Just a quick side-note: Voss is there, she’s next to Nazgrim and Mayla Highmountain. She just doesn’t say anything. For some reason Calia is hogging all the screen time.
Sweet Jamba Juice, all of this.
If it weren’t for Voss’ hamfisted cram back into the Forsaken storyline after bolting and never returning from Cataclysm onwards, I’d be 100% on board with this.
She is a good portrayal of a good aligned Forsaken, she just… isn’t Forsaken, in the political sense.
If they develop her as a character, without ever actually putting her in a position of leadership, I’d be happy if she started taking camera time.
I wish Forsaken would get an extra questline in the shadowlands that would make them cope out their new situation and introduce new characters so we have it easier to move on from Sylvanas now that she is gone. Just a little win. Nothing big.
They deserve something big. Bigger than what the night elves are getting. The night elves lost absolutely nothing but a city and one zone. The forsaken lost that and everything the forsaken have literally been built around since 2,004.
The problem is that the Forsaken need something big to move on.
Like, I don’t think a questline is enough for them to even deal with the fact they need to change their racial flag since it’s one of Sylvanas’ symbols, let alone begin dealing with the collapse of their entire way of life so soon after losing their home (again).
I can’t say that I have ever been a huge Voss fan, but that is irrelevant. I think she is a good demonstration of the diversity possible within the Forsaken if Blizzard is willing to develop. A diversity that has always been there. I have always liked Lydon myself. I mean sure he always had a bit of psychotic edge to him, but he was smart and got things done. At the same time, I loved the levelling quest where you had to go capture the murloc as a pet for that Forsaken who just wanted something to take care of.
In short, I think there is a ton of potential in the Forsaken story that could be developed so long as Blizz doesn’t unleash the Calia bulldozer on the story.
The shattered mask to represent a drastically fractured society, Sylvanas’ face as something poetic like “The Sable Reminder”, or something, in that they are well and truly Forsaken by man, the Light and even destiny itself, and the only people who will save them is themselves. No Kings, no Queens, no Lords, in the words of the Lyrical Wordsmith in the year of our Lord, 2020, “No one man should hold all that power”.
That’d save them the effort in trying to get the art boys to think of something new.
Their way of life may be impacted in that they’ve been uprooted from The Undercity to Orgrimmar, but, their overall way of life- the pursuit of survival- hasn’t really changed much, so it doesn’t need much focusing.
Honestly though I didn’t mind that. It’s not like she ever works against the Forsaken. She launches a one woman war against their greatest enemies. I’m glad an undead got to be the end of the Scarlets and Damned in Lordaeron, and she’s there in the Alliance runs too so nobody can dispute that.
And I do think her story makes sense. Her coming full circle and tending to newly risen Forsaken so they avoid the self destructive path she went down is a good arc.
I just think she could use more time to cook. I was hoping she’d get a POV chapter in SR, or at least tear a Dark Rangers head off in that climax. And I detailed some cool stuff you could do with her in SL - but we’re approaching it’s release and seeing nothing thus far is not giving me hope 9.2 is going to have some things for her to do.
Exactly. This has been my impression of their story. I became very excited by Before the Storm, to see character development and independent emotions and preferences by the various forsaken characters.
Seeing both humans and forsaken having varied degrees of comfort or discomfort regarding members of their families torn apart by Arthas was incredible. I would love to see more of this developed in game.
I do mourn Windy’s potential but really she’s been heading in this direction since Edge of Night. That short story wasn’t why I stopped playing WoW for the better part of a decade, but it did pretty firmly cement my disinterest in returning after hearing good things about Cata.
I want Voss as the head because the Forsaken seldom get any screen time. It was frequently Windy or Natty Blight or some Dark Ranger. You seldom got the perspective of just a regular ole’ Forsaken, and when you did it was usually in service to showing off how cool Windy is.
Which is why Calia is probably the worst possible solution to the vacant leadership. She could not have less in common with your typical rank and file Forsaken. Even her aesthetic is completely at odds with the eerie blues, purples and greens that are the Forsaken’s aesthetic pallete. I thought Windrunner was a little too disconnected from the every dead man at times even when I still liked her. Calia’s that dialed up to 11.
The Gathering bothered me not just because it had a terrible ending- but because I was confused why many undead and living families were apparently just now getting around to reintroducing themselves. When there’s several quests where the Forsaken are well aware of their living relatives. Probably most famously with the Barov sons who try to have eachother assassinated to be the sole inheritor of their fallen family’s fortune.
My Mage has a good relationship with her grandchildren, and an ailing old Lordaeronian woman in Stormwind has had all her medical expenses paid on time through anonymous donations - from Doctor Iago ‘The Fleshweaver’ Kaligari. He may be a chaotic evil mad scientist but he’s not a bad son.
I think a tangible connection to the living can give nuance to a lot of Forsaken characters. But I’d just assumed the families that knew of eachother and still cared had already interacted. And until that exact moment, Windrunner didn’t hold undead against their will, so anyone who wanted to go try to live in their kids basement in Stormwind presumably could’ve.
I just assumed many Forsaken had no interest in doing that for the same reason a human probably wouldn’t want to come live with their dad in the Undercity. Even if there were no social issues and safety wasn’t a concern - the quality of life requirements for the living and undead could not be more different.
They don’t lurk in cursed cemeteries and haunted forests just to be on brand. They hang out there because that’s their version of the lovely Arathi farm Shaw wants to retire to. What’s foreboding to the living is comfortable to the undead.
Happy Forsaken Day! Happy no more “I’m an Alliance Paladin and I firmly believe Calia Menethil should be the one and only Queen of the Forsaken and I’m arguing in good faith” Day.
Undercity will be ours again!!!