Calia and the Forsaken

Community General Discussion
21

Hard agree with you OP.

I think what made Sylvanas such a good leader to the Forsaken is that she truely resonated with the Forsaken.

Forsaken in the novel were fundamentally more group-identity focused and ‘eviller’ than the game portrays them.

The only parts which faithfully represent this IG are the introductory area up till Silverpine where you see somethings that might feel alarming from any other races PoV (willing torture, killing Hillsbrad refugees to convert them, resurrection of the unwilling). In Before the storm Sylvanas organisation of the gathering is to ultimately create a ruse to lure and kill Anduin.

Post BfA events Sylvanas aligned forsaken are eventually forgiven but identify exploration and shift on the whole to liking Calia when for ages they have had an identity surrounding Sylvanas felt very weak. I could see her lead the resurrected Nelves and alliance undead but it is a much stronger theme for the Forsaken to stand for their own.

The forsaken council quest (for dark ranger features for elves) which you take in I’m 100 on board with the mohawk guy who is skeptical of Calia.

I would like at some point the forsaken to return to what they were rather than have a council.
There are enough ‘councils’ in the game. End Calia

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22

They won’t the desolate council exists because Blizzard knew putting Calia and Derek solely in charge would end poorly blatantly obvious.

Will be like the Horde council but Calia instead of Baine.

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23

No one is saying there isn’t a council, but she is on that council and frankly one of the most notable characters from it.

And yes…she very much is the new Sylvanas concept, but not sinister. She’s the “Pallid lady”. She lost her home and family thinks of herself as Forsaken. She now has a “champion” that she has grown close to and follows her. It’s essentially the same idea

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24

Sylvanas had the jailer and Calia had a naaru.

:laughing:

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25

I don’t think they are. I think they (unwisely) were going to. But then they saw the backlash from people who saw where it was going. I think that’s why we saw the boost of the desolate council concept at the end of SL. I think Calia will still be around, just pulled back to be more parallel or even behind Lilian. Her and Derek’s bizarrely detailed and unique character models will just awkwardly remain as a reminder of the nonsense blizzard were going to try and pull.

And to be clear, I do really like having Calia around as a character. I think it was cool when she reappeared in the story and it feels good and right that she still cares for the people of lordaeron. But the whole resurrected by the light, “Pale Lady”, saviour type image they were going for was just lame and bad.

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26

Too many haters in this thread.

Calia is a beautiful kind woman and people just hate her because she’s not a hot elf.

:sob:

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27

Admittingly I don’t care about WoW Board Warriors and their hilarious hate for Calia.

But this argument that a non-combatant should have fought bravely on the frontlines and died a horrible death is hilarious when likely the vast majority of the people that make up for Forsaken were people ate a piece of bread and fell over lol

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28

For some reason i doubt Calia will approve plague experiments on living subjects, like we used to have (and love)

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29

I think this is actually a :100: real callout to what they did. I didn’t think about this but you’ve blown my mind.

Her dialogue with Jaina at the end of BfA gave very strong signals she’d be a leader.

And again start of SL she is a ‘stand in’ for the Forsaken.

It feels like they have run it back a fair bit.

Maybe they can run…. (Her over).

She helps with the opposite, goes to maldraxxus to get help to make an anti plague to mop up lordaeron.

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30

Blizzard doesn’t seem to learn its lesson. Players hated the cosmic stuff in Shadowlands. They’re already ramping up the cosmic stuff again now in BFA. The next expansion is almost certainly going to drag us to Zereth Umbris or something.

I’m sure Blizzard will have the desolate council vote unanimously to make Calia their Queen, and she’ll appoint Derek as her Majordomo. Maybe it’ll be in the new Forsaken Heritage Armor questline coming up.

Players will hate it, of course, but Blizzard doesn’t seem capable of stopping itself from ruining its IP.

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31

I “hate” her because she is a stranger that feels forced on us and a concept that has been around for 20 years.

Sylvanas was recognised for her leadership that earned her the zealous support and adoration of the Forsaken who, as their name says, were Forsaken by all else. Calia on the other hand is just some rando that walked in with little to her repertoire.

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32

I Like her Hell She did not screw her over Forasken, Just bitter Slavyanus fans Won’t let her go and Want to throw Calia on spit roasted fire.

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33

Calia hasn’t screwed over the Forsaken, that’s true enough, but on some level one has to admit to the level of cringe that’s happening here.

