i expected night elves to be more like how tolkein describes Elrond and other elves

[Mace]

no, arrogance is not a typical Eldar attitude, never was.

Tyrande is poorly written,

[Frontenac]

no, arrogance is not a typical Eldar attitude, never was.

Oh no? Ever heard of the Oath of Fëanor ?

"They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not... ...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, who so should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession."

If that's not arrogance, I wonder what it is. Thinking you could keep the Valar from taking the Silmarils. Much of the Silmarillion is about the effects of the Noldor's arrogance. You can add the Sindar too, with Elu Thingol who acted pretty much like a prick towards Men and Dwarves alike.

Or remember Gildor talking to Frodo and calling Hobbits obtuse. Only Elves could get away with that. Or Lindir that said the Men and Hobbits are the same.

Bilbo : "If you can't tell a Man from a Hobbit, then your judgment is poorer than I imagined. They are as different as peas are from apples!"
Lindir : "Maybe they are. For sheeps, other sheeps may appear different. Or for the shepheards. But the Mortals are not a subject of our studies. We have other things to do."

[Mace]

it's like me calling all black people gangsters because I got mugged by a black gang member.

or me calling all white people slavers, because 200 years ago slavery was practiced and promoted by white people in America

but it is akin to calling all chinese dishonest, because a market stall keeper tried to swindle me.

The Eldar were never shown to be arrogant, that is not to say like all groups of people there weren't some or in particular in this case the rare exceptional one who was quite.

[Prokne]

Oh no? Ever heard of the Oath of Fëanor ?

"They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not... ...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, who so should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession."

If that's not arrogance, I wonder what it is. Thinking you could keep the Valar from taking the Silmarils. Much of the Silmarillion is about the effects of the Noldor's arrogance. You can add the Sindar too, with Elu Thingol who acted pretty much like a prick towards Men and Dwarves alike.

Nothing about that quote is arrogant. There is nothing about considering oneself superior or elitist, just hate and evil and some greed.

[Frontenac]

it's like me calling all black people gangsters because I got mugged by a black gang member.

or me calling all white people slavers, because 200 years ago slavery was practiced and promoted by white people in America

but it is akin to calling all chinese dishonest, because a market stall keeper tried to swindle me.

The Eldar were never shown to be arrogant, that is not to say like all groups of people there weren't some or in particular in this case the rare exceptional one who was quite.

We haven't read the same books, then.

---------- Post added 2013-02-18 at 01:23 AM ----------

Nothing about that quote is arrogant. There is nothing about considering oneself superior or elitist, just hate and evil and some greed.

From Merriam-Webster Dictionnary :

Arrogance
An attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.

Arrogant
1: exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance often by an overbearing manner <an arrogant official>


2: showing an offensive attitude of superiority : proceeding from or characterized by arrogance <an arrogant reply>

Fëanor and his sons were number 1. Thingol, Saeros, Gildor and Lindir were 2.

[Prokne]

Fëanor and his sons were number 1. Thingol, Saeros, Gildor and Lindir were 2.

I know what it means and those guys might be arrogant but the quote you used does not demonstrate that. You can want to attack, kill or subjugate people without being arrogant or believing yourself to be superior.

[Mace]

We haven't read the same books, then.

clearly we interpret things differently.

i would not interpret Faenor quite so, but let's say i fully agreed with you concerning him, there is nothing that comes off as arrogant against the vast majority of every Eldar you meet in LotR, the Hobbit, the unfinished tales or the Silmarrilion, Tolkein's elves are many thing but arrogance is not one of them, they seem to have a lot of humility, reminds me of the portrayal of night elves in Darkshore. They would all have more reason than most to be arrogant, but they're not.

[Stannis]

Unfortunately Night Elves are without the shadow of a doubt the biggest fail in WoW storytelling and writing.
Every other race either stayed the same compared to the previous WC games (humans, orcs, taurens, blood elves) or had its characterization improved (dwarves, gnomes, trolls, undead, pandaren, goblins, worgen, draenei).
Night Elves were probably too powerful and deeply characterized to be simply included in the game as members of the Alliance.

