So Sylvanas is no longer Warchief of the Horde. But she's not dead (well, not dead-dead) either. (It's a week into the patch, so... uh... are we past the statute of limitations on spoilers?)
I don't know exactly what she expected to accomplish when she answered Saurfang's Mak'gora challenge, but it does seem like when people do this, the victor usually pays a political price, like when Garrosh really confirmed a lot of the greatest concerns within the Horde over his warmongering leadership style. I mean, Cairne was basically the friendly grandpa of the Horde, and killing him didn't earn Garrosh much - (though given the whole honor-death challenge nature of the Mak'gora, it wasn't like he could afford to lose either.)
What do we know about Sylvanas and her plans right now?
In a lot of ways, she's an enigma. Since she became undead, Sylvanas has never been particularly trustworthy. Even before World of Warcraft, she made an alliance of convenience with Garrithos to defeat the Dreadlords attempting to rein in the Scourge under the control of the Burning Legion once again. Upon defeating Detheroc and Balnazzar and securing the (as it would turn out temporary) defection of Varimathras, she turned around and just straight-up murdered Garrithos. Sure, the guy was a racist jagweed, but it demonstrated pretty early on that even if Sylvanas and her people had regained their free will, Sylvanas would be just as ruthless as the Scourge had been.
And this was borne out in World of Warcraft. Crafting the Forsaken Blight, she prepared the ultimate weapon to use against the Forsaken's enemies, both living and undead. The only time that Sylvanas ever appeared caught out of position was when Putress and Varimathras launched their coup. This betrayal made Sylvanas appear somewhat more sympathetic, letting us believe that perhaps she was not the pure Machiavellian schemer we had thought she was.
After Wrath, when she discovered that Bolvar had been made the Lich King in place of Arthas, Sylvanas hit her lowest point. She had dedicated herself and the creation of an entire culture around the need to get revenge against the Lich King. Yet here, for all their efforts, was just another one. So she killed herself.
There's a part of me that wonders if that was the last time Sylvanas had any redeemable qualities. Not, mind you, to say that suicide is a virtuous act in any way (seriously,) but that this act signified a descent into a kind of nihilism - a void in values and motivation that could be filled by an opportunistic force.
Like the force of Death.
Adrift in some fathomless darkness, like where we can assume Arthas' soul now resides, Sylvanas was pulled back from the brink by a group of Val'kyr that the Lich King had raised to serve him but were now untethered.
Big, big question: why were they no longer tethered? Given that Bolvar became the Lich King upon taking the crown, should the Scourge not all adhere to his will in lockstep? Well, perhaps not, as we saw a Crypt Lord in the Eastern Plaguelands declaring himself a new master of the Scourge. Maybe Bolvar had not consolidated his power yet.
The point is, upon having been brought back to (un)life, Sylvanas declared her intention to be the preservation of the Forsaken as a people, and this began her campaign of conversion, using the Val'kyr to raise the dead as Forsaken.
If you didn't play before Cataclysm, you might not realize that, prior to that, the Forsaken did not "recruit." Any "new" Forsaken was simply a former Scourge zombie that had regained its free will when Illidan managed to crack the Frozen Throne. It wasn't until Sylvanas got her Val'kyr that anyone else could become Forsaken.
Sylvanas makes the case for her actions to Horde adventurers in Silverpine Forest, basically saying that if they don't do this, the Forsaken will simply wither away as individuals are killed, and not only will this mean that they'll lose the number required to keep the former kingdom of Lordaeron under their control, but the Horde will also lose its key foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Her characterization is a little muddled here, as she seems to show real concern for her people, but also gleefully pursues tactics that give even Garrosh Hellscream pause. Was her concern just an act?
After dying once again (and likely disqualifying her from anything special happening at the "hour of her third death" given that any future death of hers would be number 4) at the treachery of Lord Godfrey, she loses more Val'kyr, but also doubles down on her commitment to using them to preserve the Forsaken people. Again, one is left to wonder if she fears her people will all suffer the fate of endless drifting through darkness after death, as she did, or if she simply wants the power that comes with a fiercely devoted population that she has trained to worship her.
Ironically, as far as we know, she bears no real blame for the circumstances of her rise to Warchief. The Burning Legion had completely outmaneuvered the combined Alliance and Horde forces, and what looked like an abandonment to the Alliance forces was actually a desperate retreat that saved the Horde's greatest heroes from a slaughter. It would have been nice if Sylvanas had sent a letter to Anduin basically saying "I'm really sorry and I know this looks bad, but we were outflanked and getting killed up there. We had no choice but to retreat. If you don't believe me, take note of the fact that I'm Warchief now because Vol'jin was killed by the demons."
We also have yet to find out if the "spirits" that convinced Vol'jin to name Sylvanas his successor actually had anything to do with her. I even wonder if they set her up to fail.
Still, Syvlanas has done plenty of bad things. For one thing, she made that deal with Helya - the terms of which are still unknown - yes, Sylvanas had probably just expected to get that lantern to enslave Eyir, but what was Helya getting out of it? And her actions over the course of BFA have been horrendous, maybe especially so given how she has made most of the Horde leadership complicit in it.
But Saurfang got her monologuing, which is always a bad look for villains who have contempt for the people whose respect they require. And she's flown off, abandoning her position - to the point where the Horde, for the first time, doesn't actually have a Warchief.
We know what she's done. But what the hell is she doing now is the big question.
We've gotten clearer confirmation that she had coordinated with Azshara to wreck much of the Alliance fleet (though I'm not clear if this totally took the Kul Tiran navy off the board like the Battle of Dazar'alor took out the Zandalari or if this was just a nasty loss.) But she doesn't seem to have really aligned herself with Azshara and N'zoth. In fact, the magic she used fighting Saurfang is explicitly considered a previously unknown type of magic - and Old God shadow magic is pretty identifiable, I'd think.
Sylvanas seems smug if anything when her loyalists go to see her after the Mak'gora. If this is things going according to plan, you really have to wonder what her endgame is. And what she hopes to accomplish.
We still do have one major patch in BFA. In all likelihood, it will focus on N'zoth. I wonder if Sylvanas might just slip back below the radar for the remainder of the expansion.
But on the other hand, I also wonder if she's getting ready for her big goal, which, as stated in the novellas released before the expansion, is to attack Stormwind.
Could we see our heroes bravely delve into the eldritch horror of Ny'alotha or wherever we find the Old God of the Depths, only for them to return and find that Stormwind (and maybe even Orgrimmar now) have been blasted with blight by Sylvanas and her loyalists?
At best, we have a serious wildcard in play now, and even player characters who represent that underlying threat to the peace that those like Anduin, Saurfang, and others have fought to achieve.
There are some big story hooks surrounding Sylvanas that have been introduced, and I think we're going to spend a long time following them and figuring out what they mean. But for now, Sylvanas is at large, with loyalists in the Horde, and the problem has only transformed, not gone away.
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