I’ve come to realize that most games, animes, and lots of shows have hidden mysticism and ancient beliefs engraved in them. World of warcraft for example has a lot of old philosophical ideas and mythology in it. One that intrigues me the most is the idea of free will.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t sargeras want to destroy the world because he believes existence is cruel and unfair? Also, Arthas also had a similar ideology when he became the lich king? I could be wrong please correct me.
Anyways, Ive always wondered if we lived in side of some advanced
computer simulation controlled by evil gods. if this is true it would explain a lot of weird phenomena’s like the “Mandela Effect”. When you think about existence, in order for something to live, something else has to die or suffer.
Is sylvanas secretly trying to tell us something? she said this world is a prison and she will set us free, then cracked the glass like sky indicating that we are trapped in some type of enclosure. Now she is saying we dont truly have free will. what are your thoughts?
Sargeras was freaked out by the Void. Of how absolute its corruption extended, even titans weren’t immune to it. He saw life as a flawed existence and sought to purge it by fire in the hopes it would restart again without that flaw. But the end result is everyone dies so yeah.
Zovaal and Sylvanas have different motives. She doesn’t like the Arbiter system, believing people should be able to choose their afterlife. And that even in life you’re bound by circumstances outside your control, like Arthas demolishing the elves. Zovaal has a more personal vendetta against the Eternals.
Good and evil can be subjective, but if you look at their actions what are they doing so far? Nothing but destruction, torture, suffering. He built an army to rival the Legion and that’s obviously not going to be for peace, armies are made for war. He’s not stopping there either, Azeroth’s titan is on the list too.
Denathrius said when all is said and done the only dominant power left in the universe would be Death. Any moral messages of free will are kind of irrelevant. How someone acts tells you all you need to know if it’d be beneficial to let them win or not. Zovaal’s already proven he cares little about others, even abandoning his own partners, and his idea of free will is under his iron boot. As ironic as that is.
The existence of a perceived greater good does not downplay a character’s evil. Sargeras, Arthas, Sylvanas - all these characters did what they did under the pretense of “saving us” from a bigger threat doesn’t magically undo the widespread horrors they’ve committed.
“You can’t be taken by the Void if you’re dead” or “you can’t have your free will taken if you’re dead” are both technically true, but it’s faulty logic that ignores everything else taken. What they’ve done is the equivalent of me telling my doctor I have some soreness in my hand, and in return, he saws off my arm. Yeah, my hand’s not sore anymore, but I have no friggin’ arm.
Past that, there is no hard evidence that Warcraft is contained in an enclosure (yes, it IS a video game, but in the lens of Warcraft, it’s an actual universe) outside of “it COULD be.” Which… yeah, it could be a story they tell, but so is literally anything. Further than that, if Sylvanas somehow knows this enclosure exists, there are better ways to tell us that than mass murder.
"Good and evil can be subjective, but if you look at their actions what are they doing so far? Nothing but destruction, torture, suffering. "
good point.
“What they’ve done is the equivalent of me telling my doctor I have some soreness in my hand, and in return, he saws off my arm. Yeah, my hand’s not sore anymore, but I have no friggin’ arm.”
I understand what you’re saying, but from sylvanas point of view, i think its more about ending suffering. if your arm is cut off it will be sore temporarily but eventually it wouldnt. however you will still suffer because you no longer have an arm.
Giving a villain a point of view or explaining what their reasoning is does not magically make them somehow less evil. As for Sylvanas, looking at EVERYTHING she’s done - commit genocide, cause a world war to kill everyone on both sides, inflict horrible suffering on all realms of the afterlife, and aid the forces of the Mawsworn in the unraveling of numerous souls’ existence - it’s largely impossible to say that any of Sylvanas’s ends justify her means now.
Lass. It dinnae matter. At a certain point, “good intentions” are just a self-delusion. The rhetoric we tell ourselves so we can keep sleepin’ at night. Her end goal could be to guarantee our future’s all gumdrops and rainbows. An’ I’ll tell ye right now. The people she’s tortured and killed? No river of maple syrup is gonna stop them from trying to choke out whatever passes for life in her shrivelled husk.
I probably won’t be the one to put ‘er down… but I’ve etched her name on a bullet o’ mine all the same. You’d best believe plenty o’ folks have done the same, because she crossed a line.
All I see from all this is one evil vanquished only to give rise to another. Whose going to be the next arrogant whelp after Zovaal? Or will we be stuck in a time loop and start it all over again with Garosh Hellscreams idiocy reigning supreme over the horde?
Good and Evil are flawed concepts as there may be concepts that are near universally accepted as “Evil” there are far more that are based off the morals of a particular group, and if another group has a differing base of morals then which is the evil one?
