In Traveler 2, the Forsaken character has a (backstory) part about willingly leaving the Forsaken.
Sylvanas hated to see him go, but respected free will and allowed him to leave.
I can find the full quote later.
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Seriously. Slyvanas was always pretty morally bankrupt but her one saving grace, the reason she was rightfully loved by the Forsaken, was she was portrayed as legitimately respecting their free will.
Maybe she didn’t care for them. But as someone also enslaved by Arthas that was the one line even she wouldn’t cross. Forsaken can come and go as they please. As I’ve noted in fact stealing the free will of a Forsaken is seen as the highest crime in their culture. Stillwater is executed on the spot by Lydon for doing just that.
But then BtS and BFA comes around and I don’t even care that Windrunner changed. I care that the Forsaken don’t seem to react to her violating the only thing they hold sacred- their free will.
That’s what bothered me so much about the Derek storyline. There were plenty of living supporters of the Banshee Queen. It could have been any other race’s boat and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. But why are these Forsaken so willing to abide this depravity? It was a complete erasure of what little moral nuance the race had. They may kill you in horrifying ways and raise you into undeath- but they’d never enslave you.
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I don’t think it’s particularly hard to find counter-examples to the “Undercity as a thought-controlling police state” thing that randomly popped out of nowhere in BtS. I’ll bet it was just a trope randomly drawn out of the “What Bad Guys Do” hat and applied without thought.
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And what is so burning about that is it’s the one race that’s really hot about free will. That’s why I loved the Desolate Council it actually made a lot of sense to me the Forsaken would immediately invent democracy when left to their own devices.
Their racial is about free will for Christ’s sake. Why were Voss and Zelling the only ones who cared? I was expecting maybe this information about Derek and the Gathering was super need to know and that revelation would make the Forsaken turn on their Queen.
Instead. Well, it was comforting to see the Forsaken portrayed as so loyal to the Horde they’d drop their God Queen on the spot for insulting it, if only because it torpedoes the players still harping on the alliance of convenience angle but the whole thing was weird.
The Forsaken so rarely get the spotlight. It’s usually only Windrunner. And when they got it for this story they seemed to be basically a different race I was just now being introduced to.
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When did Derek ask to be released from the ritual? He didn’t. He asked Baine not to leave him alone… right before Baine walked out on him. He was never enslaved.
Sort of? See, she legitimately respected “free will” … until EoN where it was revealed that she apparently never did. The reason for this being of course is that you cannot value the will that is free of a person you only value as a tool; one that is meant to be discarded once they cease to be of use. She apparently used the dogma of Free Will to merely keep her tools in line and devoted to her; in essence cultivating a cult of personality around her … and using it to great effect.
As for why the other Forsaken apparently were “OK” with what Sylvie did to Derek, well that is also from EoN. Its the “Us and Them”, the “In-Group, Out-Group” mentality that she clearly is fostering within that short story. Its very apparent that the Forsaken were fully aware that she was just using everyone else; but they were OK with it because they believed that they were exempt from that rule. That they were not being used. So, due to this, all Sylvie really needed to do was to make up some BS arbitrary excuse as to why Derek was not truly a “Forsaken”, and therefore he’d fall into the “Out-Group” and would not necessarily be guaranteed his free will. He’s a tool. Like the Horde.
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The same Forsaken that dropped Windrunner like a hot potatoe when she bad mouthed the Horde were cool with them being used as not but tools?
This looks like a great sociology paper. I hate sociology (even though I got an “A”) and remain unconvinced. He never expressed a desire to leave until Baine convinced him otherwise. Probably by some lie, or made up story.
Ayup. See, the key was that they never believed she was using them too. At the end of the day, with how it was portrayed, I genuinely think the Forsaken were willing to look over a lot of her actions based on two very simply principles:
- They believed that she had their genuine best interest at heart, and thus even if it was tough love … it was still love. Thus, she was looking out of them, even if it hurt.
- They believed that they were not included in her habit of using anyone and everyone as tools for her own personal use; largely because they have never really be privy to the reality that she uses others literally for HER use. Not theirs, hers.
In fact if you go around and listen to the Forsaken Refugee NPCs, you eventually will stumble upon a conversation that states just that. That they were totally aware she never gave a crap about the Horde and was just using the Faction as a tool; but what staggered them so hard is that they too were included as mere tools.
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I believe you’re referring to,
"Forsaken Refugee: How could Sylvanas abandon us like this?
Forsaken Refugee says: She’s never been loyal to the Horde.
Forsaken Refugee says: No, not the Horde. Us. The forsaken. We’re her people.
Forsaken Refugee says: Not anymore"
But there’s also
"Orgrimmar Grunt: You must be saddened to see Sylvanas leave.
Forsaken Refugee says: Why? Because I’m Forsaken? Did you shed tears for Garrosh because you’re an orc?
Orgrimmar Grunt says: No… I shed tears because he brought shame to us all."
So I’d say the general Forsaken opinion is scattered.
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I wouldn’t say “mere tools”. Utility is important. I never want to be a useless person. Whether or not Sylvanas and the Forsaken see one another as worthless now, I’m not really certain. But we will see.
Thank the gods for the Banshee Queen!
In life, Sylvanas Windrunner had been a high elf and the ranger-general of Silvermoon, capital of the kingdom of Quel’Thalas in northern Lordaeron. Defeated by the Lich King’s champion, she had been raised into undeath. But somehow, she found a way to break the Lich King’s hold on her mind and will. Tearing herself away from the Scourge, she sought out others among them whose souls were merely buried—not obliterated.
