What do you think the future of the Forsaken will be under Calia Menethil? [Spoilers]

[Ersula]

And it is countered by the fact only a scarce few were defecting. Others were all coming back and she could see it. So she was entirely in the wrong for killing them.

That's false.

[Ardenaso]

In my personal opinion, I think an off-shoot of the Argent Crusade (made up of Undead members of the faction, as ironically they have one of the highest members of Undead in their ranks) should lead the Forsaken and help them forge a better path.

the Ashen Verdict?

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1. The Scarlets were indeed killable ingame by the Alliance. But lorewise, it's confirmed it was the Horde and Ebon Blade that took care of them.

2. From their ashes seem to be rising the Scarlet Brotherhood. But while the Scarlet Crusade was primarily the survivors of Lordaeron, the Scarlet Brotherhood seems to be aiming their recruiting and propaganda on the Alliance. So, this will be Humans from the Alliance that will make up the Scarlet Brotherhood if it rises. The Crusade was wiped out, after all.

3. I'm not sure how much it matters which portion of Humanity is responsible for inflicting harm on the Forsaken anyway. It's not like the people of Redridge and Elwynn Forest enduring attacks by the Blackrocks are going "Yes, these are Orcs. But we shouldn't blame the Horde Orcs for this. They are innocent!". The leaders may hold that distinction. But the average soldier? This'll be even less so if the Brotherhood turns out to be active in Stormwind. Though if Blizzard completely refuses to stain the Alliance's honor, they could even do a false flag operation.

So, I definitely consider it likely they could turn Calia against the Alliance.

there's Joseph the Awakened who led the Alliance to attack the Scarlet Monastery

there's also the civilians in Lakeshire who are mad at Keeshan for slaughtering orc women and children

[Wylyth1992]

the Ashen Verdict?

That is a collaboration of the Argent Crusade and the Knights Of The Ebon Blade. Not the same thing as my idea.

[VladlTutushkin]

That's false.

Only a few were defecting. Most were going back to her, and from the story we know they were loyal. Those few who ran after Calia were outliers, not the majority.

[cparle87]

That's fair. I suppose lore-wise the Naga are all about Azshara but in terms of their perception, she might as well be Elune. An important but unnecessary presence for the player's understanding of the race. Meanwhile Sylvanas is all consuming in their lore and presentation.

The split was needed for their evolution but they can't really pull punches to make it believable. Calia just isn't Forsaken (which is the point she's made many times in her quest to understand them) but she is an example of what they should strive for in order to coexist with the living. However, having her so easily accepted by Voss of all people is strange when even Talanji (beloved and idealistic by Zandalari metrics) had to deal with several attempts on her life.

The other issue I have is that Calia's potential for them just feels too 'Alliance' in nature. If she's in charge I don't expect to see a rag-tag race of zombies, I expect to see sobbing human zombies acting like spurned refugees until Alliance humans warm up to them. If they were a group just recently introduced (a group of undead under Calia) I'd expect them to be an Alliance allied race, because if Calia had her way there would be nothing but light-infused noble zombies. I don't get the same sense of misguided resentment, dread, and anger towards their situation and life. Similar to how the BEs kinda lost their edge the second they got the Sunwell back and the only reason they didn't rejoin the Alliance was due to Dalaran.

What is a Forsaken, though? Is being a free-willed undead enough to make one Forsaken? Not all of them joined Sylvanas's faction. Is being loyal to the Horde as one of its faction required? Did guys like Batholomew the Revered stop being considered Forsaken when they joined the neutral Argent Dawn? Is it tied to the fact that their living Alliance relatives no longer acknowledge them and they are "forsaken" in that way?

Seems to me the Forsaken are a melting pot of different possible definitions that various members meet some but not others. For instance Calia meets two of those candidates, being a free-willed undead and being at least not hostile to the Horde, while she has definitely NOT been cast off by her living allies. So does the aforementioned Bartholomew. He's a free willed undead and cast off from his former living allies, but is not part of the Horde's forsaken faction.

[Super Dickmann]

And it is countered by the fact only a scarce few were defecting. Others were all coming back and she could see it. So she was entirely in the wrong for killing them.

And she is a bitch, accepted she was wrong for the most of her life (since Cata at least) and repents vigorously now, so i win the argument, thanks, no need for applause.

You know, only good thing to come from Shadowlands was her admitting her own fault - now i can just say “she said so” and be done with it.

