Calia’s coming in swinging the Light around. She has little to no connection to the realm of undeath besides the fact that she’s, y’know, recently undead. Voss, similarly, is a rogue based more on the Void.
The original eight races were the playable races of the WC3 human and orc races with Night Elves and Undead repping their own playable races. And also gnomes are there. The Forsaken weren’t just zombies, they also had abominations, banshees, slime, zombie horses, apothecaries, meat wagons, rot, blight and a big ol’ underground necropolis complete with a ziggurat.
Calia and Voss, meanwhile, are separated from all of that. Whereas the original Forsaken was a part of the Scourge that rebelled, and whereas Night Elves maintain their ties to dryads, moonwells, moon priestesses, ancients and nature, Forsaken are at an odd crossroads where they could suddenly drift away from their original WC3 roots entirely.
Is this possible? How would Voss and especially Calia be connected to the more dark and spooky aesthetics that the race has been known for for 18 years now?
This is the question. Voss seems like she’s less inclined to alter that aesthetic. She is fairly representative of the Forsaken experience, even if she hasn’t been A Forsaken until now. She has the necessary experiences, despite her distance. Calia in contrast is a bit weird … I have no idea what to make of her. Especially with her apparently following Bolvar into the Shadowlands? Where she may or may not be stuck for the interim of the story there.
Which means Voss will be solo leading them in that timeframe if she is.
I’ve never really cared for the Forsaken or their aesthetic much, but hopefully it’s not going anywhere, if only because changing it would require effort in rebuilding old content instead of endlessly pushing forward into new content.
Calia is just a be-boobed Anduin. She’s barely undead, and has no place in the Forsaken or Horde. Keep her in the Alliance, maybe for the warhawks to prop up as their claim to Lordaeron, or into the woodchipper with her. Just another awful example of BFA’s binary characters/morality.
We haven’t seen Calia enough to get a measure of her, particularly after her death, but I get the impression that Calia is more…matronly, than Anduin. But we haven’t ever seen how that translates when someone is threatening her “wards.”
Anduin is less Papa Bear and more based on idealism, vision and change. He’s so concerned with the external that he neglects the internal. Calia seems to be more of the opposite and is wholly concerned with her people.
Just because two characters are on the gentler, kinder side, doesn’t mean they’re the same person.
If a group of Stormwind Paladins showed up in Tirisfal, came across Forsaken led by Calia and said “We’re here to exterminate all undead as irredeemable abominations. Except you, because you’re empowered by the Light. Stand aside”; and she refused, and had to actually defend Horde citizens against Alliance soldiers, then I would consider that extremely interesting. Interesting to the point that I am 99% sure that that scenario will never occur in-game because it would not even occur in the minds of current crop of writers.
EDIT: Well, 90% sure. At least it would be a pleasant surprise if it did.
I feel the exact same way. Calia being at odds with the Alliance is a very interesting prospect as the Alliance would finally have a foil in the Horde that isn’t a genocidal tyrant.
Doubt it. People are on suicide watch that Calia is going to lightify some other nonsense, but the reality is that she’s the one who’s changing. For now.
Really not anything to suggest otherwise ingame. From a meta perspective there’s a case to be made, but when there’s in game evidence (scarce) that contradicts it, the meta argument is thrown out the door.
The thing is, there isn’t much in-game to suggest Calia fits with the more monstrous aspects of the Forsaken. We’ve never seen her in the same room as an abomination. She’s never interacted with the Royal Apothecary Society. It’s really hard to know what to think of her as a replacement Forsaken leader when 95% of her interactions have been with the Alliance, the Horde Council and Voss.
Indeed - not suggesting they’re similar; quite the contrary. Point is that Calia is on record (as it were) going more towards the forsaken vs. taking them away from their own aesthetics and whatnot.
In life, I was raised to hate the undead. Trained to destroy them.
When I became Forsaken, I hated myself most of all.
But now I see it is the Alliance that fosters this malice. The human kingdoms shun their former brothers and sisters because we remind them what’s lurking beneath the facade of flesh.
It’s time to end their cycle of hatred. The Alliance deserves to fall.
So, if anything goes wrong, she’ll have to accept even more of what the forsaken are. After all, she was spreading the idea that undead can never go back, so they have to embrace being forsaken. She’ll have to back these words with action.
She’s a different beast. She might never be connected to “dark”. From BtS:
There was nothing of darkness in this undead woman.
Also, given how the Light affects the undead, just her presence alone next to the undead might change them, regardless of what they want, of if she had such intentions.
Some examples of the Light effects
Record of undead emoting positive emotions are rare, though there are reports, however, that some Forsaken have slowly experienced a sharpening of their dulled senses of touch, smell, etc., as well as an increase in the flashes of positive emotions that have otherwise become so rare since their fall into undeath, when influenced by the Holy Light. The drawback however, is that they also become disgusted with themselves and are likely to increase attempts at their own self-destruction; for regaining these senses would force the undead to smell their own rotting flesh, taste the decay in their mouths and throats, and even feel the maggots burrowing within their bodies
When this pet is near, calming chimes fill your mind and remind you of a time long passed.
A’dal:
A soothing light fills you as you approach the naaru. Slow musical chimes echo within your mind and, though a word is not uttered, you feel an assurance of safety.
Now, it seems that Calia herself does not affect the regular living beings, except the ones like Anduin, who accepted the Light. But the exposure to the Light can alter undead. And Calia could be a conduit for naaru power.
[edit: So, IMO she would not change to become like them. But the forsaken very well may become different al long as she stays next to them.]redundant
Actually we may see something along those lines. The Scarlet Crusade is resurgent and they’re claiming they have her “son.” If they decided to attack the Forsaken and Calia entered the fray then we may see her saving her undead people from the paladin zealots of the Scarlet Crusade.
The Scarlet Crusade are evil, and are not members of the Alliance. There’s no moral conflict in fighting to protect anything less than actual loyal Scourge members from them.
Well to be fair, it appears the Alliance may want to help them if the Scarlet Crusade’s pamphlets have nuggets of truth. Establishing an Alliance friendly Lordaeron is the goal. The question is how we get there? I would suggest the Alliance supports the Scarlet Crusade under Turalyon and Greymane. Then the Scarlet Crusade betrays the Alliance support. Then both the Alliance and the Horde go after them yet again… We do know Calia would likely be against the Crusade since they hate all undead and will not work with her undead people.
…lore-wise how are there even any Scarlet Crusaders left, where are they based, and who do they recruit from? Tyr’s Hand was wiped out in Wrath/Cata, the monastery in Legion. Do they still have chunk of Stratholme? Maybe a couple of isolated farms in Tirisfal? Again those places should all be wiped out during low level Forsaken/Horde questing. Are they still composed of Lordaeron humans who survived the Scourge only to go bat$#!+ in their own way under secret demonic rule, or at this point are they made up of Stormwind recruits who swallowed the Kool-aid of their ambassador from Classic and headed up north?
On that note, it’s always been sad/black comedy that so many of the humans who survived the demonically-manipulated genocidal Scourge ended up demonically-manipulated genocidal zealots.
Trying to make the Crusade a coherent villain again would just be sad. If they’re going to do anything with the survivors, they should move them in a different direction.
Honestly, they should never have severed the Crusade from the Alliance in the first place. The first real blow to the Forsaken story happened back when they did that.
