Voss takes her place. Nathanos takes her place. Lydon takes her place. Alot of directions they can go with that.
I’m never sure where this bizarre tendency to treat Calia like an option for Forsaken leader comes from, much less the only choice.
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Force them all out of the Horde into a 3rd faction, while also making Undead High Elves, Drakkari Trolls, Nerubians and whatever other Scourge races are needed so the Undead folks can have their all-Undead faction under the new Lich Queen and really embrace the role of being the baddies that they have been craving.
An evil faction that embraces being evil and plays like the DK intro scenario would be fun.
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Probably because Golden spent like the entirety of BtS contrasting the two, with Calia calling Sylv a false Queen coupled with her desire to lead “her people”. Also, just the fact that Forsaken players are imagining the worst possible outcome from this expansion since it’s been a pretty disastrous narrative so far.
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Nathanos is still firmly in Sylvanas’s camp, having shown only the slightest slivers of doubt, and the other two aren’t full leadership material. Voss is a field agent and Lydon’s screentime can be measured in seconds.
Calia is the only person who -
- Has been framed as a leader
- Has clear ideological contrast to Sylvanas
- Has at least one member of the writing team completely in love with her
Every other option fails on at least one of these points. Except Bolvar, I suppose.
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This.
She’s never affiliated herself with the Forsaken except in this book. She doesn’t understand them, only claiming she wants to, while spending time with their enemies. It’s written all over that book that she’s going to be the next Sylvanas for the Forsaken, by freeing them from the tyrannical grip of their own Queen, as Sylvanas did for them against the Lich King.
But she’s not even coming from a place of compassion, instead it’s pity. She’s better than the people she wants to govern, and is going to be their white savior. Literally.
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I get that. There are several Forsaken npcs that COULD be set up to replace Sylvanas. But they have yet to show any meaningful build up to that.
Even though thus far it’s contained to a book, Calia’s had the most set up for a Sylvanas replacement. That’s my thoughts on that. A couple others expanded on it better than me though, so check them out.
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I prefer they get the Darkspear treatment before being ruled by Calia because the light told her to be a ruler and she wants the feeling of power and not being an useless eye candy.
Besides changing the val’kyr necromancy for light necromancy would be pointless and even idiotic in so many ways that actually fir the mindset of the current writing team.
A thought occurs to me. Maybe they made Sylvanas an ultra villain with the mistaken impression that Forsaken players want to be good people? What if they did this to Sylvanas with that in mind to try to make the Horde cozy up to the idea of Calia?
I’d be mega disappointed in Blizzard, were that the case.
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You are correct, Treng! You are very, very correct.
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I’ve often thought about this topic. About how the Forsaken might persevere or change if Sylvanas checks out as leader.
Of course, there’s the idea that Calia might take over. It’s an abhorrent idea. But I did have sort of a funny thought.
If the Forsaken ever are disenfranchised from Sylvanas, what the heck do they plan to do with the Forsaken insignia? You know, the Shattered Mask? Or, officially I think it’s called the “Icon of Torment”.
Almost the whole thing is one giant homage to Sylvanas. The mask, itself, represents her. And though I don’t know if it’s official, people often say the three arrows (2 intact, 1 broken) represent the Windrunner sisters.
So if you kick Sylvanas out, what do you do? Change it? Ignore it? Try and re-contextualize it?
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Lilian Voss could get a neat mask.
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I thought about this too because they recently updated the Forsaken banner for Darkshore. It’s just one arrow now and the mask looks more pissed than sad.
Forever Loyal. The Forsaken belong to Sylvanas. If you are not among us, you are in the ground.
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Out of all the gross stuff in that book, the false queen stuff made me legitimately upset. They chose her as their leader, they wanted to follow her. But I suppose someone who abandoned her people for years would know better then the actual people who chose their leader.
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my vote is for the straw men guild on wyrmrest accord to take over.
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I mean, until you raise us back up out of the ground. It’s kinda your thing; ruining a perfectly fine nap.
Seeing as the Horde narrative clearly isn’t being written with Horde players in mind, perhaps Blizzard will pick the Alliance’s favourites. Then at least someone will be happy!
We could have:
Warchief/Tauren: Baine, obvs.
Orcs: Saurfang
Darkspear: no one
Blood Elves: Valeera
Goblins: Renzik
Forsaken: Calia
Zandalari: ummm…are there any pro-Alliance Zandalari?
Nightborne: Oculeth
Mag’har: Garrosh Lightscream
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likely get a neutral storyline leader
like how Thrall, Garrosh, Saurfang, Nazgrim and Grommash did not and do not represent the entirety of the Orcs but simply parts of there identity.
The Forsaken became Sylvannas, which was always an awkward development since they are built upon there freewill and self determination. Thrall does not represent the entirety of the Orcs he represents there search for redemption and peace, Saurfang represents there honorable past and present, Garrosh represented there search for conquest and glory, Hellscream represented there bloodlust and redemption.
there are so many different facets to the Orcs shown in game over the years and i use the Orcs because i dont believe even the night elves were given as much racial development (or maybe close). In either case when thrall wants something that represents Thralls wishes only and the reasoning he gives, when Sylvannas wants something the Forsaken dont have any varying opinions in game her word and whims become law for the forsaken narrative… this needs to change.
Zelling was a perfect example of how the forsaken should have been displayed very differing views on how to approach a situation and many arguing points over ethics, goals and strategy. its honestly backwards that the one race that should have multiple racial leaders are the forsaken yet they dont, and the Orcs who’s government pre-horde should lead to a single leader and a sigle voice ahve multiple.
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Sylvanas is the Varian of the Forsaken - while there may be individually interesting characters in the faction, they cannot get a spotlight for more than brief periods so long as she is alive, as she is the writers’ singular focus.
Her death may be the best thing that can happen to the Forsaken story in the long run.
…Unless Calia ends up being leader. Ugh.
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This is an interesting and worthwhile analogy: Varian to Sylvanas. One thing that helped Varian was Jaina playing off V’s less emotional side: we saw it in ICC and the cinematic leading to Ulduar and again in battle for undercity. I think this helped frame Varian.
Who is that for Sylvanas? A character that offers a counterpoint simply by interacting with them. I don’t have the answer; it’s a genuine, non rhetorical question.
As an aside, I think when a character has another character to relate to, it makes it much harder to “kill them off, “ due to that character going rogue, so to speak.