I remember talking to Sylvanas fans when the Tyrande vs Sylvanas cinematic was released.
The fact that Tyrande is not get killed by Sylvanas was tallied as a win for Tyrande.
These are the people this story is written for and if everyone else has to get burned for the Sylvanas story then so be it.
Danuser is dragging this entire franchise through the mud to make Sylvanas the main character of Warcraft.
Yeah, not true. I’m a Sylvanas fan, as already stated. I give a crap about a lot of things.
I can’t speak for Kaleon’s fandom, but I have a pretty good idea Ren likes a whole lot about Warcraft beyond one character, and I can find dozens of posts to back that theory up. And Micah’s the last Gilnean/Worgen fan left standing, and I’d bet a worgen tail on that being Micah’s primary fandom with another dozens of posts showing Micah’s love for more than even just those two subjects.
I see where all of these people are coming from. I disagree with them on this, but I fully get it.
Sylvanas fans have watched the edgy-but-not-Illidan-edgy bad-ss boss babe who took no crap from anyone suddenly get perverted, twisted, ruined by a sex pest who got tossed from writing her because he was a sex pest.
(This post wil get me banned, read it while you can)
They don’t want their memory of the same character who in Legion drove the Horde to fight on in Vol’jin’s name to be ruined. They don’t want that character to be replaced forever by “BURN IT!!!” They want to have a chance to see the character they love returned.
I get it.
I don’t agree with it because of how it impacts the narrative beyond Sylvanas.
But I absolutely get it.
Then the only argument ‘true’ Sylvanas fans should be making is one in favor of sweeping retcons that removes BFA and SL. Otherwise you are making a ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy when it comes to her fanbase. “No true Sylvanas fan likes her development past Legion.” As there are self-proclaimed fans in this very thread wanting her to return to her old job with no consequence.
On the contrary, I care about all of those things. And I care about not letting bad storytelling ruin a good character.
People who refuse to take the 9.1 story and add it to their preconceived notions of who Sylvanas is as a character are what baffles me. It’s just sour grapes. You decided you wanted Sylvanas to die a villain, and that isn’t happening and now you want to throw a tantrum about it.
What gets me are the Night Elf fans that want Tyrande to sacrifice herself to kill Sylvanas, or sacrifice her character’s identity and morality to punish Sylvanas. That to me is insanity.
I want Teldrassil to be retconned. I don’t want us to have to lose Sylvanas, lose Tyrande, lose any character over bad storytelling.
I absolutely refuse. If I have to accept a little ham-fisted hand waving from Blizzard to get past Teldrassil, than so be it.
They have all literally made that argument. They literally have.
It’s fine you don’t see them, but don’t work from the assumption they haven’t.
Not to speak for anyone and why they do what they do, but I suspect it’s for the very reasonable assumption that if Blizzard sticks her in the Maw until she saves all the elf souls or something, it’s the equivalent of sticking her in a narrative black box that she will never come out from. That they’ll never get to see this redeption.
Because this whole mess is so tangled, it isn’t a stretch to imagine Blizzard deciding the best way to handle everything is to simply never address Sylvanas again.
We want Horde and Sylvanas answer and face consequences for the evil things they have done.
Sacrificing herself is a dumb off-ramp story telling that Blizzard has tried to push so Tyrande doesn’t pursue restitution.
Considering Blizzard’s current situation it is highly ironic and in very poor taste to send the message the aggressor is the victim too.
Seeking justice and restitution is ultimately a self destructive behavior.
So sign the NDAs everybody! Don’t sue blizzard upper management! Choose renewal instead! Afterall we can’t have both now then can we?
Bringing up the IRL implications of Blizzard’s handling of the story, in relation to the character of Sylvanas, is very provocative. I have been temporarily banned from the forums for discussing Blizzard’s handling of Sylvanas as a female character, as a victim of abuse etc. Trying to use Sylvanas as a cudgel here is to me the epitome of bad faith (not that I expect better from you).
It doesn’t change that this is the message they are sending.
Since you realize how insane that proposition is from Blizzard maybe its best you self-evaluate.
You are the one dodging the issue.
And maybe for the good of the franchise that’s for the best. A lot of her fans expect the entire Warcraft IP to be sacrificed at the alter of this dumb as hell, badly written trainwreck character and I’m sick of that. I don’t like talking about her, actually. She was written for the longest time by an abusive boss that groped women.
