Why is it called the War of Thorns?

[Jackstraw]

Yep, pretty much this. It was a cool name.

War of the stars is what will happen if kaldorei and Shal'dorei become enemies and fight each other

I don't know why, but I had this quick what-if with Star Augur Etraeus prophesizing such a thing. His lines were so cool.

I'd be hella down for a War of the Stars, although really, Kaldorei deserve some rest and rebuild.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

The same reason Azerite was foreshadowed to be used as a powerful weapon against the opposing faction and RARELY used by the H/A beyond the pre patch. [BFL came out in prepatch and doesnt count as base patch]

[Nnyco]

They couldn't really call it "The Unprovoked War of Just Incase the Alliance MIGHT attack the Horde some day", that doesn't really roll of the tongue.

To be fair, it happend literally one expansion before that.

[Niroshi]

Jokes aside you could argue that the war started the Horde's bleeding throughout BFA.

[Accendor]

I'd be hella down for a War of the Stars, although really, Kaldorei deserve some rest and rebuild.

I mean... yeah. But realistically after Teldrassil the Kaldorei will never ever play a significant role again if we do not skip a time skip of multiple hundred, more likely thousands of years. Even if they go for forced reproduction and start "breeding" by force, it will take at least a hundred years to at least restore the number that was lost. And that really means "force breeding", the kind you usually do with pigs / cows etc.

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kinda like war of the shifting sands, doesn't really relate to cthun or silithids, and doesn't even relate to fighting in a desert that much either, but probably refers to some specific event in the war.

To be fair, shifting sands makes A LOT more sense than war of thorns. It is not hard to imagine the silithids move below the sand in masses, making it shift, kinda like this little fella https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFGCganiuE (spider boi)
I mean I don't know if my association would be correct, but when I hear "shifting sands" I immediately have a picture in my head and know whats up.
... but there are not thorns Darkshore or on Teldrassil.

[rayvio]

I just figured someone at Blizzard was a Tad Williams fan

[Super Kami Dende]

Figured because it was meant to be a metaphor on the destruction/attempted occupation of the World Tree.

Grab the Rose (Tree), get damaged by its thorns (Night Elves).

[Jackstraw]

I mean... yeah. But realistically after Teldrassil the Kaldorei will never ever play a significant role again if we do not skip a time skip of multiple hundred, more likely thousands of years. Even if they go for forced reproduction and start "breeding" by force, it will take at least a hundred years to at least restore the number that was lost. And that really means "force breeding", the kind you usually do with pigs / cows etc.

Me and @Mace went to some tangets on other threads about what's in store for Kaldoreis going forward.
We came to the conclusion that it depends on what Tyrande will decide to do.

[StationaryHawk]

I mean... yeah. But realistically after Teldrassil the Kaldorei will never ever play a significant role again if we do not skip a time skip of multiple hundred, more likely thousands of years. Even if they go for forced reproduction and start "breeding" by force, it will take at least a hundred years to at least restore the number that was lost. And that really means "force breeding", the kind you usually do with pigs / cows etc.

Warcraft has never been concerned with realistic numbers.

[Feanoro]

They couldn't really call it "The Unprovoked War of Just Incase the Alliance MIGHT attack the Horde some day", that doesn't really roll of the tongue.

Also shot down were such titles as:
- War of Lich Queen's Temper Tantrum
- War of "I can't believe these dumbasses are following me on that half-assed argument"
- War of Saurfang is a huge hypocrite
- War of Fuck It, Why Not?
- War of This Won't Backfire At All
- War of Let's Claim With a Straight Face It's Not Garrosh 2.0
- War of Our Plot Twists are Obvious to Toddlers

And many, many more. The entire thing was a campaign at best, it doesn't remotely qualify as a separate war.

[Vaedan]

I mean... yeah. But realistically after Teldrassil the Kaldorei will never ever play a significant role again if we do not skip a time skip of multiple hundred, more likely thousands of years. Even if they go for forced reproduction and start "breeding" by force, it will take at least a hundred years to at least restore the number that was lost. And that really means "force breeding", the kind you usually do with pigs / cows etc.

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To be fair, shifting sands makes A LOT more sense than war of thorns. It is not hard to imagine the silithids move below the sand in masses, making it shift, kinda like this little fella https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFGCganiuE (spider boi)
I mean I don't know if my association would be correct, but when I hear "shifting sands" I immediately have a picture in my head and know whats up.
... but there are not thorns Darkshore or on Teldrassil.

Tauren were brought to near extinction by centaur. Goblin population Horde got escaped Kezan on one ship. 90% of thalassian population was massacred by Scourge and remaining 10% was fractured between Kael's sin'dorei, Horde sin'dorei, Alliance aligned quel'dorei and some neutral thalassians mostly aligned with Dalaran. Gnomes got their city polluted, radiated and huge chunk of their population got killed by troggs or suffered heavily from radiation. Darkspears were all tribe suffering constant attacks from kul tirans or naga. Draenei were not really populous either. Yet, all of these races played their part in the history, so I assume night elves being genocided is not much of issue for Blizzard to put them back in action.

[JohnnyRockets]

ask ur mom

Infracted.

