Which is 100% of any fantasy story or videogame public.
Sure you can write “X race takes 50 years to reach adulthood and Y race takes 2 years to reach full adulthood”, but readers will have an easier time swallowing if they have similar characteristics as us ol regular humans.
With the kaldorei aging as fast as humans we have the opportunity now of having relatively young kaldorei reaching adulthood with a very different perspective of old lore characters (and it also makes sense that it is a huge number, I assume most kaldorei would look to have kids once they learned they werent immortal).
Readers trapped in a rigid MAGA mindset and a single digit IQ perhaps… I thought roleplayers were supposed to be better than that… like more imaginative?
But no parents, no matter the fantasy, can survive the stress of an infant child for over 100 years… hell, they probably can’t even survive it for longer than 14 years.
Any humanoid species would die out quickly.
Especially in a fantasy world where war is a nigh-constant.
Imagine having to replenish those military ranks.
“Sorry chief, you gotta wait atleast 250 years more.”
“But we have a war RIGH TNOW!”
“Sorry chief, nothing I can do.”
Yeah I’m with Kixvar here. The OP is neat, but night elves aren’t sharks- they’re descended from trolls, who definitely didn’t crap their diapers for twenty years. In fact I’m pretty sure a book states they’re mature by about age twenty and then just stop aging physically.
Social maturity when you’re in a society that’s immortal, sure. A century, a few hundred maybe before you’re taken seriously. But the amount of wars the night elves have been in and barely scraped through would likely leave them extinct by the War of Shifting Sands if they soiled shorts till their twenties. Because while they may have the sit there and deal with their turnover rate, the bug people don’t and may quickly outnumber them.
In Warcraft, it would explain very little… if anything at all
It would seem a lack of maturity or else, is not necessarily connected with age, but instead, not really surprising, a lack of certain experiences.
I don’t really see the implications, that elves age slower than humans, nor do I see that elven societies consider elves to be kids, teens, etc, in the age range of 18-100 years.
It is just not something Blizzard have dealt with in the story.
It seems that elves are considered physically and mentally as adults, around the same range as humans.
In Warcraft, the lifespan of humanoid races have no meaning whatsoever.
Ok, but it’s a moot point considering we have numerous examples of elves coming of age within the same time span humans do… so… yeah. Not sure what point a shark is supposed to make but it has nothing to do with the canon nature of elf aging.
That’s why it’s another fantasy trope that when the magic starts to face and elves have to rely onmilitary forces, their civilisations fall. That’s the whole Silmarillion after all… the fall of one elven kingdom after another.
The RPG followed the D20 lead for elven liifespans… maturity at 120 but was a bit fuzzy on the total natural lifespan between three to seven centuries, with the Night Elf life clocks being suspended from the planting of Nordrassil till it’s detonation at the end of Reign of Chaos. With the exile Highborne starting to age again afterbeing kicked out of Kalimdor as well as undergoing physical changes.
Star Trek did the same for it’s space elves generally listing Vulcan maturity at about 55-60. With Kirk being surprised that Sarek had retired at the “early age” of 204. Although it was decades prior.
Even worse.
They just copy-pasted another fantasy world.
Ugh.
It is a huge pet-peeve of mine, for writers of these fictional worlds to not, at least try, and take societal consequences into account when world building.
It is still why J.R.R. Tolkien is brilliant. Dude went above and beyond in his world building.
I love world building, and I absolutely love well thought out world building.
But yeah, I guess it stands to reason why I am not too fond of Warcraft’s story.
Not only does it lack that indepth world building, but it also lost its comedy and on the nose-surface-level terrible fantasy storytelling that I could somewhat admire.
Now they try to make something serious of their storytelling, without putting in the actual work.
I see no point in arguing since it is canon that elves reach adulthood in the same spam as humans in wow.
Also, lifespam itself of all the elven races is incredibly inconsistent, It is said blood elves draw of the sunwell to have a soft immortality, night elves lifespam outside of the time they were immortal isnt disclosed anywhere, the nightborne were never said to be immortal, but one can assume they were when they had the night well powered by the eye of amanthul, but they dont have that anymore and last, void elves have existed for only about 7 years.
So in the case of every elf race in wow, we don’t know how long they live without a source of magical juice to begin with, they could for all we know, have the average lifespam of a human.
Immortal Elves is hardly a new idea. I have no problem with it.
But it is being written by humans who can’t conceive of deep time. now it may well be impossible of a human to really think about it, but I don’t think Blizzard really even puts much thought into it. They have them waiting for a millennia as if it was 10 years.
Broxigar traveled to the ancient past and encoutered an ancient race that was so Xenophobic had to convince them not to kill him for simply not being an Elf. But that was the same individuals we see today. Thousands of years ago, the Elves drove some of their cousins into the wilderness to suffer and die because of the use of arcane magic. That is the same individuals who now allow Elves to be mages.
That is a pretty nice way to spin “caused a magical storm that reeked havoc in Ashenvale”. The highborne were reckless in their use of arcane magic and were actively endangering others.
Yeah, nothing says increased “depth” like lazily copying what Tolkein did with his elves and applying it to Night Elves.
I swear to God, you people cannot be for real.