Vol’jin- rip never forget, he would of ushered in a new age for all Horde and it’s Characters.
No longer would anyone Horde affiliates fear the Villain Bat
8 Likes
If I pushed my favored notion of a head canon Sylvanas to the max… I still would not object with what she has done so far.
I would like to see her have a “Galadriel moment”; where she has all the power her enemies think would pervert her… yet she “remains Galadriel”.
Like she has absolute power, then hands it off or shatters it… similar to what she does with the Helm of Domination. So, I can see a reason to agree with the mad dame.
She is doing more to challenge the distasteful afterlives we are obliged to than the rest of the jokers sashaying about.
I would be very happy if it culminated to her leaving the Horde (as she has), and the Horde disavowing the notion of a Warchief (as they have).
Only for the treacherous Alliance to abuse their power, forcing the Horde to beg their Warchief to return.
That would be cool. And her salvation of the Horde would win Horde brownie points while making the Alliance grumpy. Which is also good.
2 Likes
They could have taken Sylvanas to the same place that they could have taken Varian’s character back in Wrath and Cata: A faction NPC who is loved by their own faction, hated by the other guys. This would have been one of the ingredients to the sadly untouched formula called “Decently Written Faction War”.
It’s kind of like this: A character who’s loyal to their particular faction does morally questionable things to the enemy in the name of victory for their own team, thus earning hero points for their guys and hatred from the enemy.
A perfect example of this could have been presented for Alliance by allowing Varian be the perpetrator behind the attempted abduction of Thrall and accompanying attempted murder of goblins at the Lost Isles.
Nope. Blizzard made it so this was done by Twilight’s Hammer guys thus washing the Alliance’s hands of any guilt.
Over the course of WoW’s history, Blizzard has gone out of their way to make anything questionable done by Alliance to have some sort of morally clean reason behind it so they wouldn’t have to be painted as dark as they could have been.
In the end all Alliance pro-war characters are inevitably turned into pro-peace nice guys by the end. It happened with Varian, it happened with Jaina, and it’ll happen with Tyrande as well, provided she survives her time in Torgast anyway.
On the flip side, Sylvanas… Well everyone saw where they took that, sadly enough. Same with Garrosh. Pro-War Horde characters are doomed to get villain-batted and turned into loot pinatas or outright killed in the Lore.
30 Likes
They could have taken Sylvanas in a number of different directions. My personal preference would have her being a character that is attempting to protect her people no matter what she has to do to do so. A good way to drive home what that might look like in a more positive way would be to restructure the War of Thornes to not be the start of the war (have the attempt to settle and reclaim the Arathi Highlands be the trigger and Azerite be what escalates it). Instead the War of Thornes takes place but when the Horde reaches Teldrasil they find it already burning and under siege by the Naga. Remembering the devastation of her own homeland Sylvanas orders her forces to aid in defending the tree and evacuating the civilians. This becomes the catalyst to end the war and offer Sylvanas a chance to grow as a character into someone who sees peace as an option.
6 Likes
she could have been… pragmatic evil. or not necessarily evil but ruthless.
i think is all what we want.
a lot of people would be hapier if for example, garrosh would be stonetalon garrosh, he would still hate the alliance, and go to war with them but not the “lets torture civillians and impale people for fun”.
so what if… instead of this “lets burn babies because an elf triggerred me” sylvanas we would have someone who would still do questionable stuff, in the name of her people/faction, someone who can be hated by the other faction but still be loved by at least a decent amount in their own.
Hell, i would have wanted someone like that in the alliance, best example for me, jaina “warbringers” someone who learned the hard way that peace was impossible so she would maybe do something questionable,to “secure the alliance” but not because she went crazy and starting eating tauren babies for breakfast but rather that she understands that it was a mistake trying peace with them, that they are a threat for the alliance and maybe the world.
She would still want to protect the alliance, she would not be necessarily evil for doing what she think is right, she would be…an antagonist for the horde and a hero of the alliance. in that way, both factions are morally in the same page, it would be… gray.
