The War Of Thorns, and the Sylvanas that couldn't be

So I’m in the minority here that genuinely loved the War of Thorns, up until the Warbringers trailer. Which ruined my mood so thoroughly I actually lied and told a concerned coworker an aunt’s dog I was close with died, as I wasn’t going to sit there in a suit and tell people I was mad about a cartoon fantasy war. Have a healthy amount of shame for being this invested in a world of pretend, fellow nerds.

But I was bummed. Because the War of Thorns had been really good. I’ve mentioned before how it tied in honor with mechanics. Everybody remembers Astranaar where you could kill civilains only if you wanted and the assassin would chide you for it. But what I loved where the WQs where flagged hostile Alliance NPCs would retreat instead of attacking you.

That was a great subversion of established mechanics I think is sad you never see more of. The Zenkan will remember this rebel questline was a thing I guess but I’d find it infinitely more interesting if the option was there to make say the Sethrak simply retreat, rather than just killing all of them.

But I digress, what really sold me on the War of Thorns was Slyvanas’s explanation for it. Which I’ve never seen posted here so for those that never read it;

"You would ask a question of me, name?

Warchief, may I ask why we want to capture Teldrassil?

Time is not a luxury we possess, but I respect your desire to know more.

THIS has forever altered the balance of power in Azeroth. Deposits of Azerite are being located across the world, name. Though we do not yet understand its full potential, it is clear that this substance has vast destructive capability.

What will war look like in twenty years? In a hundred?

How can the Horde hope to defend its borders if the Alliance controls the flow of Azerite?

It is uncertain, Warchief.

What IS certain is that the Alliance will use Darnassus as a safe harbor for funneling Azerite into the Eastern Kingdoms. Anduin Wyrnn will build powerful new weapons, and sooner or later he will turn them upon our homelands. First he will strike at the Undercity and Silvermoon, then his gaze will fall upon Kalimdor.

For the sake of the Horde’s future, we must be the first to act.

By occupying Darnassus, we will control the flow of Azerite and ensure it cannot be used against us. The Alliance will dare not attack its own city for fear of harming civilians.

With a single stroke, we will guarantee generations of peace.

The night elves will fight us at every step.

The Kaldorei will defy our occupation… unless we break their spirits.

We must inflict a blow that will show them what is at stake. They need to lose something… someone… in whom they have absolute trust and faith. A symbol of hope.

Malfurion Stormrage must die."

This is what I wanted Warchief Slyvanas to be. Cold, calculating but actually thoughtful.

Holding Teldrassil at gunpoint would force Anduin to cancel all Kalimdor mining operations. And killing Malfurion would create an internal diplomatic nightmare. The Alliance would be crippled. The Horde would secure peace for generations.

Of course I didn’t suspect the story would go down that smoothly. But I expected Teldrassil to be a mystery ot an accident or something. It ruined what had actually been a really good war story with understandable goals and ruthlessness with a greater good in mind.

It’s silly now, and particularly dumb as I’d read BtS already, but I thought Slyvanas might be quietly horrified when the tree went up.

For all her posturing she seemed genuinely protective of her people, smiled to cheer up orphans during Children’s Week and broke into a whole butt sad song routine if you brought her a trinket from her childhood.

And the thing is the Warbringers cinematic almost does this. We see her losing her ish not at the sight of her own dead body, but at the sight of the mother and child she failed to protect. Undeath doesn’t change people that much. It certainly makes them spookier but they’re still themselves. Alonsos Faol still wants to heal, Pontius still loves training dogs, Leonid is still a devout follower of the Light, Voss is still a zealot on the warpath and so on.

We could’ve had not just an interesting war storyline where our factioms behaved coherently. But an actually interesting Slyvanas, who’s wrathful and cruel nature is born not out of a desire to destroy, but caused by failing to protect her home and people one time and something she’ll never allow again.

Ah well. That would’ve been a cool idea for an expansion. But anyway we sure did get those turtles to the water, and now we’ve to bust into the afterlife to hunt down Azshara 2.0 Slyvanas.

Maybe someday I’ll stop pretending Blizz’s writers will elevate the narrative beyond 90s Saturday Cartoon or bad anime.

24 Likes

I don’t know if you did that on purpose, but it fits the situation well.

Me: “Oh? Whatshisface will remember? Good for him.”

5 Likes

That is SO out of character for Anduin that I almost wonder if that speech was originally written under the assumption that Varian would still be alive.

24 Likes

For me I felt the opposite. Warbringers was just the icing on the cake for the War of Thorns which seemed to come out of nowhere with little justification.
In Legion the two factions had seemed more friendly than ever.

