On top of Sylvanas being empowered by her death lord sugar daddy, Bolvar as the Lich King is far weaker than Arthas as the Lich King. Part of it was Frostmourne, part of it was Ner'zhul giving Arthas a big power up shortly before they joined. So when Arthas died, that power mostly dispersed. Bolvar was running on whatever those two had left in the tank.
Bolvar also has a fatal flaw - he’s not nearly as famous. In WWE, this automatically means your power level is lower. It’d be like Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. some jobber.
As amazing as the cinematic is, they eviscerated Sylvanas as a character and now she's a one-sided evil mustache-twirling villain serving the Jailer but also will never serve... She was a cool character up until the end of Legion and now she's permanently ruined.
That’s a shame eh. I only know her from Warcraft 3 & Frozen Throne. Could’ve gone in a way cooler and more interesting direction. I’ll have to play through these to see for myself tho 😆
Couldn't be more wrong, I'm not a Sylvanas fangirl, but her reasons are well explained and you just don't like them. Don't lead this newb astray with your misinformation. I get it Shadowlands sucks, but that's 0% an excuse to ignore the lore that is explained.
@@miriamweller812 You have to be joking. This has to be bait (if it is, ya got me). The story of BFA + Shadowlands was straight dog ass. Sylvanas burning the tree was supposed to be "morally grey". As stated in a book, she didn't even plan on burning the tree, but did so because an elf hurt her feelings. On top of that, Zovaal's house is literally built like Icecrown Citadel. Everything related to him is all about torturing, suffering and domination. He's using the magic of the Lich King. The Lich King was HIS agent. How on earth did she come to the decision to join him when every bad thing she's ever gone through is basically because of him? Even when trying to convince Anduin to join her, she was "Do it or I'll force you to", which goes against what you're saying her character was. Every single sign telling her that Zovaal is NOT the good guy was ignored, up until the very last second. That's not good story telling, nor signs of a good character. Ignoring all of the retcons that Shadowlands brought, there are signs that Zovaal was not in the story at all until mid BFA. There are a couple of examples (from books), such as Sylvanas being annoyed she was now Warchief as she preferred to operate in the shadows, yet Mueh'Zala (on Zovaal's orders) told Vol'Jin to make her Warchief so she could carry out BFA. Why was Sylvanas annoyed when this was always the plan? Another example is that the whole point of taking Teldrassil was a tactical move of war. The Horde would take Teldrassil and hold hostages. At that point, the Alliance would have no foothold on Kalimdor, and would not dare attack due to the hostages. They may lose the Undercity, but at that point, each faction would be separated onto a continent each. The Alliance would be in a gotcha situation where they couldn't really act without risking hostage lives. She spoke of this to Nathanos, who was a part of her Shadowlands plan all along. Why would she say this if the plan was to cause as much death as possible? It's simple; they made it up as they went. Even if you ignore all of the above, the story is still dogshit because they pulled the "That was actually an evil Sylvanas. The real Sylvanas is back now and is here to help". So not only did they ruin Sylvanas' character, they also said that the Sylvanas that everyone came to love throughout WoW was not really Sylvanas. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities about the Shadowlands story whatsoever. The only thing it has done is irredeemably scar the entire Warcraft story with countless nonsensical retcons and completely ruin one of the most beloved villains in gaming history in the Lich King. All the build up that was done in Legion, establishing the Lich King as a growing threat has now been thrown out the Window and the Lich King is seemingly gone forever (also the fact that Sylvanas chastises Arthas about how evil he is, despite the fact that he was just as much a victim to Zovaal as anyone else, but whatevs). It's one thing to feel that you like the story, but it's another thing entirely to say that the story is good and everyone else is stupid for simply not understanding it. The story is objectively the biggest piece of dogshit Blizzard have ever created. This is not an opinion, this is a fact. (EDIT) I also want to add that the devs said during the 9.2 reveal stream that this patch closes the "first chapter in the Warcraft saga", which is eerily similar to what FFXIV was saying about Endwalker at around the same time. All of this combined tells you all you need to know. Denying this is just willful ignorance.
@@Olkard Idk I feel like they did ruin her character but idk exactly when it occurred, tbh I liked her at the beginning of BFA, the tree burning and battle of Loderon were cool I liked sylvanas turning more evil but back then she still appeared to have a little good in her, the issue was when she was revealed as fully evil after killing Saurfang. I think the main issue is she is supposed to be an anti hero, she is supposed to be the quiet mysterious hero who does bad shit for the "greater good" she shouldn't have been made war chief keep her as a badass anti hero rather than a bad villian.
