Ooh boy… there’s going to be some hate on this Topic. So Im returning to my DH and Im struggling to think of what he would be doing after Illidian and after Legion " A hunter is nothing without the hunt." So one idea was that he becomes very patriotic for the Horde and especially Sylvanas ( Her and Illidian have some similarities) While my DH is fanatic and has a need for a hero to worship, he isnt dumb. My point is, I need to justify most if not all of her actions.
Major controversies/crimes
Gilneas:
Stormheim: ( Least controversial. Might even be more Alliance’s fault)
Blighting Undercity:
Teldrassil: ( I need a little more than just screw the Kaeldorei. But also, screw the Kaeldorei.)
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Oh boy, Good luck on that one. I’m pretty sure you have to be half insane to be able to justify all of Sylvanas’s actions.
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Okay, this is a loaded topic. So before I start, quick disclaimer. I’m not coming into this thread looking for a debate. I’ve heard every argument in the book. I’ve had this discussion so many times with so many different people there is no new perspective or point or whathaveyou you could possibly bring to the table that I haven’t heard before and I’m bored to tears of it. I hate Sylvanas. She stands as the epitome of soulless and detached Blizzard writing. I think she was once a great WCIII character that the WoW writing team butchered and spoiled and ran into the dirt until there was no salvaging her, and it still makes my blood boil to see my once-favorite character essentially torn apart in front of me. That is where my opinions lie. You will not change my mind.
There really is no way to justify her actions in the eyes of your character unless you’re completely okay with your character essentially being evil. There is never a rational justification for genocide. There is never a rational justification for raising people to undeath and eternal damnation. Her people are destroying forests and poisoning the land of a planet whose entire population just risked their lives to save it from the Burning Legion. The war she waged, (and yes Sylvanas started the war, this has been confirmed by many lore characters including Sylvanas herself multiple times in the story) is actively keeping the population of Azeroth from focusing their efforts on keeping the World Soul alive.
And the sins just keep mounting and mounting. In order for to justify all these atrocities in the eyes of your character, your character has to be okay with genocide. Your character has to be okay with the destruction of a world tree. They have to be okay with the divide Sylvanas is causing to the horde. They have to be okay with her raising people to undeath (y’know, undead. Tools of the Legion. The thing demon hunters hate almost as much as demons themselves). They have to be okay with letting Azeroth die so Sylvanas can have her Azerite (that thing demon hunters ripped their eyes out to defend? Azeroth? Yeah, she’s dying. And Sylvanas is harvesting her blood).
You demon hunter has to be okay with all these things and more. Sorry, there is no way around it. It’s evil. And if you’re character is okay with these things, he’s evil.
If you’re okay with that, then the challenge is finding a way twist that in their perspective as being the “greater good” or “justice” or what have you.
Maybe they were personal victim to kaldorei at some point in their past?
Maybe they trust Sylvanas is going to use the Azerite to fix the planet?
Maybe they view the raising of undead a sort of off shoot of becoming a demon hunter. Using dark magic out of necessity for the greater good?
The genocide on Teldrassil is going to be the most difficult. The best I can think of is sheer spite, but I find it off, considering if you’re Illidari, most of your comrades would have been Night Elves.
Some say it was a tactical decision to establish dominance in Kalimdor for the Horde but it didn’t. The draenei still have territory in Kalimdor and the world tree would have been far more useful as leverage in the form of a hostage, but that’s just my opinion.
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THIS. So much this! I’m tired of people trying to justify Sylvanas’ actions. Even one of my most evil characters doesn’t like her, because, while vile, twisted, and bloodthirsty, he very much believes that war should be a more… personal thing. He doesn’t have honor, but he does have a strongly-held belief that combat is to be done between people, not machines. These azerite tank-looking things, the bombs, all the cowardly attempts to kill without being physically present, being right there, eye-to-eye watching the life drain from your foe’s eyes?
Theran is absolutely disgusted with Sylvanas, and he remains in the Horde simply because he hates the idealism of the Alliance. Well, that, and he’s a bloodthirsty San’layn murder-machine, and he loves it. Why would goody-goody Alliance want that?
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Keep in mind that if you’re ragging the Horde about Azerite, the Alliance is mining just as much of it.
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They make it immensely clear from the novels, to the quests, to the dialogue that it’s to keep it away from Sylvanas. Sylvanas found and began mining Azerite first for the explicit purpose of using it against the Alliance. What exactly do you think the Alliance should do? Just let the horde claim it all unchallenged? Especially after Teldrassil? Espacially after their attacks on Kultiran villages? What, honest to god, do you think the Alliance should do? Maybe you could paint it in the horde’s favor of the Alliance being equally at fault before the burning of Teldrassil, but even then, before that point, neither faction had used Azerite against each other. Sylvanas found it, and immediately attacked and destroyed an Alliance city. Everything after an attack like that, at this point, is self defense. You can’t claim false equivalency here.
