Her BREAKING POINT | The VITAL Part of WoW That Blizzard DIDN’T Put In-Game | Sylvanas EXPLAINED

Our Sylvanas deep dive continues, with today's episode covering the major BFA reveals that you probably missed!

[Kunori]

Christie Golden/Blizzard: "Azerite makes you smarter!"
Player character, after being constantly exposed to azerite for months: yes spooky dagger very trustworthy"

[MrGoesBoom]

And this is something I hate....Books filling in background after the fact or detailing historical events that only get passing mention are great. Books that give massive plot and character growth and provide massive motivation for changes in the current history of the game/world....and none of it shows up IN the game, that's just garbage and is bad storytelling. The books/comics/etc are SUPPLEMENTARY, the actual events, character growth, and pivotal choices should be showing up in the game we're all paying a monthly subscription to be a part of. Not something that happens off screen and you have no clue about unless you drop $25 in the book store.

[Cassi.D.Sunset]

Sylvanas: If I dedicated myself to peace with the Alliance, how long would it last?
Saurfang: Idk at least an expansion or two.

[baamnight]

It's funny how she's flawed because she's too emotional under pressure. The banshee queen isn't dead inside.

[ZergSuc]

the issue with sylvanas is that she doesnt act at all like her warcraft3 counterpart, most every character in wow doesnt act even remotely like their warcraft3 counterparts, they continuously change lore to better suit their current writing staff instead of upholding the original lore. it also doesnt help that like 343 all the lore we want to see in game is in other media that most players will never see or know about

[chelenides]

Thank you and the team for all the hard work. You have a permanent place on my second screen!

[lelouche]

Wait...are you saying...Sylvannas...is a Tsundare!?!?
Sylvannas: I-its not like I needed your help old ork....baka!

Me: my god....it all make sense now.

[goblinounours]

The problem I have with all of this is that Blizzard *decided* to turn Sylvanas into an impulsive fool.
I never perceived her to be so impulsive and insecured back in WC3 and earlier in WoW. In BfA, she managed to be influenced by a dying night-elf...
And even when she should be feeling level-headed, explain to me how her tactics with the loyalist players make any sense: she keeps telling the loyalist players "to act like rebels with Saurfang" while she sends some of the last Sunreavers we have against us, as if it was part of her grand scheme to kill them off (and maybe it is, which means her mustache-twirling-levels are over 9000). She could've trapped the rebels here and ended them there, as she knew fully well they were coming... but no, I guess her plan was to let them live so they could make the cinematic where she bails Team-Rocket-style happen.

It's simple: for Sylvanas, Blizzard was overly inspired by Cersei Lannister...

Blizzard has decided to ruin Sylvanas, to ruin yet another Horde leader. How long before we find Sylvanas as a raid boss? Or even worse, as a dungeon boss? Or as a end-of-zone-event like Garrosh in Nagrand? I hope this never happens, really. We already lost two capital cities to this idiocy.

I'm glad there won't be a warchief after Sylvanas. It was getting ridiculously stupid to see every warchief die/leave after 2 expansions.

[orange-micro-fiber]

This makes much more sense when it's put together like this.

[quantum_ogre]

I really enjoyed the video, Bellular.

However, I think you're giving the writing team too much credit. It isn't just the chopping of the narrative into different mediums- the whole handling of characters this expansion follows a trend of 'one hand not knowing what the other is doing' where their story is involved. The same thing happened with Cataclysm - you get Stonetalon Garrosh, Twilight Highlands Garrosh, and then BOMB THE CITY Garrosh. Just because they conclude a plotline doesn't mean it was consistent.

And yeah, one could say that the story is showing you a multifaceted character, though it seems all too much a covering of a disjointed narrative plan. But I think the size of the game and its update cycle in addition to the writing staff (in Metzen's own words) writing around the choices of the gameplay suggests otherwise.

[monsteratemehcookie]

BFA: She's too emotional and impulsive!
LK: Forsaken are souls ripped from death and trapped into corpses, they lost all emotions, they are incapable of feeling anything.

So, Blizzard, which one is it?

[Gothos]

11:25 so throwing your axe in the back of some nameless bastard would be OK for Saurfang?

