grey lady bad. obvi wuz working with death since her first appearance opposing Arthas in 2002
Steve Danuser actually specified Edge of Night at the Blizzcon 2019 Q&A Panel:
- Obviously we had- we've seen Sylvanas through the course of Legion, and that intro cinematic, right, when the airships and everything and she's kind of giving Varian a hand. So, as we get into the Shadowlands we're going to be finding out a lot of Sylvanas' motivation and what her relationship with the Jailer is and when it started and we'll find out that it actually leads back quite a bit earlier in the timeline. You may be familiar with a story called Edge of Night in which Sylvanas lept off the top of Icecrown. And you saw part of the story there. But that was kind of the start of her interactions with the Jailer. And as for why Sylvanas would lend an arrow to aid Varian, there was a long term strategy where Sylvanas needed to get into a position where she could take over the mantle of Warchief, and she couldn't do that if she was aggro and everyone was against her, so she had to bide her time, and now we're seeing the fruition of that in Shadowlands.
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Battle for Azeroth. The themes are extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of history and literature the motifs will go over a typical player’s head. There’s also Sylvanas’s nihilistic and genocidal outlook, which is deftly woven into her characterisation - her personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature and Mein Kampf, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of this subject matter, to realize that they’re not just clever- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Battle for Azeroth truly ARE philistines- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the weight in Sylvanas’s line “Burn it!” which itself is a cryptic reference to Hitler’s order to Dietrich von Choltitz. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Alex Afrasiabi’s genius unfolds itself on their computer screens. What fools… how I pity them. 
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I always find it amusing anyone ever used that sincerely to describe Rick and Morty. This is the show that did an extended joke on blackout induced explosive diarrhea.
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I see sylvanas fans are already using the weak defense of “Sylvanas shouldn’t have gone to the maw in edge of night.”
He took her ravaged body and cast unholy spells upon it! Creating from what had once been good a thing of evil! He twisted the soul of Sylvanas Windrunner and turned her into the Banshee she is now! - Trilogy
That does not sound like someone who chose to have their souls changed and twisted.
I’ve been dying to raid Shadowlands, to rescue Sylvanas from an unfair fate. I will be there with freaking bells on!
I will be the Champion she talking about when she’s says “thank you for undoing all of the twisted and dark things that Arthas cast upon my soul, now I am whole again”
I’ve always wanted to create a reaction video. I’m thinking about taking a full departure from WoW all together(WoW forums, WoW tweeters, WoW youtubers) so I can film my a genuine reaction to Sylvanas being freed from the Maw and freeing her soul.
Talk about 
Sounds like someone likes High Elf Sylvanas and wants to get rid of Banshee Sylvanas.
That’s not it at all, I would have definitely been fine with Banshee Sylvanas, she’s the Gangsta of all Old Gangstas. No one can hold a candle to her, she’s all that and a bag of chips.
For me the Forsaken’s end game has always been about making their souls whole again(pre-cursed self) save the ones that retained everything about themselves after being cursed, they’re straight, they just have skin conditions.
Sylvanas story should have ended after WotLK, but instead of being judged accordingly she received an unjust sentence. If WoW God can’t comprehend what the curse of undeath doesn’t to 99.9% of the undead then I say to hell with him or her…no pun intended. So now that we finally can correct that mistake we’re right back at Sylvanas end state. This will undoubtedly be her final curtain.
Blizzard says sylvanas was always bad, sylvanas fans “I Cant wait to save her.” Shadowlands cant come soon enough, the drama of when sylvanas dies is going to be the best moment in wow history.
That or they retconned the trilogy you quoted, given that they retconned Before the Storm, and none of what you said is happening.
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Geezz plz no, don’t give them ideas. Sylvanas whole story is becoming one big ole retcon lol
I’ve been saying the same thing for over a decade, nothing has changed. Certain posters have been telling me(for an entire decade) that the Forsaken(the ones that went coocoo for cocoa puffs/souls mangled) don’t deserve a happy ending. I beg to differ.
People who have had their souls supernaturally manipulated should be given another chance in the Shadowlands, yes.
Sylvanas is probably not one of those people whose soul counts as supernaturally manipulated.