She found Reigol Valdread. Her power freed his mind, his will, his soul, but could not restore his body or his life. He became Forsaken, swearing fealty to the Banshee Queen. He fought at Windrunner’s side against the Scourge and those who did or would control them. He marched against them throughout the north.
But at some point, it became clear that the march would never end.
He grew bored with killing the dead. He knelt before Sylvanas and asked her to release him from his vow. She was—begrudgingly—willing. Though she demanded loyalty, she would not hold her agents in thrall. She understood the call of freedom better than most. But she warned him that few in Azeroth would accept him as the Forsaken had. Even the most open-minded, who understood that his was not a condition he had chosen for himself, would ne’er be able to stay in the same room beside him for long due to the stench of death he carried with him everywhere he went.
Nevertheless, Baron Valdread took his leave of the Banshee Queen and the Plaguelands.
Excerpt From The Traveler: The Spiral Path (World of Warcraft) by Greg Weisman.
As a side note, the Traveler books are fantastic if you can overlook how kid-friendly they are.
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I’m still not convinced that the current mindset of Sylvannas need not be her original intent.
Any depiction of her prior to ICC is probably exactly what everyone saw her as.
But she (unbeknownst to everyone) changed after ICC.
She maintained the outward appearence of the same Sylvannas that sought to help the Forsaken but inside, a corruption was festering.
If you go back an replay some of the Dialog from her during Wrath, you can clearly notice that something was bothering her. Something troubling and causing her to experience doubt.
She just never let anyone besides the player see that side of her.
The problem that I imagine most people would have with this is twofold.
In reality, yes, it’s possible for something to happen in a way that there was absolutely no forewarning or lead-up. However, in a piece of media like WoW, you generally want to foreshadow such things - it leads to more audience investment and makes sudden, big changes like the one we’re seeing feel like less of an a$$pull. So you can go back and say “Oh, they were actually leading up to this all along.”
Now, I know a lot of people will see this statement and say “Oh but it was foreshadowed, here’s this this and this to prove it,” which is where the second objection comes in. Sylvanas may have had some of these “villain” hooks put into her story. However, she also had “heroic” hooks put into her story as well, pieces of media that purport to examine her mental state and contradict those “villain” foreshadowing pieces. The reason the turn now feels cheap is because Blizzard didn’t commit to one route but instead tried to have it both ways up until the moment they chose, and now that they HAVE chosen, are going back and re-interpreting events to support their narrative, which is not foreshadowing, but retconning. Claiming that a character was “lying” when books supposedly written from an omnipotent perspective show her thoughts to contradict Blizzard’s statements only heighten this feeling - was a character who is not real somehow lying to the author in her own head? If you’re going to claim she was losing her sanity, there’s almost zero foreshadowing for that as well.
It boils down to the fact that they did not know where they wanted to go with her, tried to keep all their options open, and are now trying to retroactively go back and put the necessary build-up in after the fact.
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It just got so stupid. Retconning EoN us bewildering. It’s not like you can suggest she’s an unreliable narrator since she’s experiencing the story not telling it. They just said there was another super secret paragraph or two there the reader couldn’t see.
It’s especially head ache inducing because she died again in Silverpine. In game where are not seeing events through her eyes. Easily could’ve worked it in there. It’s just so lazy and sloppy. It feels contemptuous of the reader and the concept of story telling.
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Them retconning Sylvanas to having always hated the Forsaken, planned the Wrathgate, and created Sargeras are the kinds of things that made me quit.
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Oh that’s right I’d briefly suppressed the Wrathgate thing. What was the deal with that again?
She also must’ve organized the coup attempt, right? But how could she when it seemed pretty demonstrably organized by the Legion who seemed very angry with Varimathras’s failure?
So she just ordered the Wrathgate but then an unrelated coup happened that conveniently scapegoated the blame from her or… God I’m going to get a nose bleed trying to process this stupidity.
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Exactly, and they did this exact thing with Garrosh too. Just wait until the next Chronicles equivalent rewrites her backstory or when they start silently removing things she did in-game.
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They’ll probably spin this as Sylvanas having learned that trying to manipulate the Forsaken into believing they had no other place than with her wasn’t going to work forever and she had to adopt more authoritarian means to keep them in place.
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That’s what makes this so annoying. Slyvanas was always a much darker character. But without meta knowledge you could easily see why at least the Forsaken would trust her. She at bare minimum respects the Forsaken.
In Gilneas for example there’s Captain Rutsak, a Forsaken portrayed as paralyzed with trauma after the Alliance made him watch them kill the men under his command. Once you avenge them he says,
" Though we were shamed in battle, the enemy was not victorious. I will not soon forget this, .
If I make it back to Silverpine I will likely retire from the service. War is not in my blood"
Now that’s interesting when juxtaposed with the Orcs you interact with earlier in Silverpine. Admiral Hatchet says,
“We may not have to live down the shame of this defeat, . The Warchief will likely have us all executed instead”
Now both of these are soldiers who’ve failed pretty thoroughly. But the Forsaken soldier is only worried about surviving the battle, and plans to just leave the service when it’s done. It’s not implied he can’t do this or will have his head taken by Windrunner. You can just leave the Deathguard if you’re not feeling this war thing - which is a lot less strict than armies in real life.
That actually made Windrunner an interesting character. Cruel, ruthless and motivated souly by personal reasons but legitimately respectful of free will to an almost religious degree. Which made a lot of sense with her origin in mind. Giving a villain a singular but legitimately good and honorable quality tends to make them more interesting.
But then that goes up in a puff of smoke and she’s Cobra Commander. GG Blizz.
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