Oh geeze I don’t think I’d go quite that far with it tamred.
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Shrug
I dunno. Seems pretty obvious to me, even if that side of the desire for high elves isn’t conscious.
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To claim that these are the only three things that define them is really not fair or honest.
I also believe that the “purity value” is missing the mark. It’s not that they’re literally “pure”, it’s that despite all their hardships, they have maintained their principles, morals, and traditions. The “taint” that so many people mention isn’t necessarily one of literal magical corruption or ethnic purity, it’s the abandonment of the philosophies of their heritage. It’s that they are still High Elves in their most genuine form, not the politically foreign Blood Elves that maintained control of their homeland nor the nightmare-crazed Void Elves that play with powers so dark and dangerous that it could destroy the world.
Why is this a big deal? Because the concept of a “true” high elf is one that many players love. The trope of high elves in fantasy often represents an ideal race. They’re strong, intelligent, wise, magically gifted, and beautiful, while still being in touch with the natural world (without being nature extremists).
People can continue to misrepresent arguments and claim that we’re “white supremacists looking for a blonde haired blue eyes ethnically pure race”, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We welcome a range of skin/hair tone options for High Elves. It’s a disingenuous claim that serves only to attack, trigger, discredit, and derail.
What we actually value is a race that reflects concepts of idealism and beauty. This is a game which many of us use as an escape from real life. Remember that, for so many people, real life isn’t kind or fair. The reason they play is so they can forget about their problems and shortcomings for a while and role play as an avatar that reflects their ideals.
Every other race is a compromise. Humans are short lived, easily corrupted, and their models are doofy looking. Blood Elves are beautiful and powerful, but surrendered their values and betrayed their allies. No playable race in WoW is both physically beautiful and ideologically consistent like High Elves are. As such, they remain the top target as the perfect playable avatars.
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It’s 100% honest, because as far as I can tell from asking for the past 5 years this is the only things that people have been able to express about them.
Which are…?
You clearly haven’t been reading the OPs posts because he and a lot of his supporters expressely despise them for the “corruption”.
Again: What exactly is this? How is it anything more interesting or compelling then the most generic and uninspired interpretation of “Elf” possible?
You’re describing basically every sentient species in Wow here. Even Troggs would meet this criteria.
What does Mary Sue mean? Mary Sue is a term used to describe a fictional character, usually female, who is seen as too perfect and almost boring for lack of flaws , originally written as an idealized version of an author in fanfiction.
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This is a stupid complaint. If high elves were ever added I would expect they would KEEP the current skins tones available to void elves. In fact, as far request most people here would like “void elves but now with the high elf monicker/arcane theme racials”.
Which is they did not suck magic and more importantly remained members of the Alliance though everything that they gone though and unlike blood elves(who were literally thinking of leaving the Horde, and our current void elves were blood elves who never joined it_ you know you can count of them to have your back.
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I say this as a pro HE person, but High Elves are far from being a true representation of the fantasy ideal of elf. They are a diminished race barely hanging on, the threat of assimilation an existential fear.
High Elves in WoW ARE cool because of their story and hardship, so to say:
What we actually value is a race that reflects concepts of idealism and beauty.
Every other race is a compromise. Humans are short lived, easily corrupted, and their models are doofy looking. Blood Elves are beautiful and powerful, but surrendered their values and betrayed their allies. No playable race in WoW is both physically beautiful and ideologically consistent like High Elves are. As such, they remain the top target as the perfect playable avatars.
Just rings false to other HE fans such as myself. As generic as High Elves still are in terms of fantasy, they have evolved, and what you want is not something WoW High Elves can give you because they have their own flaws and darkness that just don’t fit with what you seem to want.
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what would you think of a hybrid Smurf/Elf???
Groups like the Silver Covenant really show those high morals and princiles.
HOW? These are the ones that abandoned their roots to basically join up with humans and become part of their society?
How have the Blood elves done that, other than some noise about leaving the alliance or doing what they needed to to survive a hard time?
I mean, even their name holds up their heritage.
Look, I don’t think it’s a universal thing, and most people aren’t looking for it. But there have been people who are clearly looking for that kind of thing that are making the request too (and some who may not care but think it’s a useful way to lure in people) And I’m just referring to people who have made outright racist statements about real world issues in the threads. It’s not a reason not to ask, just watch out for people who might use a shared complaint to try and share bad ideas (but that goes for any group)
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Patience. Willpower. Determination. A Principled refusal to feed their energy addiction with alternative sources. The knowledge, wisdom, and curiosity to freely explore the arcane while still harmonizing with the natural world around them. Loyalty. Refined dignity. Need I go on? This is already more than I can say about what defines other WoW races.
I think many of those comments are tongue-in-cheek. This is a fantasy world. They’re not being genuinely racist to imaginary elves. We like High Elves, and it’s sometimes fun to act out the extremist in-game role playing views in order to communicate certain points. I don’t know what to tell you.
