Question: Where did the idea that the Thalassians have never / do not worship the Light come from?

Where did the idea that the Thalassians don’t, or more accurately/specifically - never have - worship the Light come from? Feel like a popular stereotype of the Thalassians - Sin’dorei in specific - is that they’ve always held a TBC Blood Knight approach to the Holy Light, their actual worship being the Sun - even though there’s no evidence to suggest they worship the Sun as a deity, it is in fact confirmed they worship and have always worshipped the Holy Light?

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Well in WC3 the elves were the priests that healed your character but in wow they didn’t have anything that looked like a temple or much less the church of the light.
Its all left very vague by the writers but I kind of saw the elves are more secular and the light was just a tool but… in wc3 those high elf healers were called “priests”.

in short there is no confirmation. We just have clues that contradict each other.

“There is peace and serenity within the Light.”

“By the power of the Light, burn!”

https ://wowpedia.fandom .com/wiki/Quotes_of_Warcraft_III/Human_Alliance#Priest

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Mostly from individuals on the forums who do not differentiate what some players wanted to be lore, with what is actually lore. Not that it’s entirely their fault, plenty of people have pushed headcanon as lore before.

High Elves were a people whom practiced the spiritual philosophy known as the, ‘Holy Light,’ the same way most Alliance races, namely Dwarves and Humans, did. Quel’Thalas even had its own High Priest (Vandellor) whom stood beside the Grand Magister during ceremonies, implying the High Priest was a position of significant prestige (but not confirming it).

Its important to note that the High Elves did venerate the Sun as a symbol. The Sunwell was their source of power, they switched from a nocturnal race to a diurnal one after the exile, etc… The Sun represents their splintering away from the Kaldorei.

Rather than making a religion out of a Sun Deity, however, the High Elves seemed to have rather chosen atheism, at least until they learned of the Holy Light.

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It’s from a shallow understanding of the lore people get from playing the game. They assume because Night Elves worship a moon deity that Blood Elves worship a sun deity when that hasn’t been the case. This has turned into a fan concept and it’s went so far with some people that they demand it be canon. Another part of it is that some people who only play Horde think that the Light is an Alliance only concept. They see what’s to them an Alliance-only concept being used for a Horde race and get upset.

It’s really not though

As far as we know there are (and have been for a long time) Thalassian Light wielders and worshippers (orders of Priests and Paladins) but the place and importance of the worship of the Light within the Sin’dorei society is nowhere near comparable to what it is in the Human and Draenei societies. Worshipping the Light is not a defining trait of the Sin’dorei society.

Spirituality as a whole is an aspect that’s criminally underdevelopped when it comes to the Blood Elves anyway

And yes mechanically the Light (and also the Void actually) is mainly an Alliance thing since the Alliance has 4 Human Kingdoms and 2 Draenei factions

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To be fair, ‘the Light,’ is practiced by so many different races that letting the Blood Elves be more unique feels like a good idea, at least, to me. I feel like most races should have their own religions, which may interpret forces like the Light in different ways. Humans believing it as a philosophy is fine, Draenei being guided by the Naaru is great, etc… Blood Elves with a Sun God would’ve been interesting. Perhaps Dwarves could’ve practiced Titan veneration as another avenue. For Gnomes perhaps it could’ve been related to some of what we saw in Ulduar. The, ‘Spark of Creation,’ or the, ‘Spark of Imagination,’ being metaphorical concepts they use to draw power from, etc…

As it is, ‘the Light,’ is very bland and encompasses many different races, curtailing creativity and culture, which only further makes the Alliance’s light-worshipping races feel like, ‘Humans, but short/fatter/with pointy ears.’

This isn’t to say I think many of the Alliance’s main races sharing a religion is a bad thing per say, as that does sort of help unite it on a cultural level, however, that could’ve worked better as a, ‘this faith is practiced among most of the Alliance races,’ rather than, ‘most of the Alliance’s races exclusively practice this religion.’

This.

As a culture they are agnostic.

