Technically, knowingly dooming souls to torture and oblivion is a far more evil than just sending them to the Shadowlands. It’s entirely possible she belongs in the Maw now, but definitely not when she offed herself at the end of WotLK.
We also see souls that were far more just maliciously evil simply have to suffer on a temporary basis. Even under corrupt rule, Revendreth’s openly practiced policy is that a soul is only sent to the maw if they refuse to repent too many times. This is gone against by a villain. At the worst, Sylvanas when she killed herself would have to repent for her blight development and killing of some human innocents related to it. She probably would have gone to Bastion or her original afterlife afterwards, maybe becoming a Venthyr if she remained broody enough.
Classic Greek Writing Trope. The steps you take to avoid your fate, are often always the ones that take you right to it. Its pretty traditional. And this would especially be applicable if all the Jailor really did was use her Primes to simply convince her of a convenient lie. Then let her loose to operate off of it.
And therein lies the problem, and the point of my post.
She’s only going all in on her fate. Her atrocities hardly matter given that she was “destined” (either pre-destined to lied to, doesn’t matter) to go there. And even still it’ll be arguable. We don’t have a clear picture of who actually belongs in the Maw, and if the likes of Arthas are supposedly not enough for the Maw, then Sylvanas for sure would not have gone there, pre Teldrassil or post Teldrassil.
Unless of course she was never destined or pre-destined to go there, and was merely convinced she was.
If she was merely operating off a convenient lie, then her actions are still her own; she’s just basing her choices off a false motivation. One given to her because it somehow benefitted another. Through her own actions of avoid the afterlife she believed she was destined for, she destined herself to that afterlife. A simple self-fulfilling prophecy. The steps she took to avoid her fate, are the very ones that condemned her to it. Fairly classic writing trope.
I’m not referring to her possible destination before she offed herself, but after. After that it doesn’t matter because she believes she’s destined for the maw (either because she believes it or literally pre-destined) and so she only went all in on her fate hence the whole “broken system.”
Exactly. Though that’s not her current fight.
Holy Cow, forget the cow, Holy Herd! Sylvanas can’t catch a break lol! Can her afterlife/fate get any worst than that? That sounds horrible geez.
Well. . . She’s made her bed at this point, she’s done some heinous stuff that was against the shadowlands so even revendreth would be beyond her. And revendreth accepts all hubris ridden and sinful souls in there as a last chance, but I’m certain those who act against the order of the shadowlands are not offered that courtesy.
Also I feel people forget that we’ve seen forsaken souls in bastion, so undeath doesn’t condemn you to a bad afterlife but the choices you make in that state determine where you go.
As a point of consideration: If we accept that there are people who simply can’t be “redeemed” via Revendreth and so must be locked up, why did the Eternal Ones make that prison a hellscape prison by throwing their banished one in there? Seems kind of lazy and cruel to opt to respond to cruelty with GIGA-cruelty. Kind of undercuts their authority to judge others.
Like, it’s immoral to make infinite torture pits. It’s not good. I don’t think it’s a radical position to say that you shouldn’t throw people into an endless suffering hole for convenience’s sake. The argument about ‘Was Sylvanas Treated Fairly’ seems to be sidestepping the question of if the Shadowlands themselves are functional and just as a system. Part of what we see if them is brainwashing, obliteration, arbitrary “justice” and, I must repeat, a giant torture pit where they throw people who aren’t useful to them. This isn’t just because of the drought, the Shadowlands is inherently exploitative.
Sylvanas 100% has her own personal motives, sure, but when she says the afterlife is flawed she’s not wrong. And not just because she might have been duped.
Has she does heinous stuff? Sure she has, but her crimes pale in comparison to some of the people currently residing with some of the zones like Revendreth and Maldraxxus.
The person who was a saint in life doesn’t even get a good afterlife though. Like, they just get sent to Bastion and then have all of who they are stripped and turned into Kyrian #7008 and then reprogrammed into the Kyrian dogma.
The people who get sent to bastion lived a life of service to others. That’s the point everyone seems to be missing.
But they don’t get to enjoy the benefit of being there. There is no difference between true death and the covenants.
That depends greatly on who you are.
Vashj for example expressed how surprised she died and ended up in a undead wasteland, and how much she loves it.
The only Covenant one may not enjoy being sent to his Revendreft and that’s because going there means you need rehabilitation but even THEN you could decide you like it there and stay.
Also, people are forgetting that the shadowlands and the convenants are broken right now and arent working like they have been for eons. People are acting like the current situation is normal and it’s far from it.
The “depends greatly on who you are” part is carrying a lot of weight here because basing the quality of the shadowlands off of some of the most prominent characters in WoW seems a little bit wrong. Are there testimonies of Coilfang Ambusher #62?
I don’t think the concept of the covenants in the shadowlands was good even before the breaking of the arbiter.
Than that’s just a personal issue and not a story one
It’s neither personal nor story. It’s about a hypothetical world and the goodness or badness thereof. The original comment asks whether a mass murder should be allowed to have an afterlife just as good as someone who was a saint. The issue is that there is no good afterlife in this hypothetical world for either the saint or the sinner.
Very little about this story makes sense if you think about it too hard. Why should Sylvanas’s motivations be any different?