[Mace]

Unfortunately Night Elves are without the shadow of a doubt the biggest fail in WoW storytelling and writing.
Every other race either stayed the same compared to the previous WC games (humans, orcs, taurens, blood elves) or had its characterization improved (dwarves, gnomes, trolls, undead, pandaren, goblins, worgen, draenei).
Night Elves were probably too powerful and deeply characterized to be simply included in the game as members of the Alliance.

agreed. They are one of the main reasons most of us view wow lore and storytelling as fucked up. We look at the night elves now and then, and none of the changes make sense, seem good or are likeable.

They are preposterous. Bullocks I would say. Why another would ask?? Some elf lore hates, having a grudge against tolkein-esque like elves likely because they lack the ability to interpret correctly what they read or just can't read properly, probably whispered in Chyris' ears they were too much like tolkein's elves, then probably accused his story of lacking originality. So he went on to create even more intricate twists.

In tolkkein, the Orcs are disastrous twisted creations from the elves by Morgoth, therefore in wow, Elves are the wondrous enhancement of trolls. But to make that change, he basically invalidated a lot of what he had originally put up as Elf lore. HE then goes on to change almost everything about them, they turn from great warriors, wise rulers and beings of wisdom, grace and power the pinnacle of humanoid achievement to bumbling buffoons who are wrong about everything.

why? in the name of twists? it could be that Chris got overly carried away with making plot twists, and that was the soul motive. I would state that the twist and change to the night elves is quite un-necessary.. it doesn't enahnce them, we don't like it. Warcraft 3 still remains the pinnacle of wow story telling.. whatever made them devolve back to human v orc warcraft when a human/orc/night elf/umdead 4 major players theme was quite interesting, i just don't know and may ask him when I meet him next.

Night elves right now are terrible, and they weren't always so, everything that is written about them since the cataclysm is disappointing and does not paint them in a favourable light at all. They are always written to be eithe rwrong, easily overpowered, often outsmarted in the most humiliating was too, lookat how easy they are over run in ashenvale and Azshara, they go from the perfect warriors the orcs relish, to idiots they sweep aside effortlessly.
none of it matches what they were set up to be. .

Is there a way back? yeah, ofc, you can no longer say Elves don't come from trolls now that Cenarius has said it in the warcraft magazine, but you could fill in the blanks, and could make it that trolls came from elves, and what became night elves were trolls who were reverted back = or give them a predecessor, a race that largely first morphed to trolls, but in some continued a metamoorphosis to elves.

you also need to fill in the journey of the leves prior to the sundering, . One thing is for sure it would be hard to make the elves quite the awe inspiring Eldar type figures you have in the Tolkein universe, ofr in his universe God made two races directly himself, Elves and humans. the rest were the work of the Valar, whom he also created. That does give Elves and Humans quite a lofty perch they will not have in warcraft. But then, no one knows about the origin of the trolls, which is why he could make it the Elves yet again, so he's given himself a way to repair.

Sure with all the bumbling decisions, night elves currently make they can be written once again into a position that better reflects the original characterisation in warcraft 3 when they were first introdcued. So all is not lost. Elune looks to be heading to be a Naaru, cos Chris is secular occultic in his religious framework, so don't expect Elune to be this mysterious a lot more to her, Elves were right sort of being at all. REmember the high elves stopped believing in her totally, when they switched to being diurnal, and they first adapted the religion of the holy light which they passed to humans.

It's all messed up tbh, how can the elves be the wise immortals when they are obviously so wrong about beings like Elune, and their origin and so many things?? the only way to fix it is to make the night elves actually right about all of it. Destroying them just makes the whole thing a huge dispapointment. Players will feel, well if they can do it to that race, they can do it to all, don't trust anything you read, because on a whim MEtzen will change his mind and then write a whole load of crap.

now it's not the first time he has changed his mind, but we like all the other chnges, the twists that introduced the legion, the undeath plague etc.. so why hate this one, ?? cos for the first time a race many loved, a good race has been rubbished.