5 Likes

It wasn’t. She’s just lying.

That’s literally the only thing Sylvanas does.

She lied to Saurfang that war was inevitable so he’s plan her invasion. She lied to the player and a billion other Horde soldiers that Anduin was a threat so they’d go along with it. All the time pretending she had goals other than setting fire to Teldrasil and empowering herself with their deaths.

If Sylvanas says anything at all, it can be safely assumed that the opposite is true.

18 Likes

Admittedly this is a tangent from the main thrust of your post, and perhaps I just read too much into the forsaken themes (or maybe misinterpreted them altogether?) but this isn’t what I took away from them at all. What I see out of the race is severe, clinical but untreatable trauma and depression dressed up in a zombie motif. And some sociopathic mad science thrown in for laughs.

I was wondering if you agree or not, and if you do (or if I’m just being weird), how much themes like this should influence a character in WoW compared to what they may have been like prior in life. I like the dog trainer and Voss examples, but admittedly I know little of Faol so I wanted to know how you’d think undeath would affect a character like him, and if the game / outside material does a good job of presenting it.

1 Like

Maybe, but it’s not even GOOD lying. There’s no way Saurfang anyone should have found it convincing.

9 Likes

She didn’t tell that lie to Saurfang though. She told it to the player, who she had no reason to believe had enough experience with Anduin to know that was a lie.

She told Saurfang that Genn was the threat, pointing to Stormhiem and conveniently leaving out the fact that Genn was stopping her from enslaving an allied demigoddess.

11 Likes

Oh right, I was mixing it up with A Good War.

The player’s supposed to be convinced enough to take the quest, though.

1 Like

This is what I saw a lot of Horde players say didn’t work. Most of the posts I saw back then were confusion as to why they would want to attack Malfurion when they had just worked with him in Legion and even had personally saved him. Even more so from Horde players that played through Mount Hyjal back in Cataclysm when they brought that up as well.

Legion even ended with a quest drop from Argus to deliver Illidan’s message to Malfurion personally, where Malfurion brought up needing to work together to heal Azeroth from her stab wound. Which Blizzard still haven’t gotten around to addressing, even with BfA being over now.

Mostly I saw Horde players confused as to why they were the ones being the bad guys again when the world was literally bleeding out and attacking someone that just wanted to help everyone.

42 Likes

This was really insane part. I mean, Darnassus would of been the LEAST likely place to funnel Azerite, especially after she just said it’s being found all around the world. I mean, it’s in the far corner of the map, farthest away from all other Alliance Powers, with MOST of the Horde in between it and Stormwind, Plus, it’s made up of a community of Priests and Druids, who would likely not want that stuff anywhere near their Capital.

Why wouldn’t Ironforge be the more likely center for all things Azerite?

Seriously, the Player would have to be an idiot to buy this and Sylvanas must of already losing her damn mind to even suggest it… But turns out both are true, apparently.

4 Likes

I liked that detail as later you’ve changed dialogue with him(I think while telling orphans stories) same with eitrigg as he says " i understand your position as I was at the same place years ago" which imo helps to flesh a bit the and dive more deeper in the head of the characters and also a nice rpg element which this game needs.

Now back with Teldrassil, I’m not going to lie and at the start I was excited a little because seeing the Alliance and Horde doing shaddy stuff in war and some movements in their geopolitics was a great idea but all turned a naught.

This was indeed another thing that I saw a lot of Horde players not actually buy, especially any Horde players who had played Mists of Pandaria and remembered questing with Anduin in the Jade Forest and Krasarang Wilds.

From what was given in-game alone, I don’t think very many Horde players ever bought that Anduin would ever threaten the Horde, which is predictably how BfA turned out.

32 Likes

I mean, the entire expansion was a failure of storytelling on all parts. Nobody got a happy ending here. Blizzard repeatedly shoots themselves in the foot when they try to write faction narratives. Horde is completely inconsistent to the point of schizophrenia on whether or not they want to be WC2 Horde or WC3 Horde. And since none of the devs play Alliance they don’t really know what the hell they want. Just put in some generic knights and a story about winning at the 11th hour, or whatever. They’ll just write the same story they have been since WC2, where the Alliance gets utterly demolished in the first half and then pulls off a miraculous win during the second half. This has happened each time there’s been a conflict between the Alliance and Horde. Alliance get trounced, and then by the end of the xpac they’ll write some lines about how the Alliance actually won. Alliance characters seldom do anything either. Off the top of your head, can anyone tell me what the hell Anduin did the entire time?

