There’s nothing “forced” about it.
They took their time with it, built it up and explained every step of her journey. We learned her motivations, her thoughts, her struggle and finally, the realization that she feels responsible for Arthas’ victims (aka her former subjects) and wants to help them.
Becoming a “Forsaken” and understanding what that means is her story right now, Blizzard made a whole cinematic about it. They even let Calia address the concerns that were voiced by players in the forums directly:
Don’t get me wrong:
I didn’t like Shadowlands or its story and there are many things to criticise, but to claim that Calia’s story is “forced” is just… unfair to the writers. You may not like her (which is totally fine - but a different story!), but compared to other important Warcraft-NPCs, they really took their time and build this development up.
tl;dr
Is Calia as part of the Forsaken Council a matter of taste?
Definetly.
But is this development rushed or forced forced?
Not at all.
Indeed at 0:56 in that cinematic I was wondering for a moment if she was breaking the 4th wall…that seems dangerously close
also, a change of attire is probably needed for Calia in order to become more …“acquainted” …among the Forsaken…I know it’s probably not very important, but that dress screams too much Light/Alliance…I’m not saying she should dress like Sylvanas, but still…a change could help…
(for the same reason I don’t like very much the Ranger-General Halduron to dress all in blue like living Sylvanas or a former High Elf…as a Blood Elf he should dress in red after all…)
Another elephant in the Calia-room is the Naaru thing. It might be a dropped plotline at this point (who can say, after the last years at Blizz?), but Calia’s ressurection was very closely tied to the Naaru. Dreams she discussed with Saa’ra were what inspired her to do what led to her death, and Saa’ra was also who essentially pushed Anduin and Faol into raising her as an undead. If there is any Naaru plotting going on at all, well… Calia most certainly is a move made by the Naaru in that game.
Now, I guess that could have been benevolent plotting by a benevolent Naaru, but so shortly after Legion that’s not exactly what the Light foreshadowing was painting towards.
At this point I don’t think it unlikely that that plotline was cut, and what they did instead was really just trying to tie up loose ends in the Forsaken plot… But if it wasn’t, well, we might be in for additional problems.
It’s not forced but it is rushed. I can buy that she would eventually become a forsaken, but there are many layers to the being a forsaken or an undead and Calia barely scratches any of them. The forsaken are seen as monsters by the living and are shunned for what they are, Calia is shunned for who she is and not what she is. Speaking of what she is, we don’t really know or understand what exactly she is, with the regular undead we know that they have missing emotions (in some cases memories) and have murderous tendencies that they have to keep in check, whit Calia we have non of those. We do not really know what her struggle is besides not knowing where she belongs or what her purpose is.
On a basic level, she is not a bad character but her development is certainly rushed and we should have gotten more questlines with her that would help us understand how she belongs with the forsaken. What we got is essentially a bleeding hearth story where she wants to help them because she is a Menethil. Would she have done so if she was a Proudmore or a Wrynn?
In isolation it’s not a terrible story, for the character specifically. It falls apart, because of all the stuff around it. Sylvanas got butchered over the course of two expansions and three books, while the Forsaken are being contorted into something that’s a wholesale departure from what attracted people to them, in order to make room for her. However that has been a trend as early as the Sunwell Plateu, with the Blood Elves’ ultimate solution being “Be more like the Aliance!”…
Not sure if you’re talking about thet friend in Arathi or Voss. The latter has over the course of BfA become more of a mouthpiece for the devs than anything else. Calia giving something lipservice is fine, but we need to see a real pushback to the idea of having anything to do with another Menethil. Let alone a creature of the Light, who is drastically different, on a fundamental level. If anything the recent storyline is a testament to them trying to ignore that particular elephant in the room.
She totally does. She was send by Anduin to undermine the Horde war efforts. Literally her first action on the council is to trying to make Forsaken forces get out of Gilneas. A place that has been rightfully conquered by the Horde during the last war. Because ALL of Lordaeron belongs to the Forsaken. She is an alliance spy. That much is obvious.
