Well, he’s a troll chief. They’re always talking about spirits.
Yeah, almost as if people thought she had some character development in the intervening 9 years and might have been growing over time into a better character, and that statement from 9 years prior might not have been the entirely of her character anymore.
…until Blizzard ran out of villains again and couldn’t think up any new ones, and did they only thing they know how to do.
Or her internal thoughts that literally only the reader is aware of.
By world, I take you mean USA? The country with the biggest share of cases and fatalities in regard to it’s population? The one that was not only the slowest to get on board with the game plan, but has the largest amount of citizen resistance to doing the right thing?
The point still stands, the world had plenty of warnings and yet nothing was ever done. Similarly, the Horde, while having had plenty of horrible experience with so call “spirits” have the beneficial encouters with them as well. So if anything they have the benefit of being more gullible er I mean trusting.
Again, maybe if they didnt keep burying their history it might not have happened. Even Thrall himself had a bad habit of glossing over the little details about Grom when he talked to Garrosh. The fact is, Warcraft’s universe is part of a seemingly unending cycle and the people of Azeroth dont seem to learn/keep what they learned for very long.
To be fair other European countries did get affected and some seemed to have forgotten some of the lessons as well. Regardless, again my point stands. Saying that a fictional race would never do something so dumb when it seems to be the repeating theme of our own world borders on denial of how idiotic/complacent some people can be when it suits them.
It doesn’t because of the time, impact, number of people are all quite different.
Or if the writers wrote them as reasonable, it wouldn’t have happened.
This should be the biggest tip off that the writers can’t agree on anything with her character. If we can’t believe a characters inner monologue, that makes it pretty difficult to believe the thoughts of any character. Genn thinks he hates Sylvanas. Plot twist: He has the hots for her!
Or maybe Sylvanas has the power to break the 4th wall and lie to the readers now. I wouldn’t put it past Blizzard tbh.
You assume reasonable is the normal response. As the saying goes, common sense is not that common. Unreasonable responses are probably just as likely.
Again, you assume most people actually know it was Kil’jaden who tricked the orcish people. And again, said information was probably not as well known due to the fact orcish history was not discussed as widely or avoided all together by the very people who experienced it.
Not in all cases, no. Here it is pretty glaring it didn’t even come up.
I’m not talking about most people. Just the people in charge. Lor’themar, Baine, or any of the leaders like Cromush or Saurfang.
Do they even know it was Kil’daeden who tricked the orcs? And even if they did, sans Lor’thermar most of them do believe in the wisdom of the spirits.
Well the Horde is a dictatorship. I doubt there was any reason for it to come up.
They should at least know the Legion tricked the Orcs.
Except we have a direct challenge of that right after this.
It was a chaotic event and nothing suggested Vol’jin was being manipulated at the time especially considering Slyvanas’ actions were in service to the Horde(at least on the surface).
The challenge took a while to occur and even then it too extraordinary events to unfold to even occur.
The fact there’s a history of entities masquerading as ‘spirits’ and such a massive Legion invasion gives rise to doubt.
And it should have happened sooner.
Gift cards to Starbucks?
An ice cream party that they have to cater?
Thoughts and prayers?
But if it was decided that early, then what’s your explanation for the BfA cinematic? Or the reason for Metzen being surprised at how BfA started?
Metzen was surprised at Teldrassil. As far as I’m aware, he never mentions being surprised about the general direction they finally decided on for Sylvanas herself. Nor should he be, considering that half of the tug-o-war of her characterization had been around at least since Cata.
Since her death in ICC, it has been a part of her … with the Silverpine dialogue of Cata being keenly aware of her shift towards reflecting the Lich King. Her actions revolving Koltira Deathweaver in that same expansion were overlooked largely because he was not “Forsaken”, just “Undead”. Even though it was a pretty clear sign past EoN where her real thoughts on “Free Will” lied. Then in Legion, in Stormheim, they have her pull a line extremely reflective of the peak moment of Arthas’ betrayal of his people; while Sylvanas makes still secret deals with bitter death gods.
