Are half elves addicted to the Sunwell?

I feel like this is something Blizzard hasn’t commented on either way, but maybe some obscure line in a book or comic somewhere has said?

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Good Question… this be awesome to find out at some point in the lore! :thinking:

I don’t think they’ve said. Probably because they’re rare both in the lore and as far as actual characters seen.

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The only half-Elf I can even think of who would have been alive during the time the Sunwell was destroyed (and thus, could comment on it) would be Arator. But I don’t remember him saying anything about it.

I suppose Giramar and Galadin would technically have been around, but they weren’t introduced as characters until… Wrath, iirc? And, Kalec’s humanoid form, maybe. But that’s kind of cheating.

Giramar and Galadin were mentioned as existing, as Vereesa was pregnant with twins, right before WOW’s release as the first of the WotA novels was released a few months before WoW was. They got named in NotD which was released five days into Wrath.

Arator and Kalec first appeared in TBC. Arator is kinda interesting as, from what I can tell, his apperance was the first mention that Turalyon and Alleria were even a couple.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Arator’s reaction to visiting the Sunwell. He’s a paladin, but in the tradition of humans and his father rather than the Blood Knights, and I wonder how his reaction would compare to Liadrin’s. Would he be able to sense it because of his elven heritage, or would his familiarity with the Light be a larger factor? If he does have a connection to the Sunwell that he can draw upon, would that give him an advantage in wielding the Light over a human paladin with similar training and experience?

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There’s probably a few answers we can get from this:
Yes, Half elves get the full effects of magic addiction.
I find this being the most boring answer only next to:
No, Half elves don’t get the effects of magic addiction due to dilution of elven genetics. Not much to say here for either of these.
The more interesting options are:
Yes, Half elves get the effects of magical addiction. Yet only in a diminished sense, due to diminished elven genetics.

This is somewhat predictable, but it can bring out the differences between humans and elves if they ever wanted to tell this story.
Then there’s the oddball choice:
No, Half elves don’t suffer the effects of the magical addiction, but still possess the magical draining abilities that seem pretty elf specific so far.
This is another choice in a similar direction as my other choice, where it reflects the inherent differences between humans and elves. But I find, in a more specific way than the simple magical addiction.

Pretty sure he is connected to the sunwell, isn’t that the reason they changed his eyes from green to gold.

Hrmn… Well, I’ll speculate.

I’d say no, Half-Elves aren’t addicted to the Sunwell. Remember, the very young and very old died due to magical withdrawal, which means that Vereesa’s children would’ve probably died, even with sources of magic; you cannot expect babes to be able to know how to drain magic from objects.

I also recall in one of the novels, Vereesa’s cousin attempted to abduct her newborn sons, believing that Half-Elves, due to their mixed heritage, would possess a significant amount of magic to drain. If they rely on a connection to the Sunwell, I don’t think that theory would’ve been logical.

I don’t think so. Originally his eyes were green, but then they were made blue. I think the gold eyes was just because he’s a Paladin, not because he has a connection to the Sunwell.

I think it’s hard to read any specific reasoning into Arator’s eyes without us being told. Alleria used to be referred to as having green eyes as her natural eye color, so in theory Arator could have had naturally green eyes as well without the Sunwell being a factor, and then there’s the fact that Turalyon’s eyes glow gold sometimes with the Light because of him being a superpaladin.

This is honestly the only way to really go. All we can do is speculate.

Then why would his eyes have turned blue before they turned gold?

My personal speculation? Blue eyes have been used to signal a character being a high elf versus being a blood elf in most areas of the game previously, and Arator definitely isn’t a blood elf, so maybe Blizzard changed them to avoid confusion. As far as I’m aware the lore is that Thalassian elves naturally have a variety of eye colors and the high elves seen in game wouldn’t all only have blue eyes, but that blue vs. green visual distinction was used to show the separation between them and the blood elves. Arator got golden eyes at the same time as Liadrin did, but that was also the first time the gold eyes were available for the artists to use. He’s the only half-elf paladin that we know of, so we don’t have anyone else to compare him to.

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Given that you’re talking about a race with a population of … two maybe? It’s not exactly a major global story priority

Oh my god, when did you go Worgen?! Why?!?

There’s nothing stated about how half-elves react in regard to the Sunwell. To be honest I think it depend on how exactly the Sunwell addiction works in regards to the high/blood elves. Like is it an instant passed on condition like the orcs green skin from fel magic or possibly quickly built over time from living within Quel’thalas and proximity to the Sunwell?

That was Night of the Dragon.

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Well, a race with three confirmed living characters, but the population of half-elves is impossible to speculate.

For one thing, they’ve existed for over 3,000 years now. The first Guardian, Alodi, was a Half-Elf. There’s also been at least one major population center where humans and high elves have cohabited; Dalaran. Likewise, Turalyon and Alleria (as well as Sylvanas and Nathanos to an extent) are living proof that Dalaran isn’t the only place where humans and high elves could interact and develop a relationship, whether romantic or platonic.

Logically speaking, the fact that Half-Elves have existed for so long, with a significant population center to originate from, as well as more recent mass-interactions of humans and high elves (Second/Third Wars), then there should actually be a significant population of Half-Elves.

But yes, I agree that they’re not a story priority. They don’t have their own formal nation, leaders, flags, organizations, etc… yet at least. They could, it’s just a matter of the writers deciding to utilize them.

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Well we’ve been told that it is already hard for elves to have children, especially more than one at a time. And that there are so few half-elves that they don’t have any distinct culture of their own.

Where were we told this?

I always thought it was them choosing not to have kids. Considering they have long life spans and can have them at age 30 or 1936. Usually long living races don’t procreate unless needed to

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Makes sense to me. I mean, Lireesa Windrunner had four kids. I suppose twins or triplets might be super uncommon or downright rare, but then again, Vereesa only had them with a human, so is fertility/virility higher in Human/High Elf couples? It’s not as if humans have a hard time having kids.