Warcraft has moved along without the Lich King, Garrosh, Varian, Lothar, Doomhammer, Grom, etc and etc. It can and must in my opinion move on without Sylvanas who is far more of a divisive mess than any of those characters. Yet Sylvanas ‘fans’ think she’s the center of the universe and can’t concieve of a franchise without her. Deluded into thinking she’s popular when she’s the face of two of the worst expansions ever.
A) Half of these characters have had a front-and-center starring role in THIS EXPANSION
and
B) Sylvanas is not in that group. You think she is because of your pre-conceived biases and notions. But she is objectively not in that group. She is objectively not dying, she is objectively not an end-expansion raid boss, she did have a heel-turn. Your inability to accept recent story-telling decisions does not change the reality that they are happening.
Anti-Sylvanas types think if they just mention Teldrassil burning one more time, then surely this time will be the time that is Sylvanas’s undoing. This time. Just one more time.
And pro-Sylvanas fans think she’s actually a liked and respected character when she’s the face of the crappiest, lowest played expansions, is the center of mass-disliked cinematics, and is the writer’s pet of a now outed and hated sex pest. You’re delusional, buddy.
She was not Afrasiabi’s “pet”, I’m not sure where you picked that up. And Shadowlands was the fastest selling PC game ever until Cyberpunk released like a month later.
EDIT: I said “highest” it was “fastest” just falling on the sword there.
So well that they brought both back in Shadowlands, amirite?
Sylvanas. More divisive that Garrosh.
Did you just skip out on Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria? You must have missed Wrath too, because he was not at all loved during his appearances then.
Look, I get joining the current hate train means forgetting or diminishing all hate trains before it, but Garrosh? Less divisive?
Literally the only one saying that is you. And that guy who said objectifying women and treating them like objects is fine and should be more accepted in the game. And that guy who was also upset that black people exist on Azeroth. And that other guy who said basically both of those things. You do not belong in that company.
Step away from the dishonest discussions by false accusations crowd and return to the side of honest discussion where you truly belong. You’re presence lifts them up to a standard they do not deserve and would never earn.
Come back to the rational side, Dorn.
And both games turned out to be extremely bad.
Just because you sell fast doesn’t mean it has a good staying power.
And thats what dornheim said. Lowest played expansion… and you only need to walk around a little to realize this.
And you only have to be a WoW player for longer than a minute to know that 99% of the playerbase could care less about the story and the negative reception to Shadowlands, while a lot of it is story related, the vast majority is gameplay concerns.
It also doesn’t change that Sylvanas was the “villain” in BfA so if she was not an intriguing character who sold expansions…then why did Shadowlands sell so well since it was the “Sylvanas” expansion?
And yes a lot of dudes disliked the Shadowlands cinematic on YouTube…it didn’t stop Shadowlands from selling well. YouTube dislikes mean nothing. Most of the people who disliked that video didn’t even know who Bolvar was other than “Lich King!!!” etc. It means nothing.
Garrosh and BFA/SL Sylvanas are cut of the same cloth. I keenly remember encountering guilds of Kor’kron and Loyalist RPers who were thinly veiled racist and nationalist fetishists that harassed other RPers in-game because they were so inspired by their Dear Leaders.
And I don’t care who agrees with me or not. That won’t stop me from thinking Sylvanas is an awfully written character that has done nothing but divide and toxify this franchise. A character who mass murdered the female coded warrior women race. It’s disgusting. I’ve had many dear friends uninstall, drift away and loose contact directly because of one badly written villain sue. My own server is hanging on by a thread of community willpower because the lore is so bad. Who is the face of that?
And yet, the message is still clear; Sylvanas on the box means sales go up.
Claiming Sylvanas isn’t popular ignores the wealth of evidence pointing to the opposite. Even after the debacle that was BfA, people bought up Shadowlands with Sylvie on the cover and all we really knew was “SL will have Sylvanas again. Also dead people.”
Unless you think Anduin and the Jailer’s shadow are big driving forces behind those sales.
Its all bad. Nobody played this game and said "wow the gameplay is bad but man… what a story. It made it all worth it.
BFA sold for faction conflict. Thats the break the glass sort of measure for Blizzard.
Do you think these games sold because everyone was fascinated with Sylvanas? If she was the main pull she should have been on the box for BFA.
The game sold well because WoW is still major player in the MMO field, BFA left a lot to be desired, people stuck at home and wanted to play something.
And also marketing.
Of course not. But she definitely helped. And she objectively didn’t hurt.
How did she help? Like as a hot elf lady for marketing purposes?