Players started the newest World of Warcraft expansion chasing former warlord and current villain Sylvanas Windrunner through the veil into the Shadowlands. But despite that, we only saw a few glimpses of her in cutscenes. Torghast’s latest cutscene of Twisting Corridors also featuring Sylvanas has been extracted from data by Wowhead, and fans are already reacting – and worrisome about the final destination of Sylvanas.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Torghast and future cinematic content.
Sylvanas has spent the past decade committing a ton of war crimes. She may have been behind Wrathgate in Wrath of King Lich. Inside Cataclysmshe definitely The plague bombarded the nation of Gilneas against the express orders of the Horde leadership. Inside Legion, she tried to kidnap and enslave Eyir, the queen of the Val’kyr. Inside Battle for Azeroth, she started the expansion with genocide via arson and then continued murdering, controlling the mind and sowing chaos until she quit her job and fled to the afterlife.
It’s hard to see how anyone could come back from all that bad behavior to become a hero, but redemption in World of Warcraft it has always been a strange thing. Certain characters come back and save the day, thus proving that the ends justify their means all the time. Kael’thas Suntrider, a former prince of the Blood Elves, is beginning his own redemption in Revendreth’s vampire hell. The alternative Grom Hellscream was redeemed in Draenor. Maiev Shadowsong killed a lot of people, but she apologized, so everyone is fine with her.
The model for this return tour is another Blizzard game: Sarah Kerrigan, also known as Queen of Blades. His story is almost parallel to that of Sylvanas: the two were taken and made the agent of an alien invading force. Both of them freed themselves from mind control and used their new powers to wreak havoc. But Kerrigan ended up as a great hero, who rose to the status of the god of space and saved everyone from the greatest evil around.
Will Sylvanas do the same? The cinematics above seem to suggest that she has a conscience, after all, and the coolest boy in Warcraft is messing with her. But, on the other hand, the cinematics frame her in the same pose as an iconic promotional photo by Lich King. There were similar comparisons after the Shadowlands cinematic trailer – looks like a likely Blizzard attempt to get fans to think about the similarities between the two characters.
Blizzard subverted the trophy of the chosen one by achieving redemption so recently Legion. The first half of the story focused on Illidan, and Naaru Xe’ra talked about how big he was, and why we should all be ashamed of having fought him in the Black Temple. Then, in a surprise twist, Illidan refused to work with Xe’ra. Instead, he murdered her, said “heh, nothing personal, boy” and continued to do things his way.
It is quite possible that Sylvanas will have a similar farewell, where she remains in the Shadowlands or Boca. We still don’t know her exact plan, or if she can betray the jailer. This is entirely within her character, and she has been playing chess in five dimensions long enough to make this a possibility.
But on the other hand, Sylvanas murdered many people and expressed very little remorse for any of this. The Burning of Teldrassil, the campaign in Gilneas and the civil war of the Horde that it caused are all very big problems. It does not seem fair for Sylvana to leave as the good guy in any position after spending an expansion talking about killing hope and smiling while burning civilians.
Will Sylvanas return to Azeroth in triumph, or will he become another raid boss loaded with sweet items? No matter what the outcome, Sylvanas has been the most talked about part of World of Warcraft years ago, which is no small feat.