Even modern high elves do not act in a way that they once were. In fact modern High elves often classified as having distanced themselves from aspects of their past in favor of humancentic lifestyles. They largely abandoned the use of arcane in fear that it was remind alliance races of their past.
If we ask ourselves the question, which group better represents the outlook and beliefs of traditional high elves? would it be the 99% that left the alliance (as high elves) and make up the existing blood elf player base, or the fraction of a fraction that stood against their people and remained with the alliance?
The night elves views and beliefs have also changed, and one could argue that they are not the same isolated and close minded elves they once were, it is simply the natural development of their people as they grew and overcame their own hardships. But their decisions, much like the blood elves was never a deliberate attempt to distance themselves from who they were.
Modern “alliance” high elves are far more detached from their former values and beliefs as traditional high elves than the blood elves ever were.
How are they different? Keep in mind that being part of the Alliance is not and never has been a strong part of high elf culture. They were more or less forced into the Alliance during the 2nd war and left almost immediately after.
So, I’m going to need an extensive list of how exactly blood elves are somehow drastically different from high elves.
Does it look like a duck? Sound like a duck? Does the duck have two heads? Still a duck even with two heads
Void elves are blizzards way to please the high elf crowd, but it started as a failure and ended up a success
The vast majority of void elves look like high elves in-game (on stormrage and moonguard). They are all but high elves, except in name only. Still high elves however. Same skin, same hair colors, same eye colors. Except they have a void theme that mostly got abandoned by blizzard for a more high elf theme (will see what happens next expansion though).
Once in a while there is a void elf player who embraces the void, but this is the exception not the rule. The vast majority of alliance void elf players are just high elves.
You know, that’s a fair question. In the past, the High Elves were isolationist and only helped when forced and demanded help when the issues they ignored finally came to bite them on the butt. We don’t know if they often harassed their own citizens, used slave labor, or mind controlled citizens when questioning authority like the Blood Elves do now.
The High Elves we had known in the RTS games were those who had to either work hard to convince their king that there was a threat (Alleria in Warcraft 2) or those who ignored the edict to return to Silvermoon and live in isolation (Warcraft 3). Those are the High Elves who haven’t really changed at all. They were never content to sit idly by in Quel’thalas while the world burned. They were in other areas, with their allies, friends, and family. They are the ones considered “traitors” for not abandoning their life and blindly heeding a royal edict. Those are the High Elves that are still High Elves today. The Blood Elves are the isolationist Elves that never helped the Alliance. Never did anything but sit in their city, thinking everything was okay, until it wasn’t. And then blamed everyone else except themselves for it happening.
The Blood Elves aren’t isolationist anymore, that’s for sure. They’re a lot bolder and even more reckless (still relying heavily on arcane magic, despite everything it has done to them), but they’re now allied with the Trolls (their ancient enemy), abandoned their ties with their former strongest ally, the Wildhammer, and are content being used as fodder in the various conquest attempts by the Horde. That seems like quite a departure to me, but I could be wrong. Honestly, if Blood Elves were anything close to the same as they used to be, they wouldn’t be on the Horde at all, and Silvermoon would be boarded up from the outside with signs saying “Go away!” posted at any entry point.
The ones who haven’t really changed that much are the current High Elves. They’re still doing pretty much the same thing they’ve been doing for decades, if not centuries. Same friends, same allies, same family, same home.
Edit: I just need to add this: if you want to portray your Elf as a High Elf, and you’ve customized it to have blue eyes and pale skin, that’s fine. Go at it. You can be a High Elf if you want, even if the game says you’re something else. But you’d be a High Elf, not a Blood Elf or a Void Elf.
Sir, Blizzard has already officially stated “Blood Elves are High Elves.”
It’s not an argument.
By your own admission then, those were minority and aberrations of the culture you cite above.
No evidence to suggest this. They were closer to humans and the closer human kingdom became the Forsaken.
The forest trolls that even the Darkspear faught against recently? Yes… because all trolls are the same… interesting when one starts to parse and slice things.
If isolationism is the major defining difference between high elves and blood elves then wouldn’t making high elves be a separate playable race be ending their isolationism as well thus making them essentially the same as blood elves?
