Do you think Alleria, Vereesa and elves like Valeera are traitors to Quel'Thalas?

[mickybrighteyes]

while the second about Arthas forgets to mention that Arthas wasn't a member of the Alliance anymore and massacring his own people and the rest of the Alliance too and the elves have their own traitors and evil individuals.

Will point out that... I don't think getting word out about his ascension to "king" was really a priority. Thus some might still stick looking at the events as the Crown Prince of the neighboring nation invading and massacring everything in their wake.

Arthas' position is a bit awkward in that effect since Lordaeron fell spectacularly while ignoring all the signs and spreading their efforts to too many directions.

IMO though. most elves of Quel'thalas should have issues mostly over Garithos using elves as meat shields for impossible tasks and sending survivors to be executed for the crime of completing their tasks.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Will point out that... I don't think getting word out about his ascension to "king" was really a priority. Thus some might still stick looking at the events as the Crown Prince of the neighboring nation invading and massacring everything in their wake.

Arthas' position is a bit awkward in that effect since Lordaeron fell spectacularly while ignoring all the signs and spreading their efforts to too many directions.

IMO though. most elves of Quel'thalas should have issues mostly over Garithos using elves as meat shields for impossible tasks and sending survivors to be executed for the crime of completing their tasks.

Getting word about what was really going on in Lordaeron when there were rumors of plague and of undeads and disturbing reports from survivors of Lordaeron and several HE priests who had seen the Scourge for themselves, and after the elves had already commited the terrible mistake of not trying to learn more about the Horde and dismissing it as a threat, was a priority.

Besides it wasn't paladin Arthas at the head of Lordaeron troops that was invading and massacring everyone in their wake but a death knight at the head of a massive army of undeads, gargoyles and spider creatures, right after massacring the population of Lordaeron so it would be very unreasonable and illogical to pin the blame on the Alliance for that.

[mickybrighteyes]

Getting word about what was really going on in Lordaeron when there were rumors of plague and of undeads and disturbing reports from survivors of Lordaeron and several HE priests who had seen the Scourge for themselves, and after the elves had already commited the terrible mistake of not trying to learn more about the Horde and dismissing it as a threat, was a priority.

Besides it wasn't paladin Arthas at the head of Lordaeron troops that was invading and massacring everyone in their wake but a death knight at the head of a massive army of undeads, gargoyles and spider creatures, right after massacring the population of Lordaeron so it would be very unreasonable and illogical to pin the blame on the Alliance for that.

I'd say it's about as believable as the story going out of broken shore in legion.

A sufficiently cut off nation staying out of other nation's affairs might not bother really formally acknowledge the happenings in another nation. The distinction of whether it was paladin Arthas or death knight Arthas... or whether he was Crown Prince or King Usurper might not matter much. Now if you see a major leading figure of the neibhoring nation show up doing shit... how illogical does is seem to attribute it to said nation (just so happens that this nation was the seat of power for the alliance).

This kind of generalization is how a few of the current horde factions are saddled with past bullshit, whether they're associated with it or not. Like Dark Spear Tribe getting attacked because of human history with trolls in STV or further north in Amani lands.


edit:

IMO it's a short stretch to have a series of rumors and sightings spread around and mix up all sorts of crazy details out of Lordaeron. Crazed prophet speaks of teh end of days, dead rise and torment the living, orc invaders run loose across the lands and eery cultists doing shady things.... nobles showing blatant disregard for the masses and a few cities fall to any of these. the king dies and the next one claiming the crown shows up....


IMO it's seems to be a stretch to totally assume the asshole with the army is alone with no backing when he IS in fact the royalty of the nation despite his new choice in followers.

But again... it still is a stretch to assume this is a major factor in later bias. Individuals might since it's not that far off from Garithos' motivations in "allies" being less than great allies and letting shit happen.

[Mehrunes]

Alleria was gone for the vast majority of the time in which the whole change from High to Blood took place. "Her people" don't really exist anymore.

Kael slapping a new name on his people to commemorate their fallen didn't magically alter the species.

Dear lord - they're going to bring back Varian to snap anduin out of it.

Gluing all that disenchantment ash together is going to be quite the art project.

Veressa wasn't part of Silvermoon. She was married to a human mage in Dalaran and made her feelings on the idea of sucking magic out of living things quite clear. You could say she was like the other elves from WC3 that gave Silvermoon the finger when they were ordered to return home and instead stayed in Dalaran.

