I think it’s fair to get mad whenever Calia’s involved to be honest
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Calia is frustrating because, even before death, she had the potential to be an interesting character. Like so many other Big Name characters, though, she feels totally wasted in shoehorning in whatever railroady, ‘big new shiny’ plot point the current tranche of writers wanted, rather than feeling like a character with development.
Imagine a written world where you had a living Calia, a Menathil, having to talk to Sylvanas, one of the top ten people who’d had to deal with Arthas’ catastrophic fall and collateral.
Or just, y’know, not stupidly villain batting Sylvanas and ruining however many years of actual character development. That woulda been nice…
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This… Really wasn’t the case. The Alliance had plenty of moments, with both night elves and humans often occupying a prominent position.
The whole Night Warrior story with the Darkshore Warfront having an Alliance-dedicated follow-up (the night elves defeating the Forsaken), and then Anduin trying to help Saurfang, the expansion ultimately ending up with Magni Bronzebeard, previously a leader of the Alliance, helping us defeat N’Zoth, with Anduin getting the spotlight as the one leader the factions could reasonably rally behind because - well, who led the Horde at that point, even?
This goes without mentioning Jaina’s entire arc, the invasion of Zandalar and before, all of Kul Tiras, arguably mechagon, and some minor bits with Azshara.
Yes, the Horde had plot too, mostly the Sylvanas vs. Saurfang arc because if you did not like that, good luck enjoying yourself, but it does not mean the Alliance did not have their share.
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Absolutely.
They seem to be willing to touch races like the Forsaken who have an Alliance-centric character like Calia involved with them but as for the actual Horde races they haven’t really been touched since BfA besides some choice Troll stuff so they can give Draenei their heritage armour and some moments trying to address the Tauren hatred for Centaur.
The biggest example of this has to be the Goblins. At the end of BfA Gazlowe was put in charge of the Bilgewater Cartel by Thrall. While the process of Thrall just plonking another Goblin in charge of the Cartel and handwaving it off like he did with Gallywix is problematic in itself, ever since we have seen precisely zero Goblin lore other than Gallywix being in Tazavesh. No sign of what changes he made to the Cartel, no sign of what happened with Ratchet and relations with the Steamwheedles, he was just shoehorned in and the race was abandoned.
With War Within so far looking like it is going to have a lot of Dwarf lore (which I’m happy with don’t get me wrong) and the story will have a lot for Anduin, I think unless we somehow go to the Undermine we’ll be having another Alliance focused expansion and we’ll probably next see the Horde in Midnight… When they’ll likely just let the Alliance into Silvermoon and we’ll focus on Alleria. 
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They blew it with Calia. I was moderately interested when she resurfaced in Legion, and what little time she had as a living character dealing with the horror of her past had potential… but then they needed to install an investment in the Forsaken’s future leadership and killed her off in the very novel she first had some character study going for her.
It didn’t help matters that her brand of undeath (once again) left the Forsaken with leadership looking nothing like them.
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The fact they did yet another character death not in the freaking game is just… well, its entirely par for the course at this point, but it doesn’t suck any less.
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Yeah I don’t really see the “It was all about the Horde!” angle.
If anything BfA is the one expansion where things for once felt somewhat 50/50 regarding how much attention the factions got until it turned into fighting random spooky squids instead.
I know Alliance is the go-to faction for people with main character syndrome (this is not me saying everyone who plays blue is that way) but man
Not just potential, she was interesting. The living heir to a nation now alien to her, of which the people dwell in undeath. Her distancing herself from her supposed ‘birthright’ of ruling Lordaeron.
It was actually interesting, it actually felt like a unique kind of character that could go somewhere.
And then Before the Storm happened and, well, y’know. The rest is history.
Having not read that book I was really perplexed why that humble Menethil (or rather, “just Calia”, by her words.) from the Legion priest hall suddenly popped up again as a pasty bioluminescent creature that dresses like royalty in the middle of BfA.
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Well to be honest Blizzard owed the Alliance one after BfA in which the Alliance loses Darnassus under terrible circumstances while the Horde nukes their own capital in a " Haha even when I lose, I win " moment.
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Calia is the embodiment of a privileged college graduate who went to a third world country for a week and now says they ‘really feel for the people and understand their plight’.
They could of made her better by having her lurking among the forsaken in disguise after her death, listening to them, talking to them, all while Sylvanas waged her war.
But instead, she pops up and everything is handed to her.
She never earnt it.
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She was gonna be forcefully married to Deathwing 
Ahh.
Americans.
(I know, I know. I also don’t care, allow me my bitterness.)
