As an aside, in the recent video, it shows Tyrande and Shandris at Nordrassil. So it seems, for now, that the night elves have fallen back to Ashenvale and Mount Hyjal for the time being. It would be neat to see more NE RP there in-game.
And while I understand the frustration of players, I do also think it allows for some interesting growth and tension for the faction. I can see some NE’s viewing Tyrande’s actions as reckless, or that she might be neglecting her duties to her people; (I actually saw some semblance of this a while back in some RP in SW by some NE players.) I can also see the side of those NE’s who want vengeance rather than justice. And perhaps those dedicated to justice rather than vengeance. I feel like some of the greatest growths we have come out of some of our greatest tragedies in life. That said, I’m not advocating for tragedies either in-game or out of it. I just feel that the old adage holds true here:
That which doesn’t break us makes us stronger.
I don’t feel like the NE’s are broken. I don’t see them bending or bowing to those who want peace, and from what I’ve seen from the books and cinematics, they definitely are not.
The devs say a lot of things, and they are not always correct. I’d hold out for something from the lore team with regard to that, and thus far, from what lore we are getting, Tyrande is definitely suffering from taking in the power of the Night Warrior. But we don’t really understand what that entails (yet.) Likewise, she hasn’t been abandoned by her people, and she certainly hasn’t given up on seeing Sylvanas destroyed.
While the rest of the world might be more than willing to give Sylvanas the benefit of the doubt (and here I feel like I’m really stretching credibility, but for the sake of argument, let’s just say that’s true,) Tyrande’s character, right now, strikes me as someone who wouldn’t hesitate a moment to kill Sylvanas if she has the chance. I’m not sure that would be dulled by losing the powers of the Night Warrior, either. I think, honestly, I will feel cheated in some way, too, if after losing the power of the Night Warrior, Tyrande suddenly no longer desires that vengeance any longer. It would have to be a pretty convincing story for why she wouldn’t still flat out demand Sylvanas’ head on a platter.
You know like…her being replaced by a dread lord or something. Or … Sylvanas’ death being the catalyst for something even worse.
All that said, …it doesn’t hurt to try and understand things from another point of view. Derailing what was meant to be a memorial thread for the beautiful things lost with the burning of Teldrassil into a:
“NE are being treated like trash by all the things!”
“OMG. NO they’re not!”
just seems …exhausting, honestly. I don’t think, at this point, anyone disputes that what happened with the burning of Teldrassil wasn’t big, important, impactful, and …obviously as this post began, painful.
And while you may not have faith that Blizzard will take that into consideration with their story choices moving forward (Theramore comes to mind, though I do feel like they really tried hard to set that up well and conclude it in a way that was, if not satisfactory, at least impactful,) I’d like to hold out some hope that they will. We don’t know the whole story yet. And we may yet be disappointed. But until then…maybe we can stop trying to vilify our fellow community members and appreciate that they may not see things the way we do. And that’s okay.
And maybe we can share our loved sadness that something so beautiful and integral to the NE starting experiences in the game is gone.
(And to any NE player that says that humans haven’t lost something important like SW, you’re right. But we did lose Theramore, and believe me when I say that as a mostly human player, that was pretty devastating. I know that my fiance and I, for a very long time, felt that war with the Horde was justified for that act alone. And we still have a hard time playing Horde characters, sadly, because in a lot of ways, we see the Horde as being pretty awful overall. BUT…just like many people in the US view things from a US-centric point of view, it’s important to understand the rest of the world has a different or differing views. And those views are important; so, …it’s never a bad thing to listen to what our fellow players who DO love the Horde have to say. They are, after all, also part of this World of Warcraft that we all play. Even if, on some points, we agree to disagree.)