You do realize Vereesa's feelings on the idea of sucking magic were that if not for Rhonin's support she may have joined the Blood Elves? Also, just being in Dalaran doesn't rob her of being a part of Silvermoon. Jaina confirmed the Sunreavers are still a part of Quel'Thalas and the Horde. Kael was still the Thalassian heir. So on and so forth.

Not if you banished them first. Can't be a traitor to a country that tells you you're no longer a part of it.

Except the only ones that were banished out of the country were the High Elves at Quel'Lithien. And they are too dead now to factor into this discussion. High Elves that remained High Elves were first and foremost High Elves that Kael simply couldn't find and as such didn't get the memo. As for the Void Elves were only exiled out of the capital and they were still merrily frolicking in Ghostlands. You know, a part of Quel'Thalas.

not even close.

And she didn't order the murder of shopkeepers. The Alliance gave the blood elves a chance to leave then imprisoned the ones that refused to leave and didn't attack them. The only ones that died were the when the Alliance defended themselves against the ones that started trying to kill them instead of leaving or going to prison until shit was sorted out.

Putting aside how it wasn't the Alliance but Jaina and how she had no authority to do so, this is just wrong. Vereesa's remark about Sunreavers refusing to surrender was made in regards to those in the Sewers. She said nothing of the sort in regards to the shopkeepers. Whom she very much ordered the player to kill. She literally handed them a list in the quest.

I'm not sure how people still can't understand this.

Probably because it doesn't apply here.

That seems to go over many people's heads. Treason is betraying your own country. If it isn't your country, it's not treason. Be that because you willingly left or because they kicked you out, or because the country you were part of collapsed while you were out.

None of these willingly left (instead they like to pretend that they are actually working for the benefit of Quel'Thalas, in-between bouts of killing its people), none were exiled out of the country (the Void Elf scenario explicitly states Umbric's squad of morons was exiled out of Silvermoon City and, as it then showed, they were exiled to the Ghostlands which is very much still Quel'Thalas) and Quel'Thalas never collapsed, as there is clear succession of power between then and now. The only Thalassians that were exiled out of the country were those fussy about doing what had to be done when they struggled with mana withdrawal and they had been dead since Cataclysm.

Look at it from the flipside. Most High Elves like the Silver Covenant may have been citizens of Silvermoon just like that Lodge in EPL, I think it was. Then one day you get told that now you're going to be required to suck magic out of living creatures. Horrified, you refuse to do this and for that "crime" you get banished from your home. And then while you're now living in exile in a tainted land of undead, the ally of your former home comes and starts murdering your comrades looking for some registry.

Quel'Lithien folks were the exiled Elves. Silver Covenant goons were just people that were away from Quel'Thalas when Arthas rummaged through it and they remained High Elves because Kael couldn't gather them with the rest. Also, not only did the exiled ones divide the nation as per Lor'themar, indicating some more serious action on their part, even if it was just disagreement on mana draining, by refusing to do so they in turn became a drain on Quel'Thalas.

The Thalassians were on their last legs at the time, they couldn't afford people not pulling their weight. And people going "Oh I couldn't possibly, I'm vegan" at the prospect of draining mana from animals and willingly taking the effects of withdrawal instead were not pulling their weight. They even posed a security risk, because a bunch of high road junkies willingly suffering from withdrawal were at a risk of overdosing when they eventually got their hands on "ethical" mana and becoming Wretched. And, would you look at that, it's precisely what happened to them in the end.

Plus, as @Viconia hinted at, the whole mana drain thing was something conveyed to the Blood Elves via Rommath by their sovereign. The vegans merrily ignored their sovereign's teachings. As for Nathanos, he sent Horde soldiers to retrieve the Farstrider ledger before Quel'Thalas joined the Horde.

I couldn't find much history concerning the Sunreavers and the Silver Covenant, just that neither existed until Kirin Tor invited Quel'thalas to aid them in their war against Malygos; they were simply high elven inhabitants of Dalaran up to that point (Source is Wowpedia, so Wikipedia rules of credibility apply). Anyway, Vereesa had a personal beef with the blood elves as her blood elf cousin had tried to harm her children previously, but I don't really know why the Silver Covenant elves in general are so adamantly opposed to the sin'dorei. Even if they found Lor'themar's elves disgusting for how they dealt with the Third War's aftermath, the Sunreavers were still their neighbors who (apparently) had no part in that. As grim & dark as the Purge was it looks like its foundation is quite lackluster.

