I can see Danuser googling “fairy stuff” and just copying things from the first few results’ preview text.
You know, isn’t there also a wild hunt in Firelands?
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…Is there?
You kill mobs in the center area and get some kind of “The huntsman’s horn sounds” message. Doesn’t he come with mobs to kill you? I feel like it was based on the wild hunt.
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He was just a hunter dude, the Wild Hunt is a lot cooler than that. In my opinion, at least.
The Wild Hunt has pretty interesting symbolism behind it. If you saw it, it usually served as a warning that some sort of catastrophe (like a war or a plague) was coming. At best, it was a sign that you were going to die. That death either included you joining the Hunt or being kidnapped to an underworld or fairy kingdom.
The Wild Hunt started as a sort of godly march, but came to mean a more horrifying thing in further folklore.
The Wild Hunt’s appearance declares a disaster of some kind. It is a solemn invasion of specters and devils, ghastly hunting hounds and old gods. A sort of parallel to a Witches Sabbath. The passage between man and demon in some cases.
I’d really recommend looking up more stuff on the Wilde Jagd. It’s certainly something that the writers for WoW didn’t consider in the slightest.
Edit: The Witcher 3 actually portrays the Wild Hunt fairly well, if you want for an example. At least it portrays the more “devilish” aspect of the Hunt. And they’re not even that similar on a fundamental level. Adapting mythology can be done! It just needs to be done well, with proper use of symbols and… basically anything at all.
Unlike WoW.
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Warhammer Fantasy also had its own take on the Wild Hunt, but that was a Wood Elf thing and Orion was a neat concept I really desperately want to see come back. (Demigod who was born in the Spring and died in Winter to be reborn when Spring came again, but at the cost of one of the Elves becoming host to him)
At this point searching for deeper symbolism in WoW’s story elements is like seeing dog doo on a hot sidewalk and gathering around to headscratch and murmur and try to interpret depth in the color, the texture, and the direction and angle in which it coiled in relation to other factors.
Props to those with the patience for that kind of soothsaying but sometimes poop is just poop.
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I’m just glad I went with the boring honour skeletons instead of the boring generic fairy people.
Soul Shapes do look really fun though, I would either choose between a turtle or a hippo for mine.
and sometimes theres corn!
Elder Scrolls’ Bosmer have a Wild Hunt as well, it’s, well, pretty wild.
They turn into a sort of beast-spriggan-ooze-Old God tentacle beast tidal wave of unstable shapeshifters that chews through the land until the target that demands such powerful retribution is dead at which point the whole thing turns on itself until there’s nothing but blood and grease.
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Bosmer be cray.
New dialogue:
Shandris: It is good to see you whole again, Minn’do. I had feared you might be forever lost.
Tyrande: Ever since Darkshore, rage has swelled inside me. A tide under which I seemed destined to drown.
Tyrande: It was not until I heard Elune’s voice that I recognized the grief buried beneath my anger. Sorrow intertwined with a deep sense of betrayal.
Shandris: When Teldrassil burned, I could not understand why the goddess did not intervene. Why she would allow so many to be lost.
Shandris: But I did not know of Ardenweald. Of the duty and purpose that awaited the souls of our people. At least… before the Maw.
Tyrande: Perhaps we can never truly know the ways of the gods, my daughter. But I believe Elune made a choice to aid her sister. Not to cause us sorrow.
Shandris: The Winter Queen face hard choices as well. She and Mother Moon are bound together in an eternal cycle. One of death and rebirth.
Tyrande: A cycle the Kaldorei must now rejoin. No more looking to the past. It is time to embrace our future.
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My D&D game has better writing than this, and I’m not even good at writing.
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Everytime I hear morally gray and WoW in the same sentence I think back to my Kingmaker campaign from college.
Our Team Bad Guy lived up to it’s name, but actually qualify as morally gray since they did things which are listed as ultimately good in the long game.
Even the elves are now okay with Sylvanas burning the tree down. It is now time: time for Thrall and Sylvanas to get married and have kids and adopt anduin and then shoot me in the head point blank
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There are no words in entish, elvish, or the tongues of men to describe the abyssal hole this story is in.
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genocide’s no big deal and it’s up to us to move on without any justice because that’s the good thing to do 
very good mr. danuser and the narrative team thank you you truly are a writers beyond compare no negativity in the dojo
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That dialogue is talking about forgiving Elune, the way I read it. They’re coming to terms with why Elune did not directly intervene/try to stop Sylvanas from acting. At no point do they say it was a good thing, or that they forgive Sylvanas. Tyrande’s priorities have merely shifted from actively pursuing vengeance at every opportunity, to actually trying to restore her people.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I feel it’s actually consistent with Tyrande’s characterisation. In the Frozen Throne Night Elf campaign, Tyrande has a conversation with Kael’thas. It goes like this:
Kael’thas: The Scourge devoured our ancient homeland of Quel’thalas. The once-proud bloodline of my people is nearly spent. The few of us that remain now call ourselves Blood Elves, in homage to our murdered people.
Tyrande: I grieve for your people, Kael. But you must not allow rage and despair to poison your heart. You may yet lead your people to a brighter future.
(Source: https://youtu.be/y4ONaPnh5T4?t=175 )
Tyrande said this when people almost universally think she was at her best - during the Warcraft 3 era. She said it in direct response to Kael telling her, in detail, that his homeland was in ruins, and his people were all but extinct.
And yet the entire mission focuses around killing the Scourge.
At no point did Tyrande tell Kael that he should go and give a snuggly hug to the nearest necromancer. She warns him about vengeance becoming a poison - something that utterly consumes and twists him away from what really matters, the prosperity of his people.
When Tyrande says:
I think it’s a similar concept. She’s not, at any point, said she forgives the Horde. She has not, at any point, says she forgives Sylvanas. But she is ready to focus on her people. What will benefit the Kaldorei most is an active and present leader, not a severed head.
In essence, it is my hope that Tyrande deciding to put aside vengeance is an indication of her personal priorities shifting to restoration and renewal of her people… not towards being great friends with Sylvanas. Provided this is the case, I do not think the new story decision was necessarily bad - but rather consistent with 2 IRL decades of Tyrande’s writing.
It was bad in the Frozen Throne, too.
It’s especially interesting to me now because it’s so clear how their corporate culture has echoed out into the recurring – and I use this term loosely for this IP – thematic statements.
Bad people have reasons for what they do. Powerful people have reasons for their inaction. Just move on.
I don’t think anyone here thinks she’s forgiving Sylvanas. She’s basically forgiving Elune, a false god whose inaction led to the loss of countless lives and the Night Elves’ home.
Blizzard basically made Elune a joke; she’s not omnipotent and was so disconnected from everything that she let it all happen. Sure, drop the Night Warrior because it’s flawed and dangerous. Then, go kill Sylvanas without it.
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