And don’t you think changing blood elves to a light based race moves them farther away from being high elves?
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No, because High Elves have also been using the Sunwell since it was restored.
The fact they reveal the Blood Knights and call the Farstriders backwards and a waste of time as well as the Blood Knights becoming more of a central force really shows this as well.
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Liadrin yells more about the light than a Human Paladin and a Lightforged Draenei combined
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Let’s not beat around the bush though, a lot of the High Elf push stems from wanting them to have Paladins. They wouldn’t have that if they didn’t have a certain slant towards the Light.
To be honest, I think the best bet for anything resembling a High Elf is to make the Highborne an allied race or put their customization into the Night Elves and let them have Paladins. (Maybe give Blood Elves some Dark Ranger options as a mirror to that.)
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There are High Elf Paladins. It’s just not a central them in their culture.
It’s like saying Humans should not have Hunters because Paladins/Priest are a central focus of their culture.
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There is a big difference between being a regular Paladin in the ways that Humans and Dwarves (even the Dark Iron) do and being a Blood Knight. Blood Knights are infused and altered heavily by the Sunwell, and they are a prominent part of the Sin’dorei society, while High Elf paladins are just some separate individuals, normally found on the Argent Crusade.
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I would say it’s really more because every race in WoW that has a military should have Hunters, as is that every race should have Warriors.
But Paladins are something more special that speak to the culture of the races that are allowed to be Paladins.
Light is not a core part on the Tauren and Zandalari culture by any means, but you can have Paladins in them, even the Dark Iron Dwarves can be Paladins and they are very much the opposite of a Light worshiping based society.
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Like the ones that live in Stormwind or work with the Argent Crusade?
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I would say that it is given the lore behind why they have Paladins.
I mean… yeah?
As far as I’ve been able to find, the one and only source material cited to for this notion is a statement made by a Level Designer (Julian Morris) at BlizzCon 2015.
The closest thing you’ll find in-game, which alluded to an evolution, is the cinematic you’ve provided; but even then, it’s entirely possible that the change(s) Thalyssra mentions are entirely as a result of “centuries [passing], without moonlight, without sunlight” and not at all to do with the Nightwell.
The point being made, in any case, is that the distinctions between the Night Elves and Nightborne are predominantly the result of Blizzard emphasizing different cultural priorities when designing their playable caricatures. Even if we could agree for a moment that they were biologically distinct, where is that distinction found?
It’s certainly not discerned in their pigmentation.
I’m trying to follow this discussion but, what exactly are you arguing?
Highborne would have been cool. The Shen’dralar were already Alliance allies since Cataclysm (and no, Night Elf mages are not Shen’dralar, as the Chronicles state they are only training the mages).
But Blizzard decided to steal this theme from Alliance and give it to the Horde under a vastly more developed idea that became the Nightborne.
This is also an additional reason why many Alliance have been so pissed about the whole elf fiasco, because their theme and race was stolen, repurposed, and given to the Horde. The Highborne/Nightborne nonsense was like turning the Dark Irons into Horde, even though they were Alliance since Cata.
Yet Alliance gets gaslighted every time they ask for literally the same thing with High Elves. Talk about double standards.
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Why couldn’t High Elf paladins have been altered by the Sunwell? They have been making pilgrimages since WOTLK.
Thalyssra letting the Nightwell disappear because she realized how much harm it had done to her people was a great way to have her reconcile with Tyrande
But instead she becomes best buds with the Elves that still keep (and likely won’t ever abandon) their magical addiction well.
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That was a strange 180 in the Nightborne story, for sure.
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I definitely sympathize, though in fairness it looks like the Highborne ghosts that were in Azsuna are throwing their hat in with the Alliance.
Also in fairness, I think the Void Elves kinda steal a bit from Blood Elves by basically being the classic WC3 TFT Blood Elves, just with a stronger Void theme rather than fel and fire.
But yeah, I keep thinking bringing back the Highborne as an Alliance group is the best bet one can make for having something with very High Elven thematics without being another Blood Elf palette swap race. I think Blizzard is seriously going to put their foot down harder when it comes to letting factions play something resembling what the opposite faction has from this point onward.
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You make some very cogent points that I agree with. Highborne could very well still be a thing, in fact Talendrion’s mockups with Night Elf models and High Elf coloring would make a perfect Highborne.
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