Why? She’s also the only person besides Mal’Ganis who was such a thorn in his side.
It’s weird seeing some of you cling to this belief that Sylvanas and Arthas are a metaphor for abuse, that paints Arthas as irredeemable, while Sylvanas deserves a chance despite her abuse.
Also, before someone starts accusing others for not agreeing with this take, blizzard has been fairly explicit with sexual abuse in their stories. Alexstrasza, Sinestra, and about 90% of orc-draenei hybrids.
Can you please reference the scene that this was supposed to be a sexual violence scene?
The scene was exactly as how it appeared in the book. The death was instant.
The horror was actually realized later. Many Sylvanas fans here have said its in the book that the true horror is seen and the sexual violence allegory is unmissable. Well I read it and its far from clear. For one the interaction with Arthas lasted an instant after their dialogue. The death was not prolonged or torturous that could be attributed to a Rword allegory.
However, afterwords I saw a lot of signs of symptoms of an abusive relationship that the character could not escape.
Yeah… thats probably the darkest thing WoW has ever done… did they retcon that? I seem to recall they did.
I don’t really know what about the Warbringers cinematic in particular gives you that impression.
Regardless, I think there’s long been enough merit to the interpretation of an allegory of sexual violence. I think that interpretation of her story is plenty valid.
I just don’t think it’s been framed as the specific intended message and so I don’t really agree with the implication that not interpreting it in such a way is incorrect.
Interpreting the relationship between Arthas and Sylvanas as not being that of an abuser and a victim at all is most definitely incorrect though.
Just coming in to throw some gas on the fire.
Kinda funny seeing some of the people dismissing the subtextual sexual assault between Arthas and Sylvanas also have serious issues understanding and accepting when a woman IRL declines their advances repeatedly.
A spread eagle guitar slide into a great big sword is enough inuendo for me. Its something they chose to put there. It wasn’t part of the original war craft 3 encounter though.
So… this scene was sexual in nature to you that you thought it displayed the rword allegory?
she power slided into his sword while he was on his horse? That? really? ok…
Which is the sort of thing that makes me feel that the interpretation of there being an allegory for sexual violence is a valid one. There’s a number of aspects that can be connected there, like the fact that she was stabbed in the stomach (or “womb”) as well.
I do think if it was the explicit intended message it would have been more clearly depicted throughout the story. But I understand interpreting it that way.
I don’t think that’s enough to assert that an allegory for sexual violence is the message though.
There is a whole discussion about this in, A Good War, all you need to do is download the pdf and do a search for evacuation.
In the book it talks about how Arthas loved violating elf women. I gave it the benefit of the doubt for years, but then Dave came back and wrote:
The grinning face of Arthas Menethil, with his lopsided smile and dead eyes, leers at her as he pulls her back into the world. Violates her. His laughter—that hollow laugh—the memory of it makes her skin crawl!
Blizzard didn’t explicitly state that she was sexually assaulted, but when they express very specifically that a man that loves to violate woman looks at one of his victims and her skin crawl; well its hard not to think that its a sexual assault allegory.
Also cdevs use very specific verbiage. They say Arthas ‘violated’ Sylvanas. That really only means one thing.
That can’t be taken out of context.
No. In fact it’s referenced in war crimes.
Rise of the Lichking was written by Golden. Who is Dave?
And the passage you reference does not exist in the book.
Which page is it on?
Where?
He wrote her short story; google “Edge of Night Warcraft” it should be the first link. I’ll search in my book to find the passage that talks about Arthas infatuation with making elf women suffer. Give me a few as I have a few irl things i’m working as well.
Try talking about this on GD, and they’ll tell you it insults real victims, or some nonsense.
I will try to find it; the passage you reference.
thank you.
A lot of people make claims but make very little effort to actually reference it.
Who are you anymore? It seems like you’ve done a 180.
No, I’m telling you how bad GD is, which I do all the time.
99.9% of the time I’ll have some kind of reference to back up my statement : )
Its on page 325:
Arthas had enjoyed turning beautiful, proud, strong willed quel’dorei women into banshees, after his “success” with her.
The “success” is in quotations in the text as well.
He’s specifically targeting only ‘strong willed’ Quel’dorei women because he’s getting satisfaction from the act of breaking them.
That’s a psychologists definintion of rape.
A man that loves to target beautiful strong elf women, violates them as a form of “success” makes his victim skin crawl as he looks at Sylvanas and smiles.
I mean whoa whoa whoa, come on now…
i did read it…she never stopped or gave the night elf a pause…so…what are you talking…how absurdly must you flipp the story to…explain something like this?