Blood Elves are Fel Elves, not High Elves.
Also, what’s your source on there being more Blood Elves than High Elves?
I guess you could say, they’re filling the Void.
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I’d want a citation for that. High Elves have made up a not insignificant part of Dalaran’s population, but I’ve never heard of any comparison of their numbers to those of the Blood Elves.
Yea the forsaken only joined the horde out of necessity, but over the years they grew with the horde identity and adopted it, even with Slyvanas out of the picture. It’s quite nice. They could easily have been a third faction, but there identity made the horde better imo, since it was all sorts of races that normally wouldn’t get along, some alien orcs from another planet, a minotaur species the horde helps out, some trolls that had been decimated population wise, the forsaken who were rejected by the alliance. The blood elves were a nice contrarion pick, and had ties to the forsaken through Slyvanas so it was a nice storytelling bit to trust a former leader that is now a zombie.
Goblins were a natural fit for horde, although ogres were said to be the first pick there, but I am glad we got goblins. Maghar are unique in that they are from a different dimension, but share original orc themes and ideals, Nightborne are a cool story of highborne cousins of blood elves that again got rejected by night elves and could relate more to blood elves, vulpera were just doing business with there zandalari friends new allies, and had reason to join the horde after the alliance attacked them. Highmountain are just moose minotaur which can relate to tauren. Pandaren like Chen helped make the horde.
We all got interesting races on the horde and each new race build on each other imo.
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There is none. The only “Source” on High Elf numbers no longer exists and has been retconned.
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Um… that’s like original blood elf lore. Arthas killed like 90% of the high elf population. The remaining 10 percent, 9% of them became blood elves. The other 1% maintained high elf titles. But any high elf could change there name and be a blood elf if they identify with the reason why they took the name and basically a Silvermoon loyalist. As it is a sign of respect for those that lost there lives to the attack Arthas made.
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Source please? You’ll find the citation for that no longer exists. It’s been retconned.
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Ah yes, a scattered population of high elves would definitely outnumber all of Quel’thalas. /s
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Not that numbers matter anyways. Until 8.2, the only Gnomes that existed came from Gnomeregan, and 80% of their race had been wiped out thanks to Thermaplugg. Now there’s an entire island of amputation-enthusiast Gnomes.
Darkspear Trolls were described as bordering on extinct when Thrall found them, which is BEFORE multiple wars and also Zalazane turning about half of their population into mind-controlled zombies.
Playable Pandaren literally came over to the Horde/Alliance in a single hot air balloon.
Numbers are meaningless. In-game presence is far more impactful, and as an Alliance player, I keep stumbling upon High Elves expansion after expansion.
I know you’ve voiced Quel’thalas belongs to BEs.
But in the scenario of BEs being Illidari its normally coupled w BEs being consigned to Outland, I’ve never heard that narrative presented any other way.
If Forsaken were not Horde, I’d say you’d have a valid point on BEs fitting w the Horde originally that is. But Forsaken being right on BEs doorstep and willing to lend a hand (even if Sylvanas wanted BEs to return the favor later) says a lot, the Alliance didn’t exactly save Gilneas who was also on the Forsakens door step, so the fact BEs had a bond w Forsaken who also wanted to help instead of fight (which would have been the course of action had they been Alliance or possibly Illidari) their placement Horde makes sense organically, past that they only make more sense Horde as time has gone on for points you commented on earlier.
I can’t say if you have or haven’t commented on this or not, but I would say I have seen you comment on BEs original fit Horde more than this and that is NEs placement Alliance. Arguably NEs like BEs fit their respective faction more so as time has gone on, but if imho no amount of gossip about “horde needed a pretty race” or dismissal of the story or anything else other people bring up solidified BEs being Horde more than the fact Alliance already had an Elf race in vanilla.
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Population
Surviving high elves comprise a mere 1% of the original high elven population, with the blood elves accounting for the remaining 9% of it.[2][11] Since Kael’thas took 15% of the blood elves to Outland[11] (i.e. 1.35% of the original high elf population), and since Kael’thas’ army numbered at least 2,000[50] it follows that the total high elf population is currently at least 1,481 (and at least ~148,000 prior to the Third War).
In relation to the playable races, Blizzard has stated that the high elves have a considerably smaller population than even the Gnomeregan Exiles.[51] High elves are a rare sight even in Alliance lands,[52] and are considered a fallen, all but extinct race.[53]
With the destruction of both Theramore and Quel’Lithien (along with the de-canonization of the RPG sourcebooks), the bulk of the remaining high elf population appears to be bound to the Kirin Tor’s Silver Covenant, Outland’s Allerian Stronghold, and Hinterlands’ Quel’Danil Lodge.
That is the poster who claims BEs are not the majority population, and they have never provided any sources to that end.
I believe another person was so taken back by the claim they even started a story forum thread asking about the issue. And no one there could understand where the source or claim would come from either.
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I could go more in depth, I suppose?
