Please delete it, is for your own best. You can get in troubles if you post passages before release.
Thats the reason i recommend to not post passages before 29th
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I’m done talking about the Alliance for a little bit.
I want to talk about one thing this Sylvanas book did really well. One of the things I really liked about this book was how much Sylvanas worked to bring Nathanos back from the Scourge. In Dark Mirror we know she screamed his name three times until it broke through, in Dark Mirror we got this scene from Nathanos’s perspective, in the Sylvanas book we get it from her persective. He didn’t break away from the Scourge on his own so it was not easy for him to regain his senses. She had to stay behind and work with him a lot, (Almost like someone trying to work with thier loved one with dementia. But she resolves that thier relationship and partnership is worth it, and it’s worth it to him that she be a loyal and patient partner.
She wanted him to be alive and her worst fear was that he was Scourge. She was heartbroken to think that he may have been too far gone mentally that she would have to ‘put him down.’ Her love for him is deep. <this in itself is more powerful than vore eel eating her sick and dying mate to put him out of his misery, and that’s a legit parallel one could make, that vore eeel was supposed to be a mirror for Sylvanas>
Which explains why it took him so long to return to the Undercity, and explains his ongoing presence in the Plaguelands. She visited him multiple times, getting his strength and his mind back before he could return to become a full-fledged Forsaken.
They really are a loving and loyal partnership.
One of the best depictions of a healthy romantic/platonic relationship in this entire franchise.
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The thing is it wouldn’t at all be unreasonable from SW’s perspective. How do you know these guys aren’t going to explode like a piñata filled with infectious maggots the second you open the door?
I actually thought Anduin’s more open minded approach to the undead was interesting. To Varian and Genn the Scourge were an unthinkable nightmare that flipped their understanding of the world on their head.
Anduin though simply grew up in a world that included undead. Learning at least some were basically reasonable and open to being allies was if anything probably a relief. The older generation couldn’t do that though, letting their guard down for a second meant certain and gruesome death during the Third War.
So the Alliance would’ve done something wrong that had rippling and profound consequences. But it was still understandable from their perspective.
But still it’d be genuine wrongdoing. So if we do ever get a straight answer I’m sure it’ll turn out the Defias killed them or something.
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I think folks have different tastes. For me, it depends on the franchise.
I recently started playing Star Wars The Old Republic. I am a Jedi Healer. I try to pick the good guy options. When it comes to Star Wars, I always sided with the Rebel Alliance and the Republic and the Jedi, when the “cool” edge lords would side with the Empire and the Sith.
In the Star Wars Universe, I have always enjoyed being as good as possible. A Guardian of Peace and Justice.
I guess I don’t see the Alliance as so wholly good, anyway. Even if the narrative overlooks their wrong doings, it doesn’t completely ignore them. They are mentioned enough for folks like me, who aren’t so easily swayed by the sanctimonious false piety of the Alliance.
Stormheim had me seething during Legion… and it was largely overlooked. But seeing it mentioned as Saurfang and Sylvanas discussed reasons for war made me cheer! A brief one off mention in a book, outside the game, might seem like burying it. But to me, that is recognition, at least, of the facts.
Same with that Tauren NPC who is still mad about Taurajo. Many Alliance Posters will say : “Baine was cool with it, so get over it.” And that was hard to ignore, because he is the leader of the Tauren. But, during BfA, Blizzard added a Tauren NPC who was still mad about Taurajo, and happy to kill Alliance, even after Teldrassil.
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Is this book generally a whitewash of Sylvanas? Or are there more in depth portions about her victims, and not glossed over mentions or justifications like “well genocide is actually a good thing when you think about lava eels”. I know how much blizzard loves to ignore victims while uplifting victimizers.
It’s all in her perspective. There is no other PoV. She’s recounting her own life to Anduin. The only one who offers up a voice for her victims is Anduin in the present when the narative returns to the cell where she’s having a one on one conversation with him. He does play devil’s advocate against her for her victims. But no we don’t actually get to hear from anyone she’s victimized.
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Ah yeah that’s what I assumed it was going to be from the start. It was obvious with how they presented pretty much everything from her perspective in the expansion through the cutscenes while glossing over and really trying to ignore the things she did. We likely will never get those perspectives, and I’m almost 100% when Tyrande gives her beyond merciful judgement to Sylvanas they will play ominous music to make people feel like Tyrande is in the wrong.
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Sure, absolutely all true. Prejudice is a dirty word, but if we are to have a morally grey story, its a believable motivation that doesnt make the accused evil. It’s just morally grey.
