i could get behind this if she did anything more interesting than simply come back to life.
im assuming you consider what makes up your home country’s culture to be fairly robust.
im not saying being undead in WoW is super profound or analogous to any real world suffering, but there’s some depth to it and thus far all she’s done is nod at a meeting with tyrande.
i like viewing her thru this lense tho and I never even considered something like this, i just would want it done better if that is what they are going for because that is a lot to unpack.
edit: i don’t mean it to sound like gate keeping. as a poc i understand that it’s hard to explain how well these stories resonate with one, so I’ll trust you in that it is very sincere and being told well if you say it is. i didn’t even pick up on it so i can’t really judge the quality tbf
we’re ingesting the art right? taking it in and examining it as humans. not just reading the events off a paper; obviously that’s awful but it isn’t real.
it’s not even attempting to tackle the real world slavery because that would be fiction suicide to take on in your hokey high fantasy.
It’s very awkward for Calia to become a faction leader now, of all times, when there’s such a focus on each individual racial leader in the Horde as they come together to form a council. All of them, even Gazlowe, properly reflect the values of their respective race.
Calia, I would argue, does not. She does not reflect the previously established values or interests of the Forsaken, who are already in thematic limbo after BFA and Sylvanas’ departure from her status as their racial leader. The only true commonality she shares with them at this point is undeath, and even then, the circumstances regarding her revival are far different from the rest of the Forsaken.
This isn’t like Gazlowe taking over for Gallywix, in which the Bilgewater Cartel finally gains some moral scruples after years of poor treatment and management at the hands of Gallywix, because that development makes sense. Fairness is just as close as you can get to honor with goblins, while still keeping them goblins. We’ve seen that for a while now.
There is nothing beyond Lilian Voss and a few lines from Forsaken Refugees in Orgrimmar that suggests that there’s any significant change within them yet. Especially not one that feels either earned or appropriate with how they’ve been portrayed in the past. This is something that needs time to properly develop with Forsaken characters that have been long-established. Calia just doesn’t fit in at the current moment. Could that change? Maybe. But it needs to be deserved if she’s going to stand alongside the Horde.
Another factor is that she’s going to be taking up Horde cast time. She isn’t Horde. she has never been Horde. She has only, ever, been pro Alliance. So, some of what precious little Horde cast time we’re going to get is going to be used by the Alliance.
I mean yeah there’s a lot more than can be done, but it could be done via progressive quests.
Quest 1: Calia asks you to find Lilian and Velonara and Aelthalyste and a conversation occurs where she admits she’s overwhelmed because she feels disconnected. She knew about “being Lordaeronian” in life, but Undeath adds a quality that she is only beginning to grasp.
Quest 2: Calia asks you to accompany her in talking with old-school Forsaken NPCs
Quest 3: Calia asks you to accompany her, Velonara, and Aelthalyste to visit Windrunner Spire, to witness what Sylvanas lost
Quest 4: Calia asks you to accompany her to Acherus, to speak with the Four Horseman, in particular Darion Mograine and Sally Whitemane, there’s an interaction between Sally and Lilian
Quest 5: Calia asks you to accompany her with Delaryn to Darkshore, you encounter Tyrande
Quest 6: Something involving Maldraxxus
Quest 7: Maldraxxus + Calia clean Undercity using neutralizing agent from the House of Plagues, but uses specifically Shadow magic to finish the cleaning of Undercity
All of this happening over the expansion, so by the end of it, Ardenweald restores Teldrassil and Maldraxxus restores Undercity.
These values and interests have shifted given Before the Storm.
The player’s idea of values is more important than the book’s. Calia is not made to entertain NPCs. She’s supposed to entertain the Horde playerbase. At current, her writing only entertains Alliance and Alliance-apologetic players.
I think the disconnect is more Blizzard thinks the majority of the playerbase and the majority of the Forsaken playerbase would care about notions of refugees, immigration, repatriation, loss, past vs future, “Prodigal Son” motifs, and other such narratives and evidently that is not the case.
They need to flesh out the narrative more, but this is a good direction that has only been touched twice in-game, once with Thrall reconnecting with his family in Nagrand, and the whole “Are you Orc enough?” narrative, and again with Jaina repatriating to Kul Tiras to face the judgment of her mother and her people who misunderstood why she abandoned Daelin to the Orcs.
