I mean, I could see Sylvanas and Nathanos choosing to be the Wardens of the Maw, while Pelagos becomes the Arbiter…
…but like much of this story, why would that happen/make sense?
To the best of my knowledge, Sylvanas is still connected to Azeroth as much as any normal Undead would be?
Wouldn’t she have to come back to Azeroth, be killed, then sent back through the Arbiter for judgement and afterlife assignment?
Sylvanas has a hidden model on the PTR, so there is a thought she might sacrifice herself in some way and become a ghost, back in her original High Elven appearance
Again, I am not 100% on the way the Shadowlands works, so forgive me…
But wouldn’t her “sacrificing herself” completely delete her from existence much like Garrosh?
Empowered Sylvanas =/= sacrificed Sylvanas.
Who or what would empower her? o.O
She still has a body, so if she dies her tether to her body gets destroyed. If you are alive in the shadowlands its like having a spare life, sort of.
She’d be reduced to a soul.
She doesn’t have a tether to her body though. She is possessing it. Since she is a Banshee.
Ah right, I forgot about Detheroc’s history with Garithos. Good point!
The only thing I regret about Balnazzar showing up in Legion and finally being defeated for good is that that we didn’t get any interaction from Darion about it, not even a reaction from him to the news that Balnazzar was gone. I completely understand why, the death knight campaign finale set the Ebon Blade against the Silver Hand (thanks Bolvar), so it would have been strange for someone from the paladin order hall to send word to Darion after that point. But still, I wish we could have gotten something there that would still work with that dynamic. Balnazzar was directly responsible for so much of the trauma visited upon the Mograine family, and was indirectly responsible for Darion becoming a death knight in the first place. I would have liked to see some acknowledgement of that there. I’ll be a little disappointed if he doesn’t have any comment at all about facing dreadlords in Shadowlands, but I’m not expecting anything considering that we didn’t get anything from him or Alexandros about Kel’Thuzad.
I think the key to that would be to know exactly what mission was given to the Nathrezim who had infiltrated the Legion. Were they supposed to undermine the Legion so that they didn’t get in the way of Zovaal’s plans, or were they supposed to help the Legion succeed, because success for the Legion would also help Zovaal achieve his goals? Were they supposed to prioritize keeping their cover with the Legion intact over short term gains for Zovaal? I can’t think of any specific moments right now that would appear to be an instance of the Nathrezim really sabotaging the Legion’s success. Both Sargeras and Zovaal apparently want Azeroth dead; maybe Zovaal doesn’t really care how that happens and was playing multiple sides in order to increase his odds?
Presumably she could just be killed in the Shadowlands, though I’m not sure how the logistics work there. We’ve seen living mortals die in the Shadowlands already. Garrosh was just a soul, already dead, while Sylvanas and other undead are considered to effectively still be alive by residents of the Shadowlands.
Well yes, and no, she forged a tether when she possessed it. You could say she would just have her body destroyed then, but that is largely semantics.
Yep. Her body is still “alive,” you’ve got to kill that first.
We have seen Banshees possess a body (even one that is still living) and leave it, either willingly or by force and the body remains intact for the most part. Such as that Banshee that possessed a vrykul and later a Val’kyr in Icecrown
Yeah that was a weird one, normally once a banshee possess a body they don’t/can’t really leave it. And how does one even possess a Val’kyr. They are also spirit beings themselves. Never made a lot of sense…
Sylvanas also makes her body go into banshee mode too, so she seems to have a very tight bond to her body.
A question: have we seen Sylvanas actually leave her body entirely since Cataclysm? She’s died twice since her original death at Arthas’ hands and had to be resurrected to get back into her body. Are we sure she’s still a proper banshee at this point and not tied to her body like most Forsaken?
I wonder when that was set up. Because the example I listed counteracts that. Since she willingly leaves the Vrykul body to possess the Val’kyr then Arthas forces her out of the Val’kyr body in the climax of that story arc by killing the Val’kyr. So clearly killing the body does not kill the Banshee.
Honestly I would just add it to the pile of things blizzard is inconsistent about because being consistent would ruin their “Rule of cool” style of storytelling. The only thing they are consistent at doing is being inconsistent.
On one side of the coin we have Sylvanas, a banshee that dies when her body is killed. Then we have Lady Nightswood who goes body hopping whenever she feels like it. Not to mention that even after the body she is currently possessing is killed. She is completely fine. In fact that happens to Nightswood twice. She is possessing Iskalder while we kill him then she goes and possesses Vardmadra like nothing happened. The second time is when Arthas kills Vardmadra.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Not-So-Honorable_Combat
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Banshee%27s_Revenge
Both times it’s not her own Body…
Returning to one’s own Body forges a Tether to it keeping one from leaving I would assume.
I’m sure Lady Nightswood’s corpse is either an Abomination or Cannibalized which is good for her.
Sylvanas is considered the Banshee Queen, by the title alone I assume she could do anything a typical banshee could do and more.
She’s the only banshee that I’ve seen go banshee form while still attached to her body. I remember bringing it up when the BfA cinematic was released. We basically concluded that she was getting stronger, boy oh boy how we understated that.
Honestly I think it’s pretty likely that they just forgot Sylvanas is possessing her own body and is actually a spooky elf ghost with bad hair. I mean, they had Tyrande try to choke her in the cutscene, and while one could interpret that as the Night Warrior just being incompetent, the scene was framed as Tyrande being seconds away from victory.
As in Sylvanas was in actual danger of dying.
From being unable to breathe.
My initial thought was that she actually trying to pop Sylvanas head off, a decapitation of sort.
I could buy either scenario. The devs forgot undead waifu is, y’know, not a breather and therefore can’t be choked out… Or OP bad mofo Tyrande started off with a choke, remembered Sylvy doesn’t breathe, and said to herself “ah well, brute force decapitation works too!!”
I like to think it’s both.
Also possible, would be nice for them to remember Night Elves are physically stronger than they look even when not high on eclipse juice.
Sadly we’ll never know for sure, because this current team isn’t exactly honest.
I don’t know how you could ever get the impression that Sylvanas would die, especially to Tyrande of all people.
The impression that she would die is different than the impression that I had, which was attempted decapitation.
I think at this point Sylvanas would offer what’s left of her life as payment for Arthas and Zovaal twisting and manipulating her soul. I believe once she became restored her perspective changed to her pre-cursed persona. Its part of the reason why I think if she’s sent to Revendreth it would take them all of 5 minutes to determine she’s ready to ascend.
If you ask me I personally wish she would become fully restored to her living self and join us back on Azeroth. I feel that she’s on the chopping blocks tho.