The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Hitei]

Honestly I wouldn't mind her actually gaining a bigger role and lead the Forsaken. Like you said, she's actually related to the royale family of the Kingdom so it'll make sense for her to lead the Forsaken as former Lordaeron citizens. The Alliance and Horde war should be long over by now as we work together to defend Azeroth from evil forces.

I think a lot people's visceral reaction to her is really just snowballing from the initial objectionable circumstance of her being a heavily Alliance-adjacent character set up in a Horde leadership role.

Voss, the de facto leader and a character who actually has been with the Forsaken for a decade and a half now

Lol. Try half that.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I’m inclined to believe the last one as we know the last thing Metzen seriously worked on was the BFA cinematic, which is pretty heavily cast as a proactive Alliance move on Lordaeron, motivated by taking Lordaeron and Calia’s death would work as a casus belli alongside azerite, which is very important in the book as a motivator and irrelevant in the game where all events from Sylvanas eating babies.

Hadn’t thought about that but ya it would make alot of sense if the meeting went a lot worse and it wasn’t just sylvanas being evil and killing her own people that the alliance would have left pushing a lot harder for the war against a unified forsaken and even striking undercity due to it.

[Super Dickmann]

I think a lot people's visceral reaction to her is really just snowballing from the initial objectionable circumstance of her being a heavily Alliance-adjacent character set up in a Horde leadership role.




Lol. Try half that.

Except for dungeon quests the character only exists Horde-side through Forsaken zones. Her entire arc from hating her undeath to deciding to keep going to joining the Horde are impossible to view outside of that. BFA did far more to set her up as a lead character than it did to set up Calia, including the natural continuation of learning that undeath was good for her, i.e guiding others into finding out the same - Zelling, Amalia, etc. (for pathos purposes to die to Sylvanas obviously, this is BFA we’re talking about).

Does BFA skip the middle chapter entirely, leaving only the fact that Sylvanas travels to areas that have been pre-cleared for her by Voss in WPL as any indication they’re directly associates? Sure. But her contrived entrance to the Horde and where she ends up is directly in continuity and theme with the Forsaken story in Cataclysm and ends up with a decent nicer sort of undead character who isn’t an outsider to the race.

In fact, I do find it funny that up until BfA alliance posters were very big on getting Voss in charge as a self-hating undead, ignoring where her story went, only to unanimously pivot to Calia.

[Vakir]

Hadn’t thought about that but ya it would make alot of sense if the meeting went a lot worse and it wasn’t just sylvanas being evil and killing her own people that the alliance would have left pushing a lot harder for the war against a unified forsaken and even striking undercity due to it.

Obviously the stories were worlds apart in terms of time and the people involved writing them, but I specifically remember Varian mentioning Lordaeron being a future focus if you talk to him at the end of Siege of Orgrimmar.

If only he could have known the immensely stupid reason and outcome of when they went eventually.

[Sondrelk]

Hadn’t thought about that but ya it would make alot of sense if the meeting went a lot worse and it wasn’t just sylvanas being evil and killing her own people that the alliance would have left pushing a lot harder for the war against a unified forsaken and even striking undercity due to it.

Even without that, it would have worked. Anduin, and to some extent Genn. Would have seen the Forsaken as "human", not just undead. And therefore, the meeting would have easily been construed as not just Sylvanas attacks peace summit including Alliance citizens. But Sylvanas showing her true colours as dictator keeping her citizens as part subject, part hostage.

Then leading into the actual attack on Lordaeron would have made perfect sense. Anduin and Genn doesn't just want revenge. But to actually liberate those they believe to be under tyrannical rule.
Even the scenario we have could easily support this. As tragedy would not be that the Horde is duped into being evil because they just love evil dictators. But that they are tricked into protecting Sylvans, when they think they are protecting the Forsaken. Which would in turn lead nicely into the part where Sylvanas raises the Horde as undead. And later nukes Undercity.

[Hitei]

Except for dungeon quests the character only exists Horde-side through Forsaken zones. Her entire arc from hating her undeath to deciding to keep going to joining the Horde are impossible to view outside of that. BFA did far more to set her up as a lead character than it did to set up Calia, including the natural continuation of learning that undeath was good for her, i.e guiding others into finding out the same - Zelling, Amalia, etc. (for pathos purposes to die to Sylvanas obviously, this is BFA we’re talking about).

Putting aside for the moment that you are wrong, and her Legion and WoD quests are for both Horde and Alliance in addition to the dungeon quests.... G'huun's entire storyline "only exists Horde-side". That doesn't make G'huun a Horde character.

