So I like the idea that for all the glitz and glamor of scenic Silvermoon there’s a slum district full of crime and poverty where the wealthy get their magic drugs and hired cutthroats from.
But I’m wondering what exactly caused this.
Like did magic automation wipe out all the mundane jobs so you’re just kinda screwed if you’re not wizard material? Is Sunstrider Isle difficult to get into if you don’t qualify for a cadet loan or scholarship?
Like according to Jaren they’re in poverty because Sunfury Spire turns a blind eye to it’s plight. But what exactly is the plight?
I don’t actually expect there to be an answer. But it’s interesting to speculate about.
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Supposedly before the loss of the original Sunwell Quel’Thalas was a high class utopia of nobles hanging out with nobles, given that’s what the Highborne they descended from all were. But some possibilities are that some Blood Elves’ means were made easy or possible at all because of the Sunwell, and when Kael’thas had to blow it up so, too, went their financial foundations, or perhaps some trade secrets were lost during all the deaths over the years that made businesses shutdown completely without them.
As for why things haven’t improved there since the reignition of the Sunwell (before its new collapse now), well, how else would the still nobles up on the terraces above Murder Row feel superior without people to literally look down on?
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Maybe it’s a consequence of the Scourge wiping out so much that lower skilled elves who survived were just displaced.
They could also be the victims of hard choices that the leadership had to make when the civilization and people were on the line.
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I think the obviously correct answer is “Blizzard hasn’t really thought about it,” but we can still play around with ideas.
One that I’ve read is the idea that a lot of the row residents are former wretched who have physically recovered but still bear the stigma.
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The way I see it, the idea of living in or being from the Row gives blood elf rpers an option for a dark, brooding backstory.
Or at least one besides “I lost everything to the Scourge”, because they ALL kind of have that backstory.
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Here is the thing about high society utopias, someone has to clean the toilets and sweep the streets so an underclass will always always immerge. Could be worse, quel’thalas could go the way of rapture and be ruined by eternal civil war.
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Being used by the nobles.
People from the row disappear and nothing is done. There’s a comment that finding the body of someone from the row will result in the body being tossed, but the noble’s body would be treated better.
A noble outright knows who is kidnapping (and killing) people from the row and is involved in all that fel smuggling the Illidari are worried about, but she doesn’t do anything about it until the guy starts making moves against her. She’s delighted the row was involved because that means the guy she hires to kill people for her will do this job on the cheap because he cares about the people in the row.
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But the brooms sweep the streets themselves. And while I haven’t seen a magical plunger yet, I do assume it’s within their abilities.
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While I don’t know, I can surmise that like real life… Every city has it’s own version of Murder Row. Essentially a “Red Light” type district/area. In Silvermoon, it’s an area where you can get “things” discreetly, such as Fel Magic infused items, that would otherwise draw the attention of authorities.
There are residents there who feel they’ve been “swept under the proverbial carpet” by the more powerful residents/nobles. This is brought up in one of the quest lines in Sivermoon. (sorry… No spoilers)
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Silvermoon has a social hierarchy with those at the bottom having less value than those above. Its not a democracy.
I do love how they have Forsaken posters around there. Which I assume in canon has to be for Blightboar.
Murder Row was around before the Scourge was a thing, and Jaren even comments about this saying that Murder Row was abandoned and left to the Scourge when the city was attacked.
Yup. For all of the glitz and glamor that Silvermoon has, there’s a seedy underbelly that feeds off of the backstabbing nature of the Magisters/Silvermoon nobility.
Murder Row has literal drug dens and most likely those drug dens serve as informal or unspoken brothels for those wanting to pay for such services. We also learn that Murder Row is being run by powerful gangs/patrons that control gangs.
There are even random dead bodies tucked away in the corners of Murder Row along with boarded up homes/businesses.
Something to remember is that sin’dorei (and for that matter, shal’dorei) society is comprised of an entire populace with claims to Highborne lineage. And as we saw in Suramar, even from their aloof position “above” the rest of the kaldorei, their portion of the city developed its own slums and backalley cultures of criminal, disgraced and unwanted elements who, despite being the “lowest” of the Nightborne, could technically claim noble heritage. The sort of place where dispossessed individuals trying to survive, unsavory agents seeking to avoid scrutiny of their activities and even scions of fallen families that have been ostracized and cast out of polite society probably end up.
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According to Brightwing’s dungeon weekly, he and Theron argue frequently as to whether Murder Row should exist at all, and that blind eye is their compromise.
I’d like to think it’s a little bit of everything mentioned here. A holdover from the dark times, filled with elves unbalanced by their magic addiction or embittered by their baseline racial trauma, unable to break bad habits or aspire to more than bottom-feeding. Touching on what Raselle said, the backstory of a Reliquary digger in DF is that he belonged to the nobility but lost his estate to the Scourge; I’d think no few denizens of the Row have similar stories.
Hearthstone was ahead of the curve on this: it did a whole expansion post-TBC and had a little subplot about reformed, but reviled Wretched who skulk its shadows. Incidentally its Astalor Bloodsworn card was a menace for the good year I played… Truly prophetic.
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I just find it odd because I’m from fair Chicago and she has districts where you can find illicit substances.
That don’t have the Boyz n the Hood saxophones roaring. But then you have the really bad regions and it takes a historical lecture to explain how things got just this screwed.
So I get a nice and orderly red light district. No street crime there. Mafias make sure of that but hey run a clean experience. And you get to the gang run areas and wonder why houses in the greeter area sell for so much.
But the point is there’s a historical explanation for all this. What’s Silvermoon’s?
We don’t know because Blizzard hasn’t come up with a reason outside of the tidbit that Murder Row existed since before the events of WC3.
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I’m pretty sure if anyone at Blizzard HQ spoke up in a meeting and asked “But have we considered how the economy of this region works?” They’d be fired on the spot.
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Tbf very few fictional universes do. But Warcraft has the distinct advantage of having an actual economy to cheat off. Like idk how true this is but I’ve read WoW’s been studied by actual economists because apparently it’s a fascinating case study on the nature of inflation.
So they could just build off that.
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lets be honest theyre owned by microsoft,
theyd be fired anyway
prolyl cause AI
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Every city has a “bad part of town”. Silvermoon is a pretty elf city yes but they’re still a society that deals in gold. Not everyone is gonna have it. Poverty exists in every society so it makes perfect sense for Silvermoon to have one as well. Boralus has one, the slums right behind the docks. Zuldazar has one also down at the harbor. Every in game city should have a “less desirable” area. It’s more realistic.