Lore Confusion - Sylvanas Trailer (spoilers)

Community General Discussion
41

We kinda had that with MoP with the Burdens of Shaohao. But in reverse. Where most of his “evil” sides of his personality were ripped out of him. But for each one that was removed, the most dangerous of them grew and grew. To the point that he couldn’t let that one vice go. The man thought he was above a God simply because he was an “Emperor”. At least Lei Shen proved he was by defeating Xuen in honorable combat. When he attempted to protect Pandaria from the Legion and the Sundering, he only wanted to include the domain of his empire. However that failed. So he was forced to provide protection for ALL of Pandaria. Something he was against. He also felt that Pandaria was better off from the rest of the world. Let the rest of Azeroth suffer.

It honestly does feel that the current writers are simply copy and pasting what came before, thinking that they are “smart” and “clever” for doing so.

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42

I’d give anything for a simple story.

I thought that’s what BFA was going to be.

43

There is a whole lot of assumption that the “good” Ranger General would not burn Teldrassil.

She is Elf, but not Night Elf… High Elf, split from the Night Elves due to love of magic… she is no more noble than the Blood Elves to follow, doomed to each and every addiction.

Further evidence, all of the Horde in that assault, participated in that Burning… they were not split souls… and burning a world tree, should have been too much for at least some of the Horde, especially druids… Nightborne may have chosen Liadren over Tyrande, but still they immediately forgot all the Sentinals that fought to liberate Suramar.

Just saying, you don’t need to have a split soul to do evil for the greater good…

Allysia, however it’s spelled, her Sister, just became Void… not such a good thing, but for the greater good… and frankly, anything Demon Hunter, literally part demon, all done for the greater good.

This whole Ranger General arc, attempting to remove the grey, back into a simple black and white story, is a cop out.

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44

Yup. Instead of being a powerful character that broke free of her bonds, she is now just a victim. No agency of her own. Almost 30 years of storytelling retconned into “the devil made me do it”

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45

Uhh, no she doesn’t blame the Jailer.

Where do people get this idea that she blames the Jailer? That literally does not happen.

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46

That’s what it seems like, I’m hoping someone can clearly state what’s actually going on other than nerd raging at me for questioning the lore but so far nobody has said anything concrete to make any of this make sense.

47
i kinda like how sylvie had a perrin aybara compulsion mind break...but not because of the word "serve"
what's the next trigger word?
pancakes??

:pancakes:

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48

I think they just gave up. They’re trying to fix up gameplay issues with the systems and adding a little bit more content for fun but other than that the story seems like it can’t get revived.

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49

Here’s the deal.

Ranger General Sylvanas ‘died’ when she was killed by Arthas. Part of her soul fractured, and that part of her soul was held by the Jailer within Torghast. What Arthas raised was a cold, mostly heartless being without any real humanity. That Banshee, while under the domination of Arthas/The Lich King, committed many atrocities and after she broke free of the Lich King’s domination she committed many more atrocities, all without any mental influence. She was doing these things by her own free will.

When she threw herself off of Icecrown after Arthas was defeated, she made a deal with the Jailer. That’s when she started working with him, as she saw their goals as being one and the same. She has continued to work with him as he acted in the Shadowlands, and burned Teldrassil to send a torrent of souls to him, which in turn gave her access to powers she never had before. Powers which allowed her to easily best Saurfang and Bolvar, powers that allowed her to destroy the Helm of Domination and open the way for the Jailer’s forces to invade Icecrown and capture various leaders.

It’s really important to note that she is doing this all because she wants to. She is not under the effects of the Jailer’s domination magic.

When the Jailer actually reveals his ‘master plan’ at the end of the Sanctum of Domination raid, Sylvanas realizes at this point that she’s been lied to. She and the Jailer never had the same goal, so she lashes out with that arrow, perhaps hoping that the Jailer would just kill her outright for her betrayal. Instead he forced the split part of her soul back into her body as a ‘gift’ before he entered the Zereth Mortis portal with Anduin.

That fragmented part of her soul is now subjected to reliving all the atrocities that Sylvanas committed while she was a banshee. Both while she was dominated by Arthas and while she was free and engaging in these actions herself. To Ranger General Sylvanas this is an unending torment, because she cannot accept that this Banshee is her. She refuses to accept it. And that division is what’s preventing Sylvanas from waking up.

This was intentionally done by the Jailer. Sylvanas knows of his goal and what he plans to do, and that makes her a liability now that she’s betrayed him. Clearly he hoped that Sylvanas would destroy herself and be unable to wake up to attempt to stop him. He, however, didn’t count on Uther aiding her, convincing her that the banshee and ranger general are one in the same, and eventually the ranger general agrees, accepting that they’re not two different people fighting for control, but rather, the same person and that she must face the consequences for her actions.

