I do find it funny that the Forsaken fan is the one saying,
or
And I’m over here like “restorative justice is fine, just don’t center her so hard up to and at the actual trial!”
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maybe Elathaah mistook me for you.
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That was precisely the issue.
She was treated like a Martyr, she should have been sentenced to while she was kicking and screaming before being tossed into the maw.
And the Tyrande v Sylvanas fight should have gone like this:
If Sylvanas is meant to take the brunt of the revenge and punitive punishment then at least allow that to happen.
Instead she was a martyr that suffered, now she must redeem herself like a good noble soul and we get told revenge bad. renewal good… after several years of ARE YOU READY FOR SOME REVENGE BOYS???
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I don’t really think kicking and screaming is needed, or would make sense since they added the “soul splinter” thing. I’m divided as to whether the soul splinter was good or bad – but it happened, in an already bad story.
She can be solemn. She can accept it. But we shouldn’t be forced to see her perspective, and it shouldn’t have come after Tyrande failed to accomplish anything with her rage. Her showing grace is nice, it adds some depth to her, but a 10,000-year-old only ever getting impotently angry throughout the history of the game just kinda undercuts the whole immortal warrior queen vibe.
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I don’t mind seeing it from her perspective… in fact it was needed after following Sylvanas for years and never hearing or understanding why she does what she did.
The problem is the other characters and their reactions to her. There should have been no pity or mercy, there should have just been terrible retribution.
Here is a villain that deserves to suffer… so make her suffer. Instead, we watch her perform martyrdom like she is doing us the favor. Throw the villain willing or no into the abyss and all that entails. Key word is throw. not jump. throw.
The duel was definitely the one and only chance Tyrande had to actually being effective. But in world of Danuser’s writing the Dark Lady is never allowed to be humbled in anyway unless she wants to humble herself.
That has always been the problem with Sylvanas she bends the universe always in her favor like a black hole.
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The difference is she was my favorite character. And them ruining her in Edge of Night was what cemented my disinterest in returning to WoW for the better part of a decade.
But she was really well done in Legion and framed unambiguously as heroic not just in the cinematic but loading screen. And yeah that buisness in Stormheim was dodgey but I maintain that if say Gnomes had been rendered infertile by the fallout in Mechagon, and Mekkatorque was attempting to subjugate some loa or wild god to remedy that, people would feel it a lot more morally gray.
This would grant her people basically an unlimited life hack, true immortality. What power in this world or any other would be foolish enough to threaten the Forsaken now that they are truly deathless? What good leader wouldn’t seek to secure such power and security for their people? I was so excited for BFA. Ah this would be Sylvanas’s time to shine! How cool was that “For the Horde!”. Man it felt great. The Forsaken actually get to lead the charge for once.
Even knowing what I do, this is still so cool;
I thought it was a return to pre EoN Sylvanas. Her portrayal in BC was my favorite. She wasnt a big character in that but she had two great moments. The Lament of the Highborne, and her interaction with orphans in Children’s Week. Where to the shock of everyone she actually starts laughing and smiling in a genuine happy way.
I loved that so much. Because it showed there was a real core of humanity in her. It gave to me a glimpse of a person who through unthinkable circumstances found herself burdened with a responsibility she couldn’t have possibly prepared for. The Alliance, the Scourge and some within the Horde and even Forsaken were always plotting her downfall. She couldnt afford to look weak or vulnerable even for a second. But she’s still a person, not a wall, and faced with painful personal memories or the innocence of children even she shows cracks.
She could’ve been such a cool character. Particularly in the role of Warchief. I could so easily picture say Baine or Saurfang reacting with shock when behind closed doors she just drops the act. She has no earthly idea what she’s doing. She never has. But as a born leader she’s good at acting like she does. Because that’s what leadership is. It’s acting calm in the face of chaos so you inspire courage in those under your command, and hopefully with nerves calmed you can colaborate on a solution.
And they turned her into a shrieking, emotionally unstable lunatic who torpedoes her own plans to have a pointless grudge match with an insubordinate lieutenant.
Even after Id figured Sylvanas was FUBAR as a heroic character I presumed her true intentions would be revealed by exposure. I genuinely believed it’d be Nathanos who’d raise the alarms as they showed him being increasingly uncomfortable with her decisions from BTS onward. Keep in mind his first question in Dark Mirror upon getting his upgrade was “Can we do this for everyone else?”. Like Sylvanas I took him for a gruff exterior hiding a genuine care for his people.
And that also could’ve been an interesting book or short story. This guy torn between the love of his life and the love of his nation. Watching her walk farther and farther on this path, trying to pull her out but failing at every opportunity. Until she finally crosses the line and he has to out her madness at his own peril. Maybe shes planning on turning Orgrimmar into a Blight bomb as well. And he’s just about to go through with it but then someone consoles a terrified child by pointing to him and going “See the fabled Blightcaller is here to protect us” and he just snaps.
Then Sylvanas escapes not because everyone present forgot how she escaped the last time, but because Nathanos has the shot but can’t bring himself to take it.
Instead Sylvanas’s real plan is revealed because she decides to recreate a scene from How High after not getting Flawless Victory;
All because she’s too emotionally unstable to keep it together for 10 seconds.
I cannot express my hatred of the direction they took her in enough.
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It always kinda sucks to read you or Pellex or someone else go on a long, elegant rant about what you used to love that has been taken from you in the game. I can only offer my sympathies.
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I love Sylvanas, her and Genn are my some of my favorite characters in WoW.
