We haven’t talked for like 3 years by now. Do you expect me to remember all that was said back then?
From what he have seen, Light isn’t (un)safer than any other form of magic. You can control others with Domination Magic, you can turn them mad with the Void or Chaos magic - there was even a tool that controlled the Dracthyr.
There could be a solution where Calia understands her own revival process and uses the Light to at least conserve the Forsaken bodies in the state they are, so they won’t rot any further. They could also use this to give the Forsaken different customization options to look more “intact”, while still being Undead.
Calia just feels like another dropped plot thread to me, that’s sticking around when its reason for existence was cut. The basic idea seemed clear enough. They dug her out and gave her an arc about slowly accepting responsibility for her people. Her naivete gets her killed and ressurected. That screams like it should lead to a “return of the queen (of the dead)”-scenario. Whatever eslse could that story be for?
But wait, there is the twist! Actually, she isn’t ressurected as one of her undead people, she is another kind of strange undead entirely! Shge isn’t “forsaken” at all, but instead speciffically chosen by a Naaru, and thus potentially the Light! Eben more, the book about all these events hints pretty heavily that the Naaru might have orchestrated everything happening in her new arc, possibly sending her dreams and guiding her in their interpretation, which directly led into her caring for the forsaken and dying with them - and thus to her ressurection. And that was while they were introducing the shady side of the Light with Xe’ra, Alleria’s vision’s, and of course, the Mag’har recruitment. Not that sounds less like a “return of the queen” plot, and more like a “beware the false savior!”-story.
And look at that, all the while they were developing Shadowlands, and hinting at a role for Arthas’ sister there, so there was a perfect playground to prepare her character for whatever they had planned with her.
Well, she was ressurected 3 addons ago, and she has don fork all. Because she was nice to some undead, she is now one among a council of Forsaken leaders that has basically done nothing. I really can’t believe that that was the plan, when they brought her back in Legion, so I very much assume that whatever they had was dropped before it even really started. Maybe because the character didn’t get the reception they wanted, maybe because of the changes in the story team, maybe because the Shadowlands patch where it would have happened was cut… but what happened was not the plan for her.
So now she is there without a purpose. A grand setup for no payoff. An empty shell of an unrealised character. Maybe they’ll find some use for her in the future. Maybe they’ll drop her. But most of her story will have been for naught.
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I’m not sure. I’m not at all surprised that it wasn’t turned into a “return of the queen” thing, maybe they waited to see the community’s reaction first. After all, Sylvanas was way too beloved in the fanbase to just be replaced with Calia. I assume that they have a rough plot outline for Calia, since she is basically to the Light what Alleria is to the Void: a mortal prototype, first of her kind. Also, there’s still that whisper about the Light and the bargain with “the enemy of all”.
If the final battle between Light and Void happens during Midnight, I’m quite sure that she’ll be one of the main protagonists, they wouldn’t bring her back in that unique way and then sideline her when it’s about the Light’s big plan. And boy, the Naaru have some explaining to do.
I think there is a good chance, that the alliance becomes evil. Let me explain:
I think, that Blizzard does not want Turalyon, and Anduin simultaneously in the same faction long term, because they clearly want Anduin back as a king, and it’d also be too homogeneous to have both of them. We’ve also seen the army of the Light being too zealous and evil in various occasions (maghar questline).
What if Turalyon loses his wife Alleria to Xalatath, and becomes extremely angry at the void. Thus, he turns the alliance with the help of Yrel into a radically zealous army, which is now devoted to fight the void at all costs. At first this could also reintroduce the faction conflict temporarily, because Players like this. Then Anduin, Moira, etc. could start a rebellion similar to how Thrall rebelled against Garrosh, and it would be a pretty interesting Patch for the Midnight expansion, and a smooth way to make Anduin the King again.
Now, they already planned this expansion anyway, so my idea is kind of useless. However, I feel like people would like it, because warcraft has had that type of story for the Horde over and over, but never for the Alliance.
I get what you mean, but… I don’t think the community can take another major rebellion in this game for the next 5+ years. They should just focus on cosmic threads, but with roots on and in Azeroth - just like Xal’atath is now.
Please, no more faction wars, this horse is already dead, no need to turn it into an Undead and then forsake it again.
But that’s just my opinion.
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I mean it would just be temporary until Anduin becomes King again. I feel like this is the only chance currently lorewise to give some Edges to the alliance, and move away from this moral perfection.
Warcraft always had Faction War, and also always had both Factions working together. For example Broxigar worked together with the Nightelves, and Eitrigg’s best friend and honor brother was Tirion Fordring. It’s not something new to have conflict and cooperation simultaneously
…i don’t think there is any comparison to be had. Calia is just an undead, Alleria absorbed a whole void Naaru.
Could you elaborate on that? What clues are you seeing for her involvement? I mean, Blizz already told us that the main cast of this addon would be part of the whole saga, so with Anduin and Faerin we already have 2 prominent Light-wielders around. Setting it at Silvermoon, and teasing that they’ll bring all the elves, I could also see someone like Liadrin take a leading role. But Calia? I see neither need nor use for her, nor do I see any hints towards it, really. What do you think they would do with her?
If they dropped the original plan for her, like I think they did, they totally would. Wouldn’t be the first dropped character story.
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+intern civil wars
just to complete it because its in combination, just as you said a dead horde trope.
yeah…not exactly…
yeah, her introduction in the prist order hall in Legion and then her “sudden” death and resurrection feels a bit rushed.
Because I just don’t think that they would bring her back into the story, then kill her and resurrect her in a unique way, to say: “That’s it. That was her story.” There has to be a purpose behind this Light resurrection. That said, I believe that we will see every prominent Light wielder in Azeroth take part in that final battle in Midnight. Velen, Liadran, Anduin, Calia, Dezco - maybe even the new Vol’zan-Loa. Why? Because it’s an opportunity to challenge the faith of these characters.
Just imagine, if Yrel and her Lightbound returned, at the side of Light wielding Arathi army, all here to take part in Renilash, the final confrontation. They join the Alliance, there’s conflict with the Elves of Silvermoon, until the Alliance cast has an awakening like this
There certainly was. When they had the book written in 2017 or so. Before the “Worldsoul Saga” was a thing even for the devs. I don’t think they planned whatever they had in store for that character not to happen until 8 years and 4 addons later, to be exectuted by a very different dev team.
More importantly… what they did set up seemed tailor-made to fit the Forsaken, and maybe the Shadowlands addon, and isn’t of much interest for anything else. Calia was neither particularly powerful nor competent before her death. Whatever her role in some Naaru’s plan might be, it doesn’t seem tailored to what she could do, but to who she was: The heir to Lordaeron, the sister to Arthas. She was placed in a good position to affect Forsaken politics, and a good position to affect a Shadowlands plot that includes Arthas. And for both of these her nature as a Light-raised undead could have made a difference. But none of that really happened, and what’s left is just a curiosity. That’s why I am very certain that the original plan for her was by now cut, and isn’t relevant anymore.
The only other thing that I could think to do with her unique origin now would be to actually make her a Naaru puppet. A sleeper agent that will sabotage us once we try to thwart some dastardly plan of the Light. There is nothing else I can think of right now that would make use of her ressurection story at all. Having her as one of a host of light-aligned characters reacting to a conflict certainly would not do that. She could have done that just as well as a living priestess.
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That would be actually interesting plotline and it could even the big boom what worldsoul saga kind of needs.
I do think that they are going to this kind of way but can’t really yet predict the outcome.
Considering arathi being so big plotpoint now and the fact that they left some threadlines even from legion.
And how they talk about this worldsoul saga it feels like end and new start after it , so it would make most sense tie up these plotlines and then start new ones
I think that they do have a rough outline for the overall story, certain Milestones for coming expansions. Take Shadowlands for example; looking at it, the general idea behind Zovaal wasn’t that bad. A demigodlike being imprisoned in the Death Realm, longing to use Azeroth’s World Soul to reshape the Order of the Universe. With the Lich King as his herald - empowered by Death relics created by him, in charge of an army of Val’kyr and the Scourge, inspired by Kyrians and Maldraxxi constructs.
All this could have worked - if they had taken time to build a connection to Azeroth and really develop and focus the villain. Have us walk through the Shadowlands during the leveling campaign, with hints that something is not right (Kyrians getting mindwiped, Maldraxxi giving each other final deaths for… sports, the Winter Queen being sus AF). Then, in an epic endgame questline, we could have investigated with Bolvar who Zovaal actually was, since the Eternal Ones wouldn’t tell us, no matter how often we asked. We could have seen / played the story of his “betrayal” and his deal with the Burning Legion, finally learning how Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination landed on Azeroth. But instead of establishing an actual connection between Arthas, Bolvar, the Lich King and his artifacts - building a bridge to our World of Warcraft, they just told the stand-alone story of the Shadowlands and threw in some minor connections - not by showing them or have us experience them, but by… having NPCs just tell us after a months of doing their dirty work.
“Hey guys, Zovaal was once the Arbiter, he already tried once to take our sigils, so we dominated and imprisoned him. We could have told you that from the beginning, but really, who cares, go and kill him, gg!” Regarding Sylvanas, having an earlier version turn up and say “OMG Sylvanas, eat a Snickers, you’re not yourself, when you’re hangry!” also wasn’t a satisfying pay-off. Again, the problem wasn’t WHAT happened, but HOW they made it happen (or explained it to us).
My point is:
You can have certain story points or general ideas for characters (like Calia), without having the full, detailed story in mind. What matters is how you get from point A to point B. That’s where Shadowlands failed, because they had their story priorities wrong and were focussed on the wrong characters and world building, when it was basically the opportunity to get into old Azerothian lore and explore some of the mysteries of it.
Since we have so many Light Wielders in the story, I just hope they’ll do it right this time and use them to explore the religion and mythology attached to the cosmic domain of Light. A “final battle” between 2 forces we don’t really know would be kind of… boring, don’t you think?
Well the sylvanas thing was completly off, it completly rewrote what sylvanas was even in the past. And having generic split personality between good and evil didnt make any sense considering how sylvanas was before bfa. in that case there was an problem of even what happened, they literally didnt know how to fix her as an charachter after the bfa’s charachter assassination so they just put something together.
And i do bet they will start adding depth to the light, it would be literally stupid to build this as an light vs void conflict and not to go deeper with the mythology behind it and i am really hoping they pull that off cause there is lot potential in it
…I don’t really think your point is engaging much with my point here.
- I said that Calia was a setup without payoff.
- You said, that because there is a setup, you still expect a payoff.
- I pointed to the likely payoffs for the particular setup in question, and how it was already too late for those, so that most of the potential payoff just wasn’t on the table anymore.
And now you reply that… the devs know what they are doing, I guess, and it’ll be fine, as long as they do it well? And you don’t even go into the topic of Calia herself that we were talking about? Come on.
It’s not 2 forces, though. It’s at least 4. We’re #TeamAzeroth and don’t want to be destroyed in some cosmic power struggle, no matter who the contenders are. We aren’t #TeamLight or #TeamVoid or #TeamTitan or whatever, because none of those care for our survival. Everyone just wants the Worldsoul-MacGuffin. I don’t think trying to get Godzilla, Kong and their Kaiju-friends to stop fighting in your city is a plot that has to be boring.
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I’m not saying “they know what they’re doing”, I’m saying that they probably have some rough defined plot points and build the story around them. Maybe it went like “Let’s use Alleria to introduce the Void and Locust Walker and Turalyon to introduce the Naaru Prime”, then Hey, why not create playable Void Elves - we could use Alleria for that" to “We decided to make Xal’atath the antagonist for the next expansion. Now we need someone with a connection to her. Wait, we do have a prominent Void Elf who could form that!”
It’s not outlandish to assume that Calia’s resurrection might have a similar purpose - to give her a deeper connection the to Light than just being a priest. Even if we assume that the whole Renilash idea in midnight was created after Metzen’s return, the logical thing to do would be to look at the established characters and how they might fit into the story that leads up to the clash of Light and Void - and in that regard, Calia has quite a unique connection to one of the forces .
Just take a look at the TWW Cast:
Regarding the themes of “World Soul and survival of Azeroth”, Magni (as her speaker) and Thrall (as a shaman) made sense. Alleria fits into the party because the enemy is a Void being and “The War Within” is basically a description of Anduin’s mind since Shadowlands ended (Even though I personally think that he came back too early).
tl;dr
Calia could be one of the characters that play a role in midnight, because she was shelved since the cleansing of Undercity - and her resurrection through the Light still is a mystery box. Since the Light seems to “know only one way”, her Undeath existence could be part of a greater plan.
Of course, you might be right and she could also be a shelved left over from a scrapped plotline and, but it’s also possible that she was introduced early in the story with the intention to play a larger role whenever the Light joins the battle. Her very unique resurrection makes her a glimmering Checkhov’s gun, lying on the side of the battlefield, waiting to be used.
As far as I understood the announcement, Metzen was describing the climax of the expansion. And the final clash of Light and Void does sound like an expansion finale. My angle is that they will probably introduce more facettes and nuances of the Light during the Midnight leveling campaign. If the datamined item hints are legit and we might also visit K’aresh in this expansion, TWW would be the expansion where we get some more insights into the Void, so obviously, we’d also need to get some insights into the Light domain and inner workings. Outside Xe’ra on Argus and the handful of people in the Horde, who know what happened to the AU-Mag’har and Yrel’s Draenei, the people of Azeroth didn’t really have that much interaction with the new (more radical) Naaru.
And we still don’t know how A’dal, M’uru and the others Naaru fit in it.
Of course, I’m just spitballing here, I’m brainstorming about how they could use future content to build a bridge to the next expansion. And the thought to see lesser used (leading) characterin action is always a welcome one for me.
tl;dr²
Xal’atath is probably a Void Naaru that resisted Elune’s conversion therapy. 
Nothing new just giving Blizzard more credit than they deserve. Truth is that Blizzard saw how unpopular Calia really is and abandoned all plans they had.
I’m sorry, but if that’s saying anything to the topic at hand, I haven’t the slightest clue what it is. Of course they define plot points and build the story around them. And sometimes they scratch these plot points, when circumstances change. Sometimes not even because they wanted to drop that point, but because the game development found no time to get it in.
No, but it’s also not unique. We have (among other things, like prophets) a whole race of Lightforged, and a lightforging process that was used on other races like a human and a Nathrezim. If the Light-necromancy was only meant to give us a character that has a vaguely defined connection to the Light it was entirely unnecessary. So, if there is a better explanation for this choice than a dropped plot (or just incompetent randomness, I guess), this doesn’t seem to be it.
If you want to convince me otherwise, you might try explaining to me what you think could be unique about her case here, instead of just stating that it could be. I’m just not seeing it. Or, as I said before, the way I could see her being unique is by actually being a Naaru puppet.
Independent of that I’ll stick to my conviction that the original reason for her being raised was that they wanted to push either a “return of the queen”-plot on the Forsaken or “beware the false savior”, and probably planned to use and explain her nature within the deverlopment mess that was Shadowlands. I am pretty sure that anything they’ll do with her now won’t be, because of the setup they gave us, but because she is there to be used.
No. I’m actually trying to stick to the topic I am talking about.
She shares that with every single character in the game. A lot of which still have unsolved issues or mysteries about them.
It might have been, when it was shown. But 4 seasons of the show later, we know that it is nothing more than one of those mystery boxes that are never half as interesting to open as they were to wonder about at the start. We have long since passed the point where opening it would be interesting. Most have probably just forgotten about it entirely - especially since it was novel content, that many of the players of the game probably never even cared to read up on.
Sure. But once again, you’re not engaging a point I am making. You said it would be boring, if we weren’t involved with the parties of the clash. I said we are a third party anyways.
As I said, there seems to be a “masterplan” of the Light that follows a certain way, maybe the resurrection only worked because she has some part in it. A quote from Warcraft wiki seems to confirm this:
It’s basically the same thing as the “Naaru puppet” thing you mentioned, but Calia’s resurrection is way too special to not be used in the future. And a war between Light and Void would be a fitting stage for that.
Which is definetly possible!
But not every single character was raised from the dead by the Light as a Light Undead.
Come on, it’s really not a big leap.
If you don’t find her plot interesting, that’s fine and I understand it. I agree that it’s been quite a while, still; remember how long Khadgar stood in Shattrath before he took an active role? Putting characters on the shelf for a while is not exactly new in WoW.
I’m not even trying to convince you of anything I’m just saying that imho, it wouldn’t be outlandish and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her Light resurrection become relevant in the story of Midnight, when the Light’s “big plan” will probably be explained 
Okay, let me rephrase it:
So far, we’re getting to know the Void bit by bit. N’Zoth and his henchmen gave us some cryptic prophecies and warnings, since then, we’ve tried to find out what exactly their plan was. Especially since Azshara’s and N’Zoths roles in BfA were unspectacular and disappointing. Xal’atath seems to serve the interest of the Void (Lords?). Since Dawn of the Infinite, we can assume that N’Zoth followed a plan, since he gained already knowledge about the future (and his own fate?) thousands of years ago.
From what we know, K’aresh wasn’t just destroyed by Dimensius, but seemed to have a World Soul too, that started to “sing”. Maybe we’ll learn what happened there in a future TWW-patch, unraveling the Void’s plan for Azeroth. As I said, these cosmic conflicts only really matter when there is a connection to the mortals who live there.
And we know enough about the Void to speculate about their prophecies and the motives of its agents. In short: The Void is interesting.
Regarding the Light, we don’t have any significant insight to its inner workings. We know that there are Naaru and that Xe’ra was a radical leader of them.
We know that there’s Yrel with her fanatics waiting to forcefully convert others - and that’s it. So in order to make this final clash matter to us (despite just living on their battleground), they need to do some “world building”, especially for the Light’s “big plan”. If it’s supposed to be the final clash of these forces, it’s almost certain that the Lightbound from AU Draenor will join in, accompanied by the Naaru. And of course, we’re a third party - but with so many races on Azeroth that worship the Light and even one race that uses the Void, we would basically be involved from the start - by either taking the initiative by our own or being being dragged into it by one of the two parties seeking allies.
The army of Light arriving with some Naaru and a “divine plan” has great potential for conflict. How would the different orders on Azeroth react? How would Velen or Liadrin deal with these “radical” Naaru? What would the Scarlets do, when “Light demons” tried to win them over as allies? What would the Silver Hand do? The Enclave?
tl;dr
If the arrival of these cosmic forces on Azeroth wouldn’t have any impact on the mortal races (despite being a battleground), why even bother to bring them to Azeroth?
And I’m not even diving into Beledar, Anduin, Arator and the whole “child of light and shadow”-thing at this point.
Ok, to clear that up, when I talked about the “Naaru puppet” thing, i really meant that she didn’t have much of a free will of her own anymore, and would follow whatever the Naaru wanted for her. And the most obvious way to use that would not be to use her as ome hero or force against the void, but as a sleeper agent, that will probably stab us in the back in furtherance of Naaru goals. If that’s what you had in mind, we’d be in agreement. I wouldn’t really be impressed by that plot, especially since I don’t think the Forsaken need that kind of hit right now, but it’s doable.
Hm, thinking about it… maybe it would even be kinda cool for the Forsaken, if done right. So she betrays us because of mind control, but we - or more specifically the Forsaken - somehow break her out of it, and “free her” She is now a broken undead survivor of a mind-controlling force that made her do bad things against her will… Where have I heard that before? Considering one of my main criticisms of the idea of Calia as a Forsaken leader was that she hadn’t gone through the Forsaken experience… well, I could maybe work with that.
To assuming her role in Midnight’s plot? It kinda is, though. One chapter into the first book of the trilogy is a bit soon for everything but the wilest speculation.
Sure. But frankly, what we got wasn’t a recognizable continuation of the character Khadgar, it was a new character tacked on the old name. Which worked fine. But if they had taken another mage at his level like Ansirem or Modera for the same role, it would have probably worked just as well, if they were just as likeable. With a forgotten character, no one cares if you basically retcon his personality. So yeah, give us some time away from Calia and you could redefine her at will as well. If you don’t wait… well, you get a Jaina situation.
Okay, I wasn’t really looking for a rephrase of your theory, since I didn’t critique your theory. Just as I wasn’t looking the last time you gave it. 
You really, really want to delve there, hm?
I actually liked the theory that the song wasn’t the worldsoul, but the super Naaru T’uure that later slowed Dimensius in K’aresh, splintering him… And with us having that great naaru-like crystal-thingie in Hallowfall that could probably carry a tune just as well…
That’s not how WoW tells its story. We don’t get to see a cultural shock when Void Elves are introduced, when priests of the Light ally with shadowpriests, or when the Silver Hands suddenly treats Sunwalkers, Blood Knights and Moon Priests as if they were paladins of the church. We get a few character viewpoints at most, and the rest of the world has to be assumed as basically be okay with it, because we certainly won’t see any politicing. We’ll get the viewpoint of the characters that are involved in the plot… and superficially enough, that the playerbase that doesn’t care doesn’t get bored with the drtail. Maybe there’ll be one or three “stay a while and listen”. But that’s it. This isn’t FF14 or something like that.
…because of what you have in the brackets? I mean, I don’t see why we really need more that makes them interesting to us than that we have to stop them, be it by might, magic or diplomacy. Seems more than sufficient to me. For the personal touch, we have characters that have a personal relationship to these powers, without blindly following them, like Alleria and Anduin, who are already in our cadre of Worldsoul Saga protagonists. It doesn’t get more personal, when you include more people with the same conflicts.
Also, they tried making the forces interesting without bringing them to Azeroth. That was Shadowlands. And the fact that it was so removed from Azeroth was a loudly shared point of criticism that supposedly explained why no one cared about what happened there.