Yes my dude! I hated the mission tables this expansion because they basically teased what could’ve been. If they wanna really wanted to sell the whole faction conflict we should’ve been fighting all over Azeroth and not just in Kul Tiras and Zandalar
You have more world trees but we’re suddenly lacking in leaders who have the will to light them on fire, considering Sylvanas ran way.
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No, they’re not. And that attitude is probably why the writing team was allowed to poop in my favorite cereal.
What irked me about BtS and BFA the most is that there are numerous undead NPCs who just left the Forsaken without incident. Voss is the highest profile example but you’ve also Apothecary Judkins, Tehd Shoemaker, Jubeka Shadowbreaker and presumably most undead characters in the Argent Dawn.
There was plenty of precedence to suggest Windrunner was in fact a self serving lunatic who cared as much for the Forsaken as at best you might care for a nice pair of winter boots. But there was also the free will precedence that would explain why the Forsaken believed Windrunner might if not care for at least respect them.
But that all got retconned in BtS. Windrunner has always been a tyrant and in fact history books are contraband- even if there are Forsaken loremastets in pre-Cata quests. It’s a standing insult to the Forsaken fans who actually paid close attention to the quests and characters for years. Nice to know I spent more time paying attention to Blizzard’s own work than the people who are paid to were.
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Again, this all just interpretation. Nothing suggests Tehd Shoemaker or any of the Argent UD rejected Sylvanas. Theyre random NPCs. Oh and that one high profile one you mentioned as having rejected her without incident? The super-assassin, Voss? After carving through enemies of the Forsaken in Mists? She just spent all of BfA serving the Banshee… so…
I respect that you have a head-canon, but there is absolutely no evidence that the Will of the Forsaken wasn’t propaganda.
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The alot of the forsaken who left are also in like the argent crusade so are probably untouchable for her. So if they did leave doesnt mean sylvanas was happy about it
I’ve seen how little effort you need to burn a world tree. I don’t need a leader.
I need a torch.
" I once worked for the so called Banshee Queen, Slyvanas, as an apothecary. I used to admire her, but something’s changed within her. She’s not herself anymore. I broke my vows with the Forsaken and joined the Crusade. Now, I use my knowledge of alchemy to seek a counter-plague agent"
- Apothecary Judkins
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Oh I didn’t know that. That’s cool!
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Not to mention,
My point is the Forsaken having a reverence for free will that was at least partially supported by Slyvanas was very much established lore. BtS was a real sucker punch to a lot of Forsaken fans. Especially Forsaken RPers like myself who had to hastily rewrite my own damn stories because they just straight up changed up the setting on me.
And I’m not even against retcons per say. Stuff like making Kul Tiras a whole island instead of a harbor city was a good call. I don’t even mind Derek suddenly going from being burned to ashes to looking pretty good for a guy who was sitting in the bottom of the ocean for a decade. But just rewriting Forsaken society with zero regard to their own precedent was galling.
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I mind that. Especially if he ends up becoming a major NPC in future. Because his only purpose for existing in game is to show the Horde attempting to be mean to Jaina so that Baine can be nice to her, and that makes me very, very salty.
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Yeah but it’s more his use than Derek himself that bugs me. When we first recovered his corpse I went,
“Oh, I see where this is going. We raise Derek and let him run home. They of course try to destroy him so we rescue the guy and give him the ‘This is what it is to be Forsaken’ spiel. Then bam - the Horde has a new undead Admiral character who has in depth knowledge about how to dismantle the Kul Tiran fleet!”
But instead ya know - torture the free will out of him (the highest crime in Forsaken society for which the punishment is summary execution - this will not be brought up) to make him a bomb, I guess. But then free him anyways- even if you’re a Banshee Loyalist - because Windruner’s plan in BFA was Depravity -> ??? -> ??? -> ??? -> Profit!
It brings a tear to my eye to hear of such optimism so far into BfA. 
Yeah this whole expansion has been one disappointment after another. Even up until 8.3 I was going,
“Alright now this is a promising start. Since we’ll be doing this for six to eight months I presume we’ll see N’Zoth’s influence build until it’s an apocalyptic crescendo! A waking nightmare made real as our closest allies and heroes - oh nevermind he’s already dead”.
