Sylvanas: Warcraft's Anarcho-Syndicalist

Lore Story Forum
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I was browsing the forums earlier when I came across the topic, “I Stand With Sylvanas Windrunner”, by Pontecorvo. In that topic, Pontecorvo states that Sylvanas’ dialogue in the cutscene, “No More Lies” speaks not just to Anduin, but also to the player. I’ve wondered before about the possibilities of the fourth wall being broken during this expansion, due to the mysteries of Sylvanas and Zovaal the Jailer’s motives. Though as I read Pontecorvo’s posts, I realized something. I’ll post a link to his thread here, which I suggest you read before continuing with this one.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/i-stand-with-sylvanas-windrunner/841473

Sylvanas is World of Warcraft’s prime example of an Anarcho-Syndicalist. If you’re unaware, Anarcho-Syndicalism is a political philosophy and school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism as a method for workers in a capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus gain influence in broader society. Through what we know so far, Sylvanas has been a major part in a revolution created by the Jailer to overthrow the afterlife industry that is the Shadowlands, with each realm being a union and its souls its workers, which value anima as an important currency to keep its society running smoothly. In order to gain control of its economy, the Jailer has taken as much anima as he can into the maw, creating a Great Depression amongst the rest of the Shadowlands. As we level through the zones, we see this has affected Ardenweald (directly through what can be seen as a proxy war of the Drust vs Night Fae), Bastion (revolution by the Forsworn), Maldraxxus (civil war), and Revendreth (starvation of the lower class).

The end goal of syndicalism is to abolish the wage system, regarding it as wage slavery. Shadowlands wages are anima given to its parts, and without anima the Shadowlands will fall, allowing the Jailer to recreate existence as he sees fit. This isn’t the first revolution Sylvanas has been a part of; having been enslaved to the Scourge, Sylvanas broke free to form the Forsaken, fighting back against what previously controlled them to create their own existence in Lordaeron. Sylvanas has been successful in revolution before, and believes she can be again. In doing so, the undead rejected humanity to become something else, something to them that was greater.

The basic principles of Anarcho-Syndicalism are solidarity, direct action (action undertaken without the intervention of third parties such as politicians, bureaucrats and arbitrators), and workers’ self-management. Sylvanas wants to force Anduin to agree to help them as she wants solidarity with him. Sylvanas wants direct action in being able to go to an afterlife of her choosing, not what the Arbiter picks. In places such as Bastion, its workers burdens and memories are managed by those in charge. In Revendreth, its workers must collect anima as ordered by the higher class.

Anarcho-Syndicalists view the primary purpose of the state as being the defense of private property in the forms of capital goods and therefore of economic, social and political privilege. In maintaining this status quo, the state denies most of its citizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy that springs from it. While Maldraxxus can be seen as the defense sector of the Shadowlands, they must have anima like the other realms and fight too much amongst themselves. The people of Maldraxxus have no social privilege. They must spend their existence fighting without independence or autonomy, serving whatever House the person of Maldraxxus is a part of.

But it is Sylvanas’ anarchist beliefs that will be her downfall. Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, Anarcho-Syndicalism is centered on the idea that power corrupts and that any hierarchy that cannot be ethically justified must either be dismantled or replaced by decentralized egalitarian control. Sylvanas might already believe the system of the Shadowlands to be corrupt, but it is actually the Maw which is corrupt. The Shadowlands already works through a system of egalitarian control. The important realms must give anima equally in order to keep the Shadowlands properly running.

The Maw is a factory in which the Jailer works for eternity. It is routine for the souls that go to the Maw to be tortured, with many souls being created into weapons like parts being transported on an assembly line. But the Jailer is not an average worker, he is the manager of the factory itself and has more power and control than those he works with. He shows no care for those he works with, tossing Mueh’zala and Denathrius away when they no longer have value to him. It is because of this that Sylvanas works against her ideals, not towards them.

Zovaal is a corrupt leader whose hierarchy is not ethically justified, working through a system that tortures and destroys souls. Zovaal rebelled against an egalitarian system and was exiled to where he is currently as punishment, and now works to absorb the entire universe into the disastrous state that is the Maw. By the time Sylvanas realizes this, it will be too late. She will be tossed away like those before her, tricked and used by a dictator who doesn’t hold her values. She will fail.

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Varok Saurfang: “You JUST. KEEP. FAILING!”

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I give this thread a refreshing score. 8/10. Maybe even 9/10 (really depends on how it devolves and into what).

Commentary : New, sudden, you wouldn’t expect such a subject to prompt out of the blue in these places! A gripping title! I recommend.

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After reading the OP, it made me look at the Shadowlands story through the lens of the Classic Bond film - Goldfinger.

