I thought that was wrong as I typed it, I was like, “wasn’t Antonidas the Human mage? Meh.”
But I was too tired to fix it.
I can’t defend the memorability of Anasterian. I guess he is mostly remembered for being Kaelthas’s dad, and being old.
Wasn’t Anasterian’s aging later attributed to the added stress and burden of being King of Quel’thalas as well? Not sure where I read that but I thought it was a contributing factor of him becoming more ‘feeble’. (Feeble by elven standards, anyway)
Yeah he was feeble. Early on, I got the impression that it might have been a mystery illness that the monarchy was hiding from the people, but it is mentioned that the stress of ruling made him more feeble. That he may have been more hale if he was not king.
Which doesn’t exactly make his confrontation with Arthas as awesome as Fingolfin fighting Melkor. When it comes to Elven High Kings in fiction.
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Alleria windrunner spent 1000 years in the twisting nether without aging a single day and the audio novel describes her and high elves being immortal due to the Sunwell. So maybe the royal lineage didnt juice much from the sunwell as an option? Or maybe they used to much of its power to magic and not much to keep themselves immortal? Food for thought.
That’s countered by the fact that her human mate (are they married by modern standards?) didn’t age at all either. I got the impression that was a just a product of the twisting nether’s nature.
Nope, Turalyon was aging normally and would die if he had not been lightforged.
He was lightforged so he could not age.
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It is claimed that Turalyon’s lightforging granted him immortality.
Madhronir beat me to it.
But really.
Elven aging in the story is just weird. Elves can get as old as they need to be for the story, there is no consistency. But that is just a characteristic of the Warcraft lore.
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They exiled their brothers and sister. Parents and off-spring. To suffering and death.
I don’t see the same individuals accepting strangers because they fought a common enemy. But I guess YMMV.
It also waters down the race. They stood for something. Something different than the other races. Now they are more like pointy eared humans.
They accepted part of their old culture back, how is that making them pointy eared humans?
It removes things that make them distinctive.
Based on my limited known examples of the ancient Night Elf culture. They basically were pointy eared humans that happened to be immortal. Nightborne and the ghost elves, also of legion both display almost standard human behaviors and cultural ticks. Night Elves don’t seem to have become Night Elves until their civil war when the High Elves were driven out and the Night Elves fully embraced druidism until the “modern” events of the Warcraft games.
Let me see, discounting the obvious physical differences we have:
1 - Different religion and values.
2 - Different societal structure.
3 - Different aesthetic overall.
4 - Different relationship with both nature and arcane.
I think their acceptance of mages in their ranks doesnt make them like humans, just shows that they are not stuck.
I dont particularly agree here fully, Druidism did only became central to their culture post WOTA, but their magical culture as seen in legion with the ghosts of aszuna and the nightborne is not exactly 1 to 1 with human magic either.
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Well I’m out. I don’t think in binary.
All mages look alike. 
I always figured it was the stress of raising Kael’thas as a single dad.
They exiled the Highborne, a distinct and separate cultural group which were the noble class of Azshara’s Empire… distinct form the Kal’dorei that make up what we call Night Elves now. So no, they were not exiling family.
Illidan and his brother were separated along just those line. All being an arcane mage required was talent.
Even if it were along only class lines, no class separation ever get to the point on no interbreeding.
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Illidan was arrested for making another Well of eternity and nearly murdering Jarod Shadowsong.
Illidan however had joined his peasant brother in the woods all Highborne were arcane talented but not neccessarily all of the arcane talented were of the high caste, many remained untrained because they were peasant caste.
The point is that the premise that Arcane existed only with the High borne is false. And, again, the idea that the classes were so separate that there were absolutely no relations across them is beyond belief/