Sylvanas’ critique of Arthas in the cinematic didn’t make sense. Essentially, it was an elf corrupted by the Jailer who lectures the tortured soul of a human corrupted by Jailer that he’s a bad person… for being corrupted by the Jailer.
Meanwhile his mentor and former lover just stand there like statues saying absolutely nothing. The more I think about it, the less sense the current story makes.
Anyone else see the disconnect?
Consistency left the building a decade ago.
Sylvanas is the writers favorite character and she makes them money for merch. She stays.
Arthas was dead already and he won’t be coming back lest they ruin their second golden goose.
So yeah, Man bad. Woman good. But the reason for this messaging is completely unrelated.
True. Except, for one, when it was Xe’ra vs Illidan, suddenly the script supposedly called for Woman bad, Man good.
In fact, I’ll put what’s wrong with how the devs play fast and loose with morality in WoW on another thread.
The problem is that they still haven’t explained Zovaal’s connection to Arthas / the Lich King. In WC3, it looked like Arthas was acting out of his own free will. In the novel and WotLk, we learned that he was not alone in the helmet, but in the end, took control over it.
In his final moments, he asked “if it was over”, like a victim would. So… which is it?
The nature of the Lich King could have been the anchor storyline of Shadowlands, especially with Bolvar around, but it’s almost as if they had forgotten Arthas after the Uther cinematic.
Sylvanas’ speech to Arthas is weird, especially with people around who actually knew him. Her story may have been the central theme of this expansion, but it’s strange to see Uther and Jaina as mere bystanders in this situation.
Basically, the writers dug up the remains of Arthas Menethil and retconned 20 years of Warcraft lore, just to… give Sylvanas closure. 
Honestly, was there a critique in her speech?
If anything, she basically agreed with every Cata-era poster who said she was becoming the LK 2.0.
The weird point is the timing of it, since she’s basically going on a soliloquy about herself while Anduin is still panting from resisting domination. If she were alone with the last remnants of Arthas that speech would be fairly good for her closure.
That is the problem, and as I have argued before, Wrath did this BETTER then whatever Shadowlands was attempting. True, it was limited to people who finished Shadowmorne(and that is a criticism that should be address but anyway) but everyone Arthas affected got to say their piece, even Sylvanas!
So what you’re trying to say is that your whining is completely baseless, got it
So what you’re saying is you’re going to ignore my argument because I criticized the writing of a character you dislike?
Got it (you probably won’t be the only one who does that).
It wasn’t a critique. It was her talking about how much of a monster he was and how she went down the same path he did in her quest for revenge.
It was Sylvanas saying she did terrible things on par with Arthas.
I really don’t get how this is a hard thing to grasp. It wasn’t exactly subtle.
I guess I should have expected nuance to escape you completely, but I do not dislike Arthas.
I’m just not stupid enough to think he was the hero of reign of chaos or wrath, nor that his evil can be blamed on the sword he picked up long after his fall kicked off or on a nebulously retconned entity that he explicitly freed himself from while commiting his atrocities.
It doesn’t make sense….because like Anelaan said, that’s not what actually happened. She wasn’t criticizing anything. She just mentioned she became the very monster she hated and hunted and that his legacy and name will be forgotten in time.
This is pretty basic stuff if you were actually paying attention to the cinematic instead of just looking for something to complain about
I never thought he was the hero of Wrath, but was the hero of Reign of Chaos until he took up Frostmourne (he was gradually losing heroic status beforehand, but still).
Sylvanas also freed herself from that hold too. Remember in Frozen Throne, quote: “For some reason I no longer hear the Lich King’s voice in my head. My will is my own once more.”
But despite that, Arthas gets reduced to 35 anima while Sylvanas gets a redemption arc and the promise of more stories.
I mean, to be fair, he already tipped his hand, and showed his true reasoning for his complaints in his second post of this thread.
Which is the same reasoning for almost every thread he makes, it seems.
He didn’t put his crying over Xera in his First post… he actually waited until his second post.
That seems like progress. Maybe he is slowly recovering from seeing a Naaru get a booboo.
lol, lmao, as the scorpion would say
He was very much not “the hero” of the human campaign except in the classical sense, he’s already a villain protagonist by the time he first sets foot in Northrend at best.
As much as people home in on Stratholme his actions with the boats very much firmly set his fall as a done deal before the sword.
Having watched the cinematic again, Sylvanas doesn’t ever actually explicitly critique Arthas. It feels that way, and the reason is that Sylvanas has had the moral luck that Arthas didn’t. Arthas died for his crimes, and then he gets beaten down further. And it could be argued that the writers were using Sylvanas as a mouthpiece to say “Forget about Arthas, move on from him” as if they were tired about having him loom over their story. That could be the case. It feels that way. The more charitable interpretation is that it’s just Sylvanas telling Arthas to begone from her life.
So she doesn’t really criticize him at any point during her speech. It feels that way because Arthas got done dirty and Sylvanas is going to be getting off the hook. It feels unfair because you start to think that he should’ve had some measure of redemption too, even if it was after his final death.
I think there is some degree of critique to be found in Sylvanas monologue’ing at what remained of Arthas’ spirit. Pointing out that he did horrible things may be a fact, but while she’s condemning him for them, and comparing herself to him, she can be comfortable in the knowledge that she at least won’t cease to exist like he will. They both were corrupted and twisted by the Maw, and both chose to do horrible things, and in the end there is this subtle, snide suggestion hidden in her dialogue that she’s still better than him somehow.
Its subtle, and I’ll admit I could just be reading into something that isn’t there, but if Sylvanas were truly comparing herself to Arthas and showing an iota of empathy, I think she’d be considering a way to try and redeem what was left of his soul. Sealing that essence somehow and declaring she would look for a way to mend souls broken by the Maw would feel like a more natural outcome than just, “now fade like a fart in the wind, little prince.”
Nah, this is about Arthas vs Sylvanas, I brought that up too because I noticed the parallels. Can’t take that your punching bag is both inherently and a product of bad writing?
It’s debatable whether the Culling of Stratholme was a villainous act. I’m not sure myself, except that he was no villain before then.
At most, I’d agree with you and say he became a villain when he lied to his men and backstabbed those mercenaries he hired to burn the ships. So when did Sylvanas cross the line into villain territory?
Maybe Sylvanas deserves closure as a victim of Arthas and that’s all it was.
It doesn’t take a lot of empathy to understand this story.
Maybe Arthas deserved closure as a victim of the Jailer?
Maybe the Night Elves deserve closure as the victims of Sylvanas? On top the rest of Azeroth, that is.
No, and nor does it take glasses to see how blatantly one-sided the outcome here is.
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand what you’re saying and I don’t really disagree either. I just think the better narrative message here is parity, in everyone getting their individual closure in a fitting way. So, until Tyrande gets to stand over the fart cloud of Sylvanas’ soul and tell her she was a monster and became a monster because of her, and then gets to wave a hand to dismiss what remains of Sylvanas into oblivion, this ending comes off as so much fanfiction.
I’d say it was the end of the Culling that really sealed Arthas’ fate rather then the Culling itself. His vow to hunt Mal’Ganis to the ends of the earth was made from a place of fury rather then to fulfill justice.