Bad Interpretations of the cinematic - 9.2 spoiler

Lore Story Forum
41

How’s that?
Sylvanas in cataclysm was the peak of her. She has always been this anti-hero persona where the means justifies the end.

It was until BFA that her character made a 360 and everything is a complete mess.

Besides that, this cinematic does retcon Sylvanas. In the cinematic we can see that the former Ranger general looks like a saint character and very warm heart character that cares about everyone and just cries.
In warcraft 3, Ranger General Sylvanas was as cold and manipulative as she is as undead. But now they are like showing that Ranger General Sylvanas is a very nice and friendly poor elf.

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Yes. I read it multiple times. I have a copy right here. I’m not going to deny he singled out Sylvanas, but that doesn’t elevate her suffering over others or justify her actions.

The rejection of the Alliance in Warcraft 3 when they betrayed the Alliance remnants and reneged on the agreement that they had with them, and the further rejection inherent in their later invasions of Hillsbrad, Dalaran, and Arathi.

I don’t actually disagree with most of the rest of your post. What I objected to most was characterizing the Forsaken as the “broken people of Lordaeron” and elevating their suffering over that of others, who have suffered in the same way.

There are lots of people whose lives were shattered by Arthas. There are undead who were broken by it (the Forsaken) and people in the living who were broken by it (The Scarlet Crusade)

There are also living who weren’t broken by it (the Alliance and the Argent Dawn) and undead who weren’t broken by it (Leonid Bartholomew, Alonsus Faol, the Knights of the Ebon Blade)

There have been plenty of other reactions to Lordaeron’s fall among both the living and the dead. The Forsaken’s experience isn’t the definitive one.

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43

It does send me alarm bells when we have posters here who are basically saying it is okay for abuse victims to become abusers themselves. Thereby continuing the cycle of abuse. I won’t name names however I have seen certain people claim that;

  1. It is okay for Helya to kill innocent souls and torture them in Helheilm and later the maw because of what Odyn did to her
  2. Likewise for Sylvanas but replace Odyn with Arthas

Yes it is tragic what happened to these characters. However it should not be an excuse, nor an acceptable reason to continue on the abuse. You are basically becoming the monster who did it to you. Sometimes you end up committing worse crimes then your abuser.

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44

I don’t think the intention was to say that it’s okay so much as to try and contextualize things

Maybe the Forsaken could have been written differently? Like cut out the emotion stuff (leave the pain because absolutely screw feeling your rotting body, that would be hell) and have them handle their trauma differently?

I think the point is that that’s not how they were written though, you know?

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I mean comparatively… she kinda is a saint. She has been frozen in time only to wake up and find out her future self turned out to be way worse than even Arthas, who she had died as a hero trying to defeat.

Not only that, she has been uncontrollably living through her future self’s Worst Hits list over and over for who knows how long before Uther takes control of the scene.

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46

No, they are pretty much saying that it is okay to abuse people if you got abused yourself.

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47

I’ve generally read many of those arguments being more about the distasteful way they kept pulling out villains that were women who were massively abused, especially with Helya when she becomes the villain, and as of yet Odyn seems to be stuck on the side of good by the story.

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48

Eh, not the vibe that I got but I can’t speak for them

Maybe that’s exactly what they meant :woman_shrugging:

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Read my entire post. I explained that Sylvanas in Cata conflicted with her entire theme.

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50

I’d argue that it does elevate her suffering, I think it was pretty clearly laid out that narratively she suffered an unusual amount at his hands. That is the narrative between them.

It doesn’t justify her at all, it’s just the context for why she is the way she is. That’s not the same as justification, it’s explanation. It’s like the abused who becomes the abuser, their previous abuse helps explain their position as an abuser later on but doesn’t justify it.

That wasn’t out of prejudice was it? I don’t recall the specific details of each instance, but from memory I thought this was conflict between different factions and ideals. I don’t think I recall Forsaken attacking other Forsaken for being Forsaken. Which is the sort of thing they were suffering at the hands of others, ergo the prejudice.

Absolutely others have suffered, but it seems a bit unfair to expect all of the other suffering that Arthas caused to be brought up any time somebody looks to discuss the suffering of the Forsaken specifically. I don’t think focusing on the suffering of the Forsaken when it’s the topic amounts to raising it above everybody else’s.

As for why didn’t others who suffered under Arthas go down the same route? They’re different situations. Those humans who lost loved ones, for example, aren’t suffering in the same way that the Forsaken are. That is not to say that they’re all suffering less, but differently. Which in turn means that their response to their suffering is going to be different. That’s not including the warping affect that undeath naturally has on the undead.

