We’re seen a lot of undead from Northrend with intact minds. They’re not all mindless.
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That’s fair. But I also feel like it wasnt unnatural development. How many necromancers are left to kill at this point? Her finding some semblance of peace and non doomed purpose worked for me.
As a Forsaken player you kinda handle her transition poorly and she runs off screaming. Then is almost killed by the Scarlets. Then makes a Crusade of her own on them and everyone to ever wear a goat skull. And almost dies a miserable death doing so by refusing to work with others.
Her maturing is great and given some more time I’d be totally down for her to be a Forsaken leader. She’s there from the start afterall. But, just, way too soon right now.
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Undead are scary. If we weren’t then we’re just sickly humans who apparently don’t have blacksmiths or weavers to patch our outfits. I’d rather the Forsaken not just become ‘Horde Humans’ who wear red and purple armor.
If you don’t want the Green Gas because Green Gas Bad, then I hope you have something really fantastical to replace it with. You don’t want us to be Scourge, and yet all I hear is that we should take in the Scourge, which would… make us Scourge.
I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that would fill its place without looking just as bad:
The Forsaken harbor the freed Scourge: Former villains join the Forsaken ranks, and we can very much expect Blizzard to create chaos out of these former Scourge driving the Forsaken once again into stepping up to the plate with the Villain Bat.
The Forsaken use regular Necromancy and continue raising corpses: Could be seen as a good thing, since it would be pulling souls who may have been sent to the Maw back into a less-Maw place, but since we’re going to the Shadowlands to fix the Maw problem, this just goes back the same tired arguments about raising the dead we’ve had since vanilla.
The Forsaken integrate with undeath-seeking humans: Whether they’re former members of the Cult of the Damned, or converts like Zelling, the Forsaken integrate living humans into their society, with the living acting like a protected “child” class who “mature” into Forsaken at the end of their lives. There’s far less room for abuse, but it would require significant development, and the Alliance would cry foul because now the Horde has Humans even if they aren’t playable.
There’s so much potential that Blizzard could use, but honestly I don’t think they’ll bother. Really I don’t.
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But the ones with the capacity for thought aren’t enslaved. Which means they’re agents of the Scourge and presumably either
- Tried to join the Forsaken or KotEB already.
- Went into hiding
- Died
One note I’m happy wasn’t seen Horde side was the San’Layn. The San’Layn?! They arrogantly offer us to rejoin the Lich King in Vengance Landing then obliterate a dozen Forsaken when we pointedly say no.
I’d make an exception for Kel’Thuzad under the proviso it’s his voiced by Michael McConnohie incarnation. Because anyone who wouldnt want that version of KT on their side just hates joy. But every other Scourge sympathizer would, at best, need to join extremely quietly.
Jeez oh man. The race just had it’s existence invalidated, all of its themes dumpstered, lost it’s two biggest and only noteworthy characters (who apparently never cared about the race), lost it’s capital (which wasn’t even allowed to be acknowledged because they’re reduced to the bad guys so they can’t be sympathetic), and lost it’s means of procreation. Let them keep their goofy green goop.
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I don’t consider bts and bfa “good” or exciting in any way from a forsaken fan standpoint. Idk if it has been the Ultimate Dumpster Fire of the Ages, either though.
I look at the Orcs and see Sadfang, and Sadthrall.
I look at the Tauren and see the High Chieftain courting a human man.
I look at the Trolls and I thought I might have seen Rokhan for a second.
Then I look for the Pandaren… Ji is fantasizing about punching dinosaurs- which could actually have been the best recent story for a horde character if they followed it up right.
Shadowlands could still not suck, even though I hate the entire idea of the shadowlands being an expansion destination. I know it’s almost a creepy level of optimism, but… maybe they turn things around?
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I didn’t play MoP and only ever noticed Ji after I unlocked flying.
He looks out upon this golden city and vast, unspoiled wilderness and has one thought and one thought alone.
‘Imma punch a t-rex’
That was my first and only interaction with the character.
10/10 best Horde leader of BFA.
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I did the right thing in the Sludge Fields. And I did the right thing during “Zul’s Ethical Dilemma”. 
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At this point if the shovel what can render moral judgement wants to be a character I’m up for it.
Just give it a seat at meetings. Never draw attention to it. Players who’ll know will get it. Let everyone else be confused.
Call it Magistrate Diggs. Maybe have it clatter to the ground if a bad call is made.
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The Legion priest campain, I thought, or hoped, would open up the way for some good forsaken stories, but not much materialized from that. I guess they still can do something with it though.
For real. I’m not even sure what they were thinking. I personally have never smashed a seedlings head in… I do wonder what the animation looks like though… But Stillwater should have stayed executed- THAT is is how I felt walking away from Sludge Fields, “That psycho was more psycho than me- not allowed. Justice was served.”
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Hot take, Kat.
Having a normal one, as usual.
I have to keep it real with you chief, i reallyyyyyy really need a TL;DR version right now
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This is the best description of the BfA plot that I have seen.
Excellent post, OP. A wonderful read. I agree with every single one of your points.
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Well, I do. I think the previous character named Lillian Voss was far too opposed to the idea of necromancy to ever have the conversations that the current character named Lillian Voss has with Zelling. But I certainly don’t want to talk you out of liking one of your few points of solace in the current storyline.
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Gotta disagree. I think there’s a hard difference between what the Forsaken do and the usual brand of necromancy. She launched herself on a killing spree that starts with the Scarlet Crusade and leads to the Cult of the Damned.
She’s never portrayed as adversarial toward the Forsaken. She notes the in grained hatred of the undead bred into her in life kinda led to her on that path that nearly left her dying of unspeakable agony in the corner of Scholomance.
Her stated purpose is to try to help newly risen Forsaksn avoid that path. She was trying to destroy herself and everyone she hated in the process. I’m kinda happy she learned to accept herself and is now trying to help new Forsaken do the same. That’s actually a really solid arc. Maybe a jarring move toward it but I liked it.
I’m just not expecting a gradual character point a to b to c to d story here from anyone much less a reoccurring supporting role. But I’m happy with where she ended up even if it feels like we missed some stuff.
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I feel like it’s missing too many stones. It could be the way you say, but they ask us just to buy that it all happened offstage and very abruptly. If they were going to pull this kind of switch in Lilian, it needed a quest-chain on the level of Jaina’s Big Journey of Emotional Healing™ and probably some cutscenes too, to make it believable. Instead, it’s as if Jaina went straight from her Warbringers video to the scene where she says they should let the Zandalari grieve for Rastakhan.
And I neither see the big difference between Forsaken and other necromancers that you do, nor, more importantly, think the original Lillian Voss would see it.
But once again, if you still like something about the story, I don’t want to stand in your way.
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Voss is nowhere near as popular as Jania. What you just suggested would be awesome but - yeah that was never going to happen.
I’m sure plenty of Horde players thought she was a new character when interacting with her.
And yes I think there’s a solid difference between making someone a murderous meat puppet who their conciousness needs to helplessly watch and, basically just themselves but with some dramatic weight loss and a new taste for raw meat. Who’s free to just do whatever.
Like I said it was an abrupt move but - it’s a good place for the character to have wound up I think. Could’ve been handled better but we’re talking about BFA so, good writing of any variety gets a banana sticker from me.
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You too are beautiful Voss…
The Val’kyr themselves are proof that this isn’t the case.
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I’m wondering what happened to Shadowmaster Kiryn. Just got around to MoP content in a playthrough and damn that voice is, uh, notable.
Same VActor as Azshara in BFA, Laura Post. What I wanna know is why our toons have to sound like Orlando barflies while other undead get the smoothest damn voices.
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