The Forsaken are complicated and have always been self-contradicting, but having an emphasis on personal agency has always been a big part of them when they’re not being substitute playable Scourge. Prior to the Lich King’s death (and even after), revenge was also a big theme, but that’s less relevant to this discussion.
Forsaken Priests are told:
There is only one thing you must know: we have survived through will alone. It is faith in ourselves that separates us from others, and with our powers, we will cause great change in all of Azeroth. The weak will come to lean on you. The lepers will call you Lord. And the ignorant will look to you for guidance. It is my duty to make sure you have the necessary tools so when the time comes, you are prepared. As you grow in experience, seek me out. I will teach you greater powers if you are ready.
There is a reason Will Of The Forsaken is an iconic racial. Willpower is a cornerstone of the Forsaken.
While many quests emphasized free will, the Silverpine quests that showed freshly raised Forsaken shouting “For the Banshee Queen” was later altered due to vocal complaints about it, and the raised Forsaken no longer say anything, and an explanation of “when freshly raised right after death, the undead act out of anger and confusion” was given to try to justify them attacking former allies. Essentially, they retconned a quest to fit this theme better.
It was because this theme is so iconic that Christie Golden was lambasted for her misrepresentation of the race in Before the Storm. Well, that and other stuff. Before the Storm is a can of worms on its own.
That said.
Calia is a white savior figure. Having the Forsaken need to be “saved” by her, an outsider, damages their agency and their most iconic trait.
She’s technically not an outsider…she’s last member of the royal Menethil line. You know…the family ran Lordaeron before Arthas and the scourge came calling?
And like already mentioned, nobody can define what makes a forsaken…well a forsaken.
If this is a “two lies and a truth” scenario, I say option 3 is evidently the truth.
Dude, the canon lore literally tells us she doesn´t suffer ANY of the detriments the “necromancy” raised Forsaken suffered (no negativity, no murdering tendencies, no "pieces of my body fall apart while I´m looking at them, no nothing). Also, while she has no “living family” to reject her, she WAS pretty much accepted as if she was a regular human by Anduin & Co… making her indeed the direct counterpoint to the regular Forsaken who, thanks to their association with the Scourge, were relived at the very start of their journey by the Alliance.
But that´s the thing, dude. No maggots in Calia´s skin, she´s basically a Light preserved mummy. No body horror whatsoever, no skin falling apart, no hands falling apart, no nothing.
At least Derek WILL rott while he watches… Calia? Hard chance in hell.
Indeed, it´s all about the psychological horror of being concious of one´s own death. Guess who feels NO horror over being undead, hmm?
Ands technnically speaking, she ditched ANY association to her royalty when she chose to go play house with a plebeian instead of following daddy´s political machinations as good little princesess do.
The only way for her to get “legitimized” is if some surviving branch of the “Forsaken” government decided to collectively ask her to become once again their “Queen”… so far, the only INDIVIDUAL that is trying to ditch the leadership responsabilities onto Calia is Voss -whose elevation to “racial leader” was questionable in itlsef; I mean I don´t remember seeing any agreement made by the different political AND military factions inside the Forsaken to choose Voss in the first place.
She is by any definition. The forsaken are scourge, suddenly self aware who formed a self defense commune against the scourge and humans. Both sought their demise. They are routinely defined by their disconnection to their past lives rather than their attachement to it. In fact seeking that connectivity is real taboo. It leads to instability madness and even mind death. ie true zombie. Exemplified in the early quest to kill redpath who had staged a violent revolt to form forsaken with elbows.
In short they are a forward thinking collective not backward thinking. They do not hearken to a golden age of the past that Calia belongs to.
Isn’t it bad? There is some nostalgia for Lordaeron / Menethils on the alliance side. But those who were more interested in that part of the story of this nation, were never anything of big influence in the horde, since Classic.
Yeah, I wrote about it upthread but personally, I think the forsaken being largely from Lordaeron is the least important part of their identity. It was specifically the death of it, the disconnection they have from their previous lives (personal, social, governmental and even religious) and the aftermath of trying to form a new identity that I thought was neat. Calia’s name is an appeal to living Lordaeron and I just don’t like that.
The Forsaken have always been kind of both.
We see some trying to remember and reconnect with their past, while others completely abandon it, and some take half measures.
I always interpreted this as a subject the Forsaken had internal disagreements on, but weren’t willing to try to force the beliefs one way or another on each other. Some renamed themselves and only considered themselves Forsaken, others considered themselves the rightful owners of Lordaeron and kept the names they had while alive. Not to mention the state Terenas II’s grave is in.
As an aside, a lot of the Forsaken’s mixed actions make a lot more sense if we view them as a society in which telling others what to do is taboo.
To the credit of Before the Storm, it acknowledged that both of these existed in Forsaken society, but it also tried to canonize that only the second approach was acceptable, but that’s probably something that should be taken with a grain of salt, because there are countless contradictions of the claim, including some direct quotes from Sylvanas herself.
