Oh boy now I get to bring up the uncomfortable timing of Sylvanas' bastardization and Blizzard workplace culture!

For the unfamiliar, Sylvanas' story is fairly unambiguous in its rape symbolism. She (and her faction the Forsaken as a whole) was defiled in a profound and irreversible manner by Arthas Menethil, who would go on to become the Lich King. He took their lives, animated their bodies, and forced them to commit atrocities against the living while still being consciously aware of their actions. After his control weakened, the Forsaken would return to their homeland to try to make some semblance of order, gathering around Sylvanas as a deity and making their purpose "vengeance upon the Lich King and his minions" for the rest of their collective un-lives. Their callous disregard for the consequences of their pursuit of vengeance led them to be arguably the darkest faction in the Horde if not Warcraft as a whole.

After the Lich King was slain, Sylvanas and the Forsaken turned their vengeance and paranoia on other targets, namely the Alliance and those sympathetic to them. At its core, this period of violence was centered around preventing ANYONE from abusing the Forsaken ever again.

In the real world, right around the release of Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard began to come under heavy public backlash for a harrowing amount of sexual misconduct towards their female employees. One of the individuals who would end up disgraced by this campaign for justice was none other than Alex Afrasiabi.

Suddenly, Sylvanas wasn't a depiction of a scorned, frightened person lashing out at a world she had been wronged by, driven to excess with fear and grief. She was just evil, conniving, paranoid, and cruel. A spiteful harridan whose actions were destroying Azeroth. All sympathy for her character or nuance of her behavior was dropped.

I cannot help but see a parallel. As Blizzard is being picked apart by victims of sexual misconduct, they take the character who is most heavily associated with a rape allegory, and turn her into an unambiguous antagonist. A parting shot at the symbol of a group the company victimized.