Not a children’s novel.
More like an 80’s or 90’s political thriller.
“And now that the president’s dead, I can take over! I’ll raise taxes on the poor, sell all our assets overseas, and finally secure that nuclear deal with the terrorists! It’s the perfect plan! And nobody will ever believe you!”
“Ummm, mister Vice President, you might want to check behind you.”
And then it’s revealed that he was being recorded on live television the whole time.
I cannot dig it.
She was always a villain, but, like, not a blatant, mustache twirling evil. Prior to BFA, she had some sophistication about her that I really liked, making her villainous but not so much to the point that she was an extreme detriment to the Horde by being there. But BFA smashed that pretty hard.
I like having the opportunity to enjoy the Forsaken independently of her, something I’ve wanted to do for a while now.
The Forsaken have been Forsaken by her… Even if the Light is revealed to not have Forsaken them Sylvanas has.
The Forsaken story is ultimately about what exactly has Forsaken them. It was not the Light that Forsaken them nor was it the Alliance ultimately as shown with Jaina and Anduin.
In the end it was the Villains who exploited them who had Forsaken them: The Scourge had Forsaken them, the Dreadlords had Forsaken them and Sylvanas has just Forsaken them.
I don’t mind her being evil or a villain at all. What I do mind is how they characterize and write her in that role as well as the quality of writing. Like Garrosh, she suffers from inconsistent writing. Just much worse. If Sylvanas has to be a big bad, the least I’d expect is for her to be a decent villain. LOL I knew she was always evil, but never stupid evil until this expansion.
I see they went with the throws book across room ROFL conclusion option. Let’s face it no one won this expansion pack. Night Elves and Forsaken have had it the worst out of everyone, though. They’ve lost their longtime race leader, also one of the pillars of their culture.
The heroine they looked to for strength and idolized abandoned them. Not only that she figuratively spit on them. Then Nathanos, one of the few Forsaken heroes follows her along with the Dark Rangers. They’re villain batted. They’re homeless and disenfranchised from the very city they died in/for. The worst of all is Calia’s got her holy eyes on them.
Night Elves got massacred, they have poor representation, their leaders are made to look incompetent and stupid. They’ve lost their capital. Night Elves were risen as dark rangers who automatically betrayed their people who they died fighting for. (I still think/hope that they break free from Sylvanas like DKS with Arthas and return to their people.)
Alliance is made to look stupid and incompetent on multiple occasions. The Horde gets to play antagonist only to reform, rebel against the Warchief, and unite with the Alliance again after Anduin gives them a speech. The orcs lose Saurfang who had to be told what the Horde is by Anduin and then died to Sylvanas. At least he’s free and at rest now. The writers can’t soil him. Horde loses more characters while the Alliance feels more and more human-centric.
I see people being vindictive, petty and rude to each other because they disagree on whatever, or were right/wrong about something. There’s no need for that. I think we’ve all been punished enough. Let’s end this unnecessary enmity.
Anyone else notice that Sylvanas is basically Garrosh 2.0: The Abridged Series? It’s literally everything that happened with Garrosh, just jumbled up with a bunch of stuff skipped.
Killing another Horde leader dishonorably in a Mak’gora? Check. Destroying an Alliance capital? Check. Getting new allies, one of which is an Orc chick who is one of the only ones to side with the Warchief? Check. Alienating your allies for no reason? Check. Getting teamed up on by both factions? Check. A siege on Orgrimmar? Check. Immediately escaping to be a bad guy in the next expansion? Check. N’zoth is about to fulfill the obligatory Old God cameo too.
You know, I’ve heard that originally, instead of going to an alternate timeline, all the warlords in WoD were going to be raised by necromancy at first. Anyone want to place bets on the next expansion being Sylvanas raising every villain on the planet to kill everyone? Or maybe instead of an alternate timeline with historical figures, it’ll be an alternate dimension with historical figures, AKA Shadowlands. Maybe she’ll even invade Azeroth from there and we’ll need to invade them back.
Such originality from Blizzard, can anyone else compare?
I came to terms with Sylvanas being a villain back in Cataclysm when she literally admitted to being a Lich King parallel. 
Sylvanas needed to move along so she could begin her redemption arc. Saurfang committed 3 genocides before he got his, Sylvie still has one more genocide to commit before we get Sadvanas for a whole expansion followed by a “You are now prepared!”/“The Horde is no longer nothing!” moment.
She deserved better than a Garrosh rehash. Mind you, she was showing signs of evil since pretty much day one, but I still expected something a little more complicated and twisty than this.
Garrosh got dragged to a trial first and had to be bailed out by a complex scheme by the Infinite Dragonflight while Sylvanas made an immediate escape with her chief accomplices without being Raid Bossed.
Blizzard sees Garrosh as weak and pathetic while Sylvanas is a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain.
They themselves stated that BfA is a rerun of MoP to get things right while Sylvanas herself would be approached differently from Garrosh in her ouster. No getting Raided during the siege, no getting captured and no having to be bailed out.
Interesting how you noted how the Shadowlands could serve as a WoD-type Expansion. Since it’s the Afterlife every King would be in the Afterlife version of their Kingdom and thus each Kingdom would be in it’s ultimate self! Blizzard has an interesting opportunity that they didn’t have with WoD.
Warlords of Draenor just had the Rise of the Horde era Legends plus Terokk so we never got to see the full glory of Draenor.
I have a feeling there’ll be another twist with regards to Sylvanas.
That being said I totally expected this particular one.
I’m surprised Mak’gora wasn’t invoked sooner. It is the proper way of challenging a Warchief’s authority.
Hence “bunch of stuff skipped”.
Basically we got the SoO plotline while also being cheated out of a raid.
I feel like this expac was just a colossal waste of time. Frankly, Saurfang (before goi g onto his atrocious journey of becoming Sadfang) should have issued that Mak’gora after pre-patch and basically the results would had been the same: she qqing like an edgelord and leaving, period.
It’s nice to be vindicated because you created the monster that is now Sylvanas?
Think of it like this:
Imagine you are surrounded by people who want nothing more than to undermine you because they don’t agree with you. Imagine them undermining your authority to the point that you throw your hands up. Now imagine those people who’d undermined your authority saying beforehand, “Yeah, we’ll do those things with you, it’s what we want too!”
You’re betrayed, right?
So no **** you’re “vindicated”, you and the writers have set this up yourselves.
Sylvanas didn’t betray the Horde.
You betrayed Sylvanas.
It’d be different if this was planned from the start on her part, but the “rebels” have backed that character into the proverbial corner since her first decision to nuke Teldrassil. It’s like punching someone in the face and saying, “Yeah, I knew they were going to punch me back. Totally vindicated.”
Obviously, but it’s your fault.
This was one of my biggest complaints about BfA.
She’s never been pro Horde. Had nothing to do with being undermined.
She can now be the villain she always was.
And now she is free to die without the crybaby baggage from her fans and Horde who were all “BUT SHE’S A HORDE LEADER AND WE CAN’T LOSE ANYMORE OF THOSE WAAAHHH”
Displeased. Less with the villain batting because that’s been obvious for some time and more because there is not a single Red Alliance leader I like or respect now.
You could kill off every leader the Horde has remaining and I wouldn’t shed a tear. Well… maybe for Gallywix, but only because he makes me laugh.
Not as good as I feel about Sol Badguy.