I like books. I prefer books. It’s like how movies of book adaptations don’t really do the book justice because you don’t get the internal monologue of the characters.
Wow books have existed since long before WoW, long before Danuser had a hand in this company.
I have every single WoW book, I’m not going to stop buying them any time soon. Thisvis something about the franchise I enjoy. If they turned WoW into a book series or a Netflix series (like people are asking for, like The Witcher) I would never play another day of this game. I hate min-maxing, endless grinds, borrowed power systems and pay to play, which is all WoW is nowadays.
I’ve always been story above gameplay and I understand not everyone feels that way.
I’m way more concerned about Activision profiting on transmog and customization and WoW becoming like CoD loot boxes, where they introduce ingame purchase… which I think is way more harmful to the game than Danuser having a crush on Sylvanas.
I personally do not like Sylvanas. I’m saying what I think will happen based on in-game content and leaks (plus author favoritism), not what I want to happen.
Isn’t the Sylvanas book scheduled to come out in March, or did they push the release date back again? I am curious to see how she’ll be depicted in the book.
I’m not trolling, there’s nothing else to talk about and I’m highly curious. I think her characterization is black and white, there’s nothing new I could learn so I’m interested to know what other people with different opinions on her are hoping for.
Is there any deal breakers for you?
I have headcanons for days about how this could go.
I’m hoping for:
Depictions of her staunch opposition to the Conclave of Silvermoon for thier xenophobic treatment of humans.
The story of how Lirath died (hopefully that was Nathanos’s failure and why she feels personally responsible, that’s why she called Nathanos her greatest failure. I have headcanons that this is why the BQ made him sacrifice Stephon as retibution, a loved one for a loved one)
The pressure that was put on her vs her siblings to uphold the family in their absence which ultimately lead to her death.
The tension her vanity and her job put on her relationship with Nathanos, knowing that she’d always choose her job and people over him. (But not really because that’s a huge internal struggle for her, she wants to leave it all behind but again there’s the pressure of being a Windrunner and the only one left to stay in Quel’thalas
plue she loves leading people and feels pride in her own accomplishments and that’s an okay side of vanity.)
Moving forward with her being a really patient teacher in life who has a “gentleness” about her, that was set up in both Dark Mirror and A Sister is Another Word for Always. Her core character is she’s gentle and kind and also courageous. (Mirrors to Uther)
If any one of the above is met, I’ll be happy. But all of these lead me to believe she’s not being written off in Shadowlands, there’s still so much more story they could tell with her, now that her soul is restored and she’s no longer a one dimensional villian.
Sylvanas’ story has been retconned and flip-flopped so much, the only thing I hope is that this story doesn’t go the “Sylvanas did nothing wrong” angle… and any bad stuff she carried out was because of Arthas/Zovaal/it’s anyone’s fault but Sylvanas’. It it does that, that would be a deal breaker.
What direction do you think Sylvanas’ story could possibly go after Shadowlands? The story’s going to have to end sooner or later, and I think this expansion is a good point for Sylvanas’ swansong.
The story is already doing this by making Arthas and Ner’zul not fully in control of thier actions, why would that be any different for Sylvanas? it’s all but confirmed at this point that this is the route they are going. Sylvanas was a pawn of Zorvaal, she had an incomplete soul which made her increasingly easier to control when Zorvaal broke free and started flexing his power in mid Legion onwards.
for the immediate future I think she’s going to go on a personal journey, which is good because I think there was always conflict bettween Sylvanas’s personal goals and whatever the current goal of the Horde/Forsaken were. I hope she does try to heal her relationship with her sisters.
I think at some point she is going to have to deal with what she did the the Forsaken but I think there’s already groundwork for the Forsaken to re-accept her because the Forsaken themes under Calia and Lillian are about not choosing to be the monster fate dealt them as a hand, this will include Sylvanas.
I don’t necessarily think her story needs to end, but I wouldn’t mind her going back to being a background character. I really don’t like the idea that franchises have to kill off fan favorite characters, not unless it was for a damn good reason, like Varian’s death for example.
Oh now that would really…really make the anti-Sylvanas types salty (not that they need even more salt). Calia being used as the catalyst to reintroduce Sylvanas to the Forsaken as a culturally important and relevant figure. Sure there are wounds that need healing between Sylvanas and the Forsaken but…my god, I would pay to see the reaction to Calia welcoming Sylvanas with open arms.
Well, you know me I love to make anti-Sylvanas people salty.
But this is just my hopes for the character without considering the effects on anyone else. This is what I would personally love to see. I would love to see not only Calia declare Sylvanas the true leader of the Forsaken but for them to both reclaim Lordaeron for the Forsaken together… can you imagine?
A legitimate soverign kingdom belonging to the Forsaken.
I think they’re just rewriting the story to find a way to let their precious Sylvanas off the hook for her crimes. Retconning Arthas and Ner’zhul, shoehorning in the Jailer, having Uther shill her. But that’s doesn’t fly with me. Like I say, if one has to rewrite the story after it’s published, they did something wrong. iirc, don’t you think that this is a bad story decision because it takes agency away from Sylvanas?
Until later expansions, the Forsaken were in lockstep with Sylvanas. Sylvanas needs to give something for all the crime’s she’s committed - if she’s truly contrite, she’ll do something to make up for them. Plus, after everything she’s done, I don’t think Calia, Lilian or anyone she’s wronged wanting to punish Sylvanas for her actions makes them monstrous. One of my more recent but larger criticisms of the story of WoW is that morality in the story seemed to be based on which characters the writers like.