I’m going to have to ask you for a source. Because I can show a couple sources, at least, where they have stated “Blood Elves no longer consider themselves High Elves”.
I know there are sources that talk about the Blood Elves saying “The Blood Elves are our High Elves” which isn’t wrong, but it’s also incomplete. They are the High Elves that became Blood Elves, not that they are both at the same time. There is also a quote from Ion that says “Blood Elves kinda are High Elves” but then continues on to explain the differences between the same group, so even he knows they are not the same.
Yes. The Horde being allied with the Zandalari (who were big players in the Troll Wars against the Elves) also brings along the baggage of being allied by association with ALL of the other Troll tribes, including the Amani, even if you do have quests to kill a few of them. Those quests aren’t because they’re your enemy. Just because the Zandalari need someone to “put them in their place”. They’re still welcome in Zul’dazar, and are allied with the Zandalari.
Of course, you’re also probably all too eager to forget the Revantusk Trolls, a group of Forest Trolls that was also part of the Amani Empire who fought against the High Elves, and have been allied with the Horde since before the Blood Elves joined.
It’s already been established that the High Elves that are around now were a minority and “aberrations of the culture”. The ones that remained High Elves were not isolationist. They didn’t retreat from the troubles of the world to let others handle them. Those High Elves didn’t really change at all. Their “culture” (or lack of it as some might claim) has changed very little. The same cannot be said about the Blood Elves.
The problem seems to be that you don’t understand that when people talk about High Elves, they’re talking about High Elves, not Blood Elves. By saying the two are the same, you clearly become confused when the discussion about High Elves & Blood Elves comes about, because there are clear and distinct differences between the two groups.
I’m not talking about them becoming playable. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to make your Blood Elf/Void Elf look like a High Elf and play them as such, go ahead. I’m just saying that there are definite and clear differences between what a High Elf and a Blood Elf are in game, in the current setting (not talking about what they used to be).
I mean we do know, even Sylvanas was mentioned to sacrifice her own men on a whim, often referring to them as “Arrows in her quiver” and it’s not like the Highborne legacy isn’t built on their recklessness and greed for power. High Elves are not some moral beacon, there’s a reason why Night elves do not trust them, and were outwardly hostile toward them.
You mention one High elf as if she represents the entire demographic? So let me get this straight, 99% of the High elves had no problem returning home and abandoning the Alliance, including the king, but the small fraction that remained and Alleria somehow trump that? That… doesn’t even begin to make sense.
It’s clearly bias when you can ignore the fact that 99% of the High elves did not feel the same way as Alleria, but somehow she reflects their overall opinion and ideals? I think the fact that we can clearly see that the majority of High elves had no problem leaving the alliance to return to their lives back home are the more reliable reflection of their people.
In fact, this indifferent attitude toward the Alliance is so prevalent that the Alliance races were bitter toward the returning High elves due to them abandoning them in the war. If what you said was correct, they would have welcomed them home with open arms instead of restricting them from their cities and quite literally talking trash about them.
Their life? The majority were only there because they were honorbound to be there, that is not their “life” their life would be their home, which is why the majority of them returned. The ones that remained and were considered traitors are the ones who adhered to the human’s and refused to return to their homeland.
These were the High elves, 99% of them to be exact. The moment they felt their side of the bargain was filled they all left except a fraction. Consensus is reality, and the reality is that 99% of them felt no loyalty or connection to the alliance and were eager to leave and return home.
Same could be said for the Night elves, do we consider them a “different” people now? The high elves themselves can be bold and reckless, take the ones who became cultists who the new host for Xalatath (A high elf) these are not traits unique to Blood elves, these can apply to any Thalassian elf.
Except they literally couldn’t do that or else they would have perished. This was said numerous times during the starter area, that without the help of the Forsaken and the Horde they would have been overrun and killed. Simply remaining isolated wasn’t a choice anymore, even if it were their preference. Had the attack not happened they probably still would be isolated.