Using this narrative for Calia and the Forsaken, and tying it in with Maldraxxus (given we already see that Teldrassil and the Night Elves are being tied to Ardenweald) solves the problem of the Sylvanas-Putress direction and provides a new way of Forsaken “being made” if the Primus shows the Forsaken how to create fully functional undead without Valkyr.
I’ll admit I never thought of the diaspora angle before, so I can imagine how a lot of my specific anti-Calia arguments I’ve shared might come off as insensitive in that context. I can’t really speak about that.
I dunno, I just see the Lordaeron stuff and the curse of undeath as a symbol of depression permanently affecting the way you see the world, and how you can never really go back to a happier time. What makes me personally find Calia distasteful is that in the depression angle (or my interpretation of it), she doesn’t connect with the forsaken at all. And the implication that she can somehow treat or cure the forsaken of their brain problems rubs me wrong in one of two possible ways.
She uses her light gifts to cure them. Some might make this an analogy to anti-depressants, but I hate this idea because pills aren’t, and will never be a cure.
She provides counseling instead. This I just find irritating because it gives me the inference that in the 15ish or whatever years the forsaken have been around, not once has a single member of the entire civilization thought about talking through their problems until a magic glowy lady showed up to replace Sylvanas’s role as a spiritual or emotional guide.
I just…don’t want Lordaeron as it was to come back in any way. Let the memories live on, sure, but as a former human civilization in the game, I want it to remain dead forever.
Which I think could be done via the hypothetical questline I’m imagining if Blizzard isn’t a complete idiot and there’s someone on their lore team in charge of this that has the range:
I violently agree in that Undeath shouldn’t be cured, let alone via “The Light”, but the thing is Azeroth’s undead is achieved strictly via shadow, fel, light, and sometimes even arcane.
But that’s why Calia was a “Discipline Priest Champion” in Legion. That’s why she was raised with Shadow and Light and a Naaru that was a Void God just a year ago and is still strangely purple.
I think Calia can learn Necromancy from the Primus, real Necromancy, not the off-brand dollar-store version of the Lich King and the Nathrezim, and “perfect” the Undead by preventing their bodies from rotting anymore and learn magic that will allow the Forsaken to grow (still raising the dead) without the need of Valkyr.
Or develop in Shadowlands how if any Azerothian ends up in Maldraxxus, they have a chance to be Undead. More “ethical”.
Yeah cause the people in charge of protecting the shadowlands are gonna be soooooo happy that souls that belong to them are kept from them cause of undead feelings lol
Small correction, but from what I understand, Calia was never intended to feature in BtS in the first place. Golden pushed for her inclusion to replace someone who probably didn’t even exist in the game yet, so her Legion appearance wasn’t actually foretelling anything at the time.
THat doesnt mean the story wasnt gonna happen, just means that instead of her it was gonna be some no name character that no one never heard of. In fact golden said as much in a interview, she pushed for it to be calia instead of making a whole new character like blizzard wanted
I’m speaking in regards to Calia being planned as a prodigal daughter returning to her homeland. Naturally that would be impossible if Calia wasn’t going to be used at all.
I think the story so far in going in the direction that Tyrande saves the Winter Queen by letting go of the Night Warrior’s power (which is tied to Ardenweald) to restore her and Ardenweald, and in return the Night Elves in majority are given the choice of returning to Azeroth and Teldrassil is restored but tied not to the Dream but to Ardenweald.
Do you disagree this is the likely direction of the story, and if so, how do you think that plotline will be resolved?
Doesn’t have to be. The entire basis of Maldraxxus is you are rewarded in (un)death for strength and duty.
thats in death, not life, you simply cant get over the fact that undead shouldn’t exist, and the people will think this the most, is people of shadowlands, the maldraxxus warriors would more likely give them a place in the shadowlands then give them a cheat to stay out of the place they belong in.
I don’t think you can definitively tell me I’m wrong without anyone knowing what the original character was meant to be. All we do know is that Calia wasn’t originally meant to serve that role, which means she couldn’t have been planned by Blizzard at the time.