I’m burnt out on Sylvanas. While I’d prefer her to be punished or atone in some way for her many crimes, I just want her gone.
While it’s true you don’t have to kill off fan favorite characters, there’s no reason to keep Sylvanas alive other than favoritism for the character at this point.
I think, at this point, doing anything else with Sylvanas’ story other than ending it requires better writers than Blizzard currently has.
Yes, in a way. I’m not a fan of the retcon of Edge of Night to be when Syvanas first became aligned with the jailer. My own interpretation of Edge of the Night was that the Valkyr choose to follow her willingly because they saw her as a better alternative to following the Lich King. This was the story that was essentially robbed of Sylvanas fans when the narrative was retconned… and it was received terribly by Sylvanas fans. We wanted more agency, we wanted the Valkyr to choose Sylvanas and for them to have agency- but look at what they did with the Nine, they made them agents of the Jailer and basically Sylvanas’s handlers.
Sylvanas needs to give something for all the crime’s she’s committed, the thing is, the only crimes she’s commited are against the Alliance, her legitimate enemy. You are seeking vindication for being victimized as an Alliance player for Sylvanas’s crimes against your faction. While yeah, that’s an argument to make, the same argument can be made towards the Alliance. Genn attacked her in Stormheim and threatened to wipe out her entire race, can he apologize for that? that was a rhetorical question because no, I don’t expect that. I just want the story to go back to the status quo of factions barely tolerating each other.
Totally valid, I’m not going to knock your feelings. My personal feelings are, I haven’t gotten enough of Sylvanas. She’s been a background character for so long. She hasn’t gotten any real development or even a steady characterization since being introduced in WC3. We know very little about her, for someone who is so saturated in the narrative, we still know so little about her that her fans have to convince others that the small amount of information we know isn’t just headcanon.
I feel like Sylvanas fans need to be shown that we are respected members of this community, the last two years really haven’t felt that way and it’s because this story facilitated that abuse by making Loyalists targets of both factions. The least Blizzard can do is give us something positive, even if that leads to Sylvanas being AWOL for a bit.
Outright killing her now would be the most offensive thing they could possibly do and I don’t see them ostracizing a part of their fan base like that even if it will make the most vocal and visible fans happy.
Jaina is particularly egregious in this expansion. There are many other characters far more relevant to Sylvanas and Tyrande and Anduin that aren’t in the story right now. It would be one thing if Arthas had a large role to play…but there is just no reason to have Jaina here being the foil. Jaina’s story evolved beyond Arthas long ago.
I love Laura Bailey’s acting as much as the next person, but this is just overkill at this point.
The Crossroads cinematic was just so cringe, I would have been less cringe if she didn’t just attack the Zandalari. And now her whole “I will never forgive/trust [Sylvanas]” she flips like a pancake, does she want peace or doesn’t she? The whole message that we are not the people we were in the past, and we can choose to be different, is already lost on her.
I saw Sylvanas gaining the Val’kyr as them seeking a master after Lich King Arthas died, and they found Sylvanas the best option, but maybe it’s what you said.
Her only crimes are against the Alliance? What about Eyir? The Desolate Council? Thomas Zelling?
I think it’d take more than an apology from Genn to make up for what he did. Genn was wrong about the Horde “betraying” them on the Broken Shore, that should’ve been acknowledged. Along with Genn’s “brilliant” idea to abandon the war against the Legion to take down Sylvanas. Though I’m not sure if he was trying to wipe out Sylvanas’ race, or just kill Sylvanas herself.
From my perspective, Genn’s actions were also in response to the Forsaken decimating his homeland, displacing his people and killing his son (which Sylvanas herself did, then mocked Genn about it before his body was cold).
What do you want to know about Sylvanas that we don’t already know? She’s got more lore than almost any other WoW character (including several older ones like Malfurion and Deathwing).
How you feel Sylvanas fans are being treated… Night Elf fans, for one, feel the same way, especially after the Burning of Teldrassil and how the story is literally bending over backwards to absolve Sylvanas of her role in that. I feel the same way about the asinine villain-batting of Yrel’s group.
I’m not saying Sylvanas has to be killed off, I just want her story over and done with. I do share an appreciation for Laura Bailey’s voice and find Jaina - as much as I like her - to be overused and increasingly poorly written.
I want to talk about these specifically. One Eyir, sure but that was a crime against Eyir herself and Sylvanas was technically punished for that, she lost the means to gain immortality for herself and her people. The Desolate Council are dead, she can’t exactly spologize to them, but what she can do, with healing the rift between her and her sisters, is to become more open to the idea of Forsaken rekindling relationships with their living relatives, so the Desolate Council didn’t die in vain. The only person that Sylvanas would need to made ammends with over Zelling’s death (outside Zelling himself) is Lillian. This could be something that is dealt with when Sylvanas is re-accepted into the Forsaken. I really don’t see any of these things as long term conflicts or setbacks Sylvanas has to face, but they are expected for character development.
One of the things I really liked from Before the Storm was the relationship between Genn and Alonsus Foal, I don’t necessarily think Genn needs to apologize to Sylvanas for Genn to grow as a character, as long as he makes meaningful strides to deal with his grief without looking for someone to blame, that would be a huge step for him. Him not blaming Sylvanas and just accepting that Liam sacrificed himself for Genn would be a big step.
That’s not entirely true, we got to know Deahtwing as Lord Prestor, he appeared as a major character in the lore. Between WC2 and Before the Storm Sylvanas has had just a few chapters in Arthas and a paragraph in Tides of Darkness, and small flashbacks in Edge of Night about what she was like when she was alive. That’s it.
