Ah you are showing your true face at last, will you join me brother in making the Horde great again?
before you make the horde great again you might want to lvl up to 60
So what, my first character back in 2004 was a tauren warrior.
All in due time my fellow future subject. I have res sickness atm.
Why? She has tried to help them for several expansions now, she supported their representative, sheâs friendly with Alonsus Faol - she has shown through her actions that she means well. And still and rightfully, there are doubts among the Forsaken, voiced by the other council members in the newest story developments.
Especially because sheâs a menethil, people will judge her harder than the others.
You want the Forsaken, who have just been abandoned by her great saviour Syvlanas, to slap away a helping hand that wants to make amends for her brotherâs crimes?
Would you prefer another âWait-and-seeâ-experience like the horribly paced Sylvanas-story that started in Legion?
She lost her family. She lost her home. She died. She was resurrected. And even among the Forsaken, she is unique. And sheâs just starting to learn what it means to be Forsaken. What you forget is that they are about to redefine what that means, now that Sylvanas is gone. Calia helped them, she risks her life for them, she wants to help, so they let her help. What is the freaking problem? Nobody complained when Nathanos suddenly came alive after being a piece of wood for over a decade. And he didnât even need a personality, just edgyness and a few insults for the player.
But Calias development, who we actually got to know, is ârushedâ? Come on.
What culture? What were the Forsaken if you put Sylvanas aside?
Until the Sylvanas novel, they didnât even care to give Nathanos a personality, because everything was centered around the Banshee Queen.
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And will so again once she returns from the Maw 
1 expansion with a very short questline (essentially a âstay awhile and listenâ scenario) and now is the second one where she not only becomes accepted into their fold but is handed a leadership position out of the game. It is rushed, the story needed more fleshing out.
And yet she becomes a member of the council that is leading them⌠Seriously do you not see the problem here? Flesh out the story, let her earn their trust over time and then make her part of the council. Imagine if the next leader of your country is some random foreigner that has native relatives, itâs basically the same thing. Also since when do the Forsaken care about the royal bloodline.
That is all dine and dandy. Donât make her head of the council just now or at least have a build up before that. In all fairness now is the correct time to make her part of that council but Blizzard did not develop her enough beforehand, and that is why itâs rushed.
I would have preferred if they made questlines with Calia experiencing the burden of being undead, seeing for herself that she is like the other forsaken and slowly earning their trust. Also not having a random lich (I know she is supposed to be a big deal but I canât take SL characters seriously) explain to her what IS undeath (also rando lich has no idea what she is talking about). This could have been done over 2 expansions with short questlines each patch.
Yes and? Many characters have lost families does not make them forsaken though, or could Anduin apply for a job at the council now?
Soo Greymane and Tyrande could also be on the council?
Ok that is something unique to her.
Yes and? The idea of being a Forsaken is not unique, itâs being FORSAKEN, Calia was not abandoned by anyone, when she died Faul and Anduin helped her get ressurected, even after that multiple characters have shown support towards her and have turn to her for support aswell.
She should have learned that before she became a part of the council THAT"S THE PROBLEM.
And how does one redefine something when they do not know what that something was in the first place. By that logic you could have any single character on that council regardless of race or faction and it would make as much as sense as Calia does now. Her development was rushed.
You sure about that? You do realize that Nathanos is one of the least popular and straight up hated characters in this franchise right?
Just because Nathanos is another poorly written character does not make Caliaâs resent development not rushed.
Having to deal with the negative aspect of being undead (bloodlust/murderous tendencies, decomposing while living), being loved by no one because of what they are and not who they are, being outcasts and struggling to survive. All of these things are alien to Calia.
Donât hold your breath⌠on second thought please do.
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The Forsaken are a weapon. That is why Sylvanas created them. To be used against their enemies who denied them their right to exist. Calia canât be a leader in that concept since nobody is her enemy. She has many friends in the alliance who support her and love her. She was not forsaken by anyone. She is just an ordinary human with ordinary life goals. That is why she will never understand what it really means to be a Forsaken. Sylvanas however sacrificed everything she got to make the Forsaken strong. Even went to war with the alliance to claim the former territories that made up the kingdom of Lordaeron. Calia can never hope to achieve the same level of prestige Sylvanas was holding over the faction. To put it simply. Calia needs to go away. The only thing she will do with the Forsaken story is to ruuin it. The reclaimation of Gilneas was just the first step.
