Sylvanas died a long time ago. What we had in game is a twisted version of her. The goodness in her corrupted by Frostmourne. Once you look at her from that POV everything makes sense. Now you add in the fact that the Jailer could and did use the “hooks” that he had in her just like he used the “hooks” he had in Arthus and it isn’t hard to see how it all worked out. Both Swolvanas and the Lift King were STRONG willed people and the forces working on them were hidden from them but it was still working on them.
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I’m hoping to still see you here. 
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Me too! 
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It could be me misunderstanding the topic, but to me, the question being asked is that
"the story arc that sylvanas was on in legion through to early battle for azeroth was clearly a different one than what they ended up telling.
What made blizzard leave behind the original story they had for sylvanas? And what would have been its conclusion?"
But a lot of the replies seem to be just discussing the story we ended up getting.
So im not sure if i misunderstood the thread or not
Sylvanas, after Wrath, is a character of contradictions.
She was killed by Arthas’ Scourge and vowed to wipe them out, yet ends up not only practicing the same necromancy the Scourge used but recruiting actual Scourge into her ranks.
She considers her undeath to be a curse, yet after developing all sorts of superpowers including actual flight thinks her curse is actually pretty neat.
She says she doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the torment of undeath, yet is totally cool with her literally kidnapping and sacrificing an Argent Crusade scout all to make her former love pretty again in undeath. And no other reason.
She doesn’t want to be Warchief, yet manipulates everything with the Jailer who’s apparently playing 5D Chess into becoming the Warchief and everyone is perfectly fine with the decision despite openly practicing Scourge tier necromancy.
After her arc in Wrath was finished it was clear they had absolutely no idea what to do with the character since her main motivation was to kill Arthas once and for all. And that was done. And that’s why she’s such a mess of a character.
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It’s odd. In a way I sort of understood her arc in Cataclysm. Sort of.
Admittedly she went from this tragic dark hero concept….to this tragic figure willing to doom others to her fate if it protects the currently doomed ones. It gave her a purpose which they felt would be missing post Lich king. I didn’t mind it too much but Garrosh called it out perfectly when he said she’s now no better than the lich king she hated.
Still at the time she was still a loyalist, strategist, and admirable figure. She was recognised since WC3 and we loved her for it. Legion was building her up to have a very significant part to play….only for it to all vanish and she became a Moustache twirling villain
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You’d hope she would be all over the place, she’s the Warchief and there are two expansions of those in which there is significant Alliance X Horde Warring.
He’s not exactly gone though, is he?
Hes not dead as far as weve been told.
However he did a runner at the end of bfa and gazlowe has replaced him as leader of the goblins.
I googled to confirm that he wasnt in shadowlands and aparently he made a cameo in tazavesh with no explaination of what hes doing there or how he got there. Hes just sorta there in the background chilling.
The writing just took the piss to be frank.
Honestly reading the Sylvanas book was the best and worst thing I could have done. Best because it really fleshed out her motivation and made me go “yeah I get why she’s doing all this”. Worst because it made me hate how little they fleshed out her story in BFA and SL. It’s like a repeat of Wolfheart and understanding why Garrosh didn’t care about other Horde members opinions when they’re already hating and butting heads with him when he didn’t do anything wrong yet, but if you didn’t read the book you know F all of why things were happening in game.
I think that’s what turned me off so much from the lore/story was the Jailer and his 4D chess and hoping the stars align plot. It made everything from Arthas to the Burning Legion, to even Sylvanas feels irreverent because there was a super-duper secret puppet master all along. It’s lazy writing.
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“Gone” implies that she was ever not like that. The very first thing she did after breaking free in Frozen Throne was to start mind-controlling random humans and ogres to do her dirty work for her. She was never averse to throwing everyone else under the bus in order to keep #1 safe.
Only the ones who weren’t paying attention.
Aw Grumbles, may you live long and prosper. 
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There was a difference to it then though. The ends justified the means for Sylvanas. She was never a hero and barely an anti-hero, but she stood against the darkness in the world and all those that stood against them. People fell in love with this tragic figure and also felt a kinship of feeling they don’t fit in with the world but want a place in it.
Later they simply made her evil and world dominating for the sake of it.
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And that’s what bugs me about the Sylvanas book so much.
You understood what her motivation for everything was, and why she viewed death as no big deal (hell when she kills Greymanes son her thought process was what she was doing would eventually reunite them like a screwed up way of saving them) since her assumption was that she and the Jailer were going to break life and death, since she thought it was unfair that even in death your fate is chosen by someone else, and she hated the fact that the afterlife didn’t reunite you with your loved ones.
I know it doesn’t justify the evil things she did, but it would have helped if they showed us what her motivation was in SL or her say what it was (countless opportunities when she’s talking with Anduin), instead of us viewing her as a mustache twirling villain. Because I guarantee you, people would have looked at her more as a Thanos villain (yeah what you’re doing is evil but you get what their motivation is).
Because at the end of the day, she viewed what she was doing as saving everyone, and she also had no intention to rule everything, but again a player who hasn’t touched the book wouldn’t know that, and that’s what so infuriating about it.
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They left a huge narrative hole in Warcrafts story by letting her live.
If we brought back her head, many wouldn’t have good reason to go to war later.
I don’t think what they did with her was bad, death was too easy of a punishment for what she did, having her essentially spend all eternity saving everyone she helped put in the Maw is a more fitting punishment.
The problem is we never, in game, figure out why she did what she did. Unless you read the Sylvanas book.
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she never ruled anything. she did her own thing.
I think not. There are ways to torture the dead, if we took a leaf out of Nagashes book…lets just say it involves flesh eating beetles.
Catapults can’t melt steel beams
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Depends on when she said that. Was it before or after she started working for the Jailer? Even if it was after, maybe they had one plan but when she got tapped by Vol’jin they rethought it and figured it might actually be a good idea.
Who knows, it’s fiction. Add to that, it’s Fantasy Science Fiction which gives you even more leeway on which way you want to go.