I’m pretty sure Calia is the product of someone trying to take a surface level analysis of The Forsaken for potential plot threads and insisting that The Horde need someone with more direct stakes in a potential antagonistic Light expansion (like, say, insisting that an author include a light zombie in a storyline). At the end of the day, all I can do is interpret what they’re setting up in front of me. Calia got a high fidelity unique model, shows up on the Horde Council for no apparent reason, and is being propped up by the only active Forsaken NPC as an insightful leader to help people grapple with a post-Sylvanas unlife.
I’m not necessarily saying there aren’t steps that could get her there, but I don’t trust this team to tell that story. I think it will end up being some contrived, hamfisted narrative debacle that’s about as compelling as “I will never serve!” That, and the writing has exerted most of its effort wringing tension and identity out of factions and races, so I don’t expect them to suddenly give a damn about preserving The Forsaken as we knew it.
I think it is more budget and time constraints on what Blizzard is able to produce versus things having to get left behind. The lore behind Calia runs deep.
If only there was a girl raised and transformed as a weapon by the scarlet crusade, then forsaken by her light-zealous father. If only she had a long history of charting her own course of revenge, making her well known to members of both the horde and alliance, before finally accepting her identity as forsaken, and demonstrating a deep understanding of their plight.
Too bad there isn’t… I guess we’ll have to settle for a white zombie.
I think the idea is that each faction have someone profoundly sympathetic to The Light akin to Turalyon. I would have rather seen them lead with Alonsus if that’s the case. Who knows what plans they had and which ones were abandoned by this point though, given all the internal shifts and turmoil.
To the topic; Calia needs a lot of quest time for… I’ll say, ‘character adjustment’.
She needs to be shown to act with initiative (especially now after all of SL)
She needs to be shown to lead capably (more just since she’s replacing a fairly active character in Sylvanas)
She needs to be shown to do what is necessary to win (like it or not, the Blight has been part of the Forsaken style guide for a decade now)
She/Someone supportive of her needs to do something to handwave away the population issue (can’t just abandon a major plot thread)
She has to do something cool (turn a scarlet into charcoal with the Light, something to show she’s a Warcraft leader)
Yes, it was. So much so that it basically excludes her from contention.
Calia is a Light-raised undead, while the Light hurts the Forsaken. If you thought Sylvanas ruled by fear, imagine how fearful the Forsaken would be concerning Calia. On top of that, throw in Calia being undead for a few months (and actually dead for a very short time period) and she’s so far off the reservation she seems better to introduce Lightforged Undead for the Alliance than to lead the Forsaken.
She’s Zombie-Anduin-Barbie and I get that the point is Blizzard messed up introducing her, but they messed her character up so badly that it’s pretty tough to see a way out of it, but Mawthorne posted a couple:
The way Calia stands around in Orobis makes it feel likes Blizzard had plans and story for her, but they were scrapped with the rest of the xpac. Blizzard could be doing a lot to help with the Calia storyline, but there has been odd missed opportunities.
I hope that the 9.2.5 content will finally begin to align with Calia and give her attention and story to develop. As it was, Sylvanas held the spotlight and everything has (as usual) focused on her.
That’s part of what can make voss being leader a good thing and a good story. It shows char dev and growth ( We saw a bit of that in the shadows rising novel )
The Knights of the Ebon Blade remain objectively worse than the Forsaken by every observable metric and nobody whines about how theyre malignant.
They raised everybody’s honored dead at the end of the Blood War. Against the advice of the Four Horsemen. For no apparent reason! Because it’s not like they turned the tide. They just opened portals and defended an airport off screen!
The Forsaken have only ever raised people in wartime and only waged one offensive war against their will.
They covered for the West Horde in Darkshore because Tyrande spooked them. And Garrosh forced their claws with Gilneas.
Otherwise they’ve simply cut out a malignant enemy who refuses to acknowledge their right to exist within their own kingdom.
Literally FOUR people at the Gathering actually wanted to defect to the Alliance (Parqual Fintallas and Emma Felstone’s three sons). Parqual is the one who approached Calia for her help in doing so (and we assume the Felstone brothers went along with it because they didn’t want to be separated from their mother again either).
Admittedly Calia jumped the shark by trying to persuade Vellcinda/Elsie, but Elsie flat out turned her down because she was still loyal to Sylvanas and the rest of the council were attempting to obey the order to withdraw other than those initial four when Sylvanas went trigger-happy and had her rangers slaughter everyone but the ones who’d been rejected by their living family/friends and had already returned to the wall.
Once arrows started flying Calia was just trying to save who she could. Frankly I think it’d be poetic justice if she becomes the official Forsaken leader because that’s what Sylvanas was trying to prevent by murdering her. At least Calia genuinely cares about them; Sylvanas only ever saw them as tools to help her get revenge on Arthas (which sadly is current canon despite the occasional hints we saw in previous expansions).
I think a large chunk of the knee-jerk Calia hate stems from Sylvanas fans knowing that if Calia becomes leader of the Forsaken it’s the nail in the coffin that even if Sylvanas ever does return from the Shadowlands she’s not going to be their leader again.
Some of the quotes that come from that book from Calia and others are pretty impactful. More so, the scene at Arathi and what Sylvanas did to even loyal Forsaken was…profound.
All of a sudden Calia cares about them? She hasnt been connected to them at all for ages. Where has she been? Maybe, like… I dont know, she should have been advocating for peace with her people when Varian was king? To suddenly say, “Hey! Here’s Calia! She loves her people and you should just accept that as the new narrative!” is just… ugh.
We don’t even know if the ambassadors even reached Stormwind. What we know is they were dispatched, and the Alliance at the time had the boy-king Anduin on the throne and Onyxia running the show. This was just on the heels of the Third War with the survivors of Lordaeron finally making a life for themselves in Stormwind and beyond. Also, we can’t forget that the survivors of Lordaeron told tales of the “so-called free willed undead killing Garithos as well as his men.” Probably the biggest political mistake the Forsaken made was when they liberated the city.
Imagine these surviving humans all sharing stories and rumors of the Scourge and then hearing that some of their family broke free only to immediately slaughter more of their living brethren. By Vanilla, we see the Forsaking doing raids on Southshore, Pyrewood, Hillsbrad, and Ambermill. Not to mention the attack on the Forsaken renegades who sought asylum at the Dalaran Crater.
Calia is a member of the royal family. She was born, raised, and groomed as a royal to lead the people of Lordearon. The Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron. Lordaeron is a fallen kingdom, that is the founding of the Forsaken.
Calia is older than Arthas by 4 years. Without a doubt at first, she would have been seen to be the future ruler of Lordaron. As with all royalty, her early educational schooling and tutoring would have been to rule. It was not some time later that Arthas was set to rule.
Calia openly acknowledges the Forsaken as the people of Lordaeron. The Forsaken are her people, Calia personally knew many of them before the Scourging.
Calia canon lore quotes below:
-Quote: Calia: “He helped save me. I remembered him, you see. And in the midst of all that horror, when I was constantly fleeing so many I loved whose minds and wills had been stolen from them… to see the face of someone who was still who he had been— It was as if hope itself was a sword that stabbed clean through me. Except instead of wounding, it offered me the chance to move through my shock and pain to a place of healing. So you see, for me, the Forsaken weren’t monsters. They were friends. It was the Scourge, the shambling, stumbling things that wore my friends’ faces—they had become monsters.”
-Quote: “You are my people, and I want to help you. I only came to observe, to begin to get to know the Forsaken of Lordaeron.”
Because frankly, there is a lot of stuff out there I see passed around but finding the canon lore source is not so easy on.
We need to find the bit about the Forsaken Ambassadors. While Garithos was slain by Sylvanas, it was a covert situation. Do we actually have any lore that said the Alliance of Stormwind know exactly what happened? From what I can see and research? Nope.
Let’s look into this. What is the canon, where does it come from? Has it been retconned since?
None of what you say after this is relevant, because half of it is whats stupid.
Its stupid to suddenly introduce her as relevant. To suddenly develop her into a dead person and suddenly make her a member of the council and suddenly tell us she has always cared about the zombies she ran from. Its canon, but its stupid canon. Thats not your fault, its the fault of the people obviously trying to shoehorn her into the narrative for obvious alterior motives.
Thanks for such a compelling counter argument to canon lore.
Calia has been asked for by the fan base for years. Though Blizzard should have added her to the game much sooner than Legion, she has been around for longer.
Calia was added to the MMO game in Legion. Legion was added in 2016.
Calia in the MMO has been around now for 6 years in the game. She has existed in canon lore since around W3 in canon lore.
We can’t change what’s already happened to her character, but I’m hopeful that her overall characterization will be improved in the coming expansion. There are all the elements of characterization to build upon, and I suspect they’re coming together.