The US and Britain are on the trail of a gold smuggling operation. As the story unfolds, it appears there will be a heist at Ft. Knox to steal the gold the US keeps there. But we find out that Goldfinger wants to set off a dirty bomb to render the gold at Ft. Knox useless for a few decades, which will increase the worth of his current gold supply.

The anima drought is a designed and manufactured scarcity of a resource in a similar vein.

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What about the current system seems egalitarian to you? How does a soul the Arbiter condemns to the Maw for eternal torment have the same equal rights and opportunities to a soul that was deemed worthy of eternal servitude in Bastion?

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All souls are judged equally based on the life they’ve lived, according to the merits of their actions. Souls through the Arbiter aren’t sent straight to the Maw, they go to Revendreth for another chance of redemption.

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They have the same equal right and opportunity to be judged impartially by a creature who has perfect insight into each soul’s appropriate fate.

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Life itself can hardly be deemed egalitarian though. Some are born rich and others poor, some are born into warring tribes while others never know anything but peace, and that’s not even getting into the arbitrary nature of what actions can be considered ‘right or wrong’ depending on both society, culture, and the time period in which someone is born.

I don’t see what’s egalitarian about that.

They have the same equal right and opportunity to be judged impartially by a creature who has perfect insight into each soul’s appropriate fate.

Are you absolutely certain the Arbiter has never sent a soul straight to the Maw, even by accident? Are you absolutely certain that the Arbiter is the perfect judge she is set up to be? If so, whose word are you going off of here - the rentals, who are shown to be absolutely as fallible as any mortal? The absent First Ones? Out of game knowledge presented by the ever so trustworthy Blizzard representatives?

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The Arbiter doesn’t make decisions over life, but death. Social status doesn’t change its judgement, and it looks through the entirely of someone’s life to make a decision, so the Arbiter is able to understand someone’s perspective and the reasons for what they did, thus knowing that person’s culture, and what’s happened in the time period they’ve lived.

From the info we have, the Arbiter has never sent someone somewhere by accident. We don’t have anything showing her to be imperfect. The attendants say the Arbiter works through the Purpose, which hasn’t been shown to be wrong yet. If the Arbiter has been wrong or if the Purpose is wrong, we’ll have to find out in the future. Everything seemed to be working as intended until she shut down though.

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Law of conservation of detail: It is narratively sound to accept information presented as fact in-universe as such until the author presents new contrary information.

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But she judges you based on your actions in life. A life that may have been led differently if they had known there was going to be a giant robot at the end of it deciding where they were going to spend eternity. Just because we are told the Arbiter has perfect insight that doesn’t mean it’s true.

What about Devos? What about Uther? What about The Forsworn in general? What about Kel’thuzad? They were placed before the Arbiter shut down.

You might could say there are extenuating circumstances on some of them, but surely not all. The Arbiter clearly made a few mistakes - if nothing else in judging how susceptible mortal souls would be to the influence of the Maw.

They kind of already have presented contrary information though. The fact that the Eternals are not in concordance with the First Ones, that the Plan of Bastion is flawed, and the Purpose of Oribos may be as well. Sylvanas and many of the Jailer’s allies seem to think that the system is unjust, and while that may not bear out to be true in the long run at least for now there is doubt cast by the narrative on that system.

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We can see in examples such as Vashj that she didn’t think she would enjoy being in an afterlife such as Maldraxxus but over time she learned she loves it. I’m sure this goes for everyone else who dislikes where they were placed initially.

Devos wasn’t shown as disliking her role until the Bastion Afterlives video, which was a result of the Jailer’s interference. That’s a case of inadequate security, not inadequate decision making. Everything afterwards was a snowball effect.

Another way to look at it is that the events that have happened need to do so at specific points in time for the good of the Shadowlands, otherwise there’d be worse results. This could be the Purpose. Assuming this expansion works like the previous ones have, the Shadowlands will be very fine (and probably improved) by the time the expansion ends and it’ll be because of the events that have happened. You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs as the saying goes.

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None of this having anything to do with the Arbiter’s judgement.

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So the everyone who dislike being in the Maw or tortured in Revendreth for eons will eventually come to love their suffering? Seems unlikely to me.

Whether Devos liked or disliked her afterlife is beside the point - that she could betray her duty as paragon of loyalty and swear allegiance to the Jailer shows that either the system and thus the Arbiter were wrong to place her in Bastion or that the system and Arbiter were not wrong but the system is none-the-less fallible in that the Jailer could so easily circumvent it to corrupt Devos in the first place. A ‘flaw in security’ cannot be so easily dismissed - if it is that fragile then that shows an inherent flaw in what is supposed to be an infallible system.