I still partly think that he has over listened to the vocal horde crowds at blizzcon, and felt that his world wde fan base were far more pro horde than they actually are.

not realizing,that by changing the lore to so favor the horde races, he has created and converted a lot of night elf and other fans. it's a bit of both i conclude. You write the night elves down, people lose interest in them, and you write the horde up people will gain interest in them.. however was there a need to write the night elves down? no

cos what this has caused now is some people becoming disillusioned with the whole franchise and realizing it's a whole pile of crap, and leaving it alltogteher. No they are not going to ever love the green orcs no matter how super saiyan Thrall becomes, and no they won't like the Tauren or the blood elves either. They'll just see the whole thing as a pile of crap and quit, easily finding more flaws than merits.


completely messed up.

[GennGreymane]

i expected more amazonness and celticness

but blizz threw them under the bus

hush tyrande

[Snowraven]

and funnily there are players who on reading this, actually believe the night elves to be cowards, failing to see the strength of their wisdom in refusing to use a source of power that so easily corrupts them but also would undoubtedly lure the legion to Azeroth again. It was incredible strength of character not to resort to the arcane, - and it may have appeared like cowardice to some, especially a person quite likely addicted to the thing who'd be less inclined to see the wisdom of that course of action.

There is a whole debate on whether Darth'remar was right or he was wrong. Suffice it to say i'm of the opinion the night elves chose wisely, for what they achieved afterwards far outstripped their achievements as a global arcane empire. Though they no longer dwelt in massive urban centers with the a roman-esque or British Empire type rule .. they evolved beyond that, growing to a level of wisdom that saw beyond the futility of such things to the far more important business of protecting others. In so doing they proved and showed quality and wisdom, giving up borders, claims to lands and recognizing that the land belongs to all. They refused to build new cities or anything like that, thing s like money and wealth, had little value anymore, they had evolved beyond that.

you know why they guarded Ashenvale so tightly and the forest border to the north right? not because it was their land and they were protecting it, no, it was to ensure none of the other races came anywhere near the world tree and the secret that dwelt at it's base. So that none will learn the use of magic like the Elves did and so call the burning legion. Why did they establish Darnassus? it is largely because they became playable and it was cool to have a city the alliance race needed one. but it comes off the vision of one Elf, Fandral Staghelm, interim leader of the Cenarion Circle, who grew the world tree in an attempt to restore the night elves immortality and who had a different philosophy to that which they had lived by for 10,000 years, like other druids, Fandral would have spent large portions of his immortal life asleep, awake during this period, and unknown to others, quite mad by the poison of the old gods, he was the biggest advocate of night elves returning to their pre-sundering dominance, the reason being the young races had now learnt magic, night elves could no longer continue like how they had under the night vigil, they needed to guide the new races by leading them. Something only night elves were properly equipped to do given their superior knowledge, wisdom and mastery - afterall no other race had come close to anything the night elves had achieved, both pre sundering and post sundering, his arrogance may have been understandable by other night elves and likely not viewed so by then, but certainly to others and certainly to malfurion they were exactly that.

You have to realize that the story is written such that Fandral is an important and influential figure and no one suspects his true motives or agenda and that he has been corrupted in quite a different way. Nigth elves have lived an increidbly long time without moral corruption, showing a purity of spirt and valor that has long since many times over made up for the arrogance that led to the events that brought the legion teh first time round. They would not bleieve or find it easy to see that Fandral was quite out of his mind. Distraought by yet again great losses in another titanic struggle against the legion, where there forces and power again bore teh brunt of the effect, they lost far more than any other group and gave valiantly, - they find themselves in a position none living have ever found themselves in, no longer immortal, was that even possible? and the great malfurion disappeared. THe world saved, but the world compltely changed, how to react now? Tyrande may have have continued to lead her people in much the same way as they had been carrying on during the long vigil, but after her antics of pulling Illidan free and the effect that caused, i think FAndral gained some serious leverage. The druids did not need her leave to grow Teldrassil or build Darnassus, but it been built anyway immediatley provided the night elves with several things they hadn't used or bothered about in millennia. boundaries, lands, a central government etc - and well if you are viewing yourself as guardians of the world it is all too easy to fall into the trap of playing interfering parent albeit only to ensure the peace. Which was exactly Fandral's points, and his words, very much like Saruman's did indeed sound like wisdom to quite a number of night elves, but they were not.