She. Was. Wrong. And you were wrong. You had no idea but you were wrong the whole time! Amazing. You literally just lost because your “idol” said “i was wrong, sorry, i will go to Hell now”.

And she is forgiven now… but she was wrong.

Also, again - if Calia can make her THAT worried about defections… Tsk, tsk, Calia has quite a sway over forsaken then. So she is legitimate candidate for the throne.

Calia will of course be accepted with open arms and turn the Forsaken into the Forgiven or what have you, but that's because the people in Warcraft are fickle morons who will canonically and unquestionably accept any decision, be they reds or blues, so long as it comes from someone associated with Anduin. See Genn, the night elves, the Horde ready to kill him in front of the gates but who let him chair a funeral in Orgrimmar and so on. NPCs zealously defending one position and then swapping because Sylvanas said some mean words is canonically an essential social factor.

The total Gathering bodycount is a staggering twelve people, of which a minimum of 6 actually were defecting and there's only one (1) person who was confirmed not to, Elsie, who was talking to Calia herself. Indeed, if we take Calia at her word, and she's an author's mouthpiece so we should, 'everyone' on that field who wasn't explicitly rejected already, i.e all eleven people save Elsie, were defecting. This is all moot of course because giving every appearance of defecting to a foreign power and then quitting when push comes to shove, which they did only when the arrows came out doesn't speak well of your ultimate goal to defect.

Adding to that, Sylvanas is on the clear on this one, the only thing anyone ever calls her to account for and that she calls herself to account for is her association with the Bald Man, which the Calia issue is entirely abstracted from. She expresses no position on the topic of Calia looking back at it, Anduin doesn't bring it up to give her shit about it and the book even adds yet more people, from her own constituency to honor incarnet Sadfang, who reinforce the basic correctness and logic of her point. In fact, not only does Anduin not bring it up, but the section of the book the Gathering chapter is in is followed by Anduin saying that she was right, the Bald Man business aside, and trying to convince her to run away together, so either it didn't matter to his assessment or he was in fact extremely compelled by it.

Though again, it's not like she needs any of that backing when we're making a moral or legal assessment of the action, because in real life an equivalent position would and has been zealously defended. And yes, states tend to be a bit upset when you help hostile foreign powers in an overthrow, no matter how small the constituencies of these powers, with a massive selection bias in this case when it comes to having a pro-Calia audience. In the current year I don't think I really even need to direct you to any examples, you can see them for yourself in the press in far more ambiguous situations than outright defecting to an enemy claimant of the throne.

[LostSinclair]

If this is asking a genuine in game RP lore question I have no idea. In reality she'll probably just show up in some important questlines and maybe take over as the kill undercity's leader achievement. Also there's the rumor going around that whatever 9.2.5 questline she is involved with might lead to lightborne undead or something along those lines. Which I get people hate but it does make a little sense to me. The plague is gone and so are the Valkyr, how are they supposed to raise more forsaken without some new ex machina?

[Verdugo]

I just don't understand how people think that the heir to the Menethil throne attending a reuniting of Forsaken and their human friends/family and actively encouraging them to defect to the Alliance wouldn't be considered a reason to act. It seems as though these people would only satisfied if Sylvanas was totally passive with the attempt to usurp her power, and believe that her wish to maintain leadership is somehow worse than Calia's blatant attempt to undermine it.

Vlad is just pissed that Horde leaders were not milqetoast pieces of whitebread like Anduin. Its just spite, thats all there is to it.

[VladlTutushkin]

Vlad is just pissed that Horde leaders were not milqetoast pieces of whitebread like Anduin. Its just spite, thats all there is to it.

While Horde deserves to suffer the same fate Alliance did at the Hands of Blizz, this case has nothing to do with it.

It was just plain wrong decision by Sylvanas.

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Calia will of course be accepted with open arms and turn the Forsaken into the Forgiven or what have you, but that's because the people in Warcraft are fickle morons who will canonically and unquestionably accept any decision, be they reds or blues, so long as it comes from someone associated with Anduin. See Genn, the night elves, the Horde ready to kill him in front of the gates but who let him chair a funeral in Orgrimmar and so on. NPCs zealously defending one position and then swapping because Sylvanas said some mean words is canonically an essential social factor.