If even the flaws are part of the design, then the Jailer is not in the wrong to try to overturn the system, as his attempts to do so are (by that logic) part of the Purpose. If the Jailer’s role is to undermine and highlight the flaws in the grand design, then instead of trying to preserve those flaws we should be working to accelerate that change to a new system.

Arguably that may be what we are doing anyways what with setting up a Court to rule over Revendreth instead of a single Master, bringing unity to Maldraxxus, and leading the Kyrian to question what their role in eternity really should be and if it’s worth sacrificing their memories. But that’s just speculation.

A great comfort to those who are not the eggs in question, but that’s not an egalitarian philosophy is it?

Sure it does. The Arbite did the lynchpin of the current system, the Purpose. Without her the Shadowlands is literally falling apart. Ergo, if their is a flaw in the Purpose, then the Arbiter’s judgement is flawed - if the Purpose is not infallible then the Arbiter too is not infallible.

The Arbiter is a machine, created by the First Ones and tended to by the Eternals. The Eternals have proven to be fallible and corruptible - if the same proves true for the First Ones (as I suspect it might) then how could a fallible creator create an infallible machine?

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  • The normal purpose of the Maw is to contain irredeemable souls. The fact that they’re not happy being there has no bearing on them deserving being there. Under normal circumstances, the fate of the souls in the maw is just.

  • Actually, talking to 100% of Venthyr met in the Covenant? Yes. Revendreth’s key insight is that the process of atonement works for those souls who accept they deserve it. They can suffer penance for their worldly sins, then move on to a better afterlife or remain to save others as they have been saved. Talk five minutes with the Atoner or Renathal and you realize the Venthyr are probably the most moral people in the entire Shadowlands. The fate of the souls sent to Revendreth is just.

“If the Purpose is not infallible then the Arbiter too is not infallible” is a non sequitur. You have yet to prove causality between the first and the second, and you have yet to prove the Arbiter itself is fallible. That the Purpose itself might be flawed has no causal bearing on the Arbiter’s ability to judge. That a mechanism itself might be flawed has no bearing on the integrity of the cog. Causation does not imply its inverse is true.

Finally, don’t presume a being’s inability to create a being better than oneself. Biology has been doing just that for aeons.

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The problem with the “fair system” of the Shadowlands is that we have to take at face value that the Arbiter is perfect and infallible. It also disregards determinism if that’s a thing. Which Sylvanas seems to think that free will doesn’t matter or that she doesn’t have it. Whether she is being used or not, which she is, that IS a fair point.

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If you have a problem with the argument about people eventually being happy with their placement in the Maw, take it up with OP. That’s basically what they were saying and I also find the idea ridiculous.

Perhaps in the covenant itself, but who are the Venthyr’s primary enemies? Other Venthyr. Revendreth is rife with the kind of sun it was set up to purge, indulging in every bit of the pride, avarice, wrath, and sin it was designed to exonerate. If the souls so condemned there were so justly done so and the Venthyr as a whole were such paragons of morality, this would not be the case.

I’m not trying to prove that the Arbiter is fallible. I’m saying it’s foolish not to be open to that possibility when the narrative has already brought up that possibility.

Also, if there is a flaw in the machine, then it logically follows that the machine is flawed. If that flaw springs from a single cog or not, the entire mechanism is still flawed. I just think the flaw most likely stems from the Arbiter itself, given its importance to the system. Could be wrong, sure, but I think we should be open to that possibility.

Yes and entropy has been causing things to break down for time beyond time, and not every evolution is an improvement. Remember evolution also brought us appendicitis, allergies, cancer, and covid-19. Don’t be so naive as to praise biology as some sort of engine that drives creation closer to the divine.

Agreed. Unfortunately I can recognize that since this point is being posed by the villain of a entire faction (and of both factions per last expansion) I worry that instead of it being addressed that it will instead be swept under the rug either with her demise or her rebellion against the one using her.

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She learned to make do and enjoy it. I can get with that. But to say her ability to deal translates to eternal truths is a bridge too far. She found a way to find joy in her circumstances. That does not mean her circumstances were fair or just.

I do not think that making the best of a situation means it is deserved or just. Over coming injustice is a strength.

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Yeah agree as well. I’m not in love with Sylvanas as the hero like others are but that is a fair critique of the thing. It’ll probs get “villified” much like writers do to antagonists when they start making sense but its what it is.

Example of what I’m describing is the character Kilmonger in Black Panther who’s motivations are frankly reasonable, so we have to portray him being abusive to women on screen or calling himself the king even when he probs hates monarchies given what they did to Africa.

Or Devos in WoW.

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sylvanas will win she will become a dark goddess
the forsaken lines wont change
“dark lady watch over you” takes a new meaning “goddess watch over you”

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