Calia Menethil has a husband and daughter. I know people seem to hate Calia, but what if they pick a Forsaken NPC who has been with the Forsaken and it turns out that NPC is Calia’s long lost daughter?
I’m not sure how the timelines mesh up. But there is currently The Black Bride who has been the AB horde character since Vanilla. She has no lore.
I have zero clue where she fits into the timeline. But what if Blizzard reveals that someone like the Black Bride or some Forsaken NPC who has been with the Forsaken since vanilla was Calia’s daughter? Maybe someone else can name other NPCs who would better fit this role.
Then if they’re trying to reestablish Lordaeron’s Menethil lineage, it would fall upon someone who has been a Forsaken moreso than Calia who is next in line.
Would everyone change their tune a bit about Calia if Blizzard established out her family a bit more? They were lost in Southshore, but we don’t know more than that. So if they turn out to be Forsaken who lived under Sylvanas, would that make her better since she has more insight on their culture through her husband and daughter?
I guess it would be relatively better? But I sincerely, genuinely dislike the story concept of a Menethil assuming a leadership position in the forsaken, so I know I’d still dislike it.
He was never in the game, even as a minor side character like Calia was in Legion. Literally never existed in any in-game capacity, and some of the comics lore was overwritten in game.
Because it can be fixed. Easily. They can stop writing the Forsaken as Red Humans and the Horde as Red Alliance.
But they have changed it, many times over. Tyrande in Darkshore. Loyalists vs. Traitors. Pelagos’ pronouns on Alpha. They change the story constantly from player feedback because at the end of the day, they story is for us not them. We are the ones consuming the product, they are simply making it.
They removed Magatha as a prominent Shaman figure after everyone was massively confused when Horde characters were forced to let her aid you after she murdered Cairne and was personally responsible for the slaughter of countless Tauren while simultaneously allying her Tribe with the Alliance and launching assaults on Horde lands. They certainly ‘delete’ characters after much fan lament. Rhonin, anyone?
Moira was already an established character since 2004, she was not dropped on you in one patch then made a Dwarven faction leader a single patch later. Moira was given ample time to be developed, Calia so far has not. Even if they expanded her story in SL, the issue is she is standing side-by-side with Horde faction leaders in the SL intro as if she is representing the Forsaken. Moira was not doing that when she was being added into the story.
In 2004 Moira had abandoned Ironforged. She came back in one novel and became part of the three hammers. That’s fairly fast development. Also I didn’t even like the story development of that novel. It pained me to read that the King of Stormwind gets to decide who gets to be the leader of Ironforge. It didn’t matter that Moira Bronzebeard lived with the Dark Irons. It’s her city.
Calia Menethil has been around since 2009 in the Arthas novel.
She was in the lore even before that book, if I recall correctly. Though I can’t find many references on my phone. Her inclusion was simply one of the many lore nods Christie included.
As a human, with human ideals and motivations. She has been Forsaken for one patch, with no Forsaken ideals or motivations. Moira was always a Dwarf. She was not a Draenei that got changed into a Dwarf and then became faction leader one patch later.
But Moira was a Dark Iron aligned Dwarf that showed up in the span of a book, asserted her claim, moved the Dark Irons in, took Stormwind royalty hostage, then ended up as one of the leaders on a council all within a book.
Lordaeron fell in year 22 after the first great war.
So from year 25+ we’ve had the events of WoW.
BFA is 34 years after the great war. According to the timeline that the folks on Wowpedia put together. Forsaken have been part of the Horde for 12 years.
If I’m RPing as a middle aged human who died during the fall of lordaeron at age 40. And then I’ve spent 12 years as a Forsaken.
You’re telling me I have more Forsaken in me then human? 40 years living in Lordaeron compared to 12 years as a Forsaken. Forsaken of Lordaeron have been around for like a decade. Meanwhile my character had forty years in Lordaeron.
I had a Forsaken Warlock I played previously. I even wrote a fanfic for her. That was the exact scenario for her. She lived in Lordaeron as a priest but after death lost the ability to be in touch with the Light so changed to being a Warlock. She was maybe like 30 or something when she died. Most of her life was as a human because Forsaken have only been around for such a short time.
Why are so many people here against the idea that gasp every Forsaken character who is over the age of 20 spent more of their life as a human then as a Forsaken. Too many people want to just disregard the Forsaken as some spooky evil zombie race whose tragic backstory has no meaning to their overall story. It’s such a shame because Arthas and the Forsaken of Lordaeron are one of Warcrafts best stories.
Heck even John Staats said during the original development of WoW, Metzen wanted Forsaken to be misunderstood humans who had a plague of undeath and the other members of the team wanted evil badass zombies.
Which is a shame because Metzens story of plagued misunderstood humans was a better story then just being some evil zombie.
Most Forsaken do not retain their memories of pre-Scourge. It is rare that they do. Calia wasn’t raised as a Scourge but rather directly as a Forsaken, skipping the whole ‘having mind forcibly controlled by Ner’zhul’ ordeal that most Forsaken have had to bear.
So yes, those Forsaken who have been (and currently are Scourge, but yet to be awoken as Forsaken) do not hold any sort of allegiance to Lordaeron the defunct nation.
Also realize that most of the Forsaken now aren’t even human. Since Wrath, Sylvanas has raised every race to be Forsaken. I believe the non-human Forsaken make up a majority-minority of the actual race itself. And those Forsaken surely have absolutely zero history to do with Lordaeron or any allegiance to the Menethil name.
Blizzard doesn’t write the story based on what people RP as.
Who cares about the new Forsaken that Sylvanas raised for her war? The vast majority of Forsaken are of Lordaeron.
Even Sylvanas states as such in the quest titled Lordaeron. She says the Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron.
No but Chris Metzen wrote a story about an entire kingdom that got hit with a curse, mind controlled, then freed and rejected by their former allies. It is a very tragic tale and a shame if they just keep going along this path of “Forsaken are bad evil zombies.”
The Forsaken were never just a faction of victims, to be fair. Sylvanas backstabbing Garithos cemented that. But I feel their characterization in Classic stems from a ruthless determination to survive in a world stacked against them, hence the development of a weapon to kill both the Scourge and the living that they see as their enemies.
A mixture of gray-and-black morality, pragmatism, and a will so strong they can break charms. Not the twirled mustache villainy that redefined them in Cataclysm. Even betraying Garithos had the obvious benefit of securing Capital City for the Forsaken as a direly needed stronghold against the Scourge and Scarlets.
In Classic there is a quest series about a ring you find in Silverpine. After finding the ring you bring it to a Forsaken in Brill who says the ring belongs to some lady who died and you should go bring it to the husband in UC.
The Husband says in the quest text he doesn’t care his wife died. But he wants revenge. So you go out and kill the person who murdered his wife. So he did I guess feel something for his wife? Why go kill his wifes murderer in the first place if he didn’t care?
Anyways, that is the one quest I remember the most from Vanilla/Classic. It made me think that the Forsaken were dealt a bad hand in life and are now trying to adapt.
There was another quest about a wife who wants you to return a necklace to her husbands grave. She hates her husband mind you because he abandoned her and her children to go fight the undead. Now she’s a Forsaken and wants nothing to do with the necklace.
That’s another great quest which really shows the plight of the Forsaken. She even said she became exactly what her husband tried to stop. It’s just a really sad story. It’s great that they’re embracing what they become, but as you said, it’s a shame that Blizzard forced them into these villains and some people want it to remain that way with the “Blight everything” mentality.