Absolutely agreed. People and cultures aren’t static, they change and adapt in response to their environment. If we want to consider the Forsaken a cut above the mindless Scourge, an actual people in their own right, we have to accept that their initial views, values and vision will inevitably change.
What the narrative handles somewhat poorly, in my opinion at least, is that transition. But I know better than to expect GoT depth of intricate storytelling; I get that from other sources anyway.
BfA is GoT season 8 depth of storytelling. “”“Subverting expectations”“” in lieu of consistency, believable character motivations, or telling a good story.
It’s highly unlikely that Calia’s leadership will suddenly mean the Forsaken are forced to submit to radical changes at sword point. While she may offer an alternative POV for what it means to be undead and what your place can be in this world besides just conquering everyone, that doesn’t stop others who believe in their old mindset from existing.
The Dark Iron had Moira thrust as their new leader, and the Dark Iron also split into two factions as a result. By very definition that invites conflict for your RP as the two ideologies clash.
You might argue that maybe Blizzard won’t give it the time of day to handle it with any nuance, but that remains to be seen. The initial reaction people had for the war campaign ending was that everyone’s perfectly pardoned now and everyone forgot about what happened, but the post-campaign NPC dialogue shows that there’s division in mindset still.
All I’m really asking is wait and see. Mists of Pandaria had a really negative first reaction from the fanbase, but it turned out to be one of the better expansions to date. On the other hand BFA had a lot of potential and I remember we were hyped on Discord when they announced it. Look how that turned out.
I don’t think character progression is inherently good without any faults. I addressed as much in my original post that I don’t agree with how they handled Calia’s resurrection. On the other end of the spectrum, I don’t completely agree with all progression being bad for the sake of not wanting change.
The end of the war in BFA will force change, there’s not really any other way around that. Unless they want to do the tired trope of Horde starts bad war and tries to genocide someone for a third time and make everyone involved lobotomized for not seeing it coming, they’ll have to overhaul how the Horde works. After 2 times, I’d rather try something else for a change.
That’s not really true, though, is it? Orcs lost the Second War. The Dark Horde lost. Arthas lost. The Legion lost. Deathwing and the Twilight’s Hammer lost. Garrosh lost. The Iron Horde lost. Sylvanas lost.
The idea that sacrificing everything to do what’s necessary and performing horrible crimes along the way because end justifies the means characters have never won, except maybe Illidan at a stretch and even he got killed for it. Fighting fire with fire just makes a bigger fire. Use water.
Instead he’s a goblin socialist as the alternative to Gallywix’s capitalist. Given how we have seen goblin characters take a socialist stance before in defiance of the overwhelmingly capitalist atmosphere, I’m interested to see how people ultimately react to Gazlowe’s leadership. He’s not a super communist by any means as he still plays the capitalist game (buy out your competition to put them out of business), but his end goals are more socialist than Gallywix’s hardline frick everyone else take.
While I liked Gallywix, the way he got to remain as the Trade Prince was just dumb in their starter story. He sold his people out, got deposed, but then given his title back at the last second because…? Ultimately I feel like he would have been better off as an antagonistic rivalry character in the Bilgewater Cartel’s business ventures. He would have fit right in with the Venture Co.
Or alternatively, history (of WoW) shows that people who are doing war crimes like checking off their bucket list have never won in the end. Why stick to a mold that has demonstrably not worked? To ignore that would be quite NPC of them.
Up until Wrath/Cata, we didn’t have any official faction war and the old faction leaders on Horde side were much more agreeable to each other with a united goal of peace and stability for their people. That didn’t stop conflict happening.
Ideally I’d have them reel back from the huge faction v faction storylines and instead focus back on the conflict between the sub factions. Defilers vs. League of Arathor, Stormpikes vs. Frostwolves, etc.
The uneasy Cold War of pre-Cata was my favourite take on the faction conflict, and you don’t need to stack the Horde leadership with Garroshes and Sylvanases to achieve that. They achieved it under the most peaceful government of the Horde.
Usually the post-war kind. Having the faction leaders finish one destructive war and then go “watch me do it again” 15 minutes later is just dumb writing. You don’t need to be fighting a world war every second of your existence to have conflict.
I’ll offer a third perspective, somewhere between yours and Perroy’s.
I’m of the opinion that Sylvanas has always skewed the Forsaken a little too heavily in the direction of being dastardly monsters driven by their hatred of the living. I like the Forsaken story because I want to explore the nature of their curse and how it impacts their existence. I dislike how that’s side-lined in favour of depicting them as being one-dimensional maniacs at almost every opportunity.
On the other hand, Calia Menethil isn’t Forsaken. She doesn’t share the condition of undeath that almost all other Forsaken suffer from either. It isn’t a ‘curse’ at all - the only disadvantage is that she had to die in order to become an immortal, flawless being blessed by the Light. That’s it. I don’t believe that she could be used to explore “what it actually means to be undead” because she doesn’t strike me as being undead at all, not in the ways that matter. It’s not a curse for her, it’s not detrimental. It’s immortality granted to her by the Light.
