If Blizzard is trying to make Sylvanas charismatic they are failing miserably
Even with the stuff in A Good War she wouldn’t be charismatic.
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Looking at the character as a whole- not just from cut scenes and the novel, but also across the multiple expansions they’re referencing, the little comic they did, and more…
Yes. They’re trying to. No it’s not working particularly well in this expansion.
I wouldn’t say it’s failing miserably though, given that Sylvanas remains much more popular with general audiences than say, Garrosh. She had people cheering with her “For the Horde!” rallying cry. She employs a lot of the storytelling conventions you bring out when you want to present a character as conniving, duplicitous, yet occasionally civil. Even I enjoyed her smarmy exchange with Anduin in the throne room of Lordaeron.
Look, it’s a rough economy. Anything to feed the kids.
Agree to disagree. I was one of those cheering at her “For the Horde!” Rallying cry, it’s still my favorite moment in the cinematic and one of the reasons I watched it so much.
I wanted desperately for the Sylvanas that fought alongside Varian, that rallied the Horde in the Cinematic to be what we got in game.
For a long while after the War of Thorns I was bitter enough to let my Horde toons languish.
Yes, Sylvanas as a whole has moments that make me happy (among those already mentioned her speech to the PC in Silverpine comes to mind).
Unfortunately for me her character assassination in BfA has been so complete I personally feel it overrides anything positive about her.
I dont think Blizzard is capable of any story involving her redemption. I think we will get one, and I think it will be stupid, hamfisted, forced, uninspired nonsense that trots out one of the handful of tropes Blizzard seems incapable of deviating from.
I hate what they’ve done to Sylvanas, the Forsaken, and the Horde.
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To cheer for her during that cinematic would mean you were taken in by her charisma- if only for a moment.
horde traded in their story and characterization for the ability to win pvp bgs and we haven’t looked back
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To me this is meaningless because the Sylvanas in the cinematic and the Sylvanas actually in Battle of Lordaeron may as well be 2 different characters.
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they should reanimate the cinematic and have her look into the camera and wink afterwards
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Seems like a cheap distinction.
I’m the type of kid who gets giddy at bright lights and loud sounds, I’m real easy when it comes to most flashy and otherwise flat media because I’m pretty easily entertained and invested in vapid nonsense as long as it can jingle the keys a bit.
Even in the moment cheering for Sylvanas back when the cinematic didn’t also carry the revelation of god awful characterization, I was in the back of my head absolutely laughing at the notion Sylvanas had any care or inspiration in the Horde. Even on the spot, it was cool, but it wasn’t remotely convincing or believable. Maybe I’m a sort of outlier in as much as I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive. I can be swept up in the moment without necessarily attributing it where it doesn’t belong.
My voice was because the moment was a moment, you could have replaced Sylvanas with anyone and most people would still have cheered. It had nothing to do with charisma and everything to do with how Blizzard operates. Cheap thrills and big lights and loud sounds.
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Unless we’re getting into the philosophy of “true charisma” or any such thing, trying to parse what counts as charisma and what counts as simply getting the people worked up by appealing to their baser instincts is a cheap distinction. Especially if you’re aware that Sylvanas- of all possible people- does not care at all for her comrades and is merely playing on emotions in a cynical way, and cheered anyway.
They’ve really flubbed how they handle her and her story in BfA for the most part, but Sylvanas’ cult of personality in-story and to a lesser extent outside of it didn’t just poof completely out of nowhere.
Even if you count out the ones who’re mainly interested in her because of rule34.
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Why did they even choose to elevate Sylvanas to Warchief? Her spotlight at the beginning of Legion was really all that character needed. She was so cool being the ally that we needed but didn’t want. Was a perfect antihero moment and they just went too far.
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Because the major story points of WoW are written by non writers sitting around going “wouldnt it be cool if…” they dont think that far ahead.
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Honestly? I believe they only did it because Blizzard themselves are the biggest Sylvanas fanbois and basically want to give her the spotlight to make her seem as cool as possible. Nothing she does ever goes wrong, she is always somehow 10 steps ahead of everyone, and she gets away with every evil deed she commits (she has since Cataclysm)… this whole expansion feels like a really bad Sylvanas/Forsaken fanfiction.
Don’t even get me started on Nathanos and how he is a self-insert character, that just backs up the theory that Blizzard is a bunch of Sylvanas fanbois. We all know they are making her out to be the pragmatic evil badass who we should kill only to turn around and have her save Azeroth and become a hero. It will hands down be the most cringe worthy moment ever, but it’s happening. You know it, I know it, everyone’s mother knows it.
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What sucks is that (even amidst all the nonsense in BfA) there are moments that make it clear that this game could have a fantastic and impactful story.
If only the people at the top would get out of their own way and allow it to.
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Well. Not RECENTLY. But her story arc forever was
- Get idea.
- Make plan.
- Go through with plan.
- Win.
- Pause to brag.
- NEARLY ****ING DIE. (Or, in case of Gilneas; Actually die.)
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People liked sylvannas. They gave them sylvannas.
We are truly the architects of our own demise and punishments.
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I thought people enjoyed the pragmatic, cunning, and introspective Sylvanas, not “How I learned to stop worrying and love the Blight” Sylvanas.
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization
Since pretty much every main character is someone from the old RTS games, the writers struggle to keep them fresh and interesting to see and interact with. This leads them to simply enhance and encourage favorable traits that people enjoyed as part of a larger whole. Combined with the idea stretched over multiple writers this unfortunately leads to a snowballing effect where overtime characters become distilled and simple to the point we can no longer recognize them.
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No what they taught in public school is how black and white they tried to make WW2 by trying to make U.S., U.K and USSR (And hope you don’t look up Stalin) were 100% the good guys. And made absolute sure you learned about Pearl Harbor first and demonize Japan in hopes you don’t feel too awful about the death of 100K people.
On to the main point. And after this I’m done with this thread.
1: Sylvanas didn’t burn down Teldrassil for the ^@%%s and giggles. the story I linked proves this.
2: Burning of Teldrassil had military reasons behind it: Leaving the kaldorei army without a major a base to support them, leaving the Alliance without a major port on Kalimdor. This is where the Hiroshima comparison comes in which was to end WW2 as quickly as possible. Another good example is the Alliance attacking the Vulpera who are NONE combatants, but the strategic reason to do so was to prevent the Horde from getting supply’s.
3: This is not justify Sylvanas, or demonize the United Nations of WW2, but to highlight the fact that war itself is evil.
Good for you.
Uh. I don’t think it would have. Killing Malfurion would have set Tyrande off on a warpath earlier and much, much, much worse than if he was spared.
The best move was to not attack, but the second best would be to incapacitate or capture. Killing Malfurion would have, likely, caused short term chaos as Tyrande took a bit to compose… Then the NElves would have more violently lashed out. At least, if Blizzard could remember how NElves work while writing that potential story line. – She wouldn’t have just laid down and moped.
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