Voss's storyline makes no sense at all. Her "Horde-side" quests are her viewing the Forsaken as monsters, trying to rejoin the Scarlets and being rejected, and then slaughtering all the Scarlets she can find. Then she spent MoP, WoD and Legion dedicating her entire existence to wiping out undead and killing necromancers. She was basically Blade.

Then in BfA she just shows up having completely 180'd her entire character for no explicable reason, somehow being a fairly high up operative in the Forsaken despite having up to that point been a neutral operative with no ties to the Horde, and is not only tacitly okay with Sylvanas raising more undead, in contradiction to her whole identity up to that point, she actively helps raise more undead the thing she is supposed to have despised and dedicated her existence to stopping. And by the end of that expansion she, who has not even been involved with the Forsaken (except as a borderline hostile in Cata) up to BfA, is made their de facto leader.

There's no "natural continuation" she does the equivalent of going from being undeath Illidan to happily assisting the Legion, to being its leader.

Voss is so much worse as a Forsaken leadership character than Calia. People just gut reaction to Calia because she was so strongly tied to the Alliance and given a Horde leadership role.

[Super Dickmann]

…
Voss's storyline makes no sense at all. Her "Horde-side" quests are her viewing the Forsaken as monsters, trying to rejoin the Scarlets and being rejected, and then slaughtering all the Scarlets she can find. Then she spent MoP,
Voss is so much worse as a Forsaken leadership character than Calia. People just gut reaction to Calia because she was so strongly tied to the Alliance and given a Horde leadership role.

You aren’t genuinely claiming that a raid boss villain is the same as possibly the second quest NPC you meet as a new Forsaken character Horde-side, who’s revulsion at undeath and entire background as to why she shows up (incognito except for one fight) in the dungeons is only understandable as Forsaken. Voss’s story hinges on her reaction to her undeath, she’s disgusted with herself, tries to revert to her life, fails and lashes out, then keeps going. BFA depicts the end point of this to a Horde-friendly character, I.e helping others through the same journey in a less hectic way.

Is the middle chapter skipped entirely to get her, as someone the least associated with Sylvanas up to now in that role? Of course. It’s BfA, the entire expansion is written to disassociate the Forsaken as much as possible from Sylvanas, which is why none of their established characters in actual positions of leadership can appear as they’re all tied to Sylvanas and have done of their own volition things Anduin would not approve of. Is it contrived? Of course, as said, it’s a story missing its middle chapter who’s main purpose is to dissect the race its meant to represent. But if we’re rating contrivances Calia is well ahead in that respect by dint of existing in her present state alone anyway, without getting to her backstory re: Southshore et al. Its end result is producing a plausibly heroic character who nevertheless represents the undeath as second chance/improvement/transhumanism angle from Cataclysm, in line with Forsaken themes and visuals. By the current standards of what passes for Horde leadership she’s fine, excellent even given the kind of z-listers we’re dealing with, by BfA standards she’s a masterpiece. By historic standards she’s of course a complete mess and a military junta should lead the Forsaken, but that boat sailed years ago.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Then leading into the actual attack on Lordaeron would have made perfect sense. Anduin and Genn doesn't just want revenge. But to actually liberate those they believe to be under tyrannical rule.
Even the scenario we have could easily support this. As tragedy would not be that the Horde is duped into being evil because they just love evil dictators. But that they are tricked into protecting Sylvans, when they think they are protecting the Forsaken. Which would in turn lead nicely into the part where Sylvanas raises the Horde as undead. And later nukes Undercity.

There really just wasn’t any of the needed set up for a liberation plot, BTS laid some ground work for It but it also still had the majority of the forsaken backing Sylvanas so you’d just be killing all the people you wanted to save if you attacked.

A better way to set it a first strike would have had the meeting be more heated with the rejections being more dramatic Mabye some living/undead family members coming to blows. Calia out her self to try and calm things down but it has the opposite effect and the forsaken turn it into an actual battle leading to her death.

Something of the like would make the forsaken view understandable after what Arthas did and the Alliance one as well as the forsaken would have started the battle and showed that they weren’t interested in unity as a whole.

[Vakir]

People just gut reaction to Calia because she was so strongly tied to the Alliance and given a Horde leadership role.

I mean, I don't generally care about that kind of stuff if it's semi-competently done and I had a reaction and still do because who she is remains completely incompatible with the Forsaken experience as being raised as rotting corpses in a ruined kingdom and (for some) temporarily enslaved by an omnicidal army before gaining personal autonomy. She was off playing house while these people got butchered and then brought back by a Naaru, not Arthas or one of his ilk.

