I’ve been seeing a lot of posts here suggesting that Teldrassil’s loss isn’t really a big impact for night elves, or in particular, night elf players, because NPCs lost are nameless. I thought I could explain the reasons I perceive it to be a loss, particularly because of something I feel that is often overlooked- the state of the Teldrassil NPCs.
When the writers wrote the burning, they failed to provide a count of NPCs that survived and those who were lost, as well as give us any names. The very fact that Teldrassil was used as a prop is a problem for night elf players, because all the Teldrassil NPCs are now stuck in limbo in the burning. We do know about some who died- Astarii and likely the other priests seen with her in the TotM. Unless Blizzard states otherwise, we have lost a good amount of these NPCs.
Now one can claim that Blizzard can always bring them back, saying they survived, but there is a threshold to which they can do this- 10%? Knowing that this threshold is low, Blizzard would rather avoid using most of these NPCs in the future. Practically, this amounts to us losing upto 90% of our Teldrassil NPCs- including Corithas, Laurna Morninglight, Sentinel Amara, Denalen, Tarindrella, Sister A’moora, Mathrengyl Bearwalker, and so on. This is a big impact upon our story and are significant consequences, and for people to claim they are nameless NPCs is kinda absurd because it doesn’t take into account the story consequences we now face. The NPCs in Undercity do not hold a problem because they didn’t face a genocide and were mostly evacuated.
One can argue that I do not know which NPCs are lost, so my claim is invalid, and although the above addresses that (threshold limitations), suppose Blizzard does put out a list of NPCs who survived- do you think the number would be large? Are the ones who died insignificant?
I also think that saying Teldrassil’s losses are pointless doesn’t hold up in retrospect
when in the future, Blizzard could hypothetically announce such a list. This means that night elf players have a shadow looming over their heads as Blizzard could at any point of time announce such a list.
My other argument against Teldrassil being insignifcant is that it was a blow to morale and pride, which are big losses for a playable race, although not unique to night elves (refer Sylvanas’ opinions on the Horde, MoP battles). But the weight of that loss is centralised on a single playable race unlike the losses of pride that the factions themselves face.
Tldr, Teldrassil leaves a vacuum in story for night elves because of the limits of using Teld. NPCs in the future without a list of survivors, and the loss of pride and morale is also a major loss; therefore, this event cannot be considered an insignificant loss.
Edit: I may not respond immediately to this thread but I wanted to create a discussion separate from the existing arguments and victim threads.