Curiosity on a certain trend with elven lore

[Doreidorei]

Sorry if I'm going onto an overly touchy subject on the board but I've always been confused by the sometimes extreme possessiveness I see from elf players for elven lore before the exile.

On one side, some of the most aggro nelf fans seem to be completely adamant that since nelf mages were retconned in Cata (and it's hard not to feel like it was a retcon when the Edre'thalas Quel'dorei were basically chugging as much demon blood as the sunfury before Cata), this means any claim to the highborne falls on them, despite multiple elements of thalassian culture keeping that memory alive too, which wouldn't be hard to do when just one king of Quel'thalas ruled the country for nearly half of its entire history as a political entity, and the highborne who rebelled against Azshara included its first king.

On the other side, some of the most aggro belf fans will simply claim that the night elves have no right whatsoever to highborn heritage because of the exile, even though afaik the lore seems to have strongly implied that highborne weren't that hereditary at first (Illidan was after all the brother of the first elven druid and seemed mostly on the highborne/arcane side), and I realize some of that largely came about because of one bit of story writing that I realize is a bit touchy with the devs needing to shove everyone into factions.

In all that I just find myself asking myself: is there a point to be at each other's throats other than the bliz writers deciding that they have to write stupid shit everytime they realize they wrote themselves into too much of a corner by making the various elven nations too friendly across even faction lines (case in point Suramar, which early on struck me more as ribbing than anything else, and maybe I liked the idea that maybe it was the kirin tor humans who were irrationally afraid that things would blow up, or Trueshot Lodge starting out as basically an elven story, or heck TFT showing little sign of active hatred; the way Wrath introduced the SC always bugged me even though I like Vereesa as a character with flaws, without her codependent relationship to a writer self-insert)

Are sin'dorei, quel'dorei, ren'dorei and shal'dorei really threatened by acknowledging highborne elements that slithered their way back into the kal'dorei?
Are kal'dorei really threatened by the various highborne nations and factions not being reduced to portal bots for their respective factions or an excuse to use one of the most battered races on Azeroth to tell low effort civil war stories and having, like, their pre-exile history acknowledged?

Can we not all unite in the ultimate truth, which is that elves are good and Aethas Sunreaver is an idiot?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Can we not all unite in the ultimate truth, which is that elves are good and Aethas Sunreaver is an idiot?

The nelves were stupid for throwing a hissy fit at Illidian for using a vial to found another Well.

Aethas Sunreaver is fine. Not his fault he couldn't really do anything against one of the most powerful mages on the planet (one who nearly launched a tsunami at Orgrimmar).

[huth]

The nelves were stupid for throwing a hissy fit at Illidian for using a vial to found another Well.

Not like Illidan wasn't an idiot either for thinking they'd appreciate that, especially after what just went down. I think the best way of describing it is that Elves in general are prone to colossal feats of stupid.

[Powerogue]

The people on these forums worry way more over elf lore than Blizzard does.

That starts with the guy who's name translates to "elf elf."

[Razion]

All elven cultures can potentially have some lineage that goes back to the Highborne. And while long-lived elves could remember and may still harbor some old biases towards the old caste system, low-bloods have access to all the same magic would-be Highborne would have. Sources like the Moonwells, Nightwell and Arcandor, or the Sunwell, or the Void Rifts aren't exactly locked off and kept private to the elite. Capital leaders wouldn't stand for that kind of behavior anymore because of what it nearly did to the world the first time. Some societal elements exist among the Nightborne that pay respect to wealth, but so do all cultures and it doesn't really result in a lot of magical monopoly. To the respect of leaders like Tyrande, even with her gone to not oversee her people, there are those like Maiev and Jarod who can and would watch over things in her absence (if not Malfurion).

Like, not for nothing, but the notion of the Highborne is a social construct which isn't really enforceable in the modern Azeroth world. Even if Highborne tried to all ban together to isolate sources like the Nightwell, Arcandor, Sunwell, Moonwells, and so on, there's still a world-wide accessibility issue of Azerite that everyone has access to. Claiming the entire world's Azerite reserves would be insane -- beyond the reach of all the remaining Highborne, surely, no matter how wealthy they are.

