While I can’t say his main idea is correct, he is right in that Sylvanas is obviously one to hide her intentions.
But again, Saurfang brought up the notion. Sylvanas could have just been spring boarding off his idea to tell him something that makes sense to him. She even hides her face during the explanation.
Anduin isn’t exactly a master of political acumen. In that situation he’s effectively counting on the PC to salvage both situations. Not a bad idea, but it also doesn’t help with Alliance unity all that much.
I think you’re presenting her accurate depiction of events as emotional manipulation when it isn’t. Everything she said there was true, Saurfang was behind the strategy, he led the troops instead of Sylvanas, and he failed to kill Malfurion.
You might say he’s having an emotional reaction, but it’s an emotional reaction based on the truth of the situation.
Would be still be evil, yes. A person killing hostages because their demands are not met is evil.
It would still be evil because of Eye for an Eye, but it would be more understood.
“Justified” in the same way that people say Tyrande would be “justified” doing anything right now because of Teldrassil. But would still be evil.
The Human NPC <Recruitment Officer> in Boralus we turn in “We Are Coming” to and get “Warfront: The Battle for Darkshore” from:
I will call anyone with the will to fight as soon as our supplies are in order!
We will not tolerate further Horde aggression in our territories. The night elves will not stand alone this day. Darkshore will be theirs once more. For the Alliance!
But the only forces outside of players at the Darkshore Warfront are Night Elves and Gilneans. So there may be some PC volunteers, but the other nations of the Alliance don’t send any major forces.
Just as with the section I was just quoting from, I think you’re mischaracterizing something as being emotional and on that basis being unsound. Even if we were to accept both characters as being emotional in the moment, that does not mean their thinking is incorrect. I also think both analyses tend to have you taking quotes and then applying emotionality to them in the explanation rather than said emotionality being directly evident in the text itself.
Oddly enough, opposite happens to maintain the unity in the Alliance, as they send Night Elf forces to help with the Nazmir distraction for Zuldazar. So even then the Night Elves weren’t the wedge.
I think the emotionality is evident in the text itself, and presented the whole text for that reason.
So, they sacrificed a bunch of Night Elves as a distraction to attack Dazar’alor, only to fail to capitalize on it to end the war? That doesn’t sound very unifying. Also, I don’t think the Night Elves used there were part of Tyrande’s force either.
I don’t think it is. Especially when you note particular emotions, such as when you say Sylvanas starts to panic and her thoughts spiral out of control, the text is pretty flat and doesn’t really support that.
I read that conversation, and didn’t find your arguments for why their thinking is wrong is very convincing. I mean, you hardly even made points about why they were both incorrect anyway, especially the Saurfang one. And if we look at the greater conversation here, you acknowledged that some things which you suggested Sylvanas was irrational or paranoid for thinking of - Elune, for example - Were factually accurate.
In what way is that un-unifying? Being unified and not capitalizing on momentum are not mutually exclusive.
I hold the text fully supports that, as that is obvious what I read from it.
To be fair to you, this is a carry over conversation between Imerus and me from another thread, so there might be parts there that Imerus and I would know what we were talking about without having to quote the entire other thread here to recap. Though I did do a fair bit of that as well.
You may want to keep reading the conversation and reread its context then, as my point with her guessing Elune’s potential interference was that she was probably wrong about what affects Elune’s merciful blessings on the Night Elves would have on the Worgen, which Sylvanas herself might have known about through her allying with Alpha Prime.
Unless you’re arguing that being correct about one thing means someone would be correct about everything they’ve thought, which if is the case, I don’t know how to help you.
This was also from the conversation I mentioned Imerus and I were having in the other thread:
TL;DR: I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m just sharing the lore I see as well.
Except it’s not an unpredictable character swing really, its a misjudgment. Even if Genn still hated the Forsaken fiercely that doesn’t guarantee he would suddenly throw a tantrum and cause a political crisis over which lands to prioritize invading/liberating. Her whole strategy hinges on huge uncertain “what ifs”… it sucked.