Gotta keep in mind she is basically Warcraft's equivalent Kerrigan. Unwillingly taken in a faction, her being altered in the process, a faction she eventually comes to lead? Check. Easy redemption when she's back to being normal and its revealed all her atrocities were more or less mind control? Check. Now we just have to wait for her to eventually decide on her own to become a banshee again to fight the ultra big bad of space. Kerrigan made it work because she GENUINELY considered the the actions of the Queen of Blade as her own and didnt seek forgiveness, and the one to forgive her, Raynor, at least has an excuse that he was in love with her before she was infected and hoped to find that woman again. Hell you can see some of the cruelty resurface at times too in her pursuit for vengeance. Sylvanas just magically turned everyone around her into a simp instead, and the only character left that maybe hates her guts is probably Greymane (whih is likely why he was kept out of the shadowlands narrative as without his obsessive hate of Sylvanas he basically doesnt exist anymore, though seeing Tyrande also gave up on vengeance... yeah he may turn out like her too)
So the long but Tl:dr of how she was about to clown Lich burn. When arthas died, sylvanas lost her will to go on now that she got her revenge. Hurled herself off icecrown to die. Meets the jailer. Jailer Alex jones convinces her that the made the murlocs play for the same team. So she starts collecting souls on our side of the veil to give the jailer power which in turn powers her. She started a war and burned a tree down, made a bargain with the fisherman’s wife(azshara) and got more power to fulfill the jailers plan. Fast forward got cheap shotted by saurfang told everyone her manifesto and boom you have the shadowlands cinematic. Love the videos man!
I haven't played WoW since Mists of Pandaria. But I still watch the trailers when new expansions comes out. Maybe a few other cutscenes and cinematics as well. I figure that's enough to keep track of WoW lore these days.
To put it into perspective. This is like Rey beating Palpatine without getting touched, walking up to Vaders lightsaber and ripping it in half with her bare hands and then every dead character comes back to life but they all act like Flanderized versions of themselves. Needless to say, it was complete and utter trash. And they actually told people to *buy the books* if they wanted to know how Sylvanas ripped the Helm of Domination in half with her bare hands lmfao. *IM PLAYING A VIDEO GAME. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BUY SUPPLEMENTARY CONTENT TO UNDERSTAND THE PLOT!*
@@Sebbywebz it honestly had dope content,Castle Nathria raid was phenomenal,top tier aesthetics. Same goes for Torghast,I did it so often and on two chars. And zones were beautiful tbh,I really loved the whole vibe. The only thing I didnt give a shit about was Jailer,but everything else was amazing fun not gonna lie. And world pvp was a blast. Still is tho,in Dragonflight.
Planning on reacting to the Lords of War Series? The Burdens of Shaohao, Warbringers? All animated-short stories with incredible storytelling and art. They are gr8!
Are those the cutscenes that are like cartoon stills? I’ve seen one in Dragonflight so far, that gives a bit of Lore. I’m prioritizing reactions to my first playthrough of Dragonflight at the moment, but I’ll try get to all the major cutscenes eventually 🔥
@@Sebbywebz I did a poor job at explaining in my first comment. Those animated-short stories are part of older expansions like Warlords of Draenor, Mists of Pandaria and Battle for Azeroth. I would not describe them as cutscenes, they are like trailers with a more "cartoony" style to them, but not in a bad way. Think they are appreciated by the majority of the WoW-fanbase.
Had to read books to find out sylvanas was empowered and all that nonsense, people who didnt read the book were wondering why she could wipe the floor with the lich king 😂
@@Sebbywebz I read Christie Goldens Sylvanas book and it is both a very good book but also a very good example how badly explained the Narrative in WoW is ingame. If you have to read the books to understand a characters long term motivations in a game, you fucked up as a Developer of a Video Game.
@@heramaaroricon4738 yeah I’ll agree with that. I think all the necessary info should be in the game. I’m not sure how it ended up that way tho. WC2 and 3 felt like they contained everything I needed to know. What happened with WOW?
