Sylvanas's Inconsistent Character Development (Spoilers)

Community General Discussion
1

She had a pretty solid identity from WCIII-Legion. An almost-amoral survivalist, doing whatever it takes to ensure the survival of her people. Then, plot twist: Vol’jin dies and leaves her in charge of the entire Horde. This had a lot of potential - that moment in the cinematic where she’s left alone to dwell on what just happened was interesting and legitimate character development (if taken at face value). She is absolutely floored by the responsibility. Suddenly, she needs to be more than just the leader of the Forsaken and she doesn’t really know how to react or process that information. This is great stuff.

But anyway, let’s keep going. So suddenly, Sylvanas is a warmonger that decides to gamble with a tenuous peace time during a demonic invasion. Well, it makes her previous introspection a little odd when she’s still a Forsaken-first pragmatist, even if her timing is anything but pragmatic.

And then she goes full on war criminal and burns Teldrassil down? But we’re told that was an improvised decision, not a part of her grand plan. So she’s suddenly an emotional decision-maker instead of the pragmatist we’ve known for the previous two decades?

Then it turns out that she is deliberately sending souls to the Maw. But… why was Teldrassil an emotional, spur of the moment decision if it’s perfectly in line with her grand plan? Furthermore, why was it hinted that Sylvanas might not be the reason the tree was burnt down when that was precisely what it was?

It’s almost as if every single revelation about her is designed to subvert our expectations, even if it makes no sense with either the narrative or existing characterization.

Then we learn that she was in on the plan to be made Warchief. This makes that introspective hesitation completely illogical in the first place. It wasn’t an act she was putting on for others in the Horde (she was alone), but why would she react as she did if this was her goal all along? That “reveal” actively detracted from the scant bit of the development of her character that I’ve enjoyed over the past few years.

And now she’s conflicted about her involvement with the Jailer? Sorry, but no. They’ve lost me. There has been a complete lack of consistency with her character from the moment Vol’jin got shanked. I have no investment. And believe me, I want to be invested in her character, and in the narrative of the game in general. But I can’t trust the storytellers to just tell me a good story.

I feel constantly manipulated. My investment in the narrative does not feel respected, because they keep pulling GOTCHA! moments as soon as my interest is piqued. Part of what makes following a story enjoyable is being able to predict the next beat, or at least do a bit of theorizing to make an educated guess as to where the narrative could go. But there’s no logic anymore. I can’t expect characters - chiefly Sylvanas, but it carries over elsewhere - to react according to their established personalities.

And now that we’re in an all-new setting with a majority of completely new characters… I can’t get invested in any of them because I’m now expecting my expectations to be subverted yet again for the sake of it, in lieu of consistency.

16 Likes
2

It all boils down to Blizzard not knowing what they want to do with Sylvanas as a character and needing a plot device to drive future expansions.

4 Likes
3

She’s a popular character so they want to have her as a center focus, but can’t get rid of her completely - So she’ll need to be redeemed as well.

It’s really not that deep, it’s one character trying to be too many things.

1 Like
4

Sylvanas is one of the worst character arcs I’ve seen in fiction in a long time. You’re right, she’s all over the place, trying to be too much at once. She’s popular, so they put her in the spot light for three expansions now. And between Ion’s “we might upset players with our decision” and the leaked cutscenes, I believe they’ll redeem her to continue being able to sell her merch.

I’ve gone from liking her to being indifferent about her existence to full on hating her. And I’m so frustrated we’re at this point.

A big issue is they want to be secretive and stealthy about all of her goings on. But that doesn’t work in a game that spans two to four to six years. We’re sat waiting around to see what story will come from this, and every single week is a new cliff hanger.

9 Likes
5

This is the biggest issue. Blizzard has no idea how to do a story right in this format.

You don’t get to say “wait and see” for a decade unless you’re George R.R. Martin, and we all see how well that’s going for him.

5 Likes
6

From what I’m observing was after she finds out Arthas is dead and she throws herself from atop ICC she was subjected to a false vision of where she’d go. She was instantly sent to the Maw or at least an illusion of it so the Jailer could recruit her much more easily.