Caliaâs only edge is the name Menethil. Besides that we know nothing about her. She is lightforged. And light is the anti thesis to undeath. She doesnât fit. True Forsaken fans understand that and despise her for it.
Technically, she reappeared in Legion and became active in the Prelude novel of BfA. So itâs over the course of two to three expansions.
Agree to disagree.
The problem is that you equote âleadingâ with ârulingâ - which in this case, just doesnât hit the mark.
Sheâs offering her help, in a time where the Forsaken leadership is in turmoil. Members of the last Desolate Council died in Arathi, Sylvanas and Nathanos are gone, Tirisfal scorched, the city was uninhabitable, Brill was destroyedâŚ
Calia came to help rebuild, not to rule, she made that clear over and over again. She didnât want to rule back then and she didnât want to do it when Lillian asked her. She demanded nothing, on the contrary:
Aside from getting that plague vial in the quest- asking Maldraxxus for help was also her idea.
You could say: She came to them when they were Forsaken once again, this time by Sylvanas.
Itâs not rushed to reward a person who already helped you selflessly, who proved her knowledge, who wants to make amends for her brothers crimes and who asks for nothing in return, with a place on your table. Sheâs had good ideas before, so⌠why not give her a chance to prove herself further? Iâm sorry, but all I can see here are disappointed Sylvanas fans. Calia was torn to shreds even before she became part of the council.
Sheâs not a random foreigner, sheâs the former Princess of Lordaeron who accompanied the former Archbishop of Lordaeron. 
She isnât âhead of the councilâ, who said that?
And how should they have done it? By having her reappear and join the Forsaken under Sylvanasâ rule? That would have put them both against each other even more. Sad enough that people are unable to see that her character was built up, even now.
She worked with Alonsus Faol, who is Undead himself. Itâs not like she lived on another planet. And theyâve already shown us what it means to be Forsaken with Thomas Zelling, thereâs just no point in having the players repeat it with her.
Okay then, tell me: What does it mean to be Forsaken? You keep saying, she didnât have the experience, but you keep avoiding the juicy stuff.
Thatâs why sheâs still learning what it means to be one - and maybe, how to change that. Itâs like saying to Tess Greymane that she canât ever be Queen of Gilneas because sheâs not a Worgen.
Why?
Maybe you ask someone who lived through it. Or still does. Like⌠an apothecary. Or a Dark Ranger. Maybe thatâs why you⌠didnât want to rule, but become a part of a group who wants to provide guidance, where you can discuss these matters and find solutions for them? 
Maybe Iâve lived in a bubble in this regard, but it was very often something like âOMG heâs so cool, because heâs insulting the player instead of sucking up to them!â
As I said: Agree to disagree.
As I said, she wasnât living on another planet:
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Was it good? Do you need a tissue?
Exactly, just like Arcane magic is the anti thesis to Life Magic.
Oh, did you talk to one?
No, wait, donât say anything! 
Let me guess: Anyone who disagrees with you is not a true Forsaken fan and has an alliance bias, right?
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My bad, meant part of the council.
Which has had nothing to the new Lordaeron which has next to nothing in common with the old one.
Is is not developed enough to be either leading or ruling.
The problem is not with her wanting to lead/rule or not, the problem is that Blizzard pushed that plot line on her before the story of the character was ready for it. I have no problem with Caliaâs character or the choices she makes, my problem is that there is next to nothing connecting her to the Forsaken other than a birthright, if we got more time developing her and showing us that even though she got ressurected by the light she is a forsaken I would have been fine with it all.
You literally had the whole of Shadowlands to do this with Sylvanas gone. We (or undead characters exclusively) having quests to develop this, we could have had a comic book about it, we could have had a short story about it and we could have had a book about it.
So did my Draenei Priest, Prophet Velen and Anduin can they join the council?
Zelling has noting to do with this. Show us what that means for her. Zelling had to deal what the regular undead have to, show us how Calia has to deal with simmilar but different things.
I have been telling you over and over again. It is in the name, they are FORSAKEN (google the definition of the word if you donât know what it means).
Holy crap you really do not know what the word means.
Ahm pretty sure Arcane is the antithesis of Fel. Arcane comes from Order and Fel comes from Chaos.
