What's going to happen with Calia?

12 years or so ago I created a thread on this forum, which was intended to be the start of an RP, but that never happened. The premise was that Calia Menethil had a secret, lowborn husband and a daughter, who had disappeared after the Scourge invasion.

Weirdly, the Before the Storm book went the same route. I of course am not saying “OMG they stole my idea!” since I would have no way of knowing that, it’s all their lore anyway, it’s not that hard an idea to come up with, etc. Plus I don’t want to get bogged down in people calling BS since obviously I can’t prove it.

Real point is to speculate on how this could go. My idea was that

  1. Calia herself was dead (I was wrong about this, she’s alive, I am not sure how/if they explained where the heck she’s been all this time)
  2. Her lowborn husband got killed by the Scourge and was now a Forsaken, who had mostly forgotten being a human, but it came back to him in flashes
  3. Her daughter was alive and adopted by a family in Redridge, but neither she herself nor anyone around knew who she was.

This of course means that the daughter, unbeknownst to anyone, is actually the heir to Lordaeron. The fun starts when all kinds of groups with their own agendas start to figure this out. Horde extremists would obviously want to kill her. Some Alliance would want to use her as a figurehead - others of THEM might want to kill her for some political reason. The only one who really has her interests at heart (I thought) would be her father - but he’s undead and has no clue where she is.

Calia being “alive” does change this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if things went down something like this.

Anyone have a thought? Or has this been done to death? Been a while since I looked at this forum…

Edited: I see there was a lot of discussion of how the father could be Bolvar. Interesting. I guess when I read the book, I wanted the father to be undead so that it would follow my plot, but it doesn’t actually say that.

I think the chances that Calia’s daughter will show up in the game someday are about 99%. (Assuming she’s not Taelia Fordragon, which has some logistical problems, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it.)

Sylvanas will ultimately go after anyone she perceives as a threat. So while she might go after Calia and/or her daughter, that just puts her in the same category that most of Azeroth either is or will eventually find itself in.

Ultimately, however I don’t think she’s going to have a chance. Sylvanas likely isn’t going to be a Horde leader anymore post-BfA and Calia can’t appear until 8.2.5 at the earliest.

That creates a situation where Sylvanas will likely have more pressing concerns between a challenge to her leadership AND dealing with the rise of N’Zoth. Any clash between Sylvanas and Calia will likely happen after Sylvanas is dethroned and therefore won’t be able to order the Horde player around.

If we’re lucky, she’ll marry Med’an and they can live happily together in the nether-realm that he’s been banished to.

29 Likes

Given Sylvanas shot her in the book, wouldn’t it make sense for Sylvanas to send Horde players after her daughter?

Calia’s fate remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t put off there being some creation of some form of “Undead of Lordaeron” faction built around her and Faol.

That being said … her fate could also heavily tie into Bolvar or perhaps even Taelia (to what effect, that remains to be seen). I highly doubt she’s being set up as a direct replacement for Sylvanas as the leader of the “Forsaken” however (at least I certainly hope not)…

5 Likes

This far into the expansion I doubt she’ll appear at all. I had always assumed she’d lead a group of undead separatists to the Alliance similar to the void elves.

Then again I thought a lightforged Garrosh joining the Alliance was a possibility also, considering how contrived Tyranny of the Light was

3 Likes

Not unless that daughter was trying to claim the throne of Lordaeron.

I have a feeling she is going to be appointed Queen of Lordaeron and Queen of the Forsaken in the post-Sylvanas peace. She will probably have a council made up of Lilian and other Forsaken to help her relate with her people. To forge a new path forward.

When I saw she was returning in Legion, I had hoped she would walk up to Sylvanas, relinquish all claims to rule, and offer to serve her people as a Priest of the Light in service to Sylvanas. That she would see her people are the Undead, and she would serve them as a healer and spiritual guide in penance for her families mistakes. Maybe Sylvanas would allow her to serve.

