When did the Forsaken change?

[Flurryfang]

Golden: i dont understand forsaken.
*gold retcons forsaken lore*
Golden: i understand the forsaken now.

thats why they changed

Damm, i completly forgot that Golden wrote that story and how much it actually changed the Forsaken O.o

It does explain the change after Legion. Blizz senior story writers properly just said "Okay, this is the new standard for Forsaken" and then it was that....

[Aucald]

Being undead did not obligate you to do those things, but what it did was precondition you towards to. There's a proclivity across the vast, vast array of Forsaken characters towards a casual attitude towards what many other races would take issue with. You are correct in your assessment of these characters, the bit about Wroth is something I entirely forgot for example, but it doesn't really affect my argument - they are such people, they are at once cruel and uncomprimising and possessing of human traits and motives. That is how such a race should be portrayed - but their core moral bankruptcy as compared to other races is nevertheless consistent, as are the effects of undeath. It's undeat itself that produces this attitude shift - there is trauma and nurture on top of it, but even 'good people' like Bartholomew nevertheless struggle as a direct consequence of undeath. They are not societally induced to be in this position alone, they are, by their majority, pushed in that direction. Again, take any random selection of ten quests in any Forsaken zone and it's plain to see. The Cataclysm Forsaken of those we see differ chiefly in that they have the same mental effects of Undeath but none of the history - hence why they have no real issue turning on the state.

I would agree that the prospect undeath generally darkens a given individual's outlook on things, I think that's a pretty undeniable trait all in all. The thing I disagree with is that this necessarily requires or lends to a sense of "moral bankruptcy" as you put it - it's a downward gradient, sure; but not so precariously that it makes *every* Forsaken a complete monster or only capable of cold cruelty. The further you were from complete monsterdom as a Human will necessarily predicate where you fall on the moral scale following being made undead. The trauma is a downward pressure, but it is not an automatic drop. Thus you have these individuals you refer to as outliers, who are actually just exemplars of those Forsaken who were closer to the extreme end of "good" before becoming undead. The weight of undeath pushes you further down the scale toward evil in general, but it won't render a lawful good individual lawful evil or chaotic evil for that matter. Perhaps they'll slip toward lawful neutral instead, or even neutral evil, or possible even chaotic good if they were a veritable paragon beforehand.

And again, I think the "evil" hat of the Forsaken is informed because of the nature of the quests you follow in the Forsaken starting experience - the majority of which concern themselves with the RAS and/or Sylvanas' chosen authorities, who would understandably skew evil themselves (because Sylvanas herself is evil). The segment of the Forsaken that don't actively skew evil are left out of the limelight, at least until we find ourselves dealing with a handful of notables who explicitly are outside of Sylvanas' inner circle (e.g. the Desolate Council).

[Flurryfang]

When i actually think about it, i don't have that much of a problem with the Forsaken changing. Its more that they were changed into such a bland version.

Like, i remembered that when the first hints of the Desolate Council came forward, i was EXTREMLY excited. It could mean, that Sylvanas would have to keep dealing with a form of Forsaken "nobels", just like Anduin would have. That we could have in-fighting within the Forsaken and so on. So much potential was there in that idea. The idea that the Forsaken were not 100% on Sylvanases side and maybe wanted other things.

That they then decided to completly remove that Council within the Before The Storm story itself is sooooo disappointing. Blizz writing have a tendency to start up something quite good and then completly smashing it within a short amount of time :/

[Super Dickmann]

I would agree that the prospect undeath generally darkens a given individual's outlook on things, I think that's a pretty undeniable trait all in all. The thing I disagree with is that this necessarily requires or lends to a sense of "moral bankruptcy" as you put it - it's a downward gradient, sure; but not so precariously that it makes *every* Forsaken a complete monster or only capable of cold cruelty. The further you were from complete monsterdom as a Human will necessarily predicate where you fall on the moral scale following being made undead. The trauma is a downward pressure, but it is not an automatic drop. Thus you have these individuals you refer to as outliers, who are actually just exemplars of those Forsaken who were closer to the extreme end of "good" before becoming undead. The weight of undeath pushes you further down the scale toward evil in general, but it won't render a lawful good individual lawful evil or chaotic evil for that matter. Perhaps they'll slip toward lawful neutral instead, or even neutral evil, or possible even chaotic good if they were a veritable paragon beforehand.

And again, I think the "evil" hat of the Forsaken is informed because of the nature of the quests you follow in the Forsaken starting experience - the majority of which concern themselves with the RAS and/or Sylvanas' chosen authorities, who would understandably skew evil themselves (because Sylvanas herself is evil). The segment of the Forsaken that don't actively skew evil are left out of the limelight, at least until we find ourselves dealing with a handful of notables who explicitly are outside of Sylvanas' inner circle (e.g. the Desolate Council).

That's not the point though, no one is making the case that every Forsaken is omnicidally evil, rather that the Forsaken are predisposed, both naturally by virtue of their state and socially because of their trauma and the like towards, as the blurb puts it 'cruelty and viciousness' and that this is a fundamental part of the race concept. Cruelty, dark humor, mad science, undeath etc. have all been core points every time they've appeared in side material for a reason - this is the 'sell' of the race in a similar way to how the tauren's selling point is that they're gentle giants in tune with nature who if roused can kick your ass but would not hit first. There are outliers to both, and there is considerably more depth (I'd argue with the Forsaken more so, but beside the point) once you peek past the surface but this is the fundamental experience that the race is constructed to provide and it is reflected in their quests, characters and aesthetic. It's the fact that they have this proclivity and react to these aforementioned core traits that make these outliers still part of the race and identifiable for it. To take one example, Darkmar or Bartholomew have all the same starting points as the Forsaken but go in another direction. Judkins has the same condition and professional history as any number of the bad apothecaries, but he still has a line and departed the state accordingly.

Without the foundation, they would not be outliers and would in fact not be Forsaken. The current substitution is one of that foundation - the foundation is now on the focus of their social trauma and their experience as a personality cult with a focus on the humanity they've been separated from rather than that they've been rejected by or are recontextualizing. In this new foundation, the reading of all extant characters must either change or if the discrepancy is too large, they simply must go. Hence, your comment at the end regarding how these were such because they were tied to Sylvanas and were evil, being people in positions of authority and so forth is wrong for a number of reasons - both the meta one, namely that a distinction between the racial leader and the race's general vibe wasnt' even a gleam in the eye of the Vanilla devs given how the leader at the time was an irrelevant backdrop who didn't do anything, and the factual one because you see the same effect of undeath in interactions like the Silverpine memento or the Agamand Mills dude and his vendetta, hell even the old lady knitting scarves and scared of the mindless state. Each show those elements of change, as does Amalia and Zelling at the start, but they react with in different ways. Same baseline, different expressions.

