My thoughts on Slyvanas Redemption idea

Lore Story Forum
41

I can get behind that too :gift_heart:

42

There is a spectrum of gray, but, as I’ve argued in the past, Sylvanas has gone far too much into the black to really climb back out. I understand the concept of an “ends justify the means” character, but… Those means have to be within some reasonable boundaries. The story might prop her up as “ultimately doing good”, but, for me, and I assume others, my perception of her ability to be “good” is shattered. There isn’t enough white (that I care about) to mix with her black to make gray.

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43

So? People act like it is literally forbidden for Sylvanas to do something good in the end despite her near blackness. Do you think writers are sitting at their desks sweating, thinking “oh no, people think Sylvanas is 100% black, so the laws of the universe literally prevent us from writing her as doing even one good act, because evil people can’t do a single good thing in their entire lives”?

So she’s 99% black and 1% white. Everyone is mistakenly thinking that Grey = some people perceive her as white, some perceive her as black. This is false, grey is a mix of the two in any proportion. There is nothing stopping her from ending the expansion doing something good.

So she ends up saving us in the end, let’s say. Does that make her good? No. Do we have to forgive her? No. Can a mostly black character do something good? Yes. These statements are NOT mutually exclusive.

A mostly-evil character doing something good is not lore-breaking.

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44

I agree with you. I’m not saying it’s lore-breaking, or that it’s unfeasible.

I’m talking about narrative satisfaction. “Are people going to like the story?” I’m not asking, “does that story follow some kind of logic?” What I’m anticipating in the event that they try to paint Sylvanas as “good” is going to be that her secret goal was to “save” all the souls in the universe from an unjust fate. That is logical, it makes sense, and it makes sense for her character.

However, I believe that will be portrayed as “Sylvanas was a good guy all along!” That’s what I think the author’s voice will be telling me. However, I’m saying that for me, and others, that no matter how hard they try to convince us that “Sylvanas just doing what was necessary”, I’m not going to accept that as satisfying storytelling. When I say “they won’t convince me she’s gray”, I’m saying, “I’m not going to empathize with/like her even a little bit no matter how much you try to make me.”

1 Like
45

Well i really dont want them to pull a snape here so i believe we’re on the same boat, im tired of them trying to subvert expectations and screwing everything up.

Bfa was the worst, WORST expansion not because it was cut short like wod but because how damaging to the lore it was, it was like having a seizure! you have commercials telling you that the faction pride matters, come the expansion your faction pride is dragged into the mud for two years and all of this ends with a wet fart as sylvanas yeets from orgrimmar.

OH OH but you had to play the other faction too to know their side of the story! to know the full picture! well screw me right? screw faction pride right? why the heck was bfa marketed as the faction pride expansion then?

everyone either has lots of expectations of SL or its already on the deep end and expects nothing will be fixed, even still SL has to try to fix all the crap bfa broke and they will come up short they have done a fine job convincing me of that.