Okay, I was reading Before the Storm, and there were like a few things which I felt were interesting…like the parts when Sylvanas looked at Lorthemar and his b-elves in Orgrimmar and thought:
"Sylvanas once had understood those sentiments but could not relate to any of them."
And then, while thinking about her sisters after Anduin’s letter:
"She had lost everything because of Arthas: her friends, her family, her beloved Quel’Thalas. Her life. Her ability to care, truly care, truly feel any emotion save hate and anger about those things. And she had attempted a reunion…"
What I mean is, maybe it’s not so much that she doesn’t want to be positive and good, it’s more that she emotionally and physically CAN’T, even if she tries. So if 1 day, Sylvie gets purged of all the negative undeath magic that is inside her, would she revert back to her old personality again??
I think its a major part of what Sylvanas became when she was brought back.
I posted this in a recent thread:
“He[Arthas] took her raved 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.” – Sunwell Trilogy
“The ritual that Arthas used to turn Sylvanas into a banshee involved tearing her soul out of her still living body. It infinitely prolonged her existence as a creature filled with hate toward all life.” – UVG
It depends on what you believe is the nature of a person. Its actually quite philosophical.
If you believe that people are shaped by their experiences, and then one can never truly “go back”. If you believe a person’s circumstances demonstrate what aspects of their personality are brought forward, the answer is kinda? There is no real right answer until it actually happens.
There is also a difference between seeking redemption and being forcefully converted back to life. Ultimately, this gets at how do we as people perceive ourselves
She does showcase the insidious nature of undeath. In that it twists the subject. In Sylvanas’ case it was pretty extreme too, as Arthas took his time and gave her his personal attention.
But yeah, undead beings are corpses (sometimes not even that in the caste of ghosts and banshees), that have had their souls affixed to their bodies via dark magic in a twisted parody of the real thing, with their ability to feel positive emotion stripped away.
The Sylvanas of ‘now’, isn’t the Sylvanas of ‘then’. That being said, her knowledge and experiences remained unchanged. Even if she couldn’t feel those sentiments, she knew what they were. People are naturally capable of becoming as monstrous as she was forced into being. Were she ever restored, there’d be some definite psychological trauma to deal with probably, but I can’t see her changing outright.
That being said, it would be a great excuse for her to shout “AZEROTH IS FREE!” And play at being redeemed.
Her perceptions would probably change if her capacity to feel was restored. It would be her most realistic chance for actual remorse, if that’s what is needed.
Honestly I would rather she is just killed, if the other option is her becoming “redeemed” by being forced back to life, and regretting everything the forsaken have done.
That might be the only option that is more damaging to the forsaken story than Sylvanas going down in MoP2
it probably wouldn’t just her regretting it, it would probably also feature her going insane from having all that guilt come crashing down on her all at once
It isn’t the only reason. She doesn’t lack free will (unless you ascribe to some form of WoW determinism). But it probably contributes a certain amount. If she was purged of necromancy, she’d probably be better. But she was also a tough cookie in life, to be fair.
I doubt she’d ever go 100% back. Not unless she also lost all memory of the intervening years. And let’s not forget that she was an awfully cold fish, perhaps even a sociopath, even back in life. That “arrows in her quiver” thing isn’t a result of dark magic, it’s exactly how she regarded those who served under her in life.
Everything changed the day she fell. Her race was was betrayed by one of their own. She watched her people fell as she tried to save them. When she was struck down by Arthas. She accepted her warrior death but Arthas raised her; twisting her into the Banshee Queen. She was a prisoner of her own mind as she stood with Arthas and the Scourge with their onslaught of Silvermoon,
That changed her not the dark magic. She felt nothing. Everything that she loved had changed. She had her love for her people as he gave help to The Blood Elfs by bringing them into the Horde. She is like Spawn if anyone read the comics. She is rejected by her own sister in War Crimes. It has harden her.
The only thing she has left is The Horde. She saved the warriors of the Horde on the broken shore when they were about to be overrun. She is willing to break all things morally grey to keep the Horde safe. As twisted as it was to burn Darnasses to ash. She did it to force The Night Elves away so The Horde are now seperated by an ocean of water. But it came at a price Silvermoon still lies on the Alliance side of the world. Some warriors question her honor.
Its kinda of interesting. When Jaina does things (to point of trying to commit the same crime as Sylvanas), the explanation of “look what she’s been through” seems to be enough. OTOH, Sylvanas has been through a lot more than Jaina has, but there needs to be something else that “made her evil”?
If we’re trying to quantify suffering, I’d say it is. Not that I’m trying to trivialize or diminish Sylvanas’ suffering, but I’d say a lot of it is equivalent. I could make a long list comparing their lives and the significance I place in the events, but that seems a bit arduous. I might even be willing to grant Sylvanas has suffered more, just not a lot more.
I guess I forgot where Jaina had her existence ripped from her (and no, loosing friends and a lover doesn’t count) and was turned into something she always thought of as a monster. I also forgot where she was forced to kill her own people and assist in death of 90% of the humans in existence.
I agree it isn’t the evidence itself. My hesitance is that I’m going to spend a while reviewing the life stories of two characters who have been around for sixteen years or so and give my personal weight on the tragedies that have befallen them. And after doing so, will just end up being disagreed with anyway either on the subjective nature of my weighing (because quantifying suffering is very questionable) or quibbling over the term a lot, since I acknowledge Sylvanas probably has suffered more than Jaina, to a degree.
Your prior sarcasm gives me pause. I’m fine just agreeing to disagree.