I’m really confused by her
Is she dead? Or undead? If the light brings someone back to life, isn’t that just a resurrection? How does that translate to undead?
Did the light forcibly bind her soul to her body without giving her body life?
Please explain, I’m so confused 
I kind of wonder if she would jingle like a wind chime if you shook her like a Narruu would?
Bassically. She’s undead but raised with the Light.
She choose undeath in a spell meant to fully revive her, so her undeath is more of her will overpowering the will of the light.
She is undead, but her body most likely has different properties then the other undead due to the light magic that she is infused with.
Necromancy is necromancy, even when it isn’t Death Magic. Despite Necromancy literally translating into “Death Magic”.
Our brilliant writing team at work.
I hate how they used the wording too.
Necromancy is a word best described with an intent on raising something into undeath.
No one that performed the spell, not even the magic source itself intended to raise her into undeath.
She choose it and forced it somehow.
She’s undead in that her body is still dead…it’s just that the battery reanimating it is Light instead of garden-variety necromancy. The Light is known to crystallize/stagnate things (as seen on alt Draenor) so presumably the differences is that she probably doesn’t decay (she didn’t decay at all between her death and reanimation) and she can obviously use the Light with no ill effects since it’s what’s empowering her. But she’s still physically as dead as any other undead…cold skin, no breath or heartbeat, etc…
But this is what happens when they put such a critical plot beat inside an out of game novel (Before the Storm) instead of actually in the game. And yes, presumably true resurrection was an option, but she chose to return as undead, to ‘better understand her people’ or something along those lines.
I’m still confused. All I’m getting from this is either the Light is secretly a Necromancer, or somehow Calia is strong enough to force herself into undeath, but also somehow blessed by the light and so not really undead, while also not alive….
Was really hoping Blizzard explained it somewhere and I just missed it
the way I understand it all is that calias been raised into undeath as a light based undead as opposed to a shadow based undead like the ones we’re used to. Its still necromancy being performed as calia had been dead for some time but, the power source is different. Think of forsaken as undead raised by coal and calia being raised by solar power. Who knows, maybe we’ll see some people raised by fel, or void soon.
Princess Calia Menethil is the sister of Prince Arthas Menethil who became the Lich King and destroyed his homeland of Lordaeron. The Master General Ranger Sylvanas Windrunner of Silvermoon was struck down by the Lich King and a part of her soul was taken by the dreadful sword Frostmourne. Eventually, Sylvanas broke free of the Lich King’s control to become the Dark Lady and used Valkyr of Northrend to resurrect humans who died in Lordaeron from the plague caused by the Lich King. They became known as the Forsaken.
Princess Calia Menethil became the rightful ruler of Lordaeron when the Lich King was defeated in WotLK but she remained in hiding for fear of her life. During Legion, Calia was recruited by Forsaken priest Alonsus Faol who was Arch Bishop of the Church of the Holy Light into the priest class order hall Netherlight Temple. Calia helped both the Horde and Alliance priests to defeat the Burning Legion.
After Legion, Princess Calia wanted to reunite her people the Forsaken with their living loved ones and friends. The Dark Lady who was under the control of the Jailer saw Calia as a threat to her control over the Forsaken, Lordaeron and the Jailer’s plans. Calia was murdered by the Forsaken’s leader Sylvanas. The Naa’ru in their infinite wisdom raised Calia from the dead but with the Light. Calia is technically not Forsaken.
In the Dark Lady’s absence in BfA and Shadowlands, the undead Princess Calia Menethil agreed to meet with Horde war chiefs to determine the fate of the Forsaken. Calia stepped in to help her people the Forsaken to overcome the loss of the Dark Lady who abandoned them for the Jailer.
Sylvanas Windrunner helped trap Prince Anduin in the Tower of Torghast to manipulate him into acquiring the four covenant sigils of the Shadowlands. Once the Jailer achieved this feat he betrays his puppet Sylvanas to die. With the help of the Horde and the Alliance, her missing soul fragment is returned and her personae as the General Ranger of Silvermoon is restored. Sylvanas now abhors what her evil half did to the Horde and Night Elves. As punishment for destroying the Night Elf kingdom of Teldrassil and it’s people, Queen Tyrande Whisperwind sentences Sylvanas Windrunner to the Maw to save every last soul and send them to the Arbiter for a much deserved afterlife. High King Anduin Wrynn joins his captor Sylvanas to help on her mission and leaves rule of Stormwind to High Exarch Turalyon.
Princess Calia Menethil is the rightful heir to the throne of Lordaeron.
The Forsaken and the living in this region are her people. Calia is leader of the Forsaken hoping one day to reunite them with their Alliance families and friends. A wish King Anduin hoped would come true.
The difference between lightforged undead and resurrections is that with the latter, the soul is returned to the body before it’s too late, allowing it to stay in the body without any further efforts. With lightforged undead, the soul is forcefully affixed to the body using light magic because the soul has already crossed the boundary so to speak and will not stay naturally.
The process is the same for other types of undead, like for Scourge the soul is affixed with domination/death magic. There have been other types of undead in Warcraft before too, like fel undead and shadow undead.
It’s just extremely uncommon for lightforged undead to come into being because adherents of the light typically don’t go around trying to raise people. The only reason Calia ended up like that is because it was an accident.
Well if she want’s to fit in more first she needs to work on that posture. Here let me help “Grabs a large club” Now this will sting a bit but you’ll start slumping over like a real Forsaken. We’ll see what we can do about that horrible complexion you have next.
OP,
Bottomline… poor writing.
Finally, someone that actually understands the retcon. There were missteps in the execution of Sylvanas’ story, in my opinion, but I generally enjoyed the idea of the retcon. Since she broke free of The Lich King’s will she’s harbored contempt for life. She was able to suppress the feelings of her fragmented soul until it became too much for her.
Bluether, on the other hand, is responsible for an even more reprehensible act. The Afterlives cinematic implies that if Devos and Bluether didn’t intervene, Arthas’ soul may have gone to some place in the Shadowlands to start his recovery/redemption. Bluether taking his ‘justice’ out on Arthas’ soul is what leaves it in the sorry state we see later on. What is Arthas’ disposition as The Lich King? There are many, including me, that view Arthas’ identity as being somewhat separate from The Lich King. Perhaps there’s a novel out there explaining otherwise, but it isn’t conveyed all that well to the player.
Anduin seems to have been altered by being possessed by Arthas. Perhaps we will see a resolution to my question in an arc about Anduin.
Basically she’s an undead lightbulb.
Madrigosa (the blue dragon in Sunwell raid) was reanimated by pit lord blood, so that’s undeath via fel. Meryl Felstorm is an example of undead raised via arcane. The void elves did play around with animating devilsaurs in Zandalar so technically that would be undead via void.
Don’t worry about it too much, aside from the headache, they’ll probably ret con it somewhere down the line. lol.
Resurrection= bringing back to life.
Necromancy is giving life to a dead corpse without a “spirit.”
The Gray lining is how the Lich king controlled the undead against their will.
In Shadowlands we see the Maw as an equivalent of Hell, where spirits are destroyed, like Arthas’ spirit was destroyed.
I do believe neither,but more of a soul in lumbo. She did die that is for sure but she not an undead either even her eyes are different in that regard.
Apparently “The Light” learned how to use necromancy. So she is undead just raised into undeath by the light instead of death magic.