I’ve explained this already. Just because you think something is boring or generic doesn’t mean they are. I think Orcs and Dwarves are both incredibly boring and generic, yet I’m not claiming that as objective fact and criticizing others who disagree. People like different things. Let people like things.
I would be interested in meeting a person who genuinely believes Troggs are a race that reflects concepts of idealism and beauty. Don’t be silly!
So? The same characters that make the best player avatars are often criticized as Mary Sues. Even many of the Alliance leaders get criticized for that. Not sure what your point is other than trying to come up with something negative against them. That’s a nonissue and actually makes them more appealing to play as for some people. The funny thing is, other High Elf haters constantly accuse them of genocide because of the Purge. Interesting how they’re simultaneously genocidal and Mary Sues.
I feel that these things are not at odds. The fantasy ideal of an elf often includes a once great kingdom on the decline. I’m referring more to physical attributes, skillsets that they tend to have (like magic), and the ethereal beauty of their fashion and craftsmanship.
I can see why you feel this way, but I also don’t think that the events of the Purge are reflective of all High Elves. Sure, the Silver Covenant Elves have given into their resentment when that opportunity arose, but I don’t think that covers the Lodge elves and others living in Stormwind. Many of the elves are living simple, honest lives and aren’t heavily involved in the politics of Dalaran. Universally, I see the High Elves as a group that is doing their best to retain their values and live with the dignity that their ancestors had, despite constant misfortune. To me, that’s admirable.
Morals are incredibly subjective and can be spun a number of ways. I’m sure many of them think they did the right thing. It’s not unreasonable that they went after those who they considered to be dangerous aggressive traitors. This is WARcraft. The go-to action is killing. Just because us Earthlings view their actions as wrong doesn’t mean they weren’t logical and principled.
And even if they weren’t, they don’t have to be literally perfect.
How did they abandon their roots? By being exiled and not just rolling over and dying? Most are still practicing magic, determined to resist their addiction, living in harmony with nature, and trying to live with dignity. They’re still the same people, even if they fell back onto the humans.
If living with humans is truly “abandoning their roots”, it sucks that Night Elves, Worgen, Void Elves, and a large portion of Dwarves have all done the same.
I can’t speak for everyonend there are awful people out there, but I will say that I understand why people like the appearance of the fair skinned High Elves. It’s how Blizzard has continued to represent them, and they are pretty.
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Most were not exiled and chose to abandon their people.
Where does this idea come from? Other than the rangers, most of the high elves just found alternative magic sources to feed off of until the Sunwell was restored.
Attempting to wipe out a certain group because of past grievances and suspicions of bad conduct seems to be a really easy call out of not good morally.
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I could just as easily ascribe these traits to the Forsaken or the pandarens.
I’m pretty sure they were still feeding on mystical energy given that they didn’t devolve into withered, it’s just that instead of sucking magical energy from the local wildlife (that was going insane) they found some other source. Further, the Sindorei haven’t had to do this in a very long time since the sunwell was restored.
Blood elves do this too.
They turned their backs on their homeland and fellow thalassians in favor of humans so I can’t really accept this as a trait.
How exactly do you qualify this? Like wouldn’t the Night elves fit this bill? Or the Zandalari? Heck I could argue that Saurfang embodied this throughout his entire run so perhaps it’s also an orc trait?
I assure you, Emet absolutely means everything he says.
It’s boring and generic because, well… let me show you something:
Elves are renowned for their grace and mastery of magic and weapons such as the bow and sword. Becoming physically mature by the age of 25 and emotionally mature at around 125, they are also famously long-lived, capable of living more than half a millennium and remaining physically youthful. Possessed of innate beauty and easy gracefulness, they are viewed as both wondrous and haughty by other races; however, their natural detachment is seen by some as introversion) or xenophobia They were usually antagonistic towards dwarves.
What I just quoted is from the wikipedia entry on Elf as it relates to dungeons and dragons and would be 100% consistent with how they were originally presented 49 years ago and well before advanced was ever a thing. Aside from the part about them being xenophobic and being antagonistic towards dwarves this is pretty much the Queldorei to a T… which means that there isn’t anything original or creative about them that I haven’t seen a hundred times before.
Thus, Bland.
It’s a mark of poor writing when you present a character that is too perfect for the world within which they exist and having an entire race of them… it’s bad writing bud.
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This depends on who’s side you want to view as “right”. They were commanded by their prince to do things they didn’t agree with. You can say they abandoned their people. I say “obey or else” isn’t a real choice, and being forced to leave because of this isn’t abandonment. They didn’t want to leave.
I think where this gets muddy is how people define “alternative sources”. If we’re talking Sunwell verses nothing, you’re right- they did find alternate sources. They used arcane artifacts and moonwells at times.
If we’re talking arcane verses feeding on fel, void, living things, etc., then they did not. They always stuck with inanimate arcane based things.
While I really don’t want to get into a fight about the Purge (because it’s tiring), I also think the claim that they attempted to wipe out the Sunreavers is an exaggeration.
