Thread by @BaalTheWarlock

So guess I'll get started on this.

I'll do the thread by breaking it up per theme
1. Genocide Survivor + Rape Allegory
2. Suicide Survivor + Spooky Antihero
3. Local Genocide Girlboss + Faustian Pact

tw: rape, genocide, suicide, intimate personal details, etc

https://twitter.com/MozarabMohan/status/1459640169573851140

1. Genocide Survivor + Rape Allegory

Quel'thalas experienced genocide. This is the word used. Around 90% of the Blood Elves are dead.

Specifically, this 90% genocide number IRL only actually applies to Amerindigenous populations.

Most people don't know that.

I think in the West, you hear the word "Genocide" and *most* people due to Public Education dynamics focus on the Holocaust, the Jewish/Romani/Others Genocide (~66% of Jews, 50% of Romani, etc)

Not Amerindigenous (90%) or during Black Slavery.

So for most people, the invocation of that number is mostly "shock" value.

What's funny is that the "10% that survived" is only *conceptually* applied to the Living Blood Elves.

Not the Undead Elves.

Not Sylvanas.

It's one of the narrative gaps. "Why didn't Lorthemar and Sylvanas reconnect?"

There's an angle of survivor's guilt that can be expanded upon.

My grandfather survived a massacre in his reservation. He does not talk about it. He has not gone back.

The reservation today is the political center for indigenous communities in the pacific coast of Colombia, the home of one of the two Senators for Indigenous Peoples, and has an annual Pan-Indigenous Conference.

I think surviving killed my grandfather in a way.

I think we underestimate how many people play this game who are only one or two generations away from genocide or massacres.

Whether Jewish, African-American, any number of Latin American nationalities, Amerindigenous peoples across the continent, Romani, Irish, Sikh, and more.

The moment of Sylvanas's becoming a Banshee is in Arthas by Golden.

The word used by Sylvanas is she had been "violated". This was in 2009, right at the beginning of a national awakening as to sexual assault.

Invoking a woman being violated in body and soul is specific.

Sylvanas was stabbed through her abdomen with Frostmourne, with Arthas having unique contempt and desire of violence towards her, wanting her to suffer. Sylvanas wanted to die.

But Arthas didn't let her.

He ripped her soul from her body and removed her autonomy.

Sylvanas no longer had autonomy. She was a spectral wailing woman, a "White Lady" trope, a Banshee, whose deadly screams come from the moment of her twisting as the Warbringer cinematic showed us.

A "violated" woman, as the novel says.

Both in the novels and within the games, we see Sylvanas regain her agency when her abuser loses a modicum of power due to defeat.

Sylvanas was able to regain her personal bodily autonomy through collaboration with her "sisters".

See Arthas started creating Banshees with Sylvanas. It was a specific, targeted act of violence against a woman who had defied him.

But thereafter, he simply created more Banshees with other women.

She was his first victim.

And the other Banshees thus her sisters in survival.

The only other Banshee we've had since Vanilla is Aelthalyste. Not that she's ever treated with the due she deserves.

And in the wake of her regained agency, and the rallying of the other "Forsaken", did she return home? Seek home?

No. She didn't.

Much like my grandfather, like many Diasporas Escaping/Surviving Genocide, the narrative leads us to understand Sylvanas chose not to return to Quel'thalas and help rebuild, help her original people, until the events of TBC.

Nor did her people seek her out, we are told. Why? We don't know.

Sylvanas was a Genocide Surviving Diaspora, leading a people who were an "internally displaced" Diaspora (Lordaeron Humans raised in Undeath with agency).

2. Suicide Survivor + Spooky Antihero

As I mentioned in my Forsaken AU/Rewrite Thread, the Forsaken are centered primarily on Horror (Victorian Gothic, US Southern Gothic, 20th C Zombie, and Traditional Folklore).

https://twitter.com/BaalTheWarlock/status/1449124380974501892?s=20

By necessity, Sylvanas was an Anti-Hero.