@Flurryfang

Any separation between the Forsaken and Sylvanas had to be undertaken with great care and the cost-benefit analysis really checked, if it was to be done at all which I'm 100% against in the first place. The societal change depicted in BTS could've hypothetically worked as a character beat if, to give one take on it, it had the following conditions. One - it was explicitly stated to be extremely recently induced, say after Sylvanas became Warchief. Two - the opposition to it was internal rather than external and featured the aforementioned prior chain of command who'd have lost the political freedoms that were the default up to this point. Three - the break with the personality cult was followed up on with the Forsaken themselves building an organ internally to do this job.

There is no race in the game that has had its representatives go after their leader more from within. Up until BFA Sylvanas had no shortage of stories where she was opposed for her insufficient commitment to the cause, either in being too moderate or too extreme, the former in the form of uprisings, the latter in terms of defections. Of all the things that are wretched about BTS, one among the worst is to turn the Forsaken into passive victims incapable of initiative.

[Aucald]

That's not the point though, no one is making the case that every Forsaken is omnicidally evil, rather that the Forsaken are predisposed, both naturally by virtue of their state and socially because of their trauma and the like towards, as the blurb puts it 'cruelty and viciousness' and that this is a fundamental part of the race concept. Cruelty, dark humor, mad science, undeath etc. have all been core points every time they've appeared in side material for a reason - this is the 'sell' of the race in a similar way to how the tauren's selling point is that they're gentle giants in tune with nature who if roused can kick your ass but would not hit first. There are outliers to both, and there is considerably more depth (I'd argue with the Forsaken more so, but beside the point) once you peek past the surface but this is the fundamental experience that the race is constructed to provide and it is reflected in their quests, characters and aesthetic. It's the fact that they have this proclivity and react to these aforementioned core traits that make these outliers still part of the race and identifiable for it. To take one example, Darkmar or Bartholomew have all the same starting points as the Forsaken but go in another direction. Judkins has the same condition and professional history as any number of the bad apothecaries, but he still has a line and departed the state accordingly.

I think you underline my point succinctly above: "there is considerably more depth (I'd argue with the Forsaken more so, but beside the point) once you peek past the surface but this is the fundamental experience." We've been gifted a view now that more beyond the surface generally presented, but that doesn't invalidate the surface, or the stereotype if you prefer. Those evil Forsaken you mentioned are still there and still active, after all. They're as much a part of the Forsaken as the other examples we've been privy to in BfA. The notion that there is more beneath the surface doesn't invalidate said surface.

Without the foundation, they would not be outliers and would in fact not be Forsaken. The current substitution is one of that foundation - the foundation is now on the focus of their social trauma and their experience as a personality cult with a focus on the humanity they've been separated from rather than that they've been rejected by or are recontextualizing. In this new foundation, the reading of all extant characters must either change or if the discrepancy is too large, they simply must go. Hence, your comment at the end regarding how these were such because they were tied to Sylvanas and were evil, being people in positions of authority and so forth is wrong for a number of reasons - both the meta one, namely that a distinction between the racial leader and the race's general vibe wasnt' even a gleam in the eye of the Vanilla devs given how the leader at the time was an irrelevant backdrop who didn't do anything, and the factual one because you see the same effect of undeath in interactions like the Silverpine memento or the Agamand Mills dude and his vendetta, hell even the old lady knitting scarves and scared of the mindless state. Each show those elements of change, as does Amalia and Zelling at the start, but they react with in different ways. Same baseline, different expressions.

I don't agree the "foundation" has actually changed, though; though I do think the Forsaken as a society are changing or in the midst of change (understandable given the huge shakeup that just occurred). But I think this change actually started well before Sylvanas abandoned the Forsaken and the Horde. It began with the influx of new Forsaken who didn't share in the traumas of the Third War like the original Forsaken did, it accelerated when Sylvanas became Warchief and inadvertently left a power vacuum in her wake which the Desolate Council (itself a collection of Forsaken who seemed to buck the trend of general Forsaken characterization), and has now culminated with Sylvanas' complete departure and a reorganization of the Forsaken power-structure. As a result, the Forsaken have started to take a long look at their society and seeing that a consequence of it has been a self-inflicted and often deleterious isolation, one which I often accuse Sylvanas of propagating for purposes of keeping her Forsaken ethically "loyal" to her alone.

[Flurryfang]

@Flurryfang

Any separation between the Forsaken and Sylvanas had to be undertaken with great care and the cost-benefit analysis really checked, if it was to be done at all which I'm 100% against in the first place. The societal change depicted in BTS could've hypothetically worked as a character beat if, to give one take on it, it had the following conditions. One - it was explicitly stated to be extremely recently induced, say after Sylvanas became Warchief. Two - the opposition to it was internal rather than external and featured the aforementioned prior chain of command who'd have lost the political freedoms that were the default up to this point. Three - the break with the personality cult was followed up on with the Forsaken themselves building an organ internally to do this job.

There is no race in the game that has had its representatives go after their leader more from within. Up until BFA Sylvanas had no shortage of stories where she was opposed for her insufficient commitment to the cause, either in being too moderate or too extreme, the former in the form of uprisings, the latter in terms of defections. Of all the things that are wretched about BTS, one among the worst is to turn the Forsaken into passive victims incapable of initiative.

Sylvanas has for a very long time been the front figure of the Forsaken, even to a point that if Sylvanas wants something, it equals to the Forsaken wanting something.

And while that worked for a very long time, since she pretty much was the savior of her people, it does create a rather bland race. And at some point, we have to see the other side, what is beneath Sylvanases massive personality. I thought that would have been the Desolate Council.

And i think they could very much have matched up with all of your points, because the start of Legion, did set up it brilliantly for changes to happen. With Sylvanas becoming Warchief, it would become clear, that she could not only have the Forsakens interest in mind. And with her going away to The Broken Isles, it would give enough time for the Forsaken to think "Maybe we should have some leaders who, you know, had our and only our interest in mind.". it would allow them to have this "opening", where characters came to light, who technically were famed characters within the Forsaken, but had been overshadowed by Sylvanas in the years before.

