I heartily agree with the second paragraph, though I’d offer some refutation to the first.
There have been more detailed breakdowns of Sylvanas’s character arc written by SF locals with far more experience with outside material (novels and etc.), but if you’re interested, I’ll offer an appetizer of an argument to illustrate my perspective on why I believe she hasn’t been written consistently, and only became “truly evil” by writer fiat rather than a natural progression of her character. (I’m also biased against her turning evil because it has destroyed the Horde identity to an extent that is far more dire than MoP, and carries with it awful consequences, but that’s not relevant to her consistency and the point I’m currently trying to make.)
Point #1: Sylvanas flip-flops between caring for the Horde and completely not caring for the Horde teehee she was evul all along.
Most compelling to me is the implication that Sylvanas not only lies to her followers and loyalists (true), but also to her advisors and closest confidants (Nathanos, Saurfang, etc. Less believable but possible, she’s lied to her own sisters), AND most damnable, she’s lied to herself, in her own thoughts, from a third person perspective, from WoW all the way up to BtS! I can’t list them all, but there’s so many character moments she has absent of ALL outsiders in which she admits to herself that she respected Vol’jin, respected Saurfang, cared for the fate of the Forsaken and the Horde as a whole.
Point #2: Sylvanas flip-flops between being a tactical genius and being a moron who acts entirely on impulse and emotional outbursts.
A case of Blizzard saying one thing and showing another. Same with Garrosh, Anduin, Tyrande, Saurfang, Baine, etc. We’re told Sylvanas has a Grand Plan, ohoho, but then Blizzard hands her the Idiot Ball when it’s convenient for the plot, or implies she’s only making a stupid decision because secretly she’s a genius playing 7494792829D underwater nude backgammon and we’ve all been DUPED, even though every aspect of her plan seems far overly complicated and irrelevant to her goal, and Blizzard should either be ashamed for shoving in so many plot threads and sacrifices that go nowhere and only service The Hype Machine, or they’re geniuses themselves and SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, her plan and each thread of it will fall into place. (I doubt it lol)
Point #3: Sylvanas flip-flops between being Lawful Evil, Neutral, Chaotic, and everywhere in between depending upon which writer is writing her at the time and how cool they think child genocide is.
And here’s the crux of the issue. Many writers have many opinions of Sylvanas, of the Horde playerbase, and of what constitutes irredeemable evil. Don’t get me wrong, Sylvanas has been evil for a LONG time. But her evil has always felt like it had a Forsaken and/or Horde focus. She risks her own safety and the safety of her land to assault a non-Alliance, basically unassuming, walled-off kingdom on her Warchief’s orders to appease him. Garrosh wanted Gilneas taken out, Sylvanas used her own resources and “meat shields” (Forsaken) to do it. She fought ON THE FRONT LINES, negotiated a less bloody resolution with Crowley IN PERSON, and died for it. This brings up a character inconsistency: if Sylvanas is protecting her own skin, why would she do all of this frontline work less than a year after her suicide? If she doesn’t care about the Horde, why would she draw the ire of an (up until that point) totally isolationist nation which would have very likely killed itself off with the civil unrest brewing within its walls?
All I ask is that you reconsider. I mean, we can say this point is subjective, but Sylvanas really can’t be that consistently written if she’s the source of SO MUCH controversy with each side rarely bringing up the same quote/thought/action to back up their opinions. We see the same base-breaking inconsistencies in Jaina, who has been the subject of many forum slapfights. Why don’t people argue as vehemently as, say, Saurfang’s character motivations, or Vol’jin’s? People may express disagreement, sure, but Saurfang is (relatively) consistently written enough that his actual intentions and meaning as a character are rarely in question. Not nearly to the same level as Sylvanas.
EDIT: Hi Sam. ;^o