Jaina realized there was unlawful Sunreaver involvement in the situation. Not knowing the details, she acts to immediately imprison all Sunreavers until the situation was known and stabilized. That’s not unreasonable. Those that resisted were met with deadly force.
The issue comes more with how Vereesa and the Silver Covenant became invovled. They’re shown attacking fleeing citizens, supposedly under the authority of Jaina. Yes, that doesn’t look good and isn’t consistent with what Jaina was doing. Vereesa and the elves exploited the situation to enact their concept of justice against those they viewed as dangerous traitors. I don’t think it’s good thing, but I also think it’s VERY different from actual genocide.
Certainly, go right ahead! Not every trait has to be exclusive! In fact, none need to be. There is overlap, and that overlap is often creates depth.
As do the Draenei.
I disagree- they were essentially forced out because of their differences. Even still, if they did leave completely willingly, this is the gray area that creates interesting story and depth. Loyalty for your friends verses loyalty for your community. Both sides are interesting and can be interpreted as “right”, which is why both Blood and High Elves are interesting.
The night elves abandoned this ideal and became nature loving hippies modestly bowing to their goddess. The Zandalari do also fit this trait though, as did Saurfang! Again, traits don’t need to be exclusive. It’s the combination of familiar qualities that give races their flavor.
I mean, maybe. At times, he had me smirking at some of the more ridiculous comments. I interpreted it as a good sense of humor.
Most of these races are not unique to Warcraft. They’re not objectively bland just because they’re similar to something else and you personally aren’t interested. Other people like them.
If we say for the sake of argument that they are Mary Sues, that still doesn’t matter. The existence of Mary Sues isn’t objectively poor writing. It’s something to be mindful of in your story, but it’s not like Mary Sues are some indisputable proof of bad writing. For example, Mary Sues make great victims. They make great supporting characters. It’s all about their role in the story.
I also think that overall, Draenei, Bronzebeard Dwarves, the Knights of the Silver Hand, the entire neutral sect of Dalaran including Kadgar, Cenarian Circle, Calia, Tauren, and Vulpera are all Mary Sues. Adding one more race of fan favorite Mary Sues isn’t going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
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I am a high elf. I was a ranger serving under Sylvanas during the 3rd war. The Alliance was mean to us, so we’re with the Horde now. We’re never coming back.
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And I do, because they did. Most of them just never returned to have been commanded to do anything.
Well, that leaves out any of the blood elves who stayed on Azeroth.
No one fed on void. The void elves come from blood elves who wanted to use void magic to defend Silvermoon, then ended up joining the alliance after being partially transformed into void beings. It wasn’t a feeding thing.
This seems like such a double standard since the high elves aren’t vegetarians, oh no, they’re eating the magic of a creature killing it. That’s not at all like killing one to eat its flesh.
suspected not realized.
Wasn’t the first thing that she did was imprison Aethas and slaughter his guards before they had a chance to react? And then still went around killing civilians with little provocation.
Resistance meaning not arguing with the people slaughtering your people all over the city.
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This is how you know the writing for both sides is good. Real people can discuss it and still disagree.
At this point, I don’t know what’s retconned or not. Back in BC, Blood Elves were constantly shown drawing fel magic from those demon crystals. After the sunwell was restored, Blizzard seems to have changed its mind and now pretends this stuff never happened.
Didn’t say they did- was just listing potential examples of other “sources”.
I think that’s an interesting concept. What are the moral implications of eating a creature’s flesh verses sucking its life essence? It would be cool if there were some quests that explored and expanded upon that question.
If I remember correctly, I think this part was a bug that was patched soon after release.
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See, I can see that at times, like pre-Golden getting her grubby little mitts on it Taurajo. But in this case, there’s plenty of the elves that just never came back. Yes, some rangers got exiled, but most of the random elves still going by high elf just never came back to be subject to the orders.
No, they weren’t. And all the dev statements and what not made it clear even back then that the blood elves thought consuming fel was a step too far. The only ones that did that were Kael’s followers who went to Outland and became the fel-blood elves we fought in that expansion. Or possibly some wretched after they turned.
That’s the alliance fan story at least. From what I remember the bug was something found in the pre-release that they looked at and decided was good and so they made it part of the story.
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Not true.
The Silver Covenant isn’t allowed to go home. Nor is Vereesa even after she was brought in to save Silvermoon.
No surprise to see you wrong about this. You and Tarrok share that in common. You his alt or something?
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what if a void elf mated with a blood elf - what race would that be 
They very much count as hostile agents. lol
I normally ignore most of the questions you ask in this regard cause they’re normally really…weird… but hell if this isn’t a fair question. lol
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The silver covenant could return as long as they didn’t present themselves as an armed force; Lorthemar has opened access to all Thallasian’s that wish to pilgrimage to the sun well.
The only exception to this would be the Rendorei since their void energy’s cause all kinds of screwy things to happen, but even they would be allowed at least to at least visit silvermoon.
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