dalaran was rubble during this time. kael and the dalaran elves most likely evacuated back to quelâthalas and ofc became blood elves. there is no source for any blood/high elves in stormwind either. the 2 static easter eggs in SW since vanilla are most likely the elves that recently rejoined the alliance and were met with a âcold receptionâ
the only elves who could fit the description of ârefusing ordersâ are the few elves that followed jaina around and settled in what would become theramore. and whatever elves followed alleria through the dark portal. and the lodges
Iâm not really up on how royalty rules work. Would it still count if they had been born elsewhere?
There had been high elves living in Dalaran for around 3000 years if memory serves (if Iâm wrong here, feel free to correct me), in which case assuming some had children in that time isnât a big stretch I donât think. This would be an assumption that isnât canon, but isnât specifically non-canon either, if you know what I mean.
Iâm not sure if the ones in QuelâDanil heard about QuelâThalasâs fall at the time or not. The ones in Allerian Stronghold certainly didnât, until Kael showed up in Outland.
Thatâs something I struggle with a bit - as (although not canon) the immediate questions for me have always been why they supposedly didnât know: âAre there no mage portals? Is there no teleporting? Wouldnât some low level mage be sent to warn/inform the other elves?â
By all means, if you notice something being endorsed that is politically vile⌠point it out.
The point was that your citizenship status doesnât really matter, if you donât even live within the territory of that country â the British-born, U.S.-residing individual in this situation is precisely akin to the Thalassian-born, Dalaran/Stormwind/QuelâDanil-residing individual.
Neither of them would pay much heed to demands made by their country of origin, nor would many/most people expect them to.
So then âSure, theyâre traitors - but so what.â seems to be what youâre saying here.
Example: Iâm a US citizen living abroad in 1970 and I get drafted to go to 'Nam - and I refuse. Guess what? Iâm guilty of draft evasion. Extradition exists because countries (usually) respect the laws of other countries. Today, 18 year old male US citizens are still required to register for the draft no matter where they are living, as another example.
Even if not literally committing treason, could not one still say by not returning to help that they were turning their back on Quelâthalas? A colloquial way to refer to this would be to call them traitors.
aethas and the sunreavers that returned to help rebuild dalaran became estranged but were never branded traitors. as we saw in shadows of the sun, the sunreaver community in dalaran was simply being ignored, lorthemar choosing not to respond to any of aethasâ corresponding messages and he had to come to silvermoon in person
treason would be choosing to side with jaina and helping her to kick out and imprison your own people
The only governing authority which is likely to legitimately believe the High Elves committed treason, through disinterest, is the government of Quelâthalas â everyone else, notably including Sylvanas and the Forsaken, realizes this is an absurdity.
Thus, itâs less a case of âsure, theyâre traitors⌠but so what?â and more a case of, âthe government in Quelâthalas maintains that the High Elves are all traitors, but this is legally unfounded and socially unprecedentedâ.
The functionality of citizenship is vastly different in a modern world, compared against a more medieval setting â in the case of a High Elf living in QuelâDanil, for example, there isnât some extradition agreement in place that will force them to return home when/if Silvermoon demands it.
These people would be bound by their respective moralities, not legalities, which makes any charge of treason even more spurious.
Absolutely.
It would be an improper use of the term, colloquially or otherwise.
The invasion wouldnât make them an independent nation though. Theyâd still technically be part of QuelâThalas until they decided to leave, wouldnât they?
it was like jeurt said. they most likely could no longer afford to maintain a presence that far south due to 90% of the race being wiped out and the exiles just occupied it
As a matter of technicality, yes, but what is technically correct is seldom important in matters of geopolitics â QuelâDanil has not only been self-governing for years, theyâve been seen as being anti-Horde and pro-Alliance as recently as Cataclysm.
Any claim on that place made by Quelâthalas is pretty moot, when itâs being controlled by someone else.
If someone were trying to classify High Elves as being traitorous, this would be a much better event to cite to â though, in the Purge of Dalaran, Iâm not so sure there is actually a clear example of âgood guysâ and âbad guysâ.
The exiles were in Quelâlithien. Most of them were turned into Wretched by a cursed artifact. I always thought the ones in QuelâDanil were already there at the time. I donât know whether thereâs a source saying one way or the other though.
Oh I know. They were always my favourite candidate for playable high elves, back before we got the skin tones on void elves.
Sure. But that doesnât mean them initially rejecting QuelâThalasâs rule couldnât be seen as turning on them.
We agree that the government of Quelâthalas probably imagines that all of the High Elves spurned them, and probably refers to them all as traitors â but the predominating majority of all High Elves havenât actually done anything that could even remotely be construed as being treasonous, irrespective of whether weâre looking through a legalistic lens or definitional (moralistic) lens.
