9.1 PTR Spoilers included
I made a comment in another thread bringing up a few suggestion on how the Night Elf Story could have progressed after Teldrassil without affecting other races negatively. I thought I’d create a new thread about it.
Please be aware that this is supposed to be only about Night Elves, I’m well aware that other races need development too and I’m not stating otherwise, I’m also not saying that the Night Elves should get the sole focus of the story.
Many of the things I’ll suggest will not include the Horde player either, they won’t be forced to watch or lose as Night Elf players get a victory against them for example.
My goal is to provide suggestions on how to change details of the story while leaving core parts the same to make it better for Night Elves, and to give the race a chance to be part of the story going forward and have a future as a race
As we all know, the resolution for the Night Elves after the Burning of Teldrassil has been so terrible and insulting that it’s no secret anymore that it was written with the sole purpose of being cruel towards Night Elf Players. I just wanted to briefly bring up a few suggestions about how I would’ve written the Burning of Teldrassil and its resolution as someone who actually likes the race.
This post consists of a short overview of what happened to the Night Elves officially, and a short version of how I would’ve written it. The goal of this post is to provide a Night Elf storyline or suggestions for a Night Elf storyline that leaves the big things as they were in the original story, but changes details to make it significantly better for Night Elves.
The Burning of Teldrassil
Now about the Burning itself, it’s a basic rule of my post that we’re giving the writers the benefit of the doubt and say that they were ordered to write the event from upper departments, so it would still happen.
The difference though would be that the Night Elves aren’t close to extinction after the event, but instead that they, while suffering huge losses, would still have the majority of their population alive and in Azeroth after the event. It could still be a genocide, Saurfang can still become sad, the Horde shamans could still fan the flames to kill more civilians if they really need to etc…
Just let the majority of the Night Elf population or atleast a good chunk of it still be alive after it.
The Zones
Night Elves lost 3 Zones during BfA: Ashenvale, Darkshore and Teldrassil. Despite the Night Warrior’s power they were, in canon lore, still not able to reclaim Ashenvale. They did end up getting Darkshore in the end, but the zone is only accessible for 50% of the time for Night Elf players. During the other half, the Horde has it.
The Horde ended up keeping Ashenvale in the lore and it was never also mentioned again.
Now the way I would’ve written it: The Night Elves get onscreen victories against the Horde in Darkshore and in Ashenvale. Teldrassil is obviously gone, but giving a race onscreen victories and giving them the feeling of a victory in their own zones is certainly better than letting the Horde keep Ashenvale, abandoning the plot and answering the Darkshore question through a coincidence in a Blizzcon interview.
Especially with the Night Warrior, they should’ve been able to pull off those victories in their own forests. This would give them back the zones they canonically held before BfA minus Teldrassil.
The victory in Darkshore could also be reflected ingame by just using the Alliance phasing in Darkshore, instead of sending Night Elf players to a blighted wasteland half of the times they use the Darkshore portal.
When you dare to transfer your character to a Night Elf, Blizzard also puts your character in front your burned home and sometimes into a blighted Darkshore, this is obviously also not a good look.
Lastly, with Teldrassil gone, they should get a new home for their (in my version “existing”) remaining population in Hyjal.
They could’ve also shown the Night Elves rebuilding their destroyed towns, or building a new capital city in Hyjal, perhaps even with a heritage armor that never arrived.
The Night Elves as people and their souls
After close to all remaining Night Elves of Azeroth were wiped out in Ashenvale, Darkshore and Teldrassil, the remaining few refugees are now stuck on the streets of Stormwind forever.
The souls of the dead were sent to the maw, tortured and obliterated. We saved a few in the Ardenweald campaign, yet those numbers didn’t even come close to 10% of those that died.
In the 9.1 PTR, Tyrande arrives in Ardenweald and we don’t free any more souls, therefore it’s safe to assume that those souls that weren’t saved in the campaign before are gone forever.