The whole "undeath is undeath no matter what kind!" bit in Maldraxxus when she asked about it, seemingly so they can shill the hell out of it being as valid, is comical until Calia starts growling out pus and stops having luminescent porcelain skin and a giant rack.

Her experience is just not the same as the fantasy sold in 2004 or the in-universe suffering of the Forsaken themselves. I'm not saying they need to be permanently miserable and mopey, but the decision to not be so shouldn't be guided by someone incompatible with them.

[Murlocos]

Calia wasn't so much pushed as she was a vehicle for an attempted tonal shift in Forsaken writing around the end of BfA into SL so incongruous with the fantasy for the race that she inevitably stands out with each appearance. Her parallels drawn to Sylvanas in BtS coupled with the Pallid Lady title and SL alpha description for the Forsaken makes it very clear they intended for her to take over as the Good Queen of the Forsaken, but they backpedaled after backlash and wrote in the council to make sure nobody rioted, even if nobody was happy either.

There's nothing to push with the Forsaken because their racial narrative is dead or stalled out like every other race with the functional abandonment of the factions in favor of only character-focused writing that can be related to cosmic force struggles, the only permitted source of conflict. Alleria is not only intentionally front and center in this shift after some aimless meandering in the post-faction post-politics world of SL and DF, but unintentionally in that her entire relevance to it as the Void Power Ranger was made up on the spot along with the race associated with her that have only served to cannibalize the themes and tone of an existing race (wonder if we'll see that happen again!) The player is thus always left wondering why they can't just do these asspulls for Horde characters to include them, or hell, anyone that doesn't have some direct relation to a Windrunner character, and then you read that sentence again and realize that cosmic power relevance is just a means to gatekeep anyone unrelated to the Windrunner story. Alliance characters have a much easier job meeting these lofty standards, even if the Alliance itself is about as nonexistent as the Horde.

For those characters unfortunate enough to meet both criteria, they have the honor of being written in such wooden and stiff fashion that it feels more like you're reading the writer's notes for what the character should be feeling and thinking in the moment rather than them having actual dialogue. They can enjoy being in stories so formulaic that everyone on social media predicted the personalities and storylines of Zul'jarra and Zul'jan from seeing a single image of them in their idle poses and nothing else. At some points, disconnected fragments of some strange idea called the Worldsoul Saga will crop up -- you might even see a fleeting glint of a 'Warcraft' -- but it won't be long until the commercial ends and you're back to watching Keeping Up With the Windrunners.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I mean, I don't generally care about that kind of stuff if it's semi-competently done and I had a reaction and still do because who she is remains completely incompatible with the Forsaken experience as being raised as rotting corpses in a ruined kingdom and (for some) temporarily enslaved by an omnicidal army before gaining personal autonomy. She was off playing house while these people got butchered and then brought back by a Naaru, not Arthas or one of his ilk.

The whole "undeath is undeath no matter what kind!" bit in Maldraxxus when she asked about it, seemingly so they can shill the hell out of it being as valid, is comical until Calia starts growling out pus and stops having luminescent porcelain skin and a giant rack.

Her experience is just not the same as the fantasy sold in 2004 or the in-universe suffering of the Forsaken themselves. I'm not saying they need to be permanently miserable and mopey, but the decision to not be so shouldn't be guided by someone incompatible with them.

I think shadows rising really shows the undeath is undeath thing is bunk best.

Calia is totally unaffected and chose to come back and is tying to hang out with the living like it’s no biggie, while Sira was forced back and is left feeling nothing but hate and pain and wanting to inflict it on others.

Of course Sira is likely never to come back because why actually play with the innate nature of forsaken undeath when you can have a bearded mouth piece just go “lol it’s all the same”.

[Super Dickmann]

Even without that, it would have worked. Anduin, and to some extent Genn. Would have seen the Forsaken as "human", not just undead. And therefore, the meeting would have easily been construed as not just Sylvanas attacks peace summit including Alliance citizens. But Sylvanas showing her true colours as dictator keeping her citizens as part subject, part hostage.

Then leading into the actual attack on Lordaeron would have made perfect sense. Anduin and Genn doesn't just want revenge. But to actually liberate those they believe to be under tyrannical rule.
Even the scenario we have could easily support this. As tragedy would not be that the Horde is duped into being evil because they just love evil dictators. But that they are tricked into protecting Sylvans, when they think they are protecting the Forsaken. Which would in turn lead nicely into the part where Sylvanas raises the Horde as undead. And later nukes Undercity.

