The elves in warcraft -- monsters in disguise?

[ravenmoon]

they look all pretty and civilized, well dressed, highly intelligent, on the surface they look like everything a human wants to be, and it's not just one of them, it's all of them, whether the darker breed - night elves, with an almost insufferable morality - you don't get more lawful good than that, or the colourful blood & high elves - but...

they are always doing something dangerous, no one broke the world, except for the elves, true those same elves have saved it countless times still, but hey, ever heard of the naga, well they come from them, what about those demon fel elves, or the monsters they call wanted?

Furthermore, all quiet and civilized and peaceful seeming, but you seen one of those night elves fight, they have a savage brutality that gives savages pause for thought, is the civility the mask and the battle heat the true face?

Most recently, you have a bunch of blood sucking elves, they call them San'layan, then you look on the original group, and they all have fangs, albeit on the upper jaw only, but still .. is there more to the Elves than meets the eye?

Is Metzen cooking up something -- if you ever saw Dusk till Dawn the series, why do those female serpent nephilim remind me so much of night elves.

[Ohmygonzo]

Kill them all.

[Forgettable]

The Elves are like the Eevee of Warcraft. Their DNA is prone to mutation. I want to see other variations!

[Spraxle]

I think your tinfoil hat is on a bit to tight! lol

Anyway the Elves of WoW are an ancient race. Their 'growing pains' saw them doing 'bad' stuff. But one (namely Azshara) elf doing bad things does not make them all bad. If they had all been drinking the kool-aid then the Legion would have had its way way back when. Also the San'layan are just Undead elves. They work with blood magic since Blizzard needed some 'vampires' in the game. You'll also notice that outside of the few quests involving them they were wiped out in ICC and we haven't seen anymore of their 'kind' since.

[Wyrt]

They're all a bunch of sluts, but I don't know if I'd call them monsters.

[Crysis]

Troll, must be troll.

Infracted

[Ishayu]

There is definitely a theme of Elves in Warcraft having a pretty shell but a terrible core.

When you first see them, you see a society that benefits hugely from magic and as a result have made something wonderful. Dig a little deeper, and you find a horrible addiction and, if you take their substance away from them, they go absolutely nuts and will not rest until you're dead.

The same applies to their appearance. At first they appear beautiful, clean and, and have an alluring smile... on further inspection you realize they have fangs and always have a bow at the ready.

They worship darkness, one way or the other, and are easily led astray, and they have an almost insatiable lust of power.

And when they punish... 10,000 years...

Monsters in disguise, you say? Yes, very much so. Elves are quite dangerous, and should not be underestimated - but they almost always are.

[ReleaseDay]

Troll, must be troll.

Orc, must be orc.

[Deleted]

<3 elves
they are all a bit posh, giving them a cool-factor , like it or not ;D

[Mace]

There is definitely a theme of Elves in Warcraft having a pretty shell but a terrible core.

When you first see them, you see a society that benefits hugely from magic and as a result have made something wonderful. Dig a little deeper, and you find a horrible addiction and, if you take their substance away from them, they go absolutely nuts and will not rest until you're dead.

The same applies to their appearance. At first they appear beautiful, clean and, and have an alluring smile... on further inspection you realize they have fangs and always have a bow at the ready.

They worship darkness, one way or the other, and are easily led astray, and they have an almost insatiable lust of power.

And when they punish... 10,000 years...

Monsters in disguise, you say? Yes, very much so. Elves are quite dangerous, and should not be underestimated - but they almost always are.

i like this summary, you see it[s part of what makes warcraft interesting, it's full of subtlties beneath the surface.

on a more positive side, you see elves who have such an easy capability to go off the handle and hold such invreible power, yet, harness and controll it for millennia at a time, to achieve incredible actos of restoration and goo..look at night elves guardian roles over Azeroth , guiding evolution in the dream with tgrean flight, working with demi gods and aspects, suppressing magic, protecting the wellof eternity ceasefly for nearly 10,00 yaears, and shileding kalimdor in mists so that not even the high elves or the adventurers sea faring goblins could spot kalimdor.