Nowadays I try to avoid talking about Sylvanas, because of badly the conversation usually goes. I don’t think blizz realizes nor cares about how they hurt a lot of people with BfAs narrative
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When you’re looking to hurt your fellow people in the Creative Section, you don’t tend to care about the collateral damage to the fans.
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Shadowlands is also a narrative poison, one that Blizzard insists on keeping around.
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The thing is though Sylvanas wasn’t why I loved the Forsaken.
The reason I can ramble off random NPCs is because they’re memorable to me. I just love the juxtaposition between the supernatural and mundane.
Sylvanas was cool sure but John & Jane Deadmann were always my favorite. Mainly because the Forsaken are dripping with more personality than embalming fluid.
They’re perceived as this kind of morose, sad sack race but if that were the case I wouldn’t be madly in love with them. They’re just such a treat to deal with. Even the few who are sadsacks are trying to be proactive about it. Calston comes to mind;
You work hard your whole life, and what do you get? Killed by a plague. Then you work even harder in undeath, and what do you get? Money, yes, and a small estate with a few pesky hangers-on, but happiness? Not so much. I’m lonely in my old age, name. I need a companion.
So you get him his emotional support murloc, Sparky, and;
“Oh, look at him! Isn’t he the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen? Thank you, name. I feel more energetic already.”
I also loved the treatment of Gretchen Dedmar. Who appears to have been an elderly woman already experiencing dementia before she was turned. To the point where she insists on knitting cloaks for the Deathguard as she’s worried she’ll die soon but wants to help keep them warm so she can contribute to whatever it is that’s happening here.
And you just sort of humor her as Sisyphus had a less pointless task. But who knows, the Forsaken may not need a sweater but a Deathguard receiving a completely superfluous one might give him warmth in a different sense.
Suffice to say I love the Forsaken for the gallow’s humor and over the top Sam Raimi esque ‘horror as slapstick’ vibes but the key ingredient has always been the quiet moments of humanity in them. They’re not human, not anymore, but they’re still people.
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A group of Forsaken capture a living human trying to steal a book of necromancer from the cemetery the ‘live’ in. Proceed to hold him down and use their bony hands to poke and slap him in the face a lot before he escapes.
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I suppose the point was to emphasize that she’s not the same person who did the bad things anymore, so she has to react according to her new/restored personality.
But if she’d done that scene as “the Banshee Queen,” then I still don’t know if her reactions would have made Alliance players feel better. It seems like she’d probably either have been defiant or completely silent.
What sort of reaction do you think would have made you feel satisfied?
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So, one last round of “Garrosh did it first and better”?
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And I’m over sitting over here going Can…we just stop with the obession with killing Sylvanas?
It’s honestly annoying. Even if the off chance she comes back, she’s not going to be rejoining the horde in any official capacity. She’ll likely just be another neutral character, someone who helps where and when they can.
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I’d prefer if Teldrassil were left in the past at this point. Nothing serves bringing up further unless the Alliance are actually going to use it as a rallying cry for starting a new war.
Something I doubt is going to happen.
On a side note:
Please.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, please leave Sylvanas in the Maw to do her thing.
Don’t bring her back for waifu fanservice options.
Don’t bring her back so some unsatisfied doods can get some retribution.
Not even a quest chain to go down to the maw and help her save a dead kitty cat’s lost soul.
If Steve Danuser mentions bringing her back at a planning meeting, put him in a paid administrative leave time out.
I did the Sylvanas fight at end of Sanctum for the first time last night. The way they ended that encounter has got me in a sense of disappointment and depression to where I’m having second thoughts on getting Dragonflight.
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I am literally fine with how she conducts herself, and already said as much. I am not fine with making us slow walk with her and a deeply sympathetic Uther while the only perspective we are shown makes everyone who is angry with her seem out of control. A real trial often has victim statements, which are generally a good deal less “blinding rage.” I tend to dislike them in real trials as they make the whole thing more theatrical, but here in this fictional one, it would have helped to move the emotional locus. Tyrande’s was one of a sort, but she was far from the only victim, and the pre-trial framing makes her decision feel like an inevitability more than wisdom and grace from an old soul. Why couldn’t we have had Tyrande’s long, long perspective instead, if we only wished to build on one?
I frankly don’t care if Sylvanas was sentenced to the Maw or not. She’s literally not quite the same being as the one who committed all the atrocities, the soul splinter concept robbed us of any actual character development. There is nothing to develop; now that she is whole, she’s not going to do bad things anymore. Making her suffer does nothing for me. Having her shouting a desperate defiance (desperation is a kind of suffering!) doesn’t do anything for me either.
But if you have decided you are going to do a trial, I don’t want to be forced to actively empathize with her at that moment, which is the closest thing to catharsis or justice one can receive; a poor facsimile, but the only facsimile.
Sylvanas conducted herself fine. The essential problem is that I want to see her face as little as possible.
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She makes them way too much money to keep on ice for long.
It hasn’t even been 1 patch since andiun is supposedly gone and here we are… he is coming back sometime soon.
Sylvanas will be right behind him.
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ain’t that the truth, so much so that she’s taken front and centre in Hearthstone right now too.
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I don’t care one way or another about Anduin, but Sylvanas? They just stuffed her into the maw and said “serve this penance doing this thing for however long it takes even though it’ll take a very long time” Pulling her out of that for more face time in game would be extremely dumb.
…not that that’s ever stopped them. 
Can we at least get one expansion with no Sylvanas? Let the fanbois gush over Alextrasza instead.
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