What reason would they have?
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Yes, I am a high elf.
hair flip
What’s wrong with your voice? 
More sexy.
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To be Honest, I feel both Modern High Elves and Blood Elves have deviated similarly from their common heritage, in opposite extremes. In the same manner that Elisande calls out queldorei for not living to their heritage, he also calls out Blood Elves on allying with the Horde races. Going from very isolationist to being members of the Horde is a huge cultural shift, as well as their open-ness to fel magic, and now predominant light worship.
But I feel we understand that Blood Elves are a different people because they are an evolution of the once High Elves, and we’ve lived through it. The problem is people that, on either side, believe that the modern High Elves keeping the name makes them more “deserving” of their heritage, or on the contrary, obfuscate the simple nomenclature, nitpicking semantics over the actual conversation regarding High Elves.
Yeah, maybe it would be best if everyone just not did that. Because either people are using that argument on bad faith, or people are responding to it on bad faith by pointing out the Blood Elves are as Much High Elves when that’s not the conversation.
We can have a conversation, perhaps entirely pointless, of wheter HE or BE are closer to their common ancestor, but yeah, I think the Main Issue here will always be that people get so caught up by which are truer heirs of the legacy of the High Elves as some sort of validation (which, perhaps unwillingly, you yourself have fallen into) when it really doesn’t matter.
Blood Elves are 100% the main thalassian branch by population alone, if any metric is important it’s that I think, but at the end of the day every thalassian offshoot is part of the High Elves legacy, and that one of them keeps the name doesn’t make them any more deserving of that legacy, and neither less because they have also changed from the common ancestry in their own ways.
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High Elves changed their name to Blood Elf to honor the fallen after the scourge attacked. Void Elves are Blood Elves who embraced the void. So both Belf and Velf are Helfs. Anyone who claims otherwise is just ignoring the lore.
I wonder why they’re all labeled differently?
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Let me spell it out…
High Elf → Blood Elf → Void Elf
Blood and Void are labeled different, because they are… HOWEVER they are both still high elves… because that’s how they were born. Noble blood. That’s literally what what Quel’dorei means.
Blood elves 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.
Void elves are a race of Void-infused elves affiliated with the Alliance. Their origins lie with a group of blood elves following Magister Umbric who were exiled from Silvermoon City because of their research into the Void.
Not every High Elf is a Void Elf, but every Void Elf is a High Elf.
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Same reason they had to invade Quel’Thalas back in BC I suppose: a mistrust of Blood Elves. Doesn’t help that Blood Elves joined the Horde and took part in conflict against the Night Elves across Kalimdor back in Cataclysm, either.
So, the fact that the Void Elves were former Blood Elves is reason enough, back factor into it that they’re Blood Elves messing with the very same taboo power Queen Azshara herself wields in the modern age, and it’s rather shocking that the minute the Void Elves set foot in Alliance territory that Tyrande didn’t personally wipe them out herself. I mean, she went and turned her back on the Nightborne because she couldn’t see how they were any better than Azshara. It’d be fairly in line for her to wipe out the Void Elves.
There’s a difference between changing as a deliberate departure from who you are, and evolving as a culture. Alliance High elves purposely chose to deviate and remove themselves from their own people’s culture in favor of the humans, whereas Blood elves have not. The Blood elves have made choices that they had not in the past because it did not call for it, this is a story about the surviving elves and the stakes they endured to survive, but that doesn’t make them any less who they are.
Many of the races have done this, the Night Elves who staunchly apposed the use of Arcane Magic and were honorbound to kill the Highborne on sight, have now welcomed them to live among them, and even began practicing magic themselves without being shunned by the overall society. The Dreanei have taken in the Eredar, the very culprits that were responsible for the deaths of so many of their people. It’s arguable that the schism between these groups would dwarf any mere faction rivalry. These cultures have changed over time, but not as deliberate departures of who they once were, but as an evolving culture that has changed with the times. But this does not mean that the Night elves are somehow now less Night elven, or that the Dreanei are less Dreanei, they are still the same people, their decisions were never to distance themselves from who their people and who they are.
Surely just as the Dreanei, and Night elves learned and forgave the Eredar and Highborne, the Blood elves could understand that the Horde wasn’t truly evil, that the trolls were not all bad. The Blood elf story is the continuation of the events from WC3, their desperation to survive and the alliances they needed to make to ensure their survival.
Cultural divisions that change a culture stem from that culture wanting to purposely distance itself, but the Blood elves have only honored their past. Even the heritage quest has the player relive the events that destroyed the Sunwell. They they remember the past, and who they were and spend every day honoring that memory.
There doesn’t need to be some profound reason to have these discussions, but I simply do not agree that it doesn’t matter, especially in a gameworld built on the story of these races. There’s a difference between having a discussion about the game’s story, and going around feeling the need to put people down for enjoying whichever story they feel is appropriate for their character.
If we’re gonna get all philosophical, it’s important to remember that this is only a game, these characters and their story fiction. You can only be as offended, and upset by what others have to say about as you allow yourself to be. No one should tell anyone what is, or isn’t important, or what to take away from their experience.
That being said, I’m not really interested in arguing about what does, and doesn’t matter. If you feel it doesn’t matter you don’t need to get involved, but if you have something you want to add I’d be more then welcome to discuss it with you.
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Quel’dorei aren’t fel or void tainted nor did they betray the Alliance.
Sin’dorei are fel tainted and twisted versions of their once pure selves. They are no longer Quel’dorei.
Ren’dorei are Void tainted and twisted versions of their fel tainted selves. They are no longer Sin’dorei.
Not a hard concept to understand.
Because the folks that want High Elves want the ones that stayed with the Alliance.
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I mean yeah, this just feels like a deliberate and arbitrary way to say that High Elves are “less high elves” than Blood Elves. And to be honest, is not a conversation is worth having, at least for me.
I mean if you really do want to boil down the Blood Elf/High Elf cultural schism to “which one are the REAL successors of the High Elves”, yeah, then I am not the person to discuss this indeed.
Because if so, from the get go, you are saying that High Elves are just lesser, more compromised, more assimilated, less “True” High Elves, and I feel that argument is just a non-starter for any in depth discussion of the future of the Thalassian peoples as a whole and individually.
If we can’t agree that BE, VE and HE are all share a High Elf heritage, then what are we even discussing?
And then there’s the people that just, really don’t bring anything of substance whatsoever.
Again… they want Alliance Blood Elves then.
If they were honest that is their request, then no one would argue with them.
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That’s some time ago and Tyrande has changed on her opinion of the Highborne.
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False, it’s going with the evolution of the High Elven story and the people. I’m sorry that Blizzard took it in a direction that is less “Lord of the Rings” friendly.
The remaining Blood Elves is who stay with the Alliance are clearly not a part of their people and betray their people.
Now I will say they are High Elves/Blood Elves though. Their race didn’t change either.
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The ones that stayed never followed the name of the Sin’dorei. They left before the Scourge invasion. It’s a bit of a different history.
I’m not someone who wants them much but I can recognize that Void Elves were a chance to rope them into the playable race pool that wasn’t used and it’s kinda weird.
sigh It’s the same race and they are asking for Alliance Blood Elves. Are you that hinged on a name? They want an option of Blood Elves on Alliance (the racials are High Elven racials etc.). The only aesthetic difference is Blue.
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I mean.
If your argument is that they want the members of a people of which Blood Elves are also members, playable on the Alliance then yeah.
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