Only things I’ll say on this and then I’ll leave it.
1.) You went off the rails and went into an extreme right away
2.) NSFW detection API’s have been around for ages now
Ya the Mongrel Horde was a silly concept as main antagonist for an expansion but as playable characters working as mercenary races that the faction employ, it works greatly
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I’d love to have a Menethil as the Forsaken leader, I just don’t want her to be some weird Light worshipping, Alliance loving, jobber.
The worst part is, and I know this is a hot take, I like Lightforged Undead as a concept. I think it could be cool. The problem is how Blizzard has used it as shorthand for “more human” than the other Forsaken.
I honestly wouldn’t have so much of an issue with Lightforged forsaken (other than the fact that I want a true undead race of course) as a concept if it didn’t feel like it was going to be used for the following:
-If you are undead and do not go through this ritual, you are branded evil and scum.
-People will use it as an excuse to say you are only capable of being ‘good’ morally if you ‘go through this ritual’.
-People will say your undead can only have feelings if you go through the ritual (untrue even now)
-There are no drawbacks from what we’ve seen, you get all benefits of undeath & none of the drawbacks.
-If applied to things like vampyr or zombies, does it just eradicate the need to devour blood or flesh? That makes them less monster like and just… boring.
It could be explored as a unique concept with nuance, but I don’t trust Blizzard to address any of those issues. There should be some drawbacks if you get strengths of the undead. Also, for me, the draw of the undead is the danger they can pose, and the control they can have on themselves to not be a danger to others.
So, again, flesh-eating or blood-drinking. An interesting, predatory monster but that can use this dangerous trait to benefit the innocent if they use it against true evil.
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I suppose many forsaken could argue that sects like the scarlet crusade and accounts from the mag’har show that the light cannot be trusted but yea it still falls into a ton of those issues.
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The lore will bend and shift in order to make the Forsaken more sympathetic, less dark, and eventually just slightly pale humans.
The fact Forsaken aren’t trying to genocide everyone and raise them into undeath is already a huge retcon and at this point expect more to come.
Yeah, and this is definitely true, but it definitely needs to be demonstrated more and brushed off much less, I feel.
I personally disagree. Forsaken really are not a hive mind. They should have never been as a whole trying to eradicate anyone in the first place. They have free will and can make their own decisions. A mindless evil monster simply is not interesting.
I liked WoW’s version of forsaken/zombies because they were a different and unique take on zombies & undead in general. Not just shambling flesh-eating evil entities, but people who have gone through a lot.
There should be a mixture of that, not ‘every single forsaken is a genocidal maniac’. That’s simply bad writing.
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The Forsaken were originally unable to feel emotion, and desired nothing more than revenge and to make everyone else like them.
A undead literally sees his wife’s locket in classic, laughs at the fact she’s dead, and gloats in how he’s still alive while she isn’t before tossing it.
Death Knight’s breaking free of the Lich King’s control was also a retcon.
Undead are just going to continue getting retconned until they’re all just pale carebear humans. I used to be against the “Slippery slope” argument but at this point Blizzard is the exception to the rule.
We will therefore never see eye-to-eye in that case, as I am on the direct, polar opposite belief/view of you. Actually having nuance/emotion doesn’t make them ‘carebare humans’. They can still be monsters and not be cardboard cutout hivemind zombies.
All of that you mentioned is bad writing in my eyes and nothing will convince me otherwise. 
If all undead or free-willed race are the same and evil with no emotion, pass. It’s overdone and wasn’t interesting in the first place. There’s a billion other badly written and boring stories where that’s the case.
Something different to explore nuance in undeath & zombies is well-appreciated by me.
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Retconning bad writing is still a retcon and in Blizzard’s case, shows a willingness to compromise the nature of the Forsaken in favor of their current agenda, which is leading to a Calia leadership.
A retcon of such massive proportions with no explanation is bad writing in of itself.
It’s not really retconning. The example you gave wasn’t said to be the mind of every single forsaken. In lore it’s been shown multiple times that personalities vary, and it depends on the soul/person being ressurected.
Otherwise, we would literally not have either playable forsaken or Death Knights. There would be 0 reason for them to fight for Azeroth at all, no purpose.
Edit: And we’ve had them since Vanilla.
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This reminds me when Chronical was suppose to be the definitive WoW lore source they then retconned parts of it in the next volume.
That’s just the price we have to pay for the story to feasibly continue. It’s the reality.
World domination. Can’t take over the world and fill it with undeath if everything is dead dead. That was the origin of the Forsaken faction. That’s what some people loved about it.
Damn, Zovaal was behind everything then.
Personally I like the direction it’s going for more nuance, then. The world domination thing is overdone. Plus, like I said, they can still be monsters while at the same time as having free will. It’s an antithero angle like Death Knights.
Characters that are blatantly and mindlessly evil aren’t appealing to me at all. It’s fine if someone wants to play theirs like that, but it shouldn’t be a narrative forced on me and others who like theirs to have free will and actual depth.
Again, having some sections of forsaken/undead like that is fine. All of them though, no, at that point it’s just like every boring ‘all of us are mindlessly evil’ story and they might as well not be playable because they’d be a useless hive mind.
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You could say that about a lot of lore. What is lore if not restraints on what you can and can’t do as a character?
Lore restraints on characters via culture/personality are stupid, and I will always stand by that. “Your character can’t do that because [culture]” again just plays into the idea that your character can’t be unique, at all.
Societal norms are meant to be shattered for progress. Not everyone should follow the ‘norm’. Especially if they feel it is wrong.
So yes, ‘a lot of lore’ is bad writing to me. As are restrictions in general. Restraints on ‘what you can and can’t do’ as a character pertaining to personality types are bad regardless. And that will always be my opinion.
Having freedom to build our characters & their stories the way we actually want them to and not be shoved into a box of ‘you need to act like everyone else, and be a cardboard cutout’ is far better than ‘let’s have lore restrictions with no elbow room at all’.
It makes for a bad story, flat out, to force everyone into a hive mind. ESPECIALLY when it comes to character personalities, aspirations, and emotion. Again, otherwise every single character would be the same, and it would be pointless to have them playable or variant at all.
Edit: Further, not to mention the entire story surrounding forsaken & undead breaking from the scourge is FREE WILL. It’s emphasized everywhere. It’s completely contradictory to have every forsaken have the same mindset/personality while also saying they have free will.
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Lore should be a guide with some restriction but not overbearing. Nobody likes an obvious on-rails DND campaign for example.
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You’d be surprised the amount of people who are adamant that Orcs in D&D should all be stupid and have a negative to int. Not that I am one of them.
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