And it makes sense: the Genocide Survivor with arguable Survivor's Guilt, the Rape Allegory that led to her abuser creating more Banshees, the being viewed as a leader/savior by "Forsaken" Humans and Elves.

She is a Banshee leading Zombi

But when you're a survivor there are often two easier paths:

You can either let yourself be consumed by wrath and anger. Or you sit with your pain, in your pain. Jumping between them.

Anger gets shit done though.

You need anger to survive sometimes. You need that wrath. It was anger and wrath that brought down Jim Crow in the US. It was anger and wrath that is the foundation of the Gay Rights Movement immortalized with the Stonewall RIOT.

No justice. No peace.

There are many days, weeks, months, year in the wake of my varied abuse where Wrath and Anger was what kept my soul warm.

Wrath and Anger erodes your soul though.

My grandfather is all ash and cinders after 60 years.

If you have family who are Survivors in any way, you know.

If you do not deal with your (justifiable, correct, necessary) anger, you will consume all who get near you.

In literary terms, it is the "Survivor Becomes Abuser" Trope.

But Sylvanas wasn't there yet. Not quite yet.

Between the years of 2009 until 2018, we had been told Wrathgate was not Sylvanas. It was not until Afrasiabi (lmao) "revealed" that Wrathgate was "actually" Sylvanas that we are told this.

For the previous decade, this was not the case. Speculated, sure, but not fact.

So at Wrathgate, you have two of Sylvanas's Right Hand Men (why were all the secondary faction leaders guys instead of using Aelthalyste, one of her original sisters, actually?) betraying her and trying to usurp her, one of them due to obsession with wanting to kill Arthas.

He was Survivor Anger Turned Toxic. Putress was the Survivor Turned Abuser Trope.

Sylvanas now had an example of what to avoid.

To not be consumed by anger to betraying everyone. To confront her grief of being violated.

So we had that opportunity with Arthas.

(contd)

So was Sylvanas present during ICC Raid? Nope.

Was Sylvanas present during any of the Lich King fight? Even a cameo? Nope.

Instead of trying to bring narrative closure to the Violation/Genocide Gothic Horror aspect, they 100% centered the Arthurian Reversal aspect.

And it is IN THE WAKE OF this narrative absence of both Sylvanas *and* the Forsaken in this encounter that the Arthas book was published.

The 2009 book which solidified the rape allegory of her character in the presentation of her Banshee-fication.

Sylvanas (and Forsaken thereby as an entire playable race) did not get any closure from a narrative perspective in the final encounter with Arthas.

But the narrative did end that chapter of her story.

With suicide.

Edge of Night (2011) is pretty self evident in its portrayal of depression.

Sylvanas had centered her entire identity as a survivor onto Arthas and getting her revenge on him.

She was robbed of that closure, but he was gone.

Narratively, she had her Banshee sisters who suffered the way she did. She had the adoration of her people too.

They could've invoked that Banshee sisterhood in the story, of survival beyond your abuser.

But the writers chose to use suicide as a pivot.

I've tried to commit suicide multiple times. Three, in fact. My 10 year anniversary of my last suicide attempt is next summer actually.

So I get it. I get centering your life on one specific event, moment of trauma, and person therein, and deciding to kill yourself.

What pulled me back from suicide each time was friends and family, their love.

But in the MOMENT of my suicide attempts, I didn't care about them.

Which if you're a suicide survivor, probably Sylvanas's contempt and despair is disturbingly familiar.

So Sylvanas kills herself, and here we encounter the infamous "arrows in her quiver" line.

The INTENT in the story is that she has a disregard for the Forsaken. That is unquestionably the intent in of Kosak's line.

But that's not how arrows work IRL.

I do archery. I have hunted with compound bows. Arrows are HARD to make, and are rather expensive.

You retrieve your arrows. You safeguard your arrows. Unlike guns where bullets are more chaotic and direct, arrows are predictable but affected by environment.

