What Was the Purpose of Zelling, Anyway?

Sad but true. We are basically the eternal antagonist to the “hero faction” but cannot officially be called that because of “two-faction- gameplay”. It’s legit tiresome at this point.

4 Likes

This probably only sounds good to me in the moment but I wish Zelling had at least fled with Derek instead of just getting popped off. That way, since Blizzard seems set on making him a horde character, you could at least have Derek, Zelling and Voss together like a dysfunctional zombie family. Zelling would have an artificial one to fill the gap left by being disconnected from his real one, Derek could have Zelling as his own personal tidepriest to minister to him, and Voss holding them together. Hell, if Blizzard’s so set on Calia being a therapist, you’d have the three of them for her to work with and learn from, instead of the otherwise player-isolated undead night elves that feel like they have no connection with the faction. Then you just need a walking hand and you’ve got the makings of an Addams Family of strangers.

19 Likes

I’m honestly at the point where I’m starting to take everything that happened in the entirety of Stormsong as semi-canon, as the whole zone reeks of a redesigned frankenstein monster more than any other aspect of BfA. I think that’s the zone where they had the least time to cover up this mysterious (but very obviously existent) previous iteration of the story. I’m half convinced we should have a name for this story, that was probably overwritten halfway through development to accommodate the new Jailer story, just to make conversations easier.

3 Likes

Well he wasn’t a long time forsaken. He was still basically Kul Tiran in sensibility and outlook.

He wasn’t part of the scourge freed forsaken that revere Sylvanas. She really wasn’t something special to him.

He was a Kul Tiran who asked to be raised, but both Marshal Valentine and Derek Proudmoore were Kul Tiran Heroes who did not ask to be raised or used in the fashion they were.

He reminds me of Sirius Black’s brother Regulus from Harry Potter. He joined a death eaters group and realized he was in over his head. Then died trying to do something about it.

And then he could end up in The Maw at some point so his story might not be done. (But I am not sure I expect it.)

Tragedy pronz. Nearly everything about the faction war is meant to be a fetish for drama.

3 Likes

Nah, he’s in the Maw. If Blizzard remembers he exists we’re going to kill him after the Jailer turns him into a monster of some kind.

Though I’m leaning more toward that being Saurfang’s fate.

2 Likes

right we gotta go as dark as possible, edgier than a pizza cutter.

3 Likes

You mean look at all those HUMANS dominating yet another expansion. The rest of the alliance isn’t allowed to be the main attraction for once.

I would have loved if ardenweald had a hunting ground where worgens could just be themselves with no shame attached and run free and hunt in packs

4 Likes

To get stuffed in the fridge for someone else’s character development.

Ah, Pizza Cutters.
All edge.
No point.

11 Likes

I dont know what could be edgier, maybe a party full of undead dks or dhs in the maw.

related: https:// www.youtube. com/watch?v=gHWIh8XW5B8&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=Nixxiom

I mean I personally took it as a continuation of Before the Storm’s perspective of humanizing the Forsaken and showing that there’s more depth to them than mustache-twirling corpses who love Sylvanas and blight and nothing else. But it’s kind of a moot point for me at least because I (and all other Forsaken players) already know this.

Also kind of this. I think he definitely was meant to serve as the leverage to tip Sylvie further down the villain track but it backfired because we’ve known Sylvanas since before Vanilla and we’ve known Zelling for one expansion. Not to say that his execution was a feel-good moment that made me stan Sylvanas any harder but in terms of things that irked me about her characterization in BfA that would be way far down on the list.

2 Likes

Dying of course. Any traitor of the dark lady deserve nothing but a clean swift death. Victory for the banshee queen!

2 Likes

lol plz

Do they though, a lot of the die-hard fanboys insist Forsaken lore is supposed to almost exclusively “ooga boogy comically evil frankenstein mad scientist necromancers”.

1 Like

Forsaken are perfectly fine the way they are. There is no need for changes.

1 Like

I’m just now realizing this. It’s really weird how absolutely absent Sylvanas is from the Alliance war campaign.

Like, after the Battle for Lordaeron, I don’t remember seeing her again until Reckoning. Sure, Teldrassil was awful, but then she blows up Lordaeron, attacks her own citizens, captures her own subordinate, and uh… I don’t know, does something with Jaina’s brother? Honestly, I don’t remember seeing anything about him until Baine just shows up with him? Like, I know there’s some kind of cutscene with him being tortured, but I only remember seeing bits from like… commentators on Youtube. I know literally nothing about Zelling, and… Of course, she attacked her own citizens in BtS, but you wouldn’t know that unless you read BtS.

In retrospect, it seems like she’s personally more of an antagonist to the Horde than the Alliance, which is weird. I doubt any Alliance needed more reason to hate her after Teldrassil, so it’s probably like everyone said: they really had to drive home “the Horde have to hate Sylvanas too”.

Like I said, it just hit me now, but it’s really strange how the Alliance didn’t interact directly with our main antagonist until the very, very end. And… The Alliance isn’t even the one to fight her.

8 Likes

It’s basically the Robot Cat problem all over again. The alliance didn’t really need a reason to view Garrosh as an antagonist, even before he does anything; him being in the warchief position and being told “factions fighting” is enough to do it. You don’t need to see him for him to be your enemy, because his influence extends across all of the soldiers he’s sending to fight you. I think this is why alliance players generally felt like the 5.3 patch was tacked on; as bad as it sounds to say, the story progression for that patch wasn’t really for them. Blizzard needed a complete faction break in order to really sell “the horde is bad” to the horde playerbase.

It also seems like the message Blizzard took away from MoP was “we didn’t pin everything on the main faction leader clearly enough” which is why you get bizarre moments like Anduin showing more concern for horde soldiers than Sylvanas in the Battle for Lordaeron, finding that letter from her during the Brennadam attack, and the second Robot Cat moment where you spy on the open horde meeting to watch Sylvanas implicitly give the order to have a forsaken-looking character murdered before arresting Baine. But instead of having a 5.3 moment, Blizzard tried to stretch the fracturing horde subplot across the entire expansion…which results in most of the horde sticking with her after Teldrassil as a result, making it look like that alone wasn’t enough for people to go against her.

8 Likes

He wasn’t killed off immediately. Maybe you missed it but he had a story which you went through a quest line to experience.

Presumably the story’s purpose was to highlight the fact the Forsaken were human once and many still have feelings towards living relatives.

1 Like

But also that the living have obvious difficulties to see the person they once loved behind the “monster” they have become.
Sadly, the story expands on neither, instead Zelling just gets killed off for cheap shock value, just like the Desolate Council members.

And what about Derek who is now in the horde? What would make him join the faction of his former torturers if not the sad realization that he has no future among his former people because they will never accept him?
I hope we’ll learn more about his motivations and he’s not just “sad undead puppy that follows Calia wherever she goes”.

2 Likes

Same thing that would make a guy named Saul joined the same mystery cult whose members he once hunted, tortured, and slain. A singular event.

1 Like