No, but frankly it didn’t have to. All it needed to do was line up (more or less) with the version of her portrayed in EoN. And to a lesser extent, the version of her in War Crimes. This deeply selfish nihilist who’s core motivation is to avoid her eternity in hell; but her inability to truly trust others she doesn’t have full control over, and her pretty consistent disdain of having to rely on others motivated her to be self-reliant.
Combine this with the fact that her Primes were a ticking clock and her Bulwark had repeatedly failed to protect her or them on multiple occasions since Cata (especially against Genn in Stormheim) … and here we are. You don’t need to make the end destination apparent, you merely need to create a character who might reach that destination under the right circumstances.
At the very least, it points to them not agreeing on what sort of bad she was going to be, don’t you think?
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Depends. The two aren’t technically mutually exclusive.
The EoN Sylvie is portrayed as the manipulative selfish nihilist who believes death is not even escape from her torment of undeath; in fact its just plain worse. The War Crimes Sylvie adds in her general growing difficulties with trust over those she doesn’t have full control over. However, the latter one does not do away with the core motivation instilled in her within the prior, or the character portrayed. It just gives her the impetus to go to greater extremes.
In fact, really look back and try to find any point in her character arc from Cata onward where her motivation granted to her in EoN changed from “Avoid my eternal hell at all costs”. The issue is, you really cant. Or more specifically, the absence of it being present does not equate to: A) It being gone, or B) Another motive has taken its place. It was active in Cata, Sylvie barely exists in MoP or WoD, it was active again in Legion, and now we’re actually going to it in SLs.
Well–all I can say is that I remain unconvinced. But thanks for explaining how you see it.
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The Horde doesn’t exactly run a news or educational service for the peons or the grunt soldiers.
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Hence why I said in the prior post.
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Yeah, and at the end of the day that’s all this really is. When it comes to a character like Sylvanas interpretation can play a large effect. While I will freely admit that there were other elements of characters at play, and other paths her character could have gone down … the one she went down didn’t surprise me. Even without knowing the end destination of the “The Jailor”.
While there were some conflicting messages in some of the books, generally her portrayal in EoN completely recontextualized Sylvanas as a character; as well as her relationship with her Forsaken for me. She went from an Abuse victim who rose up to get revenge on her abuser, to that … plus her becoming an abuser in turn. Perpetuating the chain of abuse upon her Forsaken.
As a result, it became very difficult for me to not look at her actions throughout Cata or Legion outside of the lens of “She’s just padding out her tool, her Bulwark”. And even if she came to care for them, which I don’t doubt that she did in her own twisted way, it always remained questionable whether her care for them overshadowed their functional need to be a tool for her.
Thus, I spent a lot of time just waiting to see if two questions about her would be answered. A) What would happen in a situation where her Bulwark became as valueless to her as her Arrows? Would she discard them again?; and B) What would happen to the Horde should her Alliance of Convenience with them ever ceased to be convenient? The latter question merging with the first when she became Warchief. In BfA, I got my answers to those questions. Yes she would.
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Reparations? That’s weakness. If we’re truly strong then we will reap our vengeance to satisfaction.
The problem is we’re at the mercy of the lore writers, so god help us all.
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Coming into this really late, but I love an interesting hypothetical and they are so rare on the forums these days.
You follow the SW:ToR model of a time skip. The player character gets trapped in some way that prevents them from aging. While the player character is out of the way a massive cataclysm/conquest event occurs that includes high casualties and significant changes to the structure of the game. You don’t immediately reveal the fates of every major character, letting some characters return, discovering that others died horribly, and even having to kill others.
You make the focus of the expansion the big bad that wrecked Azeroth. Maybe you dissolve the factions. Or maybe you just dissolve the Horde, but you put the Alliance under the heel of the expansion big bad. During the expansion your character goes from member to member, learning how each of the members responded to the conquest of the world, seeing how they’ve changed, and slowly reassembling his faction. Ultimately with less baggage and hopefully with a few significant structural improvements.
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