She was portrayed as lying to herself about her feelings.
In any case, that character doesn’t exist anymore.
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While that is what her internal monologue clearly states, there are multiple parts of the story where she is written to almost explicitly be in denial about her feelings for the Forsaken. She even hesitates to end her own torment when she sees what will happen to them and has to convince herself to do it by denying that she cares, before deciding they are her bulwark against the infinite… So Yeah.
Edit: Also, love is certainly a stretch, but her growth is intentionally on display in EoN and particularly showing her callousness as Ranger General. It was intentional. Pointing out the “Arrows in my quiver” line and stating that it goes back to her time as the RG, is to the end of showing she was always the cold strategist. That’s not just a Banshee Queen thing.
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You can always level in Silverpine.
I don’t think that is the problem with her story. Does she deserve forgiveness? Maybe. That gets into a bunch of philosophy, and honestly would turn into a mess of a discussion.
I think the biggest issue with her returning is the narrative whole. Would it make sense for the characters to accept her? I would argue it wouldn’t even for the Horde, and less so for the Alliance. There would be both the question of penance, as it was not just the souls of the Night Elves that she wronged, and the issue of trusting her. She has broken past trusts so completely and thoroughly that nobody would be able to even kind of trust her. This is especially true if she returns in any near time frame.
Short of them saying she experienced centuries in the Maw and finished her task AND she presents as extremely contrite will feel very out of place. And of the big characters treating her with anything other than disdain and mistrust (or worse) would feel very plot armor-esque avoiding consequences.
It amuses me how people try to play up on the ‘hate Golden’ meme to pick and choose which lore they want to accept.
We are talking about the fundamental and main plot thread through the entire SL expac, souls going to the Maw instead of the proper afterlives and everyone, Zovaal included, wanting more. That is not something that could have been invented 1 year out and still had the expac released, especially with the other things going on at the company.
I think you missed some steps in the conversation. Degas specifically said there were no hints. He said this in reply to Karestae saying there were no hints Zovaal was a thing.
Do you know what a hint actually is? It is not telling you something directly. Blizzard saying, ‘hey, Sylvanas is way more powerful than she should be’ is a hint she got power from someone else, that someone else is pulling the strings. Guessing the wrong person doesn’t make it not a hint. The fact he guessed thew wrong person doesn’t mean Blizzard didn’t have the correct person in mind all along.
What you are saying would be like if you got a text from your friend that said he was going to bring over a gift the following week and then mentioned it was something you could wear. Then you decide he is bring you a hoodie. When he shows up with a hat you say he never gave you a hint and so must have only decided that day what to get you.
The argument was made that Blizzard did not plan for Zovaal until half way through BfA. And that they changed motivations because of player response. They only ‘proof’ that was offered was that there was that there was no foreshadowing of Zovaal. In reality the fact that a lack of foreshadowing would not have meant there was no plan, Blizzard doesn’t always explain what they are doing, let alone foreshadow it. But more than that, the premise of the faulty argument was also wrong. There was foreshadowing of Zovaal, despite some people missing it and other misinterpreting it.
It was the second nail in the coffin of an already failed argument.
How does “Free us all” not line up with ‘Free everyone’ in your mind? Seriously, how do you not connect those?
Just mind boggling you would think her saying she was going to free everyone is completely different from her saying she was going to give free will to everyone.
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She flat out left life without care about them.
She stated plainly she doesn’t care about them.
When she does say she cares about them, it is only as her shield.
This is how she has been portrayed, fluidly, since cataclysm until shadowlands and dragonflight.
You will serve her or be anima, Mawthorne.
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The idiom “arrow in the quiver” does not automatically mean “expendable”. wiktionary has, as an example, " One of several available option or course of action".
In this case…
““They are arrows in the quiver,” Sylvanas said. “They must be spent if we are to win this.””
“She was brash. Empty? No—a fighter. She had a warrior’s heart”
" Still a warrior’s heart? She had grown cold. No, she was the same. In death as in life."
Yes, but…
"Within the city walls, bonfires raged. Sylvanas seethed; the Alliance was already burning the corpses. No. Wait. She tried to make sense out of the clouded vision. The few Forsaken who remain are throwing themselves into the bonfires, she realized, rather than facing their executioners.
“This isn’t real!” Sylvanas announced, her voice echoing in her head and sounding as it had when she had been alive. Were her people really so weak? No—no! Garrosh had all but murdered the best of her troops in his own wasteful campaigns. The Forsaken leadership had been gutted. That was what these visions showed."
Note the tone of her protest in the second paragraph. She is VERY CLEARLY being written as one who is having a crisis over the possible misery of “her people” AFTER choosing to end her life.
Certainly Dreadmore, you are referring to this…
"Sylvanas thought about her people. They had come far from their decimated origins, the yearning, confused mob of fresh corpses huddled about the ruins of Lordaeron’s wrecked capital. The Forsaken were truly a nation now: a fetid, gore-caked, hideous mass of lifeless husks, skilled in combat, devastating with the arcane arts, and unhindered by fetters of morality. They had been honed into the perfect weapon. Her weapon. And they had struck the killing blow for which she had built them. She cared nothing for their fate.
“Let them perish!” Sylvanas cried. “I am finished with them!”"
…BUT this has always been consistent with Sylvanas’ character. She denies caring. She throws her sentimental treasures on the ground and rejects them, only to pick them up a moment later and cradle them in her arms. There’s a reason “Lament of the Highborne” plays all the time.
To my understand the one that needs to forgive is oneself. In this situation, she has to forgive herself, and so far it is not clear that she was able to.
I think the time in the Maw will make her come to terms to what she did.