To be honest Vereesa's beef with the Blood Elves doesn't make sense. And no, Zendarin doesn't explain it. In that book Vereesa sympathizes with the Blood Elves on multiple occasions and flat out tells Zendarin he's unworthy of calling himself one. So it showed the opposite of her judging Blood Elves as a whole by his metric.

- No.
- No.
- Yes.
- No.

Oh and on a side note, Vereesa and Alleria did more for Quel'Thalas than Rommath, Liadrin and Halduron combined.


And when Zul'Aman became a threat to QT, who came ? Vereesa while Lor'Themar was taking care of his hairs. What a joke

Saying that Vereesa did more for Quel'Thalas than Halduron because she helped against the resurgent Amani threat is totally not a double standard Never mind that Halduron is her Horde counterpart in that questline. And never mind that it was the Blood Elves that were handling the previous Amani threat while Vereesa was nowhere to be seen.

The notion that Alleria did anything of note for Quel'Thalas is even more ridiculous though. Because what she did was abandon her post to pursue a personal vendetta, disappear off the face of the planet for two decades and then nearly corrupt Blood Elves' font of power the moment she got back. Super helpful. Rommath rebuilt Silvermoon with his magic, but I guess it can't compare with the fuck all provided by Alleria /s

To be fair, can't really blame Alleria for trusting her sole surviving sister over the animated corpse of another sister.

That said, I do not consider any of the any high elf or Alleria are traitors to Quel'thalas.

How can you be traitor to a people that either exiled you from the nation or didn't even exist when you left?

None of these had been exiled from the nation (Umbric's posse was exiled from the capital city to another part of Quel'Thalas) and Kael renaming his people as a memorial to the fallen didn't make the Thalassian nation cease to exist.

If the blood elves were still high elves, then sure they'd be traitors.

But given how it's just a name and the nation remains the same, with clear succession of power from Anasterian to where it is now, they very much are traitors.

Also, just a heads up but the lore is really contradicting on what Garithos' status really was and seems to treat him as either a powerful warlord at worst and a Alliance associate at best, but for certain the last high-ranked noble left of the former Kingdom of Lordaeron and never as an actual member of the Grand Alliance.

He was never treated as an actual member of the Grand Alliance so neverly he got support from all Alliance member states and his authority was recognized even by other remaining leaders that worked with him personally.

Same with the blood elves and their reasons to hate/dislike the Alliance, it's either the lack of aid during the Second War, the invasion of the "human" Arthas or the treatment of Garithos towards Kael'thas (even if Kael'thas turned out to be an enemy and traitor of Quel'thalas a few years later), but it is never what the night elves or their dwarven pawn did.

The Night Elf invasion and the duplicity of the Ironforge emissary had been acknowledged in all versions of the final Ghostlands quest for the Blood Elves.

Lastly, the Purge was never an Alliance crime, or even orchastrated by the Alliance, yet the blood elves blame the Alliance for it. That'd be like the Alliance blaming the Horde for the actions of the Dark Horde, or Fel Horde.

You already had this discussion with multiple people less than three months ago. The Alliance helped Jaina with the Purge and as such they share responsibility for it. Your comparison to the Horde and the Dark/Fel Horde is a false equivalence.

[qwerty123456]

Putting aside how it wasn't the Alliance but Jaina and how she had no authority to do so, this is just wrong. Vereesa's remark about Sunreavers refusing to surrender was made in regards to those in the Sewers. She said nothing of the sort in regards to the shopkeepers. Whom she very much ordered the player to kill. She literally handed them a list in the quest.

Probably because it doesn't apply here.

Do you not play Alliance? Cause clearly you don't kill random shopkeepers. You only kill the ones who attack you first. Theres a reason why the Horde breaks people out and doesn't just transform a bunch of corpses into Forsaken.

And yes it does apply. If your country banishes you, you are no longer part of that country.

[geco]

This is an interesting topic.

Valeera is no more treacherous than a criminal orphan child. So in any case they failed her.

Vereesa Initially she would not be a traitor. Although in itself she is a pj that is completely left over in history.
As the story progresses she does more dubious things. But if we add to that how happily she lies about Sylvanas in front of her. She has a Traitorous personality. She now she is not sure whether or not she already committed the betrayal.

Alleria is a traitor. She literally chooses a foreign nation over hers (which is not bad) and she wants hers to submit to that foreign nation (Which is treason).

The void elves are complete traitors and they are the interesting ones here. They decide to practice a type of Forbidden Magic that puts all of their people at risk without taking care of the consequences. It's like someone playing with a nuclear reactor.
Now here comes the fun. They do the same thing that the Blood Elves did with the Kaldorei and the Blood Elves do not see themselves as Traitors but rather the Kaldorei are Traitors.

