Never once happens in any of the councils that are already in the game.
Does not mean it couldn’t happen in the future.
Good thing that’s not what I did, then.
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Sure, anything can happen. It would be a pleasant surprise. I just wouldn’t hold your breath.
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Wait, what?
First, Alex had been involved since WoW was conceived. I get that he turned out to be a terrible human being, but it is silly to try to go back and insist that everything he contributed was terrible. He was there through the highs and the lows, including WotLK, MoP, and Legion.
Second, Calia’s story does not predate Alex, because all of her story has been introduced within recent expansions. Her entire story preceding Legion was “Arthas had a sister and her name was Calia.”
Like, I get that Afrasiabi sucked lately, and his creative contributions for the past two expansions sucked especially, but do not buy into this line that everything bad is his fault. Shadowlands is on the current team at least as much as Alex. Nelf writing, Elune, criminally boring Zovaal warning us of an even bigger threat, 3d-printed Pantheons, unreliable narrator death of Chronicle, “*I WULL NEVR… SERVE”, Afterlife full of no one anyone gives a flying turdbucket about seeing, Pelagos as Arbiter, and on and on and on it goes. Those aren’t Alex, those are current team. Don’t let them off the hook just because their old boss sucked.
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The Light shouldn’t be the core of their ideology, I agree with you there. There is nothing that says Calia can’t and won’t become more developed to cover a broader reach of understanding of the Shadow either. The Priest class hall where she first appears in the MMO actively is a space of balance - with shadow and light both sharing the space.
That said, Lordaeron was a deeply traditional Kingdom and the observation of the Light was wide spread standard practice. It makes sense that characters from Lordaeron like Calia and Faol would be observant of the light, as would other Forsaken. There is no reason why Forsaken wouldn’t also regard the Light in some way as a part of their former identities: as conflicted as it may be. There should be a wide range of perspectives among the people on the matter of the Light: from bitterness and resentment, to hope.
A great example of a Lordaeron Forsaken character who was in life very pro-light and in undeath became more nuanced is: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Alonsus_Faol
Keep in mind the Naaru who helped raise Calia as an undead in canon lore was once a being of the void/ shadow as well. " Saa’ra is a naaru located in the Sanctuary of the Light in Netherlight Temple. Saa’ra was once transformed into the Void god Saraka the Lighteater before being turned back into a naaru and is the only known example of the void creature transformation being undone, with the exception of the alternate Velen purifying the naaru K’ara in alternate Draenor." Source: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Saa’ra
The Naaru involved has very real first hand understanding and experience with shadow and void in canon lore.
Given that the people who wanted to bring Calia back from the dead were not going to use the likes of Scourge magic, it makes sense that the Light would be deployed. The light has been shown to raise the dead.
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Calia in lore has existed since W3.
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That said, being a creative director means…that he approved and denied everything as far as story goes. He was the gate keeper of what was allowed: so yes…it is very much his fault. That is literally what creative directors do.
“It’s Alex’s fault that everything we wrote after he was out the door was complete and utter dogturd and continues to be.”
^ that is writing people bad at their job a blank check. You can point out Afrasiabi did something monumentally inept (like Teldrassil/Sylvanas) without pretending the current team, going on 3 years later, is helpless to shift. Going into Shadowlands: Alex’s fault. Everything since is the current team failing hard.
Calia was not in WC3. I’m not sure if she officially existed before the Arthas novel. Maybe as a not-fully-formed notion in Metzen’s head?
Job description for Blizzard Creative Director: https://careers.blizzard.com/gb/en/job/R013827/Creative-Director-World-of-Warcraft
Yes, Alex is very much at fault the majority of the fault lies with him. Not 100% but…he was the creative director. That said, Ive not said it 100% his fault, but as the Creative Direcor the majority of the fault lies with him: per the official job description and periods in which he was director.
He’s at fault for things that happened while he was there. He is not to blame for terrible writing that is happening now with the current team. This isn’t hard.
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The current team has to wrap up what was left in his wake: which was trash. You just don’t cold turkey turn off aspects of your storytelling IP and march on without closure.
Further more, they have not yet hired a new Creative Director.
Worgen players would probably like a word with you. Hate to break it to you, but that is exactly how WoW has told its story, consistently. Except they sprinkle in a huge dose of character inconsistency on top of it, so that you get to stew in your favorite corner of the game being dropped and ignored AND your favorite characters getting turned into an utterly unlikable, emotionally spastic, or unceasing pity party steaming dump on 30 years of player investment.
Beyond that, I’ll just keep quoting this…
… whenever you try to let the current team off the hook for the blunder parade. About the only good news I’ve seen out of the creative wing of this company lately is that they’re seeking outside talent to fill the Creative Director and Lead Narrative seats, because that might mean that, at long last, we don’t have people falling up into important roles (which is how Alex Afrasiabi got where he did).
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And the Worgen community has a right to be unhappy and get their story updated too. Using examples of the ball being dropped to invalid the need to update content is not fair to the community.
As a whole the community needs many updates: Worgen, Blood Elves, etc.
At no point did I ever advocate for such things. This topic is about Calia however and that why I have focused on her. If you take a look through my post history, you will see I do advocate for lots of other content to be updated. that said, the forums are already full of lots of threads dedicated to the need for sweeping content updates: which are valid.
The game and lore as a big picture whole needs to be updated. Moving forward, Blizzard needs to do this. Of course, when they do so they are in a catch 22: people will be unhappy no matter what the update is. People will be unhappy that there is an update, people will be unhappy that there is no update, etc.
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“If we can’t get our updates, no one else can!” - is a toxic mentality that does not benefit the community. Fans across the board deserve good quality updates to long-neglected content everywhere.
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Good thing no one said that then, huh? I’m honestly not even sure where that read is coming from.
If you insinuate that storytelling is as bad as it is exclusively because of Alex, that what he set up was so bad that the current team can’t possibly dig themselves out of that hole, then claim that just dropping the story and moving on isn’t a viable option, I’m going to point out that just dropping the story and moving on is something this team/game/story has done repeatedly when the storytelling wasn’t this bad.
I’m not accusing you of advocating for this, I’m just trying to get you to confront that Alex writing = dogturd and current writing = dogturd are not mutually exclusive ideas, complete with examples of terrible writing that happened in isolation apart from the ex-Creative Director.
I’ll put it another way: we should not have to suffer through bad writing that players hate to pay off previous bad writing that players hated. If we are going to be stuck with bad writing, it should be bad writing that fixes the previous bad writing instead of just forging ahead down the same path because suddenly the integrity of the story that has never mattered before is now paramount.
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As a whole, we might be arguing in circles while weirdly still agreeing with each other.
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Idk why people are pushing for Voss as the leader when she’s not Forsaken and not Lordaeronian: she gave up her allegiances when she joined the Uncrowned. The only reason she joined the Horde in BFA was because Sylvanas threatened her life if she didn’t.
Yes Voss does care about the newly raised, but she is in no way capable of being a leader of an entire nation whose subjects don’t even know she exists. (i.e. she’s Uncrowned, she has spent her entire undeath trying not to be known.)
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Calia Menethil has SO MUCH potential as a character and as a leader despite her narrative mismanagement. Blizzard could take her in so many directions that could lead to interesting stories and conflict within the Forsaken that would add so much depth to their culture!
Her return could bring about the Forsaken being reacquainted with the Holy Light but in a way that’s more nuanced than “Light good, Shadow bad.” Calia has shown a sincere interest in learning the culture of the Forsaken and I can definitely see her fostering a society that tries to uphold the balance between the Church of the Holy Light and the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow (which does believe in balance).
Of course this would lead to conflict and different factions arising, but that’s what the Forsaken needs! For too long have the Forsaken’s just been “Sylvanas’s minions.” They deserve a chance to solidify their identity as a people even if it includes two or more interpretations.
There could be Royalists of those undead who want to return to the Holy Light, with an influx of Undead who sought refuge in the Argent Crusade returning home. Maybe call them the ‘Redeemed’ while OG undead maintain their dark identity as the Forsaken. Blizz would need to emphasize that BOTH sides are wanting to govern the undead and tentatively work together to rebuild a better Lordaeron. This would also leave room in the future for conflict between the two factions!
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