#and hopefully acknowledges that even her quote unquote evil part did some good things too

[redisaid]

So far this 9.2 stuff is turning out to be like a 3.5 to 4 star situation where I was expecting 0. And while I shouldn’t be happy about it hopping over a bar that was already so low, I apparently didn’t rant about it enough to friends last night, so here’s my take on the pros and cons:

Under the cut to spare your eyes...

Pro: RANGER GENERAL RANGER GENERAL!!! A whole ass piece of her soul is there now that is freshly dead from her first death holy fuck. Also that model is gorgeous and yes it’s not perfect, but the people analyzing it need to realize a few things: 1. This is an in game cut scene still, not a fully cinematic one, so calm down, 2. Warcraft’s style is chunky, overly colorful, and slightly disproportionate, always has been, 3. So much of the scene with her and Uther is a nod to them in Warcraft 3 and I’m pretty sure it’s not too much of a reach to say the models are meant to reflect that.

Con: The split souls thing is a bit tired. I mean we did get an idea from Uther’s arc that things were going to go this way, so I’m not surprised. She does indeed look like Ranger General Barbie...but hey that works for me.

Pro: Her first death is addressed in a surprisingly respectful manner! By fucking Uther of all people, who was not on my bingo card to be the person to do it, if ever, in lore. I was expecting to hate their interaction when I found out he’d be involved, but I...love it? He addressed that part of her so respectfully, one military commander to another--one pragmatic and practically-minded person to another? One person who died at the height of their goodness and fell far from there to another? I really didn’t hate it! And now I want them to be besties.

Con: The utter abhorrence of the tree burning better not make Sylvanas’ “good” half take over completely. I don’t think it will, but that would be very boring. She did good things as the Banshee Queen too, and I hope to see that somewhat addressed. Her rebellion for the Forsaken, using her contacts and clout to get them the protection of the Horde, and even her actions up to Legion, were all those of a leader doing their best to improve the (un)lives of their people. A ruthless military leader, but still--her “good” self was still a ruthless military leader as well?

Pro: Actually, let’s go to more of the above. I’m going to disagree with what I’ve been seeing some people say as “oh this just erases 15 years of her character development”, because I don’t think that’s the point of the cut scene? I think the point is to have this past version of her address all of it, and again I’m hoping we don’t just see the negatives and see her as an outcast now literally forsaken by everyone who once followed her alive or dead. Some of the leaked voice lines (besides the one I will choose to ignore for gay reasons) that came out just after this also seem to indicate she might talk to her sisters again? I really hope for that. But besides all that, this I think is the only way to appease everyone: to have her address she did some terrible stuff, but that she did it without half of her soul, and that it’s un-atone-able even with that knowledge, but that dwelling on war crimes in a world where everyone has committed a lot of them is pointless when there’s work to be done to save it? I dunno. I find it to be a bit ham-fisted, but a fair compromise for those who wanted her to pay and those who wanted her reasons to do what she did in the first place acknowledged. I don’t think we’re losing the Banshee Queen for the Ranger General. I think we’re getting both, and if nothing else, that’s interesting.

Con: Still, no one will be 100% pleased with this. There was simply no way to make everyone happy with this situation because of how far into a corner it was written already. This is about the best we can get from it and it’s not great, but it’s not horrible either. Again, the bar is low and it’s hard to clap for someone jumping over it, but at least they didn’t impressively limbo under it to the point of making it even worse?

Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts and actually look forward to seeing more of 9.2, even if it’s ham-fisted and they make my girl straight. I am a Warcraft 3 lore whore and this ticked all my nostalgia boxes so hard while actually respecting them and the character from them that I love so much, so I am so surprised to be positive about it overall, but here I am.