Is the wind blowing? Is your hand steady? Is your arm sore or tired? Is it raining? Is it very humid? Is your arrow Ye Olde Wood or an alloy of some sort? What kind of bow are you using?

You love your arrows. You are protective of your arrows. You don't abandon your arrows.

In brief, Kosak is not an archer. He was using a metaphor more suited to bullets in a cartridge but alas, Sylvanas is not Lara Croft.

I digress.

Here she made a pact with the Valkyr in some nefarious afterlife.

REPLACING the Banshee Sisterhood with Valkyr Sisterhood.

I wish to emphasize this point: Sylvanas narratively abandoned the women who were violated in the same way she was violated (and the Forsaken thereby) in favor of a new set of women who were violated in a different way, with a new selfish interest in the Forsaken.

This "replacement" is particularly salient to me because of questline with Sylvanas singing Lament of the Highborne.

It is a choir of Survivor Women (Banshees) reliving their trauma over a home that now rejects them.

It shows Sylvanas expressing love.

3. Local Genocide Girlboss + Faustian Pact

At the time in 2011, there was no Jailer. There was no Maw. There was no Zovaal.

Majority speculation at the time is that the Forsaken must avoid death because something about undeath leads to damnation.

Ergo the NEED for Sylvanas to survive. A Survivor will want to survive.

But the Kosak story from 2011 changed her characterization as well.

Golden portrayed her as a rape allegory through her language of violation and her regaining of her body with the help of her sisterhood of Banshees (she being the First Banshee).

The game portrayed her as a Multi-layered Gothic Horror Antihero.

Kosak? Sylvanas is now becomes selfish in the wake of suicide, replacing the survivors who helped her since the onset with a Faustian pact.

But at this time the Faustian Pact was with the Valkyr.

Not with Zovaal, who didn't exist.

In Legion, the last expansion with Metzen's hand, we had Sylvanas *choose* to save the Horde in the wake of the warchief being fatally injured.

In Legion, we see Sylvanas as warchief ignore her duties for the sake of trying to make more Valkyr (allegedly).

We are never told what was her end of the bargain in exchange of the mysterious lamp, I'll note.

But this interaction with Helya is important because Helya is also a rape allegory.

Helya is exclusively framed as a villain, yes, but both Chronicles and the Legend of Odyn in-game object give her this rape allegory by framing her story as such:

Odyn wanted her to do something, she said so, she tried to stop/resist him, her was beating her, she got desperate, and then we get the allegations:

She says he twisted her body and soul into becoming a valkyr against her will, mind controlled until Loken helped free her.

HE says that "only a fool would believe such things", and that Odyn *saved* Helya by forcing her to become a Valkyr.

"How could anyone hold another's word against his?" is how the in-game book frames it.

Again, this was 2018. By this point Afrasiabi was being groomed by Metzen to replace him, having already been tapped.

They knew damn well what they were writing. Me Too is a national movement.

Why, and how, did rape apologetics make it into the game in 2018?

So we have Sylvanas (prior Genocide & Suicide Survivor Rape Allegory turned Selfish Tyrannical Girlboss) making an "evil" deal with the "ugly" twisted Helya (another Rape Allegory, consumed by vengeance against her abuser, the game says her hate twisted her body).

It is another Survivor Becomes Abuser Trope. Again.

A dynamic where we are repeatedly, even recently, FORCED to be friends and collaborate with Odyn by the gameplay.

Where Helya is shut up by the Primus and banished.

Where Odyn is not held accountable by Kyrestia.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

2018 was a messy year for Sylvanas.

1. It is when Afrasiabi (spitefully) "reveals" that Sylvanas "actually" planned Wrathgate, as he had been "writing her".
2. It is when Metzen says he was "surprised" Sylvanas was burning Teldrassil.

I believe it was in the wake of Metzen leaving that this story of "Zovaal" and Sylvanas was invented.

I believe it was Afrasiabi who is largely behind these plots.

