wow Sylvanas Defeat and Sanctum of Domination Cinematic Memes

[durdyenglish 298]

15 hours ago, Starym said:

There's a difference between what you're talking about and what people are complaining about. Characters behaving inconsistently and suddenly becoming idiots to go along with the story has nothing to do with fantasy or steampunk or a comic book. It's just plain BAD WRITING. All of the things you listed can have good writing, even mediocre writing. This line of defense/thinking is just ridiculous, if you like the cutscene and the story that's FINE, there's no problem and you're absolutely correct for yourself. You don't need to validate your opinion with some outside "fact" or "this story is like this so it's totally ok for them to do that". If you're enjoying it i'm genuinely jealous of you. I gave it all the chances in the world on my end... it managed to shatter all my worst expectations. And that's just my personal opinion.

People celebrate Loki when he laid siege to NYC, fell to his death and was promised untold power by a malevolent being, killed countless people across the nine realms, and betrayed his people and his family numerous times all because he stepped up in the moment and did the right thing. Why hate Sylvanas for having the same arc?

[Starym 3,800]

1 hour ago, durdyenglish said:

People celebrate Loki when he laid siege to NYC, fell to his death and was promised untold power by a malevolent being, killed countless people across the nine realms, and betrayed his people and his family numerous times all because he stepped up in the moment and did the right thing. Why hate Sylvanas for having the same arc?

Because Loki is better written. Also who exactly "celebrates" Loki? I enjoy the character but I don't care whether he's redeemed or not (same with Sylvanas). My and other people's issue is the poor writing and execution of THIS specific cinematic (and plenty more, but the focus is on this). There are those that THINK she will be redeemed (I don't. I don't think Blizzard are that stupid... even after this stupidity) and have a problem with that, which is fine, but don't lump everyone that hates the cinematic together.

She could have turned on the Jailer 1203921093 times by now, she OBVIOUSLY knew or HAD TO know what he was about, a 5 year old would know. But no, she got triggered by a word like Batman before her and decided to change her ENTIRE LIFE'S WORK around EXACTLY when she couldn't do anything to stop it or help anyone. Even if the writing was perfect and the same thing happened in the same way, she'd just be an incredibly stupid character who people hate because of her incredibly bad decisions. As it stands she was forced to do something moronic because the plot called for it. I'm not even sure this is the actual writer's fault, this smells of "this has to happen now, make it happen no matter how little sense it makes" by the designers.

[durdyenglish 298]

1 hour ago, Starym said:

But no, she got triggered by a word like Batman before her and decided to change her ENTIRE LIFE'S WORK around EXACTLY when she couldn't do anything to stop it or help anyone.

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing. Repression, rationalizing... these are all things we've seen Sylvanas allude to despite her icy demeanor.

Sometimes it's just that simple. You hear someone use a word and it realigns your entire perspective of them. Maybe you even realize that you've been manipulated all along. Anduin has been forcing her to face this reality all expansion, and we've seen his wisdom erode the façade of confidence she outwardly portrays. He forced her to confront the notion that she was being manipulated, forced her to focus on the truth rather than her fear. Several times, she waivers, until she can fall back to the narrative that the Jailer seeks to free them from some unjust prison.

Up until this point, Sylvanas has been able to lie to herself, however difficult it continued to be. You can hear her voice pleading with the Jailer, telling him they have what they need to carry out their supposedly noble mission. Once the Jailer admitted outwardly that he not only wanted to remake reality, but control it, the last of her ability to overlook the obvious completely evaporated. You can see in her eyes wide shut as the word rolls over her and she is all at once annoyed.

Maybe people don't celebrate Loki (I'd argue they do), but they certainly forgave him/forgot about many unspeakable atrocities just because he made amends with his brother, looked sad that his mom died, and showed up with a spaceship to save what remained of his people (that he betrayed and tricked several times over throughout history). Under the circumstances, Sylvanas has had far less control over her destiny, as she has ALSO alluded to.

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by durdyenglish

[Starym 3,800]

5 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing. Repression, rationalizing... these are all things we've seen Sylvanas allude to despite her icy demeanor.

Sometimes it's just that simple. You hear someone use a word and it realigns your entire perspective of them. Maybe you even realize that you've been manipulated all along. Anduin has been forcing her to face this reality all expansion, and we've seen his wisdom erode the façade of confidence she outwardly portrays. He forced her to confront the notion that she was being manipulated, forced her to focus on the truth rather than her fear. Several times, she waivers, until she can fall back to the narrative that the Jailer seeks to free them from some unjust prison.

Up until this point, Sylvanas has been able to lie to herself, however difficult it continued to be. You can hear her voice pleading with the Jailer, telling him they have what they need to carry out their supposedly noble mission. Once the Jailer admitted outwardly that he not only wanted to remake reality, but control it, the last of her ability to overlook the obvious completely evaporated. You can see in her eyes wide shut as the word rolls over her and she is all at once annoyed.

Maybe people don't celebrate Loki (I'd argue they do), but they certainly forgave him/forgot about many unspeakable atrocities just because he made amends with his brother, looked sad that his mom died, and showed up with a spaceship to save what remained of his people (that he betrayed and tricked several times over throughout history). Under the circumstances, Sylvanas has had far less control over her destiny, as she has ALSO alluded to.

 

See everything you're saying CAN be true, but it was never shown well enough. Most actions, however crazy they may seem, CAN be explained by proper writing. My point is that this was NOT proper writing. It wasn't even adequate writing. Hell, it barely rose to terrible writing. We as players/readers can always explain away WHY a character acted as they did. But in a good story, a well written one, we don't have to - it is presented in that same story. This is (in my view) simply not the case with Sylvanas. Everything that happened in this awful cinematic COULD have been explained beforehand, the magic trigger word COULD have been meaningful and sufficient to cause her reaction, but it simply was not there in the story. You decided to rationalize away this lack of information by diving into Sylvanas POTENTIAL/possible psychology. That's totally fine and I'm genuinely glad you liked/were ok with this cinematic/story direction. To me if I have to make shit up for the story to make sense... yea no.

Oh and the Loki thing, he's simply had more screen time to develop his character (which is INSANE when you think about it, Sylvanas has been in focus for how many years now?). And just from my own PoV, I understand Loki's motivations completely. Doesn't forgive what he did, doesn't make me think he's redeemed or whatever, but I believe a character like that is a real person that could exist. I ABSOLUTELY CATEGORICALLY do not believe Sylvanas, after this, could ever be a real person. Ever.

We comically rarely get to see any internal thoughts or motivations from Sylvanas (and don't say books, those really REALLY REALLY don't count), which would be fine if we weren't expected to buy her Martha turn at the end. As it stands it simply was presented and executed poorly, and the intention wasn't that good to begin with (IMO).

And this is only one of the many, MANY things wrong with the cinematic and the story direction, but I'm truly exhausted from talking and thinking about it, this (again, for me) terrible writing is simply not worth my energy.

 

And I do apologize to you because I find this conversation pretty pleasant and cool, and if this was some other topic I'd gladly continue it (wanna talk about Mad Men? 😄 ), but I just have nothing left for Sylvanas or this trainwreck of a plot anymore. I hope I didn't insult you or anything like that, I truly respect your opinion (I feel I need to say that because a) it's true and b) SO many discussions on this topic end with people getting hurt and then lashing out etc etc, I don't want to be misunderstood).