I like Calia

Lore Story Forum
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The Forsaken consist of Lordaeronians, Kul Tirans, Stormwindians (and probably Humans from other kingdoms too, given that they’ve been raising large numbers of new undead from Cata to BFA), Thalassians (Dark Rangers, Banshees), Darnassians (Kaldorei Dark Rangers), even some Gnomeregani (Leper Gnomes), and of course the Scourge-type undead like the Abominations (who are members of the Forsaken society in their own right, with some even being ranked high in the military).

They care about this land mostly not because they hailed from there in life (at this point, I’m not even certain the Lordaeronian Forsaken still represent the majority of the population), but simply because that’s where Sylvanas brought them when she created the Forsaken. That’s the safe haven she offered them when she claimed the city from Balnazzar.

What unites the Forsaken and defines them as a people isn’t the kingdom of Lordaeron. It’s their condition of cursed individuals shunned by the rest of their kin.

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As Valyana has stated prior, Blizzard is prone to shaking things up in such wonderful disastrous ways these days. Always trying to push boundaries that shouldn’t be pushed, for absolutely lackluster reveals and climaxes you would sleep through if you played on a couch instead of a desk chair.

My personal hate for Calia stems not from her demeanor—which typically plays out to be so childish and inoffensive that she comes across more as a day-care matron trying to run an insane asylum for the criminally punk and goth—and more for her artistic rendition.

Yep. I hate her style. She has style, but not as the Forsaken Representative for Blizzard Promotional material. Who the hell is going to look at her face on a future Blizzard Christmas promotional poster and think, “Gosh, is that the leader of the Undead?” and not “Who the hell is this Christmas-tree-angel?”

Give her a goth makeover and I’ll accept her. This is the equivalent of having Tyrande wear troll aesthetics while still leading the Night Elves.

I’ll keep posting this even though I’m an amateur artist at best. But I know Blizzard can do an undead monarch. They deliberately chose not to this time and that’s a damned shame. https://imgur.com/PpQ1glz

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Calia had a lot of promise because she was (and still kinda is) a blank slate.

I personally would’ve preferred if they played up her trauma and PTSD from having survived a zombie apocalypse, basically, and suffer from not only doubt in the Light which she feels failed to save her kingdom (and her loved ones) but also doubt in the civility of the new undead she’s come to know as the Forsaken (Faol), with them only ever reminding her of Scourge, just different. Also constantly reminded by her brother’s horrible actions and what it did to Lordaeron and elsewhere.

Then her presence becomes known to the Scarlet Crusade (Brotherhood) who see this as a chance to bring further legitimacy to their cause. Through propaganda and anonymous letters from the Scarlets, she starts to remember what Lordaeron used to be like, filled with nostalgia of what was and her faith in the Light returns. Before Faol is able to guide her further on her path, she abandons him and begins associating with the Scarlets, who hold her in high regard and see her as a chance to restore Lordaeron.

However, Calia is still sympathetic to her people, not just the living but also the undead despite her prejudices and secretly contacts the greater Alliance about making an enclave for living Lordaeron survivors with the plan to have the Forsaken eventually moved elsewhere so that the living would fully return. Her association with the Scarlets concerns the Alliance but they see her as a way to retake Lordaeron so they meet with her personally, etc.

Meanwhile her plans become known to the Scarlets and causes a schism of those who consider her a Forsaken sympathizer (since she doesn’t want them outright killed) and wish to have her interrogated/executed, with some even revealing their doubt all this time in her being the real Calia Menethil. However, some Scarlets are willing to protect “their” queen and see their goals come to fruition, being as desperate as they are, so they vow to protect her, even if it means eventually having to work alongside the “lesser” non-human races of the Alliance or maybe they’d eventually turn on her.

I don’t know, it’s just an idea I thought of a year or so ago. They could’ve taken her in any direction.

Calia as she is, was introduced as a wise, reasonable but boring priestess with no interest in Lordaeron. She’d stupidly get herself killed because wait, she does care about Lordaeron, then after holy reanimation, she’d slide into the Horde’s DMs before just going with the motion, undisturbed by all the things the Forsaken had on display. Morals and beliefs be damned, she’s determined to see these as her people! No connection to what they’ve been through, no connection to their foreign “culture” in contrast to what she’s known all her life. The plot demands she be the Light Queen of the Forsaken, I mean a member on the Forsaken council.

I don’t hate Calia but I am disappointed in her execution.