and this they do, for good at quite the cost, and yet, they prodcue a guy like Fandral staghelm..and it was a similar thing before the sundeirng, and then the high elves do the same think, you think they've kept their magic in check, they've built a wondrous society for themselves, albeit unlike their night elf brothers, it's been almost entirely focused on themselves, nothing to help anyone else around them, or engage with anyone else, but still they do acheive some wondrous things, successfully shield magic they use abundantly from extra dimensional eyse, it almost seems that the warning of the druids to Darth'Remar was nonsense, these elves didn't follow the mistakes of Azshara, they brought their usage in check, devised other means such that it would never or the problem the quel'dorei suffered would never affect them so.

yet, they go and teach humans magic, and not too long after that, demons are slipping through covert portals, a counsel of TIrisfal is formed to deal with the issue, rather than give up magic, they manage it, but eventually it spirals aout of control leads to the war in warcraft 3, they blame humans for it, and their magic is cut off, but rather than accept they were wrong like the few remaining highe lves do, they rename themselves blood elves and try to go for even more power, and this is supposed to be the most intelligetn group? intelligent yes, wise, no. they still believe magic isn't dangeorus. Yet we see a group of the in the high elves, finally own up, and find ways to cope and survive the loss, who draw a line and won't go for deon magic and further corrupt themselves, magic is not the be all, and well if they must they can let that go, and they do. Kudos to them

so in the elves blizzard showing a lot of subtleties and conflicts.. the so calle dwise night elves , wisely forbid arcane magic, pick it up again, after 10,000 years, accpet the highbourne group who had started all this madenss back, altho it was a group that didn't succumb, the survivors that werne't consumed by their Prince's lust for power, and now some of them a learning it again.

what's going on?

The transformers, robots in disguies.............The elves, monsters in disguise

[Rhlor]

we fight for the light

[Haytham]

Nah,just like any other race. It's certain individuals that fucked up big time.

You can't judge the entire elf race just because some of them made questionable decisions.

Also damn Liadrin sure took fighting in the name of the Light serious. I don't mind the entire redemption of the BE ,but they should not become Draenei 2.0

[Arrashi]

Nah they aren't. Compared to warhammer ones, WoW elves are pretty, soft and nice.

[OzoAndIndi]

Ah, the elves... the people who don't look like they could kick your ass... then surprise you. There's power in being underestimated when foes don't have their guard up enough because they don't think you're capable of tearing it down. These are people its better to have as friends than enemies... lol

[sodinishu]

It's certain individuals that fucked up big time.

[ravenmoon]

Speak softly and carry a big stick defines the Night Elves. Matching and exceeding their enemies in aggression and brutality is what makes them so appealing, but they are rarely ever the aggressors. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this mentality. A best friend in peace a worst enemy in war, they don't start fights, they end them, as brutally and violently as possible. It doesn't mesh at all with the Alliance's "stupidity for the greater good" mantra of braindead victimhood and the fact it gets heaped onto them diminishes their appeal immensely.

that was what attracted me to the night elves, that amazing contrast, and that quite sensible restraint, and yet incredibly kickass in battle, having a savagery to them in battle, which a lot of people seem to have taken the savage out of context and feeel the night elves are savage which they are not at all, except when fighting - they fight hard.

bt there is another way to look at the whole picture, the monster within, Ishayu sums it up well

[Yig]

I like Metzen and company's take on elves in Warcraft, the Night Elves are more like a creature race than idealized humans.
No, I don't share any inclination they are secretly vampires or connected in anyway beyond the most superficial correlations. There are aesthetic similarities, nothing more. And the San'layn were High/Blood Elves, they did not have fangs before the gift of undeath. (to my knowledge) And typical of Warcraft, their vampires don't just suck blood, they will fucking cannibalize you and eat you alive, visceral offal, bone, cartilage, and all.

Night Elf males can be as hulking and monstrous as an orc, but they combine this with the agility of an acrobatic dexterity specialist.
It's a lot of great juxtapositions.

The High Elves are much more like what people want when they can't resist being a sheep and deriding elves as lame fancy dainty fairy princes and princesses. But they are not. They are more like the cold alien elves of Warhammer, or the actual mythology of ancient Britain and the Celts.

