Lady Sylvanas Windrunner: In the end, death claims us all. But the Horde will live on.
Battle for Azeroth:
Anduin Wrynn: When Sylvanas realized the war was on the cusp of ending, she lured both fleets into Azshara’s hands. Not to find victory, but to meet death.
Varok Saurfang: “In the end, death claims us all.” Eitrigg told me those were among the last words Sylvanas spoke to Vol’jin.
Did Saurfang forget Sylvanas’s second statement? Did Eitrigg forget Sylvanas’s second statement? Did the writers forget Sylvanas’s second statement? Did the writers hope the players would forget Sylvanas’s second statement? Does it matter when the writers will just say it was a pretense and Sylvanas was lying? =/
I don’t think they forgot. They are indeed going with her having been lying, as Danuser answered at the Blizzcon Q&A:
As for why Sylvanas would lend an arrow to aid Varian, there was a long term strategy where Sylvanas needed to get into a position where she could take over the mantle of Warchief, and she couldn’t do that if she was aggro and everyone was against her, so she had to bide her time, and now we’re seeing the fruition of that in Shadowlands.
I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree, Amadis. I can’t distance myself enough from the viewpoint that they’re cherry-picking and re-interpreting every statement to read in the worst possible light, along with a healthy dose of “she was lying” to cover up any other spots they might have missed. I see a concerted effort to change history, not a well-constructed foreshadowing effort.
We don’t really disagree, though. The foreshadowing was there and all over the place, as you pointed out, they just cherrypicked whichever one they actually wanted to go with and ignored the rest.
My favorite part of the silly master plan to cause as much death as possible is that the death toll could very likely have been higher if she just did nothing. If she didn’t start the war and the Horde and Alliance didn’t intervene in Zandalar and Kul Tiras, the threats present on each would have wiped out the Zandalari and Kul Tirans then become considerably harder to defeat before the factions became aware of them.
I’ve wondered if the writing team realized towards the end of BfA that Sylvanas failed to achieve everything she was supposedly trying to do throughout the expansion (start a war to prevent a war, kill hope, fracture the Alliance, win the war, whatever shenanigans she planned for the abyssal scepter and for Derek Proudmoore). So then they decided she didn’t want to achieve any of it because it would be difficult to take her seriously as a villain otherwise.
Then why do they defend blizzards actions I get the culture thing but Sylvanas was always evil like see what I mean people are defending what Sylvanas did in the war of thorns like lol I am getting mixed messages of about the story direction
That’s what warcraft loves doing: Evil characters we dismiss as lying because liars=evil therefore evil=liars, which is of course a stupid way of thinking, actually tell us the uncomfortable truths.
Very seldom is what the shadow or the legion saying wrong. Unless it’s a threat of killing us because haha no. No, I think not. You die first.
But I haven’t seen much Shadow prophesy come out proven false.
We might be going into the Troll afterlife to kill dead trolls again, to free trolls from their own religion, and kill off the Troll equivalent of Elune. If they go that route I highly suspect it doesn’t really matter that Bwon’s history with Troll-kind far outdates that of our current Shadowlands “breaking” issue; as well as him claiming to actually predate the entire Troll species. As such, it is very possible they wont care about Elune either.
However … I would like to hope both are treated with respect.
Seams like that Bwonsamde’s relationship to the Jailor is very similar to Sylvannas’.
He’s revered as the “god of death” to the Zandalari but he seams to be more like Grim Reaper; He probably does predate the Troll Empire (not so sure about them as a species) but the Jailer is probably a recent usurper to the natural order, binding Bwonsamde to do his bidding in some way as he now has Sylvannas working for him.
I really hope they do something better, that Elune is more likely the counterpart to Bwonsamde/Jailer and is actually working to restore the nature order.
We actually don’t know who Bwon’s boss is, but I should remind people that Bwon has gone out of his way to circumvent the apparent natural order of the Shadowlands. He is apparently funneling the souls of his worshipers directly into his little corner of it; avoiding the system of the Arbiter and the Jailer altogether. I also wonder exactly why Vol’jin would need to get abducted into some hidden corner of presumably the Maw, if he would have been happily locked away in de Otherside where he was contractually obligated to go anyway?
Bwon is shifty, and clearly loves toying with the living; but he’s never been portrayed as anything but dutiful to being a caretaker of the dead. His duty has never been too the living, so he can play with them all he wants. For all we know Elune could be his boss, with that Blood Moon motif of his. Just one face of the moon among many. Or its Hakkar … but that guy hasn’t had an ounce of relevance since Cata; with G’huun even infringing on a mantel he once held solo … the Loa of Blood. All we know is that Bwon is friggen ancient … so his boss should be too.
Unless part of the deal Bwonsamde has is that he gets to keep some souls for his own to fuel his own power but select powerful souls (Vol’jin) are reserved for who he serves.
And … if that is the case then it sure as hell will firmly cement the Darkspear as the single most hated PC race in this game; not that it will shut the NEs up. Bwonsamdi is their patron loa. It doesn’t matter if they “Loa” up Vol’jin, the utter destruction of their culture, religion, and lore that does heavily revolve around the Loa of the Dead would be the equivalent of Elune getting villain batted.
I’m not really sure that would be the case. I mean, if we store order, put Bwonsamde back into his position of JUST the Caretaker/Boatman role instead of the Hades role he has become, and have someone else take over the Jailer’s duties (Vol’jin or Arthas), then we could probably keep their culture, religion, and lore pretty much intact.
But Bwonsamdi didn’t get in his current position because of whatever disorder is effecting the Shadowlands. He got it by making a deal with Zandalar’s King, to clean up a mess that was largely created by said King’s deep neglect and fixation on a glorious past that didn’t represent the present. I’m not saying he should remain the current patron of the Zandalari, but I dont see the correlation with what is wrong with the Shadowlands and his current position.
Outside of that, I stand by my point, Villain Batting Bwon and having us attack him in the Troll afterlife to save them from their own religion would be every bit as catastrophic to the Trolls as WoD was to the Orcs. Not that I should be surprised if it happened. The Horde races and their cultures are apparently only allowed to be portrayed as inferior, wrong, and evil from conception … and Blizz will constantly spit on their lore whenever possible.