You can probably trace my affection for the spooky, macabre, and dark to the fact that when I first started playing Magic: The Gathering, picking up a 60-card Revised Edition box (after having gotten a single Fallen Empires booster that didn't do much for me on its own,) I found a Royal Assassin in that box. This little 1/1 creature that cost 3 mana had a terribly nasty ability: tap to destroy target tapped creature. Those two little skulls and one generic mana in the cost set me on the path to become a pretty happy black player in that card game.
But this post isn't about Magic. It's about WoW.
If you were to break down the various factions in World of Warcraft, the Forsaken would be a shoe-in for the best representation of Black as it works in Magic. Undead? Check. Ruthlessly resourceful? Check. Self-interested? Check.
So naturally, given that I associate so strongly with that branch of fantasy (my own homebrew D&D setting has the central kingdom of its massive empire be a place where necromancy is legal and employed regularly,) it makes sense that I'd be a big fan of the Forsaken.
The thing is, the way Magic works, Black is not necessarily evil. It's very rare that it's good, per se, but it's not inherently cruel - and often its value of self-interest finds itself standing up against authoritarian systems. Sure, that backfires any time someone decides it's in their self interest to be an autocrat, but there's plenty of opportunity to have vampires, necromancers, and even demons who are... kinda sorta... the good guys.
And the Forsaken also give that opportunity.
When WoW began, the Scourge was a major power in the world. You felt their presence ubiquitously throughout the three northern zones of the Eastern Kingdoms, and when Quel'thalas was added, their presence in the Ghostlands was also central. Hell, they even played a role in the plot of the Barrens, using the Quilboar to undermine the young New Horde.
The Forsaken thus had something to compare themselves to. Sure, they were undead, and ruthless and deadly, but they had free will and they had allies. Yes, even in the opening voiceover when starting an Undead character (something you can experience again now with Classic) it's explicit that joining the Horde is an alliance of convenience, but in practice, Undead characters were just one of the races the Horde had available.
As I've said many times, the Forsaken have always felt more like their own mini-faction, branched off from the Horde more than, say, the Night Elves were from the Alliance. And that was even reflected in how you'd start with only neutral (though not 0/1000) with the other cities. But while the Horde has generally valued 100% loyalty to the Warchief, Sylvanas has run the Forsaken to first have 100% loyalty to her, and then to defer to the Warchief when she did.
When she became Warchief, there was no longer any conflict there, but the rest of the Horde, once again as they had under Garrosh, began to question their loyalty to the Warchief.
What makes the "Reckoning" cinematic interesting to me is that Saurfang managed to get Sylvanas to admit in front of a massive crowd - including her own loyal Forsaken - that whatever loyalty she demanded of others, she has not held it for them.
Even going back to Confucius, there's a general principle in leadership that leaders must be loyal to those from whom they expect loyalty. Sure, you might be in charge and expect them to obey you, but the only reason you ever earned that position is that people trust you to look out for their best interests.
Sylvanas made it very clear that the entire Horde, including the Forsaken, are just tools to be used by her, and discarded if they no longer help her achieve her goals. And that actually flies in the face of what she's been insisting for years. In the quests in Silverpine, Sylvanas explains that her rather horrific use of the Val'kyr to raise fallen humans her armies slay is a desperate attempt to keep her people from dying out. But now, it seems quite apparent that her reason for that was not to keep the other Forsaken safe from an endlessly diminishing population that would eventually be unable to hold back the living humans wishing to reclaim their territory, but instead to simply provide her more cannon fodder.
I think the Forsaken have been so lockstep in loyalty to her because they believed that even if she would betray and use the Horde, she was still fighting for them.
And that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Her destruction of the Undercity, I think, was the breaking point, though clearly many needed to hear her say it out loud.
To be clear, this is not a universal thing. Some Forsaken remain loyal to her, and are pragmatically playing at reform so as to survive in a post-Sylvanas Horde. She has not been killed - indeed, she more or less just left of her own volition. While that might not be a good look, it means that the loyalists have reason to keep the faith, expecting that when her plans come to fruition, they'll be positioned to help and be rewarded.
But I don't think we can simply say that the Forsaken have all just become secret traitors in the Horde's midst. If I were one of them (and my Horde main is,) I'd be furious with Sylvanas. The Forsaken know betrayal - their own crown prince was the one who massacred them and damned them to this undead existence.
While I don't know if it will continue to be central to the plot of BFA (I suspect not, as we'll be focusing on N'zoth in 8.3,) Sylvanas has not been taken off the board - she's just in a very different position now.
And while I'm sure there will be ongoing plot for Sylvanas loyalists - I'm curious to see if people will be forced to just sit with the decision they made earlier in this expansion for the years to come or if there will be new chances to "respec" your loyalty - what I really want to see is what happens to the Forsaken now that their Queen has abandoned, or, you know, forsaken them.
Frankly, I'd love to get a Forsaken NPC - either someone like Lillian Voss or maybe a new character - who dedicates themselves to hunting her down and killing her. I want to see the rage that the Forsaken had for Arthas turn on Sylvanas.
I want to see Sylvanas reap what she's sown. She's taught an entire society to dedicate themselves to the destruction of their enemies. And now she's made herself that society's enemy.
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