I fear that’s why soul shattering is going to fail as a narrative. It’s not going to be explained or expanded upon enough to give it a satisfying ending.
Slyvanas wasn’t perfect in her Blood Elf life. She did some…questionable things for sure. But she did die protecting her people and that should warrant an honorable afterlife for herself.
Sure, it wasn’t 100% Slyvanas’ fault that she was thrown into this mess. A shattered soul brought back as a Banshee, who fell on … … hard times.(?)
However, the whole Teldrasill thing… kindof negates all that.
It’s hard to bring an ending to this that would satisfy either narrative.
Look at this if they were two different people…
The Banshee Queen deserves to be shot through the heart by Tyrande.
The General Ranger deserves a chance at redemption, at the very least, or some form of “peaceful afterlife.”
Neither, at this time, deserve to become the Arbiter.
Simply merging their souls together does not make it a different story. This doesn’t become a “different person” overnight, Slyvanas as a complete soul is not better than the General Ranger was, or worst then the Banshee Queen is.
Honestly at this point if it means Sylvanas is out of the story, sure, send her to Ardenweald. I don’t care how or if she dies or what kind of ending she gets. The character is the antithesis of Metzen’s “the world is the protagonist” idea - two huge chunks of the world were sacrificed in order for her character development - and she’s grossly overstayed her stay in the spotlight.
like what exactly? we have less than three paragraphs about what Sylvanas was like when she was alive. The new Fairy tales and fables book calls her, and the part of her soul that she got back in the cinematic, the personification of courage.
“She was the Sister of Courage, because courage is what killed her.” page 90
The only “questionable” thing she did was sacrifice a dozen rangers on a hilltop to evacuate a dozen more civilians before Arthas attacked and even that is wildly misunderstood and misrepresented, because they she goes on to sacrifice her own life too.
You are blowing so much smoke right now and I’m personally tired of people misinterpreting this character. You really should read A Sister is Another Word for Always, because it really captures Sylvanas when she was alive, and why she’s still worth saving.
This is a bit off topic but I think the biggest problem is the unexplained magic system of necromancy, split souls, raising the dead and true free will.
If it has been explained then they did a very poor job of it.
There are so many inconsistencies that it seems undeath and its process is the only explanation for different results of character actions.
Why did Sira and Delaryn join the Forsaken? The undead raising made them go crazy. But they totally can still think.
Why did Sylvanas do all these evil things? Because she got her soul split so she was not fully acting how she should. Which means she didn’t have true free will.
Why did the Gilneanans fear being raised as forsaken when its optional to be raised as the dead?
Round and round we go.
Its like those terrible fantasy stories that explain anything with “its magic! anything is possible!” or my petpeeve “Its fantasy! you got X and Y so why are you questioning this?!”
That one really pisses me off.
Sylvanas and the Forsaken keep breaking rules or keep making new ones to explain their story progression and people are getting tired of dealing with that.
I believe the not so popular opinion is Ranger General Sylvanas is evil because she sent of Farstriders to delay Arthas knowing they would die and she liked mirrors.
You say you glorify this idea Metzen had where “the world is the protagonist”
how do you still follow this franchise after Shadows Rising and the turn that novel took with Turalyon and Alleria and the cdevs coming out basically saying their goal was to take these heroes and destroy them. Or destory this idea of “hero worship” within the Alliance specifically.
This isn’t a snippy remark, this is an honest question because it seems like the source of your unhappiness with this franchise is it’s moving away from things you value in game. How do you justify staying when the story is just not going where you want it to go?
See, that right here is my problem with the story forums and these hot takes on Sylvanas. No one here reads any of the books, they get all of their knowledge second hand and think they are experts and know more than someone who has read every book, knows every line.
It’s frustrating because when the game follows through with things set up in the novels, people who don’t read anything outside of the game are blindsided.
The books keep getting ignored by being labelled “different perspective” why should I invest time in a book when it can be dumped for the latest lore development?
Its like building a house brick by brick. If you keep demolishing the bricks underneath, why should I invest in those bricks?
the books haven’t done that, only the one chronicle book and that’s not even what happened. The Grimoire of the Shadowlands is supposed to be just a compendium from the perspective of Death and the Broker that wrote it even says as much.