That being said, I’m going to just come to a screeching halt right here and leave. As I said before, I’m not here for a debate. I’ve had this same conversation hundreds of times before and I’m so sick of it, it makes me gag.
Sylvanas could be burning down an orphanage and her fans would still come out of the wood work scrambling to her defense. You can only argue 2+2=4 for so long before it makes your head hurt.
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This is a game about Warcraft. In the real world, much, much worse has been done in the name of self-preservation and ends-justify-means decisions.
The fact that you and most others recognize her actions as deplorable and repulsive is a great sign of the awareness and compassion possessed by our community in the real world.
That being said, Sylvanas doesn’t have the same culture as us. And Azeroth doesn’t follow the same rules as Earth. Death can be reversed there. And, if you read the novels, there are threats in death that appear to be as great or greater than those in real life.
Have you ever been backed into a corner with very limited choices? Have you always made the optimal, morally-correct choice when stressed in that way? Most people, if they’re honest, will answer yes to the first question, and no to the second. Stress does weird things to our brains.
This is not a justification of genocide, and it’s not fan-girling. This is a reminder that all well-written characters are flawed, some more so than others.
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How about this? No matter who might blame what on who, there is one undeniable fact that you have to face as a Horde partisan.
The Aliance is out for blood. The two factions are in full war tilt. At that point, who started what and why becomes almost meaningless next to the following quesiton, no matter which faction you belong to.
Are you going to stand by while the opposing faction makes war on you and your own? The why is irrelevant, it’s happening. Do you fight with your countrymen or walk away?
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Or maybe you realise that just as in the real world, Quaint notions such as “good” and “evil” make great propaganda copy, but the world is a more complicated place than that. The Allies committed their fair share of atrocities, and the United State’s decision to use an atomic weapon for the main purpose of not defeating Japan but putting fear into their “ally” changed the world forever.
Atrocity and War have always walked side by side. There are no White Hats in warfare.
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Are you here to engage with op or derail the thread?
You’re the one who’s trying to narrow down the discussion into a hate on Sylvannas thread. Or how you must be moustache twirling evil if you’re not jumping on the Saurfang bandwagon. The point of being a faction partisan is not whether or not you worship the ground the faction leader walks on. Factions are bigger things than the people who run them.
At some point if you are a Horde partisan, like any other soldier, you’re simply not going to care why the Alliance is fighting your country or your fellow soldiers, you’re simply going to fight because it’s your faction, wrong or right.
Do you really think that everyone who fought on the Axis side in World War 2 were goose-stepping Gestapo singing praises to Hitler with every breath?
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I think you’re irrationally upset over this.
To reiterate, I was talking about OP’s specific character concept as someone who genuinely supports and wants to follow Sylvanas, not any Joe Schmoe horde members who might not be loyal to Sylvanas but have no choice but to defend themselves from the war.
Op wants a character who likes Sylvanas’s philosophies. That’s a dark character.
You have a point about the Horde. But I was asking about Sylvanas specifically, as a surrogate Illidian. Also, thanks for the defense but, you convinced me I need to rethink things more than the triggered Gnome. And at the risk of derailing the thread further, you’re information about morality and WWII history needs some further reading.
I can’t help it. It’s in my name.
I have… I’ve read quite a bit especially on the history of nuclear policy both civillian, military, and geopolitical. And if you look at the history of warfare, wars are conducted for many reasons, but morality or ethics seldom have any relevance save as propaganda.
Welp got what I expected. Narrow-minded attacks and reduction of what was a complex character into the exact hate sink Blizzard wants on one side, and fascist sympathizing on the other. Sylvanas was an ends justify the means-shade of grey character. She was defensible all the way up through Legion. But it’s clear Blizzard wants a badie and will have one no matter what. I’m not a Sylvanas fanboy, I’m not even a Horde main, I was just trying to see if I could dodge the villain bat. I couldn’t see a way to justify Teldrassil, but thought there were other ways of seeing it. I was thoroughly punished for my sins, thanks.
By the tone of your last post I’m assuming you’re done with this topic. Seems like you came to a definitive decision on what you’re going to do. Nevertheless, I’d like to add my two cents. Seems like you’re running along a similar creative path as I’ve taken with my Troll Druid here.
