BFA didn't make me hate Sylvanas. It made me hate whoever was writing her at the time.

Sylvanas seems like a clear product of the toxic, misogynist, abusive atmosphere that has been fostered at Blizzard-Activision... Gross. :'/

When I was younger, people thought that I should work at Blizzard because they liked my drawings. I didn’t pursue it because of my personal issues at the time. Given recent legal events, it turns out that I dodged a f$%&ing bullet there.

I would love to see the narrative of the story acknowledging Sylvanas as a victim rather as a villain, and the Jailor grooming and blackmailing her could certainly do that. This would show her being preyed on by another abuser who sensed her hurt and lack of support, and use that to control her. The hatred, scorn, rejection and demonization she faced from her homeland, family, friends and allies could finally be acknowledges as a bad thing that exposed her to the Jailor's terrible influence and manipulation in the first place. I would love to see her not being blamed for bad shit happening to her, just this once at least. (Also Fuck Blizzard.)

A part of me still sobs because I wanted her to be my warchief. I really wish someone else would take over writing for her and rip her story from the hands of these assholes.

Just as an addendum to the Burning: While canonically the explanation she gives to Saurfang to instigate the war is a lie, the logic she uses in *A Good War* is cold and accurate and absolutely true. Robert Brooks, likely because he's not a talentless hack and didn't have a full script to work off of, basically uses standard M.A.D Doctrine to justify the burning through Sylvanas: Azerite (remember that?) was going to scale military production and power beyond the scope of anything that Azeroth had seen before, literally a 'give nukes to cave men' scenario. Anduin had already proven he was completely incapable of controlling his military (citation: Genn Stole a fucking attack carrier and a not insignificant fighter presence to do an assassination run on the Warchief), so the Horde absolutely had to strike first and strike totally if it wanted to secure Kalimdor from having an enemy fortress-city and port in it's flank. You can argue the morality of M.A.D, First Strikes, and Preventative War - that's the fucking *DNA* of Cold War Fiction - but the logic was absolutely solid for a story that was theoretically going to borrow so heavily from it's Cold War themes. Even if you're going to villain ball Sylvanas, there's a lot of *great material* to be mined from the questions of what it means to commit atrocity in a Military Dictatorship, how difficult it is to love Peace in a world that is soaked to the bones in blood, and whether or not we really can live with people who fundamentally despise us and whether or not we *should*. Unfortunately, all of that requires a world that he leaders with actual brains and writers with actual skill, and unfortunately neither are available to WoW Prime at the moment. When the writing team was asked to do something with all that, they basically sheepishly coughed that they really just needed Sylvanas to do a bad so they could 'work backwards' from whatever the fuck is going to happen in Shadowlands. "It'll be worth it", they lied to their audience and themselves, "you just need to wait a few decades for us to figure it out."

Yeah, I haven’t even watched most of it yet and I already know I agree.

Thank you for putting in the time and effort to so succinctly express and explain Activision Blizzard's mishandling, misusing, and indeed abusing of her character and story.

This hits different after the recent Blizzard/Activision stuff. I already knew they were scumbags before the allegations but after seeing the full unfiltered extent of just how scummy they can be it really doesn't shock me that they took a really cool female character like Sylvanas and just took a collective shit all over her. Hack writers and terrible human beings, my what a wonderful combination.

A lot of the people I talk to who hate Sylvanas unconditionally don't know the backstory of her life as Ranger-General, and the nature of her first death. Even after you tell them about it, all too often they'll say that she should just 'get over it' or that it's no excuse. To an extent I blame Blizzard for doing a crappy job of of telling the story in game. But I also agree with something that you've said before, that these people have no idea about the results of trauma.

Warcraft 3 made Sylvanas such an interesting character with a tortured past. When I DID play WoW, I loved being a forsaken/ later a draenei death knight and rping as ruthless and finding a home with under my Dark Lady. Seeing her rise to power was great and her actions as Warchief was abhorrent, but efficient, something that she is known for. Then they sucked her character into all of the plot twists and ‘edginess’ that she is a part of now.