Who exactly to accept her?
Did you just forget that we already took her into Zereth Mortis and the Sepulcher of the First Ones? The matter of trusting her is already out of discussion at this point.
Furthermore, Anduin would be the first one to argue in favor of her. Can’t you see that, already?
As for the souls of the Kaldorei, I don’t think there will ever be enough penance for that. Also blaming her whilst knowing exactly what happened to her and at same time having Anduin around us without problems (in a sense they both were manipulated by the Jailer).
Before she regained her whole soul, correct?
Again it is like saying that Anduin isn’t trustworthy because well he impaled Kyrestia and killed hundreds of Night Fae as well.
There is a huge difference whether she is trustworthy or not, and whether the Night Elves will love or hate her. And there is always the thing: you may not like her but in a war where everything is at stake, she is your ally and willing to die for to save Azeroth.
I can see resistance and discomfort at first but in Midnight it is likely that Sylvanas returns and we’ll have the Windrunner sisters together again, fighting to save Quel’Thalas and Azeroth.
I don’t think that she ever needs to finish her work in the Maw.
She is simply needed back and she comes back.
It might even be Tyrande that will ask her to return through Dori’thur.
Again I don’t see that happening or that it is even needed, tbh.
It would be pretty petty for example for Tyrande or any Night elf start calling her names while Xal’atath and the voids are consuming Azeroth.
Great use of their time…
That statement talks about a necessity. Not a lack of caring. Easily a general talking about what he needs to do, not what he wants to do.
Exactly. It parallels what Anduin is going through. That is why we have the scenes of them together talking about this.
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That gets into some philosophy issues.
But I think you might be missing my point.
And they treated it as a necessary evil.
Again, necessary evil. Which is the point I was trying to make. If they bring her back, they have to do it as carefully as possible to not create narrative holes.
The VAST majority of characters, including general populace (especially them), would see her as one of the worst villains since, well Arthas. She will be seen as a traitor and mass murder. If she comes back and is just suddenly part of the fight it will be a massive narrative plot hole. They HAVE to address that or it will end up being a bad story.
It is possible they will do that story line. I don’t know that I would call it likely. There has been nothing from Blizzard indicating that. It is entirely speculation and what some players think would be a good finish for her story. Which, from that angle, it would make sense for Blizzard to do it. But, on the flip side bringing her back is likely going to be VERY polarizing. And that might not be a ___ show that Blizzard wants to start. So, it might happen, but don’t set your expectations just yet. Regardless of it if is good or bad, we just have no idea if Blizzard will do it.
There is a danger in the ‘just bring her back’ approach. It is going to feel forced and unsatisfying.
Think about:
Why is Sylvanas specifically needed?
How do they address characters fear and mistrust?
No, take into account the limitation of telling a story in an MMO. How would you go about addressing those issues in a way that doesn’t feel forced and inconsistent with characterizations. If this was a 500k word novel, sure it would be possible to bring her back in a narratively satisfying way. In an MMO, I really doubt it.
Honestly, I think the nobody will be happy with any return.
Most Sylvanas fans want the old, snarky, ‘I do what I want’ character back. But that character can’t come back for the story to make sense. She will have to be a contrite, remorseful Sylvanas for the story to have any chance of working. So, they will be angry at Blizzard for ‘neutering’ their favorite character.
And those that really hate her are just going to be mad regardless.
And of course if they do bring back the snarky Sylvanas it will dumpster whatever story they are trying to tell.
And those who care most about the story making sense are likely going to be disappointed because I doubt Blizzard can walk the tight rope needed to bring her back in a way that does make sense.
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Given that most people will know about Teldrassil and her being hunted by the new Horde leadership, and that few will understand details from the Shadowlands, her being seen as a villain does make a lot of sense.
But then Blizzard has the Horde welcome Jaina being nice with open arms, when she should be just as much a villain to the Horde.
So if you are trying to predict what Blizzard is going to do, anything goes.
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Yes, but the other statements (her own thoughts) acknowledge that she was always cold. In death as in life. But here she is introspective and self aware.
Actiblizzard? Virtue signal and guilt their audience.
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sure it is. you can continue to assert the contrary, but none of the evidence concurs.
lol no he didn’t, that’s not what he was saying, you asked specifically about hints that sylvanas was having her strings pulled. reread your own conversation.
your patronizing would only be merited if you had the strength either of mind to loom, or the strength of argument to be assured. neither are true. your argument is quite a lot of post-hoc confirmation bias, and is fundamentally unfalsifiable; none of the foreshadowing had anything to do with the jailer or the shadowlands, so this idea that some people were ‘misinterpreting’ it is just really disingenuous at best.
not my job to account for every argument made in a conversation when noting its general flow. and also, there was no foreshadowing of zovaal. i will repeat myself simply since you’re taking great pains to repeat yourself complicatedly.
oh, also, this is some really funny backpedaling.
To be absolutely and objectively clear sylvanas does not and cannot ever deserve forgiveness. She topped arthas.
Having said that, the entire point of forgiveness is that the other person doesn’t deserve it. You give it anyway.
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I forget, was this apparent in the first patch? Sure, we were all counting the minutes till her deposition from the moment she burned the tree, but I’m pretty sure her con job in Nazjatar and shadow vomit all over Saurfang were the first indications they were worming a puppeteer into her plot.
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Well, Jaina’s purge of Dalaran where she killed innocent Blood Elves got retconned.
So, in this case, the “Horde” didn’t have any beef with Jaina.
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the citation says she was happy about fewer prisoners because the sentinels were not going to surrender. it’s a redoubling of her homicidal capacity