Here’s to hoping when they make the Light expansion the Alliance actually poses any semblance of a threat to the Horde. Ah, probably too hopeful. They’ll probably be trounced within the first patch and Blizzard will flounder trying to find a suitable end boss. Let’s see here, spins wheel of big bads the Light Lords!

11 Likes

That is actually rather funny. The way I see how the story evolved during my break from WoW, is that Anduin is about the only leader trying to push idea of peace above all. So such agression would only serve the purpose of other leaders telling Anduins “told ya so, can’t trust ze horde”. And undemine peace efforts.

That would not work, neither irl, nor in-game IMO. If anything, the effect would be building up tension untill it explodes.

Well, we could have this character. Maybe. Press F.

Well, the Death magic that prevents proper connection of soul and body can have very different effects, not to mention that the details of resurrection could have a big role. Overall some senses could be dulled, negative emotions become more frequent and strong, etc.

The only (for now) known way to revert the effects of necromantic raising on the personality, is exposure to Light. Which can restore to a degree parts of former self: emotions, physical senses, etc. Not without a price, but still, a way for those who want to become “less undead” and closer to what they were before turning into one.

We kind of have answers:

Nyorloth about the state of undead

The souls of the undead (Forsaken, PC death knights, ghouls, etc.) are imperfectly attached to their bodies; the dark magic that sustains them is a buffer that prevents their souls from properly joining with their bodies. This is why undead feel only faint sensations of pain or discomfort from most physical stimuli, and why the Light is so painful to their existence.

S. Danuser, Maldraxxus interview, effect of raising

… the force of necromancy, that is anchoring the soul to the body. Now it’s a different process than a living being, than someone who is kind of held together through the power of Life (with a capital L, as one of the Cosmic forces of the universe). So that Forsaken person, that undead person is held together by the power of Death, and that can have an effect on the soul. And we’ve seen that being raised can result in certain different circumstances. One person who’s raised may be very much intact. They may essentially be the same person that they were in life. Others are more aggressive, more hateful or more scornful than they were in life. And part of that has to do with the manner in which they’re raised.

Effects of Light on undead, and not just them

Ask CDev 2:
Record of undead emoting positive emotions are rare, though there are reports, however, that some Forsaken have slowly experienced a sharpening of their dulled senses of touch, smell, etc., as well as an increase in the flashes of positive emotions that have otherwise become so rare since their fall into undeath, when influenced by the Holy Light. The drawback however, is that they also become disgusted with themselves and are likely to increase attempts at their own self-destruction; for regaining these senses would force the undead to smell their own rotting flesh, taste the decay in their mouths and throats, and even feel the maggots burrowing within their bodies

Holy Chime summons K’ute , a naaru.
When this pet is near, calming chimes fill your mind and remind you of a time long passed.

A’dal:
A soothing light fills you as you approach the naaru. Slow musical chimes echo within your mind and, though a word is not uttered, you feel an assurance of safety.

So, undeath would affect him just as most others. We can see it in those who just starts being one. Like the ones in Deathknell, or how Zelling lashed out on his family. But Light’s presence seems to change it. Some would be happy to become more like who they were. But maybe others would not be so pleased with external force pushing them into their past.

Edit: sources
https://web.archive.org/web/20120310010947/http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3313064613?page=3#49

http://lorekeeper.net/en/maldraxxus-shadowlands-and-beyond-interview-with-steve-danuser/

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Ask_CDev#Ask_CDev_Answers_-_Round_2

gl hf

LOL … yeah …
The WoT was bullcrap from start to finish.

But of course Horde players liked it till it made their waifu unredeemable evil. Before that slaughtering and killing innocents and humiliating an entire player factions is OK as long as it is not one self, right?

weo weo weo someone mentioned sylvanas and muh genocide CALLING ALL UNITS BAIT POSTING HAS BEEN ALLOWED TAKE IT DOWN FOR NIGHTELFTOPIA!

5 Likes

Wasn’t the crux of Sylvanas argument with Saurfang was, while Anduin likely wouldn’t at the moment, with people like Genn whispering in his ear who knows what will happen in the future?

8 Likes

It was. The implication was that Anduin wouldn’t be able to keep the war hawks from just doing what they pleased. Further, she laid out the idea that even after the dust settled, he was a weak enough ruler that such disobedience wouldn’t be punished.

1 Like

Yeah, and then she went on to appeal about “think of the children a century later” to seal the deal.

Maybe it was just my extreme pessimism about a faction war ever going well, but I remember reading that line when it came out and going “oh. Well that’s wonderful. We’re starting off this expansion with the 14 friggen words and Saurfang is going along with it.” And the plot never pulled up from there.

5 Likes