Instead of looking at whether or not Sylvanas and the Jailer are Evil we can use some words that are more defined universally. Are they Malicious; Yes, they both revel in the feeling of hopelessness in their victims and are actively pursuing complete annihilation of peoples existence. Are they Selfish; the Jailer yes as his entire crusade is based off of his own desire for revenge not in the interest of souls under his care, Sylvanas is less clear at this time but as of BfA it seems fairly clear that she cares primarily for her self.
I find going through defined characteristics is far easier than playing Minor Evil for Greater Good.
Beliefs do not excuse nor change the nature of actions. If you do evil, you ARE evil, no matter how you justify it to yourself. A good example is Devos minions, they’re bloody nasty in their dialogue and actions while making their “Our cause is righteous!” noises.
I wouldn’t ascribe too deep a thought process for Sylvanas since she has made it pretty clear what her wishes are. She doesn’t like the way things are now. She believes beings in the WoW universe have no say in their fate. She had a bad experience when she jumped of Icecrown and then decided to find ways to never have to experience that again, by various means that were only partly successful. With a bit of retconning Blizzard would have us believe that she met up with Zovaal when she did her jump and they made some sort of deal. Presumably part of that deal would be setting it up so she could decide where she went if she died again. And it was her opinion that the living relied too much on existing in the present without any concern about their future beyond that, and that hope was a futile thing since it could never lead to anything good.
She is driven by self-interest to the point that life has no value for her; hence her being able to destroy Teldrassil and kill every living thing there without a twitch of conscience. She sees life as pointless, so she sees the living as pointless. To her, only the afterlife matters because everyone ends up there eventually. What happens before that is irrelevant to her.
I think ‘evil’ is subjective. The truly bad never see themselves as evil, they always have justification for what they do. Is Sylvanas evil? If evil means content to make others suffer for what you see as advantageous, then I’d say yes. She never made any attempt to let the living of Azeroth know what she had discovered and what the afterlife held for them. She just did what she did because she knew better. The difference between her and the Lich King is very slight.
White Wolf had an interesting alternative to alignment when it came out with Vampire the Masquerade.
It had a Humanity rating from 0 to 10. 10 meant you were a saint who literally would not hurt a fly if they could avoid it. the scale was defined by the acts where you would draw a line. the details I’ll paste below.
Humanity Ratings
A vampire’s Humanity rating reflects how much of a character’s mortal nature remains despite the curse of Caine. It influences how well a character may deny her vampiric state, as well as how effectively she may pass for mortal.
Rating
Moral Standards
10
Saintly
9
Compassionate
8
Caring
7
Normal
6
Distant
5
Removed
4
Unfeeling
3
Cold
2
Bestial
1
Horrific
Hierarchy of Sins
Humanity
Rating Moral Guideline
10 Selfish thoughts.
9 Minor selfish acts.
8 Injury to another (accidental or otherwise).
7 Theft.
6 Accidental violation (drinking a vessel dry out of starvation).
5 Intentional property damage.
4 Impassioned violation (manslaughter, killing a vessel in Frenzy).
3 Planned violation (outright murder, savored exsanguination).
2 Casual violation (thoughtless killing, feeding past satiation).
1 Utter perversion or heinous acts.
A Humanity of 0 indicates no moral values. Such a creature only knows to sleep, feed, and kill. The vampire becomes a wight.
On this scale evil is measured by the lines a character draws. What line does Sylvannas or Arthas for example stop at… or your character?
Well it seems to me that the over used theme of all the villains’ is a complete breakdown of the mortal races so it could be remade in another image or theme. I don’t think the Jailer is to different but he has had some power overall.
What I think the Jailer has been selling to Sylvanas is that she had no control of her fate. That her suffering is the result of this Arbitor’s plan and as far as she see’s it, this grand architect is responsible for all her suffering.
Why is the Arbitor comatose, I have a theory that Sylvanas was most likely responsible for it.
Who is the Jailer and what are his goals? What’s clear is that he’s feeding or hording this anima resource. His means to his ends aren’t really clear right now. None of the villains’ means to the end were clear until they were defeated. But what is clear, at least for me is; Sylvanas is eating out of someone hand and it’s pathetic.
Someone that believes that his or her talents or power came from some divine greater being is just as stupid as someone that believes that his or her suffering comes from that same being. In my opinion.
There was a series I was watching called Mr. Robot and spoilers for the show if you wanna keep reading…
The main villain of the story White Rose, believed that she built a machine that could rewrite history. So whatever heinous acts she and her army committed, the means justified the ends. Members of her army were sold on the idea, including some of the main cast, that seemed downright crazy.
That’s kind of what I’m seeing.
Yes we were left in a kind of a crossroads with Sylvanas and Anduin, but I really never would have guessed that Sylvanas would be a poster child of misplaced loyalty.