I don't really have any optimism in the storytelling anymore. I'd like to see them fix her character, maybe even lead the horde again, but I doubt it. When Vol'jin appointed her as the new warchief his opening words were "I have never trusted you"... what?! You've worked together for over a decade and overthrew the previous psychotic tyrant through teamwork. She leads the horde's charge to protect her people and the world against the Legion alongside the alliance. Sometimes it feels like the writers don't read/play their own game.

This is a great and much needed video. It’s a neatly collected timeline of events in Sylvanas’ history, a subsequent take down of the seriously fucked up storylines forced on her as well as her out of character actions, the tone deafness of a selection (Cishet white men) WoW fan base and tying it all in with evilly misogynistic culture of the company behind all this. I, for one, can’t wait for your assessments from here on out.

Seems like they really should have had Sylvanas talk to Jaina rather than Anduin.

Thank you. This goes a long way in explaining some things that I had been trying to wrap my mind around. Thank you, Mikaila, this was a great video. Please stay well both of you and I look forward to the next one.

Hopefully this lawsuit will result in someone else taking over the writing who who will take those misogynistic themes and throw it into the garbage where it belongs.

I will never understand why so many victims of abuse become villains. Like...what? Who thought of this? Why? Who's mother dropped him on his head when he were 2!?

The Sylvanas/Damian Wayne parallels are getting a little frightening. Damian also went to DC's version of hell because he killed people (all of which he did under the influence of a death cult that raised him to be a weapon) and in a lot of DC canon AUs he's a villain as an adult. I don't understand why it's so hard for people to not villainize victims of abuse. Like it's not like DC is unaware of the concept of "healing from abuse" every Harley Quinn story is about her breaking from the chains of the Joker. And those are considered some of the best stories that DC has ever made. Maybe it's because DC's at least has the decency to pretend to care about gender diversity on their staff while WoW...doesn't. Sorry for bringing Damiam again I have worms for brains and I can't shut up

Sylvanas is a victim of bad writing done by awful people, mostly men in this case.

my love for Sylvanas is so big, that for years I've been saving the WCIII campaigns as "fuck you arthas"

Shall i be honest? I don't care if Sylvanas "confronts" the Jailer. This character already had a nemesis, and this nemesis was Arthas, with years of story development leading to her final confrontation with the man who destroyed her kingdom. The Jailer is just some generic bald guy who appeared in one expansion.

Why continue writing a character you obviously hate, know some of the player base likes and want better of her? They could have simply written her out, with or without ceremony, that would at least be a mercy. Why continue torturing her?

Woah I suddenly want to give her an hug that is some messed up shit

You have, of course, heard of "The Death of the Author"? - Where it comes to Sylvanas, the author needs to die. Kill him if you have to.

Great video, I love your points.

I feel like this story COULD have been good. Like I see what they were going for, but oof.... not only is almost all of this important information about her background completely missing from the game, but the perspective they choose to look at this character story is insane!! It reminds me of Steven Universe where you're waiting for the story to turn and for the characters to realize they've been in the wrong about someone else/ a situation and it never happens.

I miss the old days where Sylvanas sat in the basement of Undercity, had like two quests associated with her and people largely ignored her. WoW writing is just a cross-section of r/menwritingwomen

background music too loud

You and Lily both have gotten me, someone who never plays WoW on Sylvanas’s side and finding out that they’re gunning to fuck up ANOTHER abuse narrative that’s very similar to my own on top of the latest abusive workplace accusations has me wanting to choke slam a bitch. Also I like how you plug Lily’s videos for info on Sylvanas. That’s cute!

I'm really surprised that you didn't even touch on the fact that Blizzard made this character who's essentially a zombie(so you know, DEAD)wear a bikini top. I already have a hard time grinning and bearing the bikini armor trope, even when it's in things I like. Imo, there's a way to do fan service right and a way to do it wrong and having your female character wearing a skimpy outfit during battle instead of something that'll protect their body from sharp things is the wrong way. It's bad enough that(from what I've seen, I have limited knowledge on this game)they put most of their female characters in what's basically battle lingerie, but constantly showing off the corpse's boobs is where I draw the line and go "NOPE!". Just me?