These aren’t the untruths… its the way they are being spun to blame Saurfang for the burning of Teldrassil. Saurfangs strategy, at least for the War of Thorns, was successful. The night elves were defeated and Darnassus was ready to be sieged without much more of a fight. It is Sylvanas who manipulates him into thinking not killing Malfurion forced her to burn the tree. It didn’t. Everything was more or less still going as was originally planned at the beginning of A Good War.
Because they sacrificed Night Elven lives only to undermine the purpose of those sacrifices later on?
That’s only your reading. I didn’t get any such thing from the text.
Sure, though your original post analyzing the Sylvanas passages in this thread wasn’t a response to him and also didn’t provide much supportive reasoning for your suggestions.
I think that’s wrong on two levels. First, because the Worgen we have now aren’t the same as Alpha Prime. They don’t really display the same issues as Goldrinn or mimic his relationship with Elune, in fact their entire connection to her is pretty tangential at this point. The old classic idea of moonlight is also effectively irrelevant to them.
Second, because said interference didn’t really manifest in a way that would affect the Worgen meaningfully. Why should they be upset that she saved Malfurion?
So should I rephrase that from a weak argumentative point to a weak conversational point? What I’m saying is, I don’t see the lore you’re seeming to see, and what you’re saying isn’t showing it to me, so this will probably be a poor conversation.
A tactical success and a strategic success are not the same thing. Good War makes the point multiple times that Saurfang is a tactical genius, but he lacks when it comes to greater strategic understanding. He knew that Malfurion dying was part of the strategy, but in the end he ignored that, making their tactical victory practically pointless.
It’s never discussed as part of the larger strategy until the war is already well underway. The main strategy - capturing and holding Darnassus hostage to try and incite a political crisis which would splinter the Alliance - was still effect even after Malfurion survived.
Just because Sylvanas asserts this doesn’t mean it’s actually true.
The Good War does not contradict the prepatch quests, they make logical sense in that context. For the most part, Saurfang has no issues with the slaughter in Ashenvale, he set it up himself. The bulk of the War is pretty much HIS strategy and execution.
The difference being that in the discussion of the overall point and strategy at the beginning of A Good War, Malfurions death is never mentioned as being primary. Do I have to quote the entire first page for you? Holding the city hostage to try and splinter the Alliance, these are the main objectives discussed in the beginning of the novella and these objectives are still in effect and possible despite Malfurions survival. Sylvanas assertion that him living changed everything is wrong.
I think it is fair to say they are linked narratives of the same story, and that combined narrative is expanded with details of the same events, but from different perspectives.
Especially in situations where Sylvanas is making moves on the field, and we see her considerations and machinations play out from the ground.
You can quote it until you’re green in the face. And I’ll make a reference to it as well. Saurfang repeatedly speculates that he isn’t being told everything. He’s right. Sylvannas has other details that she shares with the Horde Champion alone… including the goal to kill the ArchDruid.
The prepatch quests may not be telling the whole story, but the novellas aren’t supposed to either, by themselves.
The point of the novella is to give the needed larger context we didn’t get from doing the prepatch. It’s lovely that she mentions Malfurions death to the PC, but it doesn’t change the fact that the PC isn’t the one she planned the larger objectives of the war with, the objectives which are still in effect right up until the burning as far as her high command is concerned. Even Nathanos is seemingly taken aback by the decision.
It just shows that not even Nathanos knows her as much as he thought he did. Like Vol’jin said, she’s stepped out of the shadows to lead the Horde down this path. There is literally no line that she won’t cross to reach a goal that she’s set.
That’s correct. for all we know she might be as well. I’ve said repeatedly that we should temper judgement on this story until it plays out. Just like we found out that Sargeras and Illidan were heroes all along. Well Illdy at least. I’m still not that convinced about Sarge.
![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
And I’ll make a reference to it as well. Saurfang repeatedly speculates that he isn’t being told everything. He’s right. Sylvannas has other details that she shares with the Horde Champion alone… including the goal to kill the ArchDruid.