One could point out that she actually thought she was helping those she killed. “I will set us all free”. But that is irrelevant. That character doesn’t exist anymore. We have “Ranger-General” Sylvanas now.
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It’s a reference to the real world practice of Irish-American Catholics to almost beatify John F. Kennedy by building little shrines to him in their homes, with photos and candles and little statues and stuff. You’ve never seen that?
What the hell?
No, I’m not american
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I’m American and I’ve never seen it either.
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One could make this argument but I think it makes the emotional moment of that particular cinematic less so. As a person with a toxic mother, I really love exploring a lot of that emotion in the safe space that Sylvanas has always provided. She is Jung’s devouring mother and she has this neat little tragic backstory to inform the audience of where that comes from. In BFA we watch her fecade of control slowly crumble and “The Horde is nothing!” is the kind of outburst that is a necessary moment for any devouring mother story like Mother Gothel from Rapunzel. The shattered mask falls off and you see that she’s actually a deeply emotional and desperate figure who uses those in her care to fulfill her emotional needs.
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John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic president after nearly 200 years of Catholic discrimination in the US. He became a cultural icon for Irish-Americans. In the East-coast to the Midwest, if you go into any Irish-Catholic home you are likely to find at least a picture of JFK.
I see. I’m Scottish (second generation born in America anyway) and was raised Southern Baptist.
My mom married an Irish Catholic and I was like “Huh… These people are really patriotic.”
My mom was gay so I don’t know why she picked the Southern Baptist church to attend.
Maybe it was my grandma’s decision, idk.
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No. No she wasn’t. She was knowingly sending souls to the Maw to be TORTURED OUT OF EXISTENCE to make Zovaal powerful so he could [nebulous, never explained plot that was probably never explained because of how on-its-face absurd the entire ordeal was].
But she will never serve. Sylvanas hates tennis.
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I mean, when they made the “I will set us all free” cinematic, that probably wasn’t even on the table. The entirety of BFA has nothing to do with the narrative of SL. If you like SL you can talk about how neat it is as a sort of fanfiction, but BFA is a story that was never finished, as if the author died and their estate licensed the IP to Amazon to turn into a series on Prime.
It’s rough to argue that because we usually save those crusades for beloved authors like Tolkien. In this case the closest thing we have to a single author is the Afrasiabi scapegoat. And I don’t like to attribute my favorite parts of BFA to him, especially when I can put actual names to some of the actual writers of parts of that story.
And I realize this is a slippery slope because we could apply this to almost every expansion, but I think it’s glaringly so in BFA->SL that the narrative was strangled in its adolescence and not permitted to see adulthood. There’s almost no point in arguing the good or ill of Sylvanas actions in BFA based on the retcon revelations of SL. At the time of BFA that was certainly not what she was doing.
One is the story we’re stuck with, the other is a story we can only guess at that never happened. Would have loved to have played the BFA cinematic expansion instead of actual BFA.
I’m well aware and in agreement with how poopybutt the writing is in some cases, especially surrounding Sylvanas, but it serves little purpose to argue on favor of a potential Sylvanas that doesn’t exist when discussing what is. It is just a separate conversation.
^ which kinda segues nicely into the same point I made way further upthread: The Sylvanas people want back doesn’t exist.
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While true, the point I’m trying to make is that the BFA story and the Shadowlands story, while theoretically connected are so disconnected, that discussions regarding both can justify treating them as separate. One can say “Sylvanas did not try to kill all of everyone to send all the souls to the Maw in BFA” and “Sylvanas motivation as described in SL was to empower Zovaal by sending souls to the maw” and both (while contradictory) are true.
Ogmott’s dream journal was in legion.
That dynamic describes the entirety of WoW. Kael’thas, Illidan, Jaina, Saurfang, … they even went back and rewrote Arthas to always being bad because no one had the capacity to fire off a synapse and point out that a Fall from Grace requires the Grace.
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Tbh a lot of this thread reminds me of how some garrosh fans take stonetalon as garroshs only interpretation.
Sylvanas only had one for the horde moment where she actually meant it and it was the not canon trailer for BFA.
It’s understandable how this might trigger that memory, but the difference here is that Stonetalon was a bit of a departure from the rest of the Garrosh story as told in the same expansion. SL is a later expansion trying to reframe a previously unfinished narrative because it was seen as unpopular due to internet backlash.
She thought sacrificing a few (being sent to the Maw wasn’t automatic destruction) to save the rest of the “humanity” was worth it. It was all explained in the novel. She believed the Zoval would fix death.
But, again, the Sylvanas doesn’t exist anymore.
“We have paid the price for sharing this world, and we have forgotten what makes us strong.”
TOASTY NIGHT ELVES, EYYYYYY!
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Don’t quote my favorite two moments in BfA. It just makes me sad.
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