They are every bit the night elf lore the Shen’dralar are. The difference is Blizz shoe horned the new angle. Which lets you argue in retrospect. That’s it. 4 years ago you would not make this argument. You only have this perspective in hindsight.
I am annoyed Blizz retooled night elves. You three or four are coming back at me with “But consider, you are wrong because they were retooled.” I’m done reiterating my point that I am sad my ego was not appealed to. You aren’t addressing it. You are just reiterating that you are fine with it because it appeals to your ego. I get it. This story is framed to appeal to one group’s ego at the expense of others and you are fine with it here because you got yours stroked.
Retrospect be ever in your favor, team red. /salute
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No they don’t. Suramar remained a functional city during the Bubble era. Life continued, merchants did their thing, people had lives. The Shendre’lar by comparison were a group of scholars who huddled in the ruins of Eldre’thelas, a city that came to be dominated by mutated plant life, Ogres, demons, and the dead. Plus they had degenerated to the point where their prince had started to feed on his own people.
Not the same story at all. Suramar is a fully populated city, The Shendre’lar are more the degenerate remnant of a group of professors.
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They are both groups of Highborne with cultures wildly different from the Kaldorei. This was specifically worded with regards to the argument that Highborne belong on the Horde and you damn well know it.
But for the heck of it: they were both Highborne cities reintroduced over a crisis concerning their leadership’s desire for using demons for power. Both had walled off and preserved their culture from the influence of others in a time capsule by and large and as a result their surrounding territories had fallen to ruin and overgrowth.
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One group had an actual city to live in. The other did not. There were also Blood Elves there to recruit them. Different groups of people can make different decisions in both similar and different circumstances. There is nothing inherently wrong by having Night Elf off-shoots choose a different path than choosing the faction the Night Elves are on. Could Blizzard develop Night Elves better? Very much so. Does that mean the Nightborne needed to be given to the Alliance or remain neutral? No.
You either see the Nightborne as magical night elves stolen by the horde, or as purple blood elves spurned by Tyrande.
It’s going to go in circles.
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I want to make clear I acknowledge the purple blood elves. What I’ve been saying is I’m annoyed that Blizz went with purple blood elves when there was a clear other path they could have taken, one I would have enjoyed, one that has precedent. I just have three+ people coming at me telling me purple blood elves are all I should ever expect and I’m sick of that too.
This forum makes me bitter, honestly. All this delightful bit of engagement has made me want to do is be every bit as spiteful here as these three have been with me. I want to go tell Horde fans that Sylvanas being stupid evil and the Honor Horde Civil War story is all they ever should have expected or deserve now. I hate this place.
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Or … you know, you could just look at the Night Elves historical relationship with the Highborne civilization (and culture) and see why “maybe” the Nightborne wouldn’t be thrilled with them.
Doesn’t matter if their both Kaldorei (and many being from the same civilization) … the Nightelves have historically viewed the Highborne/Arcane civilization with deep mistrust and contempt; and deliberately abandoned it ages ago. Hell, the ONLY reason that Dath’remar and his followers aren’t dead is because Malf didn’t want to be responsible for a genocide (but by the Night Elves own laws, they were to execute those who practiced in the Arcane); so … he exiled them. And while Malf may have mellowed, other influential members of the NE civilization have not … with Maiev being one hell of an extreme example on this topic.
Nothing quite as tempting as joining a civilization that fundamentally believes your culture and way of life is wrong; because that IS what NE fans who believe the NBs should have arbitrarily joined the NEs (just because they’re Kaldorei) are expecting of the NBs. As for the shared cultural norms (and shared experiences of severe mana-withdrawal and having a beloved leader betray them to the Fel) that the BEs have with the NBs … valueless (because their ears aren’t as long or pointed back).
Too true dawg. Too true. Can’t wait for the Shen’dralar to leave the NE and join their Horde pals.
Because night elf culture is too dissimilar to their own. They fit in with orcs, trolls, and genocidal humans who give birth to more of their kind through murder. Because the excited tourist NB in Undercity was less of a culture clash than an NB in Darnashes speaking with the other highborne who already lived there.
Because it was more interesting for Blizz to tell the blood elf story twice, of elves who spite the people who cure them from their mana addiction to help mass slaughter them an expansion or two later, than it was to explore the cultural growth of the Kaldorei as one that is slowly moving back to acceptance. A plot thread started and dropped off screen in freaking Cata.
Enjoy your damned purple blood elves. Enjoy them gleefully cheering on the genocide of their kin who just saved them. Enjoy your Honor Horde guilt pangs and SoO 2. Great story. Really fresh new material to explore here. Love it. 10/10.
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Gotta love the hyperbole there. You know damned well that with how the Horde ARs were setup, they were tempted into the faction by having things in common with a single Horde race.
The Highmountain join because of Baine and the Tauren; the Mag’har join because of Eitrigg and the Durotar Orcs; the Zandalari largely join because of Rokhan and the Darkspear; and yes … this is the case with the Nightborne and the Blood Elves/Liadrin. Yes, there were misconceptions made about the entire faction based off their experiences (and commonalities) with a single race; but that does not invalidate those commonalities.
Bluntly, NE fans have reasons to complain about their portrayal of their favorite race, but in this case … between the Nightborne becoming friendly with a Elven Race that has suffered similar tragedies to them (and have built an Arcane Civilization directly in emulation to the Highborne Empire); and a Elven Race that deliberately abandoned that very way of life and hold little but mistrust and contempt for it … I think the choice is clear.
