Speaking of not listening, both of those points have been addressed at length in this thread and many others like it. They aren’t the “gotchas” you seem to think they are.
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She actually does now:
Not in the slightest. Truly. Its amazing how even now people try twisting that story to pretend that Sylvie came out of that situation caring about her Forsaken. For one, she was shown the vision of the Forsaken being wiped out without her prior to going to hell; it was on the trip down. And she still rejected them, because “she was done with them, they served their purpose”. She only decides to come back after experiencing “her hell”, when SHE realized she still needed THEM. Openly stating in that short story both the Forsaken’s new purpose “Her Bulwark Against the Infinite” (meatshield against her afterlife), and “while no fool Orc would squander them, they were a tool to be used wisely”.
Not once is it ever suggested in Edge of Night that she started caring for her “Mongrel Race as Rotten Corpses” as people, any more than she did prior. Not once is it suggested that she “needed to be needed”. Not once is it suggested that should they ever cease to be of sufficient use in their new role, she wouldn’t just abandon them again. Hell, why did people think she started killing and raising masses of new Forsaken in Cata? For the benefit of the Forsaken? Hell no. It was to bolster the size of her Bulwark. Her meatshield.
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No, the Aethas part of the scenario that was bugged was him discovering the theft moments too late to stop it and given a horrific choice. Either throw his people onto the pyre of Garrosh (literal Orc Hitler by that point), or throw them onto the pyre of Jaina. He chose the Pyre of Jaina believing it to be the lesser of two evils. Given Garrosh’s tendency of orchestrating the deaths of traitors and their people quite a bit by then; and that it was HIS vote that broke the tie to commit Dalaran to aiding Theramore in the first place during that attack. It was a truly awful situation, but Aethas was NOT behind the theft of the Divine Bell. It truly was a very small fringe group of Sunreavers that were Garrosh loyalists that were responsible.
But … naw. Nuance isn’t necessary when it comes to the Factions. Which is why we now have the man who should have been the leader of the VICTIMS bowing down and apologizing to the very people who purged his people. Even if it was “mostly” the Silver Covenant who did the worst of it, Jaina’s the one who let them loose.
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I think Edge of Night contains one bit of character detail that gets overlooked.
Within the city walls, bonfires raged. Sylvanas seethed; the Alliance was already burning the corpses. No. Wait. She tried to make sense out of the clouded vision. The few Forsaken who remain are throwing themselves into the bonfires, she realized, rather than facing their executioners.
Despite not caring about the Forsaken, she has a very visceral, emotional reaction to seeing this vision. She seethes at the implication that the Alliance might be burning their corpses.
Yes, she still chose to abandon them. Edge of Night Sylvanas was not in a great place, mentally. But I don’t think the topic of “Does she care about them?” can be boiled down to a straight Yes/No.
Historically, Sylvanas is someone who rejects the idea of closeness and caring. It isn’t that she can’t feel these emotions. Rather, she denies them to herself.
When given her sister’s necklace, she throws it to the ground and demands the PC leave. Only to then sing Lament of the Highborne and pick the necklace back up.
When she gave Nathanos his new body, she said it was because her Champion needed to be strong. But her Dark Rangers could tell it was because Sylvanas loved Nathanos.
Even Before the Storm, for all it’s badness, contains a scene where Sylvanas outright refuses the Gathering out of concern for the Forsaken and the rejection they might experience again, only relenting when Nathanos says they can use it to their advantage.
Like, I’m not gonna say Sylvanas is loveydovey with the Forsaken.
But I also don’t think it’s as simple as “She never cared about them” because she clearly did in some capacity.
It’s hard to parse, cause Sylvanas is selfish and hypocritical and toxic and all messed up in the head.
She frames everything from a callous, pragmatic angle. Because she refuses the notion that she does anything out of affection. (Dark Mirror is the best example of this)
But the affection is still there, plenty skewed by Sylvanas’ twisted outlook on life.
