I feel the same. There was no ‘feeding the Maw’ motive back then. It was purely a tactical choice after killing Malfurion and occupying Teldrassil didn’t go as planned.
There are so many things that don’t really make sense at this point. It really feels like they’re making it up as they go along and no one is spotting the big plot holes this leaves.
And what, honourable undead gentleman, would be your specific criteria for genocide? Because as far as I know the term is defined by intentionally killing a large number of people from an ethnical group. And Teldrassil which pretty much comes down to the hot spot of nightelf population containing the nightelf capital Darnassus is home to the largest number of night elves in Azeroth. Sylvanas knew it and burned it nonetheless.
Seriously, haggling about the term genocide and its legitimate use is usually only ever done by holocaust-deniers, so I’d be careful where you go with your semantics, my friend. Unless it’s part of your loyalist ingame rp character.
Ugh, you’re right. I even went back to the ‘Good War’ story which has a section from Sylvanas’s point of view because I thought I recalled something about her thinking of a grander plan.
Instead the section from her POV makes clear she always did intend to conquer Teldrassil until Saurfang spared Malfurion and she burned it in lieu of that. Capturing Teldrassil would not sync with the Jailer’s plans, only burning it would to fuel his power.
I feel ashamed I tried to rationalise some semblance of a coherent plot above. What a waste of time.
Each setpiece exists independently of each other set piece. The feelings and emotions present and thoughts are unique to that moment and serve that moment only. They don’t flow together in a satisfying cohesive whole, they are merely meant to provide instant gratification.
Incompetence. Fanboys at play, trying to one up their last great spectacle with the next. Consistent character development, motive, consequences. None of it matters for the needs of the moment.
So what? I should just accept it an not argue? I won’t because it wasn’t genocide. Sylvanas wasn’t on a quest to murder all nelfs. No slogans saying “death to the purple freaks”. The intent was to disable a military fortress that gave the enemy tactical strength both on land and sea. I’m sure you people want more big bad words to attribute to that character, but it’s wrong and she does not need the said word to be bad because she’s bad enough already.
But that’s not how it is, she wanted to occupy Teldrassil that would make sense, but she wanted to “kill hope” so yeah…
How would that make sense. An occupation especially with orcs running things would have been pretty damned brutal.
Even in the cinematic she says “Secure the beach, prepare to invade the tree” , she wasn’t planning on burning the tree.
I don’t know what to say cause that part is too messed up for my meager intellect.
Because they needed a reason to keep the faction war going.
I don’t know what this means, but I’m saying that she didn’t burn the tree because she was cunning and smart she burnt it out of spite for that Night Elf.
u can invade it then burn it afther …
Why would you do that? To burn yourself as well?
What I’m saying is that an occupation would have been pretty brutal especially considering it was run by orcs and probably forsaken too, the least benevolent factions of the Horde. And why she decided to burn the tree all of a sudden is still eluding me.
That is a personal interpretation that she burnt it out of spite but you certainly aren’t alone in thinking that. However, Saurfang foiled the actual plan and they had to come up with an alternative. So instead of the blow of losing Malfurion, she came up with burning Teldrassil.
Well she wanted to invade the tree, but then Night Elf told her that she cannot kill hope, so she set fire to Teldrassil with a grim on her face saying “Can’t I?”
So to me it really seems to be out of spite, but in Shadowlands they are saying that she just wanted souls to go into the Maw which just makes everything much more confusing since Night Elves are wisps.
Arguing successfully requires valid arguments. If you don’t have any, arguing is pointless since you simply don’t have proper evidence to prove your point. 
Well, but that intent didn’t go as planned, did it? What you’re basically saying is, the ethnic cleansing was an accident (lol) because Sylvanas had some short circuit reaction to words she didn’t want to hear and decided to answer with a childish act of destroying the opponent’s whole lego tower instead of simply sticking a flag into it. Still mass murder / genocide because of the fact that she knew about Teldrassil being the center of nightelf population.
The fact that she didn’t run a genocide campaign before doesn’t matter. You don’t need to announce “I’m going to commit genocide” to actually commit genocide. If that were the case, each and every single colonial crime of ethnical cleansing would simply be justified with “We just wanted to occupy local resources but then those locals showed up and made us angry, so we accidentally killed them”. She did it. She knew what she did. And she didn’t give af.
Cos writers. If you look a plothole, you will fell in an another.
Many of those who dislike Sylvanas have tried to portray as some kind of temper tantrum instead of just coming up with an alternative strategy. To me it was cunning despite the dying elf trying to mock her.
But the story changing all the time does cause confusion.
The tree was going to be occupied, but plot was foiled by Saurfang for bailing on his duty and another plan was hatched, the burning.
Then people claimed that Sylvanas was feeding the souls of the tree to the Maw and it was all intended. Not something I’ve ever felt was true myself but I think I just missed something or it’s another case of interpretation gone wrong.
We had the farcical, the Night Elves have had their revenge in Darkshore comments from one of the BlizzCons or Q&A sessions or something. Not on the same level but as Horde it felt very empty to have Greymane attempt to assassinate Sylvanas (our Warchief) in Stormheim and everyone was just fine and dandy about it. There were no repercussions.
Then we have Elune the ever flakey giving/taking powers from Tyrande, who now says she’s redirected all the lost souls from Teldrassil to her Sister the Winter Queen in her time of need. They were all condemned to the Maw but it does not make sense that she would have just sent them without wondering why there was any problem in the first place.
Same with Sylvanas, why do we have to believe that she couldn’t see that Zovaal wasn’t up to any good. It goes against her cunning character. Nor does it make much sense that she’s abandoned Nathanos. Why did she have to discover his fate via Tyrande.
Exactly, this is my biggest problem with Sylvanas, I adored her and she was my favorite till mid BFA but now she just doesn’t seem like this cunning mastermind who is working from the shadows, she seems dumb.
I don’t want her to be dumb, I hope we will learn that she had a plan…Not just actually be stupid enough to follow the Jailer without questioning him.
Of course it matters. It shows there was no intent. Take the legion for example, they might have not announced their intent too often but it was clear because of their logic. Sylvanas’ character offers no intent, by reflection of her own thoughts or the narration of her story. And be very careful about using colonial examples because the players have themselves have been implicated in similar events via questing and it wasn’t an accident there either. But by all standards of genocide as we see it, which evidently is more exact and exclusive than how the people of Azeroth might see it, it is not genocide. There was no established intent, nelfs weren’t indiscriminately targeted and removed they weren’t nearly wiped out. There is nothing about what happened there that hints at genocide.