Yes. And lots of people gleeflully ignore this so they can say Arthas didnt have agency in his actions and therefore can’t be blamed for anything. And I don’t believe that.
Even if you decide he was right to do the Culling, he got thte mercenaries who fought for him slaughtered, then killed most of his expedition party, and willingly led the Scourge to destroy Lordaeron.
Corrupted as he may have been by Frostmourne and later the Helm, but he still choose to do the things he did.
Also, it’s worth noting that the Bastion pre-launch cinematic shows us that Arthas wasn’t sent to the Maw by the Arbiter either. Uther’s the one that personally put him there.
i hope so too so i can see the forums burn.
Annoying people are never going to shut up.
Surely you’ve accepted this by now? If she gets redeemed, Night Elf fans are gunna whine, and if she doesn’t Sylvanas fans are gunna whine.
We prolly won’t hear the end of the discourse for a good couple of years, even after this storyline inevitably gets resolved.
Yeaah…no it isn’t. Not even for these writers.
You mean the head writer actively responsible for her villainization.
Dude, you take the same exact defeatist argument paths, there’s no use in hiding it anymore. We all know who you are.
At what point has she gone back and forth between being a hero and villain? You say this like she’s done it before already.
I didn’t realize that they dislike Night Elves. Is that why they’ve been consistently active in the lore since Cataclysm and have lost none of their core character roster. Please stop with the victim complex, you’re delusional if you think Blizzard hates Night Elves cuz your tree and nameless civilian NPCs got burned down.
Who the heck is Finel?
I’ll be waiting, I suppose.
She won’t betray the Jailer, because to betray someone, you have to have loyalty to them to begin with, which, she doesn’t.
Also, there is no “Ranger General Sylvanas”. She does not need a pardon, your redemption, your forgiveness, your justifications, and least of all the things that Sylvanas needs is sympathy.
The writers are free to do whatever they wish, and as a result the narrative is what it is. If Sylvanas faces undesirable consequences, then she does. If the consequences of Sylvanas’ actions are in her favor, then they are. If Sylvanas is victorious then it’s victory for Sylvanas.
But the last thing they are going to do is un-make all of Sylvanas’ character progression since Warcraft 3, and make her the ‘ranger general’. Sylvanas tells Anduin “don’t” as in “don’t even go there”, because she is afraid she will kill him for the stupidity of even bringing it up.
Honestly the only sort of redemption that involves having her be among the Blood Elves again I think would absolutely require her to be absolutely crushed by guilt and feeling like she would never really make up for it. She would not be ranger general but instead someone, usually begrudgingly, allowed to help with things. The actual current Ranger General, Halduron would get more screen time an development as part of this and it would not end in his death or removal from the role.
There is if you care about good writing. As it stands her redemption is an author pet fantasy. It’s ill-conceived and poorly presented. It’s like bad anime when the villain at the very end reveals that he was poor and his sister was killed so that’s why he became a mass murdering psycho, so now we all feel bad for him.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so artificial and tone-deaf.
At this point, the closest thing to redemption she could make is self-sacrifice.
We ain’t never gettin’ off Ms. Bones’s Wild Ride.
I’ve been thinking about this lately. Previously I thought it would be weird to allow Sylvanas a redemption arc just like a lot of people. However that’s because a lot of folks are emotionally connected to this game and took her actions personally. Nelf fans raging about Teldrassil, general Alliance still angry about Southshore, Gilneas, Varian, etc. Horde fans upset over Saurfang or her abandonment. Despite what peoples say it made a connection with a lot of folks.
However, despite all she’s done, Kerrigan did worse. Kerrigan killed multitudes more people during her time as Queen of Blades. Her murder of Fenix among others felt pretty harsh as well.
She got a redemption arc. Why shouldn’t Sylvanas?
Yes. At this rate I expect our Dark Lady to have a statue erected in Stormwind. Night Elven young will be taught tales of the hero Sylvanas and make pilgrimages to the statue to bask in her radiance.
Honestly? I just want Sylvanas away, just go full Kurze treatment if necessary.
I feel like you’re glossing over the fact that Arthas ordered those mercs to burn the ships to keep his soldiers from returning to Lordaeron, then ordered those soldiers to kill the mercs for destroying the ships.
Yeah I did forget to add that part.
This.
Redemption or not, this expansion needs to be her last. If she ends up dead or pulls an Illidan and becomes “The New Jailer”, she simply needs to not make any appearances in future xpacs. At least not for the next half dozen or so.
Actually she never seemed naive or optimistic to me. As Ranger-General she came across as vain, pragmatic and certainly ruthless when it came to throwing away her farstriders to delay Arthas’ march through Quel’thalas. The only thing she was naive about was assuming he would give her a clean death.
A moment of weakness in front of known writer’s pet Anduin does not make for a convincing start of a redemption arc. You people are blowing things way out of proportion. It would be beyond idiotic, beyond even the mess that was “Draenor is free!” to try to walk Sylvanas back now. The literal plot of this entire expansion revolves around how badly she has wronged both playable factions.
Agreed. I think people are confusing redemption with vindication. Everything I see shows me that people are worried that Sylvanas will be vindicated.
The fears all seem to revolve around the characters going, “You were right, Sylvie! Sorry we doubted you. :(”
Which is fair considering that’s exactly what they did with Illidan.
So I get the worry lol, thus why I’m hoping Sylvanas realizes she’s in the wrong and tries to make up for it, instead of “oh wow Sylvanas was right all along” business.
I kinda wish we had an explanation of what that looked like. What does death look like without the Shadowlands? The Maldraxxi attacking Bastion show that you can’t just let souls travel all willy-nilly.
What’s next, Anima Wyrm TSA?