Blood of the Highborne is our only real source on the topic of Thalassian spirituality and it’s made pretty clear that their priests were simply followers of the Holy Light. The significance of “belore” has always been more metaphorical and cultural than literal. This race is hardly hurting for lore and if it had its own diurnal pantheon we’d probably have heard about it by now.

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The priest units in WC3 were high elves too, they’ve followed the Light literally ever since Blizzard invented it.

I can’t think of any indication that ‘belore’ was ever anything more than just their word for ‘sun’. Unlike how Mu’sha is Elune, An’she doesn’t seem to have an elven counterpart at all.

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Concepts have to be introduced properly, they can’t just be thrown in at random without explanation.

Agreed. I also don’t see Blizzard going to the effort of fleshing out established races like this either.

Aside from the draenei the light feels like human culture seeping into other cultures.

BC blood knights are the proper view on the relationship that blood elves should have with the light.

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Blood knights were weak and couldn’t channel the light without draining it from a naaru. Now they are able to channel it because their belief in the Light is restored. So to some extent, they probably do see the Light as a deity or as an extension of a deity (Belore?) because they lost belief in it and couldn’t channel after the fall of Quel’thalas.

Ehhhh… pretty sure it actually comes from the Sunwell for them now, although I doubt that precludes any Blood Elves from being more… ‘Traditional,’ Paladins in terms of their relationship with the Light.

That doesn’t make much sense, when previously they could channel the Light from a Sunwell that was purely arcane.

The light doesn’t require a font of power, but it does require something of a belief system. The restoration of the Sunwell infused them with power that sustained most of the race, but for the blood Knights it also restored faith in a power they had forsaken after being broken.

Their dependency on the sunwell has only ever been because it was infused with arcane magic and hence them as well. The light that they wielded has always come from their own faith, and the Sunwell potentially amplifies that faith/ power.

High Elven Priests prior to the Third War used the Light the same way Humans/Dwarves did. They never needed the Sunwell to be Priests.

Blood Knights required a source of Light. When M’uru darkened, Liadrin sought out another source of Light and approached A’dal.

After the Sunwell was restored, we learn the Blood Knights channel the power of the Light through it.

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Well that’s a weak inconsistency then. Liadrin was a priest before becoming a blood knight. Prior to the sunwell’s corruption she wielded the light on her own.

I would argue that the sunwell is an easier source of power than wielding it directly from their own faith. But if it did run out, i do not expect them to lose their light power.

It was actually when Kael’thas attacked Silvermoon and took M’uru to the Sunwell that caused Liadrin to approach A’dal. In order to try and understand what just happened. Cause the alternative would be to side with Kael’thas in order to continue to feed off M’uru.

The whole “blood knight, light, M’uru” story arc is most likely based on Jesus, his death and resurrection. With a bit of revelations. After that whole ordeal, Humanity now has a direct relationship with God. We no longer need to kill a lamb to wash away our sins, then have a high positioned religious person talk to God alone in a forbidden room. I feel that was what Blizzard was trying to emulate. M’urus death allowed Velen to merge his core with the Sunwell. Allowing the Blood Elves to have a direct connection with the Light without having to rely on faith alone.

M’uru is basically Jesus. A character that was prophecised to die in order to establish a new covenant with ‘man’. Liadrin being Judas. The one who betrayed Jesus but later regretted it. Velen being the Prophets. A’dal being God. Kil’jaeden being the devil and Kael’thas being the false prophet / anti-christ.

I mean Kael’thas even painted Outland to be the ‘new promised land’ where their people will find their salvation.

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Its not an inconsistency at all. Many of the survivors of the Fall of Quel’Thalas lost faith in the Light due to the tragedy they endured. It was a loss of faith, which is why Liadrin was unable to call on the Light afterwards, and was forced to rely on draining M’uru.

Rather than a blanket, ‘they all rekindled their faith,’ Blizzard decided, ‘The Sunwell is their new battery,’ is the new norm.

The Sunwell isn’t going to run out of the Light, because M’uru’s spark is an infinite source of light. The only way they’d run out of Light from the Sunwell, is if it was corrupted, which is one of several reasons Rommath/Lor’themar freaked out as hard as they did when Alleria’s presence at the Sunwell triggered a void invasion.