The total Gathering bodycount is a staggering twelve people, of which a minimum of 6 actually were defecting and there's only one (1) person who was confirmed not to, Elsie, who was talking to Calia herself. Indeed, if we take Calia at her word, and she's an author's mouthpiece so we should, 'everyone' on that field who wasn't explicitly rejected already, i.e all eleven people save Elsie, were defecting. This is all moot of course because giving every appearance of defecting to a foreign power and then quitting when push comes to shove, which they did only when the arrows came out doesn't speak well of your ultimate goal to defect.

Adding to that, Sylvanas is on the clear on this one, the only thing anyone ever calls her to account for and that she calls herself to account for is her association with the Bald Man, which the Calia issue is entirely abstracted from. She expresses no position on the topic of Calia looking back at it, Anduin doesn't bring it up to give her shit about it and the book even adds yet more people, from her own constituency to honor incarnet Sadfang, who reinforce the basic correctness and logic of her point. In fact, not only does Anduin not bring it up, but the section of the book the Gathering chapter is in is followed by Anduin saying that she was right, the Bald Man business aside, and trying to convince her to run away together, so either it didn't matter to his assessment or he was in fact extremely compelled by it.

Though again, it's not like she needs any of that backing when we're making a moral or legal assessment of the action, because in real life an equivalent position would and has been zealously defended. And yes, states tend to be a bit upset when you help hostile foreign powers in an overthrow, no matter how small the constituencies of these powers, with a massive selection bias in this case when it comes to having a pro-Calia audience. In the current year I don't think I really even need to direct you to any examples, you can see them for yourself in the press in far more ambiguous situations than outright defecting to an enemy claimant of the throne.

If you want to play it this way then…

You shall also officially, in a typed form withdrew all the whinge about Jaina’s actions in Dalaran and entirely absolve her of her “crime” while also admitting that she did nothing wrong.

Since the situation was very similar, she was a ruler of the city… and according to the lore she killed around a dozen blood elves in total, all of which attacked her. While the rest were imprisoned until the end of SoO.

[Super Dickmann]

If you want to play it this way then…

You shall also officially, in a typed form withdrew all the whinge about Jaina’s actions in Dalaran and entirely absolve her of her “crime” while also admitting that she did nothing wrong.

Since the situation was very similar, she was a ruler of the city… and according to the lore she killed around a dozen blood elves in total, all of which attacked her. While the rest were imprisoned until the end of SoO.

I don't give two shits about Jaina perforating some blood elves who were already collaborating with her in contravention to their obligations to the Horde, lol Aethas, except in so far as the blood elves aren't allowed to be mad about it and Bob helps her repeat the act. Call me when you run quests for Sylvanas helping chasing down Calia-ites as Alliance and I'll cry a tear.

[Feanoro]

there's also the civilians in Lakeshire who are mad at Keeshan for slaughtering orc women and children

Probably because they know what the Horde does at the slightest provocation, and they don't care to be the next smoking crater.

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whitebread like Anduin

Nice dog whistle.

[VladlTutushkin]

I don't give two shits about Jaina perforating some blood elves who were already collaborating with her in contravention to their obligations to the Horde, lol Aethas, except in so far as the blood elves aren't allowed to be mad about it and Bob helps her repeat the act. Call me when you run quests for Sylvanas helping chasing down Calia-ites as Alliance and I'll cry a tear.

We talked about it before, and no, fighting that elf (who dosent even die in the end) does not make the scales even. Alliance was self-cucking for so long that Horde is all but fighting alone in a faction war now.

Nothing, absolutely nothing you can bring to the table stacks up against the enormous shit pile that fell on Alliance when devs got a hard on for bullshit drama and “war is heck” writing.

You cry about Calia when Alliance was actually suffering through the “worst case scenario” you bring up for YEARS! Do you not even see this?

[Super Dickmann]

We talked about it before, and no, fighting that elf (who dosent even die in the end) does not make the scales even. Alliance was self-cucking for so long that Horde is all but fighting alone in a faction war now.

Nothing, absolutely nothing you can bring to the table stacks up against the enormous shit pile that fell on Alliance when devs got a hard on for bullshit drama and “war is heck” writing.

You cry about Calia when Alliance was actually suffering through the “worst case scenario” you bring up for YEARS! Do you not even see this?