And when it comes to being the race with the most opposition from within, i would highly disagree. Cause when the Forsaken have had internal problems, it have always had an outside intermediate. The revolt of professor Putress and Varimathras was more about the Legion than about the Forsaken being unhappy with Sylvanas, and the later defection was only after their entire race having been rewritten. If you say that these are "inside" revolts, than the betrayel of Archbishop Benedictus was also an inside betrayel, yet the Humans seems to not care about it at all and have not changed for it.

I believe, that something good could have been made for the Forsaken when Sylvanas became Warchief. The cult of personality could have been dampened, since she had to stay in Orgrimmar, and because of that, many Forsaken characters could have become more prominent. After the Forsaken had gotten revenge on Arthas, The Desolate Council could have been pushing for progress within the Forsaken, giving it a new purpose in a world, where their original purpose of getting revenge on Arthas, was gone. The before un-opposed Sylvanas, could be forced into completly new interactions and had her character be even more developed, by now facing the risk of losing the support of her people.

[The Butt Witch]

Golden: i dont understand forsaken.
*gold retcons forsaken lore*
Golden: i understand the forsaken now.

thats why they changed

Well it's no wonder that a female writer pulls a Steven Universe where there are no evil characters, just tragic and misunderstood characters that eventually become friends with the protagonist.

[Traveler Voltin]

Well it's no wonder that a female writer pulls a Steven Universe where there are no evil characters, just tragic and misunderstood characters that eventually become friends with the protagonist.

yeah and people wonder why other people massively hate Calia.

[Super Dickmann]

I think you underline my point succinctly above: "there is considerably more depth (I'd argue with the Forsaken more so, but beside the point) once you peek past the surface but this is the fundamental experience." We've been gifted a view now that more beyond the surface generally presented, but that doesn't invalidate the surface, or the stereotype if you prefer. Those evil Forsaken you mentioned are still there and still active, after all. They're as much a part of the Forsaken as the other examples we've been privy to in BfA. The notion that there is more beneath the surface doesn't invalidate said surface.

You are wrong. Because the depth was already there - the above aesthetic and concept is the surface. The depth is how each character deals with that and the reasons for it - they're relationship to undeath, their prior lives, humanity and the Horde. What I'm describing to you is not 'the evil Forsaken' but the Forsaken as a whole - most Forsaken have the traits I'm describing or are reacting to them in some way and exist in an environment where they are detailed. Without these aspects - and these aspects are entirely absent in the Forsaken's new cast and in the 'surface' of the Forsaken civilian life as shown in BTS, we are not discussing the same foundation. We are discussing a different set of ideas, namely what I described below - trauma over rejection by humanity, wishes to reconnect with their past lives, and the control by first the Lich King, then by their own state. The latter are all present for the nu-undead or are reacting to it, but it is nonexistent and irreconcilable with the above foundation. It's one or the other.

Compare and contrast how unchanged the BTS Forsaken are in their relations with humanity - i.e just wanting to recover their relationships as they were and live them out, as compared to the more nuanced takes in Vanilla's quests where the bond is there, but changed by undeath. Clarice still remembers and has a connection to her husband, but death has changed it heavily. Another still relates to the loss of his wife and her murder, but his priority in those events is skewed. These are real human emotions, real human relationships, altered accordingly, and done so by the nature of those involved, not by societal pressure. Parsqual and Elsie are functionally human, any separation from their past selves is 100% social and visual. Remove them from their environment and put them in one where they're treated exactly as humans and you'd not find any difference. Not so with those I've referenced or with the Forsaken at large. Of these portrayals, Clarice's and even dudes like the Farthings and their grievances with their landowners are deeper in the sense that they have actual facets - the BTS Forsaken are oppressed people with a living condition, the pre-BTS civilian undead we see, and there's no shortage of them, are changed by undeath and their relationship to their prior lives are altered by it and their history.

I don't agree the "foundation" has actually changed, though; though I do think the Forsaken as a society are changing or in the midst of change (understandable given the huge shakeup that just occurred). But I think this change actually started well before Sylvanas abandoned the Forsaken and the Horde. It began with the influx of new Forsaken who didn't share in the traumas of the Third War like the original Forsaken did, it accelerated when Sylvanas became Warchief and inadvertently left a power vacuum in her wake which the Desolate Council (itself a collection of Forsaken who seemed to buck the trend of general Forsaken characterization), and has now culminated with Sylvanas' complete departure and a reorganization of the Forsaken power-structure. As a result, the Forsaken have started to take a long look at their society and seeing that a consequence of it has been a self-inflicted and often deleterious isolation, one which I often accuse Sylvanas of propagating for purposes of keeping her Forsaken ethically "loyal" to her alone.

The latter elements are entirely post-hoc plot events that were never implied to be present before. The Forsaken being exclusively loyal to Sylvanas or having their life experiences shaped by her alone are belied by the content of their prior stories and it's what has produced this race of worthless victims deprived of initiative, structure or purpose. Or indeed by your end point since the conclusion to your paragraph is that they're taking a look at their society - i.e their entire race concept and are picking it apart. Sylvanas did not isolate Forsaken prior to this - they were free to go and did so. Sylvanas did not force them to give up their past - Forsaken quests constantly grapple with their past, Sylvanas is not why they hate the living nor are they self-isolated - Sylvanas was several times attacked for her misalignment within the Forsaken, something that's only really comparable to the Defias in terms of humans and is absent from virtually every other race where the synonymity between leader, ideal and people is a given rather than a major plot point. The Desolate Council do not buck the trend of Forsaken characterization because, lacking every element of the Forsaken's prior experience, they're not even Forsaken.

The things they are affected by - the police society, the separation from humanity that's socially induced by Sylvanas, rather than induced by their nature and mutual political choices, have nothing to do with the core concept or aesthetic apparent in every one of their quests up to this point. They provide a new perspective with the removal of the previous one - you cannot simultaneously have the setting where the Desolate Council and the BTS Forsaken make sense and the one where the wealth of their prior characterization and even episodic cast exists, and that's why everything I've mentioned up to this point is absent from the current undead.

@Flurryfang

Putress opposed Sylvanas from within the Forsaken to achieve the destruction of all life. Stillwater opposed Sylvanas on the basis that he found the respect for Forsaken free will and the ability for people to leave to be faulty. Godfrey opposed Sylvanas because he figured treating with the Gilneans instead of wanting them out was also a show of weakness, see also him killing the captives. All of these were internal elements, not outwardly induced, operating from a similar cultural backing. Staging the Desolate Council's opposition to Sylvanas around her not upholding their interests would be laughable in anything but a retroactive context since the one thing Sylvanas did on-screen in Legion concerned an exclusively Forsaken interest namely the preservation of their race.

