I know people are gonna bring up torches and pitchforks for me bringing this up, but let me say this. I don’t condone Sylvanas’ actions in any way, and I find her hypocritical in her justifications. All the same, I can see some weight in her beliefs that the afterlives are unfair.
First, the afterlife is chosen for you by what may as well be a living automaton. A machine.
The Kyrian strip their aspirants of their memories, their identity, even their former forms and replace it with an identical copy of the Archon.
Maldraxxus is a dark Valhalla where the number one rule is Survival of the Fittest. Those who succeed climb to the top. Those that fail become fodder and parts.
Ardenweald offer reincarnation and rebirth, but you’re put in a helpless deep sleep under the care of unknown strangers. Not to mention the Winter Queen coldly ordering some wildseeds be sacrificed to preserve the realm. Those still sleeping have no say in the matter, and are erased without their knowledge or permission.
Finally, there’s the Venthyr who feed on the anima of their souls on the grounds that they redeem those souls and make them atone for their sins. Somewhat like Ardenweald, Denathrius and his followers abuse their charge and treat their souls like workhorses, feeding on their anima before throwing them into the Maw when they’re spent.
Again, I’m not defending Sylvanas. She’s a hypocrite for preaching about free will while she’s threatening to make others server her if they don’t cooperate. I still don’t know why she didn’t see her hypocrisy before the Jailer betrayed her. But I can still somewhat see what she was going for. It also adds context to her infamous statement: “You are all nothing!!!” In the eyes of the Eternal Ones, we are nothing. To them, our lives, accomplishments, failures, etc. don’t mean anything. We’re just fuel and sustenance for their covenants.
I have a warhammer (40k) background. I get the villains who want to see the world burn.
In one of my boxes in storage rests some khorne troops. The blood god does not care how or why the blood flows. He only demands that the blood does in fact…flow!.
I also for the “good” side have black templars. The emporer’s finest…who are extreme zealots.
when they wipe out a xeno settlement they don’t ask
why did we do this? What does this say about?
they ask…Brother-Captain what is the next target and can we get some more ammo, we need to freshen up ammo stocks before we go wipe it out too.
From my limited understanding, The fact that the afterlives are sorted for you regardless of intent is the Jailer’s fault. He was the Arbiter at one time, then he betrayed everyone, they stripped him of everything, and plugged his sigil into the Prototype Arbiter stored in the Sepulcher of the First ones, and it automated the process. With it gone, and the Jailer dead, the new arbiter is allowing people to choose where to go.
The Venthyr had twisted their purpose due to Denathrius working for the Jailer (or possibly manipulating him into thinking he worked for him while actually doing his own thing, the lore videos are inconclusive) They were supposed to redeem souls and then send them to a different afterlife to serve a new purpose, not throw them into super hell.
There are supposedly many more afterlives we don’t see, they just send us to the ones that Blizzard thought would be the most interesting.
The 4 afterlives we are shown are what maintains how the Shadowlands functions. Most souls go to the afterlife they believe in. If their planet has its own death gods the kyrian don’t take those souls. Odyn and Bwonsamdi are our examples.
I have suspected there was supposed to be some revelation that gave Sylvanas and the Forsworn purpose to align with the Jailer-- it became hallow and empty. The Jailer was a much bigger threat.
Sylvanas is a fictional character who was rewritten by people who had zero care about consistency, character development, or continuity. I see no reason to blame her for the sins of the writing team.
Lava worms, and the whole “I will never serve” moment irredeemably damaged not only the story, but every single thing Sylvanas has done since after Icecrown.
It’s kind-of impressive how hard a single idiot writer can just irrevocably damage a 20 year old game’s established lore.
