Despite my grievances with Golden I do think Warcraft is poorer without her.
Did the infamous white-haired warlock ever make it into the game?
1 Like
She should have stayed living and stayed a member of the Alliance. Worst misstep in the series trying to make her the Forsaken Queen. IMHO they should just revive her and put her back firmly in the Alliance. She’s not a Horde character and Blizz pretending they can make it work only makes it worse. Just make Vos the faction leader or something. You know, a character Forsaken players actually want.
Golden revealed on Twitter that she never actually made story decisions. Apparently even her team couldn’t do it. That was always left up to the C suite. I honestly don’t think the story is better or worse without her. By her own admissions she had little to nothing to do with it.
1 Like
I think it would have been cool if she became the representative of the Lordaeron survivors and the Alliance used her a casus belli to attack Lordaeron.
“We’re going to liberate Lordaeron and put its true queen on the throne.” is what they would say.
1 Like
I wouldn’t have any issues with Golden if she didn’t make it known after writing Before the Storm that when she was approached to write about the Forsaken, she admitted she knew nothing about them, and just remade their entire society and physiology whole-cloth from the ground up in order to meet the needs of her story.
Prior pieces of Forsaken fiction even had Garrosh’s orcs noting that a Forsaken could have half his skull blown away by an Alliance gunline, and he’d still be functioning and capable of fighting.
Forsaken characters have been found in game during questing torn into several pieces, and you help put them back together and they’re fine. It’s typical slapstick for the Undead.
But then here comes Golden, and she writes that they’re afraid to clap for fear of destroying themselves, or that they might shiver into pieces. She emphasized that every time she brought up a Forsaken character that wasn’t Sylvanas.
It told me she was the worst author to give a writing prompt about Undead in Warcraft.
15 Likes
I cannot think of a single more damaging book to the forsaken then before the storm, it took everything people liked about the forsaken and threw it away
9 Likes
This was something I suggested back in Cata, when apparently most of the players and devs had forgotten about her. I honestly regret mentioning her at this point if this is how they are going to use her.
True. I don’t blame her for any major story developments. But she wasn’t completely powerless. They didn’t dictate every word of the novels, otherwise what’s the point of having a writer?
Also I liked how she wrote character dialogue.
1 Like
This is one of the things we have all actively wondered for some time. Given the control Blizz exercised over the story. From what she said it was all major story decisions.
I’ve read Golden’s other work. Controlling her to that degree was a mistake. That said, letting her populate WC with her self inserts was also a mistake.
1 Like
IIRC and don’t quote me cause i don’t have anything except what i’v heard, they did dictate the plot point of a light undead, but exactly who would become the light undead was up to golden
3 Likes
Don’t come for me but that should have been Tirion. Not Calia Golden. I mean Calia Menethil. Oh… wait… no I don’t.
2 Likes
Yes, it was on Twitter.
She had to pitch it (Calia becoming a light zombie) to Blizzard, but she said they liked the idea and gave her permission to go with it.
3 Likes
She’s talked a lot about politicking for certain characters like Anduin/Jaina to be used more.
She wasn’t making final decisions, but she absolutely had some say given she apparently got her way quite a bit. And that was before she was officially brought onboard the team.
But yeah, she absolutely didn’t have full control, simply because she kept on writing Jaina to have calmed down in the Post Cata era books, then Blizzard would keep writing her as a psycho until late BFA.
2 Likes
I was a little disappointed when poor Albert was acidified and didnt keep talking out of his skull as if everything was fine.
1 Like
People seem to have forgotten that orcs were using necromancy as far back as the First War, when Necrolyte’s could raise skeletons, and then again in WC2 when Gul’dan created the first Death Knights.
Ooohh that’s right.
THATS WHY I HATE THAT BOOK!
I read it so long ago and I had forgotten why I found it so horrid.
Amazing.
2 Likes
Do you have a source for that?
Just want to make sure my rotten fruit hits the right one.
2 Likes
It was in a tweet, quoted and linked here:
The tweet says, “‘Pushed’ is probably too strong a word. I definitely lit up when I learned that Calia Menethil was out there. (Big puppy eyes may have been involved.) But Blizzard was certainly on board and excited once it came up for discussion. Then it was co-creation all the way!"
3 Likes
This just made it sink in how badly they’ve butchered Horde leaders over the years :[
9 Likes
And so, the bar sinks even lower because we continue to handwave it
I wish you could hear me clapping right now.
6 Likes