The Forsaken already had a new purpose as of Cataclysm - undeath as a transhumanist state, Lordaeronian patriotism. These are not implied, they're stated over and over within the quest text throughout the expansion across a broad range of characters. Hell, there are quests flat out called The New Forsaken and Lordaeron, that spell this out.

[Aucald]

You are wrong. Because the depth was already there - the above aesthetic and concept is the surface. The depth is how each character deals with that and the reasons for it - they're relationship to undeath, their prior lives, humanity and the Horde. What I'm describing to you is not 'the evil Forsaken' but the Forsaken as a whole - most Forsaken have the traits I'm describing or are reacting to them in some way and exist in an environment where they are detailed. Without these aspects - and these aspects are entirely absent in the Forsaken's new cast and in the 'surface' of the Forsaken civilian life as shown in BTS, we are not discussing the same foundation. We are discussing a different set of ideas, namely what I described below - trauma over rejection by humanity, wishes to reconnect with their past lives, and the control by first the Lich King, then by their own state. The latter are all present for the nu-undead or are reacting to it, but it is nonexistent and irreconcilable with the above foundation. It's one or the other.

Compare and contrast how unchanged the BTS Forsaken are in their relations with humanity - i.e just wanting to recover their relationships as they were and live them out, as compared to the more nuanced takes in Vanilla's quests where the bond is there, but changed by undeath. Clarice still remembers and has a connection to her husband, but death has changed it heavily. Another still relates to the loss of his wife and her murder, but his priority in those events is skewed. These are real human emotions, real human relationships, altered accordingly, and done so by the nature of those involved, not by societal pressure. Parsqual and Elsie are functionally human, any separation from their past selves is 100% social and visual. Remove them from their environment and put them in one where they're treated exactly as humans and you'd not find any difference. Not so with those I've referenced or with the Forsaken at large. Of these portrayals, Clarice's and even dudes like the Farthings and their grievances with their landowners are deeper in the sense that they have actual facets - the BTS Forsaken are oppressed people with a living condition, the pre-BTS civilian undead we see, and there's no shortage of them, are changed by undeath and their relationship to their prior lives are altered by it and their history.

I know you think that, but your very words above have otherwise belied your assertion. The depth was largely inferred and/or imputed, because it really *wasn't* explored outside the starting experience (which, again, is largely skewed to certain groups with a very preset ideology within the narrative). I think the embrace of the Forsaken's former humanity is more a new movement in their overall society, and not a retroactive one as you seem to assert here - not what you effectively attempt to shoehorn as a retcon to the Forsaken's characterization. The old lore, events, and characters aren't gone even if they're moved out of the effective limelight. Someone ignoring continuity doesn't make it retroactive on its own, after all; and ignoring continuity is what I think you're doing here. Trying to take a more modern movement or social change and impute it unnecessarily onto the past. The Forsaken have changed as a people, but that doesn't invalidate what they previously were, especially since the legacy of what they were before continues to effect them today.

The latter elements are entirely post-hoc plot events that were never implied are present before. The Forsaken being exclusively loyal to Sylvanas or having their life experiences shaped by her alone are belied by the content of their prior stories and it's what has produced this race of worthless victims deprived of initiative, structure or purpose. Or indeed by your end point since the conclusion to your paragraph is that they're taking a look at their society - i.e their entire race concept and are picking it apart. Sylvanas did not isolate Forsaken prior to this - they were free to go and did so. Sylvanas did not force them to give up their past - Forsaken quests constantly grapple with their past, Sylvanas is not why they hate the living nor are they self-isolated - Sylvanas was several times attacked for her misalignment within the Forsaken, something that's only really comparable to the Defias in terms of humans and is absent from virtually every other race where the synonymity between leader, ideal and people is a given rather than a major plot point. The Desolate Council do not buck the trend of Forsaken characterization because, lacking every element of the Forsaken's prior experience, they're not even Forsaken.

We've covered this narrative ground before, but my argument again is that looking as the narrative as an organic whole, you can see why Sylvanas changed her tack. While the Lich King was still active in the world Sylvanas didn't need to constrain her Forsaken, nor did she particular care to - the Forsaken were weapons in her eyes, and their individual freedoms didn't matter insofar as their need and her need for vengeance were shared (which they almost always were). Both Sylvanas and the Forsaken bore considerable animus toward the Scourge and the Lich King, and that shared need for vengeance kept the Forsaken loyal to Sylvanas and on task toward that end. When the Lich King was finally undone Sylvanas was forced with the necessity of reorganized the Forsaken by force - she no longer had their shared focus on the Lich King to hold them, and their love for her as their queen while considerable was not as binding as their original shared desire for revenge. Hence the additional bulwarks built up to shore that loyalty, distancing her people from their living relatives to keep them bound to her, and keeping the society highly regimented in emulation of their original singular focus (moving from revenge to the perpetual reign of Sylvanas). While the removal of focus was a detriment for Sylvanas' agenda, it allowed the Forsaken more lateral freedom to finally explore their own state, place in their world, and even reevaluate their own identities. The Desolate Council is borne out of new era of the Forsaken people, a collection of people who see that they don't need to isolate themselves, and that loyalty to their queen doesn't need to be the paramount virtue of their society. You can certainly argue they're "not Forsaken," and perhaps that's true - they're not the Forsaken we're accustomed to, certainly, but perhaps they are even more themselves than Sylvanas ever permitted them to be. What it means to be of a group, even in a fantastical context, is always a subjective determination.

The things they are affected by - the police society, the separation from humanity that's socially induced by Sylvanas, rather than induced by their nature and mutual political choices, have nothing to do with the core concept or aesthetic apparent in every one of their quests up to this point. They provide a new perspective with the removal of the previous one - you cannot simultaneously have the setting where the Desolate Council and the BTS Forsaken make sense and the one where the wealth of their prior characterization and even episodic cast exists, and that's why everything I've mentioned up to this point is absent from the current undead.

I've already given you a mechanism in the previous posts as to how you can reconcile both groups within the same society, so I don't really accept your argument that they can't simultaneously exist on its very face. You've wrongly defined what is to be Forsaken in the most narrow sense possible, and perhaps you need to realign that view with the current plight of the Forsaken. You don't have to, of course - you can just decry them as "nu-Forsaken," but I'd argue that's really just a kind of fantastic bigotry of a sort (not calling you a bigot, mind you, just that a refusal to accept these Forsaken as Forsaken would be a bigoted position within the fiction).

