No it’s not. Not any more than the destruction of Stormwind Keep ended the southern Human empire.
And on a practical level, Blizzard is not going to eliminate one of its most popular player races.
You’re starting to channel Etheriel with the ascertions.
Stormwind was rebuilt after the Alliance utterly shattered the Horde and put the orcs they captured in internment camps.
The Lordaeron and the rest of the Alliance helped the Alliance rebuild.
You are literally making my point for me.
I never said they would.
We are talking about the lore without the meta or practicality.
Night Elves could all be sterile and their lands ash and soot and there will still be Night Elf players and NPCs.
That is not what is being discussed here.
The Night Elves have relocatd to Hyjal in story if not in game
The Night Elves got assistance from the Alliance in the Wall of Thorns even if most of that assistance from the Champions and the Gilneans.
And there are still Night Elves in Kalimdor… they’re not going to POOF! because of the Burning
Still on the border with the Horde.
Hyjal is no safer than Teldrassil was.
Alliance assistance was inneffective in stopping the Horde or regaining of their lands.
Never said they did or would.
But if they are going to renew canonically the Horde threat has to be dealt with.
How would you do that? The Horde’s main base of power is in Kalimdor. The Alliance just does not have the logistics, any more than the Horde does to march on Stormwind.
On the other hand, the Kaldorei are not leaving northern Kalimdor. Not after fighting so hard to repel the Horde from its lands… again.
We are strictly talking about the Night Elf renewal here. Horde doesn’t need to have the capability to march on Stormwind. They just need to march on Hyjal to finish the job.
Ashenvale is an open door. Darkshore same issue. Felwood is a revolving door since Saurfang used it as a detour rather than an actual obstacle.
Anyway, the point is the story has made it evident that the Night Elve’s position is not defensible in anyway. And the only standing between Night Elf eventual canonical extinction in Kalimdor is the Horde’s mood.
Canonically if the Night Elves can recover from the Sundering they can recover from this too but during the sundering they had two things going for them.
Immortality.
Security.
The Night Elves spent 700 years to rebuild with no one on their door step to threaten them.
Do you really think Night Elves have 700 years to bounce back? I don’t.
I don’t think immortality is necessary for this renewal but security from the Horde for many generations? Absolutely.
Without that security guarantee, the Night Elves are doomed.
yes, but you sidestepped the question. How do you propose that security be achieved when they won’t move and its infeasible to destroy the Horde.
the Alliance has a star destroyer and a literal interstellar empire allied with it
Some sort of an impregnable defense.
Maybe massive fortresses and walls.
Maybe Elune gives them immortality and blesses the forests that any invader would perish. Like the very land would kill them.
Alliance establishing permanent garrisons on Horde borders.
Some form of security that reliably stops the next guaranteed Horde attack in its tracks.
Whatever the solution it is 100% certain horde’s promises or council and honorable heart are not reliable deterrents. Even if on a meta level we all know another Night Elf genocide is never ever coming but on a canonical point of view this is a near certainty.
Why didn’t Malfurion use the horn of Cenarius when the Horde was at Teldrassil’s doorstep? Where is the horn?
He did, its better shown in the short story A Good War. That’s when we learn wisps can, it turns out, incinerate people when they swarm in anger. They also made the wisp wall, which was impenetrable until story contrivance let the horde destroy it.
That’s the big issue. the Kaldorei can build the biggest wall ever, but if the writers decide to breach it, then it happens that it has a critical weakness that will bring it down.
The “oupsie we shut off all of our defenses” excuse won’t happen again.
But Blizzard have made the Horde such absolutely warmongering monsters and the Night Elves in such a weak position that canonically they are doomed.
So the best we can get as players is that while Night Elves are striving to renew we see evidence of even better defenses and therefore lore reasons that even if the Horde decides to invade again 3 people a dog can hold them back.
Oh, it’s in a short story. Thanks. And… that’s super lame.
Wisps bee-buzzed Archimonde to death, would have hoped they could bee-buzz the Horde too, lol.
He could use it again, this time as a preventative measure in the remaining Kaldorei/druidic spaces we control.
Edit: Oops, meant to reply to Kaileath.
The thing there is to kill Archimonde, they en masse self destructed. Here they didn’t go boom, their raw fury transformed into actual heat intense enough to melt through armor if they caught you.
It was the key to the cannonical victory of the Darkshore Warfront.
Again the same level of extreme expectations that Eherial often writes. I’m done with you on this topic. It’s up to you whether I take the same step with you that I did with Etheriel. It’s been long enough that I’m sure I’m not spelling their name correctly.
It really wasn’t.
Night warrior power was the lynchpin in all this and it was against a garrison of forsaken and goblins.
Thats a far cry from the bulk of and real strength of the Horde.
If the idea of night elves having a tangible way of defending themselves is an extreme ask for you then i dare say you were never really interested in the renewal story or development for this race to begin with.
How shocking.
It’s a bit much to ask for the power of 3 night elves to take on the entire bloody Horde.
Yeah, but those were both in-game engine cinematics. Not the high quality ones like “Old Soldier” etc that we got in BfA.
Only in defense.
Its also a bit much for the Night Elf renewal to be entirely dependent on Horde’s good behavior.
Cold War style of neutral, there were still Faction specific areas that were designated Faction PVP targets.
While we may be numbering them, the truth is the war never stops, it just simmers down for a while.