I personally had no problem with this cinematic I mean yea she somehow got broken as hell but w/e. Love the comment about how great the expansion would be having the knowledge that it was basically a failed expansion before it even released. Literally they just gave up, put it out then didnt touch it for 9 months then added a minor patch with a small zone to be followed up later with another small zone both terribly bad. People hate on WoD so much but it was designed to have no content and be a 1 year expansion. WoD was supposed to be the start of yearly expansion releases, less content, no more flying with the idea being that keeping us grounded would make the lack of content last till the next expansion. Problem is they cant do anything that fast so when the expansion turned into a 2 year one they tend to stick to their roadmap so longer waits between patches and no extra content just sticking to the planned minor updates. Though they did seem to take some of the feed back and over compensate in legion which created a great expansion with bad systems right out the gate. but since WoD was so lacking in content people considered legion to be great. but the systems were pretty awful and by the end we were sick of them... but those systems performed really wll metrics wise because it was mandatory content so they thought it must be fun.. so they doubled down on it for bfa then trippled downed on it for shadowlands and it was awful in bfa and even worse in SL
Ice Crown. A Monument to our suffering. The veil between life and death, where a usurper sits on a frozen throne. But no King Rules forever. This is so epic. I love the Dialogues/Monologues in Warcraft Cinematics.
I gotta say. In my opinion, BFA's trailer was amazing. In terms of newer expansions, that is the one that made me feel so excited. I had chills/goosebumps during both Sylvannas' and Anduin's scenes, and the ending clash. Amazing. Shadowlands trailer was a cool to watch but did not get me excited like BFA (expansion gameplay aside).
i might be too late to say this but u should watch the wrath gate and icc finale to understand who bolvar is. he doesn't play much of a role up until shadowlands (some in legion but can be skipped)
Man as cool as this cinematic was, the whole "oh actually she's super op because of a super secret bad guy you had 0 idea about until right now through a book that basically no one read" was so dumb and kinda ruined this cinematic in the long run.
Yeah it’s visually spectacular, but when you learn the reasons behind it it feels a bit cheapened. Thankfully Dragonflight seems to be several steps in a better direction
@@Sebbywebz If you have not yet watched, recommend seeing "Battle for Azeroth: Varock Saurfang's Mak'gora" it does show the intro to BfA again, but gives to a legendary story points within BfA, one of the only saving graces for that expansion
Anduin uses his tears, but more intelligent races of Azeroth understand that all you need is conviction to call upon the light's magic. Blood Elves, Nightborn, Goblins, and Gnomes have moved past the superstitious BS and just use conviction.
@@Sebbywebz I've been expecting my comments to be posted to the video I started writing the comment on, and this was supposed to be a comment on the BFA video! But auto play Fs with me yet again.
Bolvar is not nearly as strong as Arthas was. He doesn't have the armor, nor Frostmourne. In fact, the shards of Frostmourne actually belong to the Deathlord now(the player character if they're a death knight). Sylvanas, we later learned, is being empowered by all the souls going to the maw. Or super hell. Everyone that has died since the Third Burning Legion Invasion(Legion xpac). Everyones souls go straight to the Maw. And the Jailer is sharing a portion of that power with Sylvanas. Thus the Superman strength. She's channeling the power of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, souls. I remember watching this cinematic the first time. I thought she was going to put on the Helm of Domination. When she started breaking it I remember my heart skipped a beat and then the sky tore open I gasped and remember whispering, "Oh no... What have you done? What HAVE you done?!" Yes. I goddamned know I'm a nerd. WoW lore, Elder Scrolls Lore, and FFXIV(and many other FF games) lore. All my loves.
That wasnt Arthas,that was Bolvar,he had to becomse Lich King after we defeated Arthas in Wrathh of the Lich King,becuse there must always be a Lich King that controls the Undead! ARTHAS WOULD HAVE DISMEMBERED SYLVANAS WITH VERY EASE!!!
That's Bolvar Fordragon, Arthas died in Wrath of the Lich king and Bolvar took his place, thats why she says "a usurper sits on the throne". Arthas was the true Lich King, thee Jailor's puppet, but Bolvar Fordragon's will is too strong for the jailor to control, thats why Sylvanas is there. the expansion actually sucked, the concept was fine though.
It’s a pity the trailer is so cool but the expansion is so poorly regarded. Chat actually showed me a Bolvar cutscene that I watched in the middle of this trailer. I didn’t include it tho, since it breaks the flow of this React. Thanks for the explanation tho, and for watching!
I thought reaction was pretty lackluster, so I thought it’d make a boring vid. But a few ppl have asked to see it anyway, so maybe I will post it after Dragonflight. Thanks for watching!