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No one is she didn’t “Care at all”. She certainly could have, but that’s never really been the issue. The primary question always was, “Has there even been a point she cared more about the Forsaken as people, over tools for her personal use?” And the truthful answer to that is “hell no, probably not even close”. The follow up question would then be at the end of Edge of Night, “If ever there was a point where the Forsaken ceased to be of sufficient worth, or a more reliable (and less dependent on others) alternative to her afterlife issue was found, would she abandon them again?” And the reasonable answer is … YES, yes she would.
No one is questioning how broken or tragic Sylvanas was as a person. That was always true, even with Blizz’s stupid split-soul thing. The question always was how much that reality would continue to give her a free pass, or “the benefit of the doubt”, to the horrible crap she continued to do. How much would it take for people admit that the Abuse Victim had become an Abuser in turn? Which sadly can happen. Turns out … A LOT.
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I’d argue against that.
Or I’d at least argue that the distinction isn’t really possible to make.
Sylvanas cares about people and masks that affection behind pragmatism.
So we really can’t say where the slider falls, because her own insistence is to measure people by their usefulness, despite harboring genuine feelings for them.
Not to overly focus on him, but Nathanos is essentially how all her relationships go.
More the reverse from all indications. Or did her abandonment of them TWICE now not convince you of that? She masks her selfishness and “pragmatism” with affection. How much of both her openly admitting, using, and abandoning the Forsaken as tools will it take before its obvious their value as tools far outweighed their value as people to her? Her relationship with that self-insert Nate was hardly comparable.
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This sounds like a pretty bad case of stockholm syndrome if i’ve ever seen it.
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I would argue based on her treatment of the Farstriders in the Sylvanas novel that this callous pragmatism was not the result of her undeath. That’s just who she was as a person, relating to her upbringing.
She thought it was okay to drug her Farstriders to test their endurance. In battle, she didn’t care if two dozen of them were sacrificed.
And personally, I think this is the most insulting bastardization of her original characterization.
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Fact is Aethas did not have his men in check, his faction was aideing the horde. And the Pyre of Jaina was Exile for ALL sunreavers from Dalaran.
ANd just like how Aethas was bugged. Jaina too was bugged. She was not supposed to kill all npcs only the really violetent ones She was supposed to port civilians to the violet hold
I’d say more, severely codependant
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I was gonna write up a rebuttal, realized that contributing to the eternal ouroboros of Dalaran talk isn’t worth it, so I’ll just summarize my response as:
“no.”
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“Edge of Night” is open to a lot of different interpretations. I wrote up my own thoughts on it here:
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Well, the first time in Edge of Night was Sylvanas at her absolute lowest point, so I give her some leeway.
And the second time with her farting off to join Zoovy was because she thought she was helping all the Forsaken (and everyone in the universe) by fixing the afterlife.
I’d argue it’s very comparable because it’s the clearest case of Sylvanas treating someone like a tool to hide her own feelings.
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I’m now going to forever refer to Shadowlands as Zoovy Do and the Mystery Gang.
Thanks Hackbrew.
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Zoovy Doovy Doo, who are you?
You’ve got some work to do now
Zoovy Doovy Doo, who are you?
You’ve barely been written down now
Come on Zoovy doo, I see you
Pretending you are a good guy
But you’re not fooling me, 'cause I can see
The way you want us to die
You know we got a mystery to solve
So, Zoovy Doo, be ready for your act
Don’t hold back
And, Zoovy Doo, if you come through
You’re gonna get yourself severly whacked
That’s a fact
Zoovy Doovy Doo, who are you
You’re ready and you’re willing
If we can defeat you, Zoovy Doo
We’ll know you’re a bad villain.
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Who is Scrappy Doo in this scenario?
I need to know who I am insufficiently hating at the moment.
… I mean, if Zovaal is Scooby, then Scrappy’s gotta be Sylvanas, right?
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I was thinking that, but Nathanos (had he actually been in the expansion at all in any singular way shape or form) fits that way better.
He has exuded pure sidekick energy since BFA.