Oh I don’t deny that by any means. Still, it’s splitting hairs as I stated. They were one Species or Race. Just the same, you could argue that The Nightborne, Sin’dorei, and all elves are also Kaldorei, but they aren’t. The Kaldorei or Night Elves, are the nature loving group. The Highborn are the “parent” species who delved high into arcane once they discovered the Well of Eternity and “evolved” from Dark Trolls. It wasn’t until Illidan and Malfurion were born that they delved into Druidism. Thus why it is believed that Malfurion is the first/oldest Druid “As we know them today”.
This isn’t to say some were not studying nature magic as you put it.
This is the issue with in-game classes vs Lore Classes. Druidism is more than just being able to walk the Emerald Dream. Not all druids (class) were able to do it but were still seen as druids. The Trolls come to mind. The Kultirans,(drust), Gulnians (Harvest Witches). They are all “druids” just like the Tauren ancestors were.
These other “druids” are no less what they are. The problem is one’s definition of Druid. Yes, the Kaldorei and more specifically Malfurion was the first to learn how to enter The Emerald Dream from Cenarius. Thus making him the first “modern druid”.
The argument with the Tauren Ancestors along with those of the Zan Trolls as well as later in the Darkspear, and the Human practitioners is yes, they used Nature magic. That is what Druids use, “Nature… Magic”. It may be tied to Life or however the cosmology plays it with new lore. They doesn’t make them any less druids.
While I’m not sure on Trolls and their interactions with Cenarius, The Tauren’s ancestors were his students before the Kaldorei were. That is Lore and hasn’t been changed or reconed.
The Highborne aren’t a parent biological species. The Kaldorei and originally the dark trolls are the parent species.
The Highborne were a social caste of Kaldorei now found today as the Kaldorei Shen’dralar, Sin’dorei, Quel’dorei, Ren’dorei, Naga, Satyr and Shal’dorei. The Shal’dorei, Naga, Satyr and Shen’dralar likely have atleast some of the original Highborne who were present 10000 years ago. The others are all biological descendants.
Just a nitpick though. Doesn’t really change the rest of your argument
the way elves are set up in WoW never made sense to me
Kaldorei means “Children of Stars” but are referred to as “Night Elves”
“Quel’dorei” means High-Children, Children of High???, but mean any number of groups
The idea that even though very few generations passed, that each group speaks a “different language” rather than varied dialects of the same language (Language develops over generational shifts, not because of time per se; if human beings lived thousands of years, our languages would’ve changed significantly less over the millennia)
etc
My humble offering for a more coherent elf set up
Everyone would speak Kalassian but would have varied dialects: Elunassian (low dialect) vs Quelassian (high dialect), and Sanian, Drisian, and Belorian regional variations of Quelassian, Valassian and Darnassian regional variations of Elunassian
It could simply be that since Shamanism is more tied to a connection to the Throne of the Elements, Shamanism is just too rooted on the Mortal Plane. It has no prominance in anywhere other than the Mortal Plane.
Shamanism in old lore was ALL ABOUT traversing the planes. WoW Shamans have the ability to become a spirit and have the Astral Recall/Shift/Projection abilities. Making contact with otherworldly entities, whether it was the dead of the Spirit World, elementals of the elemental planes or the Demons of the Twisted Nether is their thing. The OG warlocks were former Shamans after all.
Blizzard has been ignoring all that over the years and in Shadowlands, has forgotten Shamans even exist even though BFA has a Tauren spirit walker quest where a Shamanic ritual lets us go into the Shadowlands.
The greater cosmology has been increasingly catering to humans and elves as the center of all things. No room for Trolls, Tauren and Orcs and the like aside from being superstitious practioners of “low magic” with only a wrong-headed understanding of the big picture and pawns in their evil plots.
Because Blizzard doesn’t want the “Goddess of Life” or “Chosen of the Void” to be anything other than a human or elf looking character. Preferably Euro-coded.