I don’t even understand how you could say this? The high elves that left their home, adopted humancentric ideals, bred with humans, wear human clothes, live in human settlements are somehow the “same” as the other 99% of traditional High elves who had no problem leaving the Alliance to return to their homeland?
Cannot you see the absurdity in calling Stormwind and the alliance more of their home than actual Quel’thalas, their capital and homeland? How you’ve convinced yourself of this is beyond me.
The High elves that “remained” had already changed the moment they refused their edicts they stood apart from their people’s beliefs and culture, they changed in a fashion far more drastic than the Blood elves had since becoming Sin’dorei. If they had changed their name during this division you would have no leg to stand on comparing them to Sin’dorei. The fact that they had simply not changed their name doesn’t make their aberrate behavior “traditional” High elven culture.
Then these are not examples of “traditional” High elves, anything but. They are an example of a minority caste of High elves that had already shed their traditions in favor of humancentric ones. It’s weird that you would consider these “true” High elves despite the fact that you admitted already that they were aberrations in their culture" and thus not an accurate reflection of their people’s beliefs. Alliance High elves are “High elven” in name alone.
The very small fraction of High elves that had changed from the other 99% of their people did so because they were just so High elven, but when the 99% changed it was clearly because they were not as High elven. If you cannot see the contradictory and absurd nature of that logic.
Your argument will almost always boil down to the same pointless semantic of a name-change, despite this ham-fisted attempt to try to explain a clearly flawed line of logic. All the races had changed over the years, you just seem under this delusion that a name change must be the cause and not the fact that their whole way of life was turned upside down. Modern Alliance High elves are far more guilty of departing from their way of life as traditional High elves than Blood elves will ever be guilty of. The fact that they kept their name doesn’t change that.
All I know is that they really should have been high elves not blood elves. I know there are a teeny amount of High Elves left. I get it. But Void Elves are canonically so few in number, at least to start, it doesn’t matter if they were High or Blood Elven.
If they were high elves:
The Silver Covenant learns that their Ranger-General’s sister has turned up on a distant world. With their Kirin Tor allies they find a way to teleport to Argus and find Alleria only to also run into the wrong end of L’ura.
What we have with the blood elves:
Magister Umbric, a new character in the lore, decides to study the Void. He is told not to but takes a group followers into the woods to do it anyway. They are corrupted and intercepted by Alleria who takes them into the Alliance after they are kicked out of the Horde.
Blood Elf originating Void Elves are High Elves who got stomped by trolls, blamed the Alliance for not helping and left the Alliance, got stomped by undead, changed their name, became addicted to fel magic, joined the Horde, got over their addiction, chose to study Void, got kicked out of the Horde and went back to the Alliance. Like what? That’s a lot for someone to go through.
IDK. I’m not even a big High Elf person but it really felt like they bent over backwards to make Void Elves former Blood Elves almost out of spite.
Blood Elves (or Sin’dorei) are high elves who changed their name after the Scourge invasion of Quel’Thalas. Their new name is a dirge, referencing both the blood of their many brethren who fell during the Third War, and their royal lineage.
So, you don’t have a source. Or are you actually trying to use the one where Ion goes “Basically, Blood Elves kinda are High Elves” but are going to leave out where he continues by saying “with slightly different eye color, different back story in terms of their, you know, relationship with magic and the Sunwell… but they are, if you want to be is a fair-skinned, light blonde haired, you know, tall, majestic Elf, that is a Blood Elf.”? And then goes on to say “There isn’t a clear example of who or what High Elves are as a larger group that still remains in Azeroth.” which wouldn’t be an accurate statement at all if “Blood Elves are High Elves” as you claim.
Or do you have a different quote you were thinking of? You can’t just say “I’m not going to back up my claim!” because the onus of proof is on you for making the claim.
Ion: If you want high elves, the horde is waiting for you/If you want to play a fair-haired, light-skinned, blue-eyed majestic high-elf, sorry but…the Horde is waiting for you!
Blood Elves are the continuation of the story for the people of Quel’Thalas, the Quel’Dorei history is the history of the Sin’Dorei.
At this point, you’re just trolling. Lastly, the onus has been on you and you do not come through.
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