You’re right on the physical resemblance but dead wrong on the cultural angle. Modern Night Elves are descendants of the commoner Kal’dorei castes, typically those with low to zero magic ability. The Shal’dorei were one of the magical castes, just below the Highborne. They’re about as divergent culture wise as you can get. To the Shal’ dorei, Kal’dorei are lowborne scum.
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Well, not exactly. Plenty of commoners likely had magical ability. Unfortunately, ancient Kalimdor society was still highly stratified along familial lines, so if an individual’s family wasn’t Highborne or part of the traditional nobility, their talents would probably go unnoticed or at the very least never reach their fullest potential.
Hence we had a common-born kaldorei like Illidan, who despite not being noble-born or Highborne nonetheless possessed enormous magical potential. Potential that would feasibly have remained untapped and undeveloped had the events of the War of the Ancients not allowed him to rise above his station.
That said, culturally the Nightborne are likely more akin to the sin’dorei, or more specifically, the pre-sin’dorei high elves. The blood elves have probably been forced to relax certain societal taboos and prejudices concerning rank and class due to the hit their population took reducing the number of prospective mages, while any Nightborne who weren’t actually among Thalyssra’s enclave of exiled refugees may still cling to ideas of being a privilegedand ruling Highborne class that stands above everyone else.
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Except Tyrande, who was a Highborne of Suramar. Not to mention the Shen’dralar. Suramar is also the birthplace of the Sisterhood of Elune, imo, the whole cultural angle of the Nightborne doesn’t make sense to me, but despite that, I think the similarities between the Shal’dorei and Sin’dorei start and end with their addiction to magic… Which is not even unique since that is something the Shen’dralar also faced.
I was just annoyed that the Horde got an Allied Race that was well established in the expac, given a ton of lore, they actually have a zone AND a city, the most city-like city in the game before we got Boralus and Zandalar. It’s an actual civilization. Not to mention it boosted THE HORDE ahead of the Alliance in the magic department.
Meanwhile the Alliance got Void Elves. Who are cool no doubt. But they don’t have lore, they came out of no where, they don’t have a culture, or a capital city. They most likely have less than 100 people and I feel like I’m being generous with that.
Not to mention the Horde has the only two Elven cities now, which is just heresy imo.
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Heck no. I enjoy killing those traitors. Their mere existence threatens the Sunwell. They are blasphemous.
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Tyrande like Gotama who became the Buddha, left her status behind to enter the priesthood. The Shendralar were Highborne who never got stuck beneath the field that encased Suramar so they weren’t mutated that way. Still culturally different than the Kal’dorei. And as I’ve repeatedly point out before, whatever there may have been of Elune worship in the city of Suramar in the past, clearly nothing of it remains in the present. It’s hard to worship a Moon you haven’t seen in over 13,000 years.
All irrelevant information
They were born Kaldorei. Culturally, they shouldn’t be any different than the Shen’dralar.
I thought the most important thing about night elves following the war of the ancients was that they pushed back against the decadent arcane-reliant lifestyle of the Shaldorei. While some, like Tyrande, may have been alive back then, they ended up forming a new culture that violently rejected who they used to be.
From what I’ve seen, they hardly share a culture anymore. They only have a shared ancient history, whereas blood elves were living in much the same way the nightborne were until they were forced to work more like commoners after the Sunwell blew up.
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Remeber, old empire had a caste system based on arcane magical ability? Most of the modern Kal’dorei are descended from the bottom caste. The Highborne weren’t the only magical caste, they were simply the most magical and next to the Queen herself.
I am fine with the nb and ve but something bothers me about this pair of allied races :
Be and ne fans didn’t get to have a new playable race in their respective factions.
I guess it’s okay for be players because even though the belfs and nbelfs don’t share a model they have a lot of themes in common. However, velfs have nothing in common with nelfs and for ne fans that’s the thing we could get reasonably angry about. That’s why I would want an Alliance allied race which could interest ne players.
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Void Elves aren’t supposed to have anything in common with the Night Elves, they follow Alleria who was an Alliance hero before any contact was made with Kalimdor.
Personally, I’m convinced that Blizzard just wanted to do an elf swap because everyone loves playing as elves so giving each faction a previously-unavailable version would generate the most interest. I doubt it had anything to do with familiarity with the current elven options.
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I know, that’s the problem. Be players got a new elven race with the same themes in their factions and their model in the opposite faction. Ne players just got the latter.
I know the purpose was just a model swap but each races got or will get at least one race with the same / related themes: LF draenei are just more focused on the Light, DI dwarves are just darker and more focused on the typical underground dwarf theme, nb are more arcane elves etc…
Ne fans don’t have a new race with similar themes such as nature/Elune.
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That is one thing that is also annoying. The choice Blizzard made here was not rooted in lore, it was rooted in “Giving Horde an Alliance race, and giving Alliance a Horde race.”
But why didn’t they keep going with that? Why not Mag’har for the Alliance? Why not Dark Iron for the Horde? If Blizzard’s goal is just homogenization, why is it only elves and not all races across the board?
Because their goal isn’t homogenization.
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The general vibe of everything since Cata begs to differ. Or, Blizz only wants to Homogenize the elves. Because the whole Tolkien “Twilight of the Elves” trope that is played out and boring.
You mean like how they sent the Maghar to the Horde and the Dark Iron to the Alliance?
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I chalk it up to people being obsessed with elves again. I’m sure they do care about the factions not feeling too homogenized, but elf swapping would produce enough bang for their buck to justify it while brown orcs or ashen dwarves wouldn’t. And it seems like they were half-right, given that void elves are practically tied for the third most popular alliance race already (split with draenei).
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And also the Dark Horde form Blackrock Mountain, sending the Horde down the path of their Warcraft 1 and 2 predecessors that continues even now. There is fewer things to differentiate Thrall’s Horde Orcs, Mag’har orcs and Dark Horde orcs these days… Which is homogenization.
You would think if people were so obsessed with elves, Blizzard would try and keep them elf-like. Rather than the pointy-eared humans we’ve been getting.
This is literally it. People, largely, are vain animals. They want to look attractive, however it is that they perceive that attractiveness to be.
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