So by the standards of the Blood Elves ... everyone is traitor including them. Which is really fine because it is a concept of your race to be a Hypocrite. (They are like what the Alliance should be. But better interpreted in Everything)

PD: Do you remember that Alleria wants her people to submit to the Alliance? Well Lothamer and his girlfriend don't feel bad in the least for Teldrazzil. Another case of "it's only treason if they do it to me."

[Varodoc]

Alleria is a traitor. She literally chooses a foreign nation over hers (which is not bad) and she wants hers to submit to that foreign nation (Which is treason).

The Alliance is not a nation... it's literally an ALLIANCE. She wants Quel'Thalas to remain independent and rejoin the Alliance (like Theron tried to do in MoP btw).

It's no different than a politician of X country trying to get his country to join the NATO.

[geco]

The Alliance is not a nation... it's literally an ALLIANCE. She wants Quel'Thalas to remain independent and rejoin the Alliance (like Theron tried to do in MoP btw).

It's no different than a politician of X country trying to get his country to join the NATO.

I don't remember the scene. But it was not a political way of putting it.
And I remember that later he talks about conquest or taking it by force.

[Varodoc]

I don't remember the scene. But it was not a political way of putting it.
And I remember that later he talks about conquest or taking it by force.

You remember completely wrong then. Varian literally says that he opened NEGOTIATIONS to bring Quel'Thalas back in the Alliance. Theron also said that he would reconsider OLD ALLIANCES if Garrosh continued to act like a tyrant.

So Alleria is a traitor for trying to bring Quel'Thalas back into the Alliance (which is, you know, an alliance) but Theron is not a traitor for literally trying to do the exact same thing? Funny how this works.

[geco]

You remember completely wrong then. Varian literally says that he opened NEGOTIATIONS to bring Quel'Thalas back in the Alliance. Theron also said that he would reconsider OLD ALLIANCES if Garrosh continued to act like a tyrant.

So Alleria is a traitor for trying to bring Quel'Thalas back into the Alliance (which is, you know, an alliance) but Theron is not a traitor for literally trying to do the exact same thing? Funny how this works.

In any case, she can be treacherous by bringing the shadows to the source of the sun or by outright attacking Quel'Thalas in the fourth (fifth) War.

PS: And if I said that being Hypocrites is the basis of the Blood Elves. So it can be treacherous if A does it but be fine if B does it.

[Varodoc]

In any case, she can be treacherous by bringing the shadows to the source of the sun or by outright attacking Quel'Thalas in the fourth (fifth) War.

PS: And if I said that being Hypocrites is the basis of the Blood Elves. So it can be treacherous if A does it but be fine if B does it.

Then I guess Theron is equally treacherous for vouching for Alleria and allowing her to visit the Sunwell.

Any "betrayal" Alleria did, Theron also did it. Including attacking members of Quel'Thalas, since he helped the Rebellion against the Thalassian Sunreavers who sided with the lawful Warchief.

Give up this hill you've chosen to die on. No one has the moral high ground here, and certainly not Theron.

[geco]

Give up this hill you've chosen to die on. No one has the moral high ground here, and certainly not Theron.

Exactly. (We're talking about the guy who basically blamed Shandris for Teldrazzil and said he had nothing to do with when he commanded troops and then went personally to defend Sylvanas in the Undercity)

That is why the Blood elves are what the Alliance itself should be.

So this discussion is interesting.

[sighy]

You remember completely wrong then. Varian literally says that he opened NEGOTIATIONS to bring Quel'Thalas back in the Alliance. Theron also said that he would reconsider OLD ALLIANCES if Garrosh continued to act like a tyrant.

So Alleria is a traitor for trying to bring Quel'Thalas back into the Alliance (which is, you know, an alliance) but Theron is not a traitor for literally trying to do the exact same thing? Funny how this works.

Theron never fought for the Aliance against his own people. That's as complex as it gets. And the Aliance Alleria joined had been dissolved well over a decade before the Arthas and Scourge shitshow.

[Varodoc]

Theron never fought for the Aliance against his own people. That's as complex as it gets. And the Aliance Alleria joined had been dissolved well over a decade before the Arthas and Scourge shitshow.

Did you completely forget how Theron helped orchestrate the rescue of Baine Bloodhoof, which led to the deaths of several Thalassian Sunreavers?

