Malfurion is probably the wisest leader the alliance currently has

Lore Story Forum
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i would need more information bout how it came about. it may have been a naturally occurring division of labor during the the time of turmoil between the war of ancients/sundering/and reshaping of their nation which happened to get entrenched, and not necessarily something formal planned. like maybe males just happened to be the ones turning to druidism more than females, for whatever reason as a trend, and then that got entrenched when they decided their new culture was gonna be a combination of druidism/elune worship. i haven’t read all the war of the ancients books or anything maybe there’s more info about it in there. it’s something that didn’t sound like outright oppression and seems to have radically changed in the times of WoW anyways.

oh come on now, i think this is disingenuous. the night elves have no problems with gnomish technology from everything i’ve seen :wink:

I think so, but they proved him right. Putting myself in Malfurion, Tyrande, and the “Lowborn” shoes. An exploitative aristocracy based around arcane usage just almost destroyed your society and the planet. You overthrew them. Now the people who were basically apart of that aristocracy demand they be allowed to practice the exact same traditions associated with the previous regime unhindered, demanding to basically keep their privileges while the rest of us lowborn scum fiddle around in the dirt… I think Malfurion made the best choice in outlawing it and then exiling them when they openly disobeyed.

rebelling against a religious authoritarian… in order to keep the privileges they just stripped from you that are associated with the biggest war in history at that time

i don’t really think you can compare the two in this way. sylvanas started a war of conquest in peace time with her neighbors. malfurion overthrew a violent aristocracy that had almost destroyed the world.

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I’m ignorant to them, so I will defer to you and others savvier than me. However, I will add that I always looked at goblins as builders and makers, and not thinkers or philosophers, but, again, this could easily be my ignorance.

If my thought is correct (engineers [goblins] v scientists), than I would think they would be approaching the Light from a means of how to create it, build stuff to use it. And less of how to Think about it.

Hmm…actually, that might just be semantics…

/shrug

I’m quite exhausted, sooo…take that into acocunt

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You can make appeals to nature, tradition, and “non-oppressive” segregation all you like, but to me separate is never equal, and socially enforced discrimination is a bad feature of a culture, however much people might be “on board” with the segregation.

oh come on now, i think this is disingenuous. the night elves have no problems with gnomish technology from everything i’ve seen :wink:

Aw Spuddy, you got a chuckle out of me <3

But the analogy still holds. Magic holds enormous promise as a force for good, as people like Jaina, Khadgar, Kalec, and Antonidas (not to mention Feldaran <3) show. It’s also a source of many people’s aspirations, hopes, self-image–their core identity.

Denying that to the Jaina equivalent among the Quel’dorei is very much equivalent to denying science to Marie Curie. You rob society of the benefits of progress, and you rob the individual of her freedom and passion.

Now the people who were basically apart of that aristocracy demand they be allowed to practice the exact same traditions associated with the previous regime unhindered, demanding to basically keep their privileges while the rest of us lowborn scum fiddle around in the dirt…

rebelling against a religious authoritarian… in order to keep the privileges they just stripped from you that are associated with the biggest war in history at that time

I’m sorry, are we talking about queen worship? Titles? Inherited privileges? Slaves? No, we’re not talking about “traditions.” We’re talking about the exact same arcane practices that empower the Guardians, Jaina, Kalec, and the rest–which is a power that can be used for good or for evil, and which actually the Quel’dorei mostly used for good once they got to the Eastern Kingdoms.

Equating aristocratic privilege with magic is like equating the sociopathy of Mark Zuckerberg with the power of computers–and outlawing magic is as backwards as trying to root out the internet because it empowers bad actors.

Night Elf society itself is nothing like its ancient druidic roots. When the Alliance and Horde and Legion forced the Druids to finally wake up both literally figuratively, they vastly improved Night Elf culture: Now it’s engaged with the world, it pursues the power promised in the arcane, and it has lifted almost all of its oppressive religious requirements.

It only had that room to improve, however, because its roots had serious flaws.

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But see, not in the context Malfurion is making his decisions. To him, and I imagine to the masses of Kaldorei who had been thrown scraps by their magical aristocratic masters, this was a decadent institution associated with the worst part of their history that they just went through. You can not so easily separate the practices from those titles and inherited privileges in that context, to me. They’re trying to rebuild their society and make it more sustainable, they can’t afford to take a chance on “yeah but what if all these former Highborn will use their arcane for the good of everybody despite what we just saw happen?”

looks at Zul’jin being tortured and Amani elves being set on fire with their holy places desecrated

In other words it’s not really the “myopically conservative” society you claimed, but one open to changing depending on the circumstance.

