Sadly Blizzard keep pushing the Alliance towards being the Moral right faction which has left no room for the Horde to grow as a faction. Every time the Horde do something it is always considered to be the wrong thing and the Alliance is then justified with any reaction it takes.
Its terrible writing and blizzard rather than making the Alliance more nuanced are instead shifting the Horde towards the same point of the Alliance. They are systematically removing any characters they deem as evil and replacing them with characters they deem as acceptable(always being characters friendly with the Alliance).
This would be fine if blizzard intended on removing the faction barriers and however they have also claimed the factions is fundamental to the Warcraft universe and this will never happen.
Sadly this have left both faction in a sorry state. where the Alliance isn’t allowed to do anything as it is hamstrung by its pacifist characters. At the same time the Horde are losing its core characters that are being replaced by alliance lite characters.
Ultimately this will leave the story with no where to go and the writers will/have end up writing themselves into a corner. Blizzard needs to revert this quickly and the first step is too remove Anduin from the equation. Hopefully they have realised this as well and Anduin will end up proper dead at the end of this expac.
There is several sad functional realities that come from this as well.
First: Since that gradual shift began in Cata the more held to an arbitrary purity test the Alliance became, the more reactive of an entity it was forced to be. To the point where its so restricted in acting on its own established motivations due to fear of crossing some “line” … the Faction itself is forced to always act in response to external stimuli. It can’t cause stimuli that can be reacted to. But, its reactions are also in turn restricted. Resulting in a Faction of Heroes … being forced to come off more as mere Victims being picked on. Since they can’t really ever be allowed to act on their ever building grievances.
Second: As a subsequent result of this, when there is not a big-bad to face down, the Horde is forced to take up both the Proactive Slack and the majority of what Blizz refers to as “Grey”. However, counterintuitively, because the Alliance can never really be allowed to do anything that would justify that Horde’s actions against them … the Horde is then forced to act against them without motives at all. Which could not be more obvious with how BfA ended up; where the Horde was forced to play the aggressors without being allowed any substantive reasons to actually do/be that. Let alone valid ones.
So, in essence, what we have (whenever the Faction Conflict rears its ugly head) is a forced proactive Faction that is required to act upon the other; while being allowed less and less motives to do so (because the Alliance can’t do anything that would give them that). Acting against what has become and entirely reactive Faction, forced to always turn the other cheek from their ever building list of motives to do otherwise (because the purity test must be maintained). It is so unbalanced and dysfunctional its downright bonkers.
One solution could be to add a new evil-ish faction perhaps consisting of Naga, Sylvanas loyalist undead (who form a cult of Sylvanas, because she cant come back), San’layn maybe, perhaps illithids.
I dont typically play cloth characters but Id play an illithid shadow priest.
Very well put and clearly outlines that both factions are affected by this. It also shows why this has become such a repetitive theme which has become weaker story each time blizzard uses it.
I was always a fan of an illidari faction that the forsaken could have also been a member of. Alot of their goals aligned and they had similar thematics.
Maybe—I haven’t done those quests in a looooong time—but that feels like an excuse to write them out of the climax rather than a legit reason they couldn’t possibly be present at Arthas’s defeat.
well technically Jaina does show up in Icecrown for the Alliance after the airship fight after defeating Saurfang Jr and seems fine though does nothing afterwards. Though Sylvanas is nowhere to be seen sadly.
We must have veered into topics that are VERBOTEN. Too adult for the story forums.
Got it Blizzard, don’t discuss actual storytelling techniques in the story forums. Just complain about Sylvanas and Teldrassil for the 10,001st time. /wink
That’s the thing, I don’t think many have the RTS game background to realize she is actually pretty consistent to how she was originally conceived. As I told someone else, the first thing she did after breaking free from Arthas’s control was the set him up. Understandable since she hated Arthas even tho Arthas at that point was fully under the control of the LK and was nothing more than a puppet.
Then, she betrayed the dreadlord coalition that helped her overthrow Arthas and then failed to finish him off because she decided to act like a cliché movie villain and missed the opportunity.
Then, she betrayed and discarded Garithos (another horrible person) when she had no further use for him.
If anything, it’s pretty clear since the very beginning that she’ll use, lie and manipulate as means to further her own agenda and that she has no loyalties other than to herself.
Not going to disagree. I really think the choice was driven primarily due to game play mechanics. Kind of a ‘We can’t get everyone in, so let’s just go as simple as possible to make the fight mechanics easier to balance’ kind of situation.
Not really. Bolvar was there from the very outset hanging above the throne. He was clearly there so he could replace Arthas as the Lich King. Terenas was not there because of any Alliance aspect, but rather because he was Arthas father. The connection was Arthas, not the Allaince.
I think you missed my point a little. The issue with the inconsistent argument is that much of the inconsistencies that people point to is that they come from the parts players have filled in the blanks with. The pragmatism issue is part of that. Players apply the pragmatism lens to what she does. And under that lens she does seem to suddenly do things that don’t fit. But it is that lens that is the issue. When you remove that lens and instead look at emotions, mostly anger, as her real motivation her action are all pretty in character. This issue is that it is easy to apply a lens that seems to make sense in the moment, but not in the larger story.