They need to return to Kezan. Azshara is not worth the struggle. With Kezan and the lost isles we have two possible places of where the Goblins could live. That is much better then Gilneas being returned to the Worgen.
Oh again with the cringe RP. So sad that you cannot play by your own rules. So tell me, have you googled the lore of the 1st and 2nd war yet or are we still clueless ?
Yes yes we got that already. Can you answer the question or are we going to be repeating the only 3 catchphrases we google translated into english?
And I would be taking the silence as a no, you don’t know the lore. So I will ask you another question, how are you to be making lore videos, because that is what I assume your channel is about, when you have no idea what the lore actually is?
I kinda wish we could live in a world in which people would actually tell what is their problem so we could find out what is his problem. I start to think his harted is more of a personal grudge and it has some deeper meaning, or he just got life issues and can’t cope with them.
Well, they’ve just started the whole cosmic stuff. I’m sure they will be a point where the whole Light related stuff will come together. Xe’ra destroyed, Saa’ra reborn, Calia lightforged, the Lightforged Draenei, side by side with Void Elves, Yrel expanding the Lightforged Empire in AU Draenor, a Sunwell flooded with Light, Alleria… they did a lot of groundwork for coming conflicts, especially for Light and Void.
But we’ve seen that every type of magic can be wielded against its own cosmic force (Illidan vs Demons, the Deathknights vs the Undead, the Void Elves vs. Etherals) - so I don’t think they will just drop Calia as a Light controlled fanatic after introducing her so carefully.
I understand what you mean, but I still disagree that it is “rushed”. Nobody says “You are now universally accepted by all the Forsaken!” On the contrary, the other council members are protesting in the beginning and decide to give her a chance after she helped retrieving the plague sample. Calia has now reached a point, where she is tolerated and treated with respect - for a reason: She aided them in their transition, when Sylvanas abandoned them, she went on diplomatic missions and refused Lilians pleas to lead them.
Regarding “What it means to be forsaken”, there is not much to say. In Vanilla, they were a remainder of the Scourge with undead Lordaeroners, Banshees, Dark Rangers, Abominations and so on. United to take vengeance, but then, just like a Horde under Thrall, Outsiders protecting each other. After a while, Sylvanas started to see them as arrows in her quiver.
The whole Desolate Council story in the novel was about the Forsaken who tried to establish their own identity beyond Sylvanas - with some of them looking at their past.
Which was as tragic as it was refreshing, suddenly the Forsaken were more than just the edgy looking Zombie faction.
Calia may have been resurrected by the Light - but they still have much in common.
The Scourge destroyed their homes and lives, killed their families.
They ran from their past, until they decided to face it. Now they’re looking for a place to fit in and risk their “lives” for it. That’s as true for Calia as it is for Lilian, Faol or any other Forsaken. Just as Lilian says in the video, “They are all the same.”
Since the Proudmoores and the Wrynns didn’t rule in Lordaeron and none of their childred destroyed the Kingdom - probably not. That’s ONE pillar of her character development and motivation. These people were trusting HER family and it was a member of HER family that brought ruin to them. So HER family has to fix it and take responsibility.
Which was? Sylvanas was always the center, different from that, they got the gnome treatment of being ignored and we barely knew anything about them as a society.
There are two council members who spoke out against her and she had her prove herself. That said - after Sylvanas’ departure, you really think they Forsaken will start a riot when someone offers help for free? As I said, this is just the beginning of her story.
And that is why it’s rushed. We should have gotten a lot more of that over time before she became a member of the council. We should have seen her be shunned a lot more by the Forsaken for being a Menethil and/or being a Lightforged. Right now it feels like the end of GoT where Greyworm tells Tyrion to shut up and then lets him do a big speach on who should be the next king.
That’s my entire point. She is only doing this because she is a Menethil, which on itself is good character motivation, however in this case it is not enough for her to be counted among the Forsaken as their whole fantasy revolves around other stuff which are not present in Calia’s story. That’s why people are skeptical about her becoming a forsaken, she does not share any of their struggles.
We should have had more time developing Calia and building that cultural connection to the Forsaken (not Lordaeron, the Forsaken themselves) and having her earn that spot.