No, that’s not the vibe I got, the epilogue contains spoilers for Tyrande’s Judgement.
I have a lot of feelings on that, but it’s better to talk about them after next week, so we can all express our emotions about it together. I’m sure the context of the scene and it’s implications will make more sense after being able to visually see what happens, we all know the dialogue that got leaked but we are missing some key details that we have to see.
I have an idea of what happens, but I don’t know what happens. It seems like the book provides an ‘after the cinematic’ teaser which doesn’t make sense until we see the cinematic.
Sylvanas is getting judged, she will be punished.
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I think healthy is a stretch, but I see what you’re saying. It is incredibly romantic, and tragic. If Blizzard had just waited a few years and came out with a S loves N melodrama on the CW, the Goth teens would bump the sub numbers right back up.
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The throne in the room at the top of the Death Star II’s royal tower swiveled around, revealing Sheev Palpatine, Lord Darth Sidious of the Sith, Emperor of the Galaxy.
“Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.”
Underneath his unchanging black mask, Darth Vader’s scarred face contorted in disbelief, and a certain degree of embarrassment, at the sight of his master. Beside him, he could hear his son stifle a giggle.
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Don’t we already know her “punishment” for genocide and sending everyone to hell to be tortured for eternity because she saw lava eels? It’s just to do some shadowlands dailies and pick up souls in the maw for a few expansions before they bring her back? Tyrande is being beyond merciful here and letting Sylvanas repair only a tiny fraction of the damage she caused. Or are you saying there is another punishment
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Healthy is subjective for sure. but compared to the years of being told Sylvanas only loves Nathanos for what he can do for her, the opposite is shown, all that she had done for him out of pure love and respect for him as a person. She respects him, she loves him, and she’s patient for him when she is otherwise impatient with anyone else.
This is why Golden is such a frustrating writer. There are always parts I genuinely think are great if not inspired.
In BTS I really loved Genn’s perspective on The Gathering. He’s just waiting for everything to go south. When he sees an undead woman get screamed at by her living husband who turns and storms off you know he’s waiting for her to lunge at the guy.
But she just stands there, looking completely defeated and heartbroken. And Genn essentially goes “Oh ish. These are people”.
He’d only really interacted with them on a battlefield before. You’ve to dehumanize the enemy to survive any war, and the Forsaken didn’t exactly make that hard to do. He’d never seen them as people before.
But then she keeps writing.
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There’s context here you are missing. The Shadowlands time works in mysterious ways, you could spend Aeons in the Maw and only 5 minutes in the real world have passed, or you could spend Aeons in the Maw and come back to your bones being turned to dust (having been gone centuries) that’s the risk Sylvanas’s punishment is talking, and she’s punished to stay there until she has freed every soul, so it’s possibly a death sentence itself.
That and once the task is complete that’s not when she’s going to come back fully resolved of her crimes, this is just the beginning of her road to atonement. Tyrande vows that Sylvanas will never be given mercy or will never know peace. I don’t understand why some people take that and twist it as ultimate forgiveness…it’s worse than what Illidan got. Illidan just got to chill out in prison for 10 thousand years.
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I feel you there, she wrote the best interaction between Alonsus, Turalyon and Genn at the Gathering, and then wrote Sylvanas having an ooc adult temper tantrum… So frustrating!
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Because they’re invoking the Christological motif of Harrowing Hell
And we all know they’re invoking this to put her in a Glass Box to break at a later date, since she’s the only Horde Power Ranger for the Cosmic Forces
Insisting one needs to do more beyond Harrowing Hell for penitence is just F-Tier Soteriology.
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This is just Tyrande letting Sylvanas repair a tiny fraction of the pain and suffering she caused. It’s weird you think this is a horrible punishment when it’s just her fixing some of the suffering she caused, this is beyond merciful, this is far better than she ever deserved. What’s horrible is genocide and knowingly sending everyone you kill to the maw to be tortured (and some having their souls obliterated). Additionally Illidan didn’t do anything close to what Sylvanas did, so it’s not even in the same realm of comparisons.
Also from a meta perspective we know unless they are killing her in this judgement, it’s not going to be a death sentence, she’s just going to be on ice because of how much focus she got for the last few expansions, especially in Shadowlands being essentially all about her with basically destroying every character in shadowlands to lift her up.
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I’d wager the temper tantrum was golden and the other bits were CDev
You know what they say Baal “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and the road back is paved with humility.” and I think Golden would close her book with that religious platitude if she could.