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Oh, I absolutely sympathize with Malfurion’s decision in context. He faced a difficult situation. That doesn’t prevent his actions from being a reactionary mistake.

The Night Elves changed after the Legion’s second invasion awakened the Dreamers, killed Cenarius, freed Illidan, brought the Horde and Jaina to Kalimdor, ravaged and corrupted sacred Kaldorei lands, and blasted the immortality at the core of the vigil.

You might as well say Tokugawa Japan was open to change because Admiral Perry was able to force the doors open.

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Which they always knew was possible, Tyrande herself becoming increasingly worried about it.

The task of policing Ashenvale kept Tyrande busy, but without Malfurion at her side, she knew little joy. As the long centuries passed while the druids slept, her fears of a second demonic invasion grew. She could not shake the unnerving feeling that the Burning Legion might still be out there, beyond the Great Dark of the sky, plotting its revenge upon the night elves and the world ofAzeroth.

A decision made by Tyrande against all the judgement of her more, in your words, “conservative” peers.

It was Malfurion who devised the plan to sacrifice the World Tree even knowing it would shatter their immortality.

I still disagree. It wasn’t a mistake precisely because of the context. Nor was it reactionary. What’s reactionary was the Highborn trying to reassert themselves and disrupt the Kaldoreis progressive (in relation to the previous regime) reformation.

Dath’Remar, the brash, outspoken leader of the Highborne, began to mock the druids publicly, calling them cowards for refusing to wield the magic that he said was theirs by right. Malfurion and the druids dismissed Dath’Remar’s arguments and warned the Highborne that any use of magic would be punishable by death. In an insolent and ill-fated attempt to convince the druids to rescind their law, Dath’Remar and his followers unleashed a terrible magical storm upon Ashenvale.

“A terrible magical storm” So, a terrorist attack to display the power of the Highbornes magic, which was theirs by “right” to wield. This sounds like people who refuse to adapt to the new way of life and insist upon their privileges being restored and willing to resort to violence. Malfurions options were essentially to either kill them, exile them, or immediately concede power, rendering everything they had worked for pointless. He chose to exile them, which was the best choice. That’s my interpretation anyways, which obviously you disagree with.

Overall I think Tyrande and Malfurion are wise progressive leaders for their people, especially in terms of what came before them.

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All of your examples of change are either in reference to Azshara—a ridiculously low bar—or are a response to the second Legion invasion. The latter case is as progressive as the example is irrelevant, since I’ve been talking about the vigil throughout and admit readily that modern Night Elves started to make progress around the WC3 era. As a put it earlier, the second invasion was Admiral Perry pulling into harbor.

You have not contested the idea that Night Elves lived in a highly regimented, gender-segregated, religious society with little room for individual freedom and little interest in the wider world. Our only disagreement is on how undesirable that regimentation is. Such regimentation is, regardless, highly conservative by the standards of any but the lowest of bars.

For magic, we can argue speculation all day about whether cooperation between the Kaldorei and Quel’dorei was possible. We can guess about whether the religious decree radicalized the Quel’dorei, and whether a more diplomatic approach might have dampened your so-called “terrorism.”. But what is beyond dispute is that the Druids created their rule by religious fiat, and that they created a status quo that they violently enforced for millennia—to a point that it totally arrested their development while the rest of Azeroth grew to catch up with and even surpass them. Such a commitment to an unchanging, religious, authoritarian status quo is the definition of conservative.

Was it harmful to them? I guess that’s an issue where we can disagree. However, I will say that when the vigil began, their might in the world was unsurpassed among the mortal races. By the time the Legion returned, they are ignorant about the world they live in, they are unable to fight off the Legion and are just lucky enough to have the help of a mage and a shaman. Even after decades playing catch-up, their civilization is now at best on par with competing, much more technologically agile and magically empowered races. Could this have been different if they had spent the intervening 10,000 years doing something other than sleeping? If they had worked to integrate the Quel’dorei into their ranks? I think it’s very possible.

So that’s a summary of where I’m at with this discussion. Do you think there’s anything I don’t understand about what you’re saying, or are we just at an impasse? If the latter, you can have the last word.

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I read all your following posts in the discussion you two were having, but I wanted to jump in in a few places.

Here specifically, while the old caste system might have gone away, that wasn’t the purpose of the ban on magic. Nor was it intended to be suppression for the remaining Highborne (though they certainly might have felt it was).

The ban on magic was specifically so that the use of magic would not act as a beacon that would lead the Legion back to Azeroth again.

