I’m more of in the camp of making her back into an anti-hero instead of Stockholm syndrome of a bad god’s servant. Wolverine/Deadpool/Scarlet Witch are examples of anti-heroes. Let this be just her bad phase. She’s also the first dark ranger so she can probably lead them if they are ever going to be a hero class (or better anti-hero class) much like demonhunters.
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I’ve been reading the Illidan novel and quite enjoyed it.
At times I was noticing some similarities to Sylvanas’s story but I feel like hers fell flat. Not sure what exactly did it for me, but I’m pretty burnt out on Sylvanas.
I’d much rather have Illidan and Arthas back.
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Controversial opinion.
A bad character getting “redeemed” is becoming an old trope at this point. It’s not like the concept is bad but the WoW writers are pretty bad at such concepts. At least doing it in an enjoyable manner.
There is room for stuff like that in WoW. But you can’t do a “Draenor is FREE!” and expect people to like it.
If you are going to do it, do it well or don’t.
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That was a bad one. But I think Slyvanas is probably closer to Illidan (killing his own people to save the planet from the Legion) and is in a similar situation as Uther (having part of his soul gone and him being more easily manipulated). If you can forgive Uther I think you can forgive Slyvannas. Then again they need to improve symphathy for her if they go that route. I didn’t get why Illidan was forgived so fast, until like he ended up being on the right side of the conflict in Legion (our side). Then again we were out of the loop on some information he was privy to (the retconning of why we killed him). The end of WoD was bad but it was rushed, the story was set up well, the last patches and raid bosses not so much. Like Blackhand should have played a bigger role or had a raid to himself for example, he was a cool guy. Ends up dying in the first fight. No Ogre zones was also a dissapontment.
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We talking here about Steven “I think the last seasons of GoT were a master class in writting” Danuser. After George R.R. Martin had to come out to tell the fans “don´t abandon the franchise, I´ll do better in my novels I promise!!!” /facepalm
So I agree, the current people writting for Blizzard are NOT the adequate individuals to look for if we want actual decent anti-hero narratives.
Sylvanas as a character has been ruined without repair, they should just let her die and be done with it cause nothing will erase the stupid in her arc. After, they HAVE TO try to do better with both the Nelves -the bit with Tyrande and Elune in SL was embarrasing- and the new Forsaken leaders.
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I will admit, I love a good antihero story, where someone starts off as a villain but joins team good. However, there’s a specific way to do that well. There’s two ways of going about it, I feel, but it depends on individual’s morals. This is mine:
Category (1): Motives.
- The motives need to be for the greater good; good intentions (Kael’thas, Illidan)
- The motives need to be revenge-related over a horrible atrocity (Hate to say this because I dislike her, but Tyrande. Though I don’t consider her a villain, but some might. Jaina is another one who I do consider ‘bad’, particularly for the purge. Technically speaking, motiviations make sense. Uther’s another one.)
- There are no motives, they’re not willingly doing this! (Mind control, for example Death Knights)
Category (2): Actions.
- Regardless of motives, there’s a point where actions become too horrible to forgive. Sylvanas crossed that threshhold, for me, with the burning of Teld.
- Deathwing would also be forever disqualified for reasons I will not mention here.
- Some actions are far worse than others, yada yada, different threshhold per person.
Illidan’s story I found interesting and liked it. Kael’thas would have been interesting if he actually managed to be turned onto our side and brought back (for example, to lead the San’layn) but thus far there is no hints to that. I adore the DK & Ebon Blade story as well. But lately they just seem to be crossing every threshhold and not writing it well, in my personal opinion, when it comes to villains.
Also, the whole trope of: “Well every member of this one race is evil” seems to be planted into their heads, looking at forsaken, which is a horrible and annoying trope that certain folks (usually those obsessed with paladins & the light) parrot on the regular.
Speaking of the light, even in the real world can it be super evil. Which is a ‘duh!’ moment, but some people still think it represents purity and perfection, which it very much does not. I’m not posting it here, because I don’t know if I’m allowed to, but “White torture” is really yikes. It shows that the color white & light definitely can be super horrible. I wish it was a topic that was explored more in this game, rather than ‘the light can do no wrong’ with horrible characters such as Calia.
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I really like her, I just hate what they have done with her and I hate it more that they didn’t even give her an actual story to how she is like part of the Horde as a leader now because it’s like okay you are supposedly an advisor to Lilian Voss then boom she’s everywhere where different leaders are and no Lilian Voss then nothing more since and it’s like okay is that really how Blizzard’s story writing is now.
