Zaleiria

I don't think Sylvanas would risk an attack on human/orc forces. When she was turned into a Banshee, she took that as a personal insult from Arthas (to put it very very lightly). The forsaken hate everything, and I think Sylvanas shares some of that hate, but she would never take that sort of risk by attacking semi-friendly forces when Arthas/Lich King is still running around. Especially when he shows his face at the very attack you're disrupting.

 

AJAlkaline

I find it very encouraging that there is this sort of inter-faction debate, and that it is very easy for one person to side with the reasoning behind either faction. I am, however, very troubled by people over-extending this. Instead of thinking "Oh hey, that's cool, Bliz actually made a conflict in which both sides can be thought of as right and this other person actually sees it the other way" it seems of occasionally become "this other person agrees with the other side and therefore he's a moron, and the other side acting in a way I don't agree with is because Bliz are terrible writers." We really don't need to be resorting to insulting another person's ability to understand moral concepts or calling their reasoning outright wrong when in reality all of us here are just trying to understand why, in the minds of each of the factions, their actions are justified.

I think that what Bliz has actually created here is a situation in which all of the factions involved are working in their own best interests, and making the best conclusions given the information that they have. If you look at each of the character's positions given the information and motivation that they have, what they're doing makes sense.

 

Blayze

Not quite. Sylvanas is still an idiot due to terribad writing unless she had plans set in place to counter the betrayal.

 

AJAlkaline

Alright, that one I'll give you. Though, she may have felt that the forsaken she had lead so effectively out of complete mental slavery and into relative prosperity would not have turned on her the way they did.

I actually do feel that the plot would be better if Sylvanas had betrayed the horde and alliance, but I don't think she would've made her move at that instant, and it would've made it incredibly difficult to still have the forsaken be part of the horde.

 

Kaejin

Sylvanas is the victim of writing to make the game fun, rather than writing for story's sake. Blizzard has often made note of the fact that they plan game events around how fun they would be first, story second. It's been mentioned often in this thread.

 

Entropie

I think I indeed misread your comment. But indeed, the lack of the Apothecary Society, or even Forsaken post-Wrathgate shrouds the canonical explanation as to what happened. I can't really do much else but to extrapolate on Sylvanas' reaction.


And in return, Sylvanas responded by reclaiming Undercity and hunting down Putress and Varimathras.

In reply to "I'm not especially familiar with pre-WoW lore, but from what I gather it would be more than a stretch to say that Arthas was under Varian's jurisdiction." Not his jurisdiction, but they were best friends (BFF in this case I guess).



And second of all, the awkwardness of the Sylvanas situation is due to the limit of the storytelling possibilities. Ingame events and quests are a whole different beast. Where novels can describe thoughts, films on visuals and non-verbal communication, an mmorpg can pretty much only communicate by scripted quests. Sylvanas' thoughts are hard to convey. We'll need a novel for it. Personally I'd say that Sylvanas is up there on the moral scale. Just a step below Jaina, Thrall and Malfurion. She just has an profound hatred for Arthas, and a devotion to the Forsaken. They are called Forsaken for a reason, it's hard to be altruistic when you are condemned by all.


PS: I enjoy the 'arguments', I don't mind it heating up a bit. It adds an extra dimension to it, as long as we play with 'facts' and speculations firmly ground in the given lore.

God bless our good and gracious king,
Whose promise none relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

 

Enova

Throughout TFT and my Horde experience, I always got the impression that Sylvannas was still loyal to her allies and her people. Now, you could argue that Alliance used to be her people, but honestly... she probably had little to do with Stormwind and Ironforge anyway. Her human neighbors and long time allies were the people of Lordaeron, and most of them shared her fate and joined her as Forsaken. And those that didn't end up in her kingdom are either still part of the Scourge or members of the Scarlet Crusade.

She seems like a harsh, spiteful woman, and if I may add my personal opinion, quite tired and disgruntled with her undead condition and position in the Horde. But there is this one little quest in Ghostlands (Journey to Undercity, along with numerous hints throughout the blood elf areas that she's quite honestly trying to undo the damage to Quel'thalas) that kinda hints that she's not the ruthless bitch she appears.