EDIT: As for the BfA cinematic, as shallow and cheap as it is. Sylvanas knows how to rally troops and inspire them to fight for her. She didn’t lead her Forsaken into Northrend to help her claim her vengeance by telling them that they were expendable tools for that purpose. She convinced them she cared. She convinced them she’s doing what she’s doing with their best interest at heart. It was a mask she put on to convince them to do what interests her. And at its core, the BfA cinematic wasn’t much different I suppose. You’re not going to get an entire faction of players to want to buy and pay for 2 full years of story to buy … by telling them their leader thinks their tools worth discarding. Its not the first game cinematic that’s been misleading… I doubt it will be the last.
No, I don’t know of that either, but why would he write the cinematic the way he did if he was expecting them to make her the villain?
I just think they would have tipped off the audience to this idea–in her opening narration, for example–if they meant for us to see her cynically fooling the troops into following her.
You will if you want to sell them on the idea that they’re going to hate and oppose this leader. You want to make them want to overthrow her.
She’s never been that transparent. She knows how to put on a good face and spin a narrative. She’s been great that since she was alive, she was phenomenal at it in WC3. Even back then you have her Dread Lords commenting and complementing on how truly Dread Lord her tactics have become. Plus, it was the “audience” they were trying to fool a bit don’t you think? It business.
As for her dialogue in the cinematic itself “We have paid the price for sharing this world, and we have forgotten what makes us strong”. I mean, my god, could you get anymore vague? Its dribble that sounds nice, but with absolutely no context. We don’t know who she’s referring to with “we”. By extension we don’t know who we’re sharing the world with. We don’t know even what we’ve forgotten. And none of this is answered in BfA at any point.
Nothing within the cinematic beyond her “FOR THE HORDE!” moment really portrays her as this amazing leader who cares for the faction. Simply one who has the strength and charisma to rally them when she realizes their lines are buckling. She’s not gonna get out there, go all Banshee Mode, and scream “FOR ME!!!” is she? No, that’s a terrible way to motivate people lol!
She’s narrating directly to the audience at the beginning. She’s got no one to fool.
And speaking of inner monologue, let’s not forget Before the Storm. Apparently no one told Christie Golden about the plan either, or she wouldn’t have put in that stuff about how Sylvanas was trying to save the Forsaken through her deal with Helya.
Yes, that argues against them having a strong and unified plan when that cinematic was made. I think Metzen wasn’t given a template for which way Sylvanas was going to go in BfA, and so he wrote some lines that were open to multiple interpretations so that no matter what was decided, they’d more or less fit.
Of course the troops in the video need to be convinced. But the audience doesn’t have to be.
Yes they do, when half your audience depends on being convinced to buy your product.
Seriously consider for the moment just how much Blizz lied to us throughout this expansion? Why on Earth should the BfA cinematic be any different? Hell, the Legion cinematic was a massive Lie. We see Varian and Sylvanas riding in fighting the Legion as a united front … it immediately transitions to the Horde lines buckling; Varian dying; the Alliance blaming the Horde for his death; and Sylvanas never once fighting the Legion in the entire expansion after that intro. REMOVED WoD has this amazing buildup to this invading Unified Orc-Tech Draenor, and it amounts to nothing. They get pushed back in like a day … they weren’t even a challenge.
But, I’m certain those cinematics alone sold a ton of copies of both games.
EDIT: As for BTS, Sylvanas’s dialogue is all over the board, but the one thing she never drifts away from is referring to “Her People” in a possessive sense. Its always super vague as to HOW she cares about them, because she clearly does to some degree. She even makes a passing comment about regretting “giving them” Free Will if I recall correctly. And that entire finale at the Gathering was PEAK EoN Sylvanas, really maintainging that death grip on her bulwark. Her tools.
Well, I disagree that making the audience believe Sylvanas was genuine was the best way to deliberately sell an expansion where she’s going to become the enemy of all life (etc.).
And it seems Blizzard agreed, because they released the Warbringers video before BfA started.
I think her direction was up in the air when the BfA cinematic was made, and the development of the Warbringers video is when the devs finally became unified in their plans.
I think you’re actually more cynical than I am. You assume that they deliberately lied to the audience from start to finish, while I think the story is disjointed because of behind-the-scenes disagreements and lack of coordination.
Oh yes, it does not paint a good picture of her, no arguments there. But it doesn’t line up with the Jailer story either.