I played wow mostly vanilla came back during lich king and then never again. I always like Sylvanas back then as the one woman scary and badass enough to not only have the undead be her people but have a chair at the table so to speak in the horde. I never knew here story much but I could tell while playing that she was the one who earned her place while other leaders felt more there because their people picked them. I dont know any of the original leaders names except her and thrall, and I know thrall from my limited time playing warcraft 3 as I never got anywhere inti the campaigns. So Lily's and your videos showing just how brutally she was treated is a huge blow for me as someone who was never a mega fan of warcraft series. This character was amazing and could have been this symbol of rising up after trauma, but instead they only added more because the men in charge didn't like her in the boys club. Fuck Warcraft, fuck blizzard, fuck activision, and fuck the the toxic masculinity fragility that spawned all of this.

I thought sylvanis “went” to the maw when she killed herself after arthas due to old god manipulation because icc is made of saronite, (old god blood)

personally, I never played WoW enough to get involved in the lore, but I loved Sylvanas since the start, because.... sexy undead ruthless woman is a trope I like XD And well, I've come to learn more about her with youtube videos (because the only instance where I met her in game was in the silverpine forest quest.... although that's one of the best quests I've played in WoW ^^), and yeah, she's awesome.... and it's wrong how she was treated ^^'

I've been paying attention to cold War lately and have noticed some of these things with the character Maxis as well

That recent law suit explains a lot.

"Alliance players can't understand nuance if it hit them across the head" No kidding, I was in this Alliance guild for a while, where if I as much as suggested that Sylvanas had a somewhat understandable reason to do one of the morally dubious things she did, I had a couple of people jumping on me raging that she was always 100% evil for the sake of evil, always a bad character and that I must be a nazi. Paraphrasing, but the obsessive refusal of accepting that Sylvanas might have once had depth beyond "zombi woman bad" was almost scary.

Sylvanas probably would have ended up better if there was a warcraft 4 instead of world of warcraft (where they have to just KEEP THE STORY GOING to KEEP THE SUBSCRIPTION MONEY)

I never play warcraft so forgive me if i come across as very annoying here but where can i get more info on slyvanes?

Blizzard's writers taking one of their most iconic characters and turning her into a 2d mustache twirling moron because they wanted to prop up the most cardboard cut out mofo out there is Game of Thrones season 5 to 8 levels of shitty writing. It's unsurprising that men who can't treat women like human beings can't offer their female characters the same level of depth and courtesy they do male characters. And you can bet the reason the Sylvanas novel was booted to late February is so they can apply some major fucking rewrites, especially in the wake of the lawsuit and the shitstorm that followed.

Hail to the Queen

I hope u have a great day

that darn patriarchy

and remember this was the same company that unironically wrote the dialogue of 'watch your mouth, bitch'.

I'll be honest, I was one of those people who hated Sylvanas before this video. I didn't understand why so many people (especially women, in my experience) like her as a character, but I understand it very clearly now. And, honestly, as a woman, I feel ashamed for having been ignorant and blind to her trauma.

i would have liked her to be victim turned boss queen. (even though she's already considered boss. they just trying to make her a villian instead)

She lived thankfully.

Hey, I don't play Warcraft, is it worth it?

They really daenerys'd her, huh?

My Queen ;w;

I hate how they wrote her. I have loved her since I was young. It is like they decided her actions before deciding why they did it. (Also I love how you used lament of the highborne in the background)

Am I the only one still confused as to why they keep showing Widowmaker as a bad example of blizzard making broken woman into villains, because she is just straight up brainwashed and very small hints of her original self still there.. she's tragic as the wife of a overwatch member, kidnapped, brainwashed then killed her husband and returned to her kidnappera to be trained. I see nothing wrong with her story, it's sad, tragic and makes for a interesting villain

I have no idea what a Sylvanas is. I just like it when misogynists are called out on their bullshit.

I never even touchet world of warcraft Why do i know more abaut the lore than most Druid players (reroll warior) Il see myself out now

Trauma = Villain?

I didnt like her or dislike her. Untilnthe moment she just spit and disrespect in Arthas's face. "You will be forgotten, now go into nothingness" Like what the actual FUK, I dare I mean I dare anyone other WoW characters to try and say that if Arthas was actually still alive. She would be destroyed. Why did you have to cause so much disrespect and shit at Arthas when YOU YOURSELF commited WAY MORE SINS AND ATROCITIES.