Yet another Sylvanas rant

Lore Story Forum
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Disclaimer: This is copy pasted from I reply I did on another thread.

The problem with Sylvanas isn’t whether she is good or evil, it is that she has been the victim of inconsistent writing as of late.

She started out as a pragmatic leader who wanted to get vengeance against those who wronged her, while protecting her adopted people by any means necessary. She committed morally questionable acts once in awhile, but again pragmatism.

In Legion she stepped up in the world. Now she had to watch out not just for the Forsaken, but the Horde as a whole. Again, her pragmatic nature remained. I wasn’t entirely a fan of this, as I felt her goals were always centered around herself and the Forsaken, so I thought it would be weird that she was more benevolent towards the Horde, but I was willing to go along with it. You could argue that she had matured as a person.

Then, in BFA she became a mass-murdering maniac who kills innocent people, manipulates her allies, and then tells everyone to GTFO when Saurfang calls her out on being an awful person. This includes the Forsaken, which until this point we believed she was a dedicated mother-figure towards.

Now, in Shadowlands she appears to be an edgy nihilists who lacks conviction in her own actions and seems to teeter between motivations because again, someone calls her out and points out that she is essentially an awful person. It doesn’t feel earned, and it makes her look undecisive. What is she gonna do if she betrays the jailer? Shrug her shoulders and say “Sorry for all the mass-murdering I did. Whoopsie daisy?”

At the end of the day, it really is a shame because during Cata through Legion, I thought Sylvanas was an engaging character. I was never rooting for her, but I genuinely liked her in a ‘this is a character I love to hate’ sort of way. She will probably get some half @#$ed redemption, but as long as it means she is no longer a major part of the story then I say good-riddance. These last three expansions have made me feel burnt-out on Sylvanas.

I realize that this is only the bajillionith thread griping about this topic, so thanks for listening to my contribution.

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Here is the problem with the writeup. A lot of fans in general seem to have some conception of Sylvanas pre-BfA as though she was just a harmless edgelord when she wasn’t. She was a terrible person with little to no empathy for anyone from her very conception in Warcraft 3.

She was a murderer, a torturer, a manipulater, an abuser, an ally of demons, a power-hungry tyrant and an all-around awful person who had brought nothing but suffering to Azeroth ever since she had broken free of the Lich King’s control. This has been the case since day one.

The only difference between her in Warcraft 3, her in World of Warcraft, and her in BfA is the relative amount of power she had and the degree to which she did or did not target her nominal allies (the Horde) in her schemes.

“Morally questionable acts” my damn foot. She committed straight up acts of evil that would have gotten absolutely anyone else a loot table. This whitewashing of Sylvanas’ background and actions is the only reason anyone would be caught off guard by her actions in BfA as it seems to have lead to widespread ignorance as to what kind of character she is and always was.

Maybe a lot of people just didn’t care about her evil until it was directed at the Horde, or just assumed everything that she was doing was justified using circular logic. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen that.

BfA had tons of narrative problems, but Sylvanas being a horrible person who hates everyone is arguably the single most accurate portrayal of anyone in the expansion.

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I agree with you completely and it’s getting harder and harder to have faith that they will turn this narrative around and make it meaningful for her. I did enjoy some parts of it, I think getting slashed in the eye was a great character building moment, especially since it was a humiliation and a failure. I liked her defeat of Bolvar, simply because the power struggle between her and the powers of the Lich King was something that was in itself a small personal victory (shame Bolvar was just collateral damage in that fight.)

I really hope it’s leading to something good. She’s always talked about “Mastering Death.” and I think that maybe she needed to do all the terrible things to get to the point of respect and trust with the jailer so that she has the means to take that power back. That would be a best case scenario where the ends justify the means. What they set up so far in Shadowlands has given me more hope than I should be having with this franchise and it’s track history.

I think she may be pushing Anduin to become “The Shadow Ascendant” it’s a prophesy that both Velen and Nathalie Saline had about a priest who is able to walk the balance between Light and Shadow and pull from both. I think that would be a great turn for Anduin and there is also the potential for Sylvanas to complete the purpose of the Cult of Forgotten Shadow where a Forsaken becomes a God-like being that transcends Death. She was a god like being to the Forsaken, being The Dark Lady, anyways, now it can be more of a reality if she does stay behind in the Shadowlands in the Pantheon of Death.

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I was admittedly trying to be tactful in my original post, so I agree with what you are saying to a degree. Sylvanas never was or has been a good person in my opinion. At the end of the day though, I think she was just a self-centered character rather than one that was flat out evil. She only cared about herself, the Forsaken, and her revenge against Arthas. Anything and everything else was just a means for her to achieve her goals. The Horde were nothing but allies and convenience for her and nothing more.

One thing that I do find weird though from back in the day is that Thrall nor any of the other Horde leaders ever tried to raise a stink about the horrible experiments that the Forsaken were doing in their basement. Did they just not know? Or were they willfully turning a blind eye to it? I don’t find either of those answers particularly satisfying tbh.

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There’s a difference between being evil for evil sake and not having a choice to be good.

I would say that Sylvanas, post death, never had a good option. It was kill or be killed. Context like that makes a difference. Still with the context of kill or be killed, there has been many times where she has chosen mercy, like not killing her sisters. Selfishly she wanted to kill them so that she could have their companionship and allies in her fight, but her love for them stopped her from going through. She has a lot of moments like that where her humanity wins out. You’d be blind if you ignored that part of her character. It’s even in the No More Lies Cinematic when she hesitates.

I’m personally tired of these lazy “she was evil all along!” hot takes, because you’d have to be dumb, ignorant, or lack comprehension skills to really believe that.