The age of the Highborne is done, except in the minds of the deluded. Existing cultural splits are issues of land ownership and ideals on how to best handle and manage magic, and the lingering feuds between individuals that fought over who could be allowed to use what magic when and where. Even so, most elven cultures if they sat down could probably see that they all are handling magic in a similar way now - magic is freely available to all. Whether some old elite would want it that way, or not.

[Villager720]

Trolls have always fought other trolls. It’s in their nature.

[Falkeshall]

Trolls have always fought other trolls. It’s in their nature.

The MMOC story.

[saintminya]

Night elves never deserved to practice the arcane after forsaking it for 1000 years. Only the Horde's elves respected and kept alive the way of the Highborne, made especially significant/apparent when the race closest to their Highborne ancestry, the Nightborne, joined. Alliance players, and especially Void abominations, just enjoy crying about it for some reason. If you want to roll a Highborne, then make yourself a lovely Nightborne mage or lock. If you want a High elf, then just give your Blood elf mage or lock blue eyes.

I do wish that Blizz would incorporate more High elf presence outside of those savages in the Silver Covenant. Around the time of MoP they indicated that Silvermoon warmed up to them and that many High elves moved there, but to date this hasn't been shown in game (afaik), or really even referenced again. I am glad that with Legion they re-affirmed the rift between the two factions' elves, with Thalyrssa being particularly disgusted with Tyrande, and then again with those Void abominations threatening the sanctity of Silvermoon.

[Aktavite]

Night elves never deserved to practice the arcane after forsaking it for 1000 years. Only the Horde's elves respected and kept alive the way of the Highborne, made especially significant/apparent when the race closest to their Highborne ancestry, the Nightborne, joined. Alliance players, and especially Void abominations, just enjoy crying about it for some reason. If you want to roll a Highborne, then make yourself a lovely Nightborne mage or lock. If you want a High elf, then just give your Blood elf mage or lock blue eyes.

I do wish that Blizz would incorporate more High elf presence outside of those savages in the Silver Covenant. Around the time of MoP they indicated that Silvermoon warmed up to them and that many High elves moved there, but to date this hasn't been shown in game (afaik), or really even referenced again. I am glad that with Legion they re-affirmed the rift between the two factions' elves, with Thalyrssa being particularly disgusted with Tyrande, and then again with those Void abominations threatening the sanctity of Silvermoon.

As an Alliance biased player, I'd mostly agree. We're told of NE's dogmatic dislike or arcane arts, and then all of a sudden a massive backflip and they're fine with it.

If we can't have High Elves, then we shouldn't have Void Elves really.

Thats my 2c in any case.

[Doreidorei]

The people on these forums worry way more over elf lore than Blizzard does.

That starts with the guy who's name translates to "elf elf."

Elfborne is absolutely a thing Illidan would have called himself in his more egotrippy moments tbh, "I will be the hero of elvenkind, and also these other guys I guess"

Also I think my bigger problem with post-Cata is that it went on the coattails of Knaak pretty much messing up the portrayals of most of the nelf leadership in his novels (letting him write a society where most of the leadership was women was, in retrospect, a really bad idea). They could easily have put the blame for a lot of that nonsense on Fandral (who honestly did a lot to shove a wedge between various groups and the kaldorei) but they basically just kept up the portrayal as part of efforts to shove enough war to justify why pvp servers were a thing in-lore.

[ravenmoon]

Sorry if I'm going onto an overly touchy subject on the board but I've always been confused by the sometimes extreme possessiveness I see from elf players for elven lore before the exile.

On one side, some of the most aggro nelf fans seem to be completely adamant that since nelf mages were retconned in Cata (and it's hard not to feel like it was a retcon when the Edre'thalas Quel'dorei were basically chugging as much demon blood as the sunfury before Cata), this means any claim to the highborne falls on them, despite multiple elements of thalassian culture keeping that memory alive too, which wouldn't be hard to do when just one king of Quel'thalas ruled the country for nearly half of its entire history as a political entity, and the highborne who rebelled against Azshara included its first king.