The Forsaken will be going from a leader who has pushed them too heavily in one direction to a leader who seems outright inappropriate for them. Neither of these options strike me as being great for this race. If they wanted to give the Forsaken a leader who has actually had to come to terms with undeath and understand what it’s like to deal with such a cursed existence, why not go with Lillian Voss instead?
Another perspective for this could be that since she hasn’t undergone the changes the Forsaken had to in order to adapt, she’s essentially a blank slate upon which the new Forsaken ideology can be written.
Empathy is a talent I believe she has a priestess ought to be very familiar with, what with her coming to the conclusion that she needs to be with the people of Lordaeron even though she doesn’t share much in common with them at the very real risk of her death. I can empathize with the people of Hong Kong without having experienced oppression and violation of my human rights.
If written well, Calia can learn from the Forsaken themselves what it means to be in their shoes, their experiences and fears and problems they face. What does post-Sylvanas Forsaken society, as determined by the Forsaken themselves look like? Calia has the potential to become the embodiment of that life style and values, whatever they may be. Is any other freshly risen Forsaken a second class citizen because they didn’t have to go through all the struggles the first generation of Forsaken had?
It really just depends on execution. Time will tell.
ur agreeing with him king… like big P said, the ones that throw advantages to the side and just go HONOURHONOURHONOUR win 100% of the time.
Has Calia been written well so far, and if not, what makes you think that she will be? Yeah, she has the potential to be written in an interesting way, but I think the chance of that potential becoming a reality is so low, based upon what we’ve already read, that it’s not worth considering.
My point was more in relation to the Kirkbride thing that it’s not necessarily just some meta wink at the camera with the NPCs becoming self aware of their existence as NPCs in a video game. As characters in the universe they can look at these examples and based on them determine that maybe peace is the right choice, given how doing things that way has never worked out. The people who tried that 
always failed.
A character can be capable of critical thought without being labelled as a self-aware NPC who can read the patch notes.
ye, can be. But is that actually what’s happening aka do we ever see these characters talk about such things/addressing it in any capacity or are they just smiling + waving at the camera and picking the [Paragon] speech option every time?
Meanwhile I’m wondering when @Dudflex and all the Vulpera will merge together to make a Vulperatron to destroy the Old Gods
Thrall was taught by Grom first hand about what was the cost of the Second War for the orcs. How Grom going all out total war on the humans and giving them a very good reason to actively seek out the extinction of his clan lead to the humans doing exactly that. They hunted the Warsong and the children were the first to die. When asked if it was worth it, Grom said no. It cost him the future of his clan.
Combined with the Frostwolf ideology and their history and his time learning from Drek’Thar, it’s easy to see why Thrall’s not so keen on the idea of throwing away his people’s future and survival for… what, exactly? What tangible reason is there for him and the others to necessitate the continuation of the war after all the losses they’ve already suffered to end it?
Thrall is fine, he’s been like this from day 1 and it’s kind of his whole schtick. My only complaint about him is how he has done virtually nothing since his return to the relevant lore. My gripe is with every other leader now having that exact same schtick.
You clearly haven’t seen how he gave Saurfang his axe. Duh.
Consider Baine then. His motivation by his own admission is that no victory is worth losing sight of who we are. What’s the point of war if it destroys who we are as a people? All wars must end, and he’d rather have something left to go home to. He lost his father to Garrosh and saw an AU Warchief Baine who became just like Garrosh to get back at him, eye for an eye. He ripped Garrosh apart with his own bare hands and became a hateful person who trampled all over the legacy of his father and his people.
Rokhan looks to be honouring Vol’jin’s legacy, and Vol’jin’s stance was to learn his people as individuals so that it would be harder to throw them away as simple numbers. It’s a system that worked for the Darkspear, and he shows when he accepts the title of Chieftain that the Darkspear rely on him to look after them. If he didn’t, they wouldn’t be following him.
Lor’themar’s whole schtick has been ensuring his people’s survival first and foremost to the point where he was entertaining the idea of secession from the Horde to the Alliance under Garrosh to secure it. Thalyssra is entirely on board with him too.
Then we have Ji who witnessed first hand and has the scars to back up what happens when a leader turns on their people with no regard for their well-being anymore. He almost got executed for it.
Can you name a leader of the Horde (who’s still alive / still a leader) who hasn’t gone through a personal experience in their story where they’re humbled and come to realize that their people’s survival matters the most? The entire Horde was founded on the principle of survival through solidarity.
I try to be optimistic. The day that I can no longer in good faith look for any silver lining, I’m switching to another game.
Shame that he realised that about two patches late.
So which is it? Survival isn’t worth it if you “lose sight of who we are”, or “survival through solidarity”? 'cos Sylv prioritised her people - she realised they mattered most, and all she got was rebellion for it.
Baine talks a big game about survival and how important his people were but ultimately it came down to him being ready to sacrifice all of Thunder Bluff for his (questionable) morals. He didn’t put his people’s survival first.
Instead he prioritised the Proudmoore’s.
