The reason for her prettiness is the problem—i.e., the fact that she’s a Light Zombie.
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Fantasy video game <> WW2 atrocities (edit: or other real life atrocities)
Period.
That’s not just because this is a game (obviously it is) or because of the fact that atrocities aren’t committed against real people (they aren’t) and none of the players actually experience them (they don’t). NPCs experience the actual consequences of those actions: NPCs are slaughtered; NPCs suffer from war; and NPCs are the ones who carry out the actions.
We’re also dealing with a fantasy environment. Atrocities do not carry the same weight because they exist in an environment without the same set of rules and laws, not just in a geopolitical sense, but also in a “laws of reality” sense.
The Forsaken are individuals who are raised from the dead, who were used as part of a massive zombie army that committed atrocities, while mind controlled by a being who was also being influenced by a set of armor, that had the spirit of an Orc in it, that was crafted by the ruler of … let’s go with WoW Hell … and shipped off to an army of demons led by a cosmic … demigod? … who wanted to scour all life from the universe to prevent the potential rise of a demigod living inside a planet becoming corrupted by the evil Void energies. Let that sink in for a moment before you start relating crimes committed during WW2 to anything that any WoW race has done.
None of that even gets into the fact that we have beings that are resurrected, both PCs and non-PCs, and then have encountered some of the deceased who also are … “doing stuff” in the afterlife (and in Draka’s case at least, somehow leaving the realm of the dead). We also have a massive number of beings who cannot truly die unless they are killed in their planes of existence, making even their deaths carry less meaning.
Comparing actions that occur in that setting to the senseless murder of millions of real people, as any sort of serious comparison, is offensive to the real life people who died in a real life setting. If you want to try to defend your position, and suggest you’re not just trolling for shock value, then you go ahead and die on that hill, but I will simply state that your stance is disgusting.
I’m not going to go through the next 123+ posts
It not only misses the point, it gives Alliance fans ammunition. The “Pristine, pretty = not Forsaken” angle needs to be dropped like hot coals sixteen years ago. Sylvanas has always been pretty, no one ever took issue with it. It’s stupid to hold it against Calia when she was myriad things to actually hold against her, such as being an Alliance character who actively tried to get the Forsaken to leave the Horde and join the Alliance.
Also could Banshee please quit double posting
If people had a problem with a “pretty” Forsaken leader, than this argument would also apply to Sylvanas, but it’s more about how she was made into an undead. She was Lightforged. Up until now we were told that the Light had abandoned the Forsaken. They were undead, the light burned undead. Calia is the entire anti-thesis of what it means to be undead and Forsaken.
Trivializing it to “she’s pretty” is invalidating legitimate concerns of Forsaken fans as well as player identity.
There’s an ugly side to Forsaken identity, having a mangled body, being raised as Scourge. This is a core Forsaken identity that all Forsaken shared, regardless of appearance. Calia is not like other undead. She was not raised the same, and she hasn’t experience the same narrative that would integrate her into forsaken identity.
You’d likely feel the same if a Kul Tiran suddenly became the High King of the Alliance.
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We’ve not been told that since before vanilla.
Bartholomew says hi.
So does Sir Zeliek.
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Bartholomew was a warrior not a Light wielder, the Argent Crusade may have had paladins, but it was not a faction that depended on using the Light, they are more of a militia.
Sir Zeliek was a Death Knight under Kel’thuzad. Death Knights seem to follow different lore, when it comes to the Light than regular Forsaken. Death Knights like Arthas, Bolvar and Darion have more of a resilience to the Light as per DK lore.
You would have had more luck using Alonsus Foal as an example, but even he tells us that when he channels the Light it causes him excruciating pain because he is undead. That’s a sacrifice he makes for his faith, Most undead priests are canonically Shadow priests who follow the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow, not the Light.
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Pretty is your word. I used pristine. They are not the same. Sylvanas is not pristine. She has scars, but she is still seen as pretty by many.
There are Forsaken that look pretty, for their condition. I have seen some pull off pretty decent Elvira ‘Mogs.
The issues concerning Calia are not about her being pretty. It is that she is pristine, preserved, had a wholly different origin, and looks nothing like the actual playable Forsaken.
Even Sylvanas has common cause and has dealt with rot and such. Sylvanas could be seen as pretty and was not pristine. Calia didn’t even decay. She is pristine, whether or not you say she is pretty.
Two different words.
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Prettu is not the problem. Her story and how she got raised is the problem.
Human’s got changed from “every man for himself” they could totally change “cannibalize” to “kiss of death”. While the premise is kind of hilarious, I hope they dont try to make us not cannibals.