The liberation narrative was nonsense based on a mountain’s worth of retcons and the retarded notion that the Forsaken, who maintained an army and some state functions as well as succession while Sylvanas was off killing herself in Northrend would immediately form a commune rather than relying on its military leaders, apothecaries etc., and that undead were banned from discussing or visiting Lordaeron when you see them with your own eyes in-game there and the entire Cataclysm story hinges on them warring for their historic claim while even Garrosh hyped them up over it.

Beyond being nonsensical, it’s also bad for Genn’s character. Sylvanas didn’t single-handedly destroy his kingdom, she had an enthusiastic zealous army corps committed to it, very motivated by said historic grievance and later their manifest destiny. Him deciding they were poor victims and only Sylvanas was to blame was among the most tortured turns of a book consisting mostly of such.

[Hitei]

You aren’t genuinely claiming that a raid boss villain is the same as possibly the second quest NPC you meet as a new Forsaken character Horde-side

I am pointing out to you that "well some of these quests that involve her are only available Horde side" means absolutely nothing when the whole point of the quests is that she DOES NOT LIKE YOU OR YOUR PEOPLE, and then she spends the next four expansions not only not being Horde, but actively hunting down any and all undead or necromancers she can find.

So when she shows back up in BfA and is like "jk it's fine, I'll help you perform necromancy and raise this guy into undeath to help attack the Alliance" It's not "lol skipped some story" it makes no fucking sense. It's not contrivance, the character was completely re-written. Her entire motivation and characterization are scrapped and she's suddenly someone else and acting in complete opposition to how she previously did. It's trying to justify Iridikron suddenly coming back in TLT and being on the Titans side and helping them order planets and then joining the Titan pantheon. It's trying to justify Xe'ra showing back up and now, still a naaru, she's helping out the Void and trying to corrupt the sunwell and ends up joining the Void Lord council.


Calia is a crown princess of Lordaeron who stepped back into a leadership role for the now dead people of Lordaeron.

Voss is a neutral, anti-undead fanatic who in the span of 1 expansion, went from having negatively interacted with the Forsaken once a half a decade ago to being its primary leader.

[Super Dickmann]

I think shadows rising really shows the undeath is undeath thing is bunk best.

Calia is totally unaffected and chose to come back and is tying to hang out with the living like it’s no biggie, while Sira was forced back and is left feeling nothing but hate and pain and wanting to inflict it on others.

Of course Sira is likely never to come back because why actually play with the innate nature of forsaken undeath when you can have a bearded mouth piece just to “lol it’s all the same”.

The bits from Sira and Nathanos in that book were the closest they got to making the undead night elves work. And indeed the last gasp of undead as undead and the factions as polities.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The bits from Sira and Nathanos in that book were the closest they got to making the undead night elves work. And indeed the last gasp of undead as undead and the factions as polities.

Ya they had such a great jumping off point with it to explore the forsaken and how the night elfs would deal with the night elfs ones.

But nope just another of so many dropped balls and then that stupid Shandris/voss quest in the emerald dream to swipe it all under a rug never to be seen again.

[Ersula]

The bits from Sira and Nathanos in that book were the closest they got to making the undead night elves work. And indeed the last gasp of undead as undead and the factions as polities.

So did Sira get released from Alliance custody at the end of the Fourth War? We have a whole faction of Forsaken Wardens that they've done nothing with. The Forsaken have the most delineated factions, each with their own clearly established leaders, but they've gotten the least play. We have the Militia, the Dark Rangers, the Dark Wardens, The Apothecary Society & Church of Forgotten Shadow, which from what is portrayed maintained its own authority & agenda outside of Sylvanas' government.

Putting aside for the moment that you are wrong, and her Legion and WoD quests are for both Horde and Alliance in addition to the dungeon quests.... G'huun's entire storyline "only exists Horde-side". That doesn't make G'huun a Horde character.

Voss's storyline makes no sense at all. Her "Horde-side" quests are her viewing the Forsaken as monsters, trying to rejoin the Scarlets and being rejected, and then slaughtering all the Scarlets she can find. Then she spent MoP, WoD and Legion dedicating her entire existence to wiping out undead and killing necromancers. She was basically Blade.

Then in BfA she just shows up having completely 180'd her entire character for no explicable reason, somehow being a fairly high up operative in the Forsaken despite having up to that point been a neutral operative with no ties to the Horde, and is not only tacitly okay with Sylvanas raising more undead, in contradiction to her whole identity up to that point, she actively helps raise more undead the thing she is supposed to have despised and dedicated her existence to stopping. And by the end of that expansion she, who has not even been involved with the Forsaken (except as a borderline hostile in Cata) up to BfA, is made their de facto leader.