My friends, today let me entertain the idea that the key to reconciliation of these divergent perspectives is to add a dimension to our view.
Let us take the word perspective literally and consider that what we have so carefully mapped is a perspective, a projection of a higher dimensional object.
A three dimensional octahedron to be precise. (For more information on this shape, please refer to broker specialist Ko’Xeter.)
This is taken from Reddit this morning.
It’s not a retcon of the Chronicle books the forums are just being hyperbolic about it as usual.
They absolutely have. We even got books from Sylvanas’ own perspective that were lies.
Or the Chronicles book that got changes and their only explanation for that to say in interviews that it was only from a titan perspective.
No. The books get dumped alllllll the time. Even relatively recent ones.
And besides this is a game. If you can’t properly tell your story through it then change your story plans. The books should not be anything besides an ancillary to the current main game story. Its not supposed to be a requirement.
Wow, you… really misunderstood what I was saying there entirely.
Ignoring for a fact that your evidence comes from a novel that is largely non-consequential for understanding the game’s plot, taking two heroes and darkening them is not mutually exclusive with pulling the focus from the world - in fact, had that book’s plot been told in the game, that would have been development that could have gone towards the world going towards Alleria and Turalyon - characters vs. the world.
Negative character focus is still character focus. Destroying the images of certain characters (as much as I’d love it if Turalyon was an antagonist) does not factor into where the spotlight for the narrative is - the game has pretty much swapped from Azeroth to a handful of protagonists. It is grating and unnecessary to see Anduin, Jaina, Sylvanas, Thrall, etc. in every expac front and center. I have exponentially less attachment to them and their reactions to things than I do to the world as a whole.
the more you say the more you prove you actually know nothing about this character.
The half soul of Sylvanas Windrunner she got back in the cinematic is the part of her soul we saw in A Sister is Another Word for Always, which is presented as the most innocent and good part of her, a memory from when she was a child where she plucked a fish out of water with her bare hands using only gentleness. She is shown to be this really good natured person. There is this really poignant allegory about the fish wanting love more than it wants to be alive, which was a metaphor for undead Sylvanas.
The Jailer kept this part of her because he wanted to make her believe that family, and love, always fails.
That theme of family always failing her, is a huge part of her character and it’s what makes Zorvall relatable to her. In the novel War Crimes, Vereesa tries to reconnect with Sylvanas over thier shared hatred of Garrosh. Veressa wants revenge against Garrosh for murdering Rohnin, her husband with a mana bomb. Sylvanas shows the deepest amount of emotional empathy in that novel where she grieves with her sister and wishes there was a way she could bring Rohnin back. Sylvanas is lured by Veressa into a false sense of security that she could possibly be accepted, or that they could be reunited in death, as Veressa at this point is depressed and suicidal. Sylvanas makes Veressa a poision to kill Garrosh while he’s in prison and at the last minute Veressa chickens out and throws Sylvanas under the bus for trying to assasinate Garrosh. Sylvanas on the other hand, feeling horribly betrayed, vows never to trust family again.
After Alleria returns in Legion, the three sisters decide to meet in up in the comic The Three Sisters, but because Veressa has guilt over what she did, she balks when Alleria goes off on Sylvanas for joining the Horde (because that’s what Alleria hates most, the Horde and orcs in general) Alleria decides that because Sylvanas choose to align herself with the Horde, and become it’s Warchief, she’s pretty much lost and because Veressa has no backbone they both end up leaving Sylvanas behind and cutting all ties with her. She was planning on killing them both in revenge, but Veressa apologizes to her for throwing her under the bus in War Crimes and Sylvanas chooses not to go through with her revenge.
There is still a good part of Sylvanas that wants to be accepted by her family and the living. It seems like the jailer has twisted that as a weapon against her because he wanted Sylvanas to lose all hope. In the end she couldn’t do that and that’s why we are here at this point in the narrative. Does it make her naive? no, it makes her human (as in she still has humanity) and why she will stick around for the foreseeable future.
