even in warcraft 3 she was mind controlling
the whole dark lady mission is running around stealing peoples minds
such a futile effort
I feel like the original dialogue was just explaining your character from an RP point of view. Saying you aren’t part of a hivemind or something, you are free like any other race. If you don’t like the Sylvanas you are free to stick to the Horde or neutral factions although the humans will hunt you.
She’s still a mindslave, the character is identical in every way, her title just changed. You guys are going off about how Blizzard is whitewashing Forsaken without actually checking up on the NPC herself. The dialogue has changed but it’s quite literally the same thing, she is still his slave.
Why not just make them care strongly about free will, but only THEIR OWN free will?
If you read a couple of posts down from the one you quoted, I already addressed this.
Yeah, that’s part of the problem: everything is still the same, but they change the labeling as a performative gesture.
You would have to ask that question to the general community. That would have made some sense. The Forsaken hold free will as sacrosanct is something community invented. Then kind of forced it on Blizzard. When Blizzard released Cata with some VERY obvious mind control there was a TON of negative feedback. Blizzard panic and tried to reframe and/or retcon to say the Forsaken cared about free will as a morality thing. Then it started making it way into the game.
My personal theory for why: Blizzard didn’t really give the Forsaken anything to stand for. There was nothing you could point to and say ‘look at the good side of them.’ Players wanted their characters to be heroic. So, the Forsaken revering free will became an easy head cannon to latch onto. Enough people repeated it for long enough and the community just started accepting it. It was the way people found ‘good’ in the Forsaken.
Personally, I think there were better ways to do it. But, it is probably better than them not having any kind of morality in the culture.
I assume you mean:
But that also isn’t true.
It isn’t even close to a retcon. There was nothing in the past that was changed. Literally at the time of the event it was treated as hostilities ended. The ‘war’ started and stopped in the first patch. It was not changed in the book. In game, at the time of release, the ‘war’ was over before anything else happened.
There wasn’t even a vaguely ‘like a retcon’ situation. Let alone being practically the same thing.
I really don’t think it is performative.
Almost everything is the same. What has changed is kind of key here. The change is removing the mind control element. Slavery doesn’t challenge the concept of Forsaken revering free will. Mind controlled slaves do. The have removed the component that goes against the free will is sacrosanct concept.
The change doesn’t address anything that the supposed to have happened behind the scenes, really doesn’t even hint at it. If they were being performative they would probably just remove her, and make a point of doing it.
But it still didn’t affect the story going forward, so the effect is the same as if they had changed the past. Varian’s declaration of war was a giant nothingburger. I don’t care what word you use for it; they should IMO have had the guts to stick with that plot point and see it through, or else not introduce it at all.
Immediately undoing a plot point right after you introduce it is, in my opinion, practically the same thing as saying it didn’t happen in the first place. Getting hung up on the terminology is just semantics.
That is a really weird take. It didn’t change the world so it was basically a retcon? Lots of things in the game don’t really change things, but that doesn’t make them the same as retcons.
I think you are missing the actual purpose. It was not supposed to change things and be a big world shaping event. It was a character moment. It was supposed to show us Varian’s character and his state of mind. It was a character moment. It was letting us know what kind of person he was.
They didn’t undo a plot point. They showed Varian’s character, his rashness and anger. And having peace, even though tenuous, re-established showed us there were voices of reason and peace on both sides trying to make it work.
But it did matter. If war had started then it would have made it harder, if not impossible to tell the story of character growth and change. It would have take a lot away from the story they wanted to tell about Thrall and Garrosh as well.
I would argue Varian being ready to start a war mattered to his character development. And peace being held mattered to other characters development. That it happened mattered to the story.
It is not about terminology. They didn’t change things. They didn’t wipe it out and make it not matter. The events of Undercity mattered to the story they were telling, both there and to come. It may not have been a world altering event, but it was a character defining event. It mattered to the story.
Now, if you just don’t like that specific story event or even the ones that followed it, that is completely fine. Just don’t present it as a change, ignoring of history, etc. It wasn’t.
In practical terms, yes.
How do you know? I personally think it was intended to kick off the next storyline, until the devs decided behind the scenes that they wanted to build up Garrosh as a villain instead. We each have equal amounts of evidence for our positions—in other words, none. We’re speculating.