There's no "natural continuation" she does the equivalent of going from being undeath Illidan to happily assisting the Legion, to being its leader.

Right, but that Cataclysm characterization is her immediate reaction to being raised. From a undead hating zealot to an undead herself, immediately rejected by everyone she knew: Clearly there's going to be a long journey of self-discovery. So no, I don't think it's bad characterization for her to eventually see the other forsaken as her people & empathize with them.

[Nymrohd]

Lol at new beta server called "Xal'atath's Endgame".



Damn though, the Sylvanas fans can hijack the thread worse than the High Elf fans. At least pretend to tie it into Midnight. @Super Dickmann, have you considered that your Law stems from you always bringing her up and/or discussing her for several pages after?

[Super Dickmann]

…
Voss is a neutral, anti-undead fanatic who in the span of 1 expansion, went from having negatively interacted with the Forsaken once a half a decade ago to being its primary leader.

If you had some of that media literacy that’s all the rage you would be able to realize that characters advance and that Lilian is hostile and disgusted in her first appearance for the same reason she tries to return to her living self later when rejected and then to kill the living in response. She’s the Forsaken story exaggerated and told briefly, summarising the core beats of them in that part. Hell, contrary to the idea that she hates the Forsaken, she not only shows no hostility to the PC later, but her only direct association is to clear Scarlet camps ahead of Sylvanas in WPL, camps from which Sylvanas gives quests where you raise the dead.

Her life was as a living weapon by a father that hated her guts, but her undeath had her succeed far more against her hated enemy (the Scourge) and meet people who were ready to accept her. Her natural arc from there is to accept the offer she refused the first time and then guide others analogously. Nothing about fighting those who create mindless undead clashes with joining the Forsaken, whose entire initial motive hinged on going after the biggest and baddest creator thereof. It in fact is again, a fairly coherent way to make a positive undead character who’s still on theme for the race. If BfA weren’t dedicated to wrecking that same race and if they picked it up a little earlier you could have the Forsaken pick her up and fix her after her Scholomance near death and give her some quests where she formally joins, but the end point would be the same.

As for Calia’s credentials, none have any relation to undeath and nothing said above re:undeath, rejection by the living and so on apply. This has been rehashed to death just a few posts away, you know the anti-Calia arguments well enough

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So did Sira get released from Alliance custody at the end of the Fourth War? We have a whole faction of Forsaken Wardens that they've done nothing with. The Forsaken have the most delineated factions, each with their own clearly established leaders, but they've gotten the least play. We have the Militia, the Dark Rangers, the Dark Wardens, The Apothecary Society & Church of Forgotten Shadow, which from what is portrayed maintained its own authority & agenda outside of Sylvanas' government.
Right, but that Cataclysm characterization is her immediate reaction to being raised. From a undead hating zealot to an undead herself, immediately rejected by everyone she knew: Clearly there's going to be a long journey of self-discovery. So no, I don't think it's bad characterization for her to eventually see the other forsaken as her people & empathize with them.

The Forsaken do have all those factions, especially the Apothecaries and Executors who should be well ahead of Lilian, Calia or much anyone else on the way of leadership, but again, there was an interval where Blizzard meant to remove all of them so they didn’t (and mostly still don’t) participate.

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Damn though, the Sylvanas fans can hijack the thread worse than the High Elf fans. At least pretend to tie it into Midnight. @Super Dickmann, have you considered that your Law stems from you always bringing her up and/or discussing her for several pages after?

Calia (and thus Sylvanas) was already the topic without my involvement when I blessed this thread with the good word of the Dark Lady. The children yearn for Sylvanas posts, I only provide when prompted.

[Ersula]

The Forsaken do have all those factions, especially the Apothecaries and Executors who should be well ahead of Lilian, Calia or much anyone else on the way of leadership, but again, there was an interval where Blizzard meant to remove all of them so they didn’t (and mostly still don’t) participate.

It does have all the hallmarks of ttrpg player character writing: Oh this random adventurer is now part of a major military operation? Sure. This happens all the time. Maybe they should actually name a department Voss & Calia can run so their inclusion feels more natural. Because right now I'd rather any of the other Forsaken characters get screen time.

Belmont, Executors
Sira, Wardens
Faranell, Apothecary Society
Velonara, Dark Rangers
Voss, Unnamed faction of Subtlety Rogues
Faol, Church of Forgotten Shadow
Calia, Some sort of Political role, like Chansellor or High Ambassador

[Cheezits]

It would be a good surprise (and funny) if Xal straight up dies at launch.