I still stand by this:
- We shouldn’t have gone to SL, at least not in this way
- Sylvanas is a complicated character that has both been over- and under-analyzed to death
- If folks had liked SL more, and I don’t blame folks for not liking it, then we would’ve seen a more complete story, because they wouldn’t have scrapped it so early
- A weird point but folks love to state that SL was a failure when it actually wasn’t, from a gameplay perspective yes but not from a design perspective
(Brief explanation: it takes roughly 2-3 years at Blizzard’s current pace to make a new expansion, so SL was sketched out and planned during Legion, built during BFA, and bug-tested during the alpha and beta; when folks said they disliked Artifact power back in Legion, they simplified the system and made Azerite Armour in BfA, when folks felt it didn’t provide meaningful choices and disliked falling behind, they came up with Covenants for SL, because covenants were supposed to be like the Aldor or Scryer choice back during TBC whilst combining it with meaningful abilities to your character;
In short, they took folks feedback, tried something, failed, but tried again listening to people, failed, but came up with what folks actually care about - evergreen systems that are meaningful, and progression trees (anima, AP, etc.) for cosmetics, see professions and dragon riding as examples … and yes, all of this is a ‘brief’ explanation)
All of this is important because it means that scrapping SL meant they had to scrap whatever story they had planned, and honestly, for the hand they were dealt, they cards they threw back and then picked up, and folks’ reactions to them … Sylvanas’ redemption arc is honestly the best conclusion that was possible for a terrible set of cards that began back during Legion (I loved Legion, but honestly, Helya and Sylvanas had a major story arc, and it wasn’t explored at all, SL came with both characters being central characters and… Helya vanished and Sylvanas got some cheesy lore explanations as to why we should care about Zooval)
The SL story… honestly, wasn’t bad - it got botched because it got cut down, but as a whole, it wasn’t bad; it just needed more time to work, and that wasn’t ever going to fly by anyone (including me, I didn’t like SL massively, mostly because of Oribos being a central hub and you had to fly to different zones making everything seem and feel smaller, but it wasn’t as bad as folks claim it was; it was another WoD - good premise, needed time and resources, didn’t get it, tried to tie things together to be something of a complete story at least)
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An unmarked grave would’ve been better.
No chance of the Shadowlands story continuing.
lmao.
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You people have a weird definition of redeemed.
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Her head’s not adorning a pike outside my garrison so it might as well be redeemed.
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Yep it’s all ok… Because it was Elune that 'forced her to murder all of the Kal’dorei, the mustache twirling bad guy jailer hoodwinked her into thinking he was doing something honorable… She was just a pawn in others machinations.
/s
I feel like her “redemption” sort of craps all over the forsaken lore and race in general.
Even better… they probably going to ruin night elf lore even more to make Sylvanas more important in the future.
Elune stopped Tyrande from killing Sylvanas. I would be shocked if it was to protect Tyrande and not Sylvanas instead.
Shoot blood elves probably will have night warrior eyes soon. 
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Not an Argent squire but Nathanos’ Nephew
Thrall didn’t cheat . The only rule in Mak’gora are those set by the participants and the only rule for that fight was to the death.
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Not Thrall’s fault Garrosh couldn’t cut it in the lightning round…
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In a distant corner a Blood Elf is rocking back and forth.
Shadowlands wasn’t real. Shadowlands can’t hurt you. Shadowlands wasn’t real…
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They made her so innocent of any wrong doing that the end to the story felt horribly cruel.
It was basically like she was drugged against her will.
Half of her soul missing. Threatened with hell. Tricked into thinking she was saving the universe.
The whole story was… unique
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To be honest in their previous fight (SoO) Garrosh did go old god roid monkey.
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Meh …
That’s basically been my response to the storyline since legion
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I think it was the only logical choice Blizz could have made with her. It’s known fact that her story and arc was being solely handled by “he who will not be named” at Blizzard. After his departure they were stuck with her at a point in that arc that they had to do something with her but didn’t necessarily want to kill her. So, they finish that arc, in a very clumsy fashion but she’s still around to be relevant later on if they need her.
I really feel like the way they dealt with certain characters in Legion were even lazier but most people overlook it. Varian, Ysera and Vol’jin were just cast aside with their involvement and deaths and no one batted an eye. Had Sylvanas and Zovaal had another expansion of story and lore behind them and their plan, I think it would have been better received. I definitely think they should have gone with the Primus story arc too since the pieces are there and it would have been a much better story and reveal.
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Yeah, considering the state of WoW’s story that they were left with, Sylvanas’ story could’ve definitely gone worse. It’s a shame that the story only really comes together if you read the Sylvanas novel, which is still clearly just Golden desperately trying (and mostly succeeding) to weave a bunch of connecting threads and developed motivations into the actual game’s extremely lackluster storytelling. Her and the jailer’s story does make sense, it just needed another expansion to actually be told in game.
The 9.2.5 epilogue cinematic was actually really well done and very much in line with the tone of the novel. Hopefully they can keep that kind of more subtle, emotionally driven storytelling in the game going forward; the stuff that actually makes people care about and understand these characters instead of only having “DEATH COMES FOR THE SOUL OF YOUR WORLD. MUAHAHA. EXPLOSION NOISES.” Saturday morning cartoon writing 99% of the time and then leaving the novels to try and make sense of it.
You’re not wrong!
…But c’mon. It’s like the Indiana Jones scene with the guy swinging the sword around and Indy just’s shoots him. Even the Elements disagreed!
Don’t care anymore but curious to see how the next chapter goes. Hopefully it’s better then the ending they gave in the first chapter.
The cutscenes in 9.2.5 all happen after the novel and no one is denying that shadowlands narrative was a mess but atleast in Dragonflight we can now see how good or bad the current narrative team can do things. Since the new expansion is technically a reset of the narrative since they are heading to dragon isles there is barely any story stuff connected to that content.
I’m sure not, she deserved the wost…but hey biased writers trumps all. If I was one of their writers, I would have written her fate to be the new jailer of the maw forever more and she never returns. She would have nothing to do but rule over a depressing zone for the rest of her existence.
Wasn’t a fan, I personally would have preferred she be killed by Arthas.