Nah, the Alliance didn't abolish itself, its institutions or run quests and raids killing its own leaders current and past. The situations are incomparable, the Horde's destruction was much worse and Jaina and Anduin as writer's pets dwarf anyone Horde-side save for the previous universal narrative cancer, Thrall. The only thing to even come close to Calia is the worgen heritage questline. There's no greater 'you think you do, but you don't', than the staggering amount of people who piss and moan about how the Alliance is shown as dickless yet advocate for the neutering of their opposition and thus by proxy for the Unifaction at every instance to try and get one-over on the Horde fanbase. These are incompatible positions. You either accept that conflict is the name of the game or you don't. You adopted a consistent position in this thread, namely that you were fine with the Unifaction so long as the Horde got dicked too, which is intellectually honest and consistent, but you're now trying to backtrack from it to try and score gotchas. Stick with your guns.

[Varodoc]

Probably because they know what the Horde does at the slightest provocation, and they don't care to be the next smoking crater.

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Nice dog whistle.

What I find hilarious about this Horde fanbase, is that they have no problem justifying Sylvanas and Garrosh literally slaughtering their own people or literally nuking cities into "smoking craters" (like you said); but call Alleria a "villain" just because she inadvertently caused an incident at the Sunwell (which she helped fix 5 seconds later).

[Powerogue]

I just don't understand how people think that the heir to the Menethil throne attending a reuniting of Forsaken and their human friends/family and actively encouraging them to defect to the Alliance wouldn't be considered a reason to act. It seems as though these people would only satisfied if Sylvanas was totally passive with the attempt to usurp her power, and believe that her wish to maintain leadership is somehow worse than Calia's blatant attempt to undermine it.

It was absolutely a reason to act, even to the point of assassinating Calia, which did not break the terms of the agreement. Then going around murdering every single other Forsaken on the field, including her most fervent loyalists, out of delusional paranoia that they MIGHT follow her, on the other hand...

Good riddance Sylvanas, I hope we never see you again. I stand by Voss as the current best leadership material in how she understands the torment and vengeance that drives many of the Forsaken, now tempered by a sense of honor and compassion towards the other Forsaken since joining the Horde and meeting Zelling.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Lilian_Voss

[Feanoro]

What I find hilarious about this Horde fanbase, is that they have no problem justifying Sylvanas and Garrosh literally slaughtering their own people or literally nuking cities into "smoking craters" (like you said); but call Alleria a "villain" just because she inadvertently caused an incident at the Sunwell (which she helped fix 5 seconds later).

If you haven't, go read Orwell's "1984" and pay attention to the explanation of "doublethink". You'll be astounded at how much of a prophet he was.

Doublethink is very much alive and well in the Horde fanbase, to the point I'd speculate it's mandatory.

[Ersula]

What I find hilarious about this Horde fanbase, is that they have no problem justifying Sylvanas and Garrosh literally slaughtering their own people or literally nuking cities into "smoking craters" (like you said); but call Alleria a "villain" just because she inadvertently caused an incident at the Sunwell (which she helped fix 5 seconds later).

Horde: Helping to overthrow those people you just listed.

Alliance: Alleria wants the Sunwell despite what happened last time? We'll get right on that.

[VladlTutushkin]

Nah, the Alliance didn't abolish itself, its institutions or run quests and raids killing its own leaders current and past. The situations are incomparable, the Horde's destruction was much worse and Jaina and Anduin as writer's pets dwarf anyone Horde-side save for the previous universal narrative cancer, Thrall. The only thing to even come close to Calia is the worgen heritage questline. There's no greater 'you think you do, but you don't', than the staggering amount of people who piss and moan about how the Alliance is shown as dickless yet advocate for the neutering of their opposition and thus by proxy for the Unifaction at every instance to try and get one-over on the Horde fanbase. These are incompatible positions. You either accept that conflict is the name of the game or you don't. You adopted a consistent position in this thread, namely that you were fine with the Unifaction so long as the Horde got dicked too, which is intellectually honest and consistent, but you're now trying to backtrack from it to try and score gotchas. Stick with your guns.

Because there are two positions one can take on this realistic and wishful.

Of course i would wish for the "conflict" but we have given Blizz chance after chance to do that and they did what? More castration of the Alliance.

You saying Horde was "abolished"? Alliance was abolished in all but a name when they stopped being a defensive Alliance! Imagine if NATO country gets attacked and instead of declaring war on its attacker NATO goes to bash some other country from the same block as attacker and then makes peace with them without any demands or reparations or even without ensuring that they cant pull the same shit again.