Also, one thing to remember, her allegiance is still to Silvermoon. The whole 'plague to destroy all living' plan doesn't really fit in with that. Sure, she probably sees the tactical value of such a thing, but I doubt she'd actually use it for a preemptive strike on anybody, much less on a global scale, when there is still a considerable risk of destroying her people.

And yes, quests in Northrend do begin to hint that most of the Forsaken indifference towards their Horde allies is a thing of the past. Hell, we even have Forsaken NPCs living quite happily in orcish bases in Outland.

Guilty as charged ^

 

footloop

Yeah, and that's the difference. Thrall is the leader of the political power structure which encompasses the RAF, and while he definitely has some ability to say "They went rogue! I didn't condone that!" the plague tests in HF and other related quests weren't exactly covert and since they *were* in fact part of the Horde he is at least partially responsible for their actions.

Varian maybe should have noticed something was up with Arthas and intervened, but if he was at all responsible for Arthas' actions it was only on the personal level rather than the political.

Now Varian of course overreacted, especially since Thrall was actually standing there saying essentially "We totally fucked up and let them get away with this", but the plague was still a result of the RAF being allowed to run completely unchecked. This is only made worse by the fact that all of their experiments were done out in the open, meaning *somebody* should've been asking questions.

 

Illyra

I agree with your latter statement. I would again like to point at some of the Warcraft RPG books. In the Manual of Monsters, Sylvanas is listed as a villain, along with the likes of Illidan and Vashj, and listed as having a lawful evil alignment. In the Lands of Conquest sourcebook, the origins and mission of the RAC are described. Sylvanas did indeed found the society and provide it with its brief to develop a new plague that would destroy both scourge and the living and ideally also return them as undead in the Forsaken fold.
That is, the timing of the attack at the Wrathgate certainly wasn't intended by Sylvanas. But the direction of the RAC's research, and the atrocities committed in its name definitely had her authority. It also isn't clear whether the entire society sided with Varimathras during the rebellion.
Note that the RPG books predate WoW, and some aspects seem somewhat outdated; but blaming everything bad that has happened in the name of the Forsaken on a Varimathras-aligned rogue faction, with Sylvanas being some kind of slightly misunderstood but benevolent matriarch seems inconsistent with the available information. She's called the Dark Lady for a reason.
Also, in my opinion this debate shouldn't be about which faction is 'better'. Gameplay alone dictates that none of the major factions will ever be unambiguously better than the other one. However, they are intentionally portrayed as having different cultures, with the purpose to entertain the players. The Forsaken may have been conceived as a more sinister outlet than any other playable faction but there is a rich backstory explaining their nature and motivation. And it's a game, some people like a bit of darkness in their play. Hell, the Orcish Horde were rather obviously the bad guys in Warcraft I and II, but that certainly didn't take away from players' enjoyment of their campaigns. And the New Horde in its entirety offers a wide spectrum from very good to evil morals, as does the Alliance.
Coming back to the origins of the Warcraft franchise, faction rivalry is an intrinsic part of the game. It has been stated several times that it is the designers intent to reinvigorate that aspect of the gameplay, and I am of the opinion that the Wrathgate storyline achieved this rather plausibly, with none of the major players acting in an outright stupid or irrational manner. And yes, I do not think that King Varian acted in any way particularly irrationally in heating up the previous cold war scenario, given the course of events.
This contrasts with the Warcraft III storyline of Arthas' Corruption (capital 'C'), which to my mind always seemed utterly forced, cliched, and irrational. But maybe that's just me.

 

Starfire

I think you guys are writing out the possibility of Sylvanas' softening/having a change of heart.

Maybe she was a ruthless bitch, but now certain elements have changed. I mean we're all okay with having Tirion change from random old hermit to Champion of the Argent Crusade or whatever. Why is it not okay to see Sylvanas changing her alignment?

Often we see good characters become evil, but what's wrong with an evil character becoming good? Clearly quests like Lament of the Highborne were made to show Sylvanas' softer side. And certainly the re-emergence of Silvermoon, especially as a rebuilt city, must of calmed her and softened her approach.