It is about terminology, and they did change things. They went from the Alliance declaring war on the Horde to the Horde starting a war out of nowhere. The implications of that are huge for how the story of Cata/MoP went. I can’t believe you seem unable to see this.
I think our positions are just too far apart to find common ground on this, so I’ll leave it there. Respond if you want, but I won’t be following up on this particular point.
And your basis for that belief?
I would argue we can be confident you are wrong because:
But that isn’t true. They left it in. They have referenced it since then. That means they wanted it in. It was an intended part of the story. While we do have to speculate on the exact reasons, we have evidence that it was an intended part of the story. It did matter.
I feel like you missed A LOT of story if you think the Horde started a war out of nowhere. Garrosh was telling Thrall to start a war all through Wrath. He got power and followed through. This was not unexpected or any kind of surprise. Blizzard was not remotely subtle in the foreshadowing Garrosh starting a war.
Fair enough.
I mean I’m not exactly lamenting the loss of the lines about ‘breeding more humans’. Maybe that’s just me, though…
Her name and blindfolded appearance may be a reference to Theresa from the game Fable? 
So they’re trying to whitewash the Forsaken with a retcon?
Her ackowldged as the wrong party is a start. Especially after letting the high elves lose. But that never came to be. They even force Aethas to apology when he wasn’t directly involved in the whole event. That is why Belf fans fear for Midnight.
I think your problem is you want the game to say Jaina was all wrong and the Sunreavers were completely innocent. But that isn’t the situation.
The reality is both sides were wrong. And the game presents it that way.
The Sunreavers (some part of the organization) did violate Dalaran’s rules and used Dalaran resources to aid the Horde in raiding an Alliance city. Aethas did know about it and did hide the facts (including from Lor’themar). And he and the Sunreavers did refuse the order to leave and chose to fight despite his knowledge of the Sunreavers blame.
And, Jaina did react in anger. She did turn the Sillver Covenant loose. Her choices did result in the deaths of Sunreavers, likely including innocents. She did screw up.
And the thing is, the game has said she was wrong. She even lost her position in Dalaran because of it. And there have been repeated references to her mistakes. Your problem seems to be that the game also puts blame on Aethas and the Sunreavers. It doesn’t treat them as completely innocent, because they aren’t.
Nope, none really.
That is not the point of the argument. The game itself has ignored her involvement so far and never adressed it. The Horde Questline of the divine bell ends after Darnassus and we never see Dalaran again until Rommath gathers the rescuing mission. So any cutscene where the city has a portal in which the artifact was moved in on the way to Silvermoon is never shown to the player.
That is just not true. She literally lost her position as leader of the Kirin Tor over it. Heck, there was even a cinematic with her talking to Thrall about the mistakes of the past, kind of obvious what she was talking about. And even immediately following the purge Varian scolds her. The game absolutely addressed her mistakes.
Not sure what you actually want from the game. You come across as one who will never be happy until the Horde gets to kill her. Maybe you are not that extreme, but you are clearly ignoring the game addressing it because it is not the way you want it.
So, for people that only played through the Horde side they might have missed the Sunreaver portal being identified. But it was. For those people they missed the confrontation with Aethas where she accuses him of knowing about it (something he did) and him refusing the order to leave. Those people missed his declaration that they would fight instead. So, Horde only players missed some context. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t in game.
So, what you should really be complaining about is Blizzard’s failure to communicate the full story to players that only play one faction. And that is a fair complaint for big events. I would fully agree Blizzard should have given more information to the Horde players via cutscenes and/or dialog explaining what happened. But that doesn’t mean that content wasn’t in the game.
She killed Rastakhan so yes I am bitter.
Yah, I figured there was some bias there.
And look, I understand not liking a character. That is fair. I am certain there are characters I have wanted gone over the years you liked. Some are gone, some are still around. Just like there are characters I am sure I like you have wanted gone, some are and some are still around. There is nothing wrong with that. Just don’t let your personal feelings bias you towards facts.
Jaina’s mistakes have been addressed in game, even if they were not addressed the way you wanted them. Saying they were not addressed in a way that felt satisfying to you is fine. Saying they were not addressed at all is wrong.