How I would’ve written this instead is that the (in my version still existing) remaining population could’ve moved into Hyjal, Ashenvale and Darkshore.
With the souls it gets more interesting. Instead of most of them being obliterated after an eternity of torture, we’ll save all or atleast close to all of the Night Elf souls. Tyrande then normally arrives in Ardenweald in 9.1 and pushes Sylvanas back instead of being defeated (I’ll come to that later), gets put to sleep by Ysera because of her powers threatening to tear her apart and we later find a way to share her power between her and the souls of her people instead of former Night Warriors. This will play an important role in my next point.
The Justice for Teldrassil
The justice plot for Teldrassil, well to make it short, it never happened. It was just scrapped in the official lore, they might have had a concept with it with Night Warrior Tyrande, but she ended up not really getting any justice done against the Horde or Sylvanas.
It ends in 9.1 when Tyrande arrives in Ardenweald, gets defeated by Sylvanas after a very long “build up” (or call it “wait” rather since Tyrande was mostly forgotten about in BfA) and then sleeps for the rest of the patch so that she won’t intervene in Sylvanas’ redemption.
Now how I would’ve written it is, apart from the onscreen victories for Night Elf players in their own zones (Darkshore and Ashenvale), is that I would’ve involved the Night Elf souls in it.
They were the first hand victims of genocide, of being burned alive, of torture. Instead of being obliterated, they’d be saved in my version.
Tyrande, after actually defeating Sylvanas in Ardenweald instead of losing (defeating doesn’t automatically mean killing, but perhaps injuring and pushing her back), then gets put to sleep by Ysera and we find a way to siphon part of the Night Warrior powers out of her and distribute them between the souls of her people, either bringing them back to life as fighters or enabling them to fight for Ardenweald.
Now, later on in Shadowlands, this is where my speculation starts, we’ll eventually fight the jailer. The Night Elf souls would be part of our final crusade against the jailer, and they’d get justice against those that tortured them. They’d get to defeat the very mawsworn that tortured them for so long, and they’d get their justice by killing them and imprisoning the jailer for all eternity.
Sylvanas doesn’t have to die, but she needs punishments for her actions and no glorification. Since in my version of the story, the Night Elves haven’t lost absolutely everything and they’d still get some sort of justice, Sylvanas is also less of a factor when it comes to a conclusion.
Bonus: Cinematics
I think it goes without saying that the cinematics were distributed unequally between different characters in BfA. Mostly Saurfang took all the spotlight away, and Tyrande’s Night Warrior transformation was thrown together in a coffee break. We could’ve used one or two night elf cinematics to show them deal with their losses, and show their positive moments (that happened only in my version) after the Burning of Teldrassil.
Conclusion
It was a long read, but I hope atleast some will take the time reading it. I just wanted to bring across a few points that wouldn’t have changed the story on a large scale, but changed a few details to include the Night Elves in a way that doesn’t include only losses and tragedy, but also positive moments, and a happy ending for the souls that have definitely endured enough.
Since most likely not everyone wants to read my wall of text, I’ll leave a very short TLDR here:
- Instead of being nearly wiped out after Teldrassil, they’d still have the majority of their population
- Instead of permanently losing Ashenvale, they’d actually get onscreen victories in their own zones with the Night Warrior, and players would be able to visit Darkshore again without having to wait for the right phasing
- Instead of the souls being obliterated, they’d get saved and infused with power by Tyrande
- The living Night Elf people would move back to Hyjal, Ashenvale and Darkshore where rebuilding efforts are made
- The justice for Teldrassil will be the infused Night Elf souls and the Night Warrior taking the fight to the jailer and defeating those that tortured them
The summary is very short though, so please read the entire post to get a better picture of it. Let me know what you think! And if I made some mistakes, let me know too.
PS: I’m not demanding all of those, it’s just my version of a story that’s written with a passion for Night Elves that leaves the core parts of the story the same without changing it. If some of those were included in the official story, that would already significantly change the tone of the story.
If you want to criticize it, please criticize my suggestions