She has less of a reason to be angry and spiteful now. Granted, she's still a banshee and Arthas is still alive; but at least her people are alive too and rebuilding.

Maybe though, a lot of you are blinded by your desires to see Sylvanas as a bad-ass bitch to be reckoned with and that's a possibility as to why no one wants to accept a softening non-evil Sylvanas.

 

Enova

The plague, if I remember correctly, was supposed to be used against the Scourge and the Crusade. Now, even so, having some tests out in the open has some strategic advantage. It would sure as hell discourage any offensive actions against the Forsaken, and implicitly against the Horde if it they're in possession of such a weapon.

And the tests in Hilsbard and Tirisfal... well, it makes sense that they'd be carried out on captives and peasants rather than armed Crusade soldiers, especially if you don't want your intended targets to find out about it. And this doesn't necessarily contradict my previous point, because the Alliance would have a far better espionage network than a bunch of fanatics, because it would be a lot more likely to see the military downsides of facing the plague, and it could be used as a bargaining chip for a joint strike against the Scourge or for a ceasefire in case of a direct conflict.

Now, Wrathgate shows that this isn't how it all played out in the end, but the tests were happening some years before we storm Icecrown, and things made sense at that particular point in time. The only problem is that this is hard to see in an essentially static MMO like WoW, but there is sort of a timeline to all this. At the right point in the timeline, when the Horde was still not exactly an established superpower, the picture makes sense.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Emeraude

Sylvanas is one character I wish I got to know more about, it's like that short part in WC3 as opposition, then her campaign to take over what she can in TFT and that's it.

A novel called World of Warcraft: The Dark Lady, or The Banshee Queen, or something would be much appreciated heh. In fact when I think about it not many of the comics/media really speak from the perception of those that serve in the Scourge unwillingly, or are free and are in the Forsaken. We can only really judge the Forsaken, Scourge, Ebon Knights based on their actions.

When I read Rise of the Horde/Beyond the Dark Portal/Tides of Darkness, I got to see a lot through the perception of the Horde/Alliance. I understood what was motivating the Horde, and I understood what was motivating the Alliance.

There's really a huge lack of media out there that explains the Forsaken/Scourge, even Arthas' upcoming novel has more to do with him, then the Scourge as a whole, which is good mind you, I want to know what Arthas' mindset is, but I'd like to know what his slaves and *ahem* misguided free slaves are thinking as well.

Depending on what actually happens in 3.3 & the Icecrown encounter we might lose the Scourge before really finding out about their inner workings and what makes them tick.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CX81UJZ8
For the lurking Phoenix Wright faithful.
What is the most important thing to you? Won't you grant me the pleasure of taking it away.

 

GSH

We accept the change in Tirion Fordring because we were there for it. (Best questline in WoW!) In fact, we quite possibly set it in motion.

Whereas for Sylvannas, the most we can do is extrapolate from the Lament of the Highborne quest. This is an MMO, and I think that we need to experience the change directly for it to work, rather than have it happen off-stage or in novels.

 

Meekee

I think the lack of explanation about the scourge is because there's really not much to explain. They are supposed to be a mindless group under complete control of the lich king. Any of them that manage to somehow break from his grasp are then again able to act of their own volition, but while under his control you don't think or feel, you just do his bidding.

 

Leviathon

In the end I don't think Sylvanas herself is evil or agreed with what the RAS did. While she wanted the new plague to kill the Scourge I'd imagine the entire use the plague on everyone was just Varimathras and the RAS Apothecary's conspiring with him. The player may have been told a lot of times by the Apothecary's that Sylvanas ordered to do certain things for a plague but something tells me they mostly were using her name to get what they needed done for Varimathras. Using Sylvanas' name is more likely to get someone to help them rather than them saying a Dreadlord tasked them to do it.

It does seem from what we have seen that Sylvanas and a large part of the 'civilians' of the Forsaken are beginning to accept the Horde more as allies than a means to an end. Guess it would be nice if one of the authors could make a book on Sylvanas and the Forsaken so we could get a better idea of the mindset that they have now though without us having to speculate, but something tells me they are instead going to show that in the future chapters of this expansion and maybe even partly in the comic.

