Even in her own encounter she’s not that strong though. She spends the bulk of the fight running away, and she’s only even able to do that because Zovaal shows up and provides her an avenue of escape. The most dangerous things in the encounter are Zovaal, Anduin, and the terrain itself.
Even juiced up on Jailer-juice she seems weaker than say, Jaina, in terms of raw power.
There isn’t really anything to indicate that Arthas was a misogynist though. He may have harbored a dislike of Elves though thanks to his relationship with Kael’thas re: Jaina and his own resulting insecurity.
Most of what motivated him after he became a DK was just to be a huge a-hole with a fondness for ironically corrupting things, a trait that Sylvanas also acquired over time after she was raised (and she even has a similar complex regarding who her preferred victim is, namely blond haired human males, likely because of Arthas)
Soo right. She entrusted Saurfang to finish the job and bring Malfurion’s head. If he did, Teldrassil never would have happened… BfA never would have happened… Saurfang deserved to be fried.
If anything, it was Elune who changed the course of events so Teldrassil would burn and send the souls to her sister.
In A Good War Sylvanas thought she might lose against either Malfurion or Tyrande, and Saurfang even insinuated in a sarcastic remark to Sylvanas that she probably couldn’t have stopped Tyrande from rescuing Malfurion any more than he could have. Likewise, with both fully empowered by their backers, Tyrande tore the chains Sylvanas used to lock Bolvar down like they were tissue paper. And now without the Jailer buffing her, Sylvanas might be back to the same Ranger General that power slid into a sword.
As demonstrated by Lord Godfrey and as confirmed by me in our recent encounter in Sanctum of Domination, Sylvanas retains a crippling weakness to bullets.
In A Good War, while the Horde was still in Astranaar in Ashenvale, before even making it to Darkshore, Robert Brooks had Sylvanas reveal an internal monologue:
Before even fighting Malfurion for the final time, and before realizing that she had walked away like a James Bond villain without making sure Malfurion had been killed, Robert Brooks had already let us know that Sylvanas was intending to burn Teldrassil.
In addition, Robert Brooks again foreshadowed that Sylvanas had a secret true objection that she was only using the Horde for, goals that Elune and forces that we only end up meeting in Shadowlands opposed. Effectively, Robert Brooks wrote into A Good War how Sylvanas had intended to burn Teldrassil all along, and she was only forced to have it done out in the open rather than whatever quieter way she was going to have it done while dragging out her war to kill as many people as possible:
Sylvanas’s anger grew cold.
She had known this would happen. It had simply come sooner than expected. That was all.
Robert Brooks’ subtle writing went over the heads of a lot of people because it was written in such a way that doesn’t make any sense without context that wasn’t revealed until more than a year later at the Blizzcon Shadowlands announcement.
Because of Elune’s divine intervention. You didn’t mention that. The only reason Tyrande was able to save Malfurian in Elegy was because of Elune’s divine intervention.
An Eternal One was more powerful than Sylvanas. Without her help Malfurian would be dead.
Fify.
It was very clear from the beginning the strategic plan was to occupy Teldrassil. The Warbringer cinematic even opens with Sylvanas saying prepare to invade the tree. It isn’t until the last moment that she decides to burn it down and that was probably because Elune put the idea in her dead so the souls could be sent to her sister.
Elune has been intervening on Tyrande’s behalf since the War of the Ancients, if not earlier. Going into a fight against Tyrande and not factoring in Elune’s aid would be as foolish as showing up to the Undercity without gas masks.
It was clearer that Sylvanas had been lying to Saurfang from the very beginning. The raid journal in game double downs on when Sylvanas started working for the Jailer in the entry for The Nine:
Elune didn’t know about all souls going to the Maw.
Just because she made a pack with the Jailer doesn’t mean she meant to burn Teldrassil from the beginning. The methods and tactics she used to achieve the jailer’s ends could have been handled in infinite ways.
In contrast, Elune confesses she clearly had the objective of destoying the tree to send souls to the Winter Queen.
We already covered this back on post 210.
Elune let the Night Elf souls pass on to the Shadowlands after wake of the tragedy of the burning. Players believing Elune meant the breaking down of the Arbiter is a misunderstanding of the scene.
What else was she going to do? She doesn’t control whether or not a soul goes to the Shadowlands.
I didn’t say she meant to break the Arbiter. She obviously didn’t know the Arbiter was broken. What she did intend to do though was destroy the tree to send the souls to her sister.
I got the feeling she thought facing them one on one was 50/50.
Sylvanas could match one of them—perhaps—but even she knew that taking them on
by herself was … not an ideal tactic.
This is a speculative statement. We don’t know the extent to which Elune can influence this.
Elune did not intend to destroy the tree. Elune likely didn’t expect Sylvanas to do it any more than any other character did.
This is what I was referencing, yes.
Gotcha. I think saying Sylvanas felt she was might lose is a little different than Sylvanas felt she could perhaps match one of them.
Sylvanas being unsure by emphasizing perhaps showed a lack of confidence, so might lose fits better. Sylvanas was never comfortable entering into situations she didn’t find ideal.
She felt that she may win as well.
She heard her sister’s pleas and sent a cascade of souls from the great tree. Sounds like a confession to me. Book her Dano!
Perhaps not, as from the same section of A Good War: