Why does Blizzard writing meet our expectations and fails to subvert them?

Everyone knows that Sylvanas is going to get redeemed. Everyone is discussing it. We know she’s going to turn on The Jailer and unlike Azshara serving her Dark Lord, Sylvanas is actually powerful enough to claim the power of the Jailer and use it against the next baddy to come in 10.0.“They think she’s the villain, but she’s just an anti-hero”. It’s extremely cliche and everyone sees it coming. There is no way Sylvanas is going to die as a raid boss in 9.1. For all of this… It’s so easy to guess. Therefore our expectations are met and not subverted if we kind of guessed the redemption arc since like 8.3.5.

What next? She’s going to turn on the Jailer? She’s going to realize she was right about the Shadowlands being broken perhaps but wrong about following the Jailer’s actions? I have shared these ideas without 9.1 PTR spoiler information, which I haven’t checked to verify if a Sylvanas redemption is in it or not so no PTR spoilers in this thread. This has always just been my guess from months ago.

The moment we saw the Shadowlands cinematic trailer the community started having conversations about a Sylvanas redemption arc being more and more viable. With everything coming to light in SL we just saw it more and more. Without even investigating the lore and taking this all in face value it’s easy to see it. I hope my expectations get really subverted. I mean come on. It’s not about morality, that’s not the discussion anymore. Sylvanas can go in other directions besides a redemption arc or just being defeated. I’m hoping the obvious doesn’t happen…

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lower your expectations?

this is World of Warcraft.

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Yeah I honestly don’t understand how they could walk back here wanton destruction, I know they’ll try to and it’ll be a pie in everyone’s face. It was still annoying how Syl outwitted Azshara an elf far her senior and well known for machinations, then she outplayed Nzoth as well.

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Did she outplay N’Zoth?

My interpretation is that she did exactly what N’Zoth fortold. “Queen Challenges king. The veil wanes, his crown will open the way.” this whisper is about the Shadowlands trailer cinematic and Sylvanas defeating Bolvar, and Sylvanas break the sky (the veil between our world and the Shadowlands)

Hypothetically if N’Zoth is not defeated, he may have simply subverted Azshara, because he knew she was plotting against him.

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I count it as her outsmarting him because he intended to re create the black empire before she got the chance, but who knows? Perhaps he foresaw his loss and had done something to ensure he wouldn’t die, this could all still be apart of his plan.

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it very well could be, I don’t think we have seen the last of the Old Gods.

They gave me an eye ball hat and promised to show me secrets and they never fulfilled that promise.

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Yah I was hoping for some sort of pay off for wearing my nice eyeball.

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They’ve just been executing the story so terribly for years now. Sylvanas’ tale has been drawn out for three expansions and we don’t really even know what she’s doing most of the time and it doesn’t even seem to matter. Like what was she going to do with Eyir? Doesn’t matter, Helya’s on board anyway. Burning of Teldrassil, the 4th War, Azshara and N’zoth, all that so she could break the Helm of Domination and kidnap Anduin?

It just seems like they wanted Sylvanas being a Kerrigan against a big bald monster mash man and they had no idea how to get there, so they did a whole bunch of stuff and tried to tie all together.

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So this seems like a bitter thread based on conjecture and little else. It is mostly an attack on people who make the story… but it is Sunday. Why not indulge a little?

I guess it depends on the individual. I am not pleased with the direction of the story and events and the characters who are ignored. But if we are focusing on Sylvanas… Blizzard started slapping on reasons to make people dislike her and she is still immensely popular among the Playerbase. She is not quite Illidan, but she even pokes through outside of the medium and the franchise. There was a moment where people who didn’t even play video games were talking about Sylvanas burning the tree filled with Elves in a video game. It is difficult and perhaps unwise to just remove such a profitable item from the catalog. And she has died so often, she is running out of deaths and places to go if she dies. We are pretty much at the end of the line for where mortal souls go.

Sylvanas is likely faced with destruction, or redemption, or she manages to escape somehow. I mean, if one of those things happens, we expect it. Blizzard has ruled out a Garrosh type imprisonment, if you can trust them. I honestly would prefer something I expect than what happened in War Crimes, where a Bronze Dragon I had been helping for the tail end of MoP uses the stuff I gave him to send Garrosh to their chosen AU. Just because something is far out and goofy doesn’t make it better than the predictable.

Indeed. It is a Rated T video game with all sorts of silly jokes. It isn’t like a GoT MMO. That likely wouldn’t be rated T.

I can see why you say she bested Nzoth. In her own way, she did. But Azshara? Azshara says she knows the darkness Sylvanas will unleash, but she needs a partner to set up Nzoth. And then Azshara walks away after we free her. It seemed to me that Azshara is one of the few people who made a fair deal with Sylvanas where both held up their end.

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Good insight but remember, when we free Azshara from nzoth she makes a point to call Syl a treacherous banshee. As of the deal she originally struck with the banshee queen was one not in good faith, as Azshara was under the impression that she would defeat us and capture her master in the blade of the black empire.

haha Sylv IS a treacherous Banshee tho, that’s her reputation.

The amount of people in game who have downplayed Sylvanas for being treacherous is actually really funny.

Oh I know lol, she’s been that way since TFT I’m just saying in the context of the story that syl outsmarted Azshara in that context.

I think they think they are subverting expectations.

Also, subverting expectations is overrated.

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Yes. Azshara calls her treacherous and states she knows the darkness she wants to unleash. So she isn’t being duped or outwitted by Sylvanas. Sylvanas and Azshara both come through on their deal. It seems they were more reluctant partners for a brief moment than Sylvanas out witting Azshara.

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Perhaps, I guess I just have a different interpretation of the events of that deal and such. Still good insights.

let’s be real though killing Sylvanas isn’t “subverting expectations” it’s just wish fulfillment.

While wish fulfillment is great in some pieces of fiction, it has to be desired by everyone and this fanbase is so split on this character that if they were to give wish fulfillment to one side they would isolate the other side. They really wrote themselves into a corner and like Cursewords said above only Bronze Dragon Deus Ex Machina can get them out of this mess.

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Wait what happened to the original first comment in here?

How absurd. Blizzard hardly meets “our” expectations, because each poster on the forum has different expectations, and if they do fail to surprise the forum it’s because we are void lords that consider every possibility.

I would also balk at the idea that not subverting expectations is some kind of failure. Trying to be clever with subverting expectations too often leads to disappointment. Bait and switch is not good. If I go to the store to buy a gallon of milk, and instead, I get a gallon of piss, my reaction will never be some astonished satisfaction that my expectations were subverted.

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BFA subverted my expectations by resolving the faction war in a .5 patch without a raid or even a particularly big questline

I kind of miss when they met my expectations because that subversion was pretty anticlimactic and took the wind out of Ny’alotha’s sails

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Agreed. I’d rather enjoy a well-written story where I can predict what’s coming to some degree rather than “subverted expectations”.

Then you have stories that are both good and can subvert expectations, like the Mistborn series. But that’s not fair, as that’s a novel written by 1 person as compared to a 15-year-old MMO with (presumed) dozens of writers over the years.

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