none of that raising people against their goddamn will
Sylvanas raises souls that are restless and can’t move on for whatever reason
they’re the only ones that actually can be pulled back
they’re stuck, mired in pain, unfinished business, whatever
she gives them a choice: stay stuck or come find a purpose with me. you’ll get to stab things and set them on fire~~ <3
you want a “Lich Queen” comparison to make? it’s Bolvar, not Arthas.
she takes them on because no one else wants them. the way no one else wanted her or cared about her pain or grief or rage. the living don’t give a tenth of a fuck about them. there’s no joy in this curse, as she says. but she offers them a place. the choice she never had, to quote another undead person I like a lot.
Ah, yes, the starter zone dilemma. You’re either gung-ho about it, or slaughtered for dissent.
‘If the Dark Lady has given me this gift then I will gladly serve’
But I’m sorry, have you done the Silverpine quests?
Where she and Agatha (and the player) raise Alliance humans that were just fighting against her minutes beforehand, and yet are suddenly loyal servants?
You can’t convince me with uncited reasoning regarding “restless souls” that there’s not some level of influence there- people don’t just flop sides like that shouting, “For the Dark Lady!” when they were actively fleeing from her minutes before. The best theory for this is regarding the fact that Forsaken suffer a huge severance from a lot of their more positive and human emotions and are kind of demented and malleable when they’re risen, which is in and of itself hardly anything resembling “free will”.
It doesn’t matter if they actively choose to side with her; their minds are no longer stable. She’s still raising undead.
There is no joy in this curse, and yet she casts it upon them anyway. She refers to these people as arrows in her quiver. She doesn’t give a fuck about them. The original forsaken? Yes, she took them on because they were cast aside, and her cause was more noble- give them a home. But it’s about conquest now. Making more arrows for her quiver. The choice offered is a flimsy one, and has a wobbly possibility of free will at best when you consider the circumstances. It’s not like she personally goes into the afterlife and interviews spirits and kindly asks them, “Would you like to come back and fight for my people? No? Well, okay, rest in peace.”