And that’s exactly what happened with the Quel’dorei when they were exiled. Even with the use of their (Druidic) Runestones, the Legion did end up spotting their magic, especially after the High Elves taught the Humans magic, who then used it even more beyond the shroud of the Runestones, drawing demons to Azeroth to the point that the High Elves and Humans had to form the Council of Tirisfal and set up the Guardians to combat the demons showing up, and ultimately leading to Medivh being possessed by Sargeras himself and everything that followed.

Could the Night Elves have advanced even better ways to hide the use of arcane from the Legion instead of banishing the Highborne? Possibly. But the point of the magic ban was to do that, to keep Azeroth safer from the Legion.

After the Legion already had multiple ways to get to Azeroth, the magic ban was pointless, and fittingly, Tyrande lifted it and invited the Shen’dralar and potentially other Highborne Night Elves to rejoin the Darnassian Night Elves, which made even more sense given that the Night Elves were already allied with Humans and High Elves and Gnomes and Draenei who all used magic already.

The female exclusivity to the Sentinels and Priestess of Elune predated Malfurion teaching Druidism to the other Night Elves. Druidism was never actually intended to be exclusive to males, as Cenarius sought to teach Malfurion, Illidan, and Tyrande. But while Tyrande took a few lessons from Cenarius, she ultimately prioritized herself to her dedication as a Priestess of Elune instead and chose not to become a Druid. Malfurion never looked to be separate from women, though. At the very least, he often worked very closely with the Sentinels and Priestesses of Elune, and often shared his philosophies with them, which was most evident in the Curse of the Worgen comic that was the backstory to the founding of the Cenarion Circle where Malfurion and the Druids worked hand in hand and side by side with the Sentinels and Priestess of Elune against the Satyr.

The gender segregation ended when males were allowed to become Priests, and simultaneously women took up being Druids. But this was something that had to change as a holdover from before the War of the Ancients, before Tyrande and Malfurion were the leaders of the Night Elves, and ultimately something they changed, not something they enacted on the Night Elves.

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It’s the bar we have to use, because we are talking about night elves and their history.

It depends on what you mean by interest in the wider world, or individual freedom because I feel like these are being used in a vague way. They openly communicated with the dragon aspects and they travelled to southern Kalimdor, giving many of their lives, during the first War of the Shifting Sand. Within what we would call their own borders they allowed tribes of furbolg and even the shatterspears, prior to cata, to live peacefully. Elisande even mocks Tyrande for it.

Elisande says: Kaldorei? You disgrace a glorious past, hiding in trees and cloaking yourselves in false piety. You have grown as savage as the trolls that skulk about your forests.

Did they build massive navies and sail the world, conquering and imposing their cultures on other peoples? If that’s what you mean by “interest in the wider world” well no, they didn’t do that.

I mean, in what way though? What is the bar here? Were the night elves suppose to have become a highly advanced industrial society that conquered Azeroth? I would say their society “stagnated” in the way you speak because of the fact that, being immortal beings with a druidic order that provided all their needs, there was nothing internally which would require them to develop to the god-like status you seem to think they should have by now. Now that external factors have come into play, their order has shown willingness to adapt.

I assume we may be at an impasse or using different metrics to make our judgements. I think in the context we have, the current Kaldorei, those lead by Tyrande and Malfurion, have been the least “reactionary” of the elves, except for perhaps the Ren’dorei, which we don’t have much lore about so far.

I am probably reading a bit into some of this with my own interpretations. I didn’t mean to imply it was suppression of Highborn as people, but the suppression of their caste status, since use of the arcane I assume is one of the things that provided them that status. As for the rest of your comment, good insight as always from our resident night elf scholar. I haven’t read most of the books or comics or anything so it’s good to have someone who has chime in and make any corrections.

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This is why it’s so hard for me to buy into Lorash’s mindset. The Highborne, including Lorash’s parents, broke the law. By the letter of the law, Malfurion was supposed to have them executed. Lorash owes his entire existence to Malfurion’s moment of compassion. A moment of compassion some Blood Elves would later repay with war, and eventually, genocide.

Mia is an absolute peach, and by far the best Human in the game.

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Failed to defeat Xavius first time (War of the ancients)
Failed to defeat Xavius second time (stormrage book)
Failed to stop Fendral first time
Failed to defeat shadow of xavius
Failed to defeat Maiev, almost died (wolfheart book if i remember correctly)
Almost died to a simple axe throw

Kinda meh

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it’s actual execution however is quite the oppsite All of those people you mention, magic is just another weapon only used against targets you approve of. There is very little about arcane magic that actually has a beneficial purpose, outside of portal magic. You can’t use it to heal or build. And the use of arcane magic is ADDICTIVE. it provides a rush which easily leads the user down a self-destructive path. It’s rather telling that Warlocks have been both ex-mages AND ex-Shaman.

