The Sylvanas that BFA wants you to forget

The Fanbase: You cannot kill hope…
The story writers: Can’t we…

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People REALLY need to remember this when it comes to Golden. Considering when she was hired, it is VERY unlikely that she had much sway in the story direction of the Meta Narrative of BfA (and that especially applies to a primary character of it like Sylvanas). People also need to remember that it was not Golden that started Sylvanas down this POTENTIAL route; it was Dave Kosak (that wrote Edge of Night and gave Sylvie her perpetual fear of her afterlife she’s been acting upon).

I will say this. While I have SOME issues with Golden’s writing (like how she handles Baine, despite ALSO being the one who wrote that he DOES have a darker, VERY aggressive side) … I think I’ll wait to pass judgement on her until we have an expansion I am MORE convinced she had MORE creative control over. BfA (considering the time table) seems more like she was handed a crap-sandwich to deal with, rather than being the primary crafter of said crap-sandwich.

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Hello. BtS called. it’d like to have a word.

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BtS was written within the guidelines of BfA (it was prepared as an accessory to support a storyline that was already created). I highly doubt it predates the concept of the BfA Meta-Narrative, but was instead written in response to it (little else).

Even if it was written as a complement to BfA, it shows some creative controls. She said herself she managed to pull Calia into the storyline. Musn’t forget that usually, commanded books ask the writer to go from point A to point B and here the big points that has to be brought up. Inbetween, the writer has creative control, as long as it ain’t farfetch’d.

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Hmm … I’d wager that Calia was a requirement to be in the storyline, not something Golden brought on in her own. Remember, BfA isn’t JUST about Old Gods and the Faction Conflict, or even Death. Its about setting up ARs (and I expect at least two more to manifest from this narrative). Calia Menethil, as devoid in storytelling as she is, was IMO a requirement of BtS (again IMO, to likely set up some justification for an Alliance Undead AR).

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No the character in BtS wasn’t originally Calia. Golden pushed for it to become Calia. I’m pretty sure she tweeted it but I’m not at a pc and have no idea how to search someone’s twitter on mobile.

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Game writers don’t have much control over the story, from what I can tell from the interviews.

Book writers have plenty of control, outside of some guidelines.

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You’d still have calia lol that was always the plan just instead of being a character we all know it would be a nobody

An example I can think of this is GoTs.
Even for those chapters they had the support of R. Martin when he had not finished the novels, but still…The chapters written based on a relased novel, dialogues already fleshed out and established, characters established (by him), This chapters were a whole different business than those he only “guided”. The creative, intriguing dialogue was one of the first things one could notice missing, then it was the out of character decisions, the dramatic actions (meant to be impact ful, but felt cheap) .

TLTR: what makes a good novel from A TO B is the writers’ skill to create engaging dialogues, relatable and realistic conflicts. And quoting Martin himself. "It is in the details where the demon is". BfA is not a bad story, but the details and lack of have made it terrible.

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I kind of suspect that originally, it was supposed to be Natalie Seline. She makes as much or more sense in the role than Calia does, and without all the weird issues Calia has.

I’d agreed if the show had come out first. The problem here, using GoT as an example, just show how worse Golden’s side is. Even if GoT’s season 8 is $hit, the medium is far from being the same. GoT faced, beside the “From A to B” and a starting date for the season, restraints that Golden doesn’t have : the setted time for an episode, # of episodes, what can be fit inside one episode to keep the flow of a tv show, amount of details or exposition they can insert in said episode, etc. What were Golden’s restraints? From A to B and a release date?

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That wouldn’t have been interesting, and it would have kept the dark lady aesthetic intact.

And spare us all from hearing Anduin calling Calia auntie.

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No, that’s probably not true. We have precedent in the form of Garrosh Hellscream that establishes that destroying multiple towns will turn off alot of people, turning on the rest of the Horde will turn off most of the rest, leaving just a few hardcore edgelords to dig in and wave the flag for the now villain.

Sylvanas successfully turned off the “lets not destroy towns” crowd way back in Cataclysm, thus the highly polarized Horde fanbase regarding her from that point forward.

Blizzard fumbled the implementation of “turn on the rest of the Horde” in three very significant ways. First, they made supporting Sylvanas a valid player choice and even developed content for it. If we’re allowed to support Sylvanas, and we are the Horde, then she can’t be betraying the Horde. Secondly, the primary movers opposing Sylvanas, Saurfang, Baine, and Thrall have taken serious credibility and popularity hits within the Horde player base, I can go into details if you need but in the interests of saving time I’ll just assume you acknowledge the sentiment exists regardless of whether you agree with it. Third, she didn’t betray the Horde as often and as thoroughly as Hellscream. By the time of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, our boy Hellscream went down the list, pissing off every Horde race but the orcs, whose reasons for rebelling were covered by Thrall’s return. Sylvanas, was mean to a human, and imprisoned Baine for betraying her.

This is why the end of Sylvanas’ reign as Warchief was supposed to be her angry declaration that the Horde is nothing in front of armies of witnesses on both sides of the rebellion. And unfortunately a sudden, plot convenient, utterance of contempt just doesn’t convince people who were there for all the times she showed that she valued the Horde or fought for the Horde.

Maybe Norevia will always support Sylvanas no matter what. But that’s not what she said and I understand if Blizzard failed to convince her. I’m only convinced Sylvanas has gone truly evil because of meta arguments, if you asked me based on what’s happening inside the story, I’d say it was such a mess I have no idea.

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I’m sorry, it looks like your joke and your point flew well over people’s heads.

Obviously writing the Sylvanas character to please everybody is not going to improve the character either. But I think her fans are entitled to feel frustrated with writing that has to ignore, or invalidate, so much of her prior characterization.

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Speaking only for myself, and I’m aware that plenty of people don’t see problems here, the dots weren’t connected well enough on some fairly major developments. There were certain things that just seemed to appear out of nowhere and were never tied to her previous characterization, such as the mission out of the blue to kill all hope. I tried to get at some of it in this thread on the old board:

I fully expect you’ll tell me there’s no discrepancy here but I’m sorry, I didn’t find it convincing or satisfying. If you did, cheers to you.

PS: I don’t consider myself a Sylvanas apologist per se–heck, I barely even thought about her before they made her warchief. But I didn’t want to see her go down this road, and I don’t believe it was the only possible storyline they could have written for her in this position. If that makes me an apologist in your eyes, then … oh well.

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Considering how much the jerkasses the Jedi are. (Such as Obiwan using his mind control powers to get a counter seat at a diner) And their treatment of children, I would support their genocide.

Anakin though went a bit too far with the Jedi babies.

You support genocide of a (fictional) group of people, but draw the line at children.

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I’m funny that way.

Fact of the matter is… the Jedi Council were arrogant jerks, they had policies and practise that were born out of an organisation that had gotten lost in it’s structure and prestige and had gotten to the point of dehumanising (dealienising??) it’s members. It was recruiting and indoctrinating it’s members as practically toddlers. Anakin shows up as an 8 year old and HE’S TOO FREAKING OLD TO TRAIN?! Are the Jedi literally robbing and/or raiding cradles to recruit? And really couldn’t Qui-gon have come back with some real trading value to ransom Anakin’s mom out of slavery if he was going to kidnap him away from ever having anything like a normal healthy life?

The fact that he didn’t even think to do so shows how morally bankrupt the entire Order must have been if this Paragon could not have bothered to do that. (Or Obi-wan for that matter after he inherited the responsibility.)

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I’ma have to agree with Drahliana here that the Jedi were pretty corrupt but “genocide” is a little wee bit harsh.