Why ignore it. As a meta commentary, it may sound weird to say “ignore something canon” (“take everything with a grain of salt” may be better), but if you look at larger lore franchises like the Star Wars EU, it wasn’t unheard of for a new book to introduce a minor concept that contradicted many prior portrayals of the minor concept. What was canon was often a debate, but there was a canon level system in place. However, in instances where the newest contradicted too much of the past, usually a source book would try to reconcile the two. WoW will likely never have that, so either we can toss out the majority for a minority, or we can try to find a way to disregard/reconcile Before the Storm’s claim that the Forsaken lived in a book burning police state. Call it an exaggeration, or true from an in-universe Alliance propaganda perspective, maybe.
All that out of the way, the Forsaken can be divided on clinging to their past without wanting a Menethil on the throne. Terenas II may have been well-liked, but Arthas was rightfully hated. The Forsaken who cling to the past don’t really have a reason to assume she will lean one way or another based on genetics alone, and those who don’t have no reason to care about what her family lineage was. Given the extenuating circumstances surrounding her, she probably seems suspect to many Forsaken.
Edit:
Plus, the Forsaken we see lean hardest into trying to reconnect with their past seem mostly interested in familial connections and other personal things, like being unable to let go of a wedding ring, or staying near their also-raised spouse or sibling(s). Why should they care about Calia?
To those who do care about the living more than the forsaken (and there were some like that since vanilla days) Calia would be the only real “ticket” for a chance of the reunion.
For the forsaken of the horde, I think she could’ve been an ambassador figure to promote among the living that the forsaken do not mean “wannaby scourge”. That could, of course, royaly backfire if they do more of the stuff like Southshore. But that could’ve been a risk that makes the story interesting, couldn’t it?
But I do not see much genuine interest in Calia among the forsaken. Not to mention that negative effects of the light and potential tension with mag’har could be a reason to keep her away on way or the other.
That’s not even required to be Undead, why is that required to be Forsaken?
I don’t think any transformation comes without some kind of psychological toll. I Just don’t think horror directed at one’s own condition is the only form of psychological duress that constitutes what it means to be a Forsaken.
She is undead. That will necessarily put her apart from the living forever. That can play out in ways other than horror.
I don’t know why we box the Forsaken into these qualities when there’s nothing at all suggested that it’s required. At the end of the day, most Forsaken overcome these parts of themselves and ultimately embrace what it is they have become. As far as I can tell, being a Forsaken isn’t about being terrified of one’s own self or lamenting the tragedy, but of persevering in spite of it.
I recall the monologue of Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean. While he stood in the moonlight and his ghastly form was revealed to Elizabeth, he didn’t speak of vanity.
He spoke of dying of thirst but being unable to quench it. He spoke of starving to death but never dying. He lamented that he couldn’t feel the wind on his face or the warmth of a lover’s touch.
That’s where the horror of being a conscious mind in an undead body truly comes from, in my view. And when he dreamed of restoring his vitality, it wasn’t to look handsome or attractive-- it was to eat an entire bushel of apples.
It is not only couched in rot, decay, falling apart, or looking monstrous. It’s about the severance from life and its’ splendors, and as a consequence you now stand apart from those who can still relish those things. It’s about the denial of sensation and the ability to partake in even the simplest pleasures. The Forsaken condition is existentialism at its core, and to limit that to only rotting and body horror or negative thoughts or shadowy magics is an abject mistake.
Too many Forsaken fans have decided what they Like about the Forsaken is the ONLY thing about the Forsaken.
And you know what, every race in game has those fans. But Forsaken and Night Elf fans seam to be the most vocal in trying to get their headcanon to be accepted as canon.
Lul, someone didn’t read the part in “Before the Storm” regarding Calia pretty much being an atypical undead PRECISELY because ad the result of being touched by the Light she’s “full of hope”. Ergo, the desperation and existentialism crisis you spoke of? Completely ABSENT for undead cinnamon roll Calia, she’s Barbossa’s “hue, hue, hue, undeath is the COOLEST THING EVAH!!” version, dude.
As a matter of fact her whole Undeath paradigm is so grossly unrelated to the classic portrayal if it, that Derek basically credits feeling A-Ok after spending short time interacting with Calia. And that’ s disgusting cause it basically reduced tgw whole traumatic rise into undeath done by Arthas and his dominance necromancy as a “minor issue people should be able to overcome with a couple of weeks of” Light infused Therapy".
That’s BS. Should we expect for Tyrande and Genn both to literally embrace Sylvanas after making them spend some weeks in Calia’s summer camp or something?
That’s because issues like “missing eating”, “missing physical pain”, “missing touching the family” were stuff that got created in BtS if anything… If not actual headcanon used by Dayon as some “gotcha!!”.
Barbossa is a terribad example AND headcanon because he’s NOT a character that belongs to WoW’s franchise, ergo the way “Undeath” struck him is irrelevant as far as canon Forsaken lore is concerned.
Are we sure? Cause it has been almost a decade since I quested in the Vanilla version of the Forsaken zones, and I don’t remember them btching about physical sensorial stuff.
Idk if it was lore established but during my days in a forsaken rp guild i saw it mentioned that undead didnt need to eat and didnt get drunk as they lacked the body processes from being deceased to process food and drink. As well as our resident holy priest taking about how the light would bring their decaying flesh back to living only to instantly decay and they would relive the pain of their living flesh decaying….so idk if that is a new thing or lore accurate, nust what i always believed due to those rp experience
