Amazon UK posted several preview pages from Exploring Azeroth: The Eastern Kingdoms, an upcoming book by Christie Golden. There is one page up that states that “In the end, with their addiction to first arcane magic and then fel energy, and the horrors brought to their doorstep and beyond by Arthas Menethil and the Scourge, the blood elves demonstrated great courage, determination, and strength.”
The blood elves were NOT addicted to fel energy.
It’s a common misconception that Blood Elves were addicted to or consumed fel magic. The lore said that they turned to sucking the mana out of creatures NOT out of demons. Their green eyes were because they used fel energy to power enchantments and changed due to a sort of background radiation.
According to the Warcraft Encyclopedia, Illidan taught the blood elves in outland to use demonic energy to sate their addiction. Eventually, Kael’thas felblood elves sucked fel energy (and demon blood) and become demonic as a result. After returning from Outland Rommath only showed Blood Elves in Silvermoon how to tap into mana crystals and the mana from creatures, like the mana wyrms.
The blood elves of Silvermoon never tapped into demonic energies to sate their mana addiction. They did use fel magic (the burning crystals) to power their enchantments which turned their eyes green (according to a dev post on the old story forums).
I expect a lot of ret-conning in the coming years to justify a lot of incoming cosmetic changes, and perhaps future changes to certain races or kingdoms and ideologies from development.
It is what it is. Broken Lore and loopholes and loose ends are part of Warcraft.
Doesn’t it seem like he would know this though? The differences between the Silvermoon Blood Elves and Kael’thas’ Blood Elves is part of the reason the Draenei partnered up with the Silvermoon Blood Elves to reclaim the Sunwell.
This new book also seems to imply that it was anger at bigotry from the Alliance that caused them to rename themselves “Blood Elves.” The story before was always that they renamed themselves Blood Elves to honor their fallen kin after the scourge invasion and destruction of the Sunwell.
Seems like a weird thing for Shaw to get wrong, if this is supposed to be from his perspective.
Those big green crystals with eyes floating in Silvermoon aren’t there for decoration, they’re captive demons that the Blood Elves used to sate their magic addiction.
They’re now gone (in lore at least) since the Sunwell has been restored and they’re no longer necessary, but they were very much addicted to fel.
That’s a common misconception. Multiple sources state the crystals were used to power the city, not to sate magical addiction. The WoW Encyclopedia, devs from the story forum, and the Burning Crusade Making of Behind the scene video all state this.
In the story that was a big difference between Kaelthas and the Silvermoon and part of why Kaelthas was declared a traitor.