That only happens if the Horde wins an honorable victory

How come nobody ever quotes Sylvanas herself admitting that they can only divide the Alliance and win the war by fighting honorably? Lmao

“The moment our strike begins, there will be no turning back. We can divide the Alliance only if the war to conquer Darnassus does not unite them against us. That only happens if the Horde wins an honorable victory, and I am not blind—the Horde does not trust me to wage war that way.”

She goes from saying this to Saurfang, to then burning Teldrassil, blighting her own soldiers, massacring villages and now sending her fleet to get smashed by Azshara - all things that the narrative seems to be framing as “dishonorable”, yet I never see anybody quote this part of a Good War?? Just kind of funny the pragmatic burn it all Warchief herself admits, before the War is ever started, that the Alliance can only be divided if the Horde wins honorably.

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It’s been mentioned, but I don’t think anybody knows what to make of it.

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It’s almost like the people writing Sylvanas right now are extremely inconsistent and don’t really know what they’re doing.

Gosh, what a revelation.

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If they’re gonna push fighting honorably with Saurfang, great. If they’re gonna push practicality and ruthlessness with Sylvanas, great. But for the love of god, don’t cross the streams. Pick a mentality and stick with it.

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I mean I think the easiest conclusion is that Sylvanas is fooling every one, and is playing both sides against each other, hence why one moment she speaks of honor to sway Saurfang into war, the next she is sending a message that the other side has to be completely annihilated once the war is underway. It’s why Saurfang ponders multiple times that she isn’t telling him everything during the whole affair. It’s why there are multiple cinematics devoted to Saurfang saying she is destroying the Horde. Its why there is a quest chain to begin turning on her. Yet despite it all the Sylvans people rationalize and resist as each new patch nails one more nail into their coffins.

I made this though because I was reading through “A Good War” and I just find it funny that she herself says right from the get go the only reason the whole plan she’s selling can work is if the victory in Kalimdor is “honorable”. Once she discards that, it becomes clear, to me, she never really intended to start this war for the reasons she told Saurfang. It’s not inconsistency or irrational if she has plans which are completely hidden from everyone, plans which probably involve the destruction of the Horde as much as the Alliance.

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I don’t know what Sylvanas’ real plan is, if she even has one. But people do tend to overlook that Sylvanas’ original plan was to split the Alliance by taking Teldrassil and expecting Genn Greymane to leave to Alliance for prioritizing taking Teldrassil back over Gilneas.

Instead people tend to focus on Saurfang sparing Malfurion and Sylvanas burning Teldrassil as a response. But there Sylvanas throws the baby out with the bathwater, not necessarily because she actually thinks it through, but because she’s in the middle of an emotional break down.

The following is my analysis of Sylvanas’ internal monologue from A Good War leading up to the “Warbringers: Sylvanas” animatic:

To start, the following sure sounds like genocide, doesn’t it? But seriously, this is just Sylvanas moving the goal post. The plan was never to end the Night Elves as a people, and it was never about the Night Elves losing their leaders, yet here we are with Sylvanas going on about it:

    This battle was not about a piece of land. Even Saurfang knew that. Taking the World Tree was a way to inflict a wound that could never heal. Losing their homes and their leaders would have ended the kaldorei as a nation, if not a people.

This next part is just emotional rambling, as the only way this would have bled the Alliance would have been if Genn left it, leaving Sylvanas with just jumping to conclusions without any reason to believe any of this:

    Even the loss of one leader would have been enough to create a tide of despair. The wounds of this battle would have bled, festered, decayed, and rotted the Alliance from the inside out.

The next part is how Sylvanas expects the attack on Undercity and/or the attempt to retake Teldrassil would go:

    Anduin Wrynn would have lashed out in a final, desperate war, looking for a miracle, because only a miracle would save them.

And then her thoughts devolve into something not related to how Anduin would behave after Teldrassil was taken, but setting up her own self-chastisement:

    But a miracle already had. A miracle granted by the honorable hand of a foolish old orc.

    And an overconfident warchief. Best to lay blame where it belonged. This was her mistake as much as Saurfang’s.

And then Sylvanas’ thoughts start to spiral out of control as she starts to panic that she had allowed things to possibly get beyond her:

    This conquest of Darnassus would rattle the kaldorei people. They would grieve for their lost, fear for their imprisoned, and tremble at the thought of the Horde ransacking their homes. But they would not fall to despair. Not anymore. Malfurion’s impossible survival would give them hope. Their wound would heal.

