If anything sylvanas is the greatest character blizzard ever wrote, she was so good at being a villain she tricked a large part of the playerbase even with there meta knownledge of her thoughts from the books.
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Seconded. 
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Im fine with Sylvanas being the bad guy, However I hated this expansion.
There would have been plenty of better ways to write this story without us having to drag the whole horde through the Mud again. Playing through MOP once was bad enough, Im tired of playing this story again.
For example, Sylvanas manipulates events so the Alliance think shes up to no good prompting and decide to keep varians promise to end them if they acted without honor. they to invade Lordearon starting off the war. Voljin and the rest of the Horde get drawn into the defensive war against the Alliance thinking they are out to destroy them.
The Horde realise that Sylvanas has been manipulating them all and boots her from the Horde. The Alliance ceases fighting the Horde realizing they have lived up to Varians words are removed this dishonorable part of themselves. They Ally Up and go after Sylvanas.
Both sides feel like the war is justified, The Alliance is proactive instead of Reactive. We end up in the same place just with less horde heros dead and Anduin not forcing us forgive Genocide.
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She wasn’t forced into the defensive whatsoever. Sylvanas has been long tired of the undermining and betrayal coming from within. Saurfang’s second wind in the Mak’gora wasn’t a threat to her. She chose to simply stop playing the game after Saurfang/the-Horde-barring-the-Forsaken took just one more and decisive step into incredulity and madness.
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You say that as if it’s some sort of feat and as if most players actually know the lore besides general impressions from the things they’ve seen in-game. They might as well not have had that meta knowledge available to them at all just like all the NPCs who fell for it. Debating this with them over the past year has been like taking crazy pills because it’s like they’re following a totally different story.
I’m glad her villainy is finally out in the open for all to see but it’s been there for a while now for those who actually bother to research the lore.
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Eh, not really bothered by it. I am right a long there with her. “The Horde is nothing!” She is still my favorite character in the game, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her completely own Saurfang.
I was also quite happy to see that she didn’t turn on me when I sided with her. I almost suspected she would, for whatever reason. But my loyalty was rewarded.
I’d burn a thousand Teldrassils and kill a billion Nelfs if she asked me to.
FOR SYLVANAS!
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She has always been a villain. The only people who dispute that haven’t been paying attention for 15+years.
That doesn’t mean you can’t like her as a character - villains can be likable too.
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She was backed up and having to block his attacks and finally got hit in the face by him. She was on the defensive.
“But despite all I taught them, they stubbornly clung to hope. To life.” - Sylvanas Windrunner on her views of the Forsaken.
They’re still in Orgrimmar and a bulk of them have not sided with Sylvanas.
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Do the hardcore loyalists, either the people RPing as one or people that genuinely do still support Sylvanas, not get that their characters being alive(or undead) means that serving her at this point involves their characters being killed through execution, suicide, or battle? Her soul is the only one that gets to escape being fed to Death.
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Blizzard isn’t going to delete characters or render them unplayable.
For every person who chose the Sylvanas route because they’re a big fan of the character, follow the lore, or wanted to RP it out- there’s an even greater number of people who chose the Loyalist path on one character and the Rebel path on another so they could see how both played out.
How are you going to differentiate them in order to decide whose characters gets permanently offed and whose doesn’t?
Opening cinematic disagrees.
AGW disagrees.
Plenty more instances where she says she cares.
You can try to chalk that up now as, “She was lying!” but she seems to say the Horde is nothing after she’s been constantly betrayed, so… Yeah, makes sense.
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The opening cinematic was headed by Metzen. They clearly flipped the script when he retired.
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I actually like Sylvanas as a character even more now, cause they finally moved the plot surrounding her along.
I loathed the whole charade. Now I can appreciate her as a potential villain or anti hero.
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Didn’t even get the idea of thinking about leaving her side.
Victory for Sylvanas!
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Well as much as we’re all fans of the lore, the writing in Warcraft as of late really hasn’t been that intricate or subtle. I don’t know if it’s laziness or just blizzard thinking their fans couldn’t comprehend plot points unless they’re beaten over the head with them.
And that changes that she was for the Horde because?
Totally fine with it.
I called it that she hadn’t changed. That her Forsaken (and the Horde) were just tools to achieve her own selfish objectives; and it would be only a matter of time before she threw them away like she did her “Arrows in her Quiver”. That she remained the selfish nihilist that was portrayed in Edge of Night; in War Crimes; and in Before the Storm. Hell, I even called it that she was Ogmot’s Shepherd AND that the large death toll of this war was the point (she wasn’t doing it for the Horde). Hence the reasons all her tactics prioritized escalating and prolonging the conflict. A lot of pieces fell into place at the end there …
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But she did.
That’s what ‘loyalists’ are PO’d about.
Oh? Do tell? When? When she was exploding her Bulwark in Cata (which really could be explained as her bolstering the size of her meatshield)? When she again took action to bolster her Bulwark in Stormheim? Or are you suggesting a character FAMOUS for doing and saying one thing (but thinking something completely different) … somehow couldn’t put up a good show to keep her fanatic people in line.
There are so many tactics and techniques Sylvie used on the Forsaken that are reminiscent of the very tactics abusers use to maintain control of their victims it was genuinely terrifying. Convince them that the world is out to get them. Distance them from their pasts, loved ones, and friends. Compel them to act in such a way to push away anyone that might try to help them. BRUTALLY lash out against them if they try to distance themselves from you. And finally, install in them the belief that no matter how poorly you treat them, that YOU and ONLY YOU have their best interest at heart. Sylvanas Windrunner is a terrible person … she has been for ages. The version of her in “Reckoning” is the EXACT same character she was portrayed as being back in “Edge of Night” … just like Stormheim did…
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Alex Afrasiabi, from: eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-08-world-of-warcraft-and-the-masterplan-for-sylvanas
I’ve heard these discussions on the internet about ‘she’s going off the rails’, but is she? I’ve been writing Sylvanas personally since 2006, and this is pretty much - the Wrathgate and the Blight and the Forsaken - in character. Those were all under Sylvanas’ orders. What we’re seeing now is an escalation of the plans Sylvanas has, clearly, and we’re in the middle of that.
I’ve quoted this a few times, the guy who says he’s been handling Sylvanas since almost the game’s release telling us she’s always been like this.
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