[Verdugo]

*snip*

Can you just please explain why suddenly you have such a vested interest for a faction you obviously couldnt give a shit about before?

[Aucald]

Can you just please explain why suddenly you have such a vested interest for a faction you obviously couldnt give a shit about before?

I wouldn't be responding to any of these arguments if I didn't give a shit about them, so the fact that I do take the time to answer and explicate my points should tell you I do actually care. My first character in Classic WoW, back in '04, was a Forsaken Warlock that I still play today. Now, my question to you would be - why did you even ask this if the answer was patently obvious without knowing my personal story?

[Verdugo]

I wouldn't be responding to any of these arguments if I didn't give a shit about them, so the fact that I do take the time to answer and explicate my points should tell you I do actually care. My first character in Classic WoW, back in '04, was a Forsaken Warlock that I still play today. Now, my question to you would be - why did you even ask this if the answer was patently obvious without knowing my personal story?

If you did give a shit about them before, you wouldnt support this blatant destruction of a faction.

[Aucald]

If you did give a shit about them before, you wouldnt support this blatant destruction of a faction.

I don't agree that it's a destruction of any kind, really. Personally I prefer the evil characterization myself, but I don't think a changing story is destruction even if it isn't to my preference.

[Super Dickmann]

I know you think that, but your very words above have otherwise belied your assertion. The depth was largely inferred and/or imputed, because it really *wasn't* explored outside the starting experience (which, again, is largely skewed to certain groups with a very preset ideology within the narrative). I think the embrace of the Forsaken's former humanity is more a new movement in their overall society, and not a retroactive one as you seem to assert here - not what you effectively attempt to shoehorn as a retcon to the Forsaken's characterization. The old lore, events, and characters aren't gone even if they're moved out of the effective limelight. Someone ignoring continuity doesn't make it retroactive on its own, after all; and ignoring continuity is what I think you're doing here. Trying to take a more modern movement or social change and impute it unnecessarily onto the past. The Forsaken have changed as a people, but that doesn't invalidate what they previously were, especially since the legacy of what they were before continues to effect them today.

No, it doesn't, this is direct text - you play the quest and it spells out much of what I'm telling you. You get an idea of what that character's relationship with their life was before, what it is now, and how that's changed and what's stayed the same. You still have a connection to your wife and a ruefulness towards her killer, but the skew of undeath means that it's the negative - the sense of loss caused by said killer and punishing him that takes precedence, and the positive relationship is muted. It's parodic for you to imply that I'm trying to transpose a previously missing perspective onto an old one when the totality of your argument is based around either ignoring such quests exists or framing all of them under the new lore with which it manifestly doesn't gel. The race's change invalidates all prior lore if it's mutually exclusive with what came before and nullifies those prior happenings as it does - the frame of the Forsaken as put upon victims who's problems were socially induced rather than a mixture of nature and nurture and who's separation from humanity was done entirely by Sylvanas. They are not affected by undeath any longer - as undeath is cosmetic, much more foundational to them is the police state. Take away the experience of undeath from the Desolate Council and you can tell the exact same story except with people who are under any other dictatorship. Take away the undeath from the Vanilla characters I've referenced and they cease to make sense. One element predominates over the others.

We've covered this narrative ground before, but my argument again is that looking as the narrative as an organic whole, you can see why Sylvanas changed her tack. While the Lich King was still active in the world Sylvanas didn't need to constrain her Forsaken, nor did she particular care to - the Forsaken were weapons in her eyes, and their individual freedoms didn't matter insofar as their need and her need for vengeance were shared (which they almost always were). Both Sylvanas and the Forsaken bore considerable animus toward the Scourge and the Lich King, and that shared need for vengeance kept the Forsaken loyal to Sylvanas and on task toward that end. When the Lich King was finally undone Sylvanas was forced with the necessity of reorganized the Forsaken by force - she no longer had their shared focus on the Lich King to hold them, and their love for her as their queen while considerable was not as binding as their original shared desire for revenge. Hence the additional bulwarks built up to shore that loyalty, distancing her people from their living relatives to keep them bound to her, and keeping the society highly regimented in emulation of their original singular focus (moving from revenge to the perpetual reign of Sylvanas). While the removal of focus was a detriment for Sylvanas' agenda, it allowed the Forsaken more lateral freedom to finally explore their own state, place in their world, and even reevaluate their own identities. The Desolate Council is borne out of new era of the Forsaken people, a collection of people who see that they don't need to isolate themselves, and that loyalty to their queen doesn't need to be the paramount virtue of their society. You can certainly argue they're "not Forsaken," and perhaps that's true - they're not the Forsaken we're accustomed to, certainly, but perhaps they are even more themselves than Sylvanas ever permitted them to be. What it means to be of a group, even in a fantastical context, is always a subjective determination.

If by your own admission they are not the Forsaken that we were introduced to, and their relationship is solely based on factors that were not in evidence prior to this and have to be wedged in post-hoc, with your explanation wholly excluding Cataclysm which had among other things a key focus on their prior identities as something to build up from and develop and on building a lasting existence, then we can only accept them as Forsaken if we change the meaning of the term. And if the term had one meaning for fifteen years and then was changed to the point where much of what came before has to be recontextualized - or in the case of all characters referenced up to this point, removed from the scene because their involvement or references to what they'd done runs in contrast with what's come, then we cannot truly talk about the same concept. As indeed we don't - the things I bring up and that are readily apparent in prior content are things that you have to reframe around the new concept - one can like the old concept and not like the new one or vice versa, and the two cannot coexist. Lordaeron can't simultaneously be accepted and not accepted, undead both residing in the upper city and not, both detached and morally damaged by undeath and not particularly affected and actually just wanting buddies - their conflict can't simultaneously be real against people who really do wipe them out, and a joke resolved within an hour by the human king, induced entirely for social control by their leader. These things don't fit and they are binary - characters that exist within one frame would cease to make all sense in the other. If Elsie could go to the upper city or freely attempt interaction with her people only to be blown off, then her character would cease to make sense. Ditto, a framework where the undead-human conflict is spurred on from above and undeath doesn't alter morality in any real way makes characters that were previously warped but reacting to objective outside stimuli into dupes and dickheads.

