To be fair, a Forsaken Calia Menethil resurfacing to challenge Sylvanas wasn’t an idea invented by Golden. It was fodder for speculation for years. The RPG seeded exactly that and it was the plot of a published finalist in one of the creative writing contests Blizzard used to host. I remember it made a lot of people mad… “Purge the Forsaken, Lordaeron for the Alliance” types, mostly, because they really, really hated the idea of a Forsaken Menethil championing the deaders’ rights to Lordaeron.
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i was honestly hoping that she had been effectivlly decanonised like med’dan and jaina’s half sister
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Problem is that the whole secondary plot of Day of the Dragon is around her being almost married to a disguised Deathwing.
I would say it would be hard to retcon half a novel but from what we have seen lately, I wouldn’t put it past Blizzard to try.
Although a solution could’ve being to have her die off screen. As Day of the Dragon and the pre-WC3 section of the Arthas novel are the only times she is mentioned in canon material prior to Legion.
I will say that a missed opportunity with Season of Discovery is not having Calia in Southshore under a different name. Like show hints that it is her given that she was living in Southshore until it got blighted. Although Before the Storm presents southshore being blighted during the third war, even though there was no mention of it at all in vanilla WoW. /sigh at retcons.
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I mean that whole sub plot, just didn’t go anywhere, nothing came off it, they retconned me’dan they could have retconned the whole thing, cause like deathwing doesn’t mention it, Its not even part of calia’s backstory in her little reintroduction
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I compare Legion-BFA-Shadowlands Sylvanas to late GoT Cersei Lannister. Smart, yes-but not as smart as she thinks she is, and protected more by plot armor than anything else.
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While true I just don’t like established characters getting retconned out of existence because of “reasons”. Me’dan I sort of understand but I never really found anything wrong with him. I feel the hate towards him was always overblown. The dude was great at arcane magic, given his father (and we know that the powers of the Guardian can be passed down. I mean that is why Aegwynn had Medivh in the first place) but he wasn’t shown to be a ‘God’ in the light, nor shamanism. Although some posters on here will claim otherwise. Also iirc Me’dan wasn’t retconed out of the story, it is just that he was never actually a “guardian” in the same way as his father and grandmother. Otherwise Blizzard would have to come up with another reason for Cho’galls new appearance that we see in Cata. As that came from the Me’dan comics.
bitterest of ironies, but what if Calia was INTO giant insane half-metal dragons, and he actually blew his chances by pretending to be human…
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I mean, who ISN’T into half-metal dragons?! The only thing better than a half-metal dragon is a full-metal dragon.
Sigh, I think I miss Onyxia. That they somehow didn’t ever decide to give her an undead humanoid model/visage, ala Sylv or Xal, I’ll never understand. That’s instant marketability and merchandise sales, imo.
I haven’t seen a whole lot of takes on it, but I personally liked questing with Sindragosa’s echo or whatever during a lot of the blue Dragonflight stuff. I’m a huge fan of the lady dragons. I feel like what I was saying earlier could be such an easy win for Blizz in regards to Onyxia; and I’m a bit surprised they didn’t attempt it.
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Certaintly would have made things more fun alliance side. A noble person does something shady? We go on a quest, just to find out it was our girl Onxyia manipulating things from the shadows again, but this time she’s made sure nobody can kill her or get to her.
She would be awesome as a recurring bad guy who manipulates events to her advantage. 
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MAN! That would have been so cool. Katrana Prestor was such a cool element in early WoW stuff.
Ooof, the two big named Deathwing kids had it rough. I don’t remember if they ever resurrected Nefarian after BWL, but I know they resurrected Onyxia for another fight.
**Edit: And I still remember how her little whelp you got for that anniversary used to set off everyone’s DBM because it deep breathes, lmao.
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That is probably not a coincidence. I would bet actual money that the WoW writers were fans and that their writing of Sylvanas was influenced by Cersei. (We know Danuser, at least, thought GoT season 8 was “brilliant.” And someone from Blizzard also publicly compared the burning of Teldrassil to the Red Wedding.)
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I was about to bring that up, myself if you hadn’t when I saw your post.
I mean, I’m not going to say that GoT wasn’t groundbreaking, fun, and awesome fantasy storytelling early on. I mean, I’m pausing my catch up as I’m about to watch the last episode of House of the Dragon for this season.
(Yes, yes, I know, we’re talking about the last season of GoT which WASN’T good, but)
You can’t help but just see the disservice done to Sylv, though. Even if you think that Game of Thrones is groundbreaking; she existed before Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire was mainstream knowledge. Uncool, at least to me, to come in and try to replicate that kind of feeling to a character that has existed on her own, well before GoT mainstream fame.
And I know we’re all speculating here with what happened to Sylvanas’ character. It’s probably a little bit, or a lot, of all the things that have been suggested throughout this thread. But if she truly was torn between someone that really just wanted to butcher her character for spiteful, inept reasons - and someone that thought the last season of GoT was a masterpiece…
I said it before, but I’m glad both of 'em are gone.
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The fight that they resurrected Onyxia was Nefarians encounter in Blackwing Decent. So yes, Nefarian was also resurrected in Cata.
What’s interesting is that there are missions in WC3 that reference A song of Ice and Fire. Such as the penultimate mission of the Night Elf campaign and the final mission of the Frozen Throne scourge campaign. Where their titles are a play on A song of Ice and Fire. Those being ‘A destiny of Flame and Sorrow’ and ‘A symphony of Frost and Flame’ respectively. Both involved Arthas and Illidan. (queue careless whisper music)
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Nah that was funny. We should do it again.
I had totally forgot about the GoT references in WC 3. 