Ok, bucko. Next you’re going to tell me Elune isn’t part of their core identity, I guess?
I mean, I actually clearly demonstrated how deep their connection to their land is.
There are many people around the world whose land is intrinsically part of their culture. I don’t think this is a hard concept to understand, but maybe that’s because I’m from one of those cultures.
Let me turn the tables. What do YOU think is their core identity? When you think of “Night Elf” what concepts, visuals, aesthetics, cultural values, or other things come to mind?
Not sure why you would think that. I’m not saying protecting Kalimdor wasn’t part of their identity. I’m noting they’ve had a lot of parts that were part of their identity that have changed. The emphasis on “well Kalimdor is core though and these other bits weren’t” I disagree with.
Concepts? Druidism, reverence to nature, Elune worship. A general connection with the natural world and stewards over it.
Visuals? Lush grass, night sky, open air buildings and towers, the moon, trees/forests, ancient white stone, glaives, bears/cats/owls.
Cultural values. Similarly revering nature, respect, self-reliance, pride, wisdom, decisiveness, caution, purity, tradition.
Things that used to be but changed? Gender roles. Isolationism / xenophobia. Anti-arcane.
This is like the only compelling thing you listed there that arguably was a core concept and got changed. But, again, they were always shown to be capable of change and admitting to mistakes.
All of this yes
Soo… Kalimdor? But yes, all of those.
Add collectivism, reverence of elders and ancestors, familial view of their people
I’ve demonstrated in probably a dozen ways now how deep their (almost literal) roots are planted into (Northern) Kalimdor. Again, I don’t know how this is a hard concept to grasp that land can be part of culture as a core piece. Possible positive bias because I’m from a culture whose culture is entirely intermingled with a specific land.
I’ll be direct and say I don’t personally have a connection with the specific land I live on. While I’ve acknowledged Kalimdor is a part of their identity, it isn’t more significant in my mind than the other aspects they’ve historically changed. To where they can hopefully be stewards to the world at large instead of one piece. So moving to the Dragon Isles as a main home isn’t “well screw Kalimdor” to me, it is “let’s not be overly focused on Kalimdor” vibes.
(I say hopefully because poor Blizzard track record of invasions.)
Look, if they were any other elves (probably in a different franchise), I’d say it’s pretty dope to move their charge from Nordrassil to the world, but like… Night Elves out of Kalimdor is just so bizarre to even think about.
Night Elves making a center of their civilization in a historically plains-filled area? SUNNY? Huge, open sky? TINY forest? Those are like the antithesis of Night Elf habitats.
I’m still at the point where you have to kill the fire-protodrake. But Amirdrassil isn’t on the plains to my understanding, it is similar to the area to the west where it is in the dream? Which itself has forests.
I agree visually the region could better reflect something like Ashenvale. I’m not going to say there aren’t issues with the region of Amirdrassil. I mean I personally would have preferred it be where Teldrassil was. And they certainly could have mimicked Teldrassil/Ashenvale to a greater degree if the plan was to have the tree there.
I actually LOVE the idea of typical high fantasy elves being scattered across the world and guiding it with their ancient wisdom. Even better if their society is centralized in some forest far away from everyone else where they can go back and be “at home” for a bit.
Blizzard can MAYBE sell this to me if:
the Night Elves become a neutral faction
they form a peace treaty or pact with every other faction
If they are attacked, EVERY other faction helps them
they have enclaves all over the world. Pockets of Ashenvale’s aesthetic. Maybe, idk, a ****ing world tree at each one
Blizzard clarifies and increases the significance of world trees, giving the night elves a reason to be all over the world defending them
people look to them for guidance and healing. Someone is sick? Send them to the elves for a week, they’ll patch you right up. Feeling lost in life? Go spend a week at Duskwooddrassil and feel the tranquility of the grove soothe your spirit
HUGE BONUS points if every enclave has a Dreamway port directly back to Nor Kal
Nor Kal is still the center of their society.
I pretty much just described Tolkien’s elves, but with more nature and more night-time imagery. They leave the Undying Lands (Still very much their home) and go chill with the lowly mortals for a bit to help them out with stuff. Once the mortals prove themselves, the Elves f*** right off back to Valinor.
