!

For now gives tyrande back and renewal back and then i dive at your banshee at the first chance !

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Writers are calling it genocide though.

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This. To my mind, this was the stupidest episode in the whole regrettable BfA lead-up. I mean, there were certainly more damaging bits, but for concentrated cosmic-level stupidity in a tin, you can’t beat this.

I’m getting annoyed again. I promised myself I wouldn’t think back on that whole sorry mess. Enough.

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Yeah. I found the Q&A:

Q: Did the jailer in the maw see the Legion as a threat which is why Sylvanas worked with Varian?
A: We’ll find out more of her motivations in Shadowlands and that her relationship with the Jailer dates back a bit. Edge of Night story involves this relationship. Working with Varian was a long term strategy in order to get war chief - had to make allies but now we’re seeing the fruition of that.

So in typical Steve Danuser fashion it’s a bit ambiguous and not so straight forward. It’s tempting to say that everything Sylvanas did after Edge of Night is a direct command by The Jailer.
But the two don’t really seem connected that early on.

Sylvanas definitely makes a lot of decisions after Edge of Night. Her fear of death and the fate she saw for herself in that terrible place where Arthas seemingly also was.
So especially in Cataclysm, MoP, and Legion she seems very concerned with ensuring the ongoing existence of The Forsaken and obtaining immortality for herself to avoid her ultimate fate. I mean, that seems to be the gist of her motivations if you play through Silverpine and Stormheim where she’s heavily featured.
And going into Battle for Azeroth and the 4th war it also seems that her initial goal is really to end this cycle of hatred with one decisive outcome - victory for The Horde - and subsequently enrich her own Forsaken through the dead casualties of the war.

It’s hard to subscribe any of the above to The Jailer. That all seems to be Sylvanas doing things to ensure her own survival on Azeroth, because she’s terribly afraid of the fate she saw for herself in Edge of Night.

Where does she get aligned with The Jailer and start working for him?
I would say it’s before she fights Saurfang. We’ve cornered her and are about to lay siege to Orgrimmar. Her death and imminent fate would be close. No escape.
That would be when The Jailer would appear and form an allegiance.
Afterward she uses her new purple powers and incredible strength we hadn’t seen before and she has a speech that seems very different from her normal perspective (what makes us strong - BfA intro cinematic). And she flies off and tells Nathanos what he must do (could have done this before if she was allied with The Jailer before…), And then she goes to Icecrown (could also have done this sooner if she had been allied with The Jailer since Edge of Night).

To me it’s much more sensible that she starts working directly with The Jailer around the time where she accepts Saurfang’s challenge.

That would fit with the narrative events and her own actions and character development would all make sense.

I mean, when she fights Saurfang she has incredible strength and purple magic powers. Obviously aligning her with The Jailer.
Does she have that same strength and purple powers when she fights Greymane in Stormheim? No. There’s no Jailer influence to be seen there.

I wouldn’t personally go all in on one specific interpretation of Steve Danuser’s Q&A answer, especially not when that interpretation doesn’t align with actual events.
Bad wowwiki. Bad! :yum:

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