Now, not saying that i completely disliked the direction they gived to her, but still i would have liked that she be… a little more pragmatic in the war and do something that is actually questionable but necessary. sadly that think is hard when we have something like teldrassil on the other side.
i often ask myself, why this isn’t like this?
Why we can’t have these characters in our faction?
it would be because, if we do have them, maybe their “atrocities” would be too intolerable by the other faction that they would end 100 % dead? like garrosh and maybe sylvanas?
maybe teaming up to face the current world ending threat would be even harder than what already is?.
is this because they do have something fantastic planned for sylvanas character that they went this route with her?
maybe shadowlands can answer some of that.
so yes, there was other directions they could have taken, but so far, it seems like they taken the worst. because is not even a character arc… is just… cartoon villany.
11 Likes
Yes it does if you read the books and quest before it
Lol yeah the horde is so much better now right, Starting a war and attacking and killing the nelves while they fight naga bravo the horde is honorable get this guy a medal
Sylvanas had the potential to be a truly morally grey and interesting character. You know the sort of thing Blizz keeps talking about. A ruthless person who is fighting for her people’s right to exist.
14 Likes
They did my girl so dirty 
(I dont even particularly like Sylvanas but dang)
3 Likes
Victory for Sylvanas!
2 Likes
They were right to do this though. What’s the point in building a vast world with a multitudinous number of people, organizations and races with their own goals if the story is ONLY going to be about the Alliance vs Horde at every step.
The Twilight’s Hammer was an ever looming threat that was just waiting in the wings to put their own plans into motion and, of course, they’d use the hostility between the factions to that end.
That actually makes more sense then the Alliance (much less Varian, of all people) trying to pull of a military coup like that.
Fine and dandy except this seems to be the case for just the Alliance. Whenever the Horde gets fooled into doing questionable actions by some evil power behind the scenes it always seems to remain the Horde’s fault somehow.
It’d be nice if things were balanced.
21 Likes
Not really. It just shows that the Evil power in question knows which puppets to use.
Honestly, if you can’t trust the Archbishop of Stormwind’s Church of Light then who can you trust? 
*Thrall, Baine, Lor’themar, Talanji, the entire Horde Council, the entire Frostwolf Clan all raise their hands
You guys don’t count! You’re all Horde!
Do I have that right?
11 Likes
You could’ve generated some more aggressive friction via the Alliance then simply make the Horde do it again.
Guess it was easier to make Sylvannas jump off the cliff first.
2 Likes
Um, I don’t get what you’re saying.
You do realize you just countered your own point, don’t you?
The point was that when evil hides in the Alliance and does something bad, it’s never the Alliance who’s to blame.
Meanwhile when someone bad hding in the Horde does something bad, somehow the Horde still gets blamed.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed in future lore.
14 Likes
When you skirt the line of morality under the guise of “pragmatism,” you have a shorter fall into full on Villainy.
I’m not talking about someone like Sylvanas who for all intents and purposes was still Warchief of the Horde. Nor am I talking about the War of Thorns which, IMO anyway, was 100% the Horde’s fault.
I’m talking about events like Twilight’s Hammer hiding in the Horde and hiding in the Alliance during Cataclysm. Who was the Twilight’s Prophet again? It was Archbishop Benedictus, right? Nothing he did was ever really considered “the Alliance’s fault”. On the flip side if someone in the Twilight’s Hammer uses the Horde to do something bad, it’s still ends up being the Horde’s fault.
11 Likes
Benedictus betrayed the Alliance and the Alliance fully admits that he betrayed them. It’s probably the greatest betrayals against the Alliance since Arthas.
He wasn’t “the Alliance’s Fault” but he was their responsibility. They completely acknowledge that fact.
Like seriously, what is your point?
Probably the difference being that when someone uses the Alliance, he has to convince them he’s a good person trying to help them but when someone uses the Horde, they just have to appeal to their Bloodlust and/or Nationalism.
Stark contrast that the Horde buy into so easily.
1 Like