Hi,
We’re not going to know exactly what happened to Sylvanas for like months and I’m still a hot little potato about what looks like redefining a character after 17 years.
Let’s speculate: When did she actually have her soul split?
Sylvanas with an Asterisk
Before we do that, I want to complain loudly about what it means if Sylvanas is finally ‘unified’ in her soul. We don’t know what it means yet, but if you remember the Battle for Azeroth announcement like I do and the image of Sylvanas before a burning Teldrassil, then you remember that Blizzard is awful at this, and it usually means exactly what it looks like.
If she’s been reunited with her virtuous traits, we have to look at everything she does and says before that reunification with a big fat annoying asterisk to remind us she’s being influenced by an absence of her full personality and psyche. This implies that what she does while incomplete may not be the same things she would have done while complete.
Characters develop this way all the time, looking back on their deeds and wondering if they could do it over. Thrall has regrets over naming Garrosh the Warchief in his stead, but Thrall only has his own actions to reflect upon. Thrall does not get to say that the Jailer had a part of his soul held away from him, absolving him of some responsibility for the things Garrosh did. Saurfang also had regrets over what he did for the Horde, which made him different in the present than he was in the past. Thrall and Saurfang grew as a result of their history and actions. Sylvanas is about to grow because plot.
I Summon Blue-Eyes White Banshee
Whatever change she’s undergone, it’s being indicated with blue-eyes instead of red-eyes. The implication there is that anytime she had red-eyes, she’s incomplete.
So how long has she been ‘incomplete’?
Power-Slide into Frostmourne
This is the obvious one, but also the worst one. It’s obvious because it’s what we know happened to Uther and I’m pretty sure others slain personally by Frostmourne.
The reason this is the worst is because it implies that Sylvanas has been ‘incomplete’ this entire time, even in WC3, and that soul reunification might mean we have to look at everything differently and ask ourselves how much she would or wouldn’t have still done if she had her soul.
This one’s more likely because of Sylvanas’ blue eyes, which is dumb. If our only indication of her change is her blue eyes, then the implication is red eye Sylvanas is incomplete Sylvanas.
Everything points to this, it probably is this.
Self-Yeet in Edge of Night
Danuser has retroactively indicated that Kosak’s Edge of Night was when Sylvanas made contact with the Jailer. It was when she made her pact with the Val’kyr. Perhaps this was when the soul split actually happened, and that means only everything from Cataclysm onward was committed by an “incomplete Sylvanas”, but would leave her Warcraft-Wrath days relatively untouched.
Hand-Shaking with Helya
The only other point I can think of is this one, and I have no reason to back it up other than a pact being made, just like with the Val’kyr. It involves Helya, obviously, who is prominent again now, and takes place right around everything else is being ‘set up’ for where we are now. Sylvanas’ ascension to Warchief to set up everything she does in BfA, revealing Meuhzala was the voice that whispered to Vol’jin. Everything culminating now in Shadowlands wasn’t really getting planted until Legion, where this pact with Helya happened.
Looking outside of the narrative and how Blizzard does things, this also lines up interestingly. Legion was the last expansion many of the “Old Guard” were really involved in. Metzen retired early into it, Kosak was either already Creative Director for Hearthstone or moved over shortly after, and Danuser was already contributing to the lore with Dark Mirror.
This one’s also the most optimistic, because if this is where the soul split actually happens, then much more of Sylvanas is still ‘complete’ up until this point, and that also mitigates the effect of not having her soul because she was still doing some pretty sketchy things throughout (even though we know she was in league with the Jailer while active in Silverpine.
It’s Probably Awful
More than likely, given what we know, this is a change that happened from the moment she died and she only achieves her Final Form after 17 years, complete with all the good virtues that might have come into play while she was galivanting around being a capricious little turd and because of which we can no longer hold her completely responsible or contemptible for her actions.
Bravo.