I don’t really see having irreconcilable values as being distinct from a group being a divided people (though I do generally view these as things that can be overcome as well). They were (nominally at least) united for thousands of years before the divide happened. And we already seen a couple prior attempts to mend those breaches.
So Blood Elves are in part defined by their choice to drain mana as compared to the High Elves meditating or the Void Elves choosing to study the Void. But given they more or less resolved the draining bit in a short time as of now, I do place it as a smaller aspect of what defines them to me. As the Blood Elves have always been the main continuation of their kingdom to me. If anything, I think those decisions define the High Elves and Void Elves more than it does the Blood Elves for their rejection of the status quo, good or bad as I realize you think bad. As they both chose to risk/being exiled for those choices. But all that said, it is fair to say that Blood Elves have humbled themselves to an extent in what they’ve done to survive.
I guess I’m also in the camp that I accept the concept of dying off for preserving moral purity to some extent. So that doesn’t really bother me. But I’ve never really loved High Elves. First because they just seem like less interesting Blood Elves, they lack a lot of the unique flavor like Blood Knights as an example. And also I’ve had to see people whine about including them for over a decade. And third, I’ve generally always liked Night Elves more.
So I count Wrath by two pieces - In the Shadow of the Sun (like you said) highlights Sylvannas twisting Lor’themar’s army to commit to Northrend despite their issues. Which shows hey, they did end up putting people out to fight. And we see the Sunreavers involved at the very least. Cataclysm has their mustering The Reliquary and their involvement fighting at Zul’Aman. Even a couple in Ashenvale. And then, yeah, MOP which is in-game time is only some four odd years from Burning Crusade. So even if it was only to MOP, I don’t consider that time gap at all meaningful in repopulating their race that lost 90% and then whatever amount died later in Warcraft 3 or Burning Crusade in their heavy involvement.
To each their own, it just doesn’t sell it for me at least. Since ultimately I acknowledge this is a matter of taste. And yeah, nice to not have everything be a drawn out fight on topics.
See, the way I view it, when irreconcilable values emerge in groups, then the only thing that can keep groups together are if systems exist that both groups respect. But in the case of Quel’thalas, there aren’t any systems in place for that sort of thing. The Regent Lord has the power to exile and this is a power Lor’themar hasn’t shied away from using.
In the mean time, High Elves became more and more at home in the Alliance, marrying humans and not really in a rush to go back. Void Elves settled a new area where they could research to their hearts delight. The only reason the other two groups of Elves can return is because Lor’themar is currently allowing it.
Yeah, I think Blood Elves decision to drain mana, to use fel crystals as power sources, and to accept Horde aid when no other aid was being given are major differences. And I still see bitterness between High Elves and Blood Elves over whether the decisions of the past were correct, including the current one of being allied to the Horde.
For me personally, there are some moral virtues that I would be willing to die over, but I think that’s more of a personal choice and one I wouldn’t hold others to. As a general matter, if I’m viewing myself as a part of a larger culture that needs me to survive even though the negatives are people sucking mana out of animals to survive and allying with people who previously did us wrong, then I would reluctantly stick around for the community’s sake. I think choosing to stomach one’s pride and do things for the sake of everyone’s survival is far more difficult and therefore virtuous than the alternatives. I actually tend to think what the High Elves and Void Elves did was a lot easier.
But I agree with you. I think Blood Elves are a lot more interesting conceptually. I think High Elf fan support groups are insufferable. And I think Night Elves are way more interesting than either High Elves or Void Elves. Long ago and far way when Vanilla had just come out, my first character was a Night Elf Druid (which didn’t become my main but different story). I was an Alliance player from Vanilla to Early Wrath, when I made the switch to Horde. I have some Alliance alts, but I agree more with the Horde perspective.
That’s fair. I think the key issue here is we don’t actually know exactly how many elves died in the Third War. We just know it was 90%. I tend to interpret Quel’thalas as having a rather large population before the Scourge Invasion, so big that they still have decent numbers of people left afterwards. I see the 90% figure more so carrying with it an emotional toll that is impossible to forget.
Likewise, I’m happy we could have a civil conversation.
I think compromising moral principles is generally easier than sticking to them. Because generally the compromise comes with a reward. Relief from addiction, survival, in some cases social acceptance. Usually you’re doing it for a tangible benefit. The High Elves not only didn’t get those benefits, they actually faced the punishment of exile for sticking to those morals.
I don’t think either has a high ground though because they’re just valuing different things. Survival versus specific morals. Neither is more right or wrong imo. Just whatever someone’s hierarchy of values is.
But I also don’t think they do a good job of presenting draining as worth fighting over either. That the presentation could be improved.
Void Elves I’m mixed, but similarly I don’t think there’s enough information shown for me to do a good evaluation. But generally the Void doesn’t seem more helpful than other magic, so it seemed unnecessary.
The numbers of Warcraft itself are just a related pet peeve for me when it comes to scale. I’d have MUCH preferred they didn’t even say 90%. They could have just said ‘most’ or something. Like there’s just a lot of other related social oddities I think that would occur from that large of a loss. Like a weird emphasis on having more / protecting children at all costs, or that like large swatches of jobs would be left undone.
Thinking about it, I actually think Dragonflight does all these aspects better when it comes to showing Dragons as in plight. I feel like I get a better sense of their age and desperation regarding numbers. Just as a general note.
I think it depends on what you’re compromising your moral principles for. If you’re compromising your moral principles to live in a fallout situation where 90% of your population died, everyone is dealing with deadly withdrawal from mana addiction, and you’re still being attacked by the Scourge army, Amani Trolls, and sabotaging Night Elves, then I think compromising moral principles on mana sucking and rivalries to former enemies is the better route.
The super easy thing about the High Elf approach is that they keep their pride, their bigotries to races they hate, don’t have to lift a finger to help Quel’thalas, and they can just criticize their former home after the fact for doing what it took to survive. Comparitively, High Elves also got to stay in their comfy Dalaran or Stormwind city environments or their scenic lodges like Quel’Danil in Hinterlands or Farstrider Lodge in Loch Modan. The only High Elves that really struggled were those of Quel’Lithien Lodge that actually were exiles from Quel’thalas, who were actually struggling with mana addiction. And even then, they don’t have to worry about sacrificing their moral principles, the burdens of their home, or the struggles of accepting aid from heated enemies.
It is a principle thing, and I just really think Blood Elves took the tougher route.
Perhaps the presentation in TBC Eversong and Ghostlands could have been better done. But I’ve always found the abundance of wretched and the constant mention of needing to control their addictions got the job done.
Yeah, for the Void Elves, it feels quite tacted on. I do think I can judge based off the story that is there though.
I understand preference, but personally I’d still prefer the 90% figure over simply saying “most.” I’d love it if we got more detail in addition to the 90% figure. I think what the 90% figure is meant to do is show how massive in scale it was and how that large of a population would leave an emotional toll on a culture.
For Dragonflight, I thought we saw the emotional toll of individual dracthyr finding out their friends didn’t make it, but it didn’t seem like this was given much focus. I think more focus was given to the weird stance they were in where they tried to figure out who they were without Neltharion.
I guess I’d rather live with my people in my homeland coping than going cold turkey in some lodge because I don’t want to take the mana from some worm. So one certainly seems more rewarding to me.
I more-so meant the dragons themselves. Like the questline with Veritistrasz, all the different stuff with protecting eggs, securing the Ruby Shrine and ensuring the egg survival. I think these touch on agelessness and their desperation in ways that don’t get expressed as well elsewhere.
I think one of our areas of disagreement too might also be in that I don’t think High Elves except for those at Quel’Lithien Lodge really faced the same magical addiction problems like that of the Blood Elves. Most Blood Elves were living in Quel’thalas right before the invasion, whereas Quel’Danil and Farstrider Lodge in Loch Modan had already weaned themselves off of magic before the invasion. Dalaran High Elves also had a more steady supply of mana reserves.
We also see those High Elves in Vanilla after WC3 events have already happened and those High Elves don’t have any magical addiction problems (despite WC3 bringing up this very topic right before WoW launched).
As for the dragons, ah. Okay, yeah. I see what you mean. That would’ve been nicer. But yeah, I guess that’s all I can say. It would have been nicer but I’m still satisfied with what we got.
This entire argument predicated on ‘well horde heroes helped save Bel’ameth and Gilneas’ os so stupid because the Alliance has saved Silvermoon canonically like twice already yet ally players didn’t have access to it
Velen has probably done more for Thalassian elves (elves tied to the Sunwell, any of them) than the Horde ever did, yet Ally players don’t have access to the city
What about Orgrimmar? Suramar? Thunder Totem? Etc
This entire thing is pointless, they should’ve just removed faction limitations by now and let the champions of Azeroth go wherever they please. Period.
