Everything turned out fine with her. Give it a break
If by fine you mean she sides with Anduin over Tyrande then sure. Everything is great for the human fans who have a new cheerleader.
Eh…I don’t buy it. Twisting Nether’s all about fel, and fel and void don’t play well together, right? Why would there be enough Void there to cause an accident?
I still like it and argue it makes more sense how it is: Elves actively looking into things they probably shouldn’t, then paying a price for it. I also like the fact that this wasn’t an accident, and it was the result of a malicious force.
Besides, it does more to tie the void elves with Alleria. That’s her thing. Silver Covenant is Vereesa’s thing. I think we can let Vereesa have her thing.
I kind of disagree, because of
One of Umbric’s goals is to bring the people of Silvermoon back to the side of the Alliance. While that’s a mechanical impossibility, that’s a narrative gold mine.
(Speculative): Why not have Void Ethereals there, laying out a trap for Alleria and the Silver Covenant? Makes about as much sense as an artifact that is never brought up again after Umbric and his followers are transformed.
Nah, the High Elves of Quel’thalas have always been portrayed as fair-weather-allies since Warcraft 3 except for a small percent of their population that decided to stay in Dalaran.
I find it a much more entertainin’ direction to go if they had kept up the High Elves superiority complex of not indulgin’ in Mana Tappin’ only to now drink the void kool-aid as a means to sate the mana pains. They could’ve spun it like - Well, at least we didn’t kill all those mana wyrms to sate our addiction.
Would’ve been great to see some actual gray occur within the Alliance instead of the nauseatin’ “WE’VE SEEN THE ERROR OF OUR WAYS!!! SILVERMOON FOR THE ALLIANCE!!” Pfft… no thanks.
Largely because Vereesa would be leading the Silver Covenant, not Alleria. Alleria would have no reason to doubt Vereesa’s capacity in doing anything…so then Vereesa would then, too, be lost.
They made a bit of an effort, referencing Dar’khan and his research. That tied things back into Quel’thalas and the war and all of that.
That’s…not at all what I said.
And as Umbric pointed out, the goals and such of his people align far more closely with that of the Alliance than that of the Horde. Also, high elves don’t really have a great history with the undead, the trolls, or the orcs. Or the goblins, either, actually.
I think the “gray” could occur more with the actions of the Void Elves, honestly. Umbric sends those diplomats on a “void vacation”, the psychological warfare of reanimating dinosaur skeletons because it would terrify the Zandalari, that kind of thing. Like, what happens if Umbric decides to maybe rewire some diplomats head to try to get Silvermoon to break off from the rest of the Horde…or, something that makes sense, like screwing with some of the Farstriders to get them to attempt to assassinate some high ranking troll. What happens when the Alliance finds out? What do they do? Do they tell the Horde, and risk retaliation? Do they say nothing, and condone it? Do the chastise him for it? Do they try to position themselves as allies?
I think that would be interesting.
(Speculative): Or Vereesa remained behind because it was her kid’s birthday or something. I’m sure she’d offer Alleria the support of the Silver Covenant if Alleria asked for it.
(Commentary): “Effort,” isn’t really the word I’d used. More like, they wowpedia’d villains from the race and saw his name and went, “Yeah, this guy!” The raid boss from the Tempest Keep would’ve made infinitely more sense.
Alleria and Umbric can believe to “bring back Silvermoon” all they want. So long as the narrative portrays it as they are just traitors hopped up on void whispers. In reality, neither of 'em has any right or authority to decide where Silvermoon belongs.
That has been left to Lor’themar since Kael’thas appointed him Regent Lord and noped out and it seems like the vast majority of the Blood Elves are okay with their lot in life.
Don’t bother responding to him
People like him are so lost it’s not even worth trying
Referencing High Astromancer…something (Solarian, right, I have the game open right now) would have been wise, especially since the Void that’s shown on Mac’Aree tends to be more of the cosmic stuffs. But I think Dar’khan isn’t a bad choice.
Someone mentioned in another thread (maybe the EU ones, I don’t know) something that got my attention: What if it was Dar’khan’s studies into the Void that started influencing him, as it always does? That’s what led him to start thinking it was a good idea to betray his people. That would be an interesting thing for them to have discovered, and lead to that complexity, too.