No we donât, we have the conclusion to that story. Just because she helped the forsaken does not make her one of the forsaken. Your whole argument of âthey will redefine what forsaken meansâ literally hinges on wait-and-see, something a few post above you claimed you were against.
I agree, but if they wanted to flesh out the character it is a way to that. Also just because you donât like books does not make Calia a more developed character.
Ahm last I checked it is in their power to create storylines and quest chainsâŚ
And by doing it âon pointâ you get an underdeveloped character like we did now. Also define âneedsâ and why does it âneedâ to be âon pointâ.
Yes at the last minuteâŚTHATS THE PROBLEM.
Aha so talking to lets say war veteral or a cancer survivor is pretty much getting trough a war or cancer yourself, itâs as if itâs your experienceâŚ
Like what? Srly?
Her struggling with IT. What are the downsides of a lightforged undead. And if there are non, that automatically alienates her from the forsaken.
Yes, pretty much. Thatâs the whole point of the forsaken, that is why they are called forsaken, the living donât want them.
I would say that Gilneans are a whole lot different than Forsaken. For starters not all Gilneans are worgen, every single Forsaken is an undead.
Sooo arcane is not the antithesis of Life then?
Also Light is the antithesis of Shadow which got retconned later to be Void. Mentioning this because Fel was part of shadow (why warlocks use shadow magic and can summon voidwalkers). Later on it was retconned and now itâs sketchy, even more so after the SL cosmology retcon.
PS Iâm done with this discussion. The tread was about Gilneas and I have no interest in discussing forsaken any longer.
Fortunately, thatâs not for you to decide.
Not really, no. Sylvanas defined what the Forsaken were. Now that sheâs gone, thereâs a council in place and the city will be ârebuiltâ, so⌠itâs obvious that at least some things will change under the council. 
I like books, but itâs problematic when you have to read a book for the gameâs story to make sense. Regarding Calias development we have different opinions.
Doesnât change that they have to prioritize them.
Or you get unsatisfied players, no matter what you do.
Easy: What you show, what the characters do or say needs to further the story, develop characters or build the world, all without boring the playerbase. Having another discovery about âWhat it means to be Forsakenâ for example would be Zellingâs story all over again, we saw that already.
Thatâs also why Sylvanasâ whole BfA-story was disliked - it was Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, only bigger this time and thanks to Saurfang, told with more depth and reflection; yet, still repetitive. It didnât further anything, because we had already played through it.
Thatâs probably the reason why Calia adresses so much in her video. Her last name. Her ânatureâ. Fear of finding no place among the Forsaken. Not only do they paint a picture of her there, they also address the concerns that came up in the forums. Back then, people thought she would replace Sylvanas - that alone gave her a hard start.
So I honestly donât see the problem. Calia didnât do more than any Allied Race to join Horde or Alliance. She tried to help, proved her worth and can now provide further help.
The last minute before what? Is there anything about to happen in Undercity that I donât know of? Itâs another step, probably groundwork for future plot developments - Sylvanas has given the Forsaken enough to go through. Now they can tell other stories while Calia can become acquainted to her new role.
Do war veterans only see psychiatrists who went to war themselves?
When you see a Doctor, do you ask them if he has ever had your sickness, and if they didnât, you leave?
When you try to help homeless people or poor children, is there a requirement for you to be without home or poor yourself?
Which⌠could be considered a downsinde, eh? Being all alone, even among the outcasts?
The living didnât want them, past tense. Theyâre part of the Horde, have been for a while.
But not every Forsaken is the same type of Undead. Youâve got Banshees, Dark Rangers, Undead Humans, brainless Ghouls, Abominations⌠yet Calia canât be one of them because sheâs too ânewâ? What about the Forsaken that were raised by Sylvanasâ Valâkyr after WotLk? Technically, they were also never âforsakenâ by anyone.
Of course not.
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Sooo you donât get to decide if we got it in the first place⌠Ok your rules.
So yeah, wait and see, got it.
Oh ffs, how does one character discovering what it is to be forsaken further the story of another character that is a completely different entity. Itâs like saying Varian reuniting his spirits made Garrosh a better warchief. Calia has no experience or understanding of what it is to be forsaken.
Hmmm is any Allied race leading the Horde or Alliance? Calia became a leader of the forsaken the first day she became a forsaken.
Before becoming part of the council, are you slow or purposefully playing dumb. She does not know what it is to be abandoned, she does not know what it is to have a bloodlust, she does not know what it is to be raised forcefully, she does not understand what it is to be decomposing.
You do realize that those are professionals that are trained to treat sickness and have in depth knowledge of diseases, symptoms and disorders right? Does Calia have a PhD in undeath?
I am not questing if Calia wants to help the poor and homeless, I am questioning that Calia understands what being poor and/or homeless means.
How is she an outcast when she literally has people backing her up on the Alliance. She has a place to go if the forsaken thing doesnât pan out. Not getting accepted by the goth kids while your in the jock squad does not make you an outcast.
And a lot of Horde still donât want them. Also there for gameplay reasons.
Which all share a bloodlust and decompose (aside from the Banshees who have no bodies).
Itâs not that she is new you baboon, she is an entirely different being. She suffers non of the drawback of being undead.
Iâm done. Have your last hoorah or go bother Erevien, I donât care.
Adding to the conversation on Calia and what it means to be âForsakenââŚ
I agree that Caliaâs character development (and the development of the Forsaken as a whole) feels really rushed. To me it feels this way because the things that happen are overwhelmingly major, and the story moves at a snailâs pace and is all over the place. We get glimpses into the the happenings of Undercity like once per year, if even that. Once per expansion?
This is a fair point, and it makes one question what the purpose of Thomas Zelling was. He got quite a lot of screentime in BFA but his story didnât really go anywhere, except maybe it had an affect on Lilian Voss. On its own I think the story of Thomas Zelling was quite decent, but when you have so many things going on in your narrative should you really waste time on developing a character only to immediately throw him away? What if you had taken all the development time given to Thomas Zelling and put it on Calia instead? Because as someone who just plays the game it really felt like she appeared out of nowhere to become an important character â just as we players began to wonder what the Forsaken were going to do now that Sylvanas was gone.
In regards to Calia herself, I find her to be an uninteresting character. She kind of represents the light/void garbage that weâve been forced to deal with the last 3-4 expansions. Sheâs âkind ofâ undead trying to fit in with the Forsaken. Would it not have been much more interesting if she was actually alive?* Her motivation is simple enough to understand, why slap this discount undeath on her? Do you have to be undead to understand/want to help the Forsaken? Perhaps it is a moot point since the damage has already been done, but I have a very hard time imagining how theyâre going to turn this character around and make her interesting.
*I never read the novel where she organizes for the Forsaken to meet their families, but I know that it happens â and I also know there was no mention of it in BFA. As such I cannot comment on whether I think it was well executed or not.
I think this is an interesting question. Maybe Zellingâs story was an attempt to answer this question but, if so, it wasnât a very satisfying answer. I liked his character but he struck me as being âtooâ human. The real horror of the Forsaken, I believe, is that they had their will taken away from them. They were all part of the Scourge until they broke free. The Forsaken had a strong and interesting purpose while the Scourge was around. Since the Lich Kingâs fall, nothing the Forsaken have done has been particularly interesting. And now weâre reaching a point where the Forsaken are just humans, except they rot and stink (⌠more so).
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If all she does is happening in some dime novel and Blizzard canât even manage to give an âimportantâ character honest screen time that is the definition of âforced upon usâ.
I never met her in BfA? She doesnât seem to be important enough for the Horde to play a role.
She is not even important enough to give her a short quest line on Horde side, but obviously on Alliance?
And as a Forsaken player I should now care for that Alliance puppet that wants to be an important Horde character?
Really? Why should anyone?
If they canât even tell a story about characters in the game without heavily relying on their 1/9 stars novels, than they shouldnât tell those stories at all and donât expect players to accept those characters.
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Welcome to Blizzard world. Alliance players get this treatment since Cata. All (ok, most) Horde victories are shown in the game, all Alliance ones are in the books.
Btw, isnât interesting that Undercity is almost back in the hands of forsaken while night elves have a seed (that can be stolen, destroyed, misused) and a promise? I remember an interview after Cata, something like this: âWe know that we were not fair to Alliance players in Cata, but buy the new expansion and we will fix it.â And yes, in MoP then changed the âwe didnât have enough time to make Alliance contentâ to âwe run into technical difficulties while making Alliance contentâ.
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No, Blizzard makes the rules. If they decide to have the Forsaken accept Calia, sheâll be one of them, no matter what you or I say about it.
You were just arguing that Calias story feels ârushedâ to you. Now âwait and seeâ is a bad thing? As I said, her story is just beginning, of course weâll have to wait and see where all this is gonna go.
Having a character experience it in the story is one thing. Showing this experience to your audience is another. Weâve already had a quest named âTo be Forsakenâ that showed us (the players) the experience. A sick man died, was resurrected, his family didnât accept him, he felt alone. There is no point in showing the audience a second character go through this and coming to the same conclusions. Thatâs why I brought up Garrosh and Sylvanas. Itâs repetetive and unsatisyfying for the audience, at the end of Saurfangâs story, many people said: âWhy did it need to happen twice until the Horde started to rethink their hierarchy?â
She had supported and helped them for months in their transition period after Sylvanas departure. You could see the cleansing of Undercity as her initiation.
As I said, she has witnessed the meeting in Arathi. She has seen how the Forsaken were rejected. That was one reason for her to change her mind about feeling responsible for them. Have you ever considered that maybe that was the whole point of the meeting?
To show Calia what it means to be Forsaken? Give her an incentive to change her mind about running away and taking responsibility as the last remaining Menethil? (Just like Voss said in the cinematic?)
As I said, what if the meeting was supposed to show her exactly that? After all, it was the moment when she changed her mind about them.
How are the Forsaken forsaken, if they literally have each other? When they have allies in the Horde and can even take refuge in Orgrimmar? Back then, they were Forsaken. By the Lich King. By their own people. But now? Every raised âForsakenâ since Vanilla found himself with the option to join the others / the argent crusade.
Doesnât change that they are allies. Doesnât change that the Tauren invited them. Or that they brought the Blood Elves into the Horde. Technically, they are not âForsakenâ anymore.
What if⌠Calia being an Undead whose body is preserved by the Light is not a coincidence? What if⌠it was on purpose that Blizzard created an Undead character immune to decay, just at the time when the Forsaken started to look for a way to stop their decomposition? 
Itâs almost as if these story beats could intersect at some point, is it?
Thatâs probably why they included this line. 
Like it or not, she is as much âaverage forsakenâ as Sylvanas was.
But since youâve called me a baboon, youâve officially won this discussion! Congratulations. 
That on the other hand, I can agree with. Compared to SL, Sylvanasâ story, etc., itâs rushed, no question. But if you look at the pacing of Calias story by itself, in my opinion, this should be the normal âspeedâ for their stories. You donât have to wait too long, but there is still time to at least get to know the character a little.
Thatâs the main reason Shadowlands didnât sit well with me. All this BS about the new zones, doing chores for the Eternal Ones⌠like there was nothing better or more interesting to tell. They had Bwonsamdi, a well received and captivating character - his story with Muehâzala could easily have filled an entire zone. Instead, we had to play catch with the almighty Smurf Queen, dance with fairies and do other meaningless stuff that served World Building. And instead of making Arthas the anchor of the SL story - which could have involved Sylvanas, Calia, Jaina, Uther and Bolvar as well and actually have given them great stories - we were told about the most generic and bland villain in the history of Warcraft and the Eternal Ones, the most incompetent, stupid and ignorant âhigher beingsâ we have ever met.
They did the same thing with Nathanos back then, he got a new model and suddenly was declared important. He also didnât have any character development.
The story about Zelling would have been the perfect opportunity to have Calia tag along.
Could they have developed her better? Definetly.
But compared to other ânewly introducedâ characters, it was an improvement.
I agree, but itâs also relative. Unfortunately, they decided to tell their story on different mediums. So when you donât read the books, many of the events in the story do not make sense. Why was there a floating girl in the Sunwell? Why was there suddenly a Saiyan King in Stormwind? Who is Calia Menethil?
Leaving all that aside, I find Calias introduction sufficient to send her on that journey with the Forsaken. Could they have given her more Screentime? Absolutely. But (again, in comparison) for an NPC in WoW, sheâs already gotten more character development than most of the other âFaction Leadersâ.
Tell me, what does make her an âAlliance puppetâ?
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Anduin for Forsaken leader? 
I mean, I say that in jest, but I do actually feel that he might have a firmer grasp on the Forsaken experience than Calia, after his SL-arc.
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I stand for Sylvanas. And Calia and Derek need to die. That is my goal. Together with the death of the Horde council they have failed the Horde.