Without a doubt blizzrd can create great plots, but they are truly in need of a much more skilled writer than RIchard Knaak, to really bring out properly these subtelties in story telling, and they certainly need story tellers who actually are good writers and care about night elves to much better portray them in the light and background of what Chris Metzen had already set up for them in warcraft 3.

Very well said this.

And yes, I agree, there are a lot of great stories both left over from WC3 and in WoW, but they like end up finishing them in a very anti-climatic way. For example the Emerald Dream, since you talked of Knaak, it was built so well, then even in the book the start was great... then you get to the end when Malfurion gathers the power of the entire planet and does a super sayan move and hits it and defeats it... that's just bad storytelling there. I wish they managed to make the stories actually grow and be resolved a bit more without using only luck or super sayan powers.

---------- Post added 2013-02-18 at 07:12 PM ----------

the story is largely original, but it heavily borrows from others, it's what we like about warcraft because it borrows the nicest bits, and then usually puts nice twists into them. I think it is accusations like that that made Metzen feel he had to change the night elves from being the oldest race, to just an off shoot of trolls. like i mentioned earlier, and the breadcrumbs showing this are there to see, the change in the troll model to look more night elven just before wow's release was one example, then the release of troll lore which now was all of a sudden before the sundering when previously it had been post sundering etc. All this and more point that it was not the original intention or direction of the night elves, but was later made to be so, probably because Metzen felt they were too Tolkein-esque or was been teased that his story was not original at all. Shame, because though a fan of many fantasy genres, including Tolkein and having read much in this area, I , as welll as many people did like what we read and experienced in warcraft 3, especially on the night elves, but not just them, zombies and undeath plagues aren't new either, but we liked the whole story. And truth be told, its the new changes he has been making that we don't like.

i don't like Elves coming from trolls, it doesn't fit the original introdouction which i liked, I don't like this trashing of the race either and the bad writing. Id on't like the focus being switched back to just humans and orcs, not just in the quantity of time devoted to them but also the feats and worse the neutering of other races like the night elves or the sheer neglect of them. I liked warcraft for what it was, i was under no illusions that it borrows heavily from everything, but i liked how it was thrown together, i liked how the bvideogame took time to add starting areas for each race and devleop them somewhat rather than take the easy option of focus on one theme and just let us have different skins.

all the changes are attempts to "be original" - but instead he just ended up messing up everything his fans liked about night elves. truth be told, we didn't much care that wo borrow s from other stuff, i mean the whole things, orcs/tauren/elves, dwarves, goblins/gnomes/eredar demons/gods/spirits etc even humans none of these are original, not one. and we don't care

we like that they are there, we like how they brought them together. we like the stories, or at least we liked. when you start changing things just to prove a point and then end up doing a bad job of it especially when it doens't make sense, you just end up pissing us off. It still makes no sense given the intorduction of the night elves, that they are from trolls, even though they have done a lot of work to bring us round to that, what makes even less sense is how the night elves are now bumbling idiots too. making a further twist on them, oh, the elves of warcraft are not all a cleverwise and noble lot, they're actually a bunch of idiots.

i think he may have mistaken the elf hate in some of the blizzcon fans to mean that the fans genuinely hated the elves, not realizing that the vast majority of the player pop actually likes them - an obvious clue should be how many flocked to play them despite their bad animations - these players liked the stuff about them that came before, now they're changing it, it is no surprise no one likes the new night elves of the post cataclysm era. they're rubbish and they're even less believable than before, have little praiseworthy of them and nothing noteworthy, altogether irrelevant and quite the opposite of the same race we saw defeat the legion again in warcraft 3, every bit a major player if not more so than humans and orcs in the story.

it seems to me that Metzen and co have abandoned the higher quality for lesser quality.

