Sylvanas' Motives

Lore Story Forum
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The story around Sylvanas in BfA has frustrated me. Perhaps it’s the fact I’ve only read summaries of the novels, but I just can’t figure out what Sylvanas wants. So I’ve finally brought myself to post here and flat-out ask what I’ve been trying to piece together since this xpac began:

What are her motives? More specifically:

When she was originally so excited about Gallywix’s discovery of azerite, was it for the victories she foresaw she could bring the Horde or some internal desire? Same question goes for her and Xal’atath.

What ever happened to her desire to bring permanence or longevity to the Forsaken?

Finally, why are her motives so unclear and/or all over the place?

At least with Garrosh, his actions made sense, as his motives were laid bare for all to see. He wanted to amass power of any kind for the Horde. Clear, concise, simple, and based in that character’s history. So, why is none of this the case with Sylvanas?

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Because Blizzard is going to “redeem” her at the very end. Subverting expectations and all that garbage.

Basically she’ll use the now empty Blade of the Black Empire to trap N’zoth, yell “Azeroth is free,” and then everyone will forgive her.

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Seems like her goal is immortality and world control (to secure said immortality). And some aim to help Forsaken very loyal to her.

It seems unclear at times because there are vague allusions to stuff depending on the writer, possible uncertainty on Blizzard’s part, and possibly because they want some of it to be a big reveal for a future event.

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Can someone post that image with in which sylvanas sacrifices herself to kill the big bad, ascends to heaven, and an orc says “goodbye warchief you were honorable the whole time”?

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That would require Sylvanas to die. Never gonna happen unfortunately.

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https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/392758838891380736/567183661451968562/qLQH5z8OlcSapjq1OXXRfl0LuE7GAbywAheS8Zxb4-8.png?width=720&height=480

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TO KILL HOPE, LUL

ETA: That cartoon is such a GD classic, thanks for finding Etheldald

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I don’t want this to happen, but my god if it did I don’t think I could stop laughing.

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According to her internal monologue in Before the Storm her goals to start this war are to take Stormwind to revive the humans into her forsaken. The cutscene in game, where Gally shows her the azerite take place a few hours before the monologue. She sees it as a new weapon to give her the edge and excuse needed to declare war on the alliance.

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She wants to never ever die and if that costs everything but her life so be it.

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I can’t wait until the Night Elves put a statue of Sylvanas up to honor her heroic sacrifice lmao

“symbolic clatter” :joy:

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I wish she was my friend.

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She has Four separate motives:

1.) Survival - Sylvanas wants to live forever and never return to the Shadow Lands. Once upon a time that meant securing the survival of the Forsaken and preservation of the Horde, but it’s uncertain if that is still the case or even if Sylvanas idea of survival and preservation would be the same as a living individuals

2.) Revenge - On anyone and everyone who ever wronged her, living or dead. This does seem to cover most of the living, whom she automatically hates just from being an undead at all. Hatred for life is the base state of the undead, which is their antithesis. The primary target of her ire is the Alliance who first ‘forsook’ the Forsaken, but anyone who sides with them, horde or otherwise, are also on her crosshairs.

3.) Domination - Control over not just the world, but over life and death itself seem to be Sylvanas most recent goal. Mastering death in such a fashion seems to require her harder to understand strategic moves and a sacrifice of life on a massive scale. The war seems to be a simple means to this end, the engine of war providing countless deaths that Sylvanas is somehow benefiting from. (Possibly through an as yet to be revealed benefactor who was also behind Vol’jin’s death, her ascension to Warchief, and the attack on Thunderbluff in the Tauren Heritage Armor questline.)

4.) Secrecy - This seems to be the utmost importance, because even her most trusted advisor Nathanos does not seem to know what the Dark Lady is planning half the time, nor does he always seem to approve when he finds out. Sylvanas isn’t letting anyone see her cards and keeping everyone guessing, and seems to have purposely set about a campaign of disinformation, leading both the Horde and Alliance around by the nose. It seems to be purely for the sake of causing as many deaths as possible, but it remains to be seen if there is any other motive for this secrecy.

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I think she wants to save everyone. It’s just that she’s an undead, narcissistic sociopath, so her definition of “save” involves killing everyone and then raising them into undeath under her dominion. Peace forever!

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Arthas should have been made Warchief of the Horde in Wrath instead of Garrosh after to save us some time.

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I think it’s more…

  1. Revenge against the Scourge for turning her into a banshee and destroying her homeland. :ok_hand:
  2. Ensuring survival to avoid final death because it’s really bad. :ok_hand:
  3. Cartoon super-villainy. In progress. :skull:
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I’m going to save everyone some time here.

Her goals are to “be this expansion’s villain.”

That is what the writing team wants. That is what will be dictated. Everything else will go out the window, Blizzard will pull some cop out from their asses to “Justify” the whole thing. That’s how far they thought about this plotline. “Oh it would be cool to have a faction war. How can we do this? Well Sylv can be villain. YAAAAAY”

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I like how the Cult of the Damned have an interesting approach and sacrifice their own life to cause a form of what they consider to be immortality.

I can’t help but to say they’re not wrong, especially when looking at the more powerful forms of undead such as Liches.

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She’s thrown herself into life-threatening situations too many times for this to be the case.

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If you want to grossly simplify it for a laugh, sure.