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The End of Sylvanas! You LIED Blizzard

Certain lines cannot be crossed. There are certain actions, once taken that cannot be undone, cannot be excused nor can they ever be written away, no matter how talented the writer. Genocide is one such line, whether in real life or in a video game, genocide almost universally coax the same response from all functional human beings, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!

The Final Epilogue of World of Warcraft Shadowlands have been datamined, Sylvanas Windrunner stands to be judged for her actions in front of a terrible arbiter, Pelygos! Now the excruciating truth of Pelygos as a character is very much plain to see, the character failed every single trial they were given and needed help from the Hero of Azeroth in every single endeavour. Steve and his writing team decided to make the core characteristic of this character their trans status and then forgot to make them being trans part of the story. Not once did we explore the intricacies of such a life, the struggle or reality of such a character, so really, the entire trans label seems to have been slapped on as a TOKEN shout out to the trans community to state, we have not forgotten you, we will pander to you in the worst way possible, by giving you a character so inept, so uninteresting and so flawed, that no one even cares about the character.

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If this was in fact where my gripes ended that would not make much of a video, Pelygos could have been a cool character, a chance for Blizzard to drive a psychological look into the lives of citizens of the great beyond, struggles and fears of those who may be trans, or gay but instead, none of that ever really happened so the New Arbiter remains as boring as the old one.

So, let’s get to my actual issues with this epilogue

The events of Tel’drassil effectively cemented Sylvanas Windrunner’s arc from Hero of the Horde to Anti Hero at best or Villain. There really was no other way to change this outcome, this was her story. She would either go down as one of the biggest villains in WoW history or as an Anti-Hero much like Illidan. And to be honest, that Arc would have been fitting, imagine a cinematic where we finally corner Sylvanas with her saying, as arrogantly as ever, you know nothing of suffering, of my pain, I own my actions, I did what was needed. I apologise for nothing. Just see the Garrosh cinematic for inspiration.

Instead, Blizzard wrote the worst redemption story WoW has ever seen. This however isn’t even the half of my gripe, the biggest issue I have with this story is the lies and deceit from Blizzard devs surrounding the Sylvanas story. At Blizzcon 2019 I believe it was 2019, Ion Hazzikostas stands up on stage and proudly announces that Sylvanas’s story will not follow the same arc as that of Garrosh, he even mockingly exclaims that Sylvanas will never be captured, she will not beg for forgiveness, she will not allow others to judge her. Enter the Epilogue, Sylvanas willingly stands to be judged, even when Tyrande calls her a liar or doubts her honesty she says nothing, no quips, no backtalk, just stands there and allows herself to be judged. Then she also allows herself to be imprisoned within the maw, saving the souls of those she has doomed. All of this we were told Sylvanas would never do.

Let’s move on, I think you get my issue with this line of Story. Enter the Grey. We are told, repeatedly that Sylvanas isn’t good, or bad but she is grey. To understand her actions, we will need to play Shadowlands, her actions cannot be judged by themselves. Steve Danuser and Ion on multiple occasions, proudly boasted their new 5 head storytelling, their morally grey character.

Allow me to explain what Morally grey means. Anti-Heroes are morally grey! This is a character where their actions and reasons for their actions illicit very different emotions from the audience. While the audience may condemn their actions, the audience also understands their reasons for taking the action. When done right, these characters can be incredible. Nothing about Sylvanas is morally grey, her actions were atrocious, and her reasons were stupid. There was no twist that gave the audience insight into her actions. No big reason for the burning of Tel’drassil. If Sylvanas did all that to see Zovaal destroyed, that would have made her morally grey, but she didn’t. She did it to help the jailer and it wasn’t until she decided to no longer serve, after serving that she decided to help. Making all her actions, prior to that moment, just pure evil.

In the end, the story of Sylvanas is a bitter one. She suffered from the same braindead writing that killed Shadowlands. A Writing team with no direction, no plan or even an inkling of an idea of where the future of the story must be. Perhaps they decided too late they wanted to do something else instead, perhaps they suffered from so much cut content that nothing they originally planned made it into the game. At the end of the day, it is still the players that were betrayed. The loyalists were told that we would understand when next we saw her, yet we still do not understand and the decision to be loyal still means absolutely nothing, even now at the end of the Shadowlands.

All this is to say, Farewell lady Sylvanas Windrunner, your story was a tragic one and much like the story of Arthas had its greatness undone, by a writing team with absolutely no idea what they are doing. You will be missed! Your story will not be remembered, you will not be praised for your morally grey actions, or your Anti-Hero antics, you will be remembered as a part of the WoW Story most of us will sooner forget. It is a shame that you had to have your final moments, under the incompetent watch of Steve Danuser and Ion Hazzikostas.

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