Even prior to Cataclysm, she was happily having her Forsaken kidnap living humans and dwarves to test the devastatingly deadly Forsaken Blight.
Actually, here's an interesting little irony:
If you ignored the consequences or the context, the notion of Sylvanas climbing the Frozen Throne and facing off and finally defeating the Lich King could be a moment worth cheering. When WoW began, she was leading the campaign to take vengeance upon the Lich King and the Scourge, and seeing that triumph could have been a fist-pumping moment.
But if anything, the reverse is true. It's actually Bolvar who deserves vengeance against Sylvanas.
Now, admittedly, there's a very long line for those who deserve revenge against the Banshee Queen. Genn lost his son, his home country, many of his people, and even his second, adopted home to Sylvanas. Tyrande lost a huge portion of her people in an attack that was calculated to be as cruel as possible. The people of Hillsbrad, of Southshore, even many of the Kirin Tor, even after welcoming the Forsaken in Dalaran, have fallen to her and her forces.
In theory, the attack by Putress at the Wrath Gate was a coup attempt masterminded by Varimathras - a plot by the Burning Legion to try to take advantage of the chaos to summon Sargeras to Azeroth.
But it was instigated by the use of the Blight - the weapon Sylvanas had made to destroy both the living and the undead.
And Bolvar would not be in the position he's in today had it not been for the Blight.
Sure, there's a good chance that he'd have died fighting Arthas - I frankly didn't see that fight going so well for the Alliance/Horde forces even if it hadn't been for Putress' betrayal - but as it stands, Bolvar owes his cursed, scorched existence to Sylvanas.
Which means that Sylvanas' actions in dethroning Bolvar and undoing the work he has spent the last decade doing to keep the Scourge in check and safeguard the barrier to the Shadowlands is piling on greater insult to injury.
I have a strong feeling Bolvar is going to play a major role in Shadowlands. If I had to guess, he's going to be the equivalent of Thrall in Cataclysm or Khadgar in Warlords and Legion. Having a former Lich King to guide us through the realm of the dead is probably a good asset to have, but on top of that, Bolvar is very motivated to see Sylvanas taken down.
The thing is: we don't know what role Sylvanas will play in this expansion.
Signs seem to point to the Jailor being the final boss - and I've got to say, it's nice that for the first time since Cataclysm, we have what appears to be a real central villain to build up to.
But does that mean that Sylvanas will be fought earlier? Or will we even fight her?
We still haven't quite figured out what Sylvanas' ultimate goals are. She obviously wasn't content to just become Lich Queen - something she easily could have done after defeating Bolvar. She has made a deal with the Jailor - one that has empowered her profoundly (for scorekeepers, I'll say that the Bolvar/Sylvanas fight wasn't strictly fair, as it was more of a 2-on-1 fight, so if it makes you happier to think that in a fair fight Bolvar would have won, take that consolation.) But did she smash the border to the Shadowlands entirely on his behalf?
The Jailor seems to be using the chaos created in order to keep all the souls coming to the Shadowlands in the Maw, which I assume grants him great power.
We still know basically nothing about the Jailor - sure, a lot of theories suggest he's actually Mueh'zalla, but given how profoundly little we know about Mueh'zalla, that doesn't really tell us much. Is his goal to escape? Is his goal to suck all of reality into the Maw? Does he want Azeroth herself?
And what does Sylvanas want?
I think, generally, Sylvanas seems to want everyone to be like her. She likes having power over others, of course, but she wants people to accept a future in which everyone is undead. Perhaps, by shattering the barrier between life and death, she hopes to see a kind of equivalence between life and death, removing what makes her and her people different from the rest of the world.
Which is kind of sympathetic, even if it's disastrous.
I'm curious what she means by saying she has set the world free, especially given that what seems to be happening is, in fact, the opposite, with all the souls of the dead instead becoming trapped in the Maw.
Did the Jailor double-cross her? Is she lying about whatever altruistic motives she claims to have? Or is there some longer game at play here?
Sadly, it looks as if her loyalists in BFA are not going to get any special benefit for sticking with her - basically, they made the wrong choice. Which is realistic, I guess, and certainly lets them kind of "reset" things moving forward.
At this point, it would be foolish to think Sylvanas is secretly a good guy. That being said, given that she's a person rather than some otherworldly deity or monster, her motives need to make some degree of sense. The Old Gods I'm fine with being all about just spreading madness and terror, because that's just the essence of their beings. Even if they're intelligent and capable of plotting and planning, they are so alien that it's fine for them to have totally alien motivations.
Sylvanas might have done some very bad things and she might have been turned undead, but WoW has made it very clear that just being undead doesn't mean you stop having a recognizable psychology. Even Arthas... hell, even Sargeras had some kind of inner logic to the evil that they committed.
Sylvanas has been playing her cards extremely close to the vest for years now. It's time to call.
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