This seems relatively bad faith.

If you want to go into pure morality, there is a lot wrong in WoW and there are a lot of groups and people who have done wrong. Many of whom never face the consequences of those wrongs in any meaningful way.

So why is it that specifically the Forsaken must? What about the entirety of the Horde? Did they not burn Teldrassil? Or does that blame rest solely upon Sylvanas and the Forsaken?

The point isn’t to assert whether or not something is objectively “right”, if you want to go down that rabbit hole then we’d tear a lot of WoW apart.

The point is, as others have said, to contextualise the Forsaken and Sylvanas as they have been presented to us.

Could the Forsaken have been more moderate? Absolutely, I’d even argue that they probably should have been given their position as a player race. They could have kept the dark undertone without going quite as deep as they did. But that’s not how things went.

It’s not a matter of whether I think it’s right or wrong, I’m not physically in Azeroth. It seems that the other factions have been relatively content turning a blind eye to a lot of what the Forsaken had done, suspicion and mistrust aside.

All I’m doing is covering the story we got and how the recent cinematic tramples on a lot of that. Now if it was a case of the Forsaken being turned more moderate and me going “no the Forsaken should be allowed to do bad stuff to people because bad stuff happened to them” or “no Sylvanas shouldn’t be punished she had every right look at what Arthas did to her”, then you’d have a point. That’s not the case. What we’re talking about here is the established story of Sylvanas specifically taking a turn that makes her overall story feel worse because of sweeping retcons that fly in the face of what we thought was the case for over a decade now with no foreshadowing beyond the expansion it occurred in.

I’m perfectly fine with Sylvanas having to face what she did, in fact I probably would have preferred if when she was going off the rails that the Desolate Council convene and create a new more moderate structure, believing that Sylvanas was going too far even for them. I think that would have been fitting for the player race and really indicated that they weren’t like the Scourge despite being a bit more twisted and dark than most. But then again, nobody stopped Teldrassil. That’s not specifically a Forsaken flaw.

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51

Malfurion tried - but the Night Elves didn’t listen. And he got an axe to the back, because of it.

Maybe next time, the arrogant kaldorei will listen to their shando, who was against Teldrassil from the start.

Instead, the kaldorei followed the Old Gods and Fandral, who were part of the discord against Malfurion.

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52

I’m feeling the same as you. I think the BQ needs checks and balances but her pragmatism should stay. I think the RG Sylvanas shouldn’t overtake her personality but should actually only serve as her moral compass. So basically the same Sylvanas we’ve always known without worrying that she’s going to go off the rails again like BFA Sylvanas.

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53

I think this is a poor argument.

Let’s step back and look at the whole picture.

If there is anybody who was meant to play this role, it was either the Forsaken or the Worgen.

Big halloween monsters should be monstrous, and this is why I don’t like wolves wearing top hats and not being scary enough.

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54

I think the radicalization part is what needs to be looked at and discussed, because it’s deeper than “people don’t wanna admit they were wrong”, truly. It’s been less about assessing the varied interpretations coming out of the community, and more about bad form on the writer’s part and putting “shock and awe” before compelling and nuanced narrative.

Do I have issues with Teldrassil being burned in order to create a divide between the Horde and Alliance? Not really, truthfully. But do I have issues with a lack of any compelling nuance, deep and relatable character reactions, and visible internal strife in the wake of an event like that?

Absolutely.

Teldrassil, and the rest of BFA, was pie with no filling. It was a horrific event meant to divide the player base, more than it was to divide the characters, and it do so for all the wrong reasons. BFA was meant to be a stepping stone to get to the next story, and it wasn’t designed to be a contained story within itself, and that’s a huge let down. Everything was contingent on the outcome serving the next chapter instead of concluding the narrative; BFA was about the faction war, and coming to terms with animosity and how we live with each other, and Blizzard warped that into: Sylvanas bad, ignore all other problems - but also old gods real quick.

Instead of having various degrees of understanding, empathy, and rationalization after Teldrassil (which kicked it off), Blizzard tried to make it black and white.

No characters who would have had a “gray” perspective were given face time in the wake of that event, and very little of Sylvanas’ “true” motives were even teased. We were just told “wait and see”, and that’s not something you do as a writer - in any medium; show don’t tell is a base foundational practice, and we got “told” a hell of a lot.