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This would be a stronger argument if she ever even tried to be a good person.

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She’s not a good person. She’s a damaged person. She was a good person before she died and her death meant nothing, and a monster turned her into a weapon, and now that’s all she thinks she good for.

The cycle is repeating itself with the Jailer.

BfA laid the groundwork of “breaking the cycle” and I think that’s carrying into Shadowlands with Sylvanas breaking the cycles that continue to take away her agency. She does have a choice to be good. It’s a very personal female story and I don’t feel like I should have to defend those kinds of stories in forums where people don’t care enough to actually see the value in these kinds of stories, or only want to take things at face value.

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I think that she had plenty of good options, as we’ve seen other undead such as Death Knights and even a handful of Forsaken take those good options.

The “trauma” justification doesn’t hold water on account of the thousands of other traumatized individuals on Azeroth who nevertheless didn’t immediately become selfish a-holes.

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That is true. Darion Morgraine didn’t turn into a psychopath after the events of Wrath of the Lich King, even though you could argue that he had just as much reason to be scornful of life as Sylvanas. With the Knights of the Ebon Blade at his back, he would have had the means to do some damage if he wanted to.

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As I stated in the Other thread she is suffering from being tied to Anduin’s story. The writers are writing him as the protagonist and the center of the story.

He needed a compelling antagonist to his story so she was beaten over the head with stupid bad guy stick. Like all other characters involved with his story he can sway their opinions with nothing but a few cheap words that they haven’t heard from other parties.

The sooner the writers realize that he is the problem with the story and get rid of him the better chance they have of saving the few characters/story we have left.

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She was always a bad guy. Stupid is subjective.

That Anduin is the character that she just happened to end up in direct conflict with is incidental. She was always a Conflict Elemental that antagonized pretty much everyone on the planet that wasn’t the Horde and frankly, the fact that it took until BfA for anyone to actually go after her is the bad writing.

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If being raised into undeath is a rape analogue then I have some really bad news about Sylvanas and the Forsaken circa Cataclysm.

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Also, in before this thread is locked

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She was an antagonist but to the Alliance, especially in Cata. However had never really turned on the Horde.

Since she became warchief in Legion(vs Anduin as high King) they dialed her up to 11 and made everything she was doing and acting as shady for both factions.

Blizzard have even gone on file and stated that this story is about the Jailer, Sylvanas and Anduins relationship. They had never met before until Golden’s BFA novel and are trying to draw this deep relationship between these characters that never existed.

Characters like Alleria, Baine, Garrosh have all stated similar arguments to Sylvanas and have known her far longer however Its only Anduins words that seem to affect her.

Anduin is blizzards vehicle to educate the playerbase on moral ethics. Which is why characters only react to things when he states them or they affect him. it is why nothing bad will ever happen to him while at the same time he will redeem Sylvanas(atleast in blizzards eyes).

I do agree the Alliance should have done something at the end of MOP to deal with Sylvanas but the same could be said about alot of the things that were left unresolved like the Horde apparently leaving ashenvale. Blizzard simply forgot they or ignored they stated this just to present the latest “Sylvanas is the big bad”.

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Actually…
back in classic, her forsaken were experimenting with civilians and prisoners. In the Arthas Novel, she oversaw a captured civilian experimented on with the plague.
In Cata,

Garrosh Hellscream says: What difference is there between you and the Lich King now?

Lady Sylvanas Windrunner says: Isn’t it obvious, Warchief? I serve the Horde.

She straight up implied that she is no different than the lich king.
While, yes she was an antagonist for the alliance. The Horde noted she wasn’t good.
Drek’thar on the Forsaken.

So you have come seeking our aid?
Drek’Thar coughs.
I… cough I have been alive for a very long time. In that time I have seen and done terrible things.
Things that still keep me awake at nights.
But these terrible things that I have done and the people that I have harmed - I know them… I face them… and I feel remorse for them.
But the Forsaken. cough What do they feel?
They ravage the land and destroy everything that they touch. How many lives have been lost to their vile poisons?
How many innocents have fallen before the Forsaken war machine?
Countless… countless lives… cough
Yes… I have done terrible things, but nothing could ever be as terrible as lending aid to the Forsaken.
You go back to that spineless orc who would not come see me and you tell him that the Frostwolf clan will not aid the Forsaken. Not now, not ever!
BEGONE!

However, she has been not in the forefront; a side character, important, but side character.
Now in Legion, she is still the very same character; now thrust into the spotlight. She was a character that will make any deal, betray anyone to survive. An amoral character.

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So the best case scenario has her justifying genocide and damning countless innocent souls to place of horrific torment where many are tortured emotionally, physically and even destroyed? An army, she wouldn’t control, an army that is bound and enslaved to the Jailer that can easily kill her.

This is like saying that, Gul’dan was secretly a good guy who betrayed orcs, orchestrated genocide to build an army up to take down sargeras.

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Until the story is actually fully laid out, we don’t know what the score is. All we have are vignettes.

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We’ve done most the things listed.
Murder. Torture. Manipulation. Abuse. Allying with demons. Power-hungry.

Not justifying them. Just never see players complain there.

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It’s so weird to me that you have to like your post with 6 (!!!) alt characters to make it seem like more people agree with you after your last gross attempt got reported and removed by the mods.

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Sure is a lot of blue in these Sylvanas threads anymore. Makes her seem really popular with the Alliance, in a perverse kind of way.

Maybe that’s why they were so insistent on shoe-horning her into the spotlight and the Alliance story-line. It seems like you guys are really engaged with her.

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