Calia does not share in the experiences of the Forsaken. She wasn’t raised by the Scourge in a horrifying moment that was a violation of her very being. She was raised by the Light, which she herself believed in, in a moment of rebirth. She doesn’t suffer the same effects the other Forsaken do (reduced ability to feel positive emotion for example). She wasn’t rejected by the living for being confused with the Scourge. I mean, she doesn’t even look like an undead. More like a small Titan construct.

That she wants to help them may be genuine, but the idea that she could understand what they’ve been through is laughably sad. Not even just the whole being raised part, but the twenty years since then. Having to join the Horde to survive, dealing with the likes of Garrosh, being used by Sylvanas, etc… The Forsaken have been through a LOT. She wasn’t a part of almost any of it, really. She didn’t even free them from Sylvanas, just swooped in when there was a vacant seat.

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34

oh man, that was a good time, wasn’t it?

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35

Sylvanas did quite a bit for the Forsaken. Her accomplishments are not to be lightly dismissed.

But she also did a lot of damage to the Forsaken, the Horde, and, well…the world. Culminating with ‘The Horde is NOTHING’ literally in front of someone who had pledged to fight and die by her side. Then she abandoned them when she didn’t need them anymore.

And that kind of seems to be Sylvanas’ whole deal. She uses people until they’re no longer beneficial for her, and then she just dips. Or poofs away. There was a line in one of the short stories that summed up how she felt about people: “Arrows in her quiver”.

Up through Wrath, sure, you could make a solid argument that she was helping outcasts find some sense of unity and purpose. But then from Cataclysm on, it was less about the people and more about her. Especially if this business with Shadowlands is accurate, in which case she was actively using the Forsaken as pawns.

Want to reunite with your family? Not be viewed as a monster? Well, no. I’ll kill them. No one gets to reunite with their past. Though I will make sure Nathanos is up and kicking and elevate him to a high position of authority and command.

Problem? Dissent? Blight.

I still remember Garrosh’s question to her that…really went unanswered, and was a tough, hard question. “How are you any different from the Lich King?”

Her response was snark.

Anyway, yeah. I get it. Initially, she saved and united a people. But then she started treating them less as ‘my people’ and more as ‘my tools’, and finally ‘my garbage’. They literally made an entire high quality cinematic that ended with her saying ‘You are all nothing’, and then leaving.

She helped the Forsaken out when they needed a hand, and then she used and abandoned them.

Calia, on the other hand, actually is from Lordaeron, where the vast majority of the Forsaken are from. She has a connection to the people that is older than that of Sylvanas. I can see why she has a seat at the council.

I’m willing to give her a shot.

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36

Not to mention how she somehow gained the title of “Pallid Lady” with her own “Champion of the Pallid Lady”. Really hammers home how she is supposed to be viewed as a replacement for Sylvanas and her champion but now “good”, the titles literally reflect that.
Not to mention how she is built up in the bfa questline and shadow’s rising to be a leader, with her talk with Jaina, and her aiding the undead night elves for some reason? Because Calia is the perfect person to help people that were raised against their will and made to fight their own kin, instead of any other forsaken character? It all just feels so forced.

I have to give it to them, the plague cleansing questline was good though, it showed Calia acknowledging that she needs to understand and learn of the forsaken and also earn their goodwill. Although as others have said I believe this questline was only made in response to all the other feedback earlier.

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37

No dislike all the hot elves too… Kiro though >~>

I don’t hate her I hate how Blizzard wrote her back into the story as the “pale lady”.

No thinking more like Lyrath Windrunner.

38

Meh… She still ok in my book :slight_smile: also I not gonna read All of that LMAO!

39

Calia is a junk character and I think the argument that she deserves a leadership position because of her last name of Menethil is awful, awful, awful.

Yeah, it’s the country of Lordaeron. That kingdom died with them. In its place rose a different Lordaeron, and during a time when they felt forsaken by living humans, their ruling class, and even their own religion, Sylvanas was there as their only savior. It didn’t matter that she was born in another country; her story of trauma and fighting past that was quintessentially Forsaken.

It’s frustrating, the turn Sylvanas’s character took in Cataclysm in beyond, because it effectively took her anti-suicide Edge of Night story that was supposed to be about her having a reason to keep on going, only to have the game story effectively say “yes, the world really would be better off if you killed yourself”. But I don’t think that means Calia has any place to be her replacement, even if just in part.

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40

Herein lies the problem with your logic: The majority of the Forsaken, and more so the Horde, do not care about human kingdom bloodlines, monarchies, and recognition of Alliance legitimacy. It means nothing.

People that keep trying to mention this are very much projecting Alliance and their standards onto the Forsaken. It’s flawed logic.

If anything as we see by some Forsaken, her having any “bloodline” association and “claim” as stated by the Alliance makes them resent her more.

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