She grew out of it? I mean there’s not much I can say WC3 for Night Elves was them learning to play nice with the other races. At least before some gave her a reason to be enemies.
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The idea of revolution and warfare between an oppressive caste of aristocrats and a new movement in the general masses sounds interesting itself, that’s never been what Warcraft was about. This is a franchise that’s been about epic warfare in a fantastic setting and the struggles of “good guys” against a vast dark tide of “bad guys”. Originally it was between armies of orcs and humans and then going on to fighting vast armies of demons and undead.
Further, while reading the War of Ancients trilogy, I never got the impression that Azshara and her Highbourne oppressed the common masses. Azshara was much loved by the night elf people even so far as when the Legion first invaded, many believed she had been captured and was being held prisoner by them rather than believe she had let them in.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a story in a setting you describe in its own setting though.
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Really great post, OP! I actually think that Blizzard DID implicitly relate the class struggle into recent content. Why would the Nightborne join the Horde? I was playing through their quests on my nelf, and thinking about lore as I did. And I could easily see how a Kaldorei NOW, who might have golden memories of the before times, would, upon being reminded that actually no, Highborne were utter arsehats, and it was a stratified caste system of privilege and mageocratic elitism, conclude that the Shaldorei can bugger off with their elitist attitudes.
Enter the Sindorei who are basically Queldorei/Highborne fanboys on a cultural basis thanks to the Queldorei history.
It actually makes the Kaldorei rejection of the Shaldorei into a very understandable sentiment. No one in post revolutionary France would eagerly welcome back the bourgeousie no matter how romantic their ideas if they were faced with an arrogant overdressed peacock who calls them a peon and a peasant.
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Yep. Just read about this in Chronicle today.
Actually the US and UK, despite changes in leadership or having passed new laws, are the exact same states/political bodies. The United States is the same United States, with the same constitution and form of government, and same name, that enslaved Africans and genocided Indigenous people (both things which are, in many ways, still occurring, when we consider prison slavery and the continued treatment of indigenous people who are still very much here struggling for their right to exist on this land), and the UK is similarly literally the same United Kingdom. These states were never abolished or overthrown or replaced, they have the same constitutions, they’re the same states. That’s one of the big problems (from my perspective at least). It’s not like say, the Roman Empire, which no longer exists and instead where it use to exist, you have entirely different states. Or say, post 1917, where Russia and the Russian people existed, yet Imperial Tsarist Russia did not any more because it had been dissolved and replaced with an entirely new form of state.
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And we can’t say Blizzard has zero interest in having us play out narratives where oppressive totalitarian leaders get overthrown by the people as a result of their unjust acts. Those were major elements in the Horde story in MoP and Bfa. It’s why the Horde apparently has abolished the Warchief position.
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True, though in one of the most unsatisfying manners. Like we didn’t get to participate in much of a movement like we saw with Garrosh. It was mostly working covertly behind Sylvanas back, and then once she abdicates her position, the leaders collectively decided to form a council. Which while I think is a neat idea, I can’t help but also feel kinda salty about to the degree that, you’ll never see the friggin title of “King” painted as problematic but “Warchief” is.
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Britain called. They’re giving you marks for proper levels of understatement.
Azshara not only had the door opened, she was picking out a wedding dress for the occasion.
Yeah, it’s surprising that of all the stuff they did steal from MoP’s Horde storyline, they didn’t also run with the fact that in MoP, pretty much all of the major Horde leaders stood up to or opposed Garrosh at some point before the expansion had even begun. Garrosh had been challenged to Mok’gorrah twice before Theramore even happened. Vol’jin was in an open rebellion, people were making cries for revolution and getting gunned down in the streets.
It seems Blizzard wanted to largely avoid portraying that internal dissent in BfA, but they also didn’t want to have the Horde leadership to seem entirely down with it, so they had them make sad faces and forced any opposition underground so Sylvanas could do her thing unmolested. They could instead focus on Zandalar and in the last patch, suddenly summon an army.
And indeed, it comes back to what I say repeatedly about how WoW frames certain things as bad when the Horde does it, but more benign when the Alliance does it. The Horde and Alliance are both threatened by N’zoth/Lich King/Jailer, but even in the absence of these threats, Blizzard has no issues using potential divisions within the Horde to fuel greater conflict. Less so when it comes to the Alliance, who- in the absence of any external existential threat- only seem to know unending peace and prosperity.
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Only happened cause of the demons, if azshara never sided with the demons, the nelf empire would still exist and everyone would still love her
Kat that kind of ties into the larger thought I had.
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All of this was squandered more pointedly with Van Cleef and the Defias Brotherhood. Who were actually staging a people’s revolt over labor theft and cruel treatment by the crown.
The red bandanas even harkon back to the coal miner union strifes of early 20th century America, which turned into warzones between the miners and union busters in some cases.
Workers turned militant because of labor theft and fragrant abuse of power by authorities being framed as unambiguous bad guys to be killed is infinitely more concerning than the Kaldorei angle.
Plus those troubles only happened because Azshara swiped right on Space Satan, and then we had more trouble because she friendzoned N’Zoth for 10 millenia and boy did he have an attitude about it.
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How the uprising wasnt do to hate or oppression the nelves arent communist there goal isnt to continue some revolution
I never said they were, and not all revolutions have been or have to be communist anyways.
I feel like people aren’t reading what I wrote. The fact that all of this does come down to simply being “demons” was part of what I wrote, how that’s boring and how to a certain degree it also sends a weird message that upper classes and lower classes can exist harmoniously without conflict until Demons (Foreigner Corruption) is involved.
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its a example, theres really not a reason nelves would love there revolution, it wasn’t something they wanted to do in the first place
they can, nelves literally had magic, they had riches, have you seen a nelf homeless person, The empire was a utopia
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yes they block traffic in SW
I mean WoW also sometimes veers into “Colonialism is great!” at different parts of the story if you look at it critically.
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Yeah, not everything in a fantasy universe is a reflection or implication of real life aspects.
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That’s convenient. Still, they did it, and there is obviously hostility to the former rulers.
I thought they weren’t and aren’t communist
I’m not sure if the reflection part is my point. Yeah, of course it’s not a reflection of real life aspects, because we know in real life ancient empires the ruling class/caste was horrifically exploitative of the lower. I do think writing a story where you have society divided into things like “lowborn” and “highborn” without exploring how that came to be or suggesting it was a totally cool fine state of affairs until demons got involved might have a message to it. Maybe not. Who knows.
I do know it makes the Night Elves more interesting to me when you take into account that part of their history is they were involved in eliminating a caste division in their society and reorienting it towards different ways of living, something kind of unique to them in the game (well, until the Horde did it but only kind of). It’s just sad that it’s not really an element emphasized by the lore.
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I say lets just keep the fantasy elements in, you know, a fantasy game. If I wanted to experience “class warfare” as it were, I’d go outside into the real world. It adds nothing to the story, we deal with enough of that stuff in real life.
And Kat is right, the Kaldorei only rebelled because you know, space faring demons wanted to wipe out all life in the universe…the whole overthrowing of the highborned only happened, years later because a fraction of the highborne simply refused to stop using their magic. It had nothing to do with the upper class mistreating the lower class. Malfurion and Tyrande were fine with the Highborne intergating into the new society as long as they followed the rules, which again, they refused to.