PS. Also, book night elves behave like proper wood elves.

[OpticalArxenal]

Yeah, I understand the whole telling story in different mediums because you can deliver it better through, say, a book. Problem is it makes things disjointed AF. And if they price-tag it, rather callous.

[hhitok]

Bellular, Sylvanas didn't ask for Saurfang death, just to track him down. It was a willing request from undeads and dark rangers. Sylvanas just let them do their thing.
What you really miss is the reason behind the Horde wanting to use sylvanas or believe sylvanas to take their payback from the injustice the alliance have inflicted them.

[manchovieclemmons]

They assassinated her character... not by making her evil, she was always evil, but by making her irrational and impulsive. (Also slightly stupid at times.) The writers keep trying to convince us that she is playing 8d chess, but it always comes off as her making really bad decisions. For instance, through history which enemy has managed to stand up against the allys and the horde and achieve victory? Literally no one, and she was in charge of one of the potentially strongest forces in the world. She is portrayed as politically savvy in the novels, yet, none of it shows in the events. Frankly, it all contradicts itself so much that I have no idea what her character even is now.

[Fortyde]

I don't like the way they're making an undead character, who's supposed to be nihilistic and numb, into a narcissistic and grandiose tyran. I actually thought that after getting her vengeance, undead Sylvanas would be interested in safeguarding not only her people but also the joys of life that living creatures take for granted.

*"What are we if not slaves to this torment?"*

[carrastealth]

7:45 "if she was like this at all times, the War would have played out differently."

She WAS like this the entire time, till they decided in BFA that she was an easily triggered and baited Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain instead.

"She acts differently under pressure." Yeah, starting THIS expansion. We could say the same thing about Daenerys with that logic can't we? Blizzard decided to 180 the calm collected strategist and went with "bitches be crazy" to force her into scenarios she wouldn't have found herself in the way she was characterized before. The ranger general that kept her cool despite having Saurfang insult her by calling her Arthas (a name that still sends rage through her) and her reacting calmly and with a clever quip... is now triggered by the word 'hope' and easily baited. Give me a break -_-

Just as how they decided they would wipe everything away she'd ever said or done that was good (and was WRITTEN with that intent) and just went 'well she was lying..' which is the cheapest way out you can imagine.

Fact of the matter is, they didn't want to have an actual war with the brilliant strategist Sylvanas vs the Inexperienced Anduin.

They wanted the Unhinged Saturday Morning Cartoon Sylvanas and the Superhero Mary Sue Anduin and they pushed it. Which is why BFA's storytelling isn't just one of WoW's weakest from that perspective, but a prime example of how 'foreshadowing' is NOT character development.

[Gemcat]

I dislike the characterization that she is "insecure". She is psychologically broken. She holds it together until she is triggered and then she loses control, lashing out in anger and fear. She might not even be able to name why she acts this way. I won't deny she is a narcissist, as everything is always framed in what has happened to her, what it means to her, that people do things for or against her. Hell, she believes at least a part of the UNIVERSE is against her. I'm not saying she has a core of good. I think that died a long time ago. She is a tragic figure who had a lot of bad done to her.

[austinm]

8:42 NO! No, no, no! She is not "under duress" or "under threat" when a random, then-nameless moonguard on the brink of death on the beach gets under her skin. In that moment, Sylvanas stands victorious. She has won. She has outsmarted the Alliance at every turn and every single thing has gone EXACTLY to plan. The events that lead up to her burning the tree are NOT the same as when Genn attacks her in Stormheim. She is under no duress of any kind, so this decision is COMPLETELY out of character for her, PERIOD.

Please stop trying to make this make sense. It DOES NOT make sense NO MATTER HOW YOU SPIN IT. Blizzard's writing team may be outstanding, but on this one point, they shat the bed, period, end of discussion. Nothing before or since justifies this one, braindead stupid decision and all the other events that use the burning of Teldrassil as a foundation are thus built upon a foundation of shit.

[dreammfyre]

8.0: Let's try to make this expansion about character drama and power struggle, with comics books and novels to build it up!

8.3: *O L D* *G O D*