Then BtS happened. I guess Calia could still offer to aid the Forsaken as a field medic or in a Flesh Workshop/Slaughter House… but that seems unlikely now.

Still think they should’ve made Med’an a villain, it would be a good boss fight.

As for Calia, betting on her being the leader of an undead allied race for Alliance.

2 Likes

Off topic, but Man that is one plot contrives I wanted to see.

The awkwardness of Anduin meeting Lightforged Gary would have been worth it.

4 Likes

That lightBOUND plot line is actually ripe for interesting storytelling tbh.

The idea of seeing what the light used by extremists can do is a fantastic possibility (especially since, unlike MOST “Big Bads”, they want to “save us” … not kill us). Also, forcing the AU Mag’har to go through a similar situation from the AU Draenei that the MU Orcs committed against the MU Draenei also has a lot of story potential.

8 Likes

Or Sylvanas knew there was a daughter in the first place.

To answer the question:

I think Calia’s gonna wind up as leader of the Forsaken or an off-shoot Not-Forsaken Undead Allied Race (The Accepted? The Welcomed?). It’s being set up now, just not sure when it’ll happen.

Also, don’t give me that nonsense about how the Forsaken don’t want Calia to rule them. The only examples we have of Forsaken reacting to Calia is them defecting to join her (and moreso their families). Sylvanas is the only one that reacted negatively.

1 Like

Right … so things get exciting when Sylvanas finds that out.

Honestly, in BtS, it really doesn’t make sense that Genn and Anduin heard from Calia that she had a daughter and didn’t make that connection themselves. Obviously, if Sylvanas finds the daughter before they do, she’s dead. They really should have thought of that.

Sylvanas is not going to wait till Calia’s daughter actually puts in her claim if she (Sylvanas) can just get rid of her quietly.

Why would they want her to rule them? She wasn’t a major royal when they were alive (literally just being a marriage prior to disappearing from the lore) and the entire point of the ill-conceived thought policing was that the Forsaken move on from their lives to their new existence. To most Forsaken Calia would just be another name from their former lives not a leader.
As well, of the Desolate Council we also have examples that they weren’t 100% on board with defecting to her ‘side’.

3 Likes

You know I was thinking, the fire of Alexstrasza the Lifebinder made Bolvar some kind of immortal.
Maybe it should’ve been firebound Calia. And if they make an allied race out of it, do some Dark Souls inspired fire undead theme. Instead of lightbound.

There is already that connection with Bolvar being one and former Alliance.

1 Like

That might be or it might not. Again, the only examples we have where she is recognized by Forsaken is from The Gathering.

The Desolate Council members that figure out who she is die trying to join her (along with the ones that had no clue what was going on).

Sylvanas recognized her and considered her enough of a threat to her hold over the Forsaken to murder her and risk war with the Alliance (earlier than she was prepared for).

I haven’t seen anything to support the notion that Forsaken feel strongly ambivalent or disdainful toward her.

I’m not harboring any strong desire to see her as Queen of the Forsaken but it looks like she’s being built up so that she could fulfill that role.

But she also said she herself wasn’t interested in it (at least for the moment), leaving me to wonder if her daughter is going to step up (or at least if Sylvanas is going to worry that she will…)

Taelia is 100% her daughter.

A daughter of the Lich King is introduced in an expansion, with a mysterious off-screen “deceased” mother, who then proceeds to establish herself as a badass and concludes with her meeting Anduin and going off hand in hand to learn about daddy’s new job.

Meanwhile, the Princess of Lordaeron comes back with a bang, becoming some kind of weird Light-undead parallel to the Lich King, with a mysterious unnamed missing-presumed-dead husband and daughter.

Both of these plots are introduced and presumably written around the same time. The chances of them not being connected are pretty much nil. Blizzard isn’t that subtle.

5 Likes

I agree. Especially when I combine the cut scenes involving Bolvar with the Vol’jin spirit quest jazz, it makes me realize that there’s a strong possibility that all these characters will play a role in either this expansion, the transition between 8.X and 9.0, or simply just 9.0.