You can’t fix BFA story. At this point the Horde is just an extention of the Alliance and the Blue Alliance itself is just a strawman for Anduins peace-force.
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No, he got her too angry to make him suffer and she killed him. She’s unstable and he exposed that.
She wasn’t trying to free them. She clearly was enslaving them so that she could had a longer undeath.
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She accepted the challenge because she knew she could win; and make him look like a miserable failure before the end (deny him the one thing she knew he wanted b4 he left, an HONORABLE death). Its pretty apparent that she was hopped up on Death Juice, and the risks of her actually losing were very minimal.
What this essentially resulted in is her getting triggered (but ONLY the initial outburst, you can see her mulling things over before the second bit of dialogue). But, it seems she decided now that the mask is cracked it would have been too much bother to try to maintain the facade (and even if premature … which she herself states … she got what she wanted out of the Forsaken and Horde by that point). And btw, even if there HAD been a battle … chances were very good that if the Rebels and Alliance HAD made it to her … all they would have found was an empty Warchief chair (she was going to bail during this battle no matter what. The Horde AND Forsaken were going to get tossed aside in this encounter no matter what; all Saurfang’s duel did was cut out the BATTLE part).
That’s like addressing the point, without even hitting the point. Tbh, it feels more like you’re trying to rationalize a disperancy between what she does/wants and what she says.
They should have never burned Darn first and this expansion should have never had another Horde Soul Searching subplot. Saurfang stays with the Horde but like with Garrosh in Northrend moves behind her back constantly.
It should have just been a strait up war like the Second War with Nzoth’s arrival ending the conflict. The Horde leaders want to join forces with the Alliance to stop Nzoth but they refuse to work with Sylvanas.
The Horde leadership meets and a deal is stuck. Sylvanas wants Nzoth dead as she hates the Void and she never wanted the Warchief seat in the first place so she willingly abdicates. The next Warchief is left to be chosen after the war.
Nzoth is defeated partly thanks to Sylvanas and the dagger. Vol’jin returns as a full fledged loa to warn us of the new threat. The Horde choose to have him regain his position as Warchief and lead us against our new enemy.
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I’ve operated off the premise that her core motivation is the thwarting of her own afterlife for the last 9 years; as well as operating off the premise that her “Bulwark Against the Infinite” was MERELY a re-purposing of a tool she once thought worthless (and discarded). Generally, if I look at her actions over the last 9 years or so through that lens, MOST (not all certainly, but most) of her actions do make sense to me (with very little rationalizations needed on my part).
Do I think Sylvie needed to partake in a Mag’kora? No. Do I think she believed even for a moment she’d lose? No. Do I think her winning would have reaffirmed her authority over the Horde without that little outburst? Yes. Do I think that at VERY least her beating Saurfang WITHOUT that outburst would have resulted in her maintaining control of the Horde just enough to create ONE MORE blood bath (and wouldn’t even BE there SHOULD the “rebels” actually win the day? HELL YES.
With how they did Magni, I REALLY don’t trust Blizzard to competently reinvent a beloved character while keeping them true to what they are.
I implore you to reconsider this plot point in your theoretical scenario.
The disperancy lies in her wanting to keep bolstering the death toll, but accept a challenge that would’ve denied a huge part of that death toll, Horde deads. Hence, like y’know, bolstering tenfold the death toll.
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Not necessarily. Her winning the duel would have at very least disoriented the Horde Rebel forces, leaving the Alliance to pick up the extra weight. She also apparently already achieved the quota she desired; anything else was just a bonus. Had she not had her little Freudian slip, her winning the duel (which she easily could have, Saurfang didn’t have a chance) … it would have resulted in catastrophic losses on AT LEAST the opposing side (if not both sides).
Plus, I don’t doubt for a second that regardless of the way things went on that assault (unless it was completely one-sided in favor of Sylvie’s side) … she wasn’t going to be there at the end. She was on the way out the door before Saurfang even uttered his challenge.
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Saurfang calls out the reason that Sylvanas accepted it; she wants to see him suffer. I’m pretty sure we’re meant to take that at face value, and that she really did just want to make him suffer (which is also what caused her ridiculous slip).
I think the idea we’re meant to be seeing is that Sylvanas is ruthless, but not emotionless; she’s still got a lot of negative emotions rolling around. She’s got a vindictive and spiteful personality, which caused her to make a mistake in that moment.
I still think the whole “oops I left the mic on lol” downfall is a bit rich, but I also think it’s meant to show us that her mistake was driven by getting carried away with spite and anger towards what Saurfang represented, not raw stupidity.
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Yup as ridiculous as it sounds, the word hope sends her into a blind rage. We all know what happened last time someone mentioned hope to Sylvanas.
On a tangent, as strange as it is, there ARE elements of the outcome of this expansion that I’m at least interested in on a conceptual basis (however, how those things actually pan out will heavily depend on Blizz’s willingness to develop them). I may not like how we GOT there, but the outcome intrigues me (I DO want to see what stories can be made from it):
- I like the concept of a Horde council, especially with the inclusion of the new ARs almost requiring such a system for the Horde to function.
- I like every single new AR the Horde has gotten; their reps; and their cultures.
- Despite how bizarre it is, I actually DO like that it was the AU Mag’har we got (the MU Orcs are so destitute in reps atm they really should get the MU Mag’har added to THEIR roster).
- I like that Gazlowe (the Goblin with the most history with the Horde) is now leading the Cartel (but Wix still survives to entertain).
- I like that Rexxar is fully committing to the Horde.
- I like that Rokhan is FINALLY being made Darkspear leader.
- I like that Vol’jin seems to be on a grander path, that may leave him a continued (and more powerful) presence within the Horde Trolls.
- I like that Voss has invested in her people, even if I’m genuinely worried about Calia Menethil (and hope the latter invalidates herself in some way, while the prior proves herself deserving of A leadership position amongst the Forsaken).
- I like that apparently Lor’themar intends to start being more proactive in his approach to the Faction (not just fixating on BE needs).
Yes, there is a lot of development that needs to occur to make any of this viable (too many Race Reps too underdeveloped atm), but there is a foundation here for a VERY interesting Horde Faction moving forward (one that is at least cohesive enough to make sense that it exists without the aid of Game Mechanics requiring that it exist).
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Not necessarily, I thought the plots from Wrath-MoP were fine. It was only after MoP that their handling of the plot starting falling apart and becoming sloppy/disjointed.
That was the only good thing about BfA; When it wasn’t focusing on the contrived faction war.
Heck if they had made 8.1 about Old Gods or something and this expansion was sold as the N’zoth expansion rather than a faction war, I might even say this expansion was pretty darn solid.
On the contrary, dear Aurirel, they were too focused selling this expansion as a faction war arc rather than just playing off of what it actually was being a N’zoth expansion. They wasted so much of this expansions’ plot trying to subvert our expectations rather than simply giving us a coherent narrative that the “big surprise” at the end ends up falling flat on its’ face.
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I think they are trying to weave a complex narrative with Sylvanas but ended up making too many bad decisions along the way and failed to actually make it compelling. Instead of a bunch of small things that would ultimately make the Horde depose Sylvanas (perhaps leading to a big thing that unlike with War of Thorns, immediately sets off full rebellion), they make the Horde the clear wrong side and tools of a supervillain right away. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that subsequent Horde content ignores the burning as much as possible. Sylvanas is the obvious villain from the start, forcing us to wait until the the Garrosh repeat goes further rather than actually surprise us in a good way.
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I think this is the beginning of a long era of disagreement between us.
I’m sorry, my friend, I simply cannot agree with this. The Alliance should be doing the council, not the Horde. All the Horde needs is to either have a Warchief who’s fully committed to serving the interests of the faction at large before their own or is heavily regulated by faction leaders. A council is just antithetical to the Horde and it’s themes imo.
I disagree, the AU Mag’har got shafted. They could’ve gotten any kind of rep; a SH, SM, BH, BB, BR, ect.
And what do they go with? A bland cardboard cut out Orc warrior. I’m sorry, but Geya’rah is a pathetic excuse for a character, the AU Mag’har are literally held back because she’s such a poor rep for them, like, imagine if we got AU Kargath as a rep instead or Doomhammer? A character who actually has alot of credibility to them in our timeline.
I mean, you have to understand, their rep could’ve literally been anything and they go with a generic orc warrior with the personality of a wet toilet paper, and don’t even get me started on the bland motzaball that is Talanji…
I got two words for you; Jorin. Deadeye.
Heck, with how long it’s been since last we heard of the MU Mag’har they could literally do anything with them. Maybe Ner’zhul had a son/daughter who was still a little kid back in BC and has since grown to adulthood. Now that I mention it, a character like that would be a good segway into the alleged death/Lich King themed expansion that may be coming our way in 9.0 just as Taelia is for the Alliance side of things.
I mean, who knows, maybe Thrall met some people in Nagrand that we never saw of heard of the first time we went there and now many years have passed and they have since grown up and revealed themselves at last. Since Outland is apparently slowly disintegrating, its about time they migrated to Azeroth anyways.
While I don’t think the Horde absolutely NEEDS the Warchief position, I do agree in the sense that its rather silly the Alliance gets to keep their theocracies and monarchies, because the downsides of those systems wasn’t part of the story Blizzard wanted to tell. It is laughable notion that the Warchief system is so fundamentally different than the monarchies of the Alliance.
Geya’rah suffers from a common fate of characters in the game- not given enough of a part in the content to sell them as characters worth caring about. Also suffers from having to be part of the evil stupid Horde that occurs to let the latest Garrosh do her thing.
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That really has been a homerun by Blizzard. So kudos to them and to you Horde guys.
- Nightborne
- Zandalari
- Mag’har
- Highmountain
- Vulpera
The Nightborne and Highmountain could use a bit more TLC but as character race options, they’re great. The Mag’har would be best as being both from AU and MU but, again, a minor improvement.
So that’s something that I wouldn’t want to change if adjusting Battle for Azeroth’s narrative.
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This plot started at the start of Legion so honestly we should begin changes back then, not in BfA
And it still baffles me that they chose to blow up Teldrassil and Undercity instead of, y’know, the two capitals stuck in Outland
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Geya’rah is just a boring character, plain and simple. She has nothing to offer that other characters can’t offer already.
Fem Orc warrior? We got Thura and Gorganna.
Frostwolf? Thrall, Nazgrel, and Drek’thar. Bot that it matters since she’s hardly even a Frostwolf.
Mag’har? Technically Rexxar, Jorin, and others.
There is literally no need for Geya’rah to exist. If she was literally from any other clan, she could be interesting.
Imagine if she was daughter of Kargath, of the Shattered Hand?
Imagine if she was prestigious Blackrock general, utilizing IH tech.
Imagine if she was a wise Shadowmoon mystic delving into void magics?
I mean, do any of these sound interesting to you? They should. Cuz these are all things that we could’ve gotten out of an OC leader for the AU Mag’har, and instead we’re stuck with a bland piece of rye bread.
3/5.
A “minor improvement”?!
You’re kidding, right?