If they assume that our “heroes” and the players would automatically side with the nice, friendly Arbiter and the “good” Eternal Ones, and not the spiky edgelord “bad guy” then sure.
It’s just a repeat of the Xe’ra story, only taken to a larger extreme.
The Arbiter might be bad as well, but once again - that does not exonerate the Jailer either. The Arbiter and the Shadowlands being flawed, and Zovaal and Sylvanas being horrible evil monsters are not mutually exclusive. I’m unsure why you’re under the assumption they are.
I’ve never been under the delusion that Sylvanas isn’t evil, that’s why I’m in camp Vindication. Redeeming Sylvanas and turning her into yet another good-two-shoes character completely eradicates why people like her character. Removing her sense of self-righteousness doesn’t work.
Killing her off is wasteful, silly, and just isn’t really an option. The bean counters would revolt.
Vindication. She’s right all along. I know some hate it, but it’s probably the only way.
It is nothing resembling the only way. The only way for Sylvanas to be “right all along” is for everyone else in the universe to be wrong. That’s horrible storytelling. And AGAIN - even if the Shadowlands are flawed, that does not make Sylvanas right. Her “fix” involves helping someone who will make it objectively worse.
Sylvanas’s defining trait is doing what no other character is prepared or willing to do because it’s “wrong” or “lacks honor” etc.
That’s why it had to be her, and it had to be the way she did it.
And frankly I think the current cast of goody-two-shoes Holier-than-thou types in both the Alliance and the Horde need to be shown to be wrong to bring humility to their characters and to provide future further character development away from the stagnation they find themselves in.
Sylvanas has spent the last expansion wiping her feet on the current cast of characters, and the only thing they ultimately managed to do to her was scrape her eye once, and she immediately killed the guy who did that. It’d be wholly asinine for the character who’s done basically nothing but get away with everything constantly to end her story wholly vindicated in her actions. They don’t need “humbling” because they’re comfortable in not being complicit with mass genocide for some half-baked plan they know nothing about - Sylvanas has already humbled them enough. You’re taking a polarizing story and trying to make it worse for the sake of a single character you like.
And I don’t know how else to convey this to you, but just because a system is flawed doesn’t mean that Sylvanas’s nihilistic method of “destroy everything” is the solution. The only way that Sylvanas is doing what “needs to be done” is if everyone was willing to lie down and let her kill them.
That’s a truly idiotic story you’re pitching, and for the sake of the game, I hope to god nothing you want to occur occurs.
What’s your opinion of “I am my scars!”?
Because I loved it. It was Blizzard saying “you thought we were going to choose the boring normie direction, and instead we chose something that preserved who Ilidan is fundamentally as a character”
I truly believe they will, through creativity and imagination, find a way to do that for Sylvanas as well.
You can disagree. That’s wonderful, it will be fun to see what happens between our two dichotomies.
I enjoyed it, but I’m also critical of Illidan as a character due to his actions in Outland. But I also don’t think that this is the same thing whatsoever. You seem to have difficulty grasping how one thing relates to another, whether it’s how one characters sins match up to another’s, or how situations like this are comparable.
Illidan was not on a quest to kill everyone and anything - quite the opposite actually, he was there to help us DESTROY the demons who wanted to do just that. That did not “vindicate” Illidan’s previous actions, it was just Illidan rejecting the path Xe’ra wanted for him.
Sylvanas, meanwhile, is openly antagonistic to us. She has decided that he way is the only way, and that everyone else should die to achieve it - she has made the decision for us that we must all adopt her nihilistic mindset and allow her to kill us and grind our souls into nothingness. The ONLY way to vindicate Sylvanas is if when the Arbiter explodes, everyone kicks their feet and goes “gee, we’re sorry for trying to stop you from killing us all.”
That is idiotic. That is wholly and truly idiotic. That’d be worse than “DRAENOR IS FREEEEE!” I can only reiterate - if that’s what you want to happen, then I can only hope you’re disappointed.
I’m sorry, are we talking about Sylvanas or Jaina after the Battle of Dazaralor?
You’re again assigning motives to Sylvanas and the Jailer which is funny because the biggest complaint I have seen is the lack of a motivation for the players to know. Again I go back to Sylvanas had every opportunity to kill every major character. Every opportunity. She could have blasted Thrall, Zekhan, and Anduin right after Saurfang. She could have killed Bolvar. They could have killed Baine, Jaina, Thrall and they could still kill Anduin now after he’s served his “purpose.” Sylvanas evacuated Undercity before the Battle of Lordaeron and she fled before the Siege of Orgrimmar turned deadly (except Saurfang).
For a group of people so dedicated to killing everyone they sure are doing a terrible job of it.
That is not an equivalent comparison and you know it. Jaina was fighting the enemy faction, who were likewise trying to kill her. Sylvanas is someone who is waging war against ALL life, killing people solely to send them to hell, AND in fact probably hoped those Horde players would die to Jaina. More fodder for her benefactor!
Don’t be disingenuous. It’s not cute.
I don’t need to assign motives to them. I’m just pointing out what they’re doing. Sylvanas burned a tree full of innocent people, then started a world war to get as many people killed as she could, including the people on her own side.