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The Terror of Darkshore cinematic had me so hype and sparked a glimmer of hope within me for this expansion. it was quickly followed up with a lack luster scenario where Stevanos Dancaller holds his own against an empowered Tyrande, raises Kaldorei into undeath… Which is somehow a willing process now? And then the Devs say the Kaldorei got their revenge with Dazar’alor? Against a people who had nothing to do with War of Thorns?
Beings a Nelf and Forsaken fan, faction identity taking priority over racial identity in the narrative is exhausting and frustrating. They show Jaina sailing into the port of Dazar’alor and say “See, look! Vengence for Teldrassil, take that Horde!” as if we, as Nelf players, were supposed to see that as a connected thing by the virtue of the faction they put us in.
Same with Saurfang’s Mok’gora with Sylvanas… They show the Forsaken going “ding ding” after witnessing the most culturally and politically significant Forsaken abandon them and yeet off into the sunset, and expect Forsaken players to cheer for it because “Yay, the Horde can return to it’s arbitrary and vague roots of orcish Honor. That’s totally what we are about!”
You have story telling based around “Big Story Moments” resulting in uninspired “Point A to Point B” story telling, sprinkled with emotionally manipulating cinematics that are too heavy to be supported by the weak foundations laid out by the narrative, to ever successfully suspend the viewers disbelief. Followed up with a binary “Red vs Blue” mindset that muddies character motivations and makes every major lore character looks like a total doofus in the process…
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If I remember correctly, the rotbrains were forsaken that did not resurrect correctly and lacked higher brain capacity, but still had their souls linked to them. Killing them was a mercy. In fact, looking at wowpedia for quest text:
The val’kyr raise hundreds of corpses every day. Agatha raised you just a few moments ago. Not all are as lucky as you, however.
Some maintain their free will, but live in constant fear and confusion. They usually run off into the woods, cowering at their own reflections.
Others lose their minds completely, shambling about aimlessly. They often turn to violence, and must be destroyed.
This is your task, . Destroy them, our former brothers and sisters as they might be.
The options given to the forsaken in the cata starting zones were “Join us, don’t join us, or go back to being dead.” These were shown by a few different npcs. Some nameless undead choose to die right after being resurrected, but Valdred Moray chooses to join, Lillian chooses to run, and Redpath chooses to rebel.
Redpath then proceeds to gather up as many rotbrains that aren’t completely mindless as he can and tries to actively attack. You kill them off as a result. Beforehand you were killing the rotbrains that were mindless, during that quest you are killing ones actively rebelling. They were given free will and they made their choice.
That said, part of what makes the free will narrative so good is that it can be viewed as an illusion of choice. They claim you can “Join us, don’t join us, or go back to being dead” but when you think about the wide ranging view on the undead and how they are treated there are only really two choices for the majority of people. Join the ones who will accept you, or die. Only the exceptionally strong willed and powerful can make their way in the world alone after being forsaken by it. Even Lillian eventually joined.
I used to assume Sylvanas was well aware of this and realized that she could hold true to her anti-lich king ideals while simultaneously building a bulwark to protect her from true death. Which I felt fit her character INCREDIBLY well as a (heh) morally grey way of doing things. As Benedikt has pointed out, many people feel as though these subtleties were lost on the writing team or simply not cared about during this expansion.
The forsaken post WotLK were my favorite part of the entire story because it felt like a very fresh take on the idea of undeath and free will versus the illusion of free will as well as the potential blessing and curse undeath could be. I had high hopes for BFA when Lillian showed up and the Zelling story happened, but things really fell apart.
Oh and, keep fighting the good fight Benedikt
Edit: I feel like following this up with the statement that I appreciate your overall demeanor in this thread and do not wish to come across as though I’m attacking what you like or your opinions. I’ve just found that a lot of discourse about the forsaken this expansion has given me the feeling that post WoTLK forsaken culture has not been closely followed by many and has been written off as “bad elf lady make new scourge”. So I was curious what your knowledge of the Forsaken was and hoped to explain why I’ve felt dissatisfied by this expansion’s story more than any other. Glad we’re on the same page with Calia.
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