Have you seen those thigh bone armor? Or the shoulder pads? when she fell those spikes should have pierced her skull and the thigh armor make her roll over on her chest or her back.
Of course! Blizzard’s setting up that return to WoD and evil Yrel!
Can’t wait until Genn finds out about this
Maybe the spikes shrunk when she became unified with her good soul ?
I want to share this because again, as much as I don’t really like Taliesin, he does provide a thorough analysis and a grounded perspective:
I don’t think she ever felt Zoval was good. But I do think she believed he was the only way to remake the reality of the afterlife because the status quo was still bad and doomed innocent souls by letting the frostmourn fragments rot.
But Zoval just proved to be yet another false revolutionary.
I think “ignoring the truth” is well and fine but:
- Sylvanas is constantly framed as a tactical genius by the developers
- Sylvanas is constantly framed as a tactical genius by both her sisters and other characters, including Lorthemar, Turalyon, and Anduin
- Sylvanas is an abuse survivor with assault survivor overtones via Arthas
- Sylvanas is the only suicide survivor in the entire franchise
- Sylvanas was repeatedly framed as Zovaal’s partner by the developers (which has now been revealed to them speaking from Sylvanas’s perspective, I guess)
- Sylvanas is the most salient example of Abuse Survivor Becomes Abuser in the entire franchise.
And we’re expected to believe she thought everything was fine until she was slightly triggered by blonde, white, blue-eyed virtuous perfect Anduin because he was sad and sarcastic, and then by the word “serve” by Zovaal when she already knew he was behind Arthas (her original abuser) and Kel’Thuzad (who is why she fell to Arthas in the first place, along with all her people)?
Nope.
Absolutely not.
This is ridiculous and an utterly vile abuse of tropes.
This whole situation does not transmit any meaningful or positive messaging to any Survivor of abuse or suicide at all other than “don’t make deals with the devil” I guess.
She been so thoroughly and totally robbed of agency. Again. Because she killed herself after Arthas fell, which she wasn’t a part of.
Her entire motivations and arc are now centered on five guys: Arthas, Kel’Thuzad, Zovaal, Anduin, and Nathanos.
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I still think it’s a story of revolution by any means necessary fizzling out because the animal farm pig becomes the farmer than “she was too dumb to not know he’s bad.”
I think she always knew he was bad and was willing to help him create a less bad world. But then he did what people with power always do when they get it and abandon their own message.
But we the players never get to see this message so of course it’s harder to believe he ever had a compelling one.
I mean, I think this development is vile for other reasons as well - reasons that I’ve articulated. I’m just trying to share another perspective.
I don’t think it’s vile; I think it’s exploring something they didn’t explore enough with this character in the wrath of the lich king expansion.
Option 2 is stupid. So stupid, I’m worried that Blizzard might actually do it.
A character’s development should not explicitly come at the cost of entire playable races and the people who invested in them.
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There is no message where it’s believable.
There is no message I can believe that led to Devos go from “reform the Kyrians, I am concerned about Maw magic in reality” to “we need more Maw magic”
There is no message I can believe that led to Banshee Queen, famed hater of Arthas and all things Scourge, to willingly side with Arthas’s magic zaddy and the Lich that caused her to be Banshee’d in the first place.
There is no message I can believe that led Mueh’zala, whose power depends on the sustained influx of new souls, to side with a guy who wants to kill everything.
Christ on a donkey on the way to Jerusalem, this don’t make a LICK of sense.
Yes of a man who hasn’t sat down and acknowledged or grappled with the Survivor/Abuse/Abuser/Suicide themes of Sylvanas in a profound way.
Making an Abuse Survivor + Suicide Survivor Turned Abuser Who Commits Genocide while being duped by Baddy McSkullface Father Of The Lich King though she is a tactical genius, thus robbed of all agency as a character and survivor, is vile.
No way around it dude.
11 Likes
Which is why it should have been explored in Wrath imho.
Okay, I can agree with that, but that’s not the context we’re dealing with.
Well, almost the only one, but not quite.
Technically High Abbot Landgren of the Scarlet Onslaught is one as well. He killed himself when cornered by the Horde player in Dragonblight, promising that his Master will bring him back before plummeting off a cliff (whereupon his corpse is at the bottom, so it’s not a trick.)
However his promised resurrection happens, as we encounter him again in Icecrown having been restored by “Admiral Westwind” and promoted to Archbishop.
suicide because of depression from a loss of purpose in existence since your abuser was killed by the local male human paladin boss is not even vaguely comparable to this dude
tedious and dumb response
I don’t think they handled abuse themes well at all either but that’s the route that I thought was in poor taste in the first place (I especially hated the execution of the Teldrassil narrative.)
But what I do not think is vile is the recognition of the narrative that this character had been robbed of agency since the end of warcraft three and the narrative is addressing that for once.
So I like that better than an unceremonious death for the character even though I’d just scrap all of BFA if I could.
It isn’t addressing.
It’s implying and gesturing and promising it will maybe address it.
3 Likes
That’s absolutely true, but it’s a better outcome for me than the alternative where the character is just thrown away.
And I do want them to explore her emotions instead of writing her like a robot because magic can canonically break people in this fantasy world (I still dislike magic that removes character agency but that is firmly a part of the world building and if it could Go I would shed no tears.)
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