So I’ve been randomly thinking about the story of Zelling from BfA, and I’m wondering … just why does he even exist, only to get killed off immediately? What were the writers thinking when they put together this story?
Was it to show that there are better/more ethical ways of creating undead, so they can continue to exist in-game? But if so, then why not keep him around to be the poster boy for how well it works, and maybe start recruiting others?
Was it intended to establish Lillian Voss as a newly caring personality? But what’s the point of that, when she’s apparently not going to be the new Forsaken leader? Light-Zombie-Calia Menethil had been created by then, so why not have her be the one to get the spotlight? She sorely needs exactly that kind of screentime and development if she’s going to have any hope of being embraced by the playerbase.
Was it just a cynical ploy to make us all like him so that we’d be extra, extra, EXTRA mad at Sylvanas for killing him? Did they really think that was going to change anyone’s mind about her after all the other reasons (and retconned reasons) they piled on all throughout BfA (and BtS)?
Did they originally have other plans for him that got scrapped for some reason and then, since he wasn’t going to serve his original purpose, they decided to just kill him off for shock value?
Was it all just to “subvert expectations”?
In short, just what effect was his story supposed to have on us, and how was that supposed to relate to the larger narrative?
This. They were confused why Forsaken players weren’t mad at Sylvanas because they seem to be blithely unaware that fandom is often more about the feeling of a faction than it is about the facts about a faction.
People didn’t want to rebel against their faction’s favored characters.
Yes that was exactly what it was. Their goal was to make Sylvanas the villain, just like they did Garrosh thus why they did Theramore and made Saurfang the face of desenters.
Then they Pikachu Face’d when people didn’t turn on her so they had to make her worse, so they picked the new guy Zelling and gave him the axe. Then they arrested Baine again because “everybody loves Baine right?!”
Zelling could very well have been a great new face for the Forsaken, especially since he was a rather new addition to their ranks and thus ripe for potential. And then they BFA’d him to make sure people didn’t like Sylvanas.
Pretty much exactly this. I’ll throw in a caveat and say that Zelling was probably also a leftover artifact of the “first” BfA story that they threw out, but the character was already in the story and they figured they could make use of him to push their “SLYVANUS EVUL” narrative instead.
I’m not sure why they think turning on your own faction’s characters is something players want to do. I was honestly more offended by the blatantly hamfisted efforts they were making to turn me against Sylvanas, primarily because of how inauthentic and forced they felt. Zelling’s an extremely good example of that - a character who could have been very good, and very interesting, who was killed off just because people weren’t buying into the initial garbage.
Honestly the guy was such a sad sack I figured he was going to get got for a kick the puppy moment. Why they felt we needed another reason to dislike Slyvanas is beyond me. Killing her own defenseless civilians, killing a lot more defenseless Alliance civilians and then trying to torture the free will out of Derek seemed sufficient enough but I guess we really had to drive the point home.
But honestly that whole questline was strange. Like I thought it was weird nobody tried to stop him from running into his family who of course where going to be a tad freaked out as all this was happening with zero forewarn.
Then in the mission to break out Derek we’re accompanied by Baine. Because that’s who I think is best suited to a stealth mission. You also do this but undercover as a Banshee Loyalist which just makes Windrunner’s plan even more bewildering because I for the life of me do not understand what she was trying to accomplish.
Then with Zelling having signed his own death warrant by aiding Baine he just goes ahead and comes to the meeting. Instead of, I don’t know, trying to flee. He’s apparently an expert navigator you’d think he have some options there.
So he’s just a sad guy who corrects a wrong he tangentially helped cause before being unceremoniously offed.
Something Something Morally Grey…is probably what they were going for during this “War”
“See how the war can affect not just you but Everyone! Now feel bad that we made your faction start this war, that ended up tearing this man away from his family!”
Because when they were making it clear the Horde’s only option would be to follow Saurfang in overthrowing her, a lot of people were upset and said “We don’t want to betray Sylvanas we still like her!”
So Blizzard had to double down on making her as terrible as possible, and poor Zelling was picked to have the target on his back.
He was more than likely meant to be a bigger part of the original BFA story, as others have said, where there wasn’t going to be a resolution or a Sylvanas betrayal until next expansion. You can find artifacts of their original idea all over BfA, and honestly it only makes me feel less tinfoil-hat for thinking that the last two expansions were meant to be four.
He was likely meant to be the Horde’s equivalent to Brother Pike and allow them to have a link to some Tidemother themed stuff that was supposed to be happened in the original idea for a Kul Tiran/Zandalar expansion. In fact, I’m willing to bet his story, along with many others, wasn’t meant to be part of the War Campaign at all, because there wasn’t supposed to be a War Campaign in the expansion he was created for initially.
It’s why I’ve felt that they’ve been, up until now, working on expansions concurrently in bits and pieces at the same time. His arc, if one can call it that, is a good example of such things.