[Hellobolis]

To be fair, shifting sands makes A LOT more sense than war of thorns. It is not hard to imagine the silithids move below the sand in masses, making it shift, kinda like this little fella https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFGCganiuE (spider boi)
I mean I don't know if my association would be correct, but when I hear "shifting sands" I immediately have a picture in my head and know whats up.
... but there are not thorns Darkshore or on Teldrassil.

i won't lie, quilboars are what came to my mind when i read war of thorns.

[Mace]

Warcraft has never been concerned with realistic numbers.

In stark contrast to Warhammer - baffles me how they can have such a developed arts and systems team and slack so much on the world building with serious people who can actually think of these things and simulate things with numbers actual strategies etc. Warhammer does it.

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Me and @Mace went to some tangets on other threads about what's in store for Kaldoreis going forward.
We came to the conclusion that it depends on what Tyrande will decide to do.

Haha yes, indeed. Although atm, my confidence in blizzard carrying the kaldorei forward to a decent place is quite low atm, races just don't seem a priority except for background flavour and art focus.

[Lord Pebbleton]

Never thought about it before tbf. They could have used way more fitting names.

[Mace]

I don't know why, but I had this quick what-if with Star Augur Etraeus prophesizing such a thing. His lines were so cool.

I'd be hella down for a War of the Stars, although really, Kaldorei deserve some rest and rebuild.

War of the stars sounds very cool, but I'd prefer the rest and rebuild approach too. I think it would be an appropriate name for the War of the Ancients when it was going on. Because the legion kinda come from the stars and at that time, it would not have been called the war of the ancients back then.

an alternative could be the name for the void lords war incoming, and while that would likely feature void elves heavily, calling it the war of the stars without a significant night elf presence would be odd, but then blizzard would have to invest time in bringing out more while the kaldorei are the children of the stars not the forest..

The funny thing is the art team and the game systems team have this embeded in the night elves, their silver glowy arcane eyes, purple skin, their star spells and moon spells, all scream kaldorei - i.e. of the stars,, but, no story development that explain it, relates to or refers to it - which is so weird and so inconcistent, like the people who intended them to be children of the star no longer develop , and those that remain seem hell bent on reducing them or rather restricting them mainly to their forest elf side - almost as if they don't really care about them, so do the easiest and quickest thing.

You are well aware how often night elves have been ignored, Legion however was good revamp, so we're seeing a bit more action now, what direction it will go? well that depends on what Tyrande is written to do.

[Zuben]

I just assumed it was about Teldrassil's thorns or something. Never dwelt on it.

[Jackstraw]

War of the stars sounds very cool, but I'd prefer the rest and rebuild approach too. I think it would be an appropriate name for the War of the Ancients when it was going on. Because the legion kinda come from the stars and at that time, it would not have been called the war of the ancients back then.

an alternative could be the name for the void lords war incoming, and while that would likely feature void elves heavily, calling it the war of the stars without a significant night elf presence would be odd, but then blizzard would have to invest time in bringing out more while the kaldorei are the children of the stars not the forest..

The funny thing is the art team and the game systems team have this embeded in the night elves, their silver glowy arcane eyes, purple skin, their star spells and moon spells, all scream kaldorei - i.e. of the stars,, but, no story development that explain it, relates to or refers to it - which is so weird and so inconcistent, like the people who intended them to be children of the star no longer develop , and those that remain seem hell bent on reducing them or rather restricting them mainly to their forest elf side - almost as if they don't really care about them, so do the easiest and quickest thing.

You are well aware how often night elves have been ignored, Legion however was good revamp, so we're seeing a bit more action now, what direction it will go? well that depends on what Tyrande is written to do.

I'm trying to get into Shadowlands as spoiler free as I possibly can, I know there's some stuff about the Night warrior that's supposedly very juicy, and of course the Void is no more the big evil endgame boss, but there have to be situations in the Black Empire days where the proto Kaldorei and trolls fought against the Void. Spirits of the earth and portents of the skies, one growing in scorching sunlit gold and the other in radiant lunar silver.

However given the current situation, as much as I'd like a strong hand on races and identity, I can recognize the big narrative shift and the goal of landing some grandiose hits.

Although really, putting the focus on races would allow to build some much needed new NPCS.

[Mace]

I'm trying to get into Shadowlands as spoiler free as I possibly can, I know there's some stuff about the Night warrior that's supposedly very juicy, and of course the Void is no more the big evil endgame boss, but there have to be situations in the Black Empire days where the proto Kaldorei and trolls fought against the Void. Spirits of the earth and portents of the skies, one growing in scorching sunlit gold and the other in radiant lunar silver.

However given the current situation, as much as I'd like a strong hand on races and identity, I can recognize the big narrative shift and the goal of landing some grandiose hits.

Although really, putting the focus on races would allow to build some much needed new NPCS.

I just find the races and their stories more interesting atm.

I don't think they're sufficiently fleshed out or in-depth as they should be, and I think this is far more important to building an engaging world before launching into character development. Racial development is the better platform for lauching character development in a fantasy world you are creating for video game purposes in an MMO - this is if you want it to truly feel like a world franchise.

But hey, if only making games is your focus, then I guess it's not as important. While there was a time I really hoped for it, I'd be lying if I said I cared as much these days. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

[Maljinwo]

The same reason they called BfA the Fourth War and forgot they already had one in Cata-MoP: The writers are throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks