Sylvanas Sabotage

[Renautus-arathor]

Are you talking about when Godfrey shot her? Godfrey was a threat to both Gilneas and Sylvanas, he was a good villain, he only had loyalty to himself.

While, I do think Sylvanas threatening to turn Lorna into a Forsaken was heinous, I think that was just an empty threat on Sylvanas’s part. She makes a lot of empty threats, we as a player knew that Darius would likely surrender before he allowed Lorna to be hurt, the love he has for his daughter was evident on both sides of the fight and Sylvanas was counting on that. Lorna would have made a badass Forsaken though, I love her and I wish she actually had more screen presence. Some of the coolest WoW characters are Gilneans and they never get the spotlight they deserve, that’s why I loved playing Stormheim as Alliance.

This is just my personal opinion, but I don’t think Lorna was in any real danger, Sylvanas was banking on Darius’ love for his daughter for an easy victory. Godfrey was a rogue agent who proved to be a jerk no matter which faction he feigned loyalty too, and the most tragic thing about when Sylvanas got shot by Godfrey was that she assumed his loyalty. She made a critical error and died a second time for it, right after she escaped the Maw she went right back there, that gives me a little bit of a chuckle about the irony.

Imagine the jailer now being like, “Back, so soon?” Annylhide just shaking her head in frustration that she sacrificed herself for Sylvanas only to have Sylvanas immediately end up back in the Maw.

[Micâh-moon-guard]

I like these sort of conversations and the battle for gilneas was meant to be looked at differently depending on what side your playing. It’s one of the few morally grey battles blizz actually got right for once.

[Renautus-arathor]

I feel like no matter what side you played on the Forsaken/Gilnean fight is memorable to both sides because it was arguable from both sides, unlike Teldrassil. I, much prefer when WoW sticks to these morally grey conflicts than outright having one faction dominate the other.

[Smallioz-kromcrush]

@Renautus-arathor

While, I do think Sylvanas threatening to turn Lorna into a Forsaken was heinous, I think that was just an empty threat on Sylvanas’s part. She makes a lot of empty threats,

She had been killing humans and turning them into forsaken throughout battle for silverpine and Hillsbrad zone.

Why would she be bluffing when she was doing the exact samething to many others?

[Micâh-moon-guard]

Stormheim is pretty memorable for that too. Those sort of battles is what Blizz needs to stick to if you ask me.

[Micâh-moon-guard]

It wasn’t a bluff. It’s why Ivar was turning people into worgen before Sylvanas could get her hands on them and do much worse.

[Smallioz-kromcrush]

Yes its why it made the worgen really cool.
They were like our anti-undead race… really sucks you only saw how cool they were by playing Horde.

One of the many casualties of Cataclysm and incomplete Alliance content.

[Renautus-arathor]

yes because looking back both sides got victories. Gilneas got to put a stop to Sylvanas’s plan they go home feeling like the winner. Forsaken fans got to blow up Genn’s ship in a hilarious quest. I LIVE for Genn’s worgen face when things don’t go his way. Watching Genn run around in a panic because his ship is on fire is peak comedy gold.

Nazjatar Intro Cinematic - Horde - Patch 8.2 Rise of Azshara

Genn and Nathano’s whole fight on the Skyfire was just chef’s kiss. They could antagonize each other all day and I would be happy. Genn deserves a victory soon, I really hope this turn in Sylvanas’s character doesn’t neutralize this petty fight she has with Genn because I would be very sad if these two factions were not forever annoying each other.

(on another note, my post was restored. good, thank you Blizzard mods.)

[Smallioz-kromcrush]

@Renautus-arathor

Gilneas got to put a stop to Sylvanas’s plan they go home feeling like the winner.

Which home? Gilneas?

@Renautus-arathor

Forsaken fans got to blow up Genn’s ship in a hilarious quest.

This is at its core what differentiates Alliance and Horde when it comes to faction conflict.
Alliance gets to see its fleet destroyed while the Horde flies away and we get promised next patch we will destroy the ship.
But the ship burns down next expansion when Thrall burns it for its insurance.

[Kinkyheaven-dathremar]

@Renautus-arathor

Did you say that comment just to provoke outrage?

Did you expect a reaction?

Because that’s trolling.

You can report me for trolling all you like, but you actively post things you know are offensive, and upsetting to lure women into fights.

That hardly seems like his intent from what I’ve read, he just doesn’t share your views - you’ll get that on forums, even with great ideas. Now I don’t completely agree with everything he’s posted, but he’s right in assuming one is a misogynist for simply disagreeing with you is wrong. If that’s the case then you come off as one of those toxic Twitter people who twist words, create a hidden meaning then blow it up as offensive simply because they didn’t follow your way or share your views.

You can disagree and state why, but simply stating something is upsetting & offensive without any context makes you no better than those you seek to persecute.

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On the Sylvanas Icon Subject: I will say though, prior to BFA & Shadowlands I loved Sylvanas’s character - I agree in the sense that I found her to be a compellingly good female icon, (not one to follow in example obviously - as some questionable choices were clearly made) but as a strong written character who pushed forth the grief and claimed back power & victory.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

@Renautus-arathor

it was not Afrasabi’s intention to destroy Sylvanas in a sexist vendetta he had against the playerbase. That was at least a relief to know.

We don’t really know Afrasiabi’s intentions unless we hear them from the man himself (and even then, we’d have to evaluate for spin).

@Renautus-arathor

He does defend the story arc a bit which is great, because although I have mixed feelings about the Burning of Teldrassil, narratively it was an exciting story that really engaged me as a player

See, whenever I hear someone defend the burning, especially someone whose main focus is the Alliance (like Tali), what I hear is “It’s okay that they completely destroyed the fantasy of the Horde for you because it was exciting for me.” I don’t think Taliesin actually meant that, but that’s my knee-jerk reaction, and I wish people would be more careful about how they word their defenses of it as a story point.

I can get behind the idea that capital cities going up in flames can be done in a way that improves the story. If that’s all that is meant when people defend the burning, then okay. But having it happen the way it did, at the hands of a playable faction, is IMO the worst decision any writer has ever made in the entire history of this game.

@Renautus-arathor

There was nothing wrong with villifying Sylvanas

There were many things wrong with vilifying Sylvanas. First, she was a complex character who was made much less interesting by the full-scale villain turn. Second, she was the last of the original Horde racial leaders who was left in her original position.

But most importantly, making the warchief into the universal big bad for the second time is the second-worst decision that the game has ever made. What it does to the playerbase is absolutely not worth any kind of storytelling gains. All it does is sow anger, division, and general unhappiness, and that makes the game less fun for everyone. We were promised a realistic world where both sides had their flaws, both sides had a point, and things would look reasonable according to each side’s values and priorities. When only one side produces maniacal leaders who have to be put down like rabid dogs, that utterly destroys the fantasy.

@Renautus-arathor

sometimes at the expense of character continuity

Sylvanas, along with Jaina, has been one of the least consistently written characters in the entire franchise. Which means that different people latched onto different parts of her characterization and saw very different things in her.

Disclaimer: I don’t consider myself a Sylvanas fan, but I don’t think those who are her fans are wrong or deluded or blinded by the sexy.

[Renautus-arathor]

Having “mixed” feelings about the story is not defending the burning. I just want to get that out there. Defending a story choice, even if that story choice is bad for the players, is still just defending a story choice, not the act itself.

People are going to think that Teldrassil was an interesting story point, because it was. Tali is not wrong. BFA and Shadowlands had a lot of player investement and that at least can be attributed to Afrasabi’s story choices. Were all of them winners? no, the fact that he treated WoW like Game of Thrones proves that he probably didn’t have the best intentions when it came to storytelling but he was good at getting people interested in playing this game, even just for the shock value. I think it’s the responsibility of a mature playerbase to manage our own feelings and sense of disappointment. As you well know, no matter what story choice is made there are always going to be disappointed people.

I appreciate that you keep an open mind when discussing this. Sylvanas fans are equally disappointed with the story just in different ways. Sometimes it’s frustrating to try and talk about the War of Thorns objectively only to be accused of enjoying killing babies or kicking puppies.

They wanted to kill off Jaina at first and then gave her story to Sylvanas, at the very core of both characters one was going to die to serve as Arthas crux of character motiviation and everything after was trying to make these characters into full fleshed out characters aside from being accessories to Arthas’s story. It seems like there have been a lot of internal debates on how women in this franchise should be portrayed and as a female fan of this franchise that’s not a surprise to me because this game has moved from multiple people’s hands over the years and none of those hands were female except Christie Golden’s, and we’ve already established that she’s not the best and most consistent person writing women on this writing team. She likes writing ‘hysterical women’, whenever Jaina or Sylvanas are in her hands they are always way too reactive imo and I’m worried about she’s going to write Sylvanas in the new book.

[Radomir-wyrmrest-accord (Radomir)]

@Izhkarl-khazgoroth

Blaming the forsaken for the entirety of what happened in Gilneas happens way to often. It conveniently brushes over the fact that Gen, the leader of Gilneas, introduced a werewolf apocalypse into his country which destroyed it.

Genn makes a mistake trusting a sorceror who thought he had more of a handle on the Worgen then he actually did. Why are we blaming Genn for Arugal’s betrayal? That doesn’t justify what Sylvanas did at all. Worgen or no Worgen, Sylvanas was gonna invade. Ostensibly because Garrosh told her to, but really because at that point she was trying to raise as many new Forsaken as possible. Even if we’re blaming both parties, it’s like 10% Genn, 40% Arugal, and 50% Sylvanas.