Many people were (are) pissed partly because what was happening after Legion did not make sense in the greater context of things, and it felt entirely out of the blue. However Blizzard wants to rationalize now, years down down the road it’s way too late.

You can’t yank the curtain back after the audience starts walking out of the theater, shouting after them “SEE, SEE! It was planned all along! Look all the things we tried to pull over you!”

As writers -as game developers who present and deliver a narrative, the onus is on them to do the, admittedly, really challenging work of laying a strong foundation and feeding people elements of the story that unravel, not just wait until the very end to start focusing on unraveling story. I genuinely don’t think they were cognizant of that element back in BFA, for whatever reason. I look at the Nazjatar content, and the Black Empire patch, and I think about all the time that could have been devoted to genuinely trying to unravel more of Sylvanas’ plan, and to dive into the heads of other Horde characters who are grappling with what’s going on.

Revolution shouldn’t have been the go to solution, but we were given absolutely no opportunity to invest in whatever motivations Sylvanas had; it became strictly “for or against”, and now they’re trying to ram down people’s throats the idea that “no it’s much more complex than that.”

It’s been near impossible to even stomach any of the story since BFA due to this, which drives a lack of investment in whatever they try to reveal about Sylvanas now. Whether she was in control or not, whether she was missing a part of her soul or not, we’re so far down the rabbit hole already. I know a lot of this is subjective, and the droves of story fans I’ve seen abandoning ship is largely anecdotal, but it’s still a genuine observation and one that’s really frustrating to grapple with.

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55

I’d say that they aren’t “Halloween monsters”, they’re player races

Player races shouldn’t be the objective bad guys

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56

agreed, though the horde isnt to blame. the jailer actually tricked voljin into making her the warchief to begin with. and lorewise they do recognize sylvanas going too far.

i still favor sylvanas loyalists. i think the horde should cross into bad guy territory with the justification of that they do it for survival. bfa was a war, sylvanas just struck first, and hard.

the forsaken dont fit in with the rest of the horde. sylvanas is a banshee, and she never wouldve become warchief without the jailer. but she is a cool, complex character and her undead fate can use closure.

i think what players who dislike the story would prefer is for sylvanas to remain a banshee, and embrace that life, to be an anti-hero without excuses, and to make clever moves for the horde without neglecting the forsaken. the twist being that the banshee ends up being one of the best warchiefs of all time, instead of being a fundamentally weak character and essentially alliance sympathizer the whole time who holds hands with uther on her journey to become the high elf archer she was always meant to be, undoing and invalidating her identity as the banshee queen.

57

Yes, exactly. I’d also like to add on to what you’ve said, and that’s singular character focus. Anduin is oversaturating the narrative and it makes me dislike gim on principle. Revolving an entire expansion around a singular character catalyst creates resentment, and doesn’t let the story develop naturally from all points of view.

Being pigeon-holed into making a narrative choice you’d never make and having to ride out that story is not fun. My character who is a Loyalist helping Tyrande, seems hamfisted and it’s ruining my immersion.

Like, you said, the everyday character reactions are far more important. This is an RPG at the end of the day, not a linear stortelling vehicle.

I meant radicalized as in both sides were told they were right and arguments natrually ensued.

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58

This has been a major problem for a long period of time. WoW works best as an ensemble that is broad and diverse. No character should ever be the focus for a whole single expansion, and much less multiple expansions in a row. Same with the narrative itself: instead of focusing on HORDE vs. ALLIANCE the whole time, give us variety.

It’s the only way to make the world feel fleshed out and full. It’s part of why I think expansions that focus on a single continent are fundamentally weaker in the grand scheme of things: they fail to breathe life into the rest of the world.

The other thing is:

WoW is not a single player RPG where you get to have any control. The most control you will ever have in this game is what transmogs you wear. You don’t get to really choose your race, your history, your background, or your motivations; you do what Blizzard tells you. Everyone does. We’re cookie cut outs and little more.

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59

So one question regarding the people that are just done with Andiun and don’t want him to hog the spot light.

One of the defining features of Andiun is that he acts as check on the more aggressive characters on the Alliance.
If Andiun does get phased out and more characters from other races take charge. Would you want them to follow the current status quo that Andiun pushes with his peaceful advocacy?

Or do we want to see the Alliance unleashed like they were in the first war?

Because idk what is worse. Andiun or characters that suddenly shift personality to become Andiun-lite?

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60

Let the Alliance be the villians for a while is my opinion. Let Baine take on Anduins role for a bit.

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