I never saw Blood Elves being consigned to Outland because they were Illidari as a thing. Rather, I always figured the Illidari would build a presence on Azeroth, because Outland was too prone to assault by the Burning Legion. Illidan could’ve been recovering from his battle with Arthas in Quel’Thalas while Kael’thas ran things. Vashj could’ve had a number of islands and other holdings across the planet. Admittedly the Broken had no presence on Azeroth, but I could see them establishing one easily enough.
So this one is on Blizzard and it’s kind of funny. The original lore was 90% of High elves were killed and of that 10%, 90% became Belves. Then 2,000 accompanied Kael to outland.
Chronicle changed that to 90% of Quel’thalas’s population was killed and the rest is the same.
Now we don’t really have a census for any race outside of the RP whose canon fluctuates when Blizzard needs it to. But accordingly, Silvermoon’s population prior to the Scourge was 148k so Blood Elves after the High elves leave and the 2k that went with Kael have roughly a population of 10 to 11k give or take. But Dalaran had a population between 7-12k as, but that number kept changing.
I think a better number would around 7k.
The RPG is no longer canon would be the problem with your figures, and population numbers are no doubt one of the reasons for that. I think in it, Stormwind’s High Elf population was like, twelve thousand.
Either way, there is no canon lore as to population numbers.
Well if you wana go logically-
Based on population data, there would realistically be about 5% of the total High Elf population living outside Quel’thalas, (The average based on real world metrics), and 90% of the High Elves were murdered by the Scourge. Leaving 5% to become Blood Elves, and then a fraction of that 5% going on to leave Kael and join the Horde.
Meanwhile those 5% living in Dalaran, Stormwind, etc. would still be High Elves.
Therefore… Yes. All of the High Elves living away from Quel’thalas would outnumber the few that survived the 3rd war and then joined the Horde.
True.
and I STILL wasn’t proven wrong!
As you’ll note, these links talk about the “encyclopedia”, which has been deleted and retconned as the Wiki itself states.
“The original article, formerly located at worldofwarcraft(dot)com/info/encyclopedia/index, did not survive the overhaul of the World of Warcraft Official Website.”
It was deleted for a reason.
Wiki nerds decided the Encyclopedia was the holy grail for information, while the RPG was ALWAYS dubious. Despite the fact the former has MANY things VERY wrong listed in it.
That was the original lore, as of blood elf release. The point being that most of the high elves chose to become blood elves. And the remaining population that still considered themselves high elves were 1%. Of that 1% many could later on rejoin the blood elves.
As we see with void elves some blood elves chose to go back to the alliance as void elves.
So blood elves outnumbered high elves when they joined the horde.
As for lore getting retconned that happens, but you can’t really say high elves outnumber blood elves. The darkspear had like a population of 1000 individuals, an almost extinct race and they were playable. And repopulated. That lore probably got retconned too if blizzard isn’t going to take rpg numbers into account due to math getting involved.
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The issue is that it’s not canon until it is, like they’ve stated that it’s not canon then pulls thing from it to add into WoW, Boralus for example.
It’s like the Star Wars EU, it’s not canon until it is.
But tbh, I’ve always hated the population argument for if a race can be playable because they go back and forth on it. Like High Elves can’t be playable because they’re numbers are too little but Void Elves who lore wise number in the dozens are.
It’s weird to me that they use it then contradict themselves.
I should state now that I’m not pro Helfer, just using it as an example.
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I prefer the way the story went in all honesty.
Sylvanas as our former ranger general even if she had her own selfish reasons for wanting BEs to owe her a favor more or less, still always harbored some love for Quel’thalas. We saw it when she said goodbye to loyalists she returned to her home in Quel’thalas, they coulda held the meeting at that same graveyard in Lordaeron we meet Calia w the NE DRs but they chose Quel’thalas. Seems to be reflected again among the Forsaken DRs / Velonaras dialogue in viewing Forsaken and BEs as their kin. I think that kind of bond w BEs is what made BEs fitting Horde organic.
What I will say is I applaud the Sunwell being restored, but I dislike how much of a role Draenei played, surely they could have written story without giving such an important story part to Velen.
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In other words, speculation.
The numbers of High Elves vs. Blood Elves can only be speculative, because Blizzard has never given us solid metrics on High Elf populations outside of Quel’Thalas. 90% of the Kingdom of Quel’Thalas was slaughtered by Arthas’ assault on Quel’Thalas. Only 10% of that population survived. That’s about as solid a number as we can get that is canon.
After that, things become murky. For example, Kael’thas returned to Quel’Thalas after its fall (and prior to Dalaran’s fall), with followers of his own. We have no idea how many High Elves left Dalaran with him. Because we don’t know that, let alone how many High Elves were in Dalaran at the time of Quel’Thalas’ fall, the numbers for Blood Elves and High Elves both become instantly meaningless.
After that we get snippets such as 10% of the survivors of Quel’Thalas refusing to drain mana from living creatures and getting exiled, Kael’thas’ army in Outland being about 2,000 strong (and most of that supposedly belonging to the Scryers who defected later), and even later still we have the Void Elves getting banished for studying the Void…
Logically? Its safe to say there are more Blood Elves than High Elves, and I think that is how Metzen had always intended it to be.
Numbers are meaningless though.
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