Arthas' Redemption: The Death of Sylvanas

You mean the exact same thing that Alleria says in Legion questing with her? It is obviously a Windrunner saying and is simply a euhphemism meaning that a commander has to make decisions for tactical reasons, not emotional ones.

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My take from the book is with Dakore too, the magic being used was to whisper to him, Arthas had fallen well before then, consumed by his thirst for vengeance and battered ego after he had been led around by the nose, both his teacher and lover condemning him and leaving him, and his own troops questioning his motives by that point.

He was in full “I’ll show them all” mode by that point, yes Ner’zhul whispered and tempted him, and yes for a moment, Arthas almost turned back from the brink, but as we saw earlier in the book, he was always a man possessed by his own pride, he might have claimed he did what he did for his people (and might have believed it to some degree) but it was always for his ego.

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So, you are aware that there is no actual Sylvanas, right? She wouldn’t actually be punished because she doesn’t actually exist?

But the message Blizzard would be sending would be extremely disturbing.

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What a pointless thing to say.
The Red Wedding didn’t actually happen but it still made people cry.
Joffrey wasn’t a real person either, just an actor, but people cheered when he died.

You realize that right?
Just because I want a satisfying conclusion to a character I have grown to hate doesn’t mean I have a loose grasp of reality.

The message is in your own head, you are applying your own prejudices and bias’ into something that never intended to deliver you woke messaging.
That’s just you seeing things and drawing conclusions that aren’t there.

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It’s in alot of peoples heads.

Arthas killed her, tortured her, enslaved her… he is the starting point for the dark path she has gone down, every evil thing she has done, even though it has been of her own free will since she gained her freedom, ultimately comes back to that point, the thirst for vengeance on the one who made her into what she is.

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And all of the evil she caused brought her right back where she started.

Its like Walder Frey being such a despicable man because he wants to further his family line and bring them fortune.
But ends up eating his own kids, the ruination of his house, its legacy and its survival. He learns all this before he gets murdered.

Now that was a pretty satisfying thing to see for a character universally hated.
I can’t think of a better ending for her (if we are going for a damnation end) than to fall into the same hole that Arthas is in.

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Lol. I’d love this.

But I think I’d rather not see Arthas because I can easily see Blizzard turning it to Sylvanas torturing him in the Shadowlands, or something.

I must have missed the part in the prequel to Game of Thrones where Walder Frey heroically defended his people against Arya, who was already a main villain of the series, so she took control of his body and tortured him into a twisted version of himself, leading him to his many terrible acts later on.

Oh, what’s that you say? That never happened? So the two situations aren’t remotely parallel? Huh. I guess context matters. Go figure.

Let’s be blunt about this. Imagine a situation where a man violates a woman as punishment for her standing up to him. He brutalizes her in every way he can, using her own body not just against her, but against everyone she loves, until she is utterly traumatized and warped by the experience.

As a result of her trauma, she does terrible things (this, by the way, is already a gross theme that Blizzard keeps repeating with female characters, most recently Lady Ashvane. They should stop). Ultimately, she is defeated, and to really make her punishment complete, the man who originally violated her is brought back to punish her one more time. And, according to the OP, this redeems him.

That’s the plot that is being proposed. Do you not see how utterly disgusting that is?

You can hate Sylvanas for what she’s done and want to see her punished without it requiring a plot line that empowers her abuser. That’s a thing that can happen. And then you wouldn’t be telling a story that is appallingly dismissive of abuse survivors. Worse, that celebrates their abusers.

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That’s not the best ending from a damnation end, that’s pure nihilism.

Damnation would be her being dragged into the Maw by the souls of the NE’s who died in the burning, or heck, Garrosh (they were so close, best friends.)

The abuse angle alone should be enough, but if its not…

Arthas doing it, would strike away any meaning in her fall, even if he repented for every single sin he did and became even more light infused then a Naruu, the one who turned her into this, who set her on this path, who she became the mirror of, THAT person, being the one to claim her, means in the end, everything she did, everything we did to stop her, is dust.

She simply fell once more to the same being who started her on this, all of our struggles just brought her back to that same starting point, all the death she caused was just a bump on the road back to where she started from, and that takes away any meaning from what she has done or become, why fight the tides when everything will just cycle though again? Whats the point?

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Lol that has nothing to do with this.
Walder Frey wronged Arya and she got her revenge on him.
No matter how dark the revenge was people cheered her on.

I don’t insert politics or real world social movements into a fantasy story.
Yeah Sylvanas got pretty wronged by Arthas but that doesn’t give her the right to do what she wants.
If she ends up in the same place Arthas was sent to that would send the message that what she did until now was wrong and she should not have done it.

I mean in BFA they already drew parrallels between Sylvanas and Arthas.
Both characters are now the same and should end up right beside each other.
Do you understand that at least?

No I don’t see how RL issues has any bearing on Sylvanas getting a satisfying end.
I don’t care if its a she or a he. She is a terrible person and you can’t use her past as some sort of shield for anything negative happening to her.

I was of the opinion that Tyrande does it, so she has the agency to get her revenge. The last scene though is going to be Sylvanas ending up in the same hell that Arthas is in.
Do you not remember BFA opening where it was clearly shown that Sylvanas was doing what happened to her to others?
I mean she had Derek tortured and Night Elves raised exactly like Arthas.
Why shouldnt she end up where he is right now? It doesn’t make sense to me.

A little bump? Blighting Gilneas, wrathgate, teldrassil and pretty much the rest of BFA are all a little bump?
Its not like she got a speeding ticket.

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Tyrande dropping her would be who i’d like to see do it too, vengeful justice and all… And we’ve known she was Maw bound from Wrath, when she committed suicide she saw Arthas, it was part of why she became so obsessed with keeping herself alive (ish). But, her ending up in the maw a prisoner like Arthas, and HIM being one the to do it, is the difference.

I’d rather they not be, they were big event’s, but taking her fall out of the hands of those she wronged and putting it in the hands of the one who started her down that path, would thematically render it that.

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This is a lot to unpack.

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I’m gonna give a different take:

I don’t think Arthas needs to or should be redeemed, but I’m not opposed to him coming back as an amoral/pragmatic death entity doing something important. He doesn’t have to kill Sylvanas or have much negative interaction with her at all, maybe a meeting and acknowledgment of something or other.

I also don’t really believe Sylvanas needs to die either. My main problem with her was when she was ruining the Horde and turning them into moustache-twirling villains, as well as holding Forsaken characterization hostage. That seems to be over, so there’s no reason for her to die, really. Her story can continue in some other capacity after Shadowlands.

If you don’t see how story themes can relate to real life, then there’s no point in discussing the story with you. The whole point of a theme is that it shows how story plots relate to real world issues. That’s what a theme is.

In effect, you are arguing that we should ignore story themes.

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Are you seriously telling me because the story could deliver political message that all stories should avoid story elements that would make some people uncomfortable?

Does that mean Blizzard should not have female raid bosses because hitting women is wrong?

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Honestly the way I see it ending is similar to Wrath, with the souls of everyone she wronged bringing her down. Blizz has been doing a bunch of parallels with Arthas and Sylvanas, with the lordaeron cutscenes mirroring W3, to destroying the homelands of the respective races. (Arthas destroying the sunwell/quel’thalas and his own kingdom, Slyvanas destroying teldrassil as well as her own undercity)

And as many pointed out, having arthas doing the deed is a really bad image symbolically.

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It was Arthas’ choice and will to raise , enslave and torture Sylvanas’ soul, not Ner’zhul’s. Arthas and Ner’zhul were not even one at that point. Ner’zhul only empowered him to due his bidding.

When they do join as one they still have separate wills and Arthas eventually chooses to kill the spirit of Ner’zhul to become the one Lich King.

It was Arthas alone who was the one who tortured the hell out of Sylvanas.

It is rather strange that at that particular point Arthas was as much on Ner’zhul’s strings as Sylvanas was on Arthas’.

I am seriously telling you that some themes are objectionable and, yes, should be avoided.

One theme that used to be popular but is now rejected is racial superiority.

Another one would be that it is okay to violate women. Which is the theme that the OP suggests.

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The Nightborne were leaning into that pretty hard though.

But back on topic.
Sylvanas is no better than Arthas. Probably worse. So shouldn’t she end up in the same place as he did?
Is there any lore arguments against this or is it just hyper sensitivity?

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