Except for the blood cults running rampant, his chief advisor betraying him for a cobbled together eldritch evil deity, his council being all sketch from top to bottom, and the city getting successfully attacked under his rule.
None of that happened under Talanji. Just putting that out there.
I have always had a soft spot for Lydon, myself. I know that given his previous characterization that this could lead the Forsaken back down a dark road at some point, but for some reason, I always like that homicidal apothecary.
I honestly don’t have enough experience with Calia to form an opinion. But I think that she shouldn’t just be a shoe in just because she’s the former princess of Lordaeron.
Maybe if this had all happened in wow vanilla m. But I feel like at this point in the timeline the Menethil line is irrelevant. (Except for my sweet boy Arthas)
That being said, Sir Leonid Bartholomew would be my vote. The Forsaken needs more Paladin.
This would infringe on Forsaken core identity the same way that Calia would. Which is the identity of being edgelord jerks.
Arthas would be the perfect leader for the Forsaken alongside Calia.
They’d jointly bring about creating an Undead Paladin order, and restore Capital City after purifying it of the blight.
The worst part of WOD was killing Blackhand . In fact if you think from the orcs’ point of view about what WOD was, to me they were anything but villains. The WOD premise makes even less sense, as the way Garrosh constructed his narrative for the orcs by giving them more than enough elements to think that they were indeed undergoing an alien invasion and that the draenei were merely the first wave of that invasion.
If a similar event had occurred on Earth, with a Messiah warning us of an alien invasion and proving it through revelations, we would have reacted in exactly the same way. Including the idea of the orcs of Draenor to invade Azeroth and take the war to the invaders.
One of WOD’s monumental flaws is the fact that it was never thought that the orcs actually had an excellent reason to fight, and that the actions of the Alliance and Horde above all implied that they were living a war of extermination against aliens.
During the entire fight with Blackhand it is clear that he thinks he is defending his people, and even sadder that he says phrases when dying that imply that he thinks his people are dying with him. The entire WOD narrative is imperialist, the orcs were considered so primitive and irrelevant that no one in either the Horde or the Alliance thought to invite these Warlords to clarify for them that Garrosh had lied.
The simplest and most brutal choice was chosen by the Horde and Alliance, to run a steamroller over the orcs.
unfortunately blizzard has always had the forsaken revolve around sylvannas and now she’s gone their lore is nonexistent pretty much. she was their only true character of note outside of a couple npcs
Unpopular opinion, but I have no problems with Calia as long as they improve her character. The story shouldn’t be entirely that she improves or saves the Forsaken because she’s perfect as she is. It should ALSO be that the Forsaken improve HER by making her more like them.
Lilian Voss is an ok placeholder, but she has no business leading or ability to lead the Forsaken long-term and it seems like everyone, including her, acknowledge that.
There’s a bit you’re leaving out here. Like the fact the draenie had already been living with the orcs for a while. This wasn’t a situation where the orcs suddenly found surprise draenei living in their neighborhood, burning their villages. This was a situation where they knew who the draenei were, had coexisted with them for a bit, until some strange orc came and sold them stories of horror and terror.
The orcs, in essence, attempted genocide because some alt-right fringe lunatic told them the foreigners were gonna get them, to phrase it in modern language. And the orcs largely believed him over the evidence of their own eyes. And they responded by attacking not only their neighbors, but also those voices among their own people who had the audacity to not want to slaughter their neighbors.
From the Horde and Alliance’s perspective, they weren’t listening to a strange orc talking about how they might be invaded; they actually were invaded, and by a force that had no intention of talking. Then when they go through and break the Portal, they’re seeing genocide. They’re seeing a war machine build for conquest on the say-so of the modern equivalent of a religious fundamentalist extremist, preaching the evils of the Other and how you must slaughter them all.
The problem isn’t that the Horde and Alliance, having been invaded, having pushed back the invaders, having found themselves on the invaders’ homeworld and seeing rampant slaughter, didn’t try and talk it out.
The problem is the Iron Horde was written to abjectly terribly.
Calia isn’t a leader. That’s a defining feature of her character. She’s actually really bad at being a leader and prone to making constant, unforced errors based on short term, emotionally charged thinking.
She’s worryingly like Arthas in that regard actually.
Every option is terrible… if they wanted to remove Sylvanas they should have spent time to build a proper replacement and we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Lilian Voss or Calia will probably be the individual…I can already see the npcs calling Calia the “Hallowed” Lady instead of Dark Lady
Who ever replaces Sylvanas will shape the Forsaken due to Sylvanas being the heart of the Forsaken.
Forsaken fans will need to prepare themselves that the Forsaken will be changing no matter of who takes over. It’s up to you if you think the current writers can successfully recreate Forsaken society.
Nobody knows what the Forsaken are and everybody’s vision of their core identity can differ radically depending on the individual because its a faction for anarchists.
Because of that, the answer to the question of “who should lead them” is “nobody.”
They shouldn’t have a leader or a government. They should simply “be.”
One might balk at this because how can you have a playable race without a faction leader that has a room that they stand in and does government stuff and whatnot but we already have a template for this. They’re called Pandaren.
Forsaken shouldn’t have a central ruler. They should either have a senate, or just be a completely anarchist society. It never made sense to me that after breaking free from the Lich King that they would swear total and unwavering fealty to Sylvanas. I suppose in some way it makes sense since many Forsaken wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. However, I think Forsaken should be incredibly skeptical of any sort of ruler with supreme administrative power.
Literally just make them headbanging anarchists who don’t believe in rules or authority in ways that sometimes results in them doing good things but for the most part they’re just some kind of Mad-Max esque weirdo commune that operate on society’s fringes and mostly keep to themselves
That’s the aesthetic vision that they were based on in WoW. Not humans with skin conditions, nor unquestioning minions of an autocrat.
How is this a problem, why would a faction of playable villains -need- to be liked if being disliked is so core to the identity?
The general game’s populace disliking them is not a flaw, it is a feature 
Let them blight, main, burn and steal. If you want a hero, you got everyone else. If you want to burn a mountain, you go with your dark irons too.
I hope we get a faction of them being anti-horde continue to wish to resurrect the Dark lady, and some other ones who would like to work with the horde. Leave it ambiguous so players cand decide who’d they like to play.
The thing that kills me about the current forsaken is with Sylvanas gone (or at least out of favor) and Maldraxxus shamelessly pillaging all their gimmicks and then adding a dollop of “Muh Honor”, there’s not a lot left.
They’ve had a rough time of it lately, like worgen and night elves, but they’ve just been so neglected by the narrative that I barely have any idea what they’re up to.
Squatting in Org? Mostly wherever the Slyvanas loyalists went to after they were arrested (and where was that, anyway)? I want to say they desperately need some narrative love… but I do fear focus from Bliz these days.