Well we do get some minor explanation in the Death Knight starting zone in the books around there but for the most part the footsoldiers are just mindless while only the higher ups such as Liches, Necromancers, the Darkfallen, Death Knights etc. actually have a will of their own to a certain extent.

 

Tirin

I don't see what the big deal is with the blight. We have missiles made specifically for wiping out population centers. We have quite a few of them. Does that mean we're all crazy evil monsters trying to destroy all life? The blight's a weapon. A particularly unpleasant one, it's true. But still just a weapon. Using it at the Wrathgate was evil. Developing it wasn't.

Some members of the RAS certainly are evil. Game mechanics make it too obvious to us though. For us, Hillsbrad is 2 minutes from the Undercity, not a few days or weeks. For us, the alchemist is standing around with everyone else, recruiting anybody who walks past. In reality the experiments are probably happening in a basement, in an abandoned house, on the outskirts of town. And the alchemist is only recruiting people who will be okay with what he's doing.

I think Sylvanas is evil, by our standards. Viewed within the WoW setting though, she's one of the better leaders. She's cold, ruthless, willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the continued survival of her people. In a world where demons seek to unmake creation, Lovecraftian beasts try to turn everything into chaos, and all sorts of other monsters make life difficult, you need leaders who can order evil done for good reason.

Look at the situation with the Orcs right now. Thrall doesn't have the stomach to have Garrosh dealt with. And people will die because of it.


And regarding the Wrathgate betrayal, I think the bad writing falls more on Varimathras than anyone. The Burning Legion is reeling. Archimonde is toast. KJ just got beaten up pretty good. We've established ourselves in Outland and smashed much of their operations there. Their tool the Lich King has broken free and is the Big Bad of Azeroth at the moment. And Varimathras chooses to jump ship back to them? He's effectively the second in command of the Forsaken, part of one of the two great powers on Azeroth. What happened to "I'm always on the winning side"?

 

Enova

Well, considering that Dreadlords can't really die - although they can be killed - according to the lore, Varimathras wasn't afraid of what Sylvannas might do to him if he didn't join her, but he'd be in pretty deep with the bigger fish if he returned to whatever hell spawned him as a failure or as a turncoat. More likely, he figured out that the Scourge was out of the Legion's control and decided to stick around and wreak some havoc before someone killed him and sent him back. That way, he'd get commended or even rise in ranks back in the Legion. Because, to be quite honest, he's caused a lot more mayhem on Azeroth than most individual Legion members.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Starfire

We will see Varimathras again though. It's planning for the future. We know we're going to see Varimathras again and Mal'Ganis again. (And Kil'Jaeden).

There are lots of possibilities. Perhaps, for example, Varimathras saw this as an opportunity to be the flag bearer of the Legion. For the exact reasons you cited; I wouldn't be surprised if Varimathras suddenly emerged as the leader of the Legion. No, not necessarily in place of Sargeras (or Kil'Jaeden) but perhaps the #3 or #4. The one who is effectively in control of the Legion's ground troops.

[e] Beaten, but at least we're on the same page. (More or less).

 

AJAlkaline

Mind you, if it weren't for the fact that Varian, Thrall, Sylvanas and the players struck so quickly and kicked so much ass in retaking the Undercity, Varimathras would've managed to summon whoever it was he needed to into Azeroth. And once that happened he might have been in a significantly stronger position. I don't think that it was going to be KJ, as it seems to require a good deal more power to summon him anywhere (but that, of course, changes as the plot demands).

 

Karamoon

Sylvanas is either evil or absurdly incompetent. The people under her command routinely commit stomach-churning atrocities, her capital is guarded by "abominations", and a quarter of her city is devoted to Apothecaries who's primary project is creating a super plague and testing it on humans. Either she is aware of the major actions of her primary army and of what 1/4 of her capital's floor space is dedicated to, or she makes no real effort to find out what the people under her command are actually doing.

