~https://twitter.com/Zerde3/status/1267168609161236480
Does Alleria still consider herself a high elf? Can one be both a high elf and a void elf?
Characters in Azeroth don’t think in terms of customization options or gameplay choices.
Alleria is a child of Quel’Thalas and a solider of the Alliance. She returned after 1000 years to find most of her surviving kin switched political affiliation. Didn’t change who she is.-Steve Danuser
Alleria isn’t a Void Elf, though. She’s a High Elf with a massive boost in Void powers, she wasn’t fundamentally changed via a very unique event and nearly turned into a creature of the Void. She doesn’t have tentacles in her hair or different coloured eyes or even a changed hair colour.
Even in her Horrific Vision she doesn’t look like a Void Elf. If anything, outside of that form, she’s closer to the original High Elves than Blood Elves are.
Wow, you actually got a reply. Impressive.
Also, yes. She is a high elf, not a void elf. So I’d assume she would “identify” as a high elf.
Suffice to say there an entire argument right now about whether Alleria is a high elf/void elf and ultimately I think this argument is bleeding into whether the new skins for the void elves mean they can consider themselves high elves or not.
Although if I knew I would get an answer/be able to choose which question got I would have been answer I would have preferred the question about Ashenvale.
There is no argument. Or, rather, it is an argument with no basis. Void elves are the blood elves that got voidified by the ethereals. If you did not get voidified then and there, you are not a void elf. If you can replicate the voidification event, you can make new void elves.
Having the “racial leader” of the void elves not be a void elf is not an issue, because she is pretty voidy. But, ultimately, a high elf.
Of course she doesn’t think in those terms. She isn’t a playable character.
Makes sense. The difference between High Elf and Blood Elf has been political for many years now.
Major characters, by and large, are not bound by the rules that we the players are. Alleria is, by most standards, somewhere in the middle of a High Elf and a Void Elf, probably given that her powers derive from a different source than the rest of them.
Ultimately though, that’s not really a question that matters. I doubt Alleria herself would care much for the distinction, given that her affiliations matter more than what flavor of 'dorei she is.
I congratulate you on getting some answers and feedback. That’s pretty neat. If I would quibble… I think the question is a bit of a softball, and that may be why Blizzard deigned to answer it. I do not fault the OP - it is what he wanted to know. I just think the question sort of tugs at the edges of a subject while Blizzard’s answer is a mere reaffirmation of what is already there.
Alleria left Azeroth as a High Elf, before the term “Blood Elf” was even coined. What ever she has become, she still considers herself a High Elf and she is recognized as a daughter of Quelthalas by the Regent Lord upon her return. That information seems easily accessible to Players who only play the game and don’t consume outside media. Basically, it’s kind of elementary.
I think the meatier and less clear subject centers on what a “Void Elf” even is. If I knew Blizzard was going to answer a Void Elf related question, I would want them to explain:
“What makes one a Void Elf? Is Alleria a Void Elf by any sense of the term? Is it just that batch from the recruitment scenario? Can more Void Elves be recruited, and if so, how do Blood Elves and High Elves become a Void Elf going forward?”
Void Elves are not just a Gameplay consideration. They are mentioned as a distinct people various times. If any High Elf that treats with the Void can be labeled a Void Elf… that leaves room for the Void Elves to expand their ranks from both Blood Elves and High Elves, going forward.
I guess it seems like the Alleria stuff Is already there, while other questions regarding Void Elves linger.
Dark Ranger Velonara says she views the Forsaken and the Sindorei as her people. So the exact racial terminology seems less important than who is willing to fight beside you.
What was your second question? I think the Ashenvale issue will be addressed in the new novel
Does this mean canonically that NPCs don’t believe in race?
She was never a void elf.
No, this means that affiliation is what matters, not, as Danuser says, “customisation options”.
That is more musing rather anything else. I just ask questions on twitter every so often, most of the time they dont answer, a few times they do. I have gotten a few response from Ghostcrawler, Kosak, Micky Nielson.
As for Ashenvale, I have asked about for years since MoP, never once got a response to its status(they seem eternally reluctant to give any official status to the place). Maybe the new book will answer it, but something tell me it likely wont.
She calls herself a void elf, though. I mean yes, she was touched by the void in a different way than Umbric’s exiles, but this just makes it clearer to me that “ren’dorei” is less a racial distinction and more a political one.
Sylvanas is a child of Quel’Thalas and a solider of the Alliance. She returned after 4 years to find most of her reanimated kin switched political affiliation. Didn’t change who she is.
Well to a certain degree this is all true. Hell she was willing to toss out the fact she died for the Alliance(which was not true) when she tried to convince Saurfang to attack the Alliance.
In other words, some npc are too cheap to pay a faction change. Besides she is a Windrunner with a legendary thirst for humans, she isn’t going to move away from the equivalent of Disneyland of her family
She’s a void elf. She herself came up with this name. The reason why she looks like a normal high elf is because she mastered the void. Any elf infused with the void is a void elf. Alleria was in fact the first ever void elf. Even in the new book she’s described as a void elf again. In the horrific visions that was her void form, void elves have a void form as well (though not as cool looking).