And that’s when she wakes up, because now the rift in her mind that was keeping her unconscious is gone.

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50

So the jailer is a moronic Bond villian now? The only person capable of unveiling his plan and he decides that her passing out due to bad feels instead of killing her is the way to go?

You are making some ridiculous leaps to justify this clown fiesta.

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51

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking time to explain this slowly for me!!!

I didn’t realize that the other part of the soul that was put back was basically having to watch all the atrocities the banshee was committing. That makes a LOT more sense. Again, thank you so much for clarifying this!

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52

You clearly haven’t been paying attention.

What happens to a mortal when they die in the Shadowlands? I’ll tell you. Unlike beings of the Shadowlands, they don’t die permanently, meaning they can be resurrected or their souls can be found and questioned.

So if the Jailer killed Sylvanas, that wouldn’t actually do anything. Her soul would end up in the Maw where it could be liberated by the Maw Walkers, or she could be resurrected and the Jailer would still have a talkative Sylvanas problem.

By shoving her soul into her body and forcing her into an unconscious state, from which she would never wake (and she wouldn’t have were it not for Uther’s involvement), he eliminates his problem. She can’t attempt to hunt him down, she can’t give anyone who could hunt him down any information. She’s essentially out of the picture entirely.

Or she would be, but Uther stepped in and helped her wake herself up.

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53

Yea that soul fracturing stuff is explained in the Kyrian campaign with uther.

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54

And yet people die all the time in this game where resurrection is possible. Also the jailer is the ruler of the maw and was literally just powered up. He could have dusted her.

Now I realise I am making just as many assumptions as you are but the fact is no amount of justifications can make up for how insulting these clowns of writers are being. You want to swallow the retcon then fine, you do you.

55

Yes, they do, because resurrection is a powerful ability that in lore, few people can actually accomplish. Bolvar is one of the few beings that can actually accomplish a form of resurrection. He could have raised Sylvanas as a Death Knight using his own considerable mastery over necromancy.

As for the Jailer, he is neither omniscient nor can he be everywhere at once (If he could no one would make any progress in the Maw, because he’d just show up immediately and smite anyone who entered his realm uninvited). There are thousands of souls pouring into the Maw. He doesn’t have the time to sort through all of them to find Sylvanas’s soul, and the Mawsworn would recognize her as an ally, as they wouldn’t be privy to the events at the end of the raid, so they wouldn’t have immediately ratted her out to the Jailer either.

56

Throughout SL, there are moments of dialogue between Anduin and Sylvanas where Anduin makes some pretty direct statements about what (I think) he feels are hypocrisies or inconsistencies in her behavior; the conversations they have while Anduin is trapped in that blue rune circle. It feels to me as if, over time, Anduin’s questions and words settled in her mind - you can see it when Sylvanas twitches her eye or mouth in response to Anduin’s words…

My interpretation is that Sylvanas didn;t just suddenly decide to rebuke the Jailer, but that it, something, had been building up for a while, and the words of the Jailer triggered her memory, and then WHAM! Zooval restores the part of her soul that was lost and now Sylvanas must bear the full weight of her decisions and actions.

While I agree that the writing could be more cohesive, I can see where they are going with it. It’s not about “good half” and “bad half”. It’s more about the shifting influence of the “dark night of the soul” kind of thing, especially when part of the soul is removed. It’s an interesting take, to be sure.

57

So how does Sylvanas’ burning of Teldrassil mesh with the cinematic in Ardenweald where Elune herself states that she, not Sylvanas, sent those souls into the maw? I think I missed that linkage.

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Night Elf souls are so strongly tied to Elune that Elune essentially has the ability to take souls that would normally go to the Shadowlands, and allow them to instead remain behind on the mortal realm as Wisps.

When Teldrassil burned, many of the souls that died would have become Wisps, but Elune, hearing the cries of her sister, instead choose to allow all of those souls to pass on into the Shadowlands, although she had no idea at the time that all the souls went to the Maw instead.

59

So do you think that Sylvanas’ actions and Elune’s decision to send the souls into the maw are distinct? I guess my mind wonders what compelled Sylvanas, other than pure treachery, to kill all those night elves. Was it pure happenstance? I.E. Sylvanas just happened to provide a river of souls when Elune needed them for her sister in Ardenweald? Or might there be more to the story there? Just pondering…

60

What? You need to watch that cinematic again, because it very explicitly says that she is responsible for her actions

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