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.