Indeed. To add to this, this is why I fight against stuff like Elune being a naaru, since, after all the wrecking of the night elf lore, this would fully break it in my eyes. The night elves, once my favourite race, have already fallen in my eyes far, but their Goddess becoming just a random naaru would just wreck it for good for it would mean not only were they not unique there, but they were idiots thinking a naaru is a God while races like draenei, orcs, humans, dwarves etc realized the truth and what power they are using. Making Elune a naaru would fully make the night elves blue high elves. Which would be boring from my point of view, as, if I wanted to play high elves, I'd have rolled blood elves. Maybe it's because so many people want high elves and because Blizzard doesn't want to give them, they blur the distinctions between the WC2 high elves and night elves so they look more alike. The return of arcane magic in night elven society, the full of themselves leaders, more white-ish shades of skin, the idea of a possible future night elf warlocks (see Felwood), and now the idea that the power night elves use is just Holy Light.

Unfortunately Night Elves are without the shadow of a doubt the biggest fail in WoW storytelling and writing.
Every other race either stayed the same compared to the previous WC games (humans, orcs, taurens, blood elves) or had its characterization improved (dwarves, gnomes, trolls, undead, pandaren, goblins, worgen, draenei).
Night Elves were probably too powerful and deeply characterized to be simply included in the game as members of the Alliance.

YES! I belive one of the problems of night elves is simply this, they didn't fit in either faction. Nor did the forsaken, but with them being shown as hiding their operations they were made to sort of fit in a way.

Still, I think a much better idea would have been to have 4 factions, yet allied 2 by 2.

As in, in Classic:
Alliance: humans, dwarves, gnomes
Horde: orcs, trolls, tauren
The Sentinels: night elves
The Forsaken: forsaken

And the Alliance would be with the Sentinels, and the Horde with the Forsaken. Yet they would still be separate form one another in lore (for gameplay they'd be together).
With BC you'd get draenei for the Sentinels and blood elves for the Forsaken.
With Cataclysm you'd get worgen for the Sentinels and goblins for the Forsaken (it could be argued that at the end of their zone, their leader wouldn't want to work with Thrall but being forced to be friendly, they'd join the Forsaken).
MoP, pandaren to Horde and Alliance (because the Sentinels already have balance in their lives, draenei trying to live in a balance to not fall into the temptation of the erredar, the night elves trying to not fall in the temptation of the Highbourne and the worgen trying to not fall in the temptation of the feral selves and the Forsaken wouldn't really care much, the undead don't give a shit about balance, the goblins even less, maybe the blood elves a bit but meh).

As I said, The Alliance allied with The Sentinels (and you could quest in eachother's lands and all). The Horde allied with The Forsaken (same).
They would be like... USSR and USA in WW2, allied not because they love eathother, but because they have common enemies. And this way the night elves could have not been watered down as they'd be mostly leading their mini-faction inside the 2 faction while the humans lead theirs. On the other side, the orcs lead one and the forsaken the other.

---------- Post added 2013-02-18 at 07:21 PM ----------

Tyrande is probably unmatched in guerilla warfare, but not so good in large scale conflicts and siege. Therefore, she still can learn from Varian who did all of those..

Yet the problem is that they aren't even that. I mean think of the scenario we got for MoP, who was the guerilla fighter, Tyrande who wanted to rush in like some crazed warrior, or Varian who wanted to lay traps and lure the Horde out with small forces? So as you see, they ignored the best part of the night elves to make Varian look good.

[Mace]

it's a shame, the night elves were like a beacon of light in the dark world. and they had to dim that light. how pathetic, there seems to be every kind of darkness, but nothing light and fair left in warcraft.

what idiots, make something nice then destroy it, and expect me to maintain my respect or admiration. Never !

