I already know that I’m going to get a lot of flack for this, but hear me out…
One, it would have saved a LOT of headaches because of the fact that High Elves were/still are NPCs and a presence in the Alliance. The entire story of the High Elves (before they called themselves Blood Elves) was them being with the Alliance. But because of ONE racist human POS, they turned their back on their centuries-long allies and allied themselves with the Horde, and a race of newly freed undead… Creatures that had decimated their homeland, lead by an Archer that also slaughtered her people when controlled by Arthas as a banshee. That’s a lot of damage that is not easily forgotten by a people that barely survived extinction if you ask me.
Now we have Void Elves… A faction of High Elves that decided to delve into the void and research it in search of more power… What faction does that sound like that belongs on? War-based Horde? Or Alliance soy boys that just want to live in peace? Not only that, but you can’t tell me Tyrande and Malfurion wouldn’t have pitched a major hissy fit over allowing void corrupted beings into their ranks since they’re ALL about nature, and the void corrupts via the Nightmare. Not only that, but I feel that Void Elves could have been done right if they went Horde. Instead of trying to make them into High Elves, they could have really went down the Void rabbit hole and make them look absolutely sick.
Blood elves is literally just a name they call themselves, they’re still High Elves. It’s like when people in the United States call themselves Southerners vs. Northerners. Just a name, but still the same people.
Blood elves were corrupted by fel for a little bit. Seems like that was reversable though.
If I was making the decisions at Blizzard. I would had kept the blood elves as they are, more or less, and on the horde.
But I would have made Silver Covenant High Elves playable for the alliance at some point as well. (Void & Nightborne would had never been a thing).
I would have differentiated High Elf from Blood Elf by what classes they can play. Belfs would had been able to be warlocks and demon hunters and helfs would had not been.
Someone who’s family has been in Texas for almost 200 years and someone who’s family has been in New Hampshire for almost 200 years are certainly both Human but that doesn’t mean they’re the same when it comes to how their particular history and outlooks.
I’d also point out that there’s generally a pretty wide cultural difference between the overall Northerns and Southerners, and this is generally accepted by Americans without too much issue. We’re all Americans, and we’re all humans, but the culture of, say, New England, is very different than the culture of, say, Louisiana or Texas.
Note: This is not an argument for or against High Elves (the ones who refused to drain mana from things and refused to participate in the Blood Elves new path) being added as a playable option, but rather that they are, in fact, different when people are talking about the two groups.
im glad wow is different from lotr traditional fantasy and put our high elves with orcs. void elves were the mistake. and now we alliance have to deal with these cope takes about how they arent void elves which actually plays into the whole void elf slow decent into madness
To be fair, Garithos is almost never brought up by the Blood Elves as a reason to hate the Alliance.
I’d argue their grievances are more based around a perceived lack of support during their time of crisis and a general dissatisfaction with the Alliance’s efforts on their behalf during the Second War. There’s also the fact Anasterian was among those calling for the Orc prisoners to all be executed after the Second War.
The elves of Quel’Thalas specifically, meaning those whom lived there and never left, would never quite know the struggles the Alliance had, and so always assumed the humans never really tried for them. High Elves that had fought for the Alliance, such as Alleria and her rangers, or any of the elves in Dalaran, knew otherwise, and its no coincidence these groups remained with the Alliance not only after the Second War, but after Quel’Thalas fell and the survivors renamed themselves, ‘Blood Elves.’
In a nutshell, the elves calling themselves Blood Elves always held the opinion that the Alliance was a waste of time, resources, and lives, and never did enough for them. Garithos turning on them ultimately was a drop in the bucket in comparison to the fact that over half of Quel’Thalas (the modern day Ghostlands) got torched by dragons under the control of the Horde, or that the Horde ever got close to Quel’Thalas to begin with.
Its not flawless logic in the bigger picture, but when you narrow it down to what your average Blood Elf experienced, heard, or knew over the years, their position towards the Alliance is understandable. Since then, every tiny little thing is just confirmation bias, and anything that might portray the Alliance in a good light is just ignored (the restoration of the Sunwell, for example).
Oh for the love of the elements, when people say “high elves” its in reference to the group that to this day use the term high elves to refer to themselves.
High elves is as much a political designation as it is a racial one. In the same vein that “humans” can refer to the general human population or specifically the humans of Stormwind! (it is the same distinction as Kul Tirans/base humans)
They don’t but Shaw specifically mentions Garithos was to blame for the deterioration of relations between Alliance/Quel’thalasian elves.
Wasn’t really just that, Sylvannas sent the undead to help deal with the rampaging scourge in the Ghostlands while the Alliance sent a spy as an ambassador and eventually the Kaldorei started planning attacks on the ghostlands settlements because they didn’t trust the Belfs use of fel to rebuild SMC.
But on topic, when the belfs joined the Horde it was still under Thrall and the general narrative of the game was much better, where the usual monster races in fantasy were trying to rebuild and find a place within the world while the general hero races, that being the Alliance didn’t trust them in the slightest, Alliance was way more aggressive up until Garrosh took the throne and Blizzard decided to make the Alliance passive, just reacting to whatever the Horde did.
Joining the Horde was made a simple decision when the Alliance reached with distrust and aggressive plans related to the Belfs means of survival while the undead welcomed them with open arms and the Horde was basically “hey prove you can bring something of value to us instead of more trouble and you’ll be welcomed.”
All it took was writing the Alliance completely out of character to do it.
Night Elves in Quel’Thalas, investigating, ‘reckless arcane magic use,’ after ignoring it for 10,000+ years in Dire Maul? Better yet, fielding a small army of sentinels to spy on them, when throughout all of Vanilla the sentinels couldn’t be bothered to mobilize to defend their sacred lands such as Ashenvale from corruption and danger.
The story of the Blood Elf zones was written to justify them being Horde, but in the process had to push the Alliance into actions that made absolutely no sense for it. I wouldn’t hold it up as some kind of example of excellent writing. It existed to push the Blood Elves into the faction the Developers needed them to be in to fix the faction imbalance.
It’s completely subjective. But I love the story that the Blood Elves and Forsaken started working together to protect Silvermoon after the Forsaken broke free from the Scourge. Both races were also going down dark paths. And it’s much more interesting to me. Neither are perfect. And got second chances and gave their allies second chances. And everything has worked out.
What I don’t understand is people still complaining about it 14 years later when everyone that’s playing on each side is well settled there. And Belves have been in the Horde for a lot longer than they ever were in the Alliance.