But … everything that doesn’t go NE players way is taken as a personal slight against them (including the NEs own relationship with their Arcane roots biting them here).
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Yes. I am very aware Blizz went out of their way to tailor the story for the Horde there. Retrospective justification being what it is, and my primary take away from these discussions here, I just want to say you know damned well BfA’s Horde story is all you ever should have expected. Enjoy.
What DOES go our way? We have a whole plot thread nearly a decade old from Cata detailing how the Highborne and worgen were reluctantly accepted into the race and that very plot thread is so buried and forgotten that the STORY FORUM can’t seem to remember that its resolution was a civil war where the progressive Kaldorei and acceptance won out. That was a decade ago and now we’re told we should expect regression of that plot because it got the Horde a spiffy new night elf race to play with.
I am sick of mechanics butchering the story and I’m sick of the red side of this forum being for this behavior when it gets them cool new things but will flood this place with threads like “The narrative is browbeating us with how bad genocide is!” when it doesn’t tickle their fancy quite as much.
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Fair enough lol. Misread the original post. But … I guess I see the Nightborne as their own people, and they were stolen by no-one. Their relationship with the BEs seems perfectly understandable to me; if you played the Surumar campaign and looked at the intentions of Tyrande and Liadrin/Rommath you’ll have a clue as to why. But “stealing” implies that the Nightborne had no choice … and invalidates WHY they might have made that choice.
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she’s saying the shen’dralar provided precedent for the nightbornes potentiality with respect to joining the alliance/night elves. not sure what’s so hard to understand about that. i mean what’s done has been done and i find the actual night elves and their story more interesting than the great value brand (nightbornes) anyways so it’s w/e to me.
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Not having Tyrande involved in the Azshara story line would be like excluding Sylvanas and Jaina from the Arthas storyline, or Velen from the Kil’Jaden one.
Having Genn show up is the equivalent of having Thrall being the one to take down Archbishop Benedictus. The two characters have no story arc together aside from forcing it at the last moment.
There are plenty of ways for Tyrande to show up once she realizes what is up. The writers simply have to use the slightest bit of creativity to make it happen.
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In all fairness this isn’t the first time, or faction, Blizz has done this to. They’re really kind of bad about wrapping up their stories in satisfying ways from a narrative perspective.
Fun boss fights though.
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I understand that exact point … but there is a difference between a group of Highborne refugees begging for asylum with the Night Elven populations (and having little to no political bargaining power; so they had to agree to pretty much anything to get back in) … and an entire functioning civilization that the NEs cannot suppress culturally (in regards to the methods they employ Arcane magics). This is especially prominent considering I seem to recall Maiev’s rather extreme reaction to the prospect of the Shen’dralar being allowed back in (and I doubt she’s the only one).
Tyrande seems to be in between Malf and Maiev in regards to her personal take on the Highborne; but her suspicion and contempt are NOT out of character for her (and it is justifiable to some degree). That skepticism resulted in her not reaching out to the Shal’dorei, but the Sin’dorei had no such qualms or restrictions. Its NOT a slight against the NEs that it went that way … its reflective of their 10k year old grudge against the type of lives the Nightborne live (and unlike the Shan’dralar … had the political power and infrastructure to actually maintain that way of life).
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Actually Sylvannas WAS excluded from the Arthas showdown. The front NPC for that was Tirion.
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Sylvanas and Jaina were both present in ICC and had their moments in the Hall of Reflection Dungeon. While not perfect, this was significantly more screen time than Tyrande is getting with Azshara which, at this moment in time is zero.
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If we are getting into a contest of characters and races who got the shaft story wise, I defer to my Orc …fellows.
The Orcs deserved some closure in Argus. I admit, the Orcs are not worthy of as much focus as Aethas and his muffin. But Thura would have been cool. Just as an NPC that is at Argus by her Uncle’s resting place. Or even Varok taking a visit and remarking on the twist of fate. Something more than Broxigar’s memorial.
But maybe Orc fans were happy enough with the subtlety.
Lets go through the list:
- Orcs had no presence on Argus, and ZERO relevance against the very legion that corrupted them and destroyed their homeworld. They did not exist in Legion for the most part, hell the Horde BARELY existed outside of Surumar.
- The Darkspear are the single most brutilized PC race in the game; to the point where there have been several threads rightly asking how they are not extinct (and their developed hero killed by trash mob). But I guess they got the Echo Isles back?
- The Bilgewater and Gilnean narratives have been on hold since their introduction in Cata for the most part (with Gilneas and Gallywix still completely unresolved).
- The Gnomes (for the first time in WoW) finally got their very first content patch devoted to them in nearly 15 years with Mechagon. They also STILL do not really have their capital back.
- The Tauren’s MAIN leader got killed off screen, and his replacement is handicapped severely by the writers (who prefer to use Baine as little more than a “Token Good” Horde to counterbalance when they go off the deep end with another Horde leader).
- The Blood Elves are only relevant when the same damned story is allowed to repeat itself (rebellions, they are only ever involved in rebellions). Hell, Silvermoon is still a decimated wreck of a city as far as we’re all aware.
- When the heck have Dwarves (other than Magni and Brann) been relevant?
Hmm … I could go on, but I think that covers most of the big ones. ![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
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