Yeah how about she stays a major character and actually has a story arc related to her people instead of writing her out of the story in favour of “Sylvanas But A Guy”? The fact that the next best option people can suggest is Nathanos says a lot (especially given how many people also say he sucks and were glad he died etc. etc.)
“Her villain bat arc sucked” has never been a reason to kill her off (either literally or figuratively).
In Cataclysm she was very much established to be a villainous character.
We had a short story in which she establishes that her main motivation is self-preservation with the trade-off of exploiting her own people, which just become “arrows in her quiver”.
And even then, she already endorsed and supported a lot of crimes in her kingdom. From Hillsbrad’s extermination of humans, to robbing ogres of free will to use them as mind puppets, the lobomization of humans, the development of a terrible plague of undeath (tested on living subjects) that would be deadly to the dead and the living alike - and all of this before the expansionist drive she would start to have in Cataclysm, where she would herself go to the point of kidnapping and torturing people like Koltira because he was too “soft” in his approach with the Alliance.
Like, yeah, she has trauma.
But no, she has never been a morally grey character. She was just an evil anti-hero with few redeeming qualities: grief, a longing for something she had lost (family, life, etc), but even then her solution was to turn her sister (Vereesa) into an undead (War Crimes).
And I kind of liked her, because you wouldn’t know what she would do next. People like villains. You are allowed to like a villain too, but it doesn’t make them good.
That’s hundreds, thousands of minor tribes, communities and cities razed only to be then blasted into the ocean’s depths.
Doom to the usurpers and their lackeys. (I really wish this point of lore was considered and given the gravitas it deserves, rather than scapegoating Azshara - Elune was in on this too via the Night Warrior.)
Don’t know if it helps to have a direct link. For those who cannot see, it’s a map comparison of the Kaldorei empire and the Empire of Zul (showing how the kaldorei empire conquered the empires around it.)
Kingdoms come and go, and as evolved Trolls, they just continued on with a unified Empire instead of multiple Empires that only squabbled and fought over scraps…
Had it not been the Kaldorei, then perhaps the Zandalari or the Amani would’ve overtaken the other Empire, it just looks like the Dark Trolls were fasted then the other Empires
Nobody blames the Pandaren Empire for overthrowing the Mogu Empire and rule in their stead.
Pandaren had the decency to not blow themselves and the Empire they conquered into a watery grave… (Much discourse has been had on the actual merits of faction hatreds, I’m indulging in pseudo-IC memery.)
Yeah, the snark bordering on aggression is tangible and it’s getting weird.
I legit cringe a little every time I read her name.
Edit: While we’re on the topic of AU, Calia never should’ve been separated from her husband and child in Southshore. They should’ve boarded a boat and eventually have ended up in Kul Tiras due to Calia’s fond memories of her childhood friendship with Jaina.
Would much rather have seen her as an influential albeit minor-esque noble in BfA than a light-infused lore shredder.
“Bordering on aggression”. It’s not hard to understand why I might politely request Gabrindion not do a second attempt at tone policing me in this thread for something that’s not there.
Your objection above was with me supposedly reading something that’s not there, so I’m sure you can sympathise.
The first “attempt” was honestly not unfounded with how you expressed yourself regarding the whole Lightbound and Mag’har business, but sure, I’ll stop.
