I would agree but even Tyrande is borderline schizo about them. In WC3 she’s basically sacrificing herself for Kael’s people and then in WoW she’s trash talking them to the Alliance and sending spies and thugs to kill people in the woods. Lorash himself is very weird too since he seems to have been created to give the Blood Elves a personal gripe with the Night Elves.
11 Likes
i never understood what the hell was even going on there.
in wc3 we got really good interactions between tyrande and kaelthas. like really that diplomacy was top tier.
And then we got random nelfs invading belfs lands for some reason.
like… da hell?
12 Likes
The Blood Elves never even figure out what the goals of the Night Elves were in spying on them. The Blood Elf starting experience was as half baked as the rest of the Burning Crusade content, unfortunately.
1 Like
You keep referencing this as though it shows that none of that happened. Blizzard forgets things all the time, and the writer even says that he did remember them, just too late to get it into the story. If anything that suggests that if he had just remembered earlier, it would have actually been part of the given reasoning.
They would attack and kill the Blood Elves on sight, in their own lands, so I’m not sure it matters what exactly they wanted.
Not that none of it happened, but rather that it was probably not particularly important if it wasn’t memorable to anyone at Blizzard who was responsible for approving the manuscripts.
It only doesn’t matter if the Blood Elves didn’t give it any more thought, which just adds to it over all not sounding very important to the Blood Elves’ story.
The blood elves had already signed on with Illidan by the time we got to BC, which also allied them with the naga. They were actively draining power from big Fel crystals with eyes in them, staring and watching. It stands to reason that the Alliance would want an eye kept on them, the night elves especially, but the instant animosity was a bit out of left field… like much of BC.
It’s never even made clear if the night elves were the ones who sabotaged the sanctum you find the initial spy in, IIRC, nor indication that there was any interaction or diplomacy after WC3. As far as the nelves knew, the belves allied with one of their most powerful and dangerous people, along with their ancient enemies, stopped talking to them, started messing with Fel, and then the group that went to check out what the heck was going on was all killed.
Then they join the Horde.
Seems more like this is defanging the Blood Elves as opposed in tossing the night elves under the bus, at least if the blurb about the belves and nelves is an actual thing. It would make them seem more like victims, rather than the ruthless pragmatists and survivors we saw them as initially.
5 Likes
I always speculated that the Night Elves in Quel’Thalas was a follow up to this quest from Classic:
- Foolish blood elves toil with demonic magic. Have they not witnessed what happened with the naga and with the satyrs of Kalimdor?
I fear that the blood elves will meet a similar deformation. Azeroth cannot afford to give birth to another vile race of monsters.
I wish to study the brain stems of the satyr and naga so that I might deduce what fate the elves are headed toward. In Blackfathom Deeps, on the coast of Ashenvale, you will find both satyr and naga.
Once I have enough samples to study, my true work can begin. With the corrupted brain stems of both the satyr and naga of Blackfathom Deeps I can try to draw a correlation between the mutations.
Perhaps with that gained knowledge we can prevent the blood elves from delving deeper into deformity and evil.
But as I said, there’s no actual canon explanation of what the Night Elves were trying to achieve by sending their troops to Quel’Thalas. It was just never given that much thought.
Like I said, Blizzard forgets things often. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t important, and again, the writer said that if he had remembered it before the story was locked, he would have written it in.
That makes no sense. First off, we don’t need to know exactly what the Blood Elves thought of it other than that they clearly didn’t want the Night Elves there and felt justified to respond with military force. Second, you’re just outright wrong.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Investigate_An%27daroth
It is very important that we find out what the night elves are up to, . Please concentrate your efforts towards that end.
Disappointing that the night elves’ plans were not readily apparent at An’daroth. However, those objects that looked like small magically-grown trees with powered orbs atop them sound interesting. It would appear that we’ll need to be more direct in our information gathering efforts.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Into_Occupied_Territory
Description
Now, the more direct course of action that we are going to take, to figure out what these night elves are really up to, is to have you go to their island and steal any information that you can come by.I want you to head west down the road out of town to Shalandis Isle, just off the coast. Go there and recover any plans they might have on the island or on their ship.
Progress
How fare our efforts to uncover the night elf plot on Shalandis Isle, ?Completion
Troubling! These plans show the night elf forces at An’daroth, which we already knew, but also at An’owyn, a more remote ley-line nexus to the southeast.There is a third nexus to the east, which is not mentioned, named An’telas. I have a very bad feeling about all of this, .
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Deactivate_An%27owyn
That’s a relief, ! I can assure you that if you hadn’t deactivated those scrying orbs we would be in a more tenuous position than the one we’re already in! To think, surrounded by enemies, and one of them able to spy upon our every move!