TBF by that point…I honestly think it was more so people were starting to hate Saurfang more than Sylvanas and found the idea of a civil war during a world war very idiotic and just ASKING to lose, against a rival nation that at the time most definitely wanted blood…and lots of it
I don’t think anyone realistically wants to back a guy in a coup when he
Helped start the war, and helped prolong it to an insane degree all because he couldn’t stick to the plan HE MADE! which caused sylvanas to “improvise”
(Yes yes was her plan all along to burn the tree, shut up plz going off the current knowledge at the time, not future)
He actively tried to get himself killed before Lordaeron was actually in motion of being attacked, got talked out of it by zappy boi
TRIED AGAIN to get himself killed by “Staying behind to buy time” When everyone knew he was just throwing his life away at that point but was lucky cuz anduin is leader
Got captured, we wanted to break him out, and he flat out refuses and more or less says the horde is garbo at that point while she leads it (like you’re an orc my dude…your whole motto is if you don’t like it challenge the leader and change things! I don’t get why suddenly it’s a problem)
The rival faction leader free’s him and pep talks him to find “hope” and “save” his idea of the horde. (aka start dissonance within the horde)
These points alone (More could be added if I really wanted) make me wonder how blizzard actually thought “Man why are more people wanting to side with Sylvanas over Saurfang? He’s one of the OG badasses!!”
Zelling was such a waste. For as trash as BFA was, I thought the story his character told was interesting and was probably the most Forsaken way someone could opt-in to becoming undead. It was kind of like a relatable Faustian Bargain moment, in my opinion. He chose to forsake himself to cheat death because ultimately he just wanted to continue providing for his family. He betrayed his kingdom, his people, and his beliefs, but even if you hate the character for his choices, you could at least relate to the motivation that drove him to do it and maybe appreciate the melancholy irony of “I’ll take care of my family even if it means not being part of their lives anymore”.
It was a hell of a lot more buyable than Amalia Stone’s “Welp I stepped on an enemy bomb but I hated my coworkers anyway” or Derek Proudmoore’s “I exist entirely for my sister’s narrative” or whoever the other guy was that you leave behind.
Zelling was to really capture the extremely lacking options of what being undead can benefit or offer. He became undead not only to further aid his family, but also to overcome the sickness that was about to consume him. However, his presence was also just a blunder for Sylvanas to set a message.
They really needed to galvanize everyone, but the price really didn’t carry as much weight since Zelling was by all means; a spineless cretin who betrayed his own country for his own ambitions. Sacrificing untold thousands (albeit such failed) just to preserve his family and own skin.
I think it’s honestly pretty telling that the new Forsaken character with a compelling story and motivation was the one to get unceremoniously killed, and the two bland characters who are already fading into the background are the ones that they kept.
It’s almost like you can see their thought process: “Ooh, people have really taken a liking to this character, how can we best exploit that to push our narrative?” This applies to Zekhan and Bwonsamdi as well as Zelling - whenever Blizzard hits upon a character the players seem to like, the exploitation machine goes into full swing, and they discard whatever their plans for the character might or might not have been so they can “cash in”. Zekhan suddenly popped up to push the “rebel” story path, Bwonsamdi survived into the Shadowlands instead of being killed off as was rumored, and Zelling was turned into a prop for yet another “shock value” moment to try and push people to their preferred viewpoint.
It might explain both the disjointedness of the plot going forward (if they keep adapting things on the fly to include or discard certain characters) and also why they seem so scattershot in character development, as if they prefer to try and “get lucky” on a new character rather than try to develop existing ones.
Whoah. I get how you could call him a traitor to Kul Tiras, but who are these “untold thousands”? Do you mean he might have given away Kul Tiran military secrets?
I haven’t read the book but didn’t he have doubts for killing Malfurion?
Haven’t done Horde side WoT either wasn’t there a option to kill civilians? That was against the plan. Was it Saurfang or Sylvanas that started to deviate from the original plan
The main reason he walked out the door was because Anduin agreed to stop the war if Sylvanas was removed. He didn’t walked out to save his idea of the Horde he walked out to try and save the Horde. Luckily for us he did exactly that.
I think his story served the purposes you mention.
Another one could be that they wanted a forsaken to participate in Dereks rescue. It was about free will after all.
Zellings gave the Horde what they wanted. Tools to undermine Kul Tiras’ security. It was his actions that led to locating fallen soliders of war. He fed into the Horde’s war efforts to preserve himself.
His actions could’ve gotten Boralus sacked with untold numbers being slain. He betrayed his own nation on his own whims. He had his own reasons; but all accounts of his actions. He is a traitor.
Zelling’s story is still frustrating me to no end. Both because of the tragedy of it and the fact that it was just a waste of a promising character for cheap plot device.
It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you think about it.
So there we have this very sympathetic guy who would do everything for his family, including work with the enemy faction and volunteer to be raised so he can provide for them after death. And this stays his prime concern even when they reject him and call him a monster.
And then he throws it all away when he takes part in the Derek Proudmoore rescue, and the game just fails to give a good reason for why he acts like this.
I mean, sure, he is obviously a good person and all but he should have been aware that he was risking not only his own neck but also his family’s.
Zelling wasn’t forcibly raised, it was his own wish. One would think he should have every reason to be loyal to the horde after that. But I noticed that when you play the campaign alliance side and talk to him on the Forsaken ship during the attack, he tells the player they’d better go before Blightcaller sees them. So maybe his loyalty is still with Kul Tiras even after becoming Forsaken.
Then again, when the horde pc breaks into the Monastry with him to steal the scepter he keeps telling them how he hopes his family will one day be able to accept him again and understand that he is still the same person, even in undeath.
A good explanation for his decision to help Baine would have been the circumstances of Valentine’s death. Where Nathanos openly states that he doesn’t give a crap about the life of a fellow Forsaken.
But nope.
Lilian ist there too btw, but neither she nor Zelling seem to be distressed much. I know I was.
Which reminds me that it should absolutely have been Lilian who rescues Derek. But I guess it wasn’t possible because the Alliance wouldn’t have bothered to free her from prison and we all had to be reminded what a great guy Baine is.