Are there any elves left that are old enough to remember being trolls? Or did it take generations for the Well’s Immortality to kick in.
And a semi related question: are there any high elves/blood elves that remember being a night elf before they mutated into the more human like appearance?
And the final question: who would be the oldest elf still alive?
There is no lore that I know of that addresses that question. There aren’t even non-night elf Dark Trolls left in game. The Dark Trolls of the RTS make no mention of being related to the Night Elves, nor is there the reverse. The Troll-Elf connection seems to have been written for the MMORG.
The High/Blood/Void Elves would bristle at that question. The Highborne were literally a separate upper caste, not the lower caste Kal’dorei from whom the Night Elves are descended from. Statury in the sunken ruins of Vash’jir indicates that Elves with the High Elf physiology were a thing even back then.
Right now, Malfurion, Illidan, and Tyrande would be the top contenders.
Untrue.
There is one Dark Troll left in Zul’dazar, Speaker Ik’nal of the Shadowtooth clan.
Unfortunately she confirms that her tribe was wiped out by the Twilight’s Hammer and the Zandalari only keep her around as a sort of curiosity rather than regard her in any official capacity.
As to the topic at hand, I was under the impression that when Queen Azshara was born there was already a thriving Night Elf empire that she inherited, and to my knowledge she is the oldest living Night Elf, so it’s likely any that might recall being trolls had long since died off in the sundering or the wars that preceded it.
(Night Elves technically were not immortal until Nordrassil was grown by the aspects, so they may even have died of old age long before that.)
I think the well granted them a similar immortality
Mmmaybe? I seem to recall the blessing of Nozdormu specifically being the one on Nordrassil that granted the Night Elves the immortality they had after the sundering, but Night Elves like Azshara and her Highborne probably did enjoy a degree of immortality thanks to their proximity to the Well of Eternity. After all, Azshara was said to become younger and more beautiful as the years passed.
I don’t know if the same could be said for the common Night Elf on the street though.
I think back then like with the high elves latter everyone had the connection and they were all immortal the blessing just gave thrm a new source for immortality.
I don’t count monsters, so I’ll leave Illidan off the list as well. Neither of them are truly night elves any more.
Then likely malf and tyrande or maybe maive she did outrank tyrande for a bit
Possibly.
If Lorash is as old as he claimed to be and wasn’t the single oldest Blood Elf alive before he was killed then it’s possible that there are other Blood/High/Void Elves that remember being Highborne.
That’s possible, and might explain why Nozdormu felt the need to give the Night Elves such a blessing after the original Well of Eternity was destroyed.
It did take entire generations and centuries before the transformation was complete. The physical and culture shift from troll to night elf was a gradual one.
Also high/blood elves are not immortal. They live roughly 3,000 years more or less, not entirely sure. Anatasterian was about that age and he was considered to be ancient. But they do age and none are alive who were part of the exiled night elf generation.
The oldest elves could be anyone from the night elves or nightborne really. It’s hard to say with accuracy, but quite a few date back to the War of the Ancients.
When you’re Speaker of a Tribe of One… you really don’t have that much weight to throw around.
This is confusing.
They know their origins. They know that they’re ancestors were Kaldorei.
Caste standing is irrelevant as all Elves were Night Elves. Neither the Quel or Shal’dorei have ignored or shunned away from this.
It’s still irrelevant because they were all Night Elves. Even Lor’themar knowed this when he speaks about Zin Azshari being the home of our collective people.
But it’s still lore thanks to Chronicle.
I think that also extended too the rest of the elves. They all had access to the well for power
To answer the OP’s question, their eight be ant BE alive that would have been Night Elves. With Lorash and Alleria being outliers the High/Blood Elves only live around 3k years.
Hasn’t Alleria stated that she’s immortal through the sun well?
As far as oldest living Night Elf, I was going to say Maiev would be a strong contender.
She is older than Tyrande, Jarod, and Malfurion. She is the oldest living Night Elf with a name that I can think of.
If we include the Shaldorei (which I wouldnt, since they lived in a bubble and mutated. But if we do!), Thalyssra was a big deal before the Sundering. There is also mention of Occuleth being around during the Sundering as a full fledged telemancer.
And yet Sylvanas was able to detect frailty from Anasterian upon becoming a Banshee that she didn’t detect otherwise.
If Lorash and Alleria’s statements prove that it wasn’t old age then Anasterian’s never before seen frailty could only be him turning into a Wretched which indicates that he attempted to obtain a quick boost from the Sunwell’s Arcane Magic.
She said “something akin to immortality”.
I highly doubt any of them are the eldest of the Kaldorei, not even close. Wota said that Mal was only a few decades old and he grew up with Tyrande so they are roughly the same age and Jarod and Maiev are slightly older. There were many on the battle field that outranked them by status and age. Out of a race that lived a few thousand years before the sundering they can’t be the eldest. It just wouldn’t make sense.
Thats why I said “with a name.”
I mean, the OP asked for the oldest living Night Elf. We can not very well answer with:
“that one unnamed guy who was about 5 yards from Tyrande one time. He’s actually pretty old. He was Maiev’s dad’s drinking buddy in college.”
So, while there may be older Night Elves that we never met and are not even named - saying “oh there must be some old ones we never met” does not appear to be what the OP was looking for.
As I said - as far as Night Elf Characters with names, Maiev appears to be the oldest.
Because being a Banshee she has a death sense that she would not have posessed while alive.
Elf ages when not enhanced by magic are completely all over the place at this point. Anasterian was considered to be extraordinarily old for high elves at the age of 2800+, to the point where he had outlived his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father who all lived and died in the span of at most 4500 years. Yet now Alleria was around for the Troll Wars as well, and apparently some random Dark Ranger? To say nothing of Lorash, who claims (never confirmed) to have been around for the banishment of the High Elves 7300 years ago.
In short we basically have no idea how old elves get, any variant, without extra help, nor do we even know what that extra help is. The Sunwell didn’t make them immortal before, that’s for sure, and frankly having that be the norm opens up a whole slew of narrative issues and inconsistencies.
That said, I don’t believe the old Well of Eternity made the night elves immortal. It did give them a level of magical power and prowess that is no longer possible, but I don’t think they were immortal. Were that the case, then the moonwells, derived from the same waters, would have made them immortal as well, without a world tree. At most I’d say there may be some kaldorei, very few, who remember their parents having more trollish features.