So, I asked myself at the beginning of BfA if Som’re would be a horde loyalist or go neutral with everyone else that seemed to be jumping ship. His situation was especially complicated by him being a Druid and associating closely with the Cenarion Circle throughout Legion. He went into Legion with no love for Night Elves and by the end he had more than a few Night Elven Druid allies. A couple he even counted as close friends. On the surface seemed like his decisions were fairly evident until I began to closely consider his Troll heritage and how that might color his outlook on warfare and certain atrocities such as Teldrassil’s burning.
What would be (and is) atrocious to me as a player wouldn’t necessarily be how my character would see these things within the context of their worldview.
When I shook it all out, seems that Som’re views many of the things Sylvanas has done in the light of military action. As sound strategy. Taking over Gilneas put the Forsaken, and by extension the Horde, in a greater position of power in the Eastern Kingdoms. Not to mention weakening an important Alliance ally. He doesn’t have much of an opinion on Stormheim since he wasn’t there, and only heard about it after the fact, but the War of Thorns was a brilliant advance to ultimately secure greater Kalimdor for the Horde.
He didn’t enjoy slaying those Elves, but he did it with the reasoning and justification of “for the Horde”. An oversimplification, but there it is. He fell to his knees on the beach when the tree lit aflame, and wailed on their behalf. What’s done is done and he couldn’t deny the clear military strategy that horrifying action presented. At least, at the time.
I haven’t been terribly active in game so I can’t say how his views might have changed as things have progressed into 8.1, but it’s safe to say he’s firmly on the side of the Horde. Not out of any particular hate or for vengeance, but out of necessity and survival. He has his own thoughts and feelings on the morality of things, and has no particular love (or trust) for Sylvanas, but chooses to keep those opinions separate from what he see’s as the preservation of the Horde as a whole. As a people and culture.
So how this might all relate to your character, it seems to me that the Illidari can be a very practical people. Fanaticism for Illidan aside, they tend to be very tactically minded and extremely self confident. They seem to prize strength and decisiveness (no half measures) above all else. A kind of single-minded dedication to the task at hand until the greater goal is complete. Therefore, your Illidari could view Sylvanas’ actions as the kind of necessary ruthlessness that’s needed to secure Horde interests and move them into a new era of safety and security, akin to what Illidan was attempting to accomplish. Defeating the Legion to preserve Azeroth, at any and all costs. That might be something he sees and appreciates in her as a leader and what helps draw him into forming his own fanaticism around her, as he had with Illidan.
Not sure if these thoughts help in any way, but those are my two cents on a direction you can take your character.
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Alliance fanboy here, and I’d like to defend Sylvanas.
Gilneas: Sylvanas committed warcrimes here, no doubt about that, but Garrosh intentionally put her in a place that she little choice in the matter. She was commanded to invade, and she did. Using the Blight, and raising the dead, were horrific actions but we’re necessary to prevent the Forsaken from being destroyed…As Garrosh intended for them. Breaking the rules set for her was a matter of her civilizations survival. Evil but arguably justified in the circumstances.
Stormheim: This is where Alliance and Horde geopolitical needs simply couldn’t be ignored. Sylvanas couldn’t ignore a chance to have more Valkyr, Genn couldn’t afford to let the Forsaken have that. I’d argue that both were right here.
Blighting Undercity: Scorched earth tactics are a valid counter to an invading army. Using it on Horde soldiers was less than ideal though.
Teldrassil: Directly evil, but there are geopolitical reasons that would argue this to be a sensible action (For Sylvanas’ goals): Destroying a major Alliance city, leaving the Kaldorei army without a support base, leaving the Alliance without a major port on Western Kalimdor, economic and social hardships due to the mass influxes of refugees…and greatest among them: A Horde that did not trust her is now forced to do so.
Sylvanas’ actions are often objectively evil… from the viewpoint of 21st century nerds not living in world she inhabits…But her actions are far, -far- from out of the norm of historical wartime leaders.
Most Americans think that we were the good guys in WW2, and largely we were on the ‘right’ side in terms of ideals and political freedom…But our allies the French, British, and Russians were all pretty awful empires too. America committed actions equally as bad as Teldrassil. Dresden, Tokyo, and many other cities were firebombed.
The point here is not to justify Sylvanas, nor to demonize the United Nations of WW2, but to highlight that… well, war itself is the evil. Many of the people we celebrate committed terrible warcrimes.
Point is this: Sylvanas is morally grey if she commits evil actions for the betterment of her people. Someone can be objectively evil to their foes, and objectively good to their friends.
Morality is complex friends. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
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The question in this thread was not ‘why support the Horde’ it was ‘can I justify following Sylvanas and all she has done’. Please don’t make this an Blue vs Red thread, we have enough of those.