I've already given you a mechanism in the previous posts as to how you can reconcile both groups within the same society, so I don't really accept your argument that they can't simultaneously exist on its very face. You've wrongly defined what is to be Forsaken in the most narrow sense possible, and perhaps you need to realign that view with the current plight of the Forsaken. You don't have to, of course - you can just decry them as "nu-Forsaken," but I'd argue that's really just a kind of fantastic bigotry of a sort (not calling you a bigot, mind you, just that a refusal to accept these Forsaken as Forsaken would be a bigoted position within the fiction).

To go back to an earlier comparison - if the tauren were to redirect themselves to developing their use of firearms, took from their turn to sedentary life that only with force of arms can they secure their homeland thanks to the example set by the orcs, and actively went after enemies of nature, it'd also be a viable direction if starting from Day 1. You'd also be able to find tauren NPCs that would gel with that. But the overwhelming amount of tauren content emphatically doesn't, and the general frame of the tauren is different - outliers to it like the Grimtotem work the way they do precisely because they aren't the default, but in fact react to a default. Some people might find these new tauren better, but the people who were invested in their themes up to that point would now have no outlets for the story beats, characters and elements they enjoyed and would have liked to see continue to develop. That's how I view the Forsaken - I'm uninterested in the label, though it itself is anachronistic since at present they weren't actually Forsaken - the Tricked or the Sad might fit better, I am interested in the concepts, history and aesthetic wrapped into that label and have been for fifteen years. To be retroactively said to be wrong to view the product as what it was for a decade and a half doesn't follow, because it was sold as such for the entirety of that timeframe. Some might find the nu-undead a more compelling angle, more power to them, I sincerely hope at least someone is getting something out of this carfire other than Schadenfreude, but to say it isn't a different product or a different concept is to be willfully wrong.

[Mehrunes]

The "planet of hats" trope generally means that all members of a given group wear a single hat - such as Forsaken wearing the "evil" hat, or Orcs wearing the "noble savage" hat. The Forsaken wearing 20 hats would basically invalidate the trope completely, akin to saying they are 20 types of people or some such (which is quite a lot of types when you're discussing essential stereotypes).

I am perfectly aware of what the trope means. If you read my post properly, you'd have noticed I didn't say a word about the nu-Forsaken wearing different types of hats, only about the amount. You now, to point how the sameness in them is even more more intense, to point out how they embody the trope much more than the previous Forsaken could have ever dreamed to.

I don't agree that it's a destruction of any kind, really. Personally I prefer the evil characterization myself, but I don't think a changing story is destruction even if it isn't to my preference.

Multiple elements of their story, particularly from the Cataclysm era (like Lordaeronian revanchism, to give just one example), were outright thrown to the garbage dump and changed to have never even happened thanks to Golden's retcons. How is that not destruction?

Like, i remembered that when the first hints of the Desolate Council came forward, i was EXTREMLY excited. It could mean, that Sylvanas would have to keep dealing with a form of Forsaken "nobels", just like Anduin would have. That we could have in-fighting within the Forsaken and so on. So much potential was there in that idea. The idea that the Forsaken were not 100% on Sylvanases side and maybe wanted other things.

Given how Stormwind nobles haven't played any role since Vanilla, you got precisely what you asked for then. And Forsaken always had dissent. There is barely an expansion without dissenting Forsaken in it.

[mhdoe]

The old forsaken were forcibly raised to be the scourge and were probably resentful and gave them a hatered of life. The new forsaken that were raised by Sylvanas and her Valkyrie are given a choice which would seem to make the ones raised more calm being they ended up choosing to be forsaken. But I myself have played a forsaken lock since 2006 and like the older angry story line myself it fits the race much better.

[Aucald]

No, it doesn't, this is direct text - you play the quest and it spells out much of what I'm telling you. You get an idea of what that character's relationship with their life was before, what it is now, and how that's changed and what's stayed the same. You still have a connection to your wife and a ruefulness towards her killer, but the skew of undeath means that it's the negative - the sense of loss caused by said killer and punishing him that takes precedence, and the positive relationship is muted. It's parodic for you to imply that I'm trying to transpose a previously missing perspective onto an old one when the totality of your argument is based around either ignoring such quests exists or framing all of them under the new lore with which it manifestly doesn't gel. The race's change invalidates all prior lore if it's mutually exclusive with what came before and nullifies those prior happenings as it does - the frame of the Forsaken as put upon victims who's problems were socially induced rather than a mixture of nature and nurture and who's separation from humanity was done entirely by Sylvanas. They are not affected by undeath any longer - as undeath is cosmetic, much more foundational to them is the police state. Take away the experience of undeath from the Desolate Council and you can tell the exact same story except with people who are under any other dictatorship. Take away the undeath from the Vanilla characters I've referenced and they cease to make sense. One element predominates over the others.

I am pretty sure you don't need me to tell you that a single individual's experiences aren't tantamount to a trend or the establishment of a baseline of any kind. Nor are a dozen individuals, either; especially not in the context of a changing social dynamic. Clarice Foster's characterization is not itself representative of all Forsaken. Now I know you're going to say "she's not the only example" and you'd be quite right, but you're also being outright told that there are other Forsaken who don't share in that experience (some I've pointed out directly, and others the narrative itself has been at pains to exemplify). Similarly, your subjective perspective of the narrative can also be wrong, and is wrong in a number of ways I've already related and you've already conceded. Clarice Foster's experience as a Forsaken is real, as is every other Forsaken individual's experience. The only way some of them can cope with their plight is to put up a wall and sever their old lives from their new ones, so to speak - that's actually a pretty human reaction to extreme trauma, too. But even the Forsaken we see being created in BfA have a pretty pronounced reaction to their new state, well above and beyond your assertion that undeath is purely cosmetic. The fact of the narrative does not gel with your argument, and I give the narrative more credence than I do your subjective opinion of it.

If by your own admission they are not the Forsaken that we were introduced to, and their relationship is solely based on factors that were not in evidence prior to this and have to be wedged in post-hoc, with your explanation wholly excluding Cataclysm which had among other things a key focus on their prior identities as something to build up from and develop and on building a lasting existence, then we can only accept them as Forsaken if we change the meaning of the term. And if the term had one meaning for fifteen years and then was changed to the point where much of what came before has to be recontextualized - or in the case of all characters referenced up to this point, removed from the scene because their involvement or references to what they'd done runs in contrast with what's come, then we cannot truly talk about the same concept. As indeed we don't - the things I bring up and that are readily apparent in prior content are things that you have to reframe around the new concept - one can like the old concept and not like the new one or vice versa, and the two cannot coexist. Lordaeron can't simultaneously be accepted and not accepted, undead both residing in the upper city and not, both detached and morally damaged by undeath and not particularly affected and actually just wanting buddies - their conflict can't simultaneously be real against people who really do wipe them out, and a joke resolved within an hour by the human king, induced entirely for social control by their leader. These things don't fit and they are binary - characters that exist within one frame would cease to make all sense in the other. If Elsie could go to the upper city or freely attempt interaction with her people only to be blown off, then her character would cease to make sense. Ditto, a framework where the undead-human conflict is spurred on from above and undeath doesn't alter morality in any real way makes characters that were previously warped but reacting to objective outside stimuli into dupes and dickheads.