[Trassk]

Consider this:

Galadriel:



Beautiful, ethereal, majestic.

Then you have.

Queen Azshara:



Bit of a floozy really..

[Murphlord]

hush tyrande

"Eeeeeelidan! Why do i have a kenyan accent?!"

[GennGreymane]

night elves dont get to be cool

strong women in wow? not unless they are fucking nuts

[Mace]

"Eeeeeelidan! Why do i have a kenyan accent?!"

Hush Tyrande, the accent is too annoying and i need to think

---------- Post added 2013-02-19 at 07:21 AM ----------

night elves dont get to be cool

strong women in wow? not unless they are fucking nuts

isn't it Knaak that has written most about Tyrande? does the blame lie at his feet?

[ravenmoon]

Silly of me to hope that blizzard can adapt a level of story telling people like Tolkein have achieved. They have a whole team that just churn out this stuff.. but then you could have a massive team, if each of the quality of your writers is really sub par, they arent going to produce high grade work.

I won't criticise them much, as I do not know them, they could be really talented but be required to write for 14 yr olds because it's wow, but i myself i'm tired of reading and watching crap, there is so much quality around, if you don't enjoy something, drop it, and move on, you really become what you absorb the most. So absorb crap, you'll sooner or later start churning out crap.

Anyway, I've said far too much for a topic I only meant to say, "if you're going to write about the night elves, you should write them like how tolkein writes his immortal,wise and long lived characters - when you read his work, you believe these are extremely beautiful, immortal beings that have lived for 1000s of years and have achieved many great and admirable things"

Don't over read into the statement that Ravenmoon is saying night elves should be tokein-esque elves, and that wow should be world of tolkein the second - i swear some of you just intentionally love getting it wrong, interpreting wrong and twisting somenoe's word, you probably do it all the time, get oout of the habit, make an effort to understand, cos if you keep doing this, you'd lose the ability to perceive what is right. Like I noticed some of you trying to point out to me that night elves aren't perfect readily demonstrating an all too persistent ability to fail to understand what is presented to you. Looking at that more closely, you firstly wrongly assume Tolkein's elves are perfect, then again wrongly assume the OP regards night elves as perfect and again wrongly assume the OP is saying night elves should be tolkein-esque elves. Wrong , wrong , wrong, 0/3.

They told you that truth is relative? nothing is absolute, and it all depends on interpretations which are based on what you perceive? They lied, when men continue to deny the truth and take pleasure in twisting things for some perverse or evil end, they too start losing the ability to intepret correctly, and they never realize it. but some are clever enough to continue to fool others nearby that they are wise. They may have intelligence or the capacity to it, but they are very far from wise. Do not trust their counsel, nor listen to them, they will lead you so far astray, and you will share in their folly. Each man has a responsibility for what he accpets into his heart. He must choose wisely and truly or he will suffer the consequences thereof.

[Asmalya]

I agree. Its simply a shame.
The Nightelf in Warcraft 3 and the Nightelfs in current WoW are like totally different people.
Esp since the Nightelfs in WoW seem to have forgotten how to fight at all.
At least for their own people...
And Tyrande...i still want to smash something when think about how bad she got shit on with WoW / Knaak.

[Amonra]

As Lana Kane would say, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

Tolkien's elves are so boring because they have that "Mary Sue" intent. I don't say that that's inherently bad (it serves a defined purpose in Tokien's narrative), but they are supposed to be "better" than the lesser races. I don't fancy that, I like a more egalitarian approach.

Night Elven Lore problem lies not on the Tolkien connection (mostly avoided) but in a lack of cohesive idisincracies. Kaldorei where so much interesting in War III, all primal and giving no fucks to save the forest, a bit arrogant too. But they where watered down so much in WoW, that I'm not sure what they are supposed to be.

I put the blame in trying to make them fit the more "civilized" alliance.

[Wildmoon]

Seem like most NE fans have Fandral's attitude. He went mad and got his ass kicked by Mal in Stormrage and players in Fireland.