I want to believe after she has entered the Shadowlands she has realized she was played hard, as she now knows how the system works. She’s now conflicted, on one hand she knows she should have been judged and this may not have been her fate. On the other hand, with all the atrocities she committed during BfA she would end up in the Maw anyway. So now it’s willingly serve and avoid endless torment. Or possibly get revenge for being used and lied to at the expense of eternal torment.

3 Likes
7

Some of you all don’t read the books and it shows.

8

Furthermore, they’ve begun to treat any character development at all as a plot twist… the twist generally being the reversal of some facet of their established character. So you don’t get any character development previously that would get you invested in the character to make reveals regarding them interesting in the first place, then the reveals betray your understanding of the character.

So why get invested in anyone at all? Why should I get invested in a character when I’m constantly feeling manipulated and expect that next “twist” to invalidate what I thought I knew about them?

2 Likes
9

Actually she was not the one who started that. That was all Genn.

3 Likes
10

God forbid the story of a game is within that game. I struggled through Knaak in my younger days, but there is now a greater demand on my time - particularly time for reading - that I’m not going to squander it with franchise tie-in material.

But even with the context of the short stories and whatnot… she still doesn’t make any sense.

2 Likes
11

Sure, he shot first, but she was already up to some questionable stuff so he wound up being fairly justified after the fact. Plus there’s some continuity questions there - if events in Azsuna happened before the ones in Stormheim, then Genn had advance intel on Sylvanas shenanigans that could have threatened the war efforts, which would further murkify who started what.

1 Like
12

She was going for Eyir regardless.

13

People lose interest, especially when “days” become years.

Overwatch had incredible and interesting lore (to me, at least) when it first came out. And Blizzard badly dropped the ball by basically doing nothing with it for six years.

An easy fix would be if the writers actually sat down and put out more of those little prompts they’ve been doing a bit more of. Something to make the world feel alive, the characters to feel like living beings and not props to be used. Spanning a story through multiple expansions needs supplementary information somewhere or it’s going to not only lose interest, but infuriate and frustrate people.

Honestly, they should’ve stopped bringing manor lore characters in and just stuck with building the world with smaller side characters. It got messy when they tried to make the leadership do stuff, because there’s only so far you can go. And multiple times they’ve made miscalculations and bad ideas.

Consistent cliff hangers. It’s very frustrating, especially when you’re fed lore and updates at the slowest, drip-fed pace possible. It doesn’t work, and it makes everything feel, as you said, like a betrayal of the player’s time and investment.

I’ve hit the point where I just write my own characters. I can’t really like any of the main stay cast anymore. I can at least appreciate expansion specific, like Marileth. But I do not care for Azeroth heroes anymore.

14

Yes, but that was not outside of her normal personality. Obtaining her power would have rendered Sylvanas near immortal as well as the forsaken in general. That was always inline with her goals.

15

It’s what happens when you juggle different writers for one character.

Legion Sylvanas, BFA Sylvanas, and Shadowlands Sylvanas are all different people.

1 Like
16

It was perfectly in-line with who she was pre-Warchief, though. It was simply disappointing since it made those hints that she might actually take the mantle of leadership of the entire Horde seriously moot. Why give her that scene if there is to be no change to her modus operandi at all?

1 Like
17

Which was her attempt at finding a way to secure immortality so she wouldn’t be subjected to the afterlife she witnessed, and to not serve. If anything it goes from stages. She dies, is overcome with fear. She agrees to the bargain with the Val’kyr, seeks out immortality so she doesn’t have to honor that bargain out of desperation. Only to end up accepting that she is left with no real choice in the matter and begins to honor the bargain as we witness in BfA.

18

It is not so much different writers it is that Blizzard doesn’t care about continuity of their own lore and fires off retcons so fast that it makes DC and Marvel say “Dang that is a lot of retcons”.

1 Like
19

They can not tell the difference between making a good twist to a character and just complete 180 with no build up.

I wish they kept Sylvanas how she felt in the Vanilla-Wrath days; killed and raised into undeath, regains her free will and realizes she now lives in a world that hates and fears the undead, rallies other like her for their survival, has her people survival always in her mind.

20

Well again her #1 goal has always been her and the forsaken survival. Doing what she was doing was not against the interests of the horde either.