Whither Calia?

Calia Menethil, much like Tandred Proudmoore would in this expansion, jumped from apocryphal character to canonical one in Legion.

Arthas' sister, Princess Calia is theoretically the rightful Queen of Lordaeron - if such a kingdom still existed. After Arthas' turn to evil, Calia went into hiding, living as a commoner with a husband and child who would later die to the Scourge. She became a priest, and our first interaction with her is when she joins with priest players and Alonsus Faol to travel to Netherlight Temple, serving as a member of the Conclave.

In the events of the Before the Storm novel, Calia plays an interesting role that has yet to be truly paid off.

One of the big climaxes of the book (which, full disclosure, I haven't read) is the failed peace summit between humans and Forsaken. Anduin and Sylvanas make a deal to allow for a peaceful meeting between family members divided by undeath. The meeting goes well at first - some Forsaken and human relatives get along well, some argue and walk off in a huff, but no one is murdering each other, which is actually pretty good considering.

But when Calia reveals herself at this meeting, all hell breaks loose. Some of the Forsaken decide that they want to go with her to Stromgarde and return to the Alliance. Sylvanas responds to this by first shooting Calia and then all the Forsaken who came along to the summit - even those who were not defecting.

Staying true to what she technically said, she does not kill any members of the Alliance - which counts if you consider Calia to belong to the Conclave instead.

It's a moment that convinces Anduin that he's been too naive, but ironically it also convinces Genn that the Forsaken as a people are not to blame for Sylvanas' evil.

But what happens next is the really crazy part:

Anduin brings Calia's body back to Netherlight Temple, and there, with Alonsus Faol, they infuse her body with the Light in such a way that she rises from the dead - not back to true life as with the Resurrection spell (which, while it's common in-game, is presumably considered a rare miracle lorewise) - but raising her as a kind of Light-touched Undead. Reanimated by the Light, rather than Necromancy.

Since then, though, we haven't really gotten a sense of what role she has to play going forward. This seems like a massive thing to happen, but we haven't really gotten anything concrete.

However, there has been at least one subtle reference to her:

When Derek Proudmoore is returned to Jaina, she (wisely) suspects that Derek may actually be sent as a weapon against her by Sylvanas. While Baine's breaking him out of captivity seems to be foiling Sylvanas' plan, it's all a little too easy and a little too clean. Just as it's pretty clear that Matthias Shaw arranged for the guards in Redridge to conveniently be off duty as Saurfang made his way through, it seems highly likely that Baine's "liberation" of the undead Proudmoore brother was probably just the way she intended to deliver Derek to Jaina, complete with conditioned sleeper agent brainwashing.

But Jaina is suspicious of these developments, and notably we don't see Derek hanging out around Proudmoore Keep. Instead, she mentions she knows someone she thinks could help him. Could she mean Calia?

Notably, in Chronicle it says that when the Forsaken first broke free of the Scourge, they sent emissaries south to the other human kingdoms, but that those emissaries never made it to their destinations. The obvious interpretation was that the humans simply killed these walking zombie people on sight, unwilling to entertain the notion that they might not be a threat. But that interpretation might simply be the version of events the Forsaken have come to believe. And might Sylvanas (or some third party) have had them killed to ensure the Forsaken would not simply reconnect with their fellow humans?

What if Calia represents the chance for the Forsaken to be what they should have been all along? The same people they were in life, safeguarding their brethren and working to restore Lordaeron to its former glory?

Sylvanas right now seems to be a step ahead of everyone - indeed, there's a post to be written about whether N'zoth, Sylvanas, or Azshara have the upper hand in all the plots going on (which I debating writing instead of this post) - but what if Calia is a wildcard she couldn't account for?

It seems very likely to me that Derek Proudmoore is, in fact, a sleeper agent who doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill his family - but he has. Sylvanas is simply waiting until he's properly placed and then she'll pull that trigger when it hurts the Alliance the worst.

But we long to see scheming villains make a single catastrophic error, and if Calia can save Derek from his programming, it could mean Sylvanas finally playing a losing hand.

Given that the Allied Races are based on existing races, it seemed Calia's "lightbound undead" or whatever they wind up being called could easily be an Alliance version of a Horde race, not unlike the Void Elves.

But given the "Crossroads" cinematic, I'm beginning to wonder (hope) about whether Blizzard is willing to seriously relax the faction conflict aspect of the game moving past BFA.

Sylvanas has gone so far down the villain path that it seems hard to imagine her remaining the Warchief much longer. But beyond that, one also wonders if she could even remain the leader of the Forsaken.

Who would take over for her?

Nathanos is clearly her second-in-command. But Nathanos has show no sign whatsoever that he's questioned the Banshee Queen's methods. His contempt for the Alliance and general dickishness, and the fact that he's basically defined by his loyalty to Sylvanas (it's heavily implied that when they were both alive, they were a couple, because apparently Windrunners are really into human men) mean that if Sylvanas goes, Nathanos almost certainly will too.

Which leaves only, like, Lillian Voss to take over, and that seems... possible but not super likely to me.

However, if tensions between the factions give way more than they ever have before, would it be possible for Calia to come and lead the Forsaken in a manner that works given a cessation of hostilities between the factions?

This would be an enormous shift - and imply not just a truce, but a real and lasting peace between the factions. Because Calia is far more likely to align herself with Anduin than with whoever winds up running Orgrimmar.

Calia's resurrection feels like such a massive event that her absence from BFA has been extremely notable.

Now, sure, sometimes characters you'd really think should show up don't. Take Wrathion, who disappeared after Mists and missed the entire Legion invasion he was supposedly trying to help us prepare for. Now, I'm happy to report that I ran across a stealthed Blacktalon Agent in Nazjatar who essentially shushed me when I tried to talk to him, but it's true that sometimes characters you expect to show up don't wind up doing so.

Still, Calia has a role to play.

Granted, that role might not be in BFA.

It's still a big mystery how BFA will end. While I suspect that it'll finish in Ny'alotha, I don't know to what extent we're going to be seeing the Alliance/Horde plot fully resolved. Indeed, there's a possibility that Ny'alotha will actually be a whole continent for the next expansion and that we're going to go back to Sylvanas as the big bad of BFA. But we won't know for a while.

I'm still rooting for a spooky Shadowlands expansion, and Calia as both sister to Arthas and a new kind of undead entity herself would be a good character to explore in such an expansion.

For now, though, she's a name to keep an eye out for.