Your example will likely fall on deaf ears, as most posters who white knight for Calia do not seem the type to invest in Night Elf lore, but generally seem more like “Eastern Kingdoms” fans.
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Kohnila is a very intelligent poster and their points are always interesting to read, even if I disagree with some of them, I always feel eager to read what they write.
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I didn’t mean you. You seem more interested in the writing direction of Warcraft in general.
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Don’t forget that a bunch of new, friendly, sun-bathing Night Elf NPCs were introduced around the same time…
Calia while an interesting character, she doesn’t really fit with the forsaken aesthetic. If she was more lich looking and didn’t have such a alliance vibe to her, I think more people would take a liking to her
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I’m just glad the Forsaken didn’t form a new cult of personality around her.
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… but have you seen those boots?!
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Those boots are beautiful, not gonna lie 
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For classic Forsaken fans, those are bugs, not features. 
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Yes, she is indeed the character that reaches out to the player during the Priest campaign hall. I really enjoyed her as a character then, and her connection to Lordearon as the daughter of King Terenas. She and Alonsus Faol (The founder of the Silverhand order) are basically your main NPC allies during the Class Hall campaign.
Additionally she had a prominent role in “Before the Storm” as a peacemaker and between the Forsaken and their living relatives who yearned to reunite. She was killed after having set a meeting between Forsaken and their loved ones. It was a very well written scene, especially from the angle of the personal and internal conflicts of each side coming to understand the the other side still loved them despite being dead (or alive).
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Let’s agree to disagree on this. Here is my perspective on the matter : when players choose a race, they choose a specific fantasy, and from that point on the writing team is beholden to the players’ legitimate expectations. Someone who’s writing racial content for a well-established and massively popular IP has the responsability to stay true to the fantasy the players were sold initially. Their mandate, their implicit contract with the fanbase, is to handle and develop that race in a way that acknowledges, respects and enriches that fantasy. Of course, there should always be room for controlled and natural evolution, but NEVER for betrayal. To betray a fanbase’s chosen fantasy is to betray the players.
Hence why Worgen fans were generally unhappy with their Heritage questline, hence why Night Elf fans ask for a more night-themed Bel’ameth, hence why Blood Elf fans want some of their TBC edge back… and hence why Forsaken fans complain about Calia.
Because Calia is fantasy betrayal. There are wrong hills to die on ; the Calia problem though is a very insidious one, and one that tackles things that are very important to the parties involved, making it a perfectly valid hill to die on.
To make things clear, I wasn’t targeting anyone in particular, but it shouldn’t be a surprise that Alliance players tend to be less critical of Calia, given how 1) she’s conceptually more likely to appeal to Alliance players than to Horde/Forsaken players (which is one of the many criticisms this character has been facing), 2) people not invested in the Forsaken are more likely not to understand the nature of the backlash.
I appreciate that, thanks ! I think it’s fairly obvious that our respective visions of where this setting should be headed are vastly different in general, but you do commit to explaining your opinions and tell people where you’re coming from, which I respect.
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Calia is a Menethill.
The Forsaken are Lordaeron, regardless of what scarlet larpers claim.
Calia Menethill should be Queen of Lordaeron. The only reason she isn’t is, just like Lor’themar with the blood elves, they stubbornly refuse to accept the crown
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No, there is strictly no legitimacy to her claim. She is the last remnant of a fallen lineage that ruled over a kingdom that doesn’t exist anymore. The Forsaken nation is a new multiracial nation in which the laws of the Human kingdom of Lordaeron absolutely don’t apply.
That’s actually genuinely a silly suggestion when the Forsaken were created (and led for more than 20 years) by a literal Thalassian Elf lmao
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I’m fairly neutral to her.
My main worry was she was going to try to sanitize the Forsaken but between the Reclamation of Lordaeron and their heritage quest it seems my beloved boney bois will be keeping it spook factor 5 so no foul there.
Thing is she’s just kinda a big “Who is this for?”. She certainly has a decent amount of narrative potential. We could go the darker route and have her embrace true undeath after some incident that gives her a goth makeover.
Swop out that white for some royal purple, darken her hair, and maybe some crack like scarring around her eyes so that porcelain esque face resembles the Icon of Torment.
Alternatively she can be kept as is as both the token straight man to the Forsaken Addams Family routine and as the public face of the Forsaken. They’d have an image problem even if they weren’t prone to using alchemical omnicide gas so Undead Barbie should probably turn up to bat her eyes at the fantasy UN.
But she doesn’t really do either yet. She’s just kinda there. Being more perplexing than offensive to me.
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the Forsaken themselves would disagree with you as now that Sylvanas has left they started using the Lordaeronian crest again as shown in the new armor, hell the title you get from cleaning out the blight from the undercity is “of Lordaeron”. Entirely Human or not, it is very clearly a core part of the Forsaken identity
It has changed substantially but it is still Lordaeron.
That’s like claiming that the Worgen aren’t Gilneas because they aren’t regular humans anymore and have some night elves among them
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That’s a completely different situation. The kingdom of Gilneas never collapsed, hell it didn’t even undergo change of leadership. There’s an unbroken continuity between pre-Worgen curse Gilneas and modern-day Gilneas.
The kingdom of Lordaeron and the Forsaken nation are two distinct political entities, with different political regimes, different laws, different names, different political alignments, insanely different cultures, and insanely different demographics. The crests and the “of Lordaeron” title really only exist for fluff (tbh, the title might even simply refer to the city).
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And like you said, the forsaken are multicultural at this point, most of them aren’t even from Lordaeron by this point, but the surrounding areas, even the ones they likely raised from their invasion of gilneas.
That and the old alliance is largely defunct. It’s a changed a lot since the orignal inception. Besides the Menethil line is dead and Calia has no interest in becoming a Queen.
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(Fun fact, one of the ambassadors Sylvanas sent to the Alliance in the first days of the Forsaken was… a Stormwindian undead. So from the very start, not even the Human members of the Forsaken were all from Lordaeron)
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I honestly never knew that little detail. Thanks for sharing that 
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They consist very literally of the exact same people, with the addition of some high elves. They would not care about this land if they did not still consider it
their home. The whole point is that they are Undead citizens of Lordaeron that refuse to abandon their homeland.
you might be right here, we have to see what they’ll be using with the Forsaken going forward but If I am wrong then I am wrong
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