But it's not complex, true. Alleria rejoined the Alliance because 99% of her family is there. Family is more important than Country, both IRL and in fiction.

That doesn't make her a traitor, that makes her a good person who genuinely loves her family.

But haters will hate no matter what. If she joined the Horde instead of the Alliance, the haters would still call her a traitor for forsaking her family to be with a zombie.

[Mehrunes]

Do you not play Alliance? Cause clearly you don't kill random shopkeepers. You only kill the ones who attack you first. Theres a reason why the Horde breaks people out and doesn't just transform a bunch of corpses into Forsaken.

And yes it does apply. If your country banishes you, you are no longer part of that country.

Yeah, no. They don't "attack you first". Vereesa hands you a list of people to kill before you even interact with them in the questline. Whether they attack the player first or not (which very well depends on your class anyway, because if you're ranged you have no reason to enter their aggro range before attacking) is immaterial, because they were already marked for death at that point. And, for the record, this act was so fucked up that even the staunch Sunreaver hater like Vereesa questioned Jaina's methods in that very same quest.

And the second part of your reply indicates trouble with paying on attention on your part because I addressed that tangent "only" three times in my post. Including just one paragraph below of what you quoted, as well as two paragraphs above it. None of the people/groups in question had been exiled from Quel'Thalas. Umbric and his followers were exiled from Silvermoon City, as is explicitly stated even in the Alliance quest involving them. And they were exiled to Ghostlands. I.e. to another part of Quel'Thalas. Pray tell, how did you get Quel'Thalas telling them they are no longer a part of it (i.e. what you were previously agreeing with) out of that, again? Ditto for Alleria, who was also exiled only from Silvermoon. And in that case it happened only after she already sided with the Alliance.

The Alliance is not a nation... it's literally an ALLIANCE. She wants Quel'Thalas to remain independent and rejoin the Alliance (like Theron tried to do in MoP btw).

It's no different than a politician of X country trying to get his country to join the NATO.

This is just splitting hairs. The point is that Quel'Thalas is not in the Alliance and the organization it is instead is in opposition to the Alliance. By siding with the Alliance Alleria stands in opposition to the direction that Quel'Thalas took, making her a traitor. Your false equivalence/whataboutism combo about Lor'themar doesn't change that.

And which one is it, she wants Quel'Thalas to join the Alliance or to remain independent? Because you can't have both. Especially since the Alliance is very much not like NATO, as NATO has no power to decide leaders of its member states like Varian did to the Dwarves.

You remember completely wrong then. Varian literally says that he opened NEGOTIATIONS to bring Quel'Thalas back in the Alliance. Theron also said that he would reconsider OLD ALLIANCES if Garrosh continued to act like a tyrant.

So Alleria is a traitor for trying to bring Quel'Thalas back into the Alliance (which is, you know, an alliance) but Theron is not a traitor for literally trying to do the exact same thing? Funny how this works.

By your own admission Lor'Themar was only in talks with the Alliance on the issue of joining Alliance, while Alleria already is Alliance. Way to shoot yourself in the foot.

Then I guess Theron is equally treacherous for vouching for Alleria and allowing her to visit the Sunwell.

Any "betrayal" Alleria did, Theron also did it. Including attacking members of Quel'Thalas, since he helped the Rebellion against the Thalassian Sunreavers who sided with the lawful Warchief.

Give up this hill you've chosen to die on. No one has the moral high ground here, and certainly not Theron.

Did Lor'themar replace his missing eye with a Void encyclopedia or how else was he supposed to know that Alleria consumed so much Void garbage that her very presence corrupts Holy founts of power?

And you're the one dying on a hill here. Lor'themar doing or not doing something doesn't magically negate what Alleria did.

But it's not complex, true. Alleria rejoined the Alliance because 99% of her family is there. Family is more important than Country, both IRL and in fiction.

That doesn't make her a traitor, that makes her a good person who genuinely loves her family.

But haters will hate no matter what. If she joined the Horde instead of the Alliance, the haters would still call her a traitor for forsaking her family to be with a zombie.

Treason doesn't make you a traitor if you have soppy justification for it? Now that's a hot take.

[qwerty123456]

Yeah, no. They don't "attack you first". Vereesa hands you a list of people to kill before you even interact with them in the questline. Whether they attack the player first or not (which very well depends on your class anyway, because if you're ranged you have no reason to enter their aggro range before attacking) is immaterial, because they were already marked for death at that point. And, for the record, this act was so fucked up that even the staunch Sunreaver hater like Vereesa questioned Jaina's methods in that very same quest.