So yes, obviously the Blood Elves were interested in finding out what the Night Elves were up to, and in stopping it.
It’s the first interaction the player has with the Alliance, is a storyline that spans two zones, and in the second they created like four bases for the Night Elves. If it was like the one spy NPC, you might then claim that it wasn’t given much thought, but clearly they weren’t just haphazardly thrown in.
1 Like
No he didn’t.
Good citations. However, you also prove my point that the starting experience was half baked in that even with all those quests the Blood Elves never figure out why the Night Elves were there.
He posted a gif of Neil Patrick Harris shooting himself in reference how he felt after remembering those quests after the manuscripts were locked, so I feel very confident in saying that he regrets not being able to write it in.
But… They do? They literally steal the Night Elves’ own plans.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Night_Elf_Plans:_Scrying_on_the_Sin%27dorei
Night Elf Plans: Scrying on the Sin’dorei
“These plans talk of using the high elf moon crystals to scry upon the blood elves!”
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Deliver_the_Plans_to_An%27telas
You must deliver the recovered night elf plans to An’telas for me. It is to the east, on the southern slopes of Sungraze Peak, just to the northeast of the Sanctum of the Sun.
Magister Sylastor is there conducting ongoing studies into the ley-line nexus energy for potential use in our fight against the Scourge. Have him look at these plans to shed some light on what it is that these night elves are up to.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Deactivate_An%27owyn
Their moon crystals are scrying devices—they’re going to spy on us!
1 Like
I am confident that he regrets making a lore mistake. I would not say what he would have written alternatively nor what Blizzard would have approved.
Let me pull back to your first response to me here:
So, yes, the Night Elves were spying. Good job proving exactly what I said and not proving anything else.
And yet, here we are.
3 Likes
To be fair, we haven’t seen the Felblood Elves since Burning Crusade. I had at least hoped they would have shown up as trash mobs before the Kil’jaeden fight at the end of the Tomb of Sargeras.
1 Like
To be fair, we don’t really need to. The basic breed is monstrous enough.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sin%27dorei_Vanguard
While those guys are horrible, yes, Malfurion does at least still think better of the Blood Elves over all, as he said about Lorash in A Good War:
- “Then I am glad most of your kind is not as lost as you.”
2 Likes
If he had known and still wouldn’t have written it into the story, it’s not a mistake. He clearly regrets not being able to write it in. You don’t post an image that suggests you felt like shooting yourself because you forgot something that wasn’t relevant to what you were doing and which you wouldn’t have used anyway.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if he had remembered in time, he probably would have made that Night Elf incursion the relevant motivation of Lorash, rather than a thousands-years-old grudge.
They know the Night Elves are spying, they know they have tactical plans regarding the buildup of locations in Quel’Thalas, and they know the Night Elves are actively hostile. Do they seriously need to know the overarching goals of the Night Elf leadership in sending the expedition to begin with? If we take such a standard, that of the quests not uncovering your enemy’s ideological or strategic motivation in doing what they’re doing, and use it as evidence saying that the writers half-baked the content and didn’t care about it, the same is true of the vast majority of content in the game. Like, we didn’t know exactly what Arthas wanted or why he was doing what he was doing until Chronicles, can you seriously say that the writers didn’t think he was important?
And, you said that it doesn’t matter if the Blood Elves didn’t give it more thought. Obviously they gave it a lot of thought, given that every single quest in the chain questions what they’re doing there. The point is their objective, spying, combined with their obvious hostility, means that whatever their larger goals are, they clearly still need to be stopped.
I mean, that’s just who Mal is. He tries to find the good in everyone, and potentially appeal to it. He tried it with Lorash. He tried it with Saurfang. He tried it with Illidan. He’ll probably try it with the Void Lords when they pop up.
1 Like
Unless it’s Leyara.
3 Likes
Sounds like headcanon. Of the real world. Impressive.
Hey, if you want to speak for other people you don’t personally know, go for it. I find no value in it.
You provided that answer yourself:
Guess not important enough to have any further followup than there was. Which obviously is my point.
I mean, definitely the majority of Burning Crusade’s content. That’s why we needed the Illidan book to fill in the gaps and give Burning Crusade an actual story.
Also, we’re still waiting to see if anyone actually posts what this supposed hunting of Blood Elves line even is, if there even is one. As you yourself asked for it, but we still haven’t gotten a response yet:
Sounds like projection of your own position, given your idea of it makes no sense whatsoever.
And they found out what they were up to. The goal was achieved. You’re not making a point, here.
BC had a story. Multiple stories, really. The purpose of Illidan was to recontextualize Illidan’s story, specifically.
That’s not relevant to the quoted section you were responding to, but yes, I’m sure we’d all like to know what that was referring to. But if it doesn’t exist or is talking about something else, that doesn’t change what happened in BC.