Lady Sylvanas Windrunner : I can raise your dead , Regent- Lord . Your rangers can fight again . Lor ’ themar Theron : Sylvanas ! You will leave our corpses alone , or I will deal with you here and now . Again , we see Sylvanas as the practical tactician and Lor ’ themar as reacting emotionally and out of racial and reproductive prejudice . Although he is delighted to have the aid of Sylvanas ’ troops , and was once her second-in-command in fighting the Scourge , he is horrified at the notion of his rangers being given a second chance at life ( or more properly , perhaps , “ unlife ”) if it means their becoming Forsaken and being revived in a way that he finds somehow repulsive or unnatural . One is reminded here of the people who might claim not to be racist or homophobic but who still would not live in a mixed-race neighborhood , be reluctant to vote for a leader of a different race , and be horrified if a member of their family wanted to marry a member of a different race or same gender .
In Legion , the August 2016 WoW expansion , Sylvanas finally becomes Warchief of the Horde . Rather than this being a moment of unambiguous celebration , vindicating Sylvanas and signaling an end to the prejudice against her and the Forsaken , Vol ’ jin , on his deathbed , appoints her as Warchief with considerable reluctance , saying : I have never trusted you . Nor would I have ever imagined ... in our darkest time ... dat you ... would be da one to save us . Da spirits have granted me clarity . A vision ... dey whisper a name . Many will not unda ’ stand . But you must step out of da shadows ... and lead . You must be ... War ... chief ... Rather than a ringing endorsement , this perpetuates the trope of the woman as untrustworthy and not fully deserving power . Instead of praising her for surviving the trauma of torture by Arthas , breaking free of his influence , helping other undead achieve freedom , fighting for the Horde , preserving her race , and using elements of guile and strategy to survive against overwhelming odds , Vol ’ jin simply forwards a message from the spirits in a way that suggests that he himself agrees to their commands with some reluctance , a position that parallels many of the endorsements of Clinton as the “ lesser of two evils ”.
Authority and Legitimacy
Both rhetorical authority and political legitimacy rely on what rhetoricians call “ ethos ” or the character of the speaker . Aristotle ( Rhetoric , Book I ) and subsequent rhetoricians divide ethos into two categories , intrinsic ethos created by word choice and self-presentation during a speech and extrinsic ethos , elements of character existing in the world outside the words of
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