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Calia is “OK”. (Voss is, IMO, better.). One just can’t help but note that when Blizzard starts running out of Horde characters, their instinct seems to be to bring someone in from Alliance lore.

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It feels mean-spirited to point to content and say “yeah, that’s X at work,” but the (well, a) Forsaken leader being a pristine Light golem whose circle of friends includes Anduin and Jaina is almost certainly Christie Golden at work. I get author appeal, but come on now.

But frankly, I agree with Nezmith. I think quibbles like that would’ve faded in the shadow of a more appropriate character redesign and a darker transition into undeath. I actually like the idea of a Forsaken Menethil and consider her presence, even now, an overall boon to the race as depicted, for better or worse, in contemporary lore. But the character itself admittedly leaves a lot to be desired.

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:smirk:

The only thing disappointing about her execution is that it wasn’t permanent.

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now heres a plotline I could get behind, calia gets pissed at the light

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They still do though, as far as the living are concerned and we see thousands flocking to the Argent banner, and apparently the Scarlets again. The humans are rebounding, and the Plaguelands are being resettled. We know that by the time of Midnight the Forsaken will be a minority within Lordaeron as humans continue to propagate their numbers. The only claim the undead have is that they still exist, but to the living the dead lose their rights to the lands as seen with the Barov brothers.

Even so, the one legitimate irrefutable claim which the Forsaken have which gives the living pause is Calia Menethil. She’s their TRUMP card. So long as she supports their faction the living dare not act against them. Whether you agree with this or not is moot.

The story is being written where she now is one of the leaders of the undead, and she maybe the one leader who can bridge the divide which stays the hand of the living especially the Argents, and Alliance partisans. The living dare not attack her for the obvious reasons of her being a Menethil, but also she’s Lightforged. Raised in the Light and brought back… So long as that is a factor the Light worshipers cannot deny she’s blessed by the Light and by her bloodline is the truest heir above all others.

People trying to nitpick and find fault, but lore wise she’s bregudgingly accepted as she’s undead and she’s accepted as a leader, because of her knack at diplomacy. If the living ever had a chance to end the Forsaken it was during the aftermath of the Fourth War. The Alliance ceded Tirisfal Glades to the Horde and the Forsaken. This is after what the undead did at Teldrassil, what they did in Darkshore, and who they supported without fault - Sylvanas. The undead cannot raise more of their kind. They lack the numbers as seen in their heritage questline. The Forsaken are in no position to deny Calia Menethil especially considering what she’s done for them and how much her existence undermines the living claims to Lordaeron.

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She chose to be undead because she’s just so nauseatingly nice.

I wish I was joking.

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I don’t want to try and dogpile on her, but yeah Sledgehammer is right. She’s just insufferably nice.

It may not be a one-for-one, but I swear every serious line that comes out of her mouth feels like she’s got our old favorite doesn’t-want-the-crown Anduin being her line coach.

“Oh, I don’t think I can do this, the burden of running an undead nation… what if they don’t even like me?” she says, staring despondently at the throne her father died upon.

“How am I to lead?”

“Will people accept me for what I am now?”

Lady, I don’t know how to put this to you since I wasn’t there when the big blue angels were coming to get you, but YOU CHOSE THIS.

I mean, she’s got a built-in motivation that she’s never spoken on… SHES MARRIED AND HAD A CHILD. Maybe just maybe she could… you know… work on that. Find out what happened to them. Look among her own people even since when she was separated with them, it was because the scourge attacked.

That might be some good drama, you know… finding your undead husband and child. Except she completely gave up on them, and took up flirting with Jaina’s older brother. Holy moley, at this point, I hope it turns out her child lived and is now a leader of the Scarlets.

Sorry, rant over. Sorry everyone.

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There’s a lot of legitimate complaints in here, but one minor one that bugs me a lot is the fact that she doesn’t even look like a Forsaken. This is something that had been really bugging me since BfA. It was one thing when it was just Sylvanas, but then Nathanos got a pale human model, then Jaina’s brother, and then Calia came along. It’s like, why don’t any of the important Forsaken characters look like Forsaken? Is Blizzard ashamed of their own Forsaken models?

I’d rather Voss or Belmont or any of the other Council members get more focus than her.

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Is the issue of the undead struggling to feel positive emotions even canon anymore?

Ever since she joined up with the forsaken there seems to have been a spike of sparkly emotions like hope and positivity.

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Well, we still have Delaryn struggling, even in the upcoming patch where she’s back with the Night Elves, and last we saw of Sira she was a ball of murder rage.