This is my impression of them, and they seem somewhat inspired by Wendy Pini's Wolfrider elves from Elfquest. Living in massive supernaturally shaped hollow trees, deep in the heart of the forests, wearing tanned skins and fur. More like a tribal people than aristocrats. But with elements of Asian atmosphere, and with the European mythology, a dash of Native American folklore in their tone with Shinto/animism and nature worship to top it off.

And the over the top visual impact of their anatomy seals the deal for me.

[Deleted]

Well they were one of the most powerful(if not the most powerful) empire in Azeroth do you think that they reached those position by hugging trees like they do in WoW?

The path to might and power is full of blood and corpses of your enemies and you need big sword to go trough it

[Yig]

I would think it's much more notable that they reached that power because of an affinity for manipulating and harnessing arcane energy, along with the personal guidance and favor of a being of god like capability.

It seems incredibly silly the way virtual racists judge a virtual race. In this instance for the actions and choices of a tiny elite nigh clandestine inner circle of individuals acting within the highest echelons of their privileged ruling class. It's like judging a child in Papua New Guinea for the actions of the German Nazi party (woot Godwin) It's like judging the 21st century population of France for the behavior of their aristocrats before the French Revolution.

For ten thousand years they've been a race obsessed with reverence for the sacred and the spiritual, the Ancients, and nature's brutal and unforgiving power and beauty and it's magnificent emergent self organizing balance. Look at the last 10k years of human history to try and find some perspective to appreciate here and see how absolutely ridiculous it is to make judgement on the present civilization. Even with people alive today who were then. Even if today there are still those living from among that inner circle of decadence, or the subjects who followed their orders, the human mind's inability to appreciate large amounts of numbers is at the heart of an unfair finger pointing scapegoat syndrome at play against Warcraft's elves (all of the races depending on who you put on the witness stand) .
But it's all part of the fun of rooting for your team, and indicative of a passion for this games many facets. Human tribalism is so ingrained in our social instincts we make simulated xenophobic rivalries for entertainment. I love it. I try to be careful not to step in it, it's too easy to get mired in. But who is perfect? Not me (except for my beard)

[ravenmoon]

Night Elf males can be as hulking and monstrous as an orc, but they combine this with the agility of an acrobatic dexterity specialist.
It's a lot of great juxtapositions.

The High Elves are much more like what people want when they can't resist being a sheep and deriding elves as lame fancy dainty fairy princes and princesses. But they are not. They are more like the cold alien elves of Warhammer, or the actual mythology of ancient Britain and the Celts.

T

and this is what i love about warcraft and what Metzen does, it's thiese unexpected contrasts, and they're nice ones or good ones too.

you mean dark skinned elves that weren't evil? wtf? or Orcs, hulking savage like but not imbeciles or stupid, brutes but having honour and not just mindless kiling machines.

ELves, all pristine, but having or hiding a horrible addiction, and then some going completley off hte rails, these ar eyour idealized human types in the high elves i mean. Warcraft is full of them in the races, and the Night elves seemed to be the zenith point of that, altogether fascinate, it's kinda side they've kinda really been undersueed and not reall y shown off /come out properly since wow, i think it's a loss, but then they may one day return, i have my views on why thi sis the case, it's because of populationi balance, can't focus too much on allinace races or more poeple will keep picking them or something like that, the story has to be horde driven, and that's been the case for every expansion so far, the horde has been the main focus, and i think that's to keep people engaged with the faction and not just rolling alliance. So until another factor can sustain or even increase horde numbers, i'm afraid we're not going to see much in-game night elf focus, possibly only in novels dedicated to them.

but i like this about them

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I love it. I try to be careful not to step in it, it's too easy to get mired in. But who is perfect? Not me (except for my beard)

you have a beard? let's see it ! pics pics !!

sometimes i wonder when this virtual racsim/xenopobia rears it's head if people are just roleplaying for the hell of it, or if they're actually taking it seriously (arguments asid eof nerd fact nit picking which always spawns debates, i am oft left pondering who's actually taking this seriously/perceiving this in the context of what it actually is and not crossing over.