…is an abomination that should not be as his very existence contradicts pretty much all established templates we have for Quel’dorei/Sin’dorei aging. 
I truly think he was tossed in as a poorly thought out attempt to justify the Sin’dorei totally being ok with Sylvanas going Arthas 2.0
I think it’s different because the male villains who die typically go out in a blaze of glory. Blizzard wasted no time in portraying the Night Elves in the burning of Teldrassil as helpless victims. In fact they went out of their way in the Sylvanas cinematic of it by focusing on Delayrn Summermoons face of tears as she helplessly watches her nation burned away. It was just a very weird moment in WoW history and I just find it rather suspecting of how they chose to do that to what has historically been portrayed through WoW lore as a matriarchal society.
Well that’s kind of a ridiculous thing to say. But whatever…
This, most of all, is the biggest issue with night elves. Because it puts them in a position of zero winning, no matter how the story goes. Even if they take everything back, and become #savage again… if peace is formed, or there’s a cold war, whatever. They’re still parked just north of an entire faction that is apparently okay with wiping them off the map just for existing.
It means they can’t do anything, or be relevant ever again because they’ll be entirely focused on the protecting their lands from the apparently genocidal Horde populace.
I believe there’s still hope and that it lies in how their leaders themselves will be portrayed moving forward. We’ve seen in the Darkshore cinematic that Blizz can do it, that they can bring back the graceful savages night elves are supposed to be. Blizz just needs to realize they don’t need to and shouldn’t stop there. And quite honsestly, if they can hit the notes just right, the night elves can also be the key to break even the Alliance conundrum and make the faction more exciting and interesting than it is now.
A bit of an aside, wasn’t there supposed to be a night elf Darkshore victory cinematic? I’ve never seen it on live so I guess it didn’t make it out of the PTR?
But as for the Nightmare and Azshara, it’s heavily hinted that we’re not done with them yet. A Tyrande/Malfurion versus Azshara battle can still happen if Blizz wants it to.
It’s abundantly obvious that the way the creative team approaches making narrative set-pieces like cinematics and even quest tie-ins involves one person championing a particular character. Look at the biggest complaints about BfA, Anduin, Nathanos, Saurfang, all three feel strangely pushed, and that’s because they are. Golden, Danhauser, and Afrasiabi respectively are pretty clearly their biggest advocates, ‘self-insert’ or otherwise. As for the Night Elves it seems abundantly clear to me that there’s nobody at the decision table that backs a Night Elf character, not that that would help. The ‘character drama’ has translated really poorly to a world we’re supposed to be immersed in. The fact that nobody thought it was a horrible idea to immolate quite literally a whole built-up race for nothing is extremely disturbing.
It was so Saurfang could feel sad and Horde to self-reflect a year later after the BBQ after Baine’s arrest.
You know. Heavy 
.
You’re joking but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a significant factor in it, torching the whole thing for the cheapest form of pathos
BFA’s prepatch taught me that apparently, genocide is morally grey. What a wonderful thing to attach to your game.
To be fair it was actually Tyrande who suggested sending the bulk of the Night Elf forces to Silithus and Anduin merely gave his assent.
So if the Night Elves were going to rage at anyone it would be at their own Night Warrior.
What American and World history should have taught you is that genocide is only a crime if country committing it is on the losing side of a war and can be prosecuted by a body too powerful for it to simply ignore.
If it makes you feel better, people still disagree on whether or not it was a genocide.
To put it bluntly, where Blizzard went wrong was in forcing the Night Elves in as an Alliance race.
I’m not saying they should have joined up with the Horde (If anything they should have been their own faction. Likewise for the Forsaken as playable Scourge stand ins.) but if they had then their savage, war like nature would not have been blunted, the Night Elves reverence for nature would have been a balance to the Hordes need for resources rather than a foil, and both factions would have had their own continents where their lore could be explored and developed instead of being forced into largely meaningless conflict.
From the moment they decided to make the Night Elves a race instead of its own faction the rot set in. Making them part of the Alliance just watered them down further to the point that they’re just tall purple humans instead of amazon warriors.
The entire history of the Draenei from the point where we become concerned about them is getting stomped on by orcs as detailed in “Rise of the Horde”.
Heck even in the end of the book when Thrall is informed of the crash of the Exodar the only thought in his mind was “Our greatest enemies have found us and joined the Alliance, how will we survive now?”
I connect a lot of the Nelf blunders to Richard Knaack. His War of the Ancients Trilogy laid a very poor foundation for the Night Elves, and set the precedent of Nelves being used as a catalyst for the development of non-nelf characters.
I personally get confused when people say the Night Elves got nerfed between WC3 and WoW Classic. It was four years after the BL invasion and the World Tree’s sacrafice. The Night Elves were the main target and hit the most hardest. When I went through the Night Elves lands as Horde, and my Alliance alts, I did not see control, I saw complete chaos. The Furbolgs were still crazed and rampant from the invasion. Naga claimed beaches and ancient ruins. Even left over demons had made home and even controlled a hefty amount of territory, some of Ashenvale and all of Felwood. Illidan escelated things by trying to destroy the Icecrown which harmed the nature side of Kalimdor.
