I know Alliance and Kaldorei players have been upset about Delaryn eventually deciding to remain in the Horde for some reason when her prominence in the Warbringers Sylvanas animated short sort of made her the embodiment of the horror of the War of Thorns. Understandable enough.
Now both factions have a group of undead Kaldorei, and Delaryn has been largely interpreted as the de facto leader/representative of the Horde Kaldorei. Apparently the Darkfallen Night Elves who chose to defect to the Alliance were accepted back into the larger Kaldorei society but I feel like they too should have a subleader of some sort to act as an ambassador for their very specific situation and interests. One of the reasons mentionned by Delaryn as to why she decided to remain in the Horde was that she felt like she had lost her place among the Kaldorei and they probably wouldn’t accept her back anyway. Now that we know that they actually would, why wouldn’t she return to her kin ? While the other undead Kaldorei who really feel like their connection to Elune and the Darnassian society has been shattered beyond repair and just want to move on to something different could stay in the Horde and be led by Sira, who I think best represents the indescribable trauma induced by the combination of dying a violent death and experiencing a loss of faith that some of the undead Kaldorei have been going through, despite everything she did. There’s no hunting down every remnant of the Sylvanas loyalists. It’s been 5 years. Time to try and reunite the whole of the Horde by acknowledging that Sylvanas’ followers were merely the tragic byproducts of Nipple Guy’s stupid death crusade.
It makes no sense because both Delaryn and Sira joined the side of their killers. If they just became disillusioned with the Alliance, that’d make sense. But they also joined the Horde, who afflicted the atrocities that traumatized them in the first place and killed people they cared about.
This is stupid and horrible. That’d be like - to use an analogy - if a Jew escaped Auschwitz and decided in their trauma to join the Third Reich.
So just a tiny nitpick, these night elves aren’t Darkfallen, that’s just another name for the San’layn (unless blizzard changed lore again). Tiny nitpick really, but on to the topic at hand it really made zero and I mean ZERO sense for Delaryn to remain with the horde especially after her brutal death. Why one would think she’d be burning with righteous fervor at what she had witnessed in her final moments, only way I could see her just. . . Forgetting the horrors she saw is that she was brainwashed but that’s not really shown anywhere.
I do not know why you want Sira. She is 320% homicidal. Like, all she wants to do is murder people. She would not be good for your image.
Darkfallen became the title for undead elves in the Sylvanas book. They appear to be specifically specters and banshees who what possessed (or been crammed by the Val’kyr) back into their corpse.
How about they both just go away and we never have to deal with them again?
They are lore abominations who never should have existed in the first place. Memory-holing them with Me’dan would be a mercy. Let them stay in therapy with Calia forever.
I disagree that Forsaken/Horde-affiliated undead Kaldorei are nonsensical. Becoming someone you would’ve had nothing but despise for in life (and/or teaming up with the ones who killed you in the first place) upon getting raised is pretty much what defines Undeath in Warcraft. The violence and trauma caused by death trigger a brutal change of perspective on virtually everything. Hence why the citizens of the most fervently Light-worshipping kingdom turned into shadow magic-wielding mad alchemists who like to craft Abomination friends out of dead corpses on their free time ; hence why both they and the undead Thalassians carved out a brand new nation for themselves along with now free former members of the Scourge, some of whom were potentially part of the Scourge armies that had ravaged Lordaeron and Quel’thalas. That’s just a consequence of Undeath. There’s no reason why it would be any different for the Kaldorei.
Because I liked her characterization in Shadows Rising and I think sticking to the Horde would be much more sensical for her than it is for Delaryn. Also, she was fully homicidal 5 years ago, when she had just died and been raised basically. Trying to heal from considerable death-induced trauma makes up for a consistent storyline in the context of the Forsaken.
I’m with Pellex; I’d rather they both be memory holed. I don’t feel it’s appropriate for the alliance to continue getting concentrated undead representation in the faction, and I especially don’t want stories about horde night elves sucking up narrative oxygen that could go to actual playable races instead.
I think it’s pretty established that the Alliance undead Kaldorei are a really small minority anyway. As for the Horde ones, I’d be okay with them being developed, since the Forsaken as a concept are still a somewhat multiracial faction, so I think it makes decent sense that the various subgroups (former Lordaeronians, Dark Rangers, even the Leper Gnomes, Banshees or the “lesser” Undead races like the Geists, Abominations, Zombies etc) would have slightly different motivations and plotlines to explore
The darkfallen in general are playable, just not specifically the Kaldorei hordeside. The forsaken populace as stated is quite diverse so i think it would be a benefit to see these many subgroups developed and focused upon.
Delaryn is basically Lite edition Sylvannas. She died in the exact same way in nearly the same conditions, and was raised by someone who was just as cruel and spiteful in doing so as Arthas was.
It is just Sylvanas played the role of Arthas, and the Horde was the Scourge.
The Alliance was already given Sira to deal with, why would they suddenly free her? Honestly, at this point, Tyrande should just kill Sira and be done with it. Let Pelagos deal with her soul and give her the afterlife she deserves, whatever that maybe.
And no, if anything, the storyline for all the remaining undead night elves should be they ultimately come to their senses and rejoin the Alliance/their people. You are not getting playable undead night elves anyway, might as well not bloat the Horde’s already considerable racial diversity with a non-playable race.(any undead night elf NPC added to the Horde is one less playable race NPC that could have been added instead)
Heck, such a storyline could easily be the Night elf Heritage questline.
That’s fine by me, I’m all about adding non-playable races representation. Those are as important to the worldbuilding as the playable ones and yet WoW has a history of not giving a damn about whatever’s outside of the playable spectrum.
I’d take more focus on the Ogres/Revantusk/Hozen/etc over more playable race content any day but that may be just me
As you said, it explains them being bitter, and violent and why they’d abandon their old allegiances. But that still does not explain why they join the people who killed them and turned them into undead in the first place. It’s like Stockholm syndrome, but without the veneer of sense.
The current Horde fought Sylvanas, so maybe they empathize.
Maybe they view the Horde as fellow victims of Sylvanas.
I know someone brought up the idea of WW2 and everything that happened in Germany at the time, maybe they view it like working with defectors/the post war government.
Or maybe they think they won’t fit in with the Alliance anymore but want some protection as they think they’ll be killed without it.
I mean some posters here literally started with the idea that they should just be killed. Wouldn’t be the first person in game or IRL that joined a group not because they liked them but just to escape another.
That’s because those people they just joined are undead as well. They look like them, they’ve been through the same things pretty much, they can help them deal with things such as letting go of their past selves, finding meaning again, growing to accept and love their physical condition etc. The Forsaken society is literally the only society in Azeroth in which Undeath is not only understood but also praised, valued, and spiritually explored. It’s just the only undead haven on the planet.