So, its been pointed out in the discord that there is barely any information regarding the Long Vigil and what happened during it. All we know that has happened in this time is the War of the Shifting Sands.
In game books say that Tyrande was kept busy during this 7300 years. We’ve seen that nearly a thousand years before WoW the Night Elf nation fought a serious war with the Qiraji and Sillithid. Tyrande herself says that she did not have the luxury of sleeping the millennia away like her husband did. We also have Maiev’s boast of wiping out entire races, even if this has been watered down into a exaggeration during the short-lived existance of Cdev.
So, outside of those points, we have barely any information of the night elves during this period. So little that multiple so-called ‘lore experts’ have inserted their own head-canon that nothing happened, and Tyrande just twiddled her thumbs the entire time. I don’t know where this came from outside of some people’s hatred of the character (I don’t like her myself either), but its frequently brought up whenever a critique of Tyrande’s character comes up.
So, what do you think happened during this time, or what do you think Blizzard could do with this period that ripe for story-telling? Or why did nothing happen and that’s why Tyrande sucks as a leader?
I mean things happened, but it was likely fairly self contained outside of the War of the Shifting Sands. Also, never underestimate the power of timelessness to let people squander time like crazy. Turns out, when you remove time as a currency with value, people will likely just burn it picking their own NE noses for a while.
a lot of the night elf architectural works should be said to have been built in this time i think, also the establishment of tons of the moon wells we see in parts of kalimdor. make it so the sentinels were building stuff and really establishing the society as it is when we are introduced to it in WC3 and WoW.
What makes you sad, the revelation of Night Elves as genocidal monsters? or the watering down of the same?
It does fit into the narrative of Night Elves being evolved Trolls as well as their general xenophobia. If the entire race of Night Elves were to be wiped off the planet, not that many would shed tears for them.
Even back in Reign of Chaos, Tyrande did have her harpy moments. She apparantly couldn’t find any way to deal with Maiev’s Sentinels other than to kill them all.
Unfortunately we have little info on this time period. We know that they kept the forests safe from whatever waw left of the Satyrs and there was that issue with the Frost Giants. Beyond that they have given us little to go on for and it’s mostly things 7,000 year gap. I’d like to think that they lived in relative peace but they had to be on constant guard to ensure that peace remained. It’s also my understanding that the Watchers were responsible for more than just Illidan too. It’s a lot that that gave left out. Add to that the new lore saying that Shandris worked with High Elves and that she apparently fought in every war the timeline is a mess now.
This is the first I’m hearing of this.
I think that hatred and/or criticism of Tyrande started back in W3 and its stayed. She entered in killing both humans and orcs and people failed to understand her reasoning. They had just lost Cenarius (mind you we didn’t know his full significance yet) to the orcs and she had no idea that the humans just wanted to help with the demons, that’s information she didn’t have at the time. The orcs came in smelling like fel and the Night Elves went on guard. Ever since she’s been labeled rash and xenophobic even though throughout WoW she’s behaved in a way that contradicts those labels. In fact she did that in W3 too with Keal’thal. People see what they want to see.
That was so annoying. Let’s not forget that Varian was a damn hot head himself and if it wasn’t for the Night Elves performing the Worgan ritual on him he’d still be one.
That is not a criticism of Tyrande. It’s NORMAL for Night Elves to be xenophobic and react to first contacts with loosed arrows. They are after all, xenophobic descendants of xenophobic trolls. Who have spent virtually their entire existence in isolation when they weren’t wiping out other folks. Shandris is different because she is the only najor Night Elf NPC who has worked extensively with Humans all the way down to the grunt level.
Because she’s just a cheerleader for crap Rambo Reference and Discount Kael’thas. She should be talking to void users the way she talks to the Naga in her datamined 8.2 voice lines. Not stroking their egos.
Ah yes, the xenophobic Night elves who have since then welcomed all the other Alliance races in their territories and have adapted to their ideologies, and are subservient to the High King. So xenophobic.
That is the price of having them as player characters in a united faction. The idea is that they’ve progressed out of the narrow culture they used to be as necessity of adaptation. With the loss of the majority of their powers it is literally adapt or die.
Well considering the night elves were the ones recording history back then if they didn’t write much about it they probably didn’t want to talk about it. Whatever that means is completely up to speculation but my guess it was a fairly bad time considering they call it the “long vigil”
If it was a bad time, they would have used a Darnassian term that would mean “Times That Sucked”. Long Vigil means exactly that… a long period where they kept watch over the Well of Eternity.