    Even in this dark hour, they would say, Elune still watches over us.

At this point Sylvanas just starts rambling incoherently and emotionally, like someone having conspiratory thoughts that the world itself was out to get her:

    And that was almost certainly true, wasn’t it? Elune had intervened. Perhaps she had even stayed Saurfang’s killing blow. And she wouldn’t be the only force beyond the Alliance to oppose Sylvanas’s true objective.

    Sylvanas’s anger grew cold.

    She had known this would happen. It had simply come sooner than expected. That was all.

And even through all this, Sylvanas still was going forward with the plan to take Teldrassil:

    She strode toward the shoreline, ignoring the last few skirmishes and the wailing of those unfortunate kaldorei who had been unable to escape Darkshore. She studied the shape of Teldrassil towering above her in the moonslight. Soon, it would be in the hands of the Horde.

    “Secure the beach,” Sylvanas said. “Prepare to invade the tree.”

And at this point Sylvanas didn’t even seem to know what her plan even was any more and was in a mental spiral ready to be pushed over the edge by Delaryn:

    A wound that cannot heal. Sylvanas needed to think of a new way to inflict one. There was no turning back.
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I’ve read your analysis plenty of times and I respect it, and agree there is a bit of emotional breakdown going on with Sylvanas… but I also think a picture begins to emerge of Sylvanas hiding things and not revealing all of her intentions. Saurfang himself suspects as much but dismisses it, since he had been seduced into the importance of the war.

Saurfang considered, not for the first time, that Sylvanas wasn’t telling him everything.

Does that matter? Saurfang asked himself.

No , he decided. She wasn’t lying about the importance of this objective, and if she had plans beyond the coming battle, well . . . she was warchief, was she not?

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No initial plan of warfare survives contact with the enemy.

To some extent her plan did work… the Night Elves and the Worgen have split off to fight their own private war in Darkshore.

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Horde is losing on all fronts to paraphrase the words of Nathanos. Her plan didn’t work at all, unless it is serving an agenda she isn’t telling us.

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Not that long ago, it was the Alliance that was losing so badly that Genn tells him that they’re running out of real soldiers and have to start drafting farmers… And that was BEFORE he and Tyrande took their forces off to Kalimdor.

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Those must be some kick butt farmers since the Horde is losing on all fronts to, again, paraphrase Nathanos. They can’t hold Darkshore even after burning Teldrassil, they can’t hold Arathi, and they failed to defend both the Zandalari king and fleet. Her plans suck unless, AGAIN, they are serving a purpose we aren’t told… cause right now all I see is Horde failing, retreating, dying and succumbing to internal division after some short lived initial blitzkrieg victories.

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Nothing about Sylvanas’ actions is practical. You don’t bring the full might of the enemy upon your allies and get them nearly destroyed because you’re a ruthless pragmatist. You do if you’re an idiot though.

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Or if you desire the further weakening and destruction of both sides, and are making deals with the devil behind their backs.

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If all that happened under the Horde’s nose then they don’t deserve to govern themselves. Though it does make the “sheep off a cliff” quote make sense.

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Posting this again because it’s my favorite

“Saurfang was deceived by a lie, we all were. It appears the Warchief is behind everything, including the war. Sylvanas is the sith… err generic bad guy… we’ve been looking for.”

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Eh no matter what Blizzard want us to believe justice will not be served just because we get rid of Sylvanas. Not this time. She was serving the will of the people and actually quite popular unlike last time. The Horde as a whole needs to answer for this.

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Can’t argue here since apparently the devs said she is popular, which is pretty damn stupid.

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Well yeah, I agree. But Blizzard seems to be trying to tell us she’s great in that aspect, just failing entirely at showing it.

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I do find the unquestionable support of genocide to be odd as well but then, the US people overwhelmingly supported their attacks with atomic bombs which is probably the closest parallel we have. Maybe it’s easy to ignore the suffering of your enemies.

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Dehumanizing other opposition has always been a human tactic and coping mechanism. Something as simple as labeling “us” and “them” can be sufficient enough to divorce oneself from heinous action inflicted on The Other.

But to Spuddy’s point:

I never thought it was a secret that Sylvanas has ulterior motives and uses lip service to Horde ideals and desires to motivate her soldiers.

“This Horde is worth saving.”

Really, Sylvanas? Really? You mean as a very handy tool that hasn’t outlived its usefulness, right? There’s no other way I can interpret that as a genuine sentiment from the one speaking.

Words are just tools to get the pieces into place.

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