But I believe others in the writing room supported this prospect, and his ideas.

After all, "it's collaborative".

The writers fundamentally insist everything is collaborative all the time. This is a salient point.

Except Afrasiabi, who chose to claim responsibility for Sylvanas's characterization.

Weird, that. Curious, that.

It is then in November 2019, when Shadowlands is announced, that Ion reveals that Sylvanas had made a deal with Zovaal in Edge of Night.

That it wasn't a Faustian Pact with the Valkyr, but a Faustian Pact with Zovaal.

That is was Zovaal who was above and responsible for the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne, thereby responsible for the Lich King, thereby Sylvanas's violation and undeath.

Sylvanas was allying herself with her abuser's boss/abuser.

Remember now, the lawsuit says the investigation was two years ago.

Would've been Summer 2019 when the investigation started.

But by then it was too late.

The burning of Teldrassil has six separate "angles":
1. The in-game Alliance playthrough
2. The in-game Horde playthrough
3. Elegy by Golden
4. A Good War by Brooks
5. The still unseen Sylvanas novel
6. Sylvanas warbringers

2, 4, 5, and 6 are important

They are important because they demonstrate Sylvanas's internal monologue and external arguments.

And they do not line up. What Sylvanas expresses in the questing, in the warbringers, and in A Good War do not line up.

A Good War and Shadowlands do not line up.

The stated explicit internal monologue was NOT "I am burning this tree intentionally to send souls to the Maw".

This is a fundamental retcon.

It is fundamentally a nail in the coffin. A final nail in the coffin.

I won't get into my various problems with Teldrassil, in brief and being reductive we can never "walk back" in the narrative that the game forced the Horde player to partake in genocide in the main non-optional campaign.

But between BFA and Shadowlands, they have retroactively:
1. Attributed her Faustian Pact with an ill-received Sauron/Lucifer/Thanos ripoff to the moment of her Suicide From Depression due to her Rape Allegory Abuser being dead, and,

2. Made her commit genocide against a playable race within the framework of gameplay, effectively undermining the gameplay experience of Night Elf, Worgen, and Horde players entirely, originally out of petulant spite and now because of the Faustian Pact

Commit the ONE type of war crime that is *literally* the root of her trauma and suffering.

The LITERAL subject of "Lament of the Highborne" that is *her song*.

A song, I'll add, that hasn't been featured once this entire fucking expansion like "Nightsong" was.

This is bad writing. Period.

The cherry on top?

"I will not serve" after very obviously being a puppet in service of the abuser of her abuser.

"Master tactician" but chooses to follow zovaal? There's expecting suspension of disbelief and then there's contempt for the reader.

Nobody has any business attempting to write this book because there is no good way to thread Genocide Survival, Rape Allegory, Suicide From Depression, Faustian Pact with Diet Lucithanoraun, Willing Genocide, and Last Minute Change Of Heart.

I don't know what the FUCK has been going on in the writer's room in 2010. I genuinely cannot begin to fathom the thought processes that lead to the sequence of narrative developments above.

But this is bad.

Sylvanas's full scope mishandles undeniable rape allegory, mishandles explicit genocide themes, mishandles the entire topic of suicide and the concept of support networks, ACTIVELY DOUBLES DOWN on Survivor Becomes Abuser trope, frames Sylvanas as an idiot, and more.

I am begging the writers of this game to stop, recognize error, stop underestimating or not considering the cultural/historical backgrounds of your playerbase and the changing political climate, apologize for the abuse of delicate tropes and themes.

I'm at a point where I'm not even sure a "realm reborn" type situation would even work for WoW because with every twist and turn it is evident nobody on the writer's team has learned their lesson, or shown they understand why people care about this game.

But I'll always love Sylvanas for what she was to me and could have been.

A suicide survivor and rape survivor allegory who did not/could not return to her original home who found strength among other survivors.

Not the Survivor Becomes Abuser trope mixed with Dumb Minion.