1. Elf fans are hooked into the races, because they love them. That's why they get quite possessive, besides this is where a lot of disagreements happen because where there is a lot of love there are a lot of opinions, everyone has their head fantasy on how they interpret their elves, and would defend them vigorously, the Warcraft fandom seems to inspire elves a lot, this is why you get that reaction


2. Eldre'thalas Quel'dorei were not chugging demon blood -- they were siphoning arcane power from the demon, not fel power, however being a demon, his corruption seeped into the citizens, particularly it's ruler. This wasn't pronounced but subtle over time, this is why there is no effect or great change like orcs or even blood elves experience.

It isn't explained, but when you go there it is clear the pylons are arcane, the energy siphoned is arcane, and the demonic effect is mostly on the prince, which suggested that they successfully correctly siphoned the energy, but weren't as thorough as they believed.

it is also possible to believe this of them because they are said to be the empire's greatest arcanist, it is not unreasonable to assume they are able to do things other elven groups or experts could not achieve. When it says the Queen's most revered arcanists who processed her top projects - the full implication is astonishing, it implies that they were the magical wonder engineering engine of the empire producing the greatest spectacles, and in secret to me suggest that it is because the Queen took full credit for the works they did. These are guys that were experts to a level beyond most, it takes prejudice or hate to assume less of them constantly. I suspect this happens because they are night elves, and it happens form blood elf fans.

If i were fleshing out the story based on that lore, it would probably work out something like the Queen would commission projects she thought of for them to make real and more often than not, demand they come up with something wonderful on a regular basis, they'd have been delighted and honoured too, like all night elves were when Queen Azshara asked anything of them.

You have to remember, evil Queen Azshara is not realised as evil by the masses till well into the demonic invasion, in fact when the final march against Zin'azshari happens, it happens because the night elves now realise it is the Queen that also needs to be stopped.

On the other side, some of the most aggro belf fans will simply claim that the night elves have no right whatsoever to highborn heritage because of the exile, even though afaik the lore seems to have strongly implied that highborne weren't that hereditary at first (Illidan was after all the brother of the first elven druid and seemed mostly on the highborne/arcane side), and I realize some of that largely came about because of one bit of story writing that I realize is a bit touchy with the devs needing to shove everyone into factions.

i suspect the reason for this attitude is because of factional and racial pride amongst the fans. Rather than what is factual in the lore.

Blood elf fans want blood elves and the horde to be the best. They are attracted to elven fantasy because of magic and wonder, very beautiful things great powerful displays of magic..that sort of thing.

Because the night elves are on the other side, they resent that the night elves may be good at any of this and often try to minimise it, despite the lore having clearly shown the connection and the magical nature of the night elves from Warcraft 3 introduction in it's very manual, and consistently shown alongside the night elves whether in the full nature emphasis seen in the Wc3 campaign and classic - it always had some form of the magical arcane part of the night elves showing up ..

Another thing that helps perpetuate this is people's focus on the game and not the lore, the books is where much of the diversity and arcane heritage of hte night elves is fleshed out, but it's the game they play .. alot.. all those wc3 campaigns and repeat levelling have basically etched the levelling experience into them, it is informed by what they see rather than what they read, even in the quests, because Warcraft fans do not read quests.

So you have a very wide range of opinions.. lore fans tend to be much more informed, but they definitely have their preferences, and often ignore major details because they are mentioned very few times or not visible.

In all that I just find myself asking myself: is there a point to be at each other's throats other than the bliz writers deciding that they have to write stupid shit every time they realize they wrote themselves into too much of a corner by making the various elven nations too friendly across even faction lines (case in point Suramar, which early on struck me more as ribbing than anything else, and maybe I liked the idea that maybe it was the kirin tor humans who were irrationally afraid that things would blow up, or Trueshot Lodge starting out as basically an elven story, or heck TFT showing little sign of active hatred; the way Wrath introduced the SC always bugged me even though I like Vereesa as a character with flaws, without her codependent relationship to a writer self-insert)

Are sin'dorei, quel'dorei, ren'dorei and shal'dorei really threatened by acknowledging highborne elements that slithered their way back into the kal'dorei?
Are kal'dorei really threatened by the various highborne nations and factions not being reduced to portal bots for their respective factions or an excuse to use one of the most battered races on Azeroth to tell low effort civil war stories and having, like, their pre-exile history acknowledged?

Can we not all unite in the ultimate truth, which is that elves are good and Aethas Sunreaver is an idiot?