Change is a factor of time - what it means to be a part of an organization must necessarily change if the nature of the organization, its society and underlying norms, also change. This does not mean you must re-contextualize the past, but you have to accept that the past is in the past, and the future can and often does diverge from the past. You're making a long-winded argumentum ad antiquitatem, an appeal to tradition, but traditions can and often do become outmoded as a society's needs or members change. On a more foundational level, I disagree with your argument that Forsaken morality is necessarily dictated by their nature as undead - the outliers *prove* this is the not case. The Forsaken are free-willed, they are intelligent, they understand the difference between good and evil. The outliers prove they can rise above the trauma of their predicament (their state of undeath), so the only thing enables them to do it en masse is a strong social reason to do so. Prior to Cata they had no reason for this, because Sylvanas had fixed their gaze on short-term vengeance against the Lich King. Once that monomaniacal focus was gone, the Forsaken had to come to grips with their plight on an individual level - and in doing so, they found the individual wherewithal to rise above their natures. This is why the nature of their story changes.

To go back to an earlier comparison - if the tauren were to redirect themselves to developing their use of firearms, took from their turn to sedentary life that only with force of arms can they secure their homeland thanks to the example set by the orcs, and actively went after enemies of nature, it'd also be a viable direction if starting from Day 1. You'd also be able to find tauren NPCs that would gel with that. But the overwhelming amount of tauren content emphatically doesn't, and the general frame of the tauren is different - outliers to it like the Grimtotem work the way they do precisely because they aren't the default, but in fact react to a default. Some people might find these new tauren better, but the people who were invested in their themes up to that point would now have no outlets for the story beats, characters and elements they enjoyed and would have liked to see continue to develop. That's how I view the Forsaken - I'm uninterested in the label, though it itself is anachronistic since at present they weren't actually Forsaken - the Tricked or the Sad might fit better, I am interested in the concepts, history and aesthetic wrapped into that label and have been for fifteen years. To be retroactively said to be wrong to view the product as what it was for a decade and a half doesn't follow, because it was sold as such for the entirety of that timeframe. Some might find the nu-undead a more compelling angle, more power to them, I sincerely hope at least someone is getting something out of this carfire other than Schadenfreude, but to say it isn't a different product or a different concept is to be willfully wrong.

If Tauren society changed in such a way as they moved in the direction you specify, and so long as it was an organic and understandable or relatable change, then I would accept it. I would probably prefer the old Tauren myself, but that's okay - things change and sometimes those changes aren't the ones we subjectively want. Like I said above, I prefer the older characterization of the Forsaken prior to the Lich King's demise, and I still think of my Forsaken Warlock in that general milieu - his experiences have warped his mind considerably, and he's about two degrees removed from full-blown psychopathy (I think I took my cues from the character of Richard from the old LFG webcomic). The good thing is that that characterization can co-exist within the current spectrum of the Forsaken quite nicely, the evil Forsaken are still there after all - Lydon, Wroth, and Belmont still exist as characters and haven't changed to any real degree. If you don't like the "nu-Forsaken" then that's regrettable, but as you said, a lot of people actually prefer the new direction of the Forsaken in general and it opens the door for more varied storytelling and personalities beyond the two-dimensional "token evil teammate" hat of the Sylvanas era. There will still be evil-aligned Forsaken, too; they may no longer dictate terms quite so readily, but from a Watsonian perspective that's probably for the best insofar as Forsaken society is concerned.

[Flurryfang]

Given how Stormwind nobles haven't played any role since Vanilla, you got precisely what you asked for then. And Forsaken always had dissent. There is barely an expansion without dissenting Forsaken in it.

As i said, it is how it should have been. That Stormwind has no nobles and that Anduin don't have to deal with constant politics, is a story-telling crime.
And yes, the Forsaken have had a lot of dissent, but it hasen't changed anything about them. When you see dissent in most good stories, it is used a crossroad, a point where ideologies divide and a new path is chosen. None of the dissents of the Forsaken have changed anything. Like, after Putress and Stilwater, the Forsaken still use the plaque.

The story of the Forsaken have had many chances to change, especially for the better, but instead, nothing has happen. They are just passive.

[Super Dickmann]

I am pretty sure you don't need me to tell you that a single individual's experiences aren't tantamount to a trend or the establishment of a baseline of any kind. Nor are a dozen individuals, either; especially not in the context of a changing social dynamic. Clarice Foster's characterization is not itself representative of all Forsaken. Now I know you're going to say "she's not the only example" and you'd be quite right, but you're also being outright told that there are other Forsaken who don't share in that experience (some I've pointed out directly, and others the narrative itself has been at pains to exemplify). Similarly, your subjective perspective of the narrative can also be wrong, and is wrong in a number of ways I've already related and you've already conceded. Clarice Foster's experience as a Forsaken is real, as is every other Forsaken individual's experience. The only way some of them can cope with their plight is to put up a wall and sever their old lives from their new ones, so to speak - that's actually a pretty human reaction to extreme trauma, too. But even the Forsaken we see being created in BfA have a pretty pronounced reaction to their new state, well above and beyond your assertion that undeath is purely cosmetic. The fact of the narrative does not gel with your argument, and I give the narrative more credence than I do your subjective opinion of it.

She is indeed not the only example, but what I'm demonstrating by referencing her or the granny or the Agamand family and so and so forth is that we already had a civilian perspective shown to us and for the reasons I argue, it was a perspective with greater depth before BTS as compared to the BTS one. What we weren't shown, I'll give you, is this particular civilian perspective, but that's because it'd be impossible to do so under the framework the writers had previously set up. You might prefer the new version and I might prefer their whole lot thrown into a furnace, but what they provide is not some hitherto unseen depth because the depth was already there and plain in the text. If your argument has shifted from 'they have depth' now when before they didn't and in that same text you also confirm that actually there were tons of people who's conflict is shown with some depth already, which is what I'm getting at, then the initial premise fails as well and the position goes from 'they didn't have anything before' to 'they didn't have this before'. Which I'll easily give you - they did not and could not have this before, but as, were they to be able to tell this story and character many other stories and characters would not gel and would altogether be absent there's a reason virtually every Forsaken player figures that that's a sacrifice not worth making.

Change is a factor of time - what it means to be a part of an organization must necessarily change if the nature of the organization, its society and underlying norms, also change. This does not mean you must re-contextualize the past, but you have to accept that the past is in the past, and the future can and often does diverge from the past. You're making a long-winded argumentum ad antiquitatem, an appeal to tradition, but traditions can and often do become outmoded as a society's needs or members change. On a more foundational level, I disagree with your argument that Forsaken morality is necessarily dictated by their nature as undead - the outliers *prove* this is the not case. The Forsaken are free-willed, they are intelligent, they understand the difference between good and evil. The outliers prove they can rise above the trauma of their predicament (their state of undeath), so the only thing enables them to do it en masse is a strong social reason to do so. Prior to Cata they had no reason for this, because Sylvanas had fixed their gaze on short-term vengeance against the Lich King. Once that monomaniacal focus was gone, the Forsaken had to come to grips with their plight on an individual level - and in doing so, they found the individual wherewithal to rise above their natures. This is why the nature of their story changes.

Their morality is influenced by their nature as undead, that's what I'm getting at - this is not the case with the new civilian Forsaken or people like Derek. To them this is a premise that's entirely unimportant, because their narrative centers around dehumanization and social pressure, all outwardly induced, not about dealing with a fundamental alteration to their lives. The current undead were not able to readopt their living ones, the Forsaken historically could do not do so, even when they wanted to. Had Sylvanas not shot Parqual, he could have been with his daughter and lived a fairly standard life. But even once Bartholomew moves from one social mileau to an entirely different one, he's still affected by his curse. I deliberately use an outlier here to get my point across because despite Bartholomew and say, any random selection of Executors being based in a story that has the same core premises, they reach different ends and follow the same rules. The BTS Forsaken follow different rules. This is also the difference between the Cataclysm change and the BTS change - Cataclysm does not change anything brought up before or alter the experience that was had then, but builds up on it, hence the Forsaken reassessment of themselves in the direction of self-improvement while being cast into a different circumstance, rebuilding their situation with the Horde, the focus on Lordaeron and so forth, things that were on the backburner in Vanilla. It does not change the start point but what comes after. It's also why I can't really agree or follow the argument made regarding this being either an appeal to tradition or to it. Not just because on account of being fiction, the characters are writing tools and ergo their consistency is desirable, not just because of the change in premises or that maintaining theme is important when you're selling a product based on that theme, as is the case here, but because the new framework changes them as much as it does everyone else. Judkins being allowed to leave to spread hope or Lilian being allowed to do whatever or the self-destructive level of trust placed in the autonomy of basically every named Forsaken who later turns on her, plus the constant appeals to the past either flat out have to be disregarded or make those involved look stupid. Those who were previously heroic, be it for what they did in the war or the stands they took or for how they dealt with their condition are rendered, as I pointed out before, into idiots or sadsacks when these actions retroactively happened under other circumstances.

If Tauren society changed in such a way as they moved in the direction you specify, and so long as it was an organic and understandable or relatable change, then I would accept it. I would probably prefer the old Tauren myself, but that's okay - things change and sometimes those changes aren't the ones we subjectively want. Like I said above, I prefer the older characterization of the Forsaken prior to the Lich King's demise, and I still think of my Forsaken Warlock in that general milieu - his experiences have warped his mind considerably, and he's about two degrees removed from full-blown psychopathy (I think I took my cues from the character of Richard from the old LFG webcomic). The good thing is that that characterization can co-exist within the current spectrum of the Forsaken quite nicely, the evil Forsaken are still there after all - Lydon, Wroth, and Belmont still exist as characters and haven't changed to any real degree. If you don't like the "nu-Forsaken" then that's regrettable, but as you said, a lot of people actually prefer the new direction of the Forsaken in general and it opens the door for more varied storytelling and personalities beyond the two-dimensional "token evil teammate" hat of the Sylvanas era. There will still be evil-aligned Forsaken, too; they may no longer dictate terms quite so readily, but from a Watsonian perspective that's probably for the best insofar as Forsaken society is concerned.

I mean, acceptance is a given - canon is there. The sum of what the player can do is complain about it until they change certain elements, usually the most minor exprsesions. The players couldn't have any effect on the overall route, but they could at least cut out that insipid line about tireless defense of the living. But that does not make it good, nor gel it with what came before. The characters you reference are absent and the assorted retcons turn any Forsaken who partakes in what was the Forsaken baseline prior into a very different outlier to the new premise - i.e someone who's deliberately a dick for no reason when everything is offered on a silver platter and when he lacks either natural or nurture elements to act in that fashion. Mind, this is an irrelevant concern since no such Forsaken exist anymore. In my experience I've yet to see much of anyone previously invested in the race who prefers this new direction - its support consists almost exclusively of people who support it out of contrarian reasons, i.e because it pisses off people they don't like while having no intention of actually touching the race or among the Alliance. The current version has no more dimension than what was already had before - it's just a type of one-dimensionality that we already had and is catered to by multiple other races, humans and worgen most of all. No one has been able to actually explain what this depth is, only go on about how they prefer the Forsaken now that - by your own admission, their previous core has been expunged and how under this new version, they can tell different stories. What story you can reasonably tell except to confirm their ties to the living and then throw them into the sun I don't know, because any avenue for conflict either within the race or without with the faction itself has been stripped out. What's certain is that it'll have nothing but the incongruous name and the very bare bones in common with the race as it was and developed in its prior time.

@Flurryfang

"Sure, the Forsaken reaccepted their prior national identity, reconsidered their undeath and had to fix their relationship with the Horde going from hidden to out in the open, but that's not actually change because they didn't get rid of the gas the making of which has been fundamental to their goals and aesthetic since literally their first zone in the first game."

I wish that at least some of the people who make these asinine arguments were honest and said that they don't give a shit about changes or about internal conflict per se but only about ones that produce the results they were after. I've flat out stated that I've no issue with retcons provided they produce more faction conflict, both inside and out and can create more stories, hence why I'm entirely for say, the Thrall Durotar retcon or the initial orcish retcon since it's only qualitatively that we can actually argue about anything. The amount of people who actually want change for its own sake rather than change that caters to their preferences or interests in some way are next to none.