11/06/2018 12:43 PMPosted by Adelphie11/06/2018 12:33 PMPosted by SoftsongThey saw it as a corrupted practice, and looked down upon it because it made them look like "Vampires" are you to say that they don't want to look like vampires, but are okay with being void abominations? Yes, that makes total sense. Let's not tip-toe around the fringes of semantics here.
High elves have never made sense. They're hypocritical sacks of crap who betrayed their people over mana wyrms while they stole from the draenei to sate their addiction.
They made sense.
The practice of draining magic from a living being was tantamount to torture for said living being. It was seen as extremely unethical and cruel. There was also a dangerous component to this as we saw any elves who over-consumed on mana became Wretched.
This was the primary reason the elves exiled from Quel'Thalas rejected the teaching, and went back to being called High Elves. These elves, who relocated to Quel'Lithien Lodge in the Eastern Plaguelands, had actually been calling themselves Blood Elves for a time.
However, that is only one group of the larger collective that continues to be called, 'High Elves.' Other High Elves may or may not have felt the same about the mana draining technique, but I don't think we're every truly told that. What we're told is, by the time the Blood Elves became active in the world again, they were already in the Horde, and the High Elves were having none of that. They chose to remain loyal to their friends in the Alliance.
Many of the High Elves today are people who integrated into other societies long ago, societies that remained part of the Alliance, the most notable being Dalaran. Even some Blood Elves still feel that, such as the Sunreavers who still want to be part of Dalaran.
Of course, one of the greatest modern differences between High Elves and Blood Elves is their relationship to the Sunwell. Blood Elves actively tap into it's power to strengthen themselves, and this has become more pronounced with the advent of golden eyes in their society. High Elves, however, have not developed Golden Eyes, likely as a result of their continued habit of being passively sustained by the Sunwell, rather than tapping into it's power directly.
In short, Blood Elves are far more reliant upon the power of the Sunwell than the High Elves are. Were the Sunwell to be destroyed again, we would see very different reactions from the two populations.