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That’s fair, I have to admit, she’s my most hated character in the WoW franchise, sorry 
I legit just…seriously hate her quite a bit, and the concept of lightforged undead in general. It’s because I’m just so tired of the mentality of ‘light makes perfect’ and ‘you need to redeem yourself with the light’. Also why I really dislike the ‘lightwell’ thing, no longer really connect to blood elves, and am against lightforged customization >< If Blizzard put more nuance into their game, maybe I wouldn’t feel as strongly, but sadly it seems like that’s all bled entirely dry.
Somehow even more than Garrosh, though I have a burning hatred for him, at least he’s gone forever.
(Not putting you down of course! All good to love her and I respect you for it, I merely do not!)
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Quite a few of my friends feel the same way as you do and I still love them for it, so I still love you as well and despite us feeling differently about it, I accept that and so you still get a heart from me.
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Aw thanks, same to you. I know a ton of my friends adore Tyrande & Jaina too, and I’m glad we can all like… might not like the same characters, but still be mature and friends about it. I’m sure there’s plenty I love that people utterly hate (blood princes & Lana’thel come to mind).
Although I don’t like Sylvanas, I will say. That, however, started after Teld–granted, I had no idea she butchered innocent civilians prior to that, I thought those were all enemies she did that stuff too, I learned the hard way that I was wrong, so it wasn’t as 180 as I thought.
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Fun fact, I started pushing the idea for Undead Elves when this abomination of an idea started floating around.
I was overjoyed when someone made a San’layn thread a month or two latter.
On subject, I do not completely hate the Calia concept, but they way she was introduced was just garbage…
Why could she not have been rezzed normally? Why does she need to be a Lightforged Undead instead of an Undead with strong ties to the Light? Why does she get to talk to the Forsaken about suffering when she was only undead for a few months and is a much less “twisted” version?
Lots of little crappy bits.
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I’m so glad I’m not the only one that thinks Blizzard story writing the last few xpacs has just been terrible, absolutely terrible.
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Right, I wouldn’t dislike her so much if the lightforged thing never came to be, I think. Besides, we already have the ability to have undead that can wield the light, which bothers me so much. It provides immense pain, sometimes to the point where they feel their own rot (if they have it).
Therefore, it just feels more noble in my opinion. To put yourself through that and keep casting magic to (hopefully) defend the innocent, ideally, and fighting for what you believe in (which in this case would be using the light in a warm, good way) seems selfless. “I’m going to burn every day, but I’ll do it to protect you.”
It’s kinda what any undead goes through when being healed by the light!
Also, I want to make it clear that no, I don’t want to see the light as depicted as JUST evil either. To me, balance is super, super, super important. We should see good people using it, and we should see bad people using it, like with any magic. That’s nuance, there should always be the story of how someone does use it.
Not “this magic makes perfection or should be used because it is perfect/pure/good”.
Scarlet Crusade versus the Argent Crusade is an EXCELLENT example of the contrast (blast from the past. Ebon Blade x Argent Crusade, I miss you)
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I am glad they are kind of moving away from this concept.
Though they might be going to the rout of them being all bad so they have more one off Villains to kill for Xpacs…
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Argh I don’t want that either >< I know there’s a good windchime in outland that’s just chilling and wants to help, in the center of the city. That Naruu doesn’t need to be bad. Some of them being bad as light beings is fine, of course, but jumping from one extreme to the other is just not cool.
What is with their refusal to have balance in their stories? Prior to the cosmic nonsense, they did a much better job, like I mentioned before. Alas. sigh
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I miss killing Kobolds in a mine…
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Calia sucks cause she´s just a light favored version of the old racist “White saviour” trope.
The Forsaken should (heck, they DESERVE) to be the owners and originators of their own redemptiopn, to say they are irremediably bad and will only switch to “good” cause Lighforged undead princess told them to -who never suffered the actual horrors they did; for more info check “Road to Damnation”- is insulting.
Most people paying attention are aware. Sadly, most players don´t pay attention to the story.
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I only pay attention to it the first time on both sides in case it’s different and after that I just kind of breeze through but I can understand why not everyone would care, it might be better given I haven’t liked the story writing for multiple xpacs if I didn’t care but here we are. 
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Blizzard add this race to the game…
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I was pretty sure i gave this thread a like last year? oh well, its there now… those model samples were cool.
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