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I suppose Dalaran floats on science?

WoW doesn’t get into the domestic uses of magic for the same reason D&D doesn’t get into the economic consequences of wizards who can conjure gold: the mechanics are centered around combat, and the world-building consequences of magic tend to be world-breaking.

Evocation (destructive magic) is just one school, though. Even there, the ability to conjure fire and ice have economic implications, what with cheap energy & refrigeration. But beyond that, since I have a rare opportunity to geek out about magic, some other arcane schools and their applications include:

  • Enchanting. Enchanted clothing can improve the wearer’s intelligence, spirit, strength, even their skill at certain tasks, and some spells–like Arcane Brilliance–just straight up improve the target’s cognitive ability. Intelligence and strength are useful outside of combat, aren’t they? Some enchantments used to grant water-walking and other utilities. Even if we limit ourselves to enchantments shown in-game, the value of this school can’t be overstated–and it’s likely from the flavor of arcane lore that it would have many other domestic applications were we to see its scope outside of combat mechanics.
  • Transmutation. As you point out, the ability to bend time and space has obvious commercial applications, but not just in portals. As I mentioned, Dalaran doesn’t float on science–and neither do flying disk mounts. Every time we see floating crystals or magic flames or impossible architecture in places like Quel’Thalas, we have this school of magic to thank. And that doesn’t even get into the potential of animation types of magic with animated brooms, etc. Between flying carpets, elven golem constructs, and some of the more magically enhanced engineering bots, the potential is limitless.
  • Abjuration. Soldiers aren’t the only people who need armor. How about fire-fighters with ice shields? How about HAZMAT teams with mana shields? Maybe crews working on tall buildings would be safer if they could cast slow fall?
  • Illusion. Obviously this could be used by performers for entertainment. I could also see it being used for anesthetic purposes, as a way of creating cheap & flexible signage, and as a way of communicating over long distances. Given that mirror image seems to create corporeal beings, there’s also a great deal of free labor that could be had.
  • Divination. While much of this school is the domain of priests and warlocks, Mages get their share of far-sight and dark-sight and future-peering spells in the extended lore. Again, such abilities don’t have to be used for war.
  • Conjuration. The ability to create food and water from mana has clear uses outside of war. The ability to bend the elements to one’s will also has potential. Surely we can find good uses for friendly, willing water elementals beyond killing people?

Etc etc etc. Domestic uses for magic are implicit in the architecture and details of places like Dalaran, are shown in Mage questlines in Legion, and are referenced by characters like Jaina in books like Tides of War.

And the use of arcane magic is ADDICTIVE.

True. That is an issue. But then if the Blood Elves and Nightborne are any indication, if you don’t arbitrarily cut elves off from magic, they seem to get along with their addiction to the arcane about as well as I get along with my addiction to food.

That’s what I thought. I’m much more sympathetic to this view than to the “we need to tear down the aristocracy” idea. I still disagree with it: eventually, the Legion’s bound to find you, especially if you can’t control the use of magic outside your borders (because non-expansionism is also part of your ideology). When they come, you should be able to fight, and magic is a powerful weapon to just give up.

Also, this read suggests that Malfurion did indeed intend to kill the Quel’dorei, and banishment was just a more palatable way to do that. As you point out, Malfurion’s act failed to achieve his goal: the Quel’dorei are just as much a beacon in the EK as they are in Kalimdor.

So, either he intended to kill the Quel’dorei, or he knew that the law was pointless at that juncture. Either way, it’s a bad look.

magic is just another weapon only used against targets you approve of.

I’d say the ability to fight the Legion, the Lich King, and the Void Lords more effectively is a very good thing. Do you disagree?

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I completely support Galenorn’s post, but am still out of likes until later today.

It was an empty threat meant to try to make the use of magic as off limits as possible, and the Highborne called his bluff. Malfurion has always been soft hearted, and has always resorted to anything he could to avoid executions (putting the original Worgen to sleep in the Emerald Dream instead of executing them, imprisoning Illidan instead of executing him, exiling the Highborne instead of executing them). He even tries to reason with Lorash during the War of the Thorns and didn’t want to kill him - and even when Lorash proved to be mentally too far gone, Malfurion still believed the rest of the Blood Elves were better than Lorash. Fortunately or unfortunately, Malfurion is a big softy at heart (which makes “Terror of Darkshore” even scarier).