Interesting point here from a double below the knee amputee. I have no feet, but… there is still something called phantom pain. I sometimes feel pain in my non-existent feet. The reason is that the nerves have been cut and what’s left has been rerouted along with what used to be my calves. when there is pain or itching those nerves still send signals to my brain and the brain has a faulty map of my nerves and thinks the itch or cramp is coming from some part of my foot or ankle. The analogy, is that you have every right and no one can fault you for believing cutting your limb off will stop the pain or corruption from spreading and thus no pain. But you, you still might be wrong. there might still be some suffering going on. what if Sylvanis never intended it to go this far? What if she is having regrets. look at the cinematic again. when Anduin becomes Arthas 2.0 and the jailer is giving that speech, Sylvanis’s thoughtful look at Anduin is very intriguing . I’d love to see a thought bubble over her head at that moment.
Motivations and beliefs don’t change the fact that both were deep end evil sociopaths. When you judge someone you always take the worst of their actions and intentions. Evil actions with good intentions… good actions with evil intentions… they both score as evil.
Perspective is what shapes definitions of good or evil.
Self interest is what shapes definitions of good or evil.
In wows universe you have to look at things from your characters perspective, not your own: you live in morally different universes.
With all the struggles our characters have been through, and all the learning they have gone through perspectives must have changed.
We think we know why sargeras did what he did, we think we know more about the relationship between the light and the void.
We dont know who the first ones were, nor do we know their original plan.
We do know something went wrong, the jailer banished to the maw… the shadowlands are not “working as intended”.
We know the light attacked the shadowlands…
We know the void attacked the shadowlands…
We have been warned of catastrophe by nzoth and due to our limitations (we are not eternals, gods or titans) are used by these forces to seemingly avert said catastrophe.
But these forces have their own primal agendas, and thus working for one can put us at odds with the others.
We dont know why azeroth is so important, it should just be another titan… but controlling what sphere? Titans impose order, their is a titan of life… but no titan of death yet.
Is azeroth the titan of death?
How are the shadowlands supposed to work? how did the jailor get his job wrong? or did he see one of the others failing/falling and take the wrong action to correct it?
Did the other eternals jail the wrong one? easy to sway opinions among your peers if the liked one is the victim of the loathed one… denathrius changed his opinion…
As blizzard reveals more lore, or explains what it has already revealed, then with knowledge we can gain a better perspective.
I’ve been doing a lot of old legacy raids and a lot of the bosses have claimed that they can see a hidden truth that we can’t see. Algalon the Observer, Star Augur Etraeus, and some of the Old God fights and I’m wondering is the reality of the situation ever going to be revealed? That someone is going to realize that this is all a computer game?
It seemed a few of the bosses were peeling back the layers of the onion. There was a time Star Augur Etraeus was screaming, “Let me show you the reality of our world!!”
And I thought it was going to be a bunch of people sitting at computer screens, but low and behold, it was just a bunch of flashy yellow lights and boss phases that didn’t make sense to me.
Honestly, it would be justified that some of these villain’s would be upset that their reality was nothing but an entertainment commodity. I mean think of us as the players and how much control we don’t have over the plot of the story in an interactive game. If the truth were revealed. Everything Sylvanas has been saying to Anduin would be true. As a citizen of Azeroth, NOT a player, they don’t have choices, and I quote, "They are breaking a system that has always been broken. " and “Every decision is made for them.”
Honestly, I’m wondering if the creators are going to self-insert themselves into the game. I would compare it to Bran Stark from Game of Thrones and spoilers for GoT.
He literally became George RR Martin when he became the Three Eyed Raven and able to see everything that has happen and will happen. I’m not saying Blizzard should do that but it would be kind of interesting if when you wiped on the Jailer he would look into the cameras and say, “I see you… You don’t get to play anymore!” And disconnect the account. Of course you would log back in with a new level of tenacity, but these are just some fantasies and speculations.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of Medivh too, who understood Sargeras and knew that he needed someone ‘with a firm hand’ to unite the Horde and Alliance under one objective. That seems to align really on par with Sylvanas’s objective in BfA and the Loyalist campaign of luring the Alliance, and the Horde to fight together against her, as the main antagonist. She conveniently pushed Tyrande to become the Night Warrior and lured both the Alliance and the Horde and Tyrande into the Shadowlands to fight the Jailer.
Gilligan understands that story comes from character, so he develops characters who give endless story, who have enough complexity and internal logic that they can twist and turn and baffle and surprise and still remain in character.
Hold up, are you saying Medivh wasn’t just possessed and kind of wanted the Legion to come? I thought he was fighting it the whole time, but being only human, wasn’t strong enough. Also, this is unsettlingly close to Wrathion’s motivation as well. I don’t like thinking of the guy who did WoD and the guy who did Warcraft in the same terms, feels weird.