…also, I’m not going to lie: The idea of Vereesa just handing over the Silver Covenant like they’re a minivan is kind of funny. I’m not saying it’s unprecedented or anything, just the mental imagery makes me laugh.
I might not have been clear.
When I said “mechanical impossibility”, I meant it. There’s no way to suddenly make the Blood Elves join the side of the Alliance, from any kind of gameplay standpoint.
But it’s a wonderful goal for Umbric to want to bring Silvermoon back to the Alliance, in terms of character motivation. It has nothing to do with “traitors”, or anything.
And it’s not like it’s a crazy, fanatical idea. Gameplay wise, Quel’thalas and the High Elves have been aligned with humans for some three thousandish years. Kael’thas did break things, but you can’t talk about “traitor” and kind of ignore that whole “selling his people out to the Legion” thing. And if memory serves, Lor’themar was considering rejoining the Alliance.
The point is that there’s precedent for him to believe that this can happen, even if we as players know it never will.
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I’m not talkin’ from a mechanical point. I’m talkin’ ‘bout how the narrative presents their belief of turnin’ Silvermoon.
I don’t want the overall narrative to be portrayed as:
Silvermoon in the Horde = wrong
Silvermoon in the Alliance = correct
I’m talkin’ ‘bout that they think they can turn Silvermoon, and the Void plays on that, amplifyin’ that belief to fanatical levels. I want them to do really questionable things, believe they’re in the right, but in the overall meta view of the narrative are objectionably wrong.
I don’t want the narrative paintin’ the Void Elves as the correct elves 'cuz they “returned to the Alliance” (I still challenge this argument at the meta level as Silvermoon was never fully invested in their alliance with humans to begin with).
EDIT: Maybe “objectionably wrong” is the wrong way to word it. Maybe more like somethin’ where their belief in turnin’ Silvermoon is not necessarily a good thing since it would require them havin’ to resort to force.
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(Commentary): Unfortunately, if we follow the train of logic, it was the Scourge which gave him knowledge of Void Magic, since it was Void Magic he used to cut the elves off from the Sunwell and shut it down, and that magic was specifically given to him by the Scourge in exchange for betraying his people.
Yeah but…that’s because Blizzard made the frankly weird decision to mostly separate them from the void elf who did get a ton of development in Legion. We did a whole 5-man just to experience how Alleria got her Void on. I still find it inexplicable that Blizzard didn’t then go the straightforward route and have Alleria as the faction leader, with her followers coming from the High Elves. Much more logical.
But, Umbric is cool. So I guess it worked out?
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I feel that the current personality of Void Elves don’t fit high elves, Void Elves are more humble than the quel’dorei. And I think having that blood elf heritage is part of that, right now, Void Elves lost everything twice and were shaped by their losses and search for forbidden power twice as over.
So, I honestly like how void elves are and i am glad with them the way they are.
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I’m okay with the Void doing that. That would be interesting.
Agree.
And it’s so humanizing watching how much Umbric wants to prove his worth, all the time. It differentiates him from what we normally see with high elves.
The logical route would have been just to make High Elves playable because it’s what people have been clamoring for for over a decade. But the fact that they instead decided to pull “void elves” out of thin air as a replacement should have been a good indicator that Blizzard isn’t always going to go the logical route.
And them giving us Draenei-but-who-glow-differently as the other AR just adds fuel to this fire.
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I can tell we will rarely agree on anythin’ when it comes to storytellin’. “Humanizing” a non-human race is generally a pretty big “Nope!” from me. Oh well, to each their own.
I don’t particularly agree with this for a couple of reasons…one of which being, as they stated, there’s not nearly enough distinction between what the high elves would look like compared to the blood elves. This is really bad when it comes to two different factions, unlike the mag’har and the Lightforged (though I agree we could have probably done better than more orcy orcs and more Light-y draenei).
There would be no quick way to tell at a glance what’s a high elf and what’s a blood elf. And you wouldn’t be able to immediately tell what their architecture looks like…there’s just not enough distinction.
…
…what do you think I mean when I said “humanize”?
Because I’m thinking we’re probably not talking about the same thing.
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We have Pandaren.
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The less “human” a race looks or acts, the better. Humans are ‘bout as interestin’ as a slice of white bread.