So yeah, the Forsaken are responsible for the blight bombing and working people to death in mines while a werewolf apocalypse was happening. At least Sylvanas is.

[Radomir-wyrmrest-accord (Radomir)]

We gave Metzen a hard time because his excessive over use of silver age tropes and his corruption fetish.

We didn’t know how bad things could get.

[Renautus-arathor]

@Pellex-hyjal

There were many things wrong with vilifying Sylvanas. First, she was a complex character who was made much less interesting by the full-scale villain turn. Second, she was the last of the original Horde racial leaders who was left in her original position.

I agree with you completely, and this is why I preferred Kosak’s Sylvanas and what could have been.

When I said there wasn’t a problem with her being villified I should have amended that to say that it was not an issue with her being vilified, as long as she was a good villian which she had the potential to be in BFA, with the deal she made with Azshara and secretly working for/against N’Zoth. But as far as Shadowlands is concerned, whatever captivating villain plot they could have had for Sylvanas died when Afrasabi left, which would have been in Shadowlands pre-production. The story after that fell completely flat. Shadowlands was a failure of astronomical proportions, imo, because it failed to make Sylvanas or the jailer interesting villians. They failed to show why Sylvanas would willingly follow the Jailer. It was a letdown for Sylvanas fans too, it doesn’t make sense to her character and her “I will never serve” heel turn in the final hour never felt deserved, it felt hamfisted and insulting, we are mostly all on the same page when it comes to Shadowlands.

But the real question now is, “what comes next?” are we even going to like what comes next? I feel like the silence from Blizzard is making all of us equally uneasy about the future of this franchise.

[Amonet-azshara]

@Thadeus-caelestrasz

The sad part I think is that both Taliesin and Bellular have contacts in Blizzard, yet they - especially the latter - keep resorting to clickbait and their own headcanon

T&E and Bellular are primarily lore channels, or at least part of the “lore discord”, and that’s pretty much what all the lore channels do (except for Nobble), trying to fit in their own head cannon and speculations in order to explain or defend the story. SL is an exception but during BfA most lore channels were saying how good or complex the story actually was but Blizzard were not telling it properly and only if you read all 159 books/comics/dev tweets you could understand it.

[Skarm-sentinels (Skarm)]

I, for one, am willing to take the easy, lazy way out and as we move forward, let us never speak of the shortcut, I mean, BFA and Shadowlands, ever again.

The Simpsons Shortcut

[Baalsamael-turalyon (Baalsamael)]

@Renautus-arathor

BFA and Shadowlands had a lot of player investement

Did they? Do they?

Because from where I’m standing BFA just annihilated any sort of ability for the story to ever have parity between the Alliance and Horde from an ethical/moral perspective because of how the story and the writers chose to demonize the Horde and lionize the Alliance.

And Shadowlands had a lot of hype and hope that was absolutely annihilated from both the in-game construction/parity and the meta-construction of the themes of the “primary realms” themselves.

I, given my varied experiences with abuse, do not believe for a second Taliesin is correct in believing Afrasiabi didn’t target Sylvanas the Night Elves because of active, spiteful, purposeful malice.

The guy actively suppressed and undermined survivors IRL and was coddled and protected institutionally. The guy was petty, vindictive, and reckless from what we’ve seen, what with the “Bikini Catalogue” incident, the “Sylvanas Wrathgate” and Thros “reveals”, and the Goblin Canon foreshadowing.

@Renautus-arathor

They wanted to kill off Jaina at first and then gave her story to Sylvanas

No Sylvanas was already a thing, they were just gonna kill Jaina (non-Banshee) too.

@Renautus-arathor

I’m worried about she’s going to write Sylvanas in the new book.

The book has no business existing because it’s actively white washing and trying to temper the abusive pathology and malice of an abuser imho

@Radomir-wyrmrest-accord

We gave Metzen a hard time

To note, he tapped Afrasiabi to be Creative Director while Lydia Bottegoni replaced him in a pan-Blizzard capacity.

@Skarm-sentinels

I, for one, am willing to take the easy, lazy way out and as we move forward, let us never speak of the shortcut, I mean, BFA and Shadowlands, ever again.

Team Reality Engine Rewrite De-Canonize Then?

[Skarm-sentinels (Skarm)]

@Baalsamael-turalyon

Team Reality Engine Rewrite De-Canonize Then?

No, have read too many DC comics ‘Crisis Events’ to believe that this actually works.

[Baalsamael-turalyon (Baalsamael)]

Then what’s the easy way out?