There are a couple other major problems with Valeera:
She’s from those dreadful comic books, which is reason not to use her for anything, ever.
The other is from when Nzoth showed up in Battle for Azeroth. BfA is already problematic because Blizzard had been crapping on the Horde the whole expansion. But then for the Nzoth thing, Wrathion steps foot out of his Stormwind timeshare and has a long cutscene explaining things to the Alliance.
Meanwhile, Valeera shows up as a messenger in Zandalar and is all “go watch this cut scene of Wrathion talking to the Important Story Characters (none of whom are Horde)”.
Valeera’s just got “Blizzard craps on the Horde, every day” tattooed on her forehead, at this point.
She’s the first blood elf NPC I’ve seen with blue eyes. We’ve had yellow and blue as options for quite some time, but they’ve always given blood elf NPCs green eyes until now.
You could also argue Valeera is a diplomat — On behalf of the Alliance.
Basically all of what Luxuria said on that subject.
Blood Elves weren’t Blood Elves because of their eyes — Their eyes were simply such a colour because their city & kingdom was fueled by massive fel-crystals to keep their structures, research facilities and so forth in tact – as their kingdom use to be fueled by the immense power of their sacred Sunwell instead, but with its destruction, they needed another means …
The majority of their people were ultimately renamed ‘Blood Elves’ to honour the fallen, their heritage, culture and as a sign of rebirth for their path forward.
Lorewise speaking:
There could’ve been ‘Blood Elves’ that lived in Dalaran and had blue-eyes their whole lives. Likewise, you could have also had strictly Alliance-affiliated ‘High Elves’ who were in Outland around highly fel-saturated areas, who’s eyes turned fel-hued emerald green after being around such energies.
We had Blood Elves depicted with emerald-green eyes generally across the board for the most part, to reflect who’s who / what faction etc, more-or-less just for gameplay reasons. The story & canon however, is another case altogether.
And then Blizzard confirmed that it was canon and not a mistake.
“Blood Elves can have blue eyes now, it’s not just a customization available to players! Time has passed since the game’s debut, some Blood Elves have golden eyes now while others have returned to their original blue color. The fact that such guards exist is not only related to the customizations available to players, but also and above all to the fact that time has passed since Blood Elves found themselves infused with Fel, giving them this greenish eye tint.”
I’d delve with Rexxar any day. One of several Horde characters I can respect. He even taught my Hunter how to survive in the wild for 3 minutes. A skill you don’t learn from just anyone.
I’d like to see the odd human member of the Horde, if nothing else than to help show it’s matured from a “race war” (as Taran Zhu put it) into more of a political divide. Like how in real life you have people from different backgrounds on the same political party (and vice verse, people from similar backgrounds on opposing parties).
Not sure how they’d do it believably in this case though.
Oh, I’m not counting the forsaken. The Alliance made it pretty clear they weren’t welcome back so they didn’t have anywhere else to go.
I mean a still living human who could easily have a place in the Alliance but for political reasons doesn’t want it (to the point they agree with the Horde on enough things to outright join them).
Personally, I feel that they shoehorn the Alliance to be this overall moral beacon of only good, noble & admirable politics, etc blahblahblah too much now … To an extent, they’ve started with the Horde somewhat with that too since the end of BFA – but it’s far more seen on the Alliance.
eg. Vanessa VanCleef eventually even more-or-less justifying the Alliance taking out her father & condemning the Brotherhood …
So I’m not sure how they’d do that, without nuanced stories being seen once again amongst the Alliance – akin to that of the Brotherhood.
… Sadly however I feel we have too many people who tend to obsessively draw correlations to real world politics with narratives these days and become offended or enraged by such, instead of just viewing them as unique, dire circumstances of isolated events and so forth simply depicted for a good complex story & narrative.
If anything, Delaryn Summermoon should be the Horde’s version of Valeera
In the classic days it was more balanced. The Alliance had a xenophobic streak (somewhat justified regarding the orcs and undead), while the Horde were the outcast underdogs just trying to survive.
I feel we have too many people who tend to obsessively draw correlations to real world politics with narratives these days and become offended or enraged by such, instead of just viewing them as unique, dire circumstances of isolated events and so forth simply depicted for a good complex story & narrative.