I love how Sylvanas ended up in the maw when she killed herself after WotlK whilst Garrosh is in revendreth This means that Sylvanas even back in WotlK was already beyond redemption whilst Garrosh wasn't, his only "sin" is that he was arrogant. It is also very interesting that they manipulate Uther into throwing Arthas soul into the Maw, if Arthas was irredeemable then there was no need for Uther to do that, the only reason there they have for doing that is that they were worried that Arthas wouldn't end up in the maw, so he wasn't irredeemable either. Makes you think, the fact that both Garrosh and Arthas didn't deserve the Maw but Sylvanas did.
After the events at the Wrathgate and the red dragonflight's flames of life saving him from the plague Bolvar was in an extremely weakened state because of the plague and being in a constant state of being incinerated. It's not quite clear what Bolvar ACTUALLY became at the Wrathgate because he was no longer alive, but he also never died, and that weakened him a great deal. when Bolvar becomes Lich King Bolvar and dawns the Helm of Domination he does get more power but it's important to know that what powered the helm (and frostmourne) to begin with was the essence of Nerzhul. For a time Nerzhul and Arthas shared a consciousness, but Arthas does end up slaying/consuming Nerzhul leaving him in complete control of the powers of the Lich King via the helm, and frostmourne, where as before this Nerzhul and Arthas would have been in a state of an eternal conflict with them constantly fighting for control. While the helm would have retained SOME power after the fall of Lich King Arthas it would be but just a SMALL fraction of power. Nerzhul's soul powered the helm and frostmourne. The source of Nerzhul's power, or rather The Lich King's power, or Lich King Nerzhul's power wasn't JUST the essence that was put into the helm and frostmourne, but a great deal of the power came from the knowledge Nerzhul possessed on how to USE the helm and the sword. After Arthas got bored of playing house with Nerzhul, he ends up slaying Nerzhul's spirit, but by this time, that would have been no great loss as by then Arthas him self would have been able to absorb most of, if not all of, that knowledge. When Lich King Arthas was defeated, and the thousands of souls were released by shattering Frostmourne, what raw power their was, and what knowledge their was, Arthas took with him when he died. It's important to take note that a great deal of the Lich King's powers was lost when Frostmourne was shattered. The more souls it consumed the stronger it became and what essence there was left from Nerzhul was still in Frostmourne when it was shattered, was also destroyed. (It is suggested that when all the souls were released they all attacked Lich King Arthas as well and that be the only reason Arthas was able to be defeated to begin with). In other words Frostmourne was what gave Lich King Arthas his emmense strength, and the helm was what allowed Lich King Arthas to (dominate and) control the undead. When Bolvar becomes Lich King he does not have Frostmourne, and he has no knowledge from Nerzhul/Arthas and so he's basically a noob, and can barely just control the helm just barely enough to dominate the undead, and even then, the best he can do is basically just keep the undead from attacking, he doesn't have the strength or knowledge it takes to take total control of the "hivemind" so the best he can do is basically just keep the undead/scourge in spot doing absolutely nothing, as if they are empty vessels, he can't like.. coordinate an attack and do all the crazy things Arthas was able to do. So when Sylvanas comes along to confront Lich King Bolvar, sure he's got some juice, but is basically insinuated that he only has perhaps 5-10% of the power Lich King Arthas had which would have nerfed him to the point where Sylvanas would be able to overpower him easily on her worst day. But, that being said there is also a likely fact that Sylvanas herself had been empowered by The Maw/The Jailer making a broken down Lich King rather trivial for her to deal with. There is a lot of speculation about when and how long she had been empowered by the maw and the jailer, but she was certainly empowered by the maw/jailed when she confronts Bolvar and easily overpowers him using the chains of domination.
Shadowlands unfortunately was imo the worst expansion and story was terrible. I'd like to think everything involving it was just not a thing since it kinda ruined a lot.
Absolutely atrocious piece of trash expansion, ever! Convoluted, nonsensical story within a world none of us cared about, while destroying Sylvanus' character and evaporating any kind of existence that was Arthas, while diluting much of the Azeroth's lore. I absolutely hated it. Dragonflight on the other hand feels refreshing, almost like WoW is an entirely new game altogether.
Yeah I only started Dragonflight today. Early in, but fun so far. Simple but effective is prob WOW’s best strat. Shadowlands/Jailer sounds like it was reaching too far?