NEs were even desperate enough to agree and ignore Malfurion to create a corrupted world tree for immortality. Even though Teldrassil wasn’t supposed to be created in the first batch, the World Tree was the main hub but didn’t go through, and it was a trick from Staghelm. NEs were more like Rome, a giant powerful empire falling apart, except BL were the reason, and not infighting. I see it as they had to join one of the growing super power houses or face destruction, and I just cannot see neutrality as an option at all 100% after the huge beating they took in WC3. I see the NEs in WoW classic as a race of people who got their teeth kicked in, and are very desperately trying to pick up the pieces while holding everything all together. I doubt they would be alive, let alone claim back their lands without the Alliance’s or the Horde’s help have they stayed alone.
Also the NEs became hippified because of LotR. Blizzard turned them from Drow savages to Legolas Wood Elves. This was done deliberately for more $. Which unfortuantely worked like a charm. The NEs were the #1 race and Humans were #2 at the time I believe. Which was why Horde got Blood Elves to even out the populations between sides. It was truly tragic to watch the defanging of this race even on Horde side, despite it working greatly for profit.
Also Lumie hit the nail on the head though with geography. They so happened to not pick the side who’s main base was a stone’s throw away. This caused a problem where Blizzard had to write the NEs powerful enough to hold off the Horde. Which caused further confusion becuase once again the NEs got their teeth kicked in very hard! This also at the same time makes the Horde seem very weak. If they can’t group up and demolish only 1/4th of a faction, then how are they able to take on all of that faction? This just made things from bad to worse with all of the confusion.
The Forsaken didn’t suffer the same problem, sure they were on Eastern Kingdom side, but the closest base was Khaz Modan. It would take a lot more resources and time to mount an attack and move to Undercity. Especially when tech was not as advanced as it is now.
As for what can be fixed and how to fix it … I truly do not know. The NEs have taken the final straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s going to very tricky to fix it from here on out.
I mean, this is arguably true. However, the Night Elves were the best equipped to handle something like that compared to the other races. The Legion had basically already significantly weakened the other races before they even attempted to go toe to toe with the night elves. Quel’thalas was gone. Lordaeron and Dalaran were gone. Gilneas was locked behind a wall, Strom was financially crippled from the 2nd War. Stormwind was still recovering from the first war. The orcs were freshly escaped slaves who just got done fighting among themselves over some demon blood. Of which they needed Alliance aid, which consisted of refugees from the Scourge. The Tauren just escaped a war of extermination with the Centaur, and the Darkspear just had their entire island sink into the sea.
I think saying there was a Nelf nerf between WC3 and WoW is completely reasonable, because considering everything listed above, you would think the Night Elves, who, unlike their at-the-time allies, actually had a strong empire to shoulder the burden of a Demonic invasion. No doubt there was significant loss, but comparatively to everyone else, they should have realistically be able to bounce back and recover from the war faster than anyone else. After all, everyone else at Mount Hyjal were refugees, fleeing their homelands.
We see entire Orc and human Kingdoms sprout up in WoW, while we see the Night Elves unable to maintain the holdings they have had for thousands of years.
Which is hilarious because yet again it shows that Blizzard tries to create some false equivalence between the races that get constantly attacked, and their attackers.
“Our greatest enemies, the draenei, have come to Azeroth and joined the Alliance.”
“Oh, what did they do to become your greatest enemies?”
“Mostly hold back for centuries as we raided and enslaved their people then died a lot when we drank demon blood. The fiends.”
Alliance white.
Horde black.
And a sparkle of everything crap.
You got yourself a morally grey game.
The night elves of WC3 were doomed the moment they were put in the Alliance. With it came a demotion of power to force dependency, the watering down of culture to make them fit in a faction that was not compatible with a race that revolved around nature and the land as well as giving something for the Horde to fit in for neutrality organizations. Finally, they were turned into discount high elves to cash in on the LOTR movies as well as to replace the high elves of the old alliance. Those changes only got worse as blizzard started to pretend the faction leaders were superheroes in some cape comic and used them as victims to promote this new “blue horde” that the alliance has become.
Furthermore, there is clearly no one with clout at the writing table with a clear passion for anything but Anduin and human paladins if the alliance story doesn’t revolve around the Hordes. Most certainly no one who remembers WC3 noght elves outside of a highlight reel.
I’ve certainly see and read the implications of it. And seen the fan art of people who enjoy it. Like it or not, the default night elf NPC is female, and is frequently the victim of being overpowered and dominated. Or rescued by humans like a damsel in distress. Much of the night elven point of views on faction conflict reads like an incel fantasy. I blame much of it on thr writers obsession with testosterone poisoning and a lack of competence when it comes to writing women. By the way, notice how horde-heavy that supposed “women or warcraft” was?
So much this. And stop making Tyrande fawn over Anduin’s wisdom and generosity.
I would LOVE for the night elves to get a faction victory to lord over horde players like the teldrassil genocide is frequently thrown around whenever night elves come up. But that will never happen, because Lawful stupid and blizzard hates night elves.
Blizzard straight out said it was. Splitting hairs over definitions doesn’t change canon.
I’m aware. It doesn’t stop people from trying.