What evidence do we have that “the blood elves” (by which I assume you mean the government of Silvermoon) even knew what had happened to her? It’s not fair to expect them to save her if they didn’t know she needed saving.
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Anything can be constructed in our minds.
But we know that Varian first returned to his position as king in Wrath of the Lich King.
The comics with Valeera, could easily have been happening in the vanilla era, or shortly before, which means that the Blood Elves would indeed not have been a part of the Horde just yet.
What does stand out to me, is that Valeera seems to have had the green glow in her eyes… it may just be because I am color blind, but the green eyes first started appearing when the Blood Elves starting using their burning crystals to trap demonic souls, in order to keep the buildings around in Quel’thalas floating. But that was also pre-burning crusade era. But it does suggest that she was captured not long before the Blood ELves joined the Horde.
At the end of the day, it is all just lore chaos.
Blizzard never figured out how they wanted the Blood Elf eye glow to work.
Hey maybe she could be a Void Elf and Alliance can finally have a Blonde High Elf Now in the Alliance. XD
Little red riding oshlothogth.
Metzen’s first draft for Horde blood elves was much, much darker (and more fel-oriented) that what ended up in the game. He spitballed them as a fel-hungry, borderline-villain race the Horde was terrified of and the Alliance hunted for their taint, but the idea proved so unpopular with, ironically, Horde players at the time that they were softened in TBC’s launch material and had their link to fel downplayed significantly. So much so that it went completely unmentioned in their interactions with the Horde and Alliance, and ended up so absent from the playable faction’s narrative that you’d be forgiven for wondering why they have green eyes at all. We didn’t even have a canon explanation for blood elf fel eyes until someone asked the devs for clarification like eight years later.
It’s just one of those things they neither thought through nor committed to. It’s still weird, only it’s been so long that no one cares anymore, and rather a moot point now blood elf NPCs are as likely to spawn with blue or gold or white or violet eyes.
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Evidence of them knowing is not relevant to who in her life she values. The blood elves, government or the people, where not there to help her out of slavery or even through most of her life, Varian and the others were. That is why she has more of a bond with them rather than with a racial group that did not help her out. You seem to think because she is a blood elf orphan that she should have a racial loyalty to the blood elves over all else rather than the people who have been in her life.
It is, however, relevant to whether “the blood elves didn’t lift a finger to help her” is a fair complaint or not.
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Well they did not lift a finger to help her, even as an orphan where she had to make a living by stealing. There is no reason for her to have loyalty to the blood elves when they have never helped her. It would be like saying she should have loyalty to the night elves who didn’t help her either, they aren’t important to her life, she is loyal to her friends.
She spent half her screentime in the comic posturing about how awesome the blood elves are, up to and including a defence of their “defection” to the Horde and a condemnation of “the Alliance’s grand marshal,” so I don’t know how you came away with the impression that she has no loyalty to her people. Valeera herself made the contrary argument.
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She didn’t say she was loyal to the blood elves, saying nice things about them doesn’t mean she is loyal to them, she has always been loyal to her friends and ideals which is a core ideal to her character and she is not a traitor either because of that, which is what this thread is about.
Yes, I’ve skimmed her Wowpedia article too. That’s referring to a declaration of loyalty she made to her friends (who are mostly Alliance) and her ideals (which are embodied by the sin’dorei), while stipulating independence from the factions those things are generally found in. I think it’s silly to claim she feels no loyalty to the blood elves when she proudly aligns with their cultural identity, extols their way of life, and counted herself among their number when she defended their loyalties.
Although I will concede that WoW has thus far done a surpassingly poor job at actually showing her character’s duality; much like Liadrin, the game tends to put far more emphasis on her class than her race.
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She has always been independent, she’s not there to serve the blood elves or their kingdom even if she identifies with them culturally, which again liking them doesn’t mean she is loyal to them. It also doesn’t make her a traitor for not serving the blood elves just because she is a blood elf.
This isn’t true. She included herself when she recounted her race’s membership in the Horde, was identified as such by a Horde gladiator team, and brushed off having to fight her erstwhile Horde allies in the arena with the comment, “Allies come and go; only the Scourge is my eternal enemy.”
She did serve the blood elves and their kingdom, though, and continued to lionize and champion them even after swearing off the Horde and Alliance as institutions. She’s claimed partiality to elements present in both factions, just not the factions themselves.
Other than the fact that Lor’themar tolerates her presence, we don’t really know what her status is with her kingdom and its people. But she’s displayed such intense devotion to her race’s “ideal” and the actions taken to ensure their survival that I can’t imagine she feels no loyalty to them. It’s an aspect of her character I’d like to see explored more in the canon; HotS did so and her interactions with the other highblood elf characters were fantastic.
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I can understand that. The Horde already had the Forsaken for that kind of thing. The Horde’s whole schtick was built around being “monsters” that could still be heroic. It doesn’t sound like there was really any way for that version of blood elves to fit with that concept, so I think Blizzard were wise to rework it. The original version would have done better as a hostile-to-both-sides faction.
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Again, including herself in as she recounts something, doesn’t mean she’s not independent. She is not some hardline horde loyalist, she is her own person with her own personal loyalties to her friends. Her story has always been about being independent from faction tribalism which is what makes her a more unique character in this setting and really why people talk about her as much as they do, not because she is another insert race fanatic.
The only one she serves is house wrynn out of respect for Varian, she may have helped the blood elves, but she is not some loyalist to the kingdom, if Lor’themar told her to kill anduin, she wouldn’t do it because that’s not where her loyalties lie.
HotS isn’t canon but they did some fun voice lines for sure. But just trying to have her be another “I’m loyal to blood elves because I was born a blood elf” story is boring since pretty much every other character in warcraft has that story, her story was slightly different from most characters especially towards the start the MMO where there was still a much more clear divide between the faction, now her kind of being independent from the factions story is more common.
Hmm she would have to be Stromgarde if she was little red. XD
You know that she was helping the Alliance during the Siege of Lordaeron back in Wrath right?
I’m aware that she accompanied her two pals to attack a Burning Legion stronghold, yes.
And lucky for her she wasn’t at the throne room when the true conflict happened.
Which does beg the question, of who she would side with if push comes to shove. If for example, she was near Matthias and he was suddenly attacked by a blood elf screaming “for the Horde” would she ultimately help save Matthias and kill the blood elf? Do nothing even though she is closer to Shaw? Or ultimately help said blood elf? Or if on that fateful day Varian had asked her to kill the Horde, would she?
I would guess she’d have to help kill the blood elf, or she’d be passively betraying her oath to the Wrynn family by standing by and not protecting the people he depends on.