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He took her ravaged body and cast unholy spells upon it! Creating from what had once been good a thing of evil! He twisted the soul of Sylvanas Windrunner and turned her into the Banshee she is now! - Trilogy
Sounds like manipulation to me.
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- No, she was the same. In death as in life.
- - Edge of Night
Sounds like retcon to me.
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In context the author is specifically talking about Sylvanas philosophy on “arrows in the quiver” being exactly the same as it was in life. IIRC she used that exact same phrase when Arthas and the Scourge was invading Quel’thalas. I just can’t for the life of me believe that the Sylvanas that was saving little blood elf children is the same one that had her soul twisted by Arthas.
Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not, but I just can’t see it.
This is what I think of when I think of 99.9% of the Forsaken:
“How fascinating. I thought you looked sickly - but now I see the truth. Your people suffer under the weight of a terrible darkness. What strength you must have, simply to press on forward!” - Lorewalker Cho
There seems to be a war in the soul, a struggle if you will, of what the Forsaken were when they were alive vrs the curse of undeath. Prime example for Sylvanas is when she reunited with her sisters and Blightcaller.
That is the context that I am talking about, yes. What probably condemned her to the Maw was her willingness to do things like using her plague on an innocent young girl to test its potency in the Arthas: Rise of the Lich King novel. The context Edge of Night gave us was that she was always capable of using people for her own ends, just those ends in life were defending Quel’thalas, and in death it was no longer altruistic and how she used people went from in service of others to irredeemable.
I think you are right on this, though, especially considering in Bastion there are Forsaken souls - not renewed-to-Human souls the way Sylvanas’ soul was a High Elf soul again in Edge of Night - that are becoming Kyrians for their service in undeath.
Once again, Sylvanas was not one of these, and John Hight specified in his Blizzcon interview that the souls were being diverted to the Maw in Legion, and Sylvanas’ suicide was a few expansions before that.
I think your point of “Sylvanas is the same as she was in life” hits a brick wall when considering Sylvanas’ resting place. If Sylvanas is the same, shouldn’t she have the same fate? If arrows in the quiver(undead) is exactly the same as arrows in the quiver(alive) why didn’t she go to the same exact place instead of the maw, after she died the 1st time?
I believe that Sylvanas has had her soul twisted and manipulated to where she will never be the same unless we’re able to reverse what ever craziness that Arthas did to her soul.
No, because she did worse things after being raised from the dead. Her crimes after being raised were worse than when she first died.
Opposite, for all we know some of those Forsaken Kyrians had ignoble afterlives from their first deaths, but then did enough good in service of the Horde in their undeath that they got to go to Bastion instead.
By your logic, none of the good they did in undeath counted, since that wasn’t their original fate.
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It sounds like what you want is the possibility Cairne and Hamuul saw for them 
The first sign of hope came from an unexpected place: the tauren. An archdruid named Hamuul Runetotem looked past the undead’s monstrous exterior and believed that they could be redeemed and revived—perhaps not physically, but spiritually. He brought the Forsaken ambassadors to meet with Cairne Bloodhoof, high chieftain of the tauren tribes, and Cairne agreed that the undead should be given a chance to thrive.
Unfortunately the writing team is very devoted to retroactively making Horde leaders and their decisions look idiotic (Thrall believing Sylvanas had no involvement in the Wrathgate, Thrall reinstating Sylvanas after the Battle for Undercity, Thrall appointing Garrosh, Baine forgiving Garrosh for Cairne’s death, Thrall reinstating Gallywix, Vol’jin appointing Sylvanas, Saurfang initially going along with Sylvanas, etc.) so I wouldn’t be surprised if Hamuul and Cairne seeing anything in Sylvanas and the Forsaken and convincing Thrall to accept them is the next big screw up on the list. =(
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Now we’re cooking with grease! I believe all the undead should return to the same place that they were destined for pre soul manipulation. I really want to go deep with this discussion, I have sooooo much to discuss on this topic. Hopefully we can will pick it up later, but now I got to go. Have a GN.
Full circle, but I’ll move us out of this circle if we pick this conversation back up : )