To be honest, in my opinion, blizzard ramped up the elven conflict because they put different elf groups on different factions, and then proceeded to try to create as much friction between the two to make it more "war" like.

This is why you have disparities. e.g. Tyrande and Malfurion are rather friendly with Kael'thas when they meet him, suggesting that the level of elven hatred recast in TBC 's introduction did not exist back then.

It was emphasised heavily because the blood elves were given to the horde, and the night elves were on the alliance, so they were now enemies rather than just different factions/races of elves which was the case when the Night elves were their own faction in WC3.


Same happens when Suramar returns. A city and region that is at the heart of the kaldorei's history, especially the alliance group, is originally cast and written following and tied very much to the night elves.. you notice it is the night elves and the Nightborne resistance that work together exclusively in 7.0, Farodin a night elves, Night eyes a night elf, night elven refugees in Suramar from Val'sharah, Moonguard night elves all help and work with Thalyssra, and much is mentioned of the kaldorei amongst the Nightborne, when you to Tel'anor, speak to emphasis, they are written as the night elves in the pre-sundering era according to the war of hte ancients trilogy.

Most of the sites, including Val'Sharah, black rook hold Suramar are all taken from that book that is the night elves early story..

But along the way, Nightborne were decided to be playable through popular request, but given to the horde instead.. notice how after 7.0, i.e in 7.1, while the original story plays out, there is a mismatch, when the faction armies come in, the faction night elves are suddenly less friendly to the Nightborne, in stark contrast ott he tone of the local night elves in 7.0, blood elves who were not a part of the story at all in 7.0, the original story made for the alpha/beta of Legion , now have a much bigger role and involvement, and in 7.3, the Nightborne are hand in hand with blood elf representatives even though they don't have much screen time.


The Nightborne are Sin'dorei washed.. the horde fans love the high magic theme, great cities, and never realised this was part of night elf lore, but now it was shown, the Nightborne looked different enough from the night elves for them to by pass any association.. the motivation is largely because they wanted Nightborne because they wanted the magical city, the magical fantasy.


And blizzard gave it to them, that decision has basically put arcane magic of the elves firmly in the horde's hand, where it use to be a key identifier of the alliance in contrast to the horde's warlock mastery.

They have changed much of the identity of the horde faction by introducing the elves to them, elves from the alliance. Because the blood elves are from the alliance high elves, and the Nightborne are from the night elves, (who were placed in the alliance).


i hope this help somewhat explains. Sorry for the terrible typos.

In Summary
There has always been an arcane element to the night elves, they were originally designed to be the genesis of the elves and the more elven (so to speak) by nature - which is heavy magic and heavy nature (which is elves in most fantasy)), whereas high elves were a bit closer to humans.

But player perception is coloured by factional motives. And the big arguments are all possessive based, mainly from the hardcore blood elf fans, who absolutely resent the night elves having any association with high magic, or fantasy - even though it is in their lore in so many places .. all over and in their very origin of how they are... but they don't want their enemies to have the things they feel belongs to them.

When was magic ever exclusively a blood elf thing? but blood elf fans feel it is, and night elves don't or shouldn't have it.. even when the lore disagrees - they go out of their way to outright minimise or totally ignore.

[Super Dickmann]

It's the Warcraft III version that's the bad one and the conflict that showed up later that makes sense. The tolerance Tyrande has towards Kael thanks to the Highborne story not being fully hashed out at the time is bizarre in retrospect, considering that the whole cause for their leaving was their use of arcane magic attracting the Legion and their Sunwell had just been used to revive the summoner of the Legion. Even more so considering that said summoner was human and humans only had arcane magic thanks to the Highborne. Even further in TBC considering the blood elves at the time were using demonic methods and some outright demonic magic. As far as the night elves would be concerned, every reason for the Highborne exile was only justified and exacerbated over time and they've culturally fairly little in common.

Also, Aethas is indeed a moron who sold out his faction, sold the symbol of his race's royalty to the Kirin Tor to get his apartment back and then immediately had his organisation infiltrated by demons who nearly destroyed Dalaran. He had a nice hat though.

Also also, OP is Mace or that other guy.