But even that proves that you’re incorrect. The light isn’t denied from undead, it just causes them pain.
Does it bother you (even slightly) that your version of “refuting” that no one is saying Calia can’t lead the Forsaken because she’s pretty, involves quoting a bunch of posts where no one says she’s pretty?
I didn’t see someone jump on this bandwagon.
//If we’re going by looks, some of her side-shot models give her a very square-jaw look that isn’t very attractive, in my opinion. Though I guess, depending on tastes, that’s more attractive than the “No Jaw” Forsaken model, so there’s that.
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Why should letting the Forsaken remain the morally deficient group they’ve always been necessarily lead to them being shamed ? They were never shamed. They were despised, hated, even within the Horde, but shamed ? Why should they be shamed ? No one’s asking the writers to impose a universal moral through their narrative. That’s not their job.
Their job is to find the right balance between what is desirable from an ingame perspective and what is desirable from a meta perspective. The Forsaken need to evolve narratively and they can’t go back to being mere Blight-throwing cartoon villains forever, that’s for sure, but they can’t become the good-hearted followers of Calia Menethil either. Simply because that’s not what Horde and Forsaken players signed up for. They signed up for a race of cynical, tortured mad scientists who spend their days doing questionable stuff. And so they must evolve in a direction that allows those aspects to broadly remain. I struggle to see how they can stick to what defines them under the leadership of female Light-infused Anduin.
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What I find particularly ironic is that people used to say “The only reason anyone could like Sylvanas is because they’re blinded by the pretty.”
Now we’re hearing “The only reason people dislike Calia is because she’s pretty!”
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Shamed for past actions. Meaning if there are Worgen somehow interacting with Forsaken then they bring up the past grievance. Instead currently its like all Alliance characters all get Alzheimer and can’t remember what the Horde/Forsaken were doing last week.
If in any context they bring up the Forsaken, it is in the context of the monstrous actions they have done. IE treat them as monsters.
IF the story is going to force the Alliance to hug it out with the Forsaken then there needs to be an explanation. And as dumb as Calia’s insertion is this is accomplished.
Old menethil line and she healed the forsaken with light magic… see the forsaken are not evil anymore thanks to Calia so no need to be angry with them.
You can’t let the Forsaken be as they are or what they used to be and then shove them into a cooperative with alliance story with no reasonable explanation. The Horde has done way too much to just move on without addressing the massive blighted elephant in the room.
she looks like she’s built like a linebacker, but that might just be her cowl that’s making her look like that.
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My problem with Calia is not so much her looks (although it certainly doesn’t help ) but rather that the Forsaken are by their very nature a people that isn’t liked by many and therefore whoever leads them should be cunning and ruthless.
Calia has so far shown none of these qualities. Or any leadership qualities at all. The only active choices she made in her life were running from her responsibilities and then encouraging deserters which famously ended in a disaster. After that, she has done absolutely nothing of value.
She is everybody’s darling, sure. But why exactly remains a mystery to me. And it’s not enough to sell me on her for Forsaken leader.
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These Forsaken fan standards are getting a bit ridiculous tbh.
Why can’t we all just agree we like heavy metal zombies and that’s the true OG Forsaken aesthetic.
We can’t have the faction that revolves around Divine Humanism (aka Satanism) convert to the Light (an allegory to Christianity) it doesn’t matter how “pretty” Calia Menethil is, it just doesn’t work. “Lightforged” Forsaken as a concept, is just wrong.
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I agree but personally I think the Alliance and especially the Kaldorei/Worgen shouldn’t “hug it out” with the Forsaken, they should remain angry and vengeful. I too dislike this “let’s forget about what happened and put our differences aside for the sake of Azeroth” direction we’re heading. However I refuse that the Alliance’s perception of the Forsaken becomes the universal, trans-faction perception. The Horde narrative shouldn’t have this apologetic, Forsaken-shaming tone. Horde members could be uneasy at what the Forsaken did, but mostly leave it at that and support the Forsaken regardless because they’re their brothers and sisters now.
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I agree. If there’s any Horde shaming of the Forsaken, it should be for what the Forsaken did to the Horde.
The Horde is not a vassal state of the Alliance. It doesn’t exist at the Alliance’s pleasure. We might have our own Alliance Council now that Warchief is gone, but we answer to them, not to Tyrande.
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(Yes it is. Lightforged Undead is an okay concept for an ALLIANCE playable race, but I really hope Lightforged Forsaken never become a thing. Just stay away from the Horde please)
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