In fact what we see from Sylvanas was Survival Through Solidarity. People compare her to Garrosh (for obvs reasons) but she wasn’t a big racist. She worked with all members of the Horde. She didn’t abandon the Zandalari. She did prioritise her people and at the end of it she stood with the strongest army but whoops turns out that doesn’t matter at all.
The moral of “survival through solidarity” was dunked on because even if you fight for your people and work with your allies they’ll still turn on you, undermine you and forment rebellion because you tried to kill the Alliance TOO WELL.
Bit late to seeing this… But.
Didn’t he say that the Honourable ones -win-. I don’t necessarily see these lot as chosen as “honourable”.
…Unless?
She prioritized them by seemingly trying to destroy their heritage according to Before the Storm where their past lives – which many were still sentimental about – were being stomped out. All their history of Lordaeron, gone. Adhering to Sylvanas did not necessarily mean staying true to themselves, and indeed she got rebellion for it. She shot some of her own people because she didn’t know which one of them didn’t love her enough.
And AU Warchief Baine showed him that becoming the kind of hateful person Garrosh was lead to him destroying his father’s legacy. The vengeful achieve victory no matter the cost trope is a slipper slope and AU Warchief showed that it doesn’t work. To say that he shouldn’t have rebelled against Sylvanas or risk her retribution and therefore he doesn’t care about his people is a fallacy when the choices are to be complicit with Sylvanas and get killed by the Alliance, or stand up against her and face the risk of possibly falling.
You’re dead either way. With one outcome you at least stay true to yourself, your people’s traditions and your ancestors’ legacy. The Horde’s big on that.
It wasn’t survival though. All Sylvanas had to show for everything she did were more losses. She blighted Lordaeron because it was necessary! Except all she got in return was killing her own troops for no strategic advantage, and she lost Lordaeron anyway. She burned Teldrassil to deal a crippling blow to the Alliance! Instead the night elves went Night Warrior and rallied the Alliance to really go all in. Every major “blow” she dealt backfired on her.
Your people will turn on you if you alienate them in pursuit of your own goal. As it turns out, Sylvanas’s goal was to kill everyone and rule over the ashes after N’Zoth’s done with them. She wasn’t trying to secure their survival or even fight for them. She was doing it all for herself while quoting Arthas.
[baine bloodhoof] says: hgn…the spirits…whisper to me…that in 6 months it will turn out that sylvanas was just serving death…
You unironically get narrator dialogue from a quest telling you how based she is
You seem extremely hyped for it, yeah - maybe you should main an undead since the Before the Storm epilogue themes are your thing
However, I think if you polled the people who do actually play Forsaken I think you would find that it’s really not that popular (based on what I’ve seen / read) so honestly what does it matter that several draenei / blood elf rpers like it if the people it’s " for " do not
By a reasonable storyline that was seeded fairly early on instead of appearing jankily in a book only you and I have read
I think the proof will be in the pudding
MoP was only good in the context of Cataclysm coming before it
I’m not anti-change, I am anti a specific change ie. Calia Menethil
Uhh yeah that’s exactly what I’m saying so I guess thanks for the big agree
My point is being the Anduin-esque good guy has no weight because they always do the right thing but also always end up on top. Idealism isn’t ever punished IC and always leads to an incredibly easy / heroic victory and more and more characters embody this trope (ie. Gazlowe replacing Gallywix and so on. I don’t think anyone can even describe what Gazlowe’s character is without using the word “Orgrimmar”)
Yeah and that’s boring
Do the nice thing = you always win
In what sense? He’s not depicted that way in (for example) Traveller - still very money driven, just nice
Is it perhaps Socialism with Steamwheedle Characteristics …?
He was the only interesting goblin NPC
That’s basically what I’m saying. Characters should realise that there’s some weird phenomena where the friendliest guy wins
Yeah but back then we had a varied set of faction leaders that had different takes
ie. Sylvanas being sneaky, Garrosh wanting to kill the Alliance at peace meetings, Thrall being a guy trying to make peace
If it’s just three lightforged Thralls sitting in a room agreeing, who exactly finds that interesting
Yeah under based non-characters like Vol’jin
Wow! Can’t wait
Did you post this ironically? If not, I have a very interesting real life example for you …
And yet she was the one with the largest and strongest army. She outnumbered Alliance and rebels both! The Horde, had it stood in solidarity would have survived, as of 8.2.5. If Baine hadn’t undermined her we might not have lost Rastakhan, but even with that she still turned the tides (of vengeance, boom titledrop).
Is it? Even now we don’t know Sylv’s endgame (probably cos the writers haven’t come up with it yet). You’re just pushing your own beliefs onto what little we have. “Rule the ashes”? Where’d you get that?
She shot them because they were defecting to the Alliance. See what happens when the Stormwind House of Nobles tries to defect to the Horde at the request of one of the Horde’s ‘neutral’ ambassadors of peace.
Is “solidarity” actually code for “let people do whatever they want even if it’s actively detrimental to you”? Anduin tried that and WHOOPS FOURTH WAR THANKS GENN.