The thing is, she doesn’t. If you really take what was shown to us, not what players have filled in, her character has been pretty consistent.
Players have set her up as this super smart, in control pragmatic person. And in that light things seem like retcons. But that was how player choose to fill in the blanks. What we have actually seen is a tortured and emotionally shattered character who has used her anger to bury her pain. In that context all her actions make sense, everything from WC3 through Shadowlands. No retcons required.
Yes, there have been some retcons. I am sure the Shadowlands arc didn’t exist when Wrath was created. That is the nature of a game like this. There will be retcons. But, Sylvanas part is fully in character.
I agree. Personally I think they missed a chance to really show something cool with the Forsaken. I have long said I think the Forsaken’s issue has been their story is nearly entirely Sylvanas. I would love to have seen new Forsaken characters in the Icecrown zone doing things separate from Syvlanas. Things like a hub with them gathering and freeing undead from the scourge. Show new Forsaken characters doing something positive. Build them up as more than just zombie minions of Sylvanas. (Note, not suggesting they should have been against Sylvanas, just doing more.)
Could. Sure that could be a reason to do it. It was not the stated reason. This was a case of players adding in their own interpretation. He was correct, the Forsaken did what they said they were going to do. A lot of players had just decided they weren’t going to do it.
A character who lies to herself in internal dialogue cannot be considered consistently written. Arguing that her being angry is the only lens through which to view her actions is certainly an argument that you can make - I disagree, but I think you’ve done a good job here making your case. But you’ll notice I specifically rejected the “pragmatism or anger” framework you’re cramming this response into. That’s not what I am saying.
I am saying that things like: thinking she respected Vol’jin and Varian, then stating she actually hated everyone and wanted them all to die. Thinking she didn’t want to be Warchief, then becoming Warchief was all part of the Big Plan. Thinking that the Horde was worth saving, then saying that they were worthless. And so on. I am making zero arguments about “pragmatism” because I think that is too fuzzy of a quality to make a solid argument about, and rather focusing on the way that her character seems to contradict itself within and between different pieces of media.
Either she has been lying in her own head for years to fool the fourth wall, or retcons have been necessary to wrench all of these disparate characterizations into something resembling a straight line, and in neither case does it indicate a character that is “consistently written”, which is the original argument.
I am not. I am pointing out the lens you look through matters. The vast majority of any inconsistencies people site is a product of players filling in blanks, applying a lens to her actions that is not reflected in the story. While there are a few weird things and retcons (with all the characters in the game), for her they are few and small.
Nothing in the current game indicates she didn’t respect them. It is pretty obvious she even respects Anduin. Respect for them doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to burn the whole thing down.
First, hating and respecting are not mutually exclusive. And second, she doesn’t say she hated everyone.
Nobody said she did want to. It was part of the Jailor’s plan. Doesn’t mean she wanted it. In fact, it doesn’t mean she even knew about that part of the plan until later.
Look, retcons happen. They have happened in the past, they will happen in the future. That is the nature of a large game like this being written over the course of decades and with multiple writers. Sylvanas path has been effected. I would argue a lot less than other retcon effects. But, in general her character has actually been pretty consistent. The vast majority of ‘inconsistencies’ are from what people have read between the lines on, not what the writers actually put in.
The way they change her from one moral extreme to the other.
Lack of nuances.
From the beggining her story was dark, tragic and cruel. I mean she was a Ranger General of Quel’thalas devout to the bones to protect her people only to be killed off by Arthas, being turned into a monster and at his command being compeled to do things that goes against everything she believed in.
That kind of thing would leave someone bitter to say the least, then her whole arc after Arthas died was finding a new meaning to her undead life, and this meaning was being a protector of her new people, but she was so protective she would put the Forsaken before the Horde which of course caused intrigue.
And that was compelling, and it made sense. But then she became a warchief on Legion, she led the Horde like she led the Forsaken, being ruthless to her enemies and unforgiving in her ways to achieve victory, so far, so good, that’s Sylvanas.
But then comes BfA and without any hint of gradation or transiction she started to do evil things and throw tantrums for nothing, it feels like an edgy, imature teenage girl swaped minds with her or something. She went to the point of literaly tossing her people away like garbage and saying she always ‘‘Pittied them’’.
And now on Shadowlands they want to suddently make her go have doubts to say ‘‘oh she has depth’’ no dude…depth is something you build, not something you just toss in a cutscene and call it a day.
Her story from Warcraft 3 towards Legion was building depth, what happened to her on BfA was a destruction to everything that made her compeling, and Shadowlands is lazily trying to undo the damage.
This is exactly what I was talking about. That is NOT what the story told us. That was something players added. What we were told was that she saw the Forsaken as her Bulwark against eternity. In other words, they where her tools to protect herself NOT for her to protect. Players saw her trying to keep the Forsaken around as some kind of noble defense of them. But, what we were told would seem to indicate it was not about them, but keeping her shield in place to defend herself.
Started? She was doing evil things as far back as Vanilla and even WC3. That was not a new thing. Honestly, not sure how you can’t see how her path has been paralleling Arthas path since the very begin.
Did you play Cata?
I disagree. Sylvanas is a broken and angry woman. Her story as such is interesting. The problem with her story has never been about a lack of depth or changes. It has been the black hole of narrative logic when it comes to the rest of the world’s reaction to her. She has been getting away with blatantly and openly horrible actions with no response from the world for years.
But the telling the story of an emotionally scared and broken person that ends up becoming the villain is very real. It touches a truth that is all to common in the real world. Victims often do become victimizers. To me, it makes the character more interesting because of that. You have to feel sympathy for what they suffered. But you also feel the indignation at what they have become.
I don’t dislike fictional evil characters that do bad things well if they are well thought out and well executed ideas from a talanted author. Griffith in his story is a vile, traitorous and sadistic monster, but that is how he his written, and while his motivations create horrible outcomes for the protagonist and the fictional world around him, they are internally consistent and logical for the character.
I dislike badly written characters. Characters that have no clear motivation, lack coherent personalities, or are outright inconsistent in thought or action from one iteration to the next. This is tricky, as there are good characters who are naturally inconsistent as part of their characterization. Char Aznable from Mobile Suit Gundam does a lot of self defeating things, but we learn he is driven to self-destruction by conflicting emotions. Loyalty, vengeance, idealism, cynicism, love, hate…these are all in character, all fueled by incidents he has experienced.
What I cannot stand are characters who become obvious narrative crowbars. Warcraft is filled with both new and established characters acting entirely out of character just to force a contrived narrative to happen. They are passed narrative balls that make them idiotic, insane, hateful, etc at a crucial moment when they ought not to be before passing the ball to the next victim.
Sylvanas is emblematic of this problem ten-fold. Her ability to convince, deceive, strategize, and even fight is all determined by what the plot demands and not what the character has been shown to be capable of. Whatever the plot demands of her she becomes, and whatever characters surrounding her are stops to have meaning because Sylvanas warps them into being weak or stupid or incompetent or whatever because the plot needs her to.
They also wont be involved in bringing down Sylvanas either. The two entities that did the most to destroy their homeland and families and they wont be involved in bringing down either of them. They are literally an afterthought. And still refugees.
That has the Alliance with 3 Refugees Races now.
Gnomes have been refugees for the past 16.5 years.(While the Trolls took their homeland back the Gnomes failed and retreated in the same patch that was supposed to be them both getting their homeland back.)
Worgen have been refugees for the past 10.5 years, since Cataclysm.
And now the Night Elves have been refugees for the past 2.5 years.
Meanwhile the Horde has a single refugee race, the Forsaken, 2.5 years, same as the Night Elves.
Yep, I think a really big problem for Worgen is their lack of any real “hat” within the Alliance, along with a lack of any distinction among the human kingdoms.
Grudge against Sylvanas? Taken up by Anduin and Night Elves.
Industrious, gothic kingdom? Kul Tiras claims those themes.
Proper Forsaken counterpart? I’d argue Void Elves have stronger parallels at this point.
Normally I’d say their wolf symbolism and werewolf theme is cool and distinctive in itself, but even there you have their story conveyed in direct rejection of it (“we live in SPITE of this curse”) which leaves them to be not much different than Stormwind humans in theme but with more top hats.
I mean, if you want to be technical about it. The only reason the MU Orcs, Darkspear, and Bilgewater aren’t considered refugee peoples right alongside the Forsaken (and AU Mag’har) is because they’ve resettled. They don’t have the ability to return to their prior homes at all, so they’ve simply had to rebuild somewhere else. Which places them in conflict with the locals.
With how much it took to actually coax the details out of him, its entirely possible she doesn’t even know now. Because truly, if the notion was to “get her to see the world as it really is” (AKA, how someone else wants her to see the World) … then they did that to get her to move in directions convenient for them. On her own volition. She may very well still not know that the Jailor and Mueh’zala were behind her becoming Warchief. Which means her internal thoughts about resenting the Loa would not be her lying to herself.
For the MU Orcs yea, but the same could be said about Lightforged and Void Elves, which is why I did not count any of them. They have homes now, just not their original homes. They are not homeless.
The Darkspear built a new home on the Echo Ilses, lost it, then took it back in the patch leading up to Cata, the same Patch the Gnomes were supposed to re-take Gnomeregan, but didn’t. So they have a home, they re-took it and have been there for the past 11 years. Gnomes failed in their big patch, while the Darkspear succeeded.
Bilgewater were homeless, just like the Worgen, until the End of MoP when they were given Azshara and took it over, turned it into a giant horde symbol, and built it up. And Kezan still exists with Bilgewater still living and working on it according to questing/dungeons. So no they don’t count.