And the second part of your reply indicates trouble with paying on attention on your part because I addressed that tangent "only" three times in my post. Including just one paragraph below of what you quoted, as well as two paragraphs above it. None of the people/groups in question had been exiled from Quel'Thalas. Umbric and his followers were exiled from Silvermoon City, as is explicitly stated even in the Alliance quest involving them. And they were exiled to Ghostlands. I.e. to another part of Quel'Thalas. Pray tell, how did you get Quel'Thalas telling them they are no longer a part of it (i.e. what you were previously agreeing with) out of that, again? Ditto for Alleria, who was also exiled only from Silvermoon. And in that case it happened only after she already sided with the Alliance.

Again why is there a prison break if it was an execution? Yes they attack you first, they are hostile and clearly aren't in prison like the people that went along quietly nor did they willingly leave on their own accord. If they weren't a threat they would have been taken in earlier.....

I assume you also think the Alliance attacked the goblins first in silithus as well when clearly the quests didn't make sense with the Alliance attacking first.

" When Grand Magister Rommath returned to Quel'Thalas to teach them Kael's magic siphoning ways, some elves were disgusted by the practice — likening it to vampiric behavior — and opposed its use. Unable to lead a divided nation, Regent Lord Lor'themar exiled the dissenters from the kingdom, the exiles finding residence in Quel'Lithien.[11]."

"Lor'themar Theron: Enough! You will leave at once, Alleria. Accident or no, your presence poses a danger to Quel'Thalas. Go back to Stormwind. Silvermoon is no longer your home." You seriously think Umbrics and the void elves exile would have been of just Silvermoon when Lor'themar tells Alleria gtfo and go back to the Alliance?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The elves joining the Horde way back in TBC never made a lick of sense. The elves HATED the Horde. You know, the people who ravaged their lands during the Second War? The elves don't get anything out of joining the Horde. The Horde is on a completely different continent and is made up of small tribes of hunter-gatherers. If Quel'thelas was threatened then the Horde would be of no use. That just leaves the Forsaken... why would the Elves want them as allies? Again, those people just raped Quel'thelas... and they're still acting awfully like the Scourge, what with them performing horrific live experimentation upon people they capture, and Sylvanas raising people from the dead and forcing them to become their slaves, or killing them again. The elves should morally hate the Forsaken.

On the other hand, you have the Alliance. All members are already located on the same continent as Quel'thelas. The Eastern Kingdoms has a developed network of roads, so if Quel'thelas is ever threatned, it'd be easy for an Alliance army to march across the Thandol Span and relieve a siege. Plus, the Alliance has a vast navy at its disposal. While most Alliance nations were recently raped by the Horde, Stormwind has rebounded very quickly, and the three Dwarven Kingdoms were never laid to waste. That's four developed nations, and each one of them alone could take on the entirety of Thrall's Horde of tiny hunter gatherer tribes and win. Though Gairthos was a scumbag, he was not indicative of the Alliance's overall disposition towards Quel'thelas. The Alliance has massive industry that can be drawn upon to rebuild Quel'thelas.

Need I explain further? There is only one coalition the elves should be apart of, and it ain't red.

The Silver Covenant aren't traitors. They're the loyalists who still had a brain up in their heads. Lor'themar was a moron who threw away the safety and industrial resources of the Alliance to needlesly make them an enemy as the Elves became obligated to help people they hated and who couldn't help Quel'thelas at all.

TBC's lore is an absolute travesty and dealt irreperable damage to the narrative coherence of Warcraft's story.

- - - Updated - - -

If Blizzard wanted a traditionally pretty looking race to join the Horde, there were more sensible ways to do it. You could have a group of Succubi defect from the Burning Legion and run to the Horde for security. Since the Alliance races predominately worship the Light and hate demons, they would be natural enemies of the Succubi.

If Blizzard really wanted elves to join the Horde, then it'd make more sense to have them be available to both factions. Quel'thelas remains in the Alliance. A group of outcasts or traitors (possibly Kael'thas' faction, but that's a whole different lore abortion that needs to be sorted out) run to the Horde because the Horde is the only coalition in town. Yes, with this set up Alliance will still be more popular than the Horde because Alliance players wouldn't need to join the reds to play a beautiful elf, but it should bump Horde numbers up a little. Ultimately, Blizzard created a faction based game that had a dichotomy between traditionally beautiful, heroic races, and a bunch of genocidal beastmen. I don't think it's hard to figure out which one will be the most popular. Either they