How does the passive form work here?

Question

This is from a visual novel.

A dude is talking to his underlings:

さって本日よりきさまらに新たな命令が下されるわけだが

It translates to

"Well now I’m calling you to give new orders"

I was under the impression that the passive form works like this:

A が/は B に passive form

Which means: A is affected by B’s action (directly or indirectly depending whether it's a transitive or intransitive verb)

However I don’t see how that works here. From what I can tell the sentence is constructed like this:

A が/は B に passive form

So the speaker should be the one being adversely affected by the verb (orders) however in this case he is the one doing the action (verb).

A should be affected by B's action. However A is the one doing the action towards B.

Can someone help?

Answer 1

きさまらに新たな命令が下される
(= 新たな命令がきさまらに下される)

The に here doesn't mark the agent (subject), but the target (indirect object) of 下す. きさまらに here means "to you", not "by you".

「上層部が貴様らに新たな命令を下す」 -- active voice
(They) give new orders to you.
↓
「新たな命令が(上層部によって/から*)貴様らに下される」 -- passive voice
New orders are given to you (by them).

*によって or から is preferred, avoiding repeating に, since 「上層部に貴様らに」 would sound confusing.

下す (give) takes two objects, a direct object (marked by を) and an indirect object (marked by に), so the sentence can be converted to another passive voice form:

「貴様らが(上層部に/から/によって)新たな命令を下される」
You are given new orders (by them).　　

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Another example:

「私があなたに１万円を渡す」 I give you 10,000 yen.
↓
「１万円が(私によって/から)あなたに渡される」 10,000 yen is given to you (by me).
「あなたが(私に/によって/から)１万円を渡される」 You are given 10,000 yen (by me).

... So, 「山田さんに渡された１万円」 would be quite ambiguous: "10,000 yen that was given to Yamada, or by Yamada." (In the case of "by~~", you can usually avoid confusion by using から instead.)

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So, logically speaking, 「～に下される」「～に与えられる」「～に渡される」「～に教えられる」「～に託される」「～に依頼される」 etc. can mean either "be given/taught/entrusted to ~~" or "be given/taught/entrusted by ~~", and you should see the context to tell which meaning a に is being used for.