In the end, the reasoning made sense when you look past the, “Tyrande was mean to Thalyssra.”
The Nightborne believe that the Alliance is restrictive, and this isn’t really all that wrong of a thought-process. We know the Draenei have rules and guidelines for magic as a result of the corruption of the Eredar. Humans, High Elves, Gnomes, and Dwarves who practice magic all adhere to the Kirin Tor’s guidelines which is also restrictive, compared to the Horde. I doubt the Kirin Tor would okay the study of Blood Magic which the Blood Elves are doing, as an example.
The real wrench there would be the Void Elves, but Thalassian Elves on the Alliance always end up disproving whatever reason elves have to be in the Horde.
Not really true, this is all from Riachard Knaacks novels, who was a misogynist and should have never been the writer for Nelf lore. A lot of things he put into place has been retconned to more accurately portray the Matriarchy of the Night Elves.
Farondis was a Prince but didn’t have a Kingdom. It was just a providence that was subservient to Queen Azshara and her Handmaidens.
He was put into Canon by a misogynist, so there isn’t much that can be done about it now. He was still subservient to Tyrande. But I am not going to debate this anymore because that is not the point of this thread. If you want to make your own thread discussing it, then you can do that.
Maybe it’s my own bias clouding my perception of it but I don’t think horde players don’t get it. Personally, I’m just kinda…numb to the complaints. The elven races seem to be the ones that most frequently have “superfans”, whose passion for them seems almost obsessive to the point of disregarding just about everything else in the game, and elven stuff is entwined with so much of the game’s backstory that it’s almost impossible to get away from it.
Maybe horde players don’t know the specific feeling of having a playable race you wanted go to the opposite faction, but the general feeling of “this makes more sense and seems right, so why isn’t Blizzard going with it” seems pretty much universal for everyone in BFA, from the story to the gameplay.
This is true for Nelves especially, mostly because they are kind of the “Girl power” race. At least, that’s what my guild and I get out of it. That’s why it is so frustrating to me when people say The Night Elves are not matriarchal, and when Blizzard repeatedly writes them in as the victimized race. There is an identity there that a lot of us connect with on a very personal level, especially as a woman.
I know feminism is kind of moving into the mainstream to the point where it is annoying, and I am not really saying WoW needs to go in that direction. But characters like Tyrande and Maiev were very inspiring to me as a little girl, and because of that, I and many others might connect more with the race we play more than others.
Tyrande appearing in the Terror of Darkshore brought me to tears, so to say that I am bias is an understatement. I am aware of that.
And this is kind of my main point… especially when every other race got their thing… We didn’t.
I’m wondering why we didn’t get the NPC models. It’s not like they weren’t workable given that I’d worn one for so long during that chapter. I’m also less than sanguine about the selection.
I can understand that. If you’ve read the manga that introduced him, Dar’khan was a class one scumbag, who betrayed his entire nation because he wanted a bigger slice of the Sunwell. He didn’t give me a more favorable impressionw when I was doing my blood elf story progression.
The way I see it, it is less that Tyrande said something mean that one time, and more that the Night Elves weren’t giving them the time of day, meanwhile the Blood Elves were welcoming them with open arms. The point of the Allied Races is that the Horde is seeking out allies, so its likely they are the ones who asked for an alliance as opposed to Thalyssra and the Nightborne. She just said yes.
Who would you rather hang out with? The guy giving you a cold shoulder, or the guy actually trying to be friendly?
I feel like I should clarify that I didn’t mean this as about night elf players specifically, or that I was taking a shot at themes of female empowerment, just in case I came off that way.
(I actually had the hyper-partisan blood elf players in mind when I wrote that, since I’ve seen people make jokes about how they’re weirdly pro-horde)
I can understand the “Girl Power” aspect and appeal of the Night Elf characters and I’m totally on board with that. I also however have memories of men who associate Feminism with man-hating Amazons, and look at the gender relation scenario as One wins/ One loses, One’s on top, the other is locking boots below. As a student of Greek mythology and culture, I’m also aware that the Amazon trope was a deep expression of Greek misogyny. The point I’m making is that we can have poweful female characters, a culture that hosts a myriad of powerful female characters, without invoking the Greek Amazon tropes.