WoW has a lot of cutscenes, cinematics, and animations. If you were to pick any of them to change, which one would you change? And how would you change them?
I decided to change the cinematic “Reckoning”. Everything up to Saurfang’s death does not change.
Sylvanas is smart. Why would she just sacrifice her entire still loyal army because some dude poked her in the face? I think it’d be somewhat compelling to have her stand there, triumphant, and have everything just kinda go.
Silent.
Sylvanas stands back, pleased that nobody’s actually cheering for her victory or Saurfang’s death.
She sits on an upturned stone. “This is what honor gets you. Honor doesn’t feed you. Honor doesn’t give you strength. Honor can barely hold you together. It is the death of you. Your united strength and glory vastly outshines anything I could ever do alone, but your honor demands that you sacrifice yourselves to the last warrior.”
“Together, we could make a difference. Change things. But you stand alone. Afraid, in the chilling dark of unwilling ignorance.”
“I know what’s out there. Maybe I can control it, maybe we can overwhelm it. But you do not have the will to stomach it. Those loyal to me clearly do.” She sneers at Saurfang’s withered corpse. “And though he was of great use to me, he was unwilling to finish his duty. Because honor demanded he died like this.”
Thrall fell to his knees, defeated. But he stands, weary, with the weight of what’s happened clearly present on his shoulders.
“Ancestors forgive me, but some of what you say is right.”
Sylvanas looks up from her seated position. “Do you finally see it?” A smile builds on her wounded face. It unnervingly stitches together through unseen forces.
“I do. You’re almost right about us. All of us. Just not me.”
“I am not strong. I am no warrior. I am a coward, who abandoned this Horde twice.” He takes a few tentative steps forward. “Honor has gotten so many bright and valorous spirits snuffed out. No more.”
Sylvanas stands, she smiles, she stretches her arms wide. “From the founding father himself.”
Thrall closes his eyes a moment. Clouds roll in as an unnatural rainstorm begins around them. An electricity fills the air. “Saurfang told me that people like us don’t get to run, Sylvanas. We all have to face what we’ve made. I suppose you’ve yet to do that, though this will be my second outing.”
Sylvanas has a curious expression. It dawns on her that Thrall is not agreeing with her.
He was stalling for time.
Then you get some cool battle between World Shaman Thrall and the Breaker of Chains, Sylvanas. She’s yet to get her big boost from the Jailer that makes her into what we see in Shadowlands, so I actually think it’d be interesting to see that Thrall just clobbers her. Without her schemes, without her grand manipulations, Sylvanas is nothing. Just as she claims the Horde is nothing without her, fleeing to her master beyond the veil of death.
She didn’t plan on him actually making a stand.
Sylvanas gets a moment, Thrall finally decides to stop running, and you see the moment where Sylvanas decides that making the Horde an enemy is less trouble than trying to convince them to stand against Thrall.
You understand that the Horde actually fully stands back. It’s not that they were abandoned by Sylvanas and stood down, but they willingly left her to die by Thrall’s hands. They listened to her. The Horde abandons “honor” to do the right thing.
Thrall also gets to remain a cool shaman. I really dislike that he became somewhat of a generic warrior. Let him be powerful. Make his power reflect his failures as a leader.
It’s the reckoning for the Horde, for Thrall, and for Sylvanas.
So… that’s my scene changed. What’s your’s?
