You need to look up my post history. I’m all about the moral relativism-speaking of which I may have to ressurect that thread of mine from the old forums prior to our recent move.
Regardless in the context of Odyn. From the Horde perspective, whatever Odyn’s reaction/view he may have is irrelevant if we take a basic view at his backstory. As far as I’m concerned we have two options (beyond the whole Aegis thing which we eventually succeed at anyway), enslave the valkyr to make more Forsaken OR look for another way to get more valkyr. As a Horde player I’ll naturally side with the current Warchief’s intentions, as a Forsaken player I’ll naturally side with the Forsaken benefits.
Rectify? The dude doesn’t rectify crap. His Warrior Order Hall provides us a distorted history that plays up his accomplishments and omits his sins. Hell, his “one sin” he attempts to rectify is us killing off the one who he made a self-inflicted enemy of in the first place.
I do understand the Alliance perspective is: “SYLVANAS EBUL REEEE!”.
However, I prefer to think of the entire situation and events.
Seeing as Odyn forced Helya against her will, and ruled the Vrykul as a selfish God, and commanded their spirits against their desire (see my above quote from Wowpedia, where the Vrykul AND Helya objected to Odyn’s plan and he went ahead with it.)
With all this in mind, I see Sylvanas, Odyn, and Helya as a more than just “SYLVANAS EBUL REEEEE!”
I have no problem with you examining the morality of all of the actors here. But you said many people would see Sylvanas’ actions as good. I am arguing, no, Sylvanas’ actions were clearly evil, and Blizzard clearly intended for the player to view them as evil. Sylvanas’ evil is not the only discussion we can have with regards to these events, but it is certainly an important and valid discussion.
Sure. When we ignore everything the story shows us in and out of his Halls this holds up!
He raised a woman who did not want to be raised. This caused issues.
He now raises women who want to be raised and we are shown this process is transparent - with the Vrykul women freely interacting with their ascended kin.
That’s not rectifying his sin. That’s attempting to play down his sin. Here’s an analogy. A man can sexually abuse a woman and then live the rest of his life donating to charities and whatnot to help sexually abused women and whatnot. The man never atones because he never addresses the original victim.
Odyn is the man who was sinned, but doesn’t desire to put forth the effort to atone for it. Instead he takes the easy way out of building a cult, grooms vrykul to accept his brand of undeath, but never addressing the original sin. Hell, he even goes out of his way in attempt to whitewash history of it, like I originally mentioned.
My chief point, one I mentioned many times, is we do not know enough to label her actions as “evil”. And yes, some might see them as good.
I certainly think stealing/freeing one of Odyn’s slaves and using that slave to bolster the Forsaken is a good thing. Instead of leaving that slave in Odyn’s possession to do his bidding.
I certainly feel the Vrykul and Helya were right when they begged Odyn to leave them be - yet he was evil when he forced them to worship him and hijacked their afterlives, and enslaved Helya.
So if Sylvanas is doing a good thing by countermanding an evil Titan Keeper, that is a good thing.
Again - we dont have all the information. We do not know what Sylvanas and Helya discussed.
Alright this is already letting the topic drift way too far out of “Sylvanas enslaving people is wrong.”
I like the part of this analogy where Sylvanas then takes a woman who was not sexually abused and tries to sexually abuse her, but because that woman who was not sexually abused knows the man who committed that crime thousands of years ago, Sylvanas is absolved of her attempts at sexual abuse.
Because something something moral relativism. And sexual abuse is okay if Sylvanas needs to sexually abuse people if her race of sexual abuse victims are to go on existing.
You imply that I am absolving Sylvanas of anything. We’ve talked before in previous threads, you keep assuming things of me and I have to keep pointing out they’re assumptions that are never true. Stop it. Know this of me, I never operate on a 100% black/white standard like you are implying. And again, regarding Sylvanas, I don’t hold her as a moral paragon, that’s ludicrous.
I didn’t make the conversation about Odyn. Blame the discussion, not me lawl. I came in here to point out that this Odyn conversation is silly because Odyn isn’t a moral paragon to rally behind.
I find him far easier to rally behind than Sylvanas. Oh hey look the discussion is turning again.
In terms of sexual abusers, Sylvanas disgusts me far more. She is an abuse victim who is now a serial sexual abuser. As an abuse victim of the same sort myself, I find it absolutely vile.
And while Odyn’s grooming does bother me, and his past transgression is nothing that can ever be absolved - I can see that the narrative went to great pains to show through his actions that it was not a mistake he intended to make more than once. I still find his character to be gross. But less gross.
I would say, again, given Sylvanas’ choice of words, and Eyir’s clear unwillingness, that the most logical explanation is that Sylvanas was forcing her will upon Eyir, to Eyir’s detriment. I say that is evil. You can disagree, and point to alternative explanations, but none of those alternatives are supported in the cutscene itself. I think you are kind of grasping at straws to justify actions that Blizzard never intended to be justifiable. I mean, the music, the framing, the language all points to Sylvanas being a villain, and Genn being a hero, in that moment. Sylvanas says “the Val’kyr are mine.” The music swells when Genn destroys the Lamp. Everything points towards Sylvanas’ actions being wrong, and you are being obtuse to not see it.
Sure, I find it interesting and full of potential though (my personal/current views of BfA nonwithstanding) in that it speaks, for me, as a victim of trauma/abuse attempting to recover all by themself. Not all victims of abuse recover with help, rarely any without. The victim who attempts to self-recover has a journey with many pitfalls they will fall into. The key/fantasy here is having the will to move on, despite such pitfalls.
The Forsaken have no help. But one would ask, why don’t they just ask for it? Tell the next victim of depression you come across “why didn’t you just ask for me to help you?”
So, because the Forsaken did not get the help they needed, they are now justified to go out and inflict that same trauma upon other innocent people? Being a victim does not give one moral cover to victimize more people.
It does not, sure. Again I’m not justifying anything. I’m not claiming the Forsaken lashing out is the “correct” option. I’m stating its an understandable one. The Forsaken, again, have no help, their journey of recovery is one (so far) they progress through on their own. And as long as they are attempting this journey alone, then they will fall into many many many pitfalls along the road.