Doing this endless one upping between the factions which didn’t even start on equal footing is pointless. The Horde gets no content made for them, even in ‘neutral’ xpacs like TBC or Wrath, they just turn an Alliance city neutral for the use of Horde players
Hell belves were basically an ‘Alliance’ race they gave to Horde, so are forsaken, they were both in the Alliance during WC2
So, this does suggest they have a magical addiction, but we know several things that give greater context. We know the High Elves here are in Allerian Stronghold, which was built back when Alleria and Turalyon traveled to Outlands in the Second War. We also know that they can’t siphon energy off of the Sunwell from all the way in Outlands. We also know that Scryers had already passed through this area and settled in the nearby Shattrath City.
This all suggests that the High Elves had been dealing with magical addiction problems for a lot longer most likely, given when the Stronghold was built. And probably have recently learned about what befell Quel’thalas and what their prince decided to do.
Most elves have magical addiction, period. The nightborne and highborne do too
There were also high elves that did not want to go along with the fel magic and were exiled for that, to that lodge south of the Ghostlands
Though idk how that works anymore with the retcon about most of the population not knowing about the fel usage and Mu’ru
Regardless; I don’t think you can actively put blame on the high elves for not choosing the blood elf identity if it came with all that. Or just in general
You don’t mourn forever. The issue is that the story for the blood elves joining the horde is extremely lazy and people are too invested in their horde belves so they want to justify it
Ain’t no way that the average high elf who lost family to both the horde in wc2 and the forsaken (who join the horde but we’re scourge) in wc3 would have no feelings about such things and get along with the new faction without any resentment or straight up ptsd.
Using Kael’thas and Garithos as the excuse for joining the horde is even dumber when you add the fact that Kael’thas was willing to sell his people out for fel crack to the red demon man who was responsible for their downfall and Velen instead restored their Sunwell.
At this point they should just make all thalassian elves the same race and give them the pandaren, dracthyr or earthen treatment
Though the number of High Elves that were in Quel’thalas after the Scourge Invasion is exceedingly small. The only canonical record of such elves is Quel’Lithien lodge in Eastern Plaguelands.
I can blame High Elves for choosing meaningless moral high grounds on mana tapping and bigoted pride against past enemies over supporting their homeland. The Blood Elves weren’t forcing anyone to mana tap. They gave that tool to the populace and encouraged the populace to do whatever it took to keep their addictions in check. If someone didn’t mana tap, that was okay as long as they controlled their addictions.
The High Elves of Quel’Lithien Lodge made such a stink about this, trying to spread frankly misinformation. The society was going through a mass public health crisis with deadly withdrawal symptoms and they were out there telling people it was better to go cold turkey than to mana tap. You know what happened to elves that tried to go cold turkey? They relapsed, overdosed, and turned into Wretched.
So, yes, I do place blame on people spreading misinformation that frankly put more strain on a civilization on the verge of collapse.
The truth is just the opposite for Blood Elves. This is a race that lives for thousands of years that just lost 90% of its population. That will have a massive emotional toll that will last generations. It’s a change that will effect the future of that society in a similar sort of way as the Burning of the Library of Alexandra set human technology advancement hundreds of years back.
The issue with Blood Elves is that there’s a lot of Alliance players that have held onto a vengeful grudge against Blizzard for not making playable High Elves and have never taken the time to actually reflect on it. Most High Elf fans are very familiar with WC2 because they played it as kids and they remember the High Elves being part of the Alliance. They developed ideas in their head about how Humans and High Elves were “brothers in arms” with a deep friendship. But the truth wasn’t that even in WC2. Quel’thalas left the Alliance after the Second War angry over losses suffered.
As kids, High Elf fans didn’t think anything of that. And when WC3 came around, they further ignored the signs on the wall when during a time of dire need the leader of Quel’thalas and his troops were imprisoned and sentenced to execution under stupid charges. But no, High Elves Fans are a persistent bunch and they’re too invested to let that get in the way of their little fairy tale. They’ll repeatedly say “but it was just Garithos!” and ignore that all the men under him and all the humans and elves of Dalaran stood by and did nothing.
But that’s not all. They also seemingly ignored the story of WoW Vanilla. The Alliance was fighting three battlefronts in between its base of operations in Stormwind and Quel’thalas. There was the battlefront in Arathi Highlands, the battlefront in Alterac Valley, and the battlefront against the Scourge in Western and Eastern Plaguelands. Not to mention the Forsaken of Lordaeron were waaaay closer to Quel’thalas with a leader who was once part of Quel’thalas and motivated to help. Still though, High Elf Fans insist these weren’t obstacles and push for stupid private servers where a bunch of civilians somehow manage to travel from Quel’thalas through all three battlefronts in wagons down to Farstrider Lodge. Or oh wait, no they’ll push for a stupid private server’s update where the High Elves find a little strip of land tucked right by the Scourge invested Eastern Plaguelands and right by the coast of Tirisfal Glades where the Forsaken live. But don’t worry… it’s not like Sylvanas would make that location completely infeasible.
And you call Blood Elf lore lazy? What is that High Elf lore you all got? Because that’s the furthest thing from thorough writing I’ve ever seen. You all just ignore every practical consideration. Government of Quel’thalas always put themselves at arms length? Not a problem. Garithos and the rest of the Alliance following him? Not a problem. The geopolitics not making any sense? Not a problem. And when TBC comes around and the only one capable of offering aid are the Forsaken since they’re again so close? Not a problem, the elves will just fight back against the aid, letting bigotry render them incapable of understanding the Forsaken aren’t the Scourge.
How about you take your lazy writing and try to sell a book to someone who isn’t already invested in your uninspired fanfiction?
This is the thing that you somehow don’t understand. Yes. The answer to your question is yes. Yes, Blood Elves did experience resentment, and PTSD. But what your High Elf/Alliance perspective renders you unable to understand is that sometimes people have to just deal with it. It’s survival. You let all that meaningless bs cloud your head, you fail to work through it, then you’re toast. And High Elf supporters may like that kind of story, but a lot of people love the Blood Elf story because it’s a beautiful message about how when people are really motivated to they can overcome their lesser instincts.
The problem with your High Elf perspective is like much of the Alliance you dress up prejudice to such a degree it actual becomes “noble.” It’s disgusting and if you saw someone else in real life doing that, dressing up prejudice into something that sounds positive, then I would hope you have the decency to call it out.
See, I didn’t even get to this point and I already predicted what you were going to say earlier. You High Elf fans are so painfully predictable. Just as you all will say that the Horde cannot hide behind its leaders, you all cannot hide behind Garithos. All the humans under his command. All the humans and elves in Dalaran that saw what he was doing and did nothing. All of that created distrust that was only added to the fact that the Alliance didn’t come to the Blood Elves’ aid.
But you’ll counter, but the Alliance couldn’t, they were preoccupied. Correct. Sometimes when you leave a friendship on bad terms, circumstances prevent you from saying you’re sorry. Sometimes circumstances make people wish things had played out differently. That’s what happened with the Blood Elves.
As for Kael’Thas, he didn’t betray them until long after the Blood Elves left the Alliance. And it wasn’t like Kael’Thas’ actions somehow freed the Alliance of its mistakes. Velen saved the Blood Elves. He had the wisdom to help. But it was too late for the Blood Elves to leave. They were allied to their deceased Ranger General and they couldn’t leave the Horde because she was still helping them reclaim Ghostlands after TBC. This is mentioned in the short novel In the Shadow of the Sun.
And oh would you look at that. Alliance finally got their shot to win the Blood Elves back when Garrosh was in power after Wrath. But Wopsy Daisy, idiot Jaina and Veressa took that golden opportunity and suffocated it with the Purge of Dalaran. For all Varian’s faults, he knew how to play the game of war and you would’ve had Quel’thalas but for Jaina and Vereesa.
You then got an opportunity perhaps to win Quel’thalas back after Sylvanas’ leadership but you never pressed your advantage.
How about you just accept it? Blizzard has had chances to give you your High Elves again and again. It always falls apart. What’s different this time? Can you honestly say Blizzard is different? They had an opportunity to give you all complete access to Silvermoon and said “No.” They could have given you High Elves this expansion because it’s the uniting of Elves and said “No.” Much like BFA when they had the opportunity to give you a new allied race High Elves, and said “No.” But go on pull that magic conch string. Maybe this time it’ll say yes. What’s the harm in waiting?