As I’m thinking about this, the idea of what if the Dream had been written entirely differently and the Night Elves just like… go to the Dream as their home. Like they’re literally so connected with nature they get to go live in the very realm of the spirits of nature. A reward for their Long Vigil and a boon after the loss of Teldrassil
Edit: Sorry, huge retcon to this idea. The Night Elves would never be like “Oh poor us, we need help! Please come help us!” No. NEVER. They would fight to their last breath and use literally tooth and nail if they had to in order to keep fighting.
or better yet, no one really bothers them because they know if they do they will get their skulls mounted on pikes outside the enclaves as a warning to other idiots.
This argument has always confused me. People actually really believe in this? The Story of the Night Elves was classified from the very beginning at least as a B plot.
At the beginning of dragonflight we didn’t see any night elves except in one quest where we bring back Ysera but basically lose Malfurion for development of green dragons. Patch 10.1 is a story for black dragons only. 10.1.5 is for Bronze. Personally, I’ve seen more Khadgar than Tyrande in this expansion. He was present in prepatch, he helped Blue Dragons all the time, he fought with Raszageth and the forces of Fyrakk in Suffusion Frostburn, we saw him also in Vault of the Incarnates. So can I say that Dragonflight is a human exspansion? Of course not. In 10.2 they got more of a spollight, but last raid was mostly focused on regaining the power of apsects.
Dragonflight is about aspect and stoped Incarnates not night elves and their new home.
In SL, Night Elves only got 1/3 of side quests in Ardenweald. In the main storyline they appeared once, when Tyrande fought Sylvanas. Which didn’t change anything. The entire SL was focused on saving Anduin and stopping Sylvanas/Jailer. In the final fight against Zoval and even in Sanctum of Domination we see, human, orc and undead heroes while Tyrande was taking a nap.
Shadowlands is about Sylvanas psychology session and Anduin traumas, not the night elves.
Even in BFA, we mainly follow the struggles of Saurfang and Anduin. Yes, all of this started because of Teldrassil, but have you seen any night elves in this expansion except drakshore? We have Shandris in Nazjatar, but Jaina was the main hero of Alliance there.
Humans and orcs have always been at the forefront, no other race has received as much attention as these two, (maybe except Sylvanas ) This is even visible in the latest trailer TWW. You can feel that writers don’t want to write and have been forced to touch night elves for years but instead write about threads they should focus on blizzard ignoeres them and prefer write about they think is cool right now, which is why Teldrassil plot take so long. Maybe if the Night Elves got as much attention as these two races, the quality of their stories would be better and it would end much faster.
I dunno. That sounds like an excuse. It sounds like the type of excuse night elves use to avoid answering the hard questions like “why do we grow magic trees next to sleeping/sorta dead bad guys? Why do we blow up our trees instead of offering murder hobos loot? What even is a fire safety protocol?”
Lies and slander, and easily debunked.
Everyone knows if the author were an orc, Teldrassil would NEVER have burned when it could have been chopped down and the remains covered in spikes.
The author, obviously, is a mage, because mages are evil and do bad things to everyone.
I do agree with the overall sentiment of her post but both restoring immortality and being blessed by the aspects are wrong. The NE never got that but still NE fans are the worst kind of fans in this forum nowadays.
@op
May the dark lady light shine upon you!!
Sylvanas adore!
To be fair, the sort of person who is still a Kaldorei fan at this point has to be a person that is in it because they love the pain. There is always a payoff, but some people’s idea of a payoff isn’t necessarily pretty to anyone else. Losing yourself complaining on these forums can be cathartic to some people.
Why will they become a neutral faction when they are here?
Amirdrassil should become an Alliance place as Suramar and Highmountain are a Horde place.
I think many of us just want a statement about the state of Kalimdor in Darkshore and Ashenvale for the Night Elves (with Winterspring and Hyjal too) in the lore and in the books but also this:
Blood Elves will get a massive update of their lands in Midnight so Night Elves could get the same thing for Darkshore and Ashenvale with the new assets of Amirdrassil (Zidormi is still here if you want the old version or the ruined version). Of course don’t forget Gnomeregan and the Azuremyst Isle for an update of their assets too.