That was Illidan’s stance as well. Malfurion did what he thought was best, but that wasn’t the only path that could have been taken, but it was the one Malfurion did.

But that’s the problem with “what could have been” situations. Illidan did defeat the Legion, yes. And yet the Night Elves’ home still burned and Illidan wasn’t around to help defend it because he stayed at the Seat of the Pantheon, and in the end Malfurion had to defend the Night Elves’ land still without his help.

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That all makes sense, but…does that really show Malfurion to be as wise as the OP suggests?

From my pov, that “bluff” radicalized the Quel’Dorei–and it should have been obvious it would, given their magic addiction. There was never any real chance they’d just all quit. As a result of overplaying his hand, Malfurion was forced to send Quel’Dorei away where he / the druids could neither moderate their use of nor help hide their magic. The Druids’ extremist stance on magic arguably created more unfettered magic in Quel’Thalas and among the Shen’dralar than it prevented in Kalimdor.

This ended up working for the best in a lot of ways, but that seems more lucky than anything.

You’re right, speculation is always tentative. Maybe the Quel’Dorei would have destroyed the world if Malfurion hadn’t banished them.

But still, isn’t it at least plausible that if the Night Elves had spent more time cultivating power and mastery over the world during the vigil, including arcane mastery, that there would have been more Illidans available when they were needed?

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He showed damm little of that wisdom in Legion. He let his emotions drive him to the point where the mere Shade of Xavius was able to overpower him.

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I feel like I should point out, that while you and I know this, it probably amounts to meta knowledge. We know the Legion was an infinite horde, scouring the universe from one end to the other, but the lowborn had only had a singular brush with them, due to the actions of the Highborne. To them, it probably seemed plausible that you could hide from the Legion through controlling or concealing the use of the Arcane. A mindset the Dragon Aspects also bought in to, at Hyjal.

The only one who really knew the true, universe conquering nature of the Legion was Illidan. And, being Illidan, he kept most of the important details of that all to himself (just an assertation the Legion would find them again, with no explanation of his reasoning), until he made the Illidari.

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That’s a good point. However, I still think two points apply:

First, if the Night Elves were really serious about an elusion strategy, then they shouldn’t have tolerated the Quel’Dorei and the Shen’Dralar even in exile, and they should have taken more of an interest in other races around the world that could signal the legion. Once you decide to have mercy on those unwilling to give up magic, then it becomes irrational not to try to get the benefits of magic, since someone else is going to send out the beacon anyway.

Second, the entire point of the vigil iirc is to watch and wait for signs of Legion’s second coming. While they didn’t know that the Legion would find them, it still seems like their whole society is built on the premise that such a return is likely. If that’s the case, then rolling the dice on hiding seems perhaps reckless.

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Being wise, or even wisest, does not mean being perfect. The bluff also worked for 2,700 years. That was a long time that the Highborne did quit until they fell off the wagon.

Always possible. Or could have made more Xavius’s.

If everyone who wanted to practice magic was gone why would they ever revisit the law at all? Until the Shen’dralar needed a home with the Darnassian Night Elves the ban on magic was just on the books for no reason since there weren’t any Highborne or otherwise interest left around to even practice or teach magic. But then the moment the Shen’dralar did join them the Night Elves looked at the law and realized it was pointless, and now we have Night Elf Mages again.

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They seem to have thought guarding the second Well of Eternity was enough, since the first one acted as both beacon and portal to the Legion. I’m also not sure how long it was before they even realized the Shen’dralar survived. Iirc, some of the general citizenry were surprised when Mordent showed up again in late-Wrath/Cata.

I take this as a weird case of old lore not meshing well with new. Old lore was, they were content with guarding the world’s largest fount of Arcane energy, and never really left their forests in Kalimdor, and didn’t really know what was going on in the wider world. And that as soon as they joined the Alliance, they started telling their new allies how dangerous the High Elves were.

New lore is there are Night Elves all over the place, like Val’sharah and Highmountain, and sticking their nose into everything, like aiding the High Elves in the Troll Wars. So, yeah, in light of new lore, they should have taken a more active role in monitoring the world’s burgeoning civilizations, and dissuading use of the Arcane.

But, I don’t write this mess :man_shrugging:

That was the grand scheme of it, but it was also to keep watch for threats to the Night Elves in general. The continued threat of the satyr comes to mind (whether you want to count that as Legion, or Old Gods), as do the Qiraji. But, so far as they knew, the Legion only had one way onto the planet en masse, and so, they kept the Well on lockdown, while watching for minor incursions.

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