Do we though?
I mean you could just be ignorant.
That’s fine.
Just don’t pretend to be an expert 
And you could be a simp. /shrug
Right back at you.
Are you an expert on Sylvanas?
You call me a simp but you don’t think I got that way by disecting every single piece of lore about her? Because of that I do have insight into her character beyond a surface reading.
I was considering Edge of Night recently and I remembered a certain section of it, the one where Sylvanas personally recounts what it’s like to be condemned to what we now know is the Maw:
Darkness
Lady Sylvanas Windrunner tumbled in a free fall. Not in the physical sense; her body had been obliterated at the foot of Icecrown Citadel. It was her spirit that tumbled, lost, like a rudderless ship in a storm.
How had she gotten here? She couldn’t remember. Had she been killed by Arthas? Had she committed suicide? Had she been sent to judgment by the Val’kyr? Time was meaningless here. Her whole life seemed not a series of events but a single instant, a pinpoint flash of consciousness in an infinite void.
She saw only darkness.
And then she felt—truly felt, for the first time in a long while. She recoiled. In agony.
Here she was, her spirit once again feeling whole, only to feel it suffer. To feel once more, only to feel abject pain. Cold. Hopelessness.
Fear.
There were others in the darkness. Things she didn’t recognize, because nothing so terrible could exist in the world of the living. Claws tore at her, but she had no mouth with which to scream. Eyes looked at her, but she couldn’t look back.
Regret.
She sensed a familiar presence. Recognized it. The taunting voice that had once held her in its grasp. Arthas? Arthas Menethil? Here? His essence rushed to her, desperate, then shrank away in horrified recognition. The boy who would be Lich King. Just a scared little blond child, reaping the aftermath of a lifetime of mistakes. If any part of Sylvanas’s soul were not at that moment torn and tormented, she might have even felt—for the first time—the slightest glimmer of pity for him.
In the grand landscape of all the world’s suffering and all the evils of the infinite, the Lich King was… insignificant.
Now the others had her. Surrounded her. Gleeful, tormenting, tearing at her consciousness, delighting in her suffering.
Horror.
This was to be her eternity: the endless void, the dark, unknown realm of anguish.
She has and is currently continuing to inflict what is described above to every soul in the universe. Really puts things in context and makes you think.
Are you? Last I checked you aren’t writing her.
And you can call anyone who doesn’t tow your line of thinking ignorant, doesn’t make you right.
If you say so…
Disappointing. I liked you.
I mean only actual experts on Syl are the writers in the story department, and they change her story on a whim even stating she was behind the Wrathgate situation.
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But Afrasiabi isn’t CD anymore, so who knows if Danuser will retcon it back.
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He might, or they might double down? We’ll never know till they say, my point was that none of us are really experts on a character who is subject to the whims of the writing team
He did much worse than that. He scarred her face! What woman wouldn’t be upset. He deserved to be fried with purple death magic.
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Terran, Ion both walked back Afrasabi’s quote as a misquote.
Yes and no. It definitely was a completely in character thing to say. And it definitely doesnt mean that she wasnt beginning to feel some sort of responsibility for the horde and all of her character development was a clever ruse. So I think both sides misinterpret the line, but it deserves reading into.
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Sadly the writing team isnt either, and there seems to be so much churn there, that they cant keep their story straight.
I mean, Afrasiabi is pretty experienced with writing Sylvanas, and he at the very least spoke as if Sylvanas being behind the wrathgate was common knowledge, assuming you even want to accept his offscript comment as cannonical fact. The only person who could effectively illuminate the shadows surrounding Sylvanas writing and where she was intended to go vs where she is now going is likely Chris Metzen, and I dont knkw that he would harm Sylvanas any more by doing so. Those Shadows are hers. Talking about them is the passion of her fans.
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The Battle for Ardenweald is… interesting.
Sylvanas threatens to destroy the pods she stole. The Winter Queen says “A hallow threat, from an empty soul.”
I’ve been thinking about that line a lot. It’s a hook line, it’s going to get wildly misinterpreted that Sylvanas is “empty” but that’s so far from the truth… it’s interesting they would write that.
I’m actually really enjoying the 9.1 story so far. Why question if Sylvanas is just “a husk” if they aren’t going to explore that.
If Sylvanas is a husk, then who cares if she gets killed off, they could conveniently say that post EoN she was just a puppet and not a person.
But if she’s not than every other character who has downplayed Sylvanas as not a person with emotions has to come to terms for underestimating and dehumanizing her.
It was common knowledge. Throughout vanilla Forsaken questing NPC’s would outright tell you “hey we’re working on this plague on Sylvanas’ behalf, it’s gonna wipe out both the scourge and the living”
The only way it wasn’t common knowledge was if you started with the premise of “Sylvanas is not a villain” and then worked backwards from that, interpreting all evidence to support that premise. Problem is that a significant portion of the playerbase apparently did exactly this.
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Or, to realize that she was always the kind to keep up a mask in public. Thus, she was never the type to lead her Forsaken into Northrend telling them they were all “expendable ammunition for her revenge”. She wasn’t opaque enough to expand their numbers in Cata with shouts of "You’re all my meatshield against my afterlife!". And she certainly was NOT the type to rally her forces at the Battle of Lordaeron by screaming “FOR ME!!”
So, when Saurfang is LITERALLY pulling a beat-for-beat Movie Durotan Gambat (against an opponent they intend to die against while revealing their true face to their people) … that would make her Movie Gul’dan thematically. And thus would make her “The Horde is Nothing” far more reliable. Her mask slipping. As it reinforces both her internal thoughts about the Horde and Forsaken prior to this; as few as they are. As well as calls attention to the fact that she was NEVER given a proper motivation to actually start caring for either group. Or at least start caring for them more as people, then tools for her personal use. Beyond her own fan’s expectations that that change occur, because the alternative would portray her as pretty horrible.
That dig the Winter Queen made, that Sylvanas doesn’t know what it’s like to have true loyal subjects… that must have stung.
Sylvanas is getting wounded…not physically… but emotionally in this fight.
Sylvanas is still right though. What’s the point of sacrifice if it doesn’t mean anything. Again they are playing off the arrows in a quiver. The Winter Queen wastes her subjects.
It was suspected, then officially contradicted by the forsaken starting zone narration. (3rd person omniscient perspective).
At best this was a retcon… which is cool, except it was vague. He said that was on her orders, but not what part. The production of the plague? Using it on everyone at the wrathgate?
Varimathras just let himself be used as a pawn? I could see putriss, but Varimathras?
No, I dont think anyone believed that poor little ol’ Sylvanas “barely escaped with [her] life!” From the Undercity. I dont think the pearlclutch, damsel in distress act was meant to fool the audience, so much as Thrall and Varian.
But that just goes to show, the writers are not on the same page. Even with Garrosh and Stonetalon Mtn. Its no different, but its been going on longer with Sylvanas.