It’s best not to look at it through a narrative lens, and instead put your Company PR goggles on. You’ll remember that when Blizzard introduced the concept of Lightrisen Calia and foreshadowed her leadership of the Forsaken in the same book she was introduced, the backlash and rejection by the Forsaken fandom was nigh absolute.
This wasn’t helped by the fact that the author of the book casually revealed that she knew nothing of the Forsaken as a culture, because she had no interest in their story. So she just made up a new culture for them that fit the narrative she needed, completely abandoning story elements that long-time Forsaken fans remember.
Including the fact that there was an NPC in the Undercity who was in charge of a census of the Forsaken, and his entire role was to connect names, new identities and lifetimes, considering that the many dead who became the Forsaken all lived at some point and could have shared claims to property and status. Imagine returning to unlife and realizing you don’t own a home because some other undead claims that he owned it after you died and his ownership trumps yours by its proximity to the present day.
That NPC and many like him were completely ignored in a Find and Replace effort by That Author who then claimed that Sylvanas decreed that no one was allowed to care about or feel anything for their prior existence, despite the fact that only a year or two prior her character was proudly galloping down Silverpine, proclaiming how important Lordaeron and it’s history is to her people and how they deserve to keep those ideals and iconography.
So it’s given now that Sylvanas represented an abandonment of the Forsaken’s cultural identity while Calia was positioned by the author to be an anchor to the glory days of Lordaeron. But the problem remained, the Forsaken fandom still rejected Calia despite the fact that she was fabricated to be a perfect fit to be their ruler.
The issue wasn’t that she was technically the rightful Queen of Lordaeron—had that state not become defunct—after her father’s passing, but instead that she by design was the equivalent to putting Gallywix in charge of the Night Elves in terms of clashing themes and disconnected ethos’s.
By their original plan and designs for her, there was nothing Blizzard could do to make Calia “fit in more” with her people. This is exaggerated to hilarious proportions during the Heritage Questline, where she stands on the sidelines furrowing her brow and doing her “Doubt and Pout” performance while the rest of the Forsaken throw green slime everywhere and kill Scarlets. At the very least, she’s willing to cooperate, but it’s clear she’s uncomfortable. And that’s a problem. Why is the narrative face for your faction uncomfortable with how that faction operates? It’s like putting a Vegan as the manager of a Butcher Shop, and watching them tell every customer that it would be better if they didn’t patron the store, and instead looked elsewhere.
It finally came to a crescendo when the questline awards the Forsaken player with a heritage outfit that couldn’t be more opposite of Calia’s garb if it tried. You’re covered in dark purples and blacks, with chains and vials of green liquids, while she’s white as snow and bedecked in jewels.
So what is the only option Blizzard has left to use to continue to push Calia on a fanbase that is pointing out she doesn’t resemble anything they wanted? It’s rather simple, you find or create a narrative authority who then rules in her favor to silence her dissenters. And so Maldraxxus, which can narratively claim to be the origin of both the Scourge and the Forsaken is approached by Calia who wants to know if she’s a legitimate undead character, and is told that she most certainly is, because Necromancy—despite being created by the Shadowlands—is a public IP that any other power can claim and perform without issue and stop asking questions.
So that’s the new lore. Undead are perfectly natural, and even the magic of life can create undead—Krassus, one of Alextrasza’s old mates reanimates a goblin with Red Flight Life Magic in one of the old Knaak books and pilots it around—so there’s an old example of non-shadow Necromancy.
But this change does two things:
First it completely tore apart the entire enmity of the Light and Undeath, meaning that Paladins aren’t holy crusaders removing a curse or taint from the planet, but instead just overzealous gardeners who treat the mindless undead like weeds, and are bigots to the intelligent ones.
And then it further complicates the entire stability of the Shadowlands as I mentioned in a previous post above, because if the Shadowlands acknowledges that undeath is an acceptable state of being for mortals, and sanctions it, then why would they ever let that knowledge leave when the foundation of their very existence requires that people die and pass on to become fuel. Which undeath prevents.
It’s like the CEO of an Oil Company letting it slip that there’s a secret switch in your car that turns off its need for petrol/gas and the engine switches to CO2, which is free. Would anyone continue paying for gas to drive their car if the alternative was to just flip the switch and drive for free?
But sure, go on and tell Calia and hope that she doesn’t reveal this to the rest of Azeroth, because we know she’s not a real proponent of Undeath as a concept, because she won’t stop Doubting and Pouting about it constantly. Add that to the tally of reasons why we don’t accept her.
Sheesh.
'MAGIC! ’ 