Another thing Blizz seem to have completely forgotten about is Pandaren race and Pandaria in general. With members of Alliance, Horde and all in-between it’s one of few rare options to take a non-biased look at both factions, their influence on the world around and their good or bad sides, as well as try and propose some sensibly peaceful ways to co-exist. Ji and Aysa could and maybe should have been among the first to represent their factions in the world, as well as speaking for the non-aligned Pandaren. And this too could make a compelling story, like raising the question of necessity of the outposts in Krasarang that do nothing justifying their existence (at least as we see them in-game), but the harm to the nature they have caused and the readiness to continue fighting over the jungle yet again is hard to ignore. And this is all aside of the pure Horde things, like what even is the point for a Pandaren to join a faction that has been known for their evil since the mists’ fall and has not changed except for partially becoming like the Alliance. But again, it would require revamping not only the old world, but Pandaria as well, so I’m not sure we’ll ever see Pandaren NPCs in-game except for that one shaman in the Waking Shores… even though Li Li would have been a magnificent addition to the explorers all across Azeroth.
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The Forsaken should have, following Sylvanas defeat, rejected the notion of a single leadership figure & AND monarchy(So no Calia) and let the council have an equal voice to form some kind of undead council Republic or Democracy.
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Calia and Alonsus would have worked infinitely better as an adventuring duo, always on the run from Forsaken and Alliance who want to use her for their own ends in Lordaeron.
Infrequently popping up here and there in relevant plotlines or being disguised and having vague hints to their true identity.
Lilian Voss doesn’t deserve to be in any form of Forsaken leadership either, to be honest. A literal shonen who ham-fisted into the BFA story.
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I thought her Cata/MoP story when it was assumed to be the end for her to be a fitting conclusion. She rejected being undead, got her revenge on the family and people that abandoned her to her fate & also got help take down Gandling and deal a harsh blow to the scourge even if it seemingly killed her. Which is what she wanted.
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Have the two of them be the caretakers of the Netherlight Temple, using it as a base of operations and ensuring niether the Light nor the Void becomes too powerful on Azeroth or whatever
Nah, we need Calia front and center from BFA onwards
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While the idea as a whole is neat, I don’t think that they would really be hunted down by the Forsaken, given how in Legion and in Before the Storm, he is shown as a sympathetic figure quite beloved by all, who openly cooperated with the main faith of the Forsaken and its new head.
What I would’ve really enjoyed is for him to be this almost Gandalf-y figure to the Forsaken he seems to be in the book, which there might just be hope for given how in 9.2.5, they moved him to Lordaeron Keep.
<<“We are priests before all else,” came a voice. It was masculine, warm, and jovial, though it had a peculiar timbre to it, and as Anduin turned, he fully expected to greet a human priest of the Light.
He found himself face-to-face with a Forsaken.
Anduin, schooled since childhood not to let his emotions show, hoped he recovered sufficiently, but inwardly he was reeling. “So it seems,” he said, his voice betraying his astonishment despite himself. “And I am glad for it.”
“Your Majesty,” said Velen, “may I present Archbishop Alonsus Faol.”
The Forsaken’s eyes glowed an eerie yellow. They couldn’t possibly twinkle with amusement as a living man’s would, but somehow they did.
“Don’t fret about not recognizing me,” the archbishop said. “I know I don’t look like my portrait.” He lifted a bony hand and stroked his chin. “I’ve lost the beard, you see. Slimmed down quite a bit, too.”
Oh, yes, those undead eyes were twinkling.
Anduin gave up any hope of behaving in a typically regal manner here. We are priests before all else, the undead being had told him, and he discovered it was a relief to put away the burden of royalty at least temporarily. He smiled and bowed.>>
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It wasn’t that deep of a thought, you could easily wangle in that there is some esotoric group of forsaken knights seeking her out in some morbid take on arthurian knights.
I think the Alliance outright could have had more intrigue with her. Either seekig to crown her and use her in a push against the Forsaken, or to kill her and use her corpse to push into Lordaeron. “Look she’s dead! The Forsaken did this, the last light of Lordaeron gone!!!” Or whatever.
Either way, we’re unfortunately stuck with what we have. I could probably talk for days on ifs/buts/hows/whys, but it’s like tinkling into the sea in the grand scheme of things.
I think I am not the only one when I say I wouldn’t like that. I believed the faction conflict had outstayed its welcome in Legion, and on top of that, I prefer when both factions try to be fair to one another.
I prefer a conflict that feels genuine, something triggered via deception like that? It’s just not something I would rally behind. The whole “let us play dirty” has been done to death at this point and changing who does it doesn’t change the fact that it is old. Furthermore, it would be rather out of character for Alliance’s typical icons.
At this stage, I might be more interested in factions than blocks.
The Class Halls were an interesting concept I would have loved to explore in future expansions. Exploring the identity of your class, as opposed to that of the block of factions you were born/bound with, was infinitely more rewarding for me.
Pandaria holds a bit of a special place in my heart. The pandaren’s culture was just beautiful, you can see whoever wrote the pandaren poured a lot of love into it, and I wonder if we will see more of it in time.
Faction conflict =/= localised trouble by sub-factions in the spirit of Vanilla.
Like Varian being outraged at what the Scourge constructed with the Undercity or the fact that the Forsaken lived in it? Retconned.
Like Garrosh being sick to the back teeth of seeing his people in utter poverty? Villain batted.
Like Saurfang admitting the Alliance will never truly leave the Horde alone in the long term? Wrongthink.
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