I’m not saying you’re confused at all; I’m just saying how undeath isn’t as complicated as you’re making it. To me, it’s like a soul with limitations. The dark magic is filling a hole we’re the rest of their soul should be. They are partially there.
As far as your second point, I always discuss the lore and my feelings in earnest. No dishonesty here; there’s no need. I think reclaiming Lordaeron is a reasonable goal that they would pursue even if they weren’t influenced by necromancy. On the other hand, eating puppies and melting innocent people is dark magic influenced. Hence why they should be absolved.
Now that I think hard on it, the reason Sylvanas’s dialogue lines seem to parrot the Jailer’s lines as far back as early BfA may have been hinting that she wasn’t entirely in control this whole time, and her OoC behavior fans have noted in the last few expansions could be chalked up to her losing her grip on her free will and becoming more and more a puppet for the jailer to act through.
If that’s true that would be an interesting way to not only move her story forward but also to tie into the story they have been setting up about Arthas not being culpable because he was manipulated by the Jailer.
Sure, there’s criticisms to make there about lack of accountability. Which admittedly make the whole franchise seems like no one needs to be held accountable for anything. It will be interesting how Blizzard tackles that moving forward because I doubt, where it stands, that it will offer a satisfying payoff for any fans, but I hope they can surprise me.
Thank you CDev for confirming that everyone who tried to defend anything Sylvanas did as an undead was wrong as she was objectively evil the entire time!
She hasn’t been a whole person since frostmourne stole a part of her soul. Everything she’s done was “well, she’s s banshee, what did you expect?” with her soul back is she still a banshee? Or a normal undead? They de-weaponized Sylvanas in this cinematic.
There’s always been questioning of how ‘in control’ freed Scourge are. Even We Ride Forth presented the case that all undead feel the pull of the Jailer. Now she can be a character who is actually free of the Jailer’s influence as a complete version of herself. Something we’ve never seen before from her.
as i said (in another context in another thread), i think so too, sylvanas was manipulated through zovaal, multiple times, its even questioned her “free will” at this point and the free will of her forsaken…i mean…have they really …free will?
If every soul is indeed in thorgast (who were killed in the third war through the scourge)…you have to ask yourself…if this a free will …or only a illusion of free will?
Lore backs this up. In Legion the Blades of the Fallen Prince bring up an image if Arthas in some places, who says exactly that. Free will is an illusion.
You’re literally just arbitrarily taking this development as carte blanche to keep the things that you like and disregard things that you don’t regardless of its internal consistency.
You can make this argument to absolve anyone of anything if you’re going to just straight up ignore all the bad things that they did with the excuse of “dark magic therefore no responsibility”
Ironically, it robs the Forsaken of any kind of agency whatsoever. In your view they were always nothing more than slaves to evil magic. Which doesn’t really make them any different from the Scourge.
That’s the thing about free will. You’re responsible for your bad choices too.
The magic that the Scourge used for its necromancy was apparently infused with domination magic however so as to link the undead masses with the will of the Lich King, so it stands to reason that whatever the implications of your soul being manipulated by domination magic are is still applicable.
I think that it’s very obvious just by common sense that someone who is killed and raised into undeath becomes drastically changed in most cases. The question of how and why has always gone unanswered though, in part because Blizzard themselves just uses it in whatever way is convenient at the time.