The reason I did so was because in my headcanon the main “cultural divides” between the Belor’dorei and Elun’dorei are:
Sun/Belore worship vs Moon/Elune worship
Arcane-centrism vs Nature-centrism
Allowing for “dangerous magics” (e.g. experimentation of fel etc) vs forbidding dangerous magics
So of all of “Elfdom”, Elune’dorei and Belor’dorei are like 90% of the total Azerothian elf population, while the total sum of the rest (Naga, Suramar, Void, Undercity, Vampires, Worgen) are just 10% of the total Elf population
so the “important” juxtaposition would be between those two groups
It’s sad too because An’she was heavily foreshadowed via:
Blood Elf solar motif + Dathremar’s vision that led to Felo’melorn
Zandalari sun-motif everywhere + Rezan having the power of the sun
Mulgore Tauren An’she myth + the retelling of the Eyes of the Earthmother in the fairy tales book
Highmountain Tauren having a mountain peak named after An’she that is where the Hunter Order Hall is
The Blood Moon (solar effect on the moon) used by Bwonsamdi and Hakkar and Sethe and the Bleeding Hollow orcs (whose transmog enchantment effect is very solar themed oddly)
I’m typing this out so your translator will be more coherent than usual.
It is not worth the energy and time. Our attempts at analysis and feedback to try to help them are not being heard.
Perhaps the future will demonstrate my predictions are wrong. Perhaps they have recently begun to hear our endless concerns and criticisms.
But I do not expect this to be the truth.
They do not realize that their internal motto of “No negativity in the temple” was first said by Afrasiabi, that this phrase is actually part of the “toxic culture” at the company, that this phrase inherently frames all the players of this game as enemies to the developers of this game.
The story is bad.
The story has been driven into a hole they cannot escape from.
The story has totally destroyed the “suspension of disbelief” for many.
The story has ruined the favorite fantasies of the game, fantasies that are the way through which the player engages with the game itself.
And I firmly believe nobody within the team of developers has realized that the game itself is like pus from a rotting wound.
they litteraly started to make elune only a player of many…and framed her as idiot…i´m pretty sure we will see in the not so lang future an An’She and an Earthmother Story.
Elune will need the help of An’She/Brother or even the Earthmother/Mother…to bring this two into the story…mark my words. (So Elune has to share the stage)
I think it might be more constructive to start talking about the story devs as individuals or at least in terms of time periods.
I say this because by now there’s ample evidence that Warcraft has experienced “author wars” (Garrosh, perhaps most famously) and Danuser is himself very openly more interested in reinterpreting old lore than continuing with original versions.
So it would be less “they forgot what they wrote” and more “Danuser doesn’t want to go with what Metzen wrote”, etc.
To be technical: This is what happens when you don’t really have a planned out story. They kept tacking things on… and well…
Usually the usage would be: “Too on the nose.” Most will get the same meaning from face.
Which is weird since a creator of life across a cosmos shouldn’t have a form matching a single lifeform.
I’ve also seen that formed as “dojo”.
And I want to say here: That is a terrible Euro-centric interpretation of something from another language/religion.
Also like, this isn’t something normal people say even back in the day, like he invented a whole new personal “catchphrase”, “No negativity in the dojo”.
It’s almost like the precursor to “there is no war on ba sing se”
My recollection is that it springs from a bad word interpretation, where certain Buddhist concepts were contorted by Anglo-centric Christian translation. But all the background is not coming to mind, just the concepts.
With that bad translation, the general field of concept it purports is very much what an abusive person would latch onto and use improperly.
A great many self-centered and abusive westerners look for refuge in Eastern thought that does not actually provide it.
But they sure like to spout a phrase like it excuses something!
I find it ridiculous in the first place that they call their trash can office a dojo.
I know some Japanese people who would certainly find it offensive >.<
Truly a mark of modern day capitalist/office-space elitism.