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To be fair, she was a Warden, Wardens are already pretty extreme, I assume undeath just makes that even worse.

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Calia is the epitome of a white savior complex. I still hope she’s a dreadlord so we can have an excuse for her to be manipulating this whole situation in Gilneas and for it to be some long con Scarlet Brotherhood farce.

But I don’t think Blizzard has the guts to write gritty stories anymore.

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True but the lion’s share of them are still Lordaeronian, especially the Gen 1 Forsaken. There were always exceptions like Dalar Dawnweaver from Dalaran or William Saldean from Westfall. But most of the quests regarding familial ties or possessions, other unfinished buisness from their mortal life from Forsaken NPCs is Lordaeron based.

That being said it seems Calia’s royal lineage is more of a hindrance than anything else. The rest of the Desolate Council, even Voss, regard her with varying levels of distrust or outright contempt. She is a Menethil afterall. Be a bit like Paula Hitler trying to run for Prime Minister of West Germany. A lot of baggage tied to that name even if she didn’t do anything.

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Nezmith, I feel like a link to a certain comic you drew a while back might be in order here? It never fails to make me laugh.

Could have something to do with China’s government censorship standards. I know the bony undead were a sticking point for a while, and I’m pretty sure that’s the reason they put in the option to not have bones sticking out.

Even before that, really. The warm fuzzies were strong in Before the Storm.

I know some on this forum will roll their eyes if I lay this at Christie Golden’s door, but I really do suspect this is her influence. She’s just not good with edgy characters—they keep giving her edgy characters to write, like Arthas or (in Star Wars) Asajj Ventress, and she softens them every single time.

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I fail to see your point here ? What the living want is irrelevant, for the most part they’ve long since been incorporated into other nations/factions and there’s absolutely no way the living remnants of the kingdom of Lordaeron of old outnumber the Forsaken, if we’re discussing things from a “which is the most sizeable population with a legitimate claim to the lands” perspective. Anyway, as I said, the Forsaken nation is a distinct political entity in which the laws and royal lineage of a defunct Human kingdom have no reason to apply.

Calia provides the Forsaken with a shield against “the worst of the Alliance” (quoting Belmont on this), that’s about it. She’s a useful deterrent. That changes nothing to her bloodline holding no sway over the Forsaken nation, which is what we were discussing.

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As for Calia herself, 9.2.5 did make her more tolerable for me in that it doubled down on the backpedalling from Blizzard, in regards to what they were definitely setting her up for previously (that is, sole leadership). I still have my gripes with some of the implications of that questline, and, most importantly, our fears are kinda being confirmed : she and the other members of the Desolate Council may hold “equal authority” on paper, but in reality, she clearly is becoming the new forefront figure of the Forsaken, as it would seem she and Voss (what I call the Good Forsaken Gang) are the only acceptable Forsaken characters in neutral contexts—and with Neutral Is The New Cool definitely being the favored direction from the narrative designers (no matter how much I hate this, and I truly can’t stress how much I hate this), well, that doesn’t exactly bode well for Forsaken fans who aren’t into whatever she is supposed to represent.

But overall, yeah, she’s there now, so all I’m hoping for is they make her much more palatable, Forsaken-friendly, nuanced and interesting. She would probably make a fine Disc Priest rep. She needs to be redesigned, de-Goldenified, and more generally rewritten from the ground up (also play on her porcelain-like features and give her spooky doll/ghostly vibes, something along the lines of this fabulous piece of fanart : https://kottkrig.tumblr.com/post/692593347293003776/the-desolate-council-and-a-bonus-member)

HOWEVER.

One that I cannot ever accept, one character that really just has to go, is Derek Proudmoore.

Go home Derek, your family loves you, I don’t.

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I don’t like “The Pallid Lady”, because she feels like a hamfisted attempt to replace Sylvanas in the most disrespectful way possible, and only after being resoundingly rejected by the player base did Blizzard change course.

They even gave Calia her own Nathanos in Derek Proudmoore. A character with absolutely zero attachment to the forsaken and should despise them for forcing undeath onto him. Why is he not living with Jaina and the rest of his family who love him unconditionally and instead is serving as the champion of a Horde leader?

If the Horde ever engaged in a conflict with the Alliance would anyone trust these two to stay loyal to the Horde?

Of course, this means (or should mean) that the Horde and Alliance can never fight again, but after 20 years, I feel Blizzard is yet again writing themselves into a corner that they will inevitably have to retcon/contrive their way out of.

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