This is a super rough transcription of Chris Metzen talking about Blood Elves post-scourge invasion when they started messing with Fel Magic, in addition to the reasons they ended up becoming Horde.
The transcription is by YouTube so it is very rough, I tried to fix it up a bit but I didn’t want to touch it too much as to not mess with Metzen’s talk. I provided the YouTube link if you want to listen to it yourself, it’s much better in audio.
YouTube Channel: Kalianos
Video Title: Blizzcon 2005 World of Warcraft Lore
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3uzFQ_n88k
START: 10:39
Blood elves now because they have been siphoning demonic energies and they’ve been very overt about it right and they’re prideful they’re powerful again their eyes are glowing green they’re very bold they’re much more aggressive than they used to be we’re starting to see the side effects of tampering with it’s not just arcane energy energy anymore it’s fel energy.
Right for those of you in the know fel energy is demonic energy is it’s essentially an entropic it’s essentially death energy and they’re they’re really stoked about using this stuff and rebuilding their homeland while they’re doing this they’re comrades right the Alliance these guys that they’ve been partners with for years if not generations are starting to get really nervous around them whoa guys you know didn’t tonight I warn you that this is kind of bad you know you guys are starting to trip us out a little bit dwarves and humans don’t want to play ball they’re not returning phone calls the night elves the night elves can smell it on them they can smell this is demonic taint they could smell it in their blood utterly disgusted actually remains to be seen if Night Elves would even I mean kill them on sight you know it’s it’s unclear in my mind whether night elves would just be done with these guys.
After all these years so the blood elves really as they’re rebuilding their homeland don’t have a whole lot of allies anymore and they’re happy about it they could care less they’re on a road to power power at any cost the whole racial psychology is changing given the trauma that they went through with their homeland and their people being destroyed they could care less they’re gonna do whatever they have to do one other little point is that their leaders Prince Kael’thas that I spoke of a little earlier I suggested that the blood blood elves have some kind of fealty to the demon Illidan and if Illidan is in Outland it it pretty much is that the elite blood elves are also in Outland working for him so that player blood elves the ones that y’all will be creating and playing and adventuring with are the blood elves that are still left on Azeroth and clearly not in Outland and they’re driven to rebuild their home and one day reach out land.
One of the big kind of caveats to being a blood elf is that they view outland where their leader is they view it as Eden as a paradise as the promised land and they’re going to spend their careers up to about level 55 somewhat that working their way to get to out land that’s what they need to do their homelands great all good but out lands where our destiny lies and in that they’re gonna be forced to make some decisions if the Alliance will not open the Dark Portal and take them to outland someone will so while it sounds a little funky to have elves of any stripe being part of the Horde you’ll see as we unfold more information as you know and as we’ve developed more you’ll see why why would they be part of the Horde
One of the funny little elements is a leader of the Forsaken the banshee queen Sylvanas Windrunner was upwards of 4 years ago the ranger general of Quel’thalas Sylvanas although cold and rotting and icky still has a lot of love for Quel’thalas she still has a lot of love for her people and identifies with them on many fronts so that could be an inn for the blood elves um it’s something certainly that they will leverage in their attempt to use the Horde to get what they need
END: 13:58
Prior to 10:39 he talks about the history of Blood Elves being originated from Night Elves and their journey to Quel’thalas. Also a good listen but not 100% necessary, but he does give a lot of background on how they became addicted to magic which sets the pretext for why they would end up seeking out Fel magic.
If you are interested, it Starts at 7:05 and Ends at 10:39. It is the same Video, just a few minutes earlier.
https://youtu.be/O3uzFQ_n88k?t=425
Personal Note
I played through the Blood Elf Zones as a kid not understanding why I had to assassinate a Dwarf Spy, or why Night Elf Spies were all over the place trying to sabotage the Blood Elves.
Learning more about the lore, and especially now playing Alliance side, it really fleshed out the reasons that this was happening, showing that there were probably real fears that Quel’thalas was going to end up being a launching point for a new Legion Invasion (which came to fruition as Kil’jaeden was summoned to Azeroth through the Sunwell).