I protect my dinner too.
I think you are totally right. They just became regular High Elves. They are mostly represented now by Shining Knights, not Blood Mages (kinda Warlocks). Not by Kael’thas but by the a decent guy like Lor’themar. The whole magic addiction is not a thing anymore, which was such a good idea. Finally a “magic race” which was shown in game by more than a +1 to int stat. But with the Nightborne that part went over there, and the Void Elves got all the icky stuff.
I can see why the devs did this, but I also think they became so much less because of that.
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This screams to me the fallacy argument “only monstrous ugly races should have been horde!” - which never made sense.
Horde was not characterised by being monstrous, it was about outcasts, survivors, rebels, hardened warriors, and yes initially shamanism. Unlike the Alliance that was built more to the ideas of virtue of Valor and original faith in all things the Light and pure.
The blood elves would have been a terrible pick for the Alliance in TBC. There is next to nothing that matched their transformed mindsets and way of life with the self-righteousness of the Alliance.
Heck the very fact they were draining a Being of Light to forcefully dominate its power to use it for their own….would have been appalling to the Silver Hand and almost every race in the Alliance.
Were the introduced Blood elves a pretty race? Yes
Did they help with population problems? Yes
Are they not suitable for the Horde because of their appearance? Hell no.
Pretty on the outside but they were scarred and now brutal survivors and veterans of a genocide seeking to do what’s necessary to survive. They fit right in.
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You made this part up. They don’t fit into the idea of the horde.
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Exactly how though?
Based on my other points above, they fit the Horde far more than they ever would have the new alliance.
The only difference was that they didn’t practice shamanism (same as the Forsaken)
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Someone hasn’t played through the Nightborne and/or Void Elf Allied Race unlock questlines…
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blood elves story is pretty much complete. what they can do is go ahead and do something about void elves and give them a bone but what else can really continue for us besides going that route
When did I say they were? Also, given the direction Blizz took the Horde from MoP all the way to BFA, I think there was PLENTY of room for the more “edgy” Blood Elves we were originally pitched.
remember the game cinematic from Burning Crusade?
The beautiful Blood Elf woman, so mysterious and enchanting, as she weaves her hands in the air as the floating Mana Wyrmling dances around her hand…
and then SPLAT she sucks the mana out of it.
THAT was Blood Elves when they came out, and YES it was cool and awesome.
I was immediately drawn to them as a race.
video of The Burning Crusade cinematic
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They don’t have to. They don’t have to serve the Light. The Sunwell is now a font of both Arcane AND Light magic. They can channel the Light directly from the Sunwell, no worship/service necessary. Liadrin goes the Holy route because she was the one that sensed the pain the being they were ripping the Light from pain and sympathized with it.
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So, they were Evil.
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I love Blood Elves, have since WC3, it’s the only race I play but I agree the narrative over the years has either shifted or vanished Completely… we haven’t shown up in an XPac cinematic since BC, despite being nearly a third of the population.
People say that Void Elves stole the BElves identity but I don’t think that’s true, the NightBorne did. They’ve basically completely taken over our role as the hordes arcane experts.
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If we went down the edgy path we could have been a great pro warlock civilization. The blood elves themselves were set up to be great warlocks with the threat of becoming wretched. The consequence of becoming wretched would weed out those who had a weak will and no discipline.
We could do so much more with the Dark Animus if we had a willingness to explore the darker side of magic. The blood elves would have access to potent blood magic and fleshshaping. However it is used to power titanic golems from Pandaria.
Instead we get to be one of the blandest races in the game that will always live in the human and draenei’s shadow.
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^ Off-topic - I just love your character/mog sooo much.
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This is exactly my point. You’re making my point for me. The identity of the Blood Elves has been dispersed across the Nightborne and Void Elves, leaving Blood Elves as the generic High Elves.
Honestly I think this is why I’ve slowly been losing interest in my BE. The BE story felt all but done and now peaceful and generic. It lost its drive and edge that made it originally so appealing.
Trying to completely alienate the idea of Void from the blood elves was in my opinion bad writing. The BE should still be looking into all power sources, taboo or otherwise, to ensure they never fall pray to a disaster like the Scourge again. No matter the cost - THAT is the original BE mentality.
Now they just seem peace loving, happy, pure, prideful high elves all over again.
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You said it so perfectly. This is one of the reasons I just ignore the story now. In my headcanon, Blood Elves are still badass and interesting XD
Edge never lasts forever, and a whole race being defined by a survivor mentality doesn’t really work when resources aren’t scarce anymore.
We sing this at the Blood Elf Union Hall every morning before we go to work.
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It’s clear that the writers really wanted to make the Blood Elves on inception more in line with Horde conventions when they wrote them as being these self-serving, haughty, power-obsessed elves willing to do anything and everything to maintain said power.
Quel’thalas being one of the last major Horde-aligned strongholds in the Eastern Kingdoms definitely leaves room open for some future conflict that could see the Blood Elves dipping into their old bag of tricks. 
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