I’m not judging Sylvanas for what she didn’t do, I’m judging her for what she did. And frankly, all the things you just listed are things that would have jeopardized her position. She’s powerful, but Thrall and Anduin are as well - and at that point, she also had the backing of exactly no one, so getting out of there was more important. And if she had failed to evacuate Undercity, people would have caught onto her dislike for the Horde quicker, and ultimately, less people would have died. In the former situation, Sylvanas picked the choice that would be safer for her so she could ultimately make it to the Jailer. In the latter, she picked the choice that would get MORE people killed in the long run.
You’re making my argument for me by just weakly grasping at straws. If I’m going to sentence a murderer, I’m not going to factor in the people they didn’t kill. That’s stupid logic. If all your arguments defending Sylvanas are gonna be “yeah Sylvanas did that, but she didn’t do this” or “yeah, but this other character did this,” then you have nothing to say.
Absolve for me mostly. Either way Sylvanas has been part of a long list of legacy characters that have been thrown into a dumpster fire by Blizz. So they might as well get it over with so I don’t have to wait 12 years for Sylvanas like I did Illidan.
What she’s doing in SL is clearly not just for her own benefit. She said “And I will set US all free” not “I will be set free”. So NOTHING is going to change my mind she isn’t doing this for her own selfish needs.
I see no reason to stop Sylvanas let alone the Jailer. The Shadowlands is just an awful place. Hell, WoWs cosmology is an awful mess of nightmares if you stop to think about it. When dead all souls are sent to different realms with little choice in the matter and so far the 4 we know about are awful in their own way.
Instead of a peaceful afterlife one might be sent to a realm where its a 24 hour death match (Maldraxxus), lobotomized to be an unfeeling servant to a fascist dictatorship (Bastion), used as fuel for the Wild Gods (Ardenweald), milked for a resource and “redeemed” not for a greater good but so one can be salvaged for the other realms. (Revendreath), Or possibly thrown into a realm of torture and misery if you happen to be seen as threat to this “perfect” order (Jailer), someone interferes for their own gain (Arthas) or the Arbiter was feeling b*tchy that day (Sylvanas)
So its no wonder Sylvanas saw little value in life knowing everyone will have little choice where they will all end up and at the end of the day Sylvanas (And the DKs) raising everyone into undeath was doing everyone a favor.
So yeah, if Sylvanas ends up redeemed or absolved from all this than so be it. The more I explore the Shadowlands the more I just want to help the Jailer and Sylvanas burn it all down to the ground.
Obliteration is not preferable to a flawed system. You can repaint a house without burning the whole thing down.
The Shadowlands being flawed and Zovaal needing to be stopped are not mutually exclusive. In fact, both are just objectively true.
I’m glad you’re not writing the story then.
There is a reason that we are getting a whole novel trying to explain Sylvanas’s Motivations because the writers are incredibly aware of how badly they have screwed the charcter. They are going to go back and retcon her to be more inline with their current vision.
This one doesn’t care for the Horde or forsaken, this one only seems to care about what her Waifu Anduin thinks. This one only cares about her self and feels the whole universe is unfair against her so intends of destroying it all. This is how Steve Dansuer and Golden see the character and that is the characterization they are going to continue. They are just going to just realign the writing that came before with this image to try make the writing make sense.
People who expect that the writers are going to some how revert to how she was back in war3 as some sort of anti hero(and retcon their own work) are going to be sadly disappointed I think.
I expect that the book will end at the raid where we kill her, she will come to the realization that she has been working with the one person who has manipulated her the most and see how stupid she was.
Too bad I’m not.
No, thank god.
Ah, yes, I can see it now, WoW burns to the ground, WoW 2 begins development, and Sylvanas is Queen of New Azeroth. 
Fantastic.
If that were true they would schedule the book, which is clearly already written, to release this summer, not half a year later in November.
Most WoW novels release in the summer as lead-ins to new expansions. There is no reason to schedule this for a winter release except to time it for Blizzcon and 9.2/next expansion announcement.
Accept it.
Oh i fully expect we will find the other broken half of her soul in the shadowlands after the raid and her story will continue some what in 9.2. That one will try redeem everything her other half did to damage the shadowlands(probably by trying to save Anduin). This one can have that touching reunion with her sister and her brothers soul. Also probably be forgiven by Anduin so it can find peace and keep boning Nathanos in the shadowlands. Hell she might even forgive Arthas.
However the current Sylvanas will be ended. That way the writers think they are satisfying the Sylvie fans who get a new “goody” high elf version, which likely they will all hate and dansuer keeps his waifu. They also satisfy the player base wanting to see her dead and punished.
The writers will give themselves a big pat on the back as well for putting the whole split soul thing in the two cinematics as a great precursor for all this.
It will be a giant cop out but dem writers be proud of dem selves for redeeming the worst person in da universe…
Few people expect her to die in the raid, but the novel seems a lot more like a dirge for a character that’s not making it out of Shadowlands.
Probably because y’know… she’s gonna pay for all her wrongdoings, because they WERE wrong doings. Blizzard has said as much.
Accept it.