[Tanaria]

2. Eldre'thalas Quel'dorei were not chugging demon blood -- they were siphoning arcane power from the demon, not fel power, however being a demon, his corruption seeped into the citizens, particularly it's ruler. This wasn't pronounced but subtle over time, this is why there is no effect or great change like orcs or even blood elves experience.

And neither were the Blood Elves sucking and living off fel, whilst in Silvermoon.

This is a common misinterpretation by those who don't understand the Silvermoon Horde Blood Elves.
These Horde Elves were siphoning magic off living creatures. They were not, at any point, doing it to Demons. That was what the Sunfury Blood Elves, on Outland, who had no connection to the Horde, were practicing.

This is why, when you say you want Blood Elves to be more "fel elf" related - that is actually wrong, because Silvermoon Blood Elves were never big on "fel magic" themselves. Yes, they had fel crystals, which were soon removed after Kael'thas' defeat, but the take up of wanting to become a Warlock was extremely few and far between. Indeed, a lot of Sin'dorei, who wanted to take a different path were taking up the role of becoming a Blood Knight or Blood Mage. Becoming a Warlock was never a big thing in Silvermoon's society and people need to realise that fact.

- - - Updated - - -

So you have a very wide range of opinions.. lore fans tend to be much more informed, but they definitely have their preferences, and often ignore major details because they are mentioned very few times or not visible.

I could say the same about Night Elf fans and their views on Blood Elves and the lore on the Silvermoon Blood Elves.
Hell - a night elf fan truly shot himself in the foot, when he wrote the WoT novella and completely forgot that the Night Elves did indeed, enter Quel'Thalas illegally and with hostile intentions to a-then, neutral nation.

This isn't just one way. Night Elf fans are often the ones who forget a lot of Silvermoon Blood Elf lore and do not look at the differences between the Horde Blood Elves and the Sunfury, Outland Blood Elves.

They have changed much of the identity of the horde faction by introducing the elves to them, elves from the alliance. Because the blood elves are from the alliance high elves, and the Nightborne are from the night elves, (who were placed in the alliance).

It's great that the Horde identity has changed from just being a bunch of bloodthirsty orcs.
It was high time to see real Elves of ancient mythology, be against the Humans.

Not everything must be written like Tolkien. He didn't create Elves or how they should behave.

And blizzard gave it to them, that decision has basically put arcane magic of the elves firmly in the horde's hand, where it use to be a key identifier of the alliance in contrast to the horde's warlock mastery.

It was never a "key identifier" to WoW's Alliance.
Hell, Undead and Trolls could also be Magi and some of the Undead also hailed from the Kirin Tor and held senior rank.

Plus - get over it. At the end of the day, the Alliance is still the faction that holds the dominance in the "Arcane" field, because of the Humans. It might not be with the race you want, but Alliance Magi are still far more prevalent and used, through the Humans and Human Magi organisations.

[huth]

Elfborne is absolutely a thing Illidan would have called himself in his more egotrippy moments tbh, "I will be the hero of elvenkind, and also these other guys I guess"

Dorei actually means children. So you named yourself children of the children or children-children. Nothing to do with elves other than being Darnassian.

[shoc]

Elf lore exists because white supremacists are paying customers too.

Infracted.

[Tanaria]

Elf lore exists because white supremacists are paying customers too.

Obviously. /s

[Doreidorei]

Elf lore exists because white supremacists are paying customers too.

Infracted.

But enough about humans.

[sillag]

Elf lore exists because white supremacists are paying customers too.

Infracted.

ayyyyyyy telling it like it is. remember how mad the elf fans got when black blood elves were introduced to their aryan fantasy LOL

Infracted.

[Moonrage]

The nelves were stupid for throwing a hissy fit at Illidian for using a vial to found another Well.

Aethas Sunreaver is fine. Not his fault he couldn't really do anything against one of the most powerful mages on the planet (one who nearly launched a tsunami at Orgrimmar).

You're forgetting the part where reckless use of arcane magic literally split the world apart just 5 minutes earlier.

[Combatbutler]

You're forgetting the part where reckless use of arcane magic literally split the world apart just 5 minutes earlier.

Druids nearly caused the destruction of the entire world 5 minutes after that, yet they happily continue to use their nature magic.