No, the exile was because they refused to mana tap.
Also mana tapping has the same risk as it is ultimately unsatisfying. Which is what lead Kael’thas to turn to fel magic and lose himself. Weaning off an addiction is important in real life to avoid certain withdrawal symptoms. But having just a little bit can also cause a relapse unless you are eventually able to stop at some point. Their plan was to just keep feeding the addiction.
It is funny that the guy who keeps accusing others of not knowing Blood Elf lore apparently missed such a core detail.
It is explicitly stated the Lor’themar exiled elves that opposed the mana tapping because he could not lead a divided nation. But, somehow that is not forcing…
Possibly. But, I don’t think so. The High Elves that split from the Night Elves after the Well was destroyed certainly were. And they kept that addiction, only having it be fueled by the Sunwell. The story Blizzard has told around Kaldorei that stayed seems to indicate that they found the cure for the addiction in druidism. And the story of the Nightborne seems to indicate that as well. So, I think the way Blizzard is telling it, Night Elves and Nightborne have both found a cure. (Though it will take time for the Nightborne to cure their entire population.)
You’re making a lot of inferences here about what I actually want:
I see no reason a void elf couldn’t be in the Horde (they just don’t need to get close to the Sunwell). I see no reason a high elf who lost people to the orcs (their troll allies) or the undead would be disgusted and want to leave the kingdom when Lor’themar threw in his lot with the Horde.
According to you the elves somehow will mourn forever BUT ALSO God forbid they actually don’t want to be in the same faction as the people who almost burn down their entire kingdom (twice)
You’re also unhealthily passionate about the high elves who were ‘spreading misinformation’ and were exiled when they were just saying what was going on (or were they not saying and leaving for exactly what the belves were doing?). You’re also unhealthily passionate about flags.
I think you should have a lot more smoke for Lor’themar, who revealed the secrets that kept up the magical barrier that protected Quel’thalas to his friend Dar’khan Drathir. Go be upset at him instead of me or the color teal.
I don’t believe the high elves and the humans were brothers in arms or anything, I don’t like humans…they’re boring. However you are being very irrational to think that most high elves would want to join up within the Horde. It’s just a lazy story. Same way the night elves randomly attacking them (which we never got their motivation for) is lazy storytelling.
It’s not that deep. Take a breather. There’s no blood elf erasure going on, and if there was, this is a video game, we’re not talking about an entire culture being erased IRL.
If I were you, I would try to make my peace with it because Arator (a half high elf with no ties to the horde at that) was living in Silvermoon before the xpac even opened. It is extremely likely this ‘unification of the elven tribes’ were being sold on means that all Thalassian elves will be living fully integrated in Silvermoon by the end of the xpac.
Also and PS. It was more than just Garithos, yes, it was the men under him etc. But those same pple are fine embracing the high elves and the dwarves didn’t leave the Alliance because of Garithos either.
Again, making Kael the catalyst for severing ties with the Alliance irreparably then having him sell out his people for fel crack to the man responsible for the creation of the lich king is extremely stupid. I don’t care if it was 5 years, he should’ve been less of an addict then.
Kael would be seen as yet another betrayer of their people in Silvermoon. And so would Lor’themar if people knew that he told Dar’khan the secrets to the kingdom’s defenses.
But okay, they joined the Horde. So what’s the lore after that? Do the Horde help the elves restore the Sunwell? No that was Velen.
Instead Sylvanas twists Lor’themar’s arm and many elves lose their lives in Northrend. Then Garrosh had some elves sneak a weapon of mass destruction through a neutral city and the civilians paid the price for it.
Blizzard explicitly told us the reason Blood Elves joined the Horde. And it was not Garithos. They wanted help reaching Outland because Kael’thas promised a solution there. Horde promised to help them, Alliance wouldn’t promise to help.
Yes, it is lazy. Yes, it was just a slapped on ‘how do we get Elves in the Horde’ kind of story. But that is the official reason.
Garithos is something players latched onto with meta knowledge. Not something established in game. The game doesn’t even establish that the events with Garithos were communicated to the Elves of Silvermoon before they joined the Horde.
There might be something else going on. He went on several rants trying to insult me as a Gnome, talking like I was actually a Gnome. I hope it was just him thinking he was clever. But, it feels like he thinks of game avatars as actual identity. He might see Blood Elf as a part of his actual identity.