When you get an entire quarter of the capital city named for and dedicated to your experiments, and a big chamber that's not in any way hidden that leads to the room where you have prisoners in cages to subject to your experiments, I find it a bit hard to believe that the leader, who also resides in the city, is completely unaware of what they're up to. RAS plague experiments are routinely conducted on prisoners in care of the Deathguard (the primary forsaken military), they're certainly not being kept secret from the army. If it's really a secret, the number of Forsaken involved in the conspiracy is simply staggering, and the fact that none of them have sold out the secret for personal gain is nothing short of a miracle.

Compare the RAS with Alliance Warlocks. Warlocks don't have a big, accessible area where they do their thing, they have a secret room in some old tunnels behind a secret door in a bar. When they send you out on quests you don't go and summon demons right in front of a local army commander, you go about as far from the alliance as you can get (Ratchet or the middle of the Barrens), or do it in a dark and hidden room. I could buy that pretty much anything about warlocks is secret, because their setup clearly indicates secrecy even though becaue of game mechanics you can walk right into their areas.

The last living army of Lordaeron was destroyed, not by Scourge action, but at Sylvanas's direct order when she betrayed them. That little missing bit of Lordaeron history puts a slightly different spin on things.

There was no time in which any Orc was placed into a concentration camp, there is not a single bit of lore that uses the term, and not a single bit of lore that justifies that specific term. Your use of the term is a direct attempt to draw a parallel between the Alliance and a particularly distasteful regime in human history - the phrase "concentration camp" does NOT simply refer to a camp for holding prisoners, it is a direct reference to the camps created in Germany and Poland by WW2 Germany. Using the term 'concentration camp' in this context is just dishonest, please stop bringing that into the conversation.

Even ignoring your incorrect and, frankly, offensive attempt to draw a comparison with that particular group, you're wrong. The humans NEVER attempted, much less succeeded, to imprison "each and every greenskin". The Alliance attempted to imprison all members and former members of The Horde, because The Horde was an aggressive army that had just launched its third attempt to wipe out all humankind, not because their skin happens to be green. It takes an incredibly huge double standard to call someone 'racist' for imprisoning the group who wanted to kill or enslave every other race and pave roads with their skeletons.

Judging by this response, I obviously didn't make what I was saying clear enough, so I'll make it clearer. People are making bald assertions without providing justification that anyone critical of the horde is not rational, or not smart enough to understand shades of grey, or doesn't get nuances. Simply asserting that someone is not rational without showing how they're irrational, or asserting that someone is wrong without saying in what way they're wrong is a good indication that the person making the assertion has no real argument, not that the assertion is true. If I'm wrong, point out where I'm wrong and reference what lore I'm ignoring or misinterpreting.

Reading someone who has a sensible disagreement with me is interesting, it is the reason I'm involved in this thread, reading a post that say 'gosh you're irrational, and simple-minded, and you're not reading the lore but I'm not going to say what parts you're getting wrong' is not remotely interesting for anyone.

 

Enova

Actually, this kinda ties in to my last point about her loyalties being to Silvermoon first and foremost. Considering this is after the Garithos-Kael incident, I can only wonder what would have happened to the whole Forsaken faction if that little event would have been different.

Guilty as charged ^

 

songster

Not true. The term predates WW2 by a large margin, and was coined for the camps created by the British during the Boer War. The key point of a concentration camp (which is synonymous with internment camp) is that it is used to contain and control a civilian population. The concept of course is even older than the Boer war. In the case of the Nazis, the camps were forced labor camps, death camps and extermination camps - the use of "concentration camp" to describe them was a euphemism coined by the Naxis to suggest a more benign purpose.

 

Liar

It doesn't invalidate his point either way. Usually when people refer to concentration camps they refer to the most infamous ones in the history. But enough of that, the thread has been Godwin'ed enough already and I don't think comparing anyone in the game to Hitler is going to do you any good.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Munorion

For all we know, Varian's intervention would have done exactly as much good as Uther's (Arthas' mentor) or Jaina's (Arthas' erstwhile lover).

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/MuLepton.png

 

Leviathon

To me you are looking too into the city settup in game which is over simplified like all the capitals. Lore wise the city is much larger and so a portion of the RAS making a alternate plague in a hidden away area is perfectly feasible. It wasn't the entire RAS that sided with Putress and I'd imagine Faranell had no part in the alternate plague that Putress created.