World of Warcraft finally wrapped up Sylvanas’ story — and it still doesn’t work

It’s finally over. Sylvanas Windrunner’s years-long story has been a dominant one. World of Warcraft’s narrative has come to an end. The storyline, which began in 2018, is full of the most controversial decisions in Warcraft’s history — all centered around one of the franchise’s most popular characters.

Sylvanas Windrunner became a sort of narrative blackhole. The best aspects of Azeroth: BattleAnd ShadowlandsHer increasingly complicated and inconsistent story has overshadowed her. Up until the tale’s conclusion, Blizzard has told fans to “wait and see.” Now, with the release of the Sylvanas novel on March 29 and World of Warcraft’s Patch 9.2, Eternity’s End, we know the whole story start to finish – kind of – and we can finally do a post-mortem on how Sylvanas and her accumulated plans have pulled the Warcraft franchise so far off the beaten path.

What is the secret to all this chaos?

2018 saw the debut of the Azeroth: BattleHorde Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner was expanding.

The game’s narrative said that she did it because of the war between the Alliance and Horde; she was attempting to defend her people with a pre-emptive strike. Sylvanas started the war and escalated her evil war crimes by performing cartoonishly horrible acts of war crime at each step. This was something that many Horde players hated. Why were they made complicit in the murder of civilians and torching their homes?

We wouldn’t find out for a while; in 2019, the Horde descended into Civil War and Sylvanas bounced. The most explanation we got was via players on the Horde who chose to stay loyal to her; she explained she had a bigger plan and “nothing lasts.”

Then we found an explanation. Type of. Sylvanas actually started the war. Because everyone who is killed in a war has been funneled into hell for fuelling the Jailer. Why? Who’s the Jailer? Why do he have to keep all these souls? Is it theological concern that there are such things as double death, fragmented souls, and automated Maw delivery?

After the 2020 election, it took till 2020. ShadowlandsLaunch and campaign updates, for a larger picture explanation. And in 2022, with the release of the Sylvanas novel, we’re finally getting all the small questions answered, too. A drip feed of content can be suboptimal, for all stories but particularly for those that feel so flawed. Players sat for months asking serious questions about both the story’s integrity and its characters.

Who is even trying? It is Sylvanas’s character is now under attack.

Return to the beginning

Sylvanas was first seen in Warcraft 3The 2002 release of the movie, “The Friend,” was the result. That’s an impressive legacy character; she’s been kicking around for two decades. She is a high elf ranger protecting the kingdom of Quel’Thalas, when the death knight and fallen prince Arthas comes to knock on the kingdom’s doors with an army of undead. Sylvanas valiantly fights to save her people, but in the end, it’s all for naught – Arthas kills her, raises her as a banshee, and uses her as a weapon of war against the high elves. It’s an incredibly sympathetic start to the character, and fans immediately connected with her, especially after she is raised into a banshee and a slave.

It’s an indescribable trauma, and it’s one that Sylvanas survives. She reclaims her body, haunts it, and creates her own kingdom out of the undead Forsaken, rotting survivors of Arthas’ wars. They are hated, but also feared. Free. It doesn’t matter if they are using that freedom for good (like helping their Horde friends), or evil (like creating a plague which kills all the living). Arthas’s undead armies alike – is up to them.

That was the status quo up until 2008’s World of Warcraft Expand Wrath of the LichkingArthas was the antagonist in this case. Sylvanas never gets to take a swing at Arthas personally; instead, at the midpoint of the expansion, the Horde and Alliance team up for an assault on the Lich King’s Wrathgate. A sect of Forsaken betrays everyone and bombs the entire battle with blight, nearly killing Arthas – but decimating the friendly troops as well. Sylvanas seizes her capital, exterminates the traitors and takes on a supporting role in the remainder of the war.

These are where the objective, agreed upon facts of Sylvanas’ history come from. Blizzard continues to retcon the rest of the story, making it unclear if there are fan differences or not. Making matters significantly more complicated is that Sylvanas’ writer post-Wrath of the Lichking was Alex Afrasiabi, a developer who was alleged to have been “engage[d] in blatant sexual harassment with little to no repercussions,” according to a statement given to Kotaku. Afrasiabi was terminated in 2020.

Things become even more complicated.

Sylvanas, an inspiring champion for many people, is Sylvanas. Her survival of the genocide against her family is an inspiration to many. Arthas’ murder of her, and his imprisonment of her body and spirit alike, reads for some as a rape metaphor. She brings together a whole kingdom of people who have been through similar traumas and makes them strong.

This is the short story Edge of Night by Dave Kosak, published in 2011, explores Sylvanas’ emotions after Arthas is dead. The book also introduces her to a new character. With the Lich King gone, Sylvanas now needs a primary motivator.

At first, she doesn’t care what happens to the world or anyone in it. She has her vengeance; she’s achieved her goal. It’s now time to rest. Sylvanas then goes to Icecrown Citadel, where she commits suicide. She initially succeeds, and then she’s brought back from a shocking realm of eternal torment via the ghostly Val’kyr, winged maidens who transport souls and raise the fallen into undeath. Her new lease of unlife begins with two goals. One, she wants to stay alive and avoid going to the hell that her soul went to. The Forsaken must be protected.

This post-Arthas Sylvanas, a morally dubious character who does bad things for a “good” reason like the defense of her people, continued on until 2018. Fans loved this character throughout the series. Cataclysm, Mists from Pandaria Draenor WarlordsPlease see the following: Legion.

The beginning of LegionSylvanas, who has just lost her mother to sudden death, is promoted to Warchief. She goes from a shadowy manipulator to a front-facing leader, which doesn’t truly pay off until the end of the events of Legion. Next expansion Azeroth: BattleWe were taken through an entertaining four-year journey through the story by, who turned that character upside down.

The situation quickly went sour. Sylvanas started a war against the Alliance, committed genocide against the Night Elves, had her troops burn down Kul Tiran settlements and murder the inhabitants, imprisoned her political enemies and had them tortured, inspired a civil war, declared the Horde to be “nothing” to her, and then peaced out to the lands of death to complete her Real plan. She then proceeded to kidnap the High King of the Alliance and mind-control him to be the Jailer’s slave. (Why did she choose to be loyal to the Jailer?) The story was complicated and took many months to fully explain. Arthas became her direct counterpart in all senses; even the story acknowledges it later.

Sylvanas soon realizes that the Jailer is not trustworthy. This seemed pretty clear to everyone else from the start, considering all the guy does is say one-liners like “Death comes for the soul of your world,” and “You cannot stop Death!”

Sylvanas eventually betrays him, and he restores a fragment of her soul that was torn out when Frostmourne killed her – her soul being fractured at all was news to fans, let alone it being so integral to her story. Sylvanas faced the consequences of being sent to the Maw to endure the pain of the Jailer. It’s not the worst ending possible, but the path leading up to it was so rocky that it stains the entire character.

We are where the last novel ends

SylvanasPublished March 20, 2022 by Christie Golden. It attempts to make sense of the chaos. There are times where it’s genuinely quite enjoyable to read. It feels more like a narrative told to its own ends than a coherent story.

The book starts back when Sylvanas was just a child, and it follows her growth into the Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas. This book describes her tragic death, the torture she endured at the hands Arthas and the long, painful journey that she made on her way to revenge. This book provides a good overview of Sylvanas’ thoughts and relationships, as well as the context in which they occur. There are some great scenes, but the entire book shares the same flaw — it’s forced to retroactively change how people viewed Sylvanas and her actions. To explain the reasons she committed war crimes, genocide and other acts of violence throughout her entire life, this book retells her whole story.

If the Jailer arrives in SylvanasHe speaks on one page more than he does in all of his time in the game. He met Sylvanas during the events in Edge of Night — it just never came up in the short story, at the time, or at any point in the decade since. The Jailer and his Val’kyr show Sylvanas countless afterlives, crafting a narrative that the system of death is cruel and unfair, dividing up families and loved ones. The In ShadowlandsSometimes, people in life reunite after death. Sylvana is shown as the Jailer who lies to her about only the afterlives which confirm her worst fears.

We also learn that Sylvanas’ brother, who had been a footnote in the lore, was actually crucial to her character and her current motivations.

The launch of ShadowlandsSylvanas abducted the High King Of The Alliance, AnduinWrynn. Her sympathy is what eventually leads her to abandon the Jailer. It could be that she and Anduin share some special bond. Well, kind of — really, it’s that Sylvanas sees her brother, whom she failed to save from war and death, in Anduin. It’s a bond that doesn’t feel earned or justified, and instead reads like a deus ex machina the writers needed for the story to function. Her brother was the reason she chose to marry him. All this and more.

SylvanasIt is an attempt to make a deal out of the chaos in her storyline. While it does work at times, it was never necessary. Over the past four years her story spiralled out of control and nearly brought down the whole narrative. The next expansions in the Warcraft franchise will need to reckon with this damage if there’s any chance of ever undoing it.