Thats what Alliance fails to do! It has a CLEAR GOAL. It can be summed as "You attack one of ours, we attack you and beat you until you return all you took or get crushed in a war". Its a reactive approach but one that clearly means that Alliance will fight for each of their members with ferocity like for their own race. Its not just some vague clique of kingdoms, its a block which expects every race to contribute to all others, even if they are not ruled by a Warchief.

And Alliance never did that. Varian's "We will crush you" got crushed when Blizz crushed Alliance's balls AGAIN. N'th TIME IN A ROW.

So it is blatantly obvious that they WONT make Alliance dick the Horde even once.

So we come to the realistic approach - if Alliance gets dicked by peace, love and "renewal" then so should the Horde, because we KNOW Blizz can and will write that shit, so let them take a swing at you with full force. I would prefer Option 1 but we only get what we are given.

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Horde: Helping to overthrow those people you just listed.

Alliance: Alleria wants the Sunwell despite what happened last time? We'll get right on that.

"Helping overthrow" long after they did all they wanted. I have no qualms aaaaat all with overthrowing Alleria if she first turns the Sunpuddle into Voidpuddle and also causes blood elven asses to shrivel and wither without the mana-drug drip.

[Super Dickmann]

Because there are two positions one can take on this realistic and wishful.

Of course i would wish for the "conflict" but we have given Blizz chance after chance to do that and they did what? More castration of the Alliance.

You saying Horde was "abolished"? Alliance was abolished in all but a name when they stopped being a defensive Alliance! Imagine if NATO country gets attacked and instead of declaring war on its attacker NATO goes to bash some other country from the same block as attacker and then makes peace with them without any demands or reparations or even without ensuring that they cant pull the same shit again.

Thats what Alliance fails to do! It has a CLEAR GOAL. It can be summed as "You attack one of ours, we attack you and beat you until you return all you took or get crushed in a war". Its a reactive approach but one that clearly means that Alliance will fight for each of their members with ferocity like for their own race. Its not just some vague clique of kingdoms, its a block which expects every race to contribute to all others, even if they are not ruled by a Warchief.

In practice, our positions are entirely pointless past forum arguments since Blizzard don't give a shit and in so far as they answer complaints is mostly the Twitterati, but within our own field, it is two positions. If you're opposed to any further conflict and want the Horde races turned into bland sludge because you hate the forgiveness tango, then that's a coherent position. If you're for further conflict and want the races to come to blows over their respective grievances because you hate the world peace and blandification mouthpieces, that's also a coherent position. But you can't be both.

If you demand complete righteousness, which defining the Alliance as purely defensive, which is slightly less farcical than the actual NATO being an exclusively defensive alliance, though not by much, then the only position you can sensible take is the blandification of the other faction to dysfunctionality. Even in BFA where the Horde lose most all of the time on-screen, and Cataclysm, if you run it by the numbers, comes up about even, but it's presented so poorly and the Alliance is cast as such a victim instead of an independent party that its playerbase is massively unsatisfied. Ditto, because the Alliance was cast as pure good incarnate the Horde spent most of its time tearing itself up how they were harming a hair on their heads. This doesn't cut it. The ultimate experience of this kind is to not put the races into conflict at all and to sideline the Horde entirely, as is the case in say, SL or Legion.

In turn if you do want to fight the Horde that requires accepting the Alliance as a political actor instead of a kind samaritan, which means occasionally it'll have to do shit. I don't bitch about Camp Memejo or Dalaran or the topical issues in so far as they're signs of the Alliance being worse whatever, but that because of the Alliance as a samaritan, the Horde isn't allowed to react to them as a sensible political entity in the long-term. Cataclysm and Mists both take these events into account as they'd appear to their target without drawing equivalences, but those are ditched moments later.

The Alliance as samaritan and universal force of good, represented by Anduin has destroyed first its own faction and then the Horde and runs counter to the conflict-derived point of the game. In so far as you disagree because you're frustrated by its knock-on effects, that's fine enough, but wanting to have your cake and eat it too is what gets us in this position too. See the nigh universal praise for Jaina's BFA story which did nothing but revert her to her terrible WC3 peacenik persona that was a narrative black hole. Supporting that kind of story and then being upset that your side isn't proactive is self-defeating.

[Gaidax]

Well, sort of need to see what she actually does. There is some hope for some reasonable direction that is not that of a fodder for cracked leader with dubious aims. But she'd probably will need to grow some spine and not always fluffy and nice leadership character, besides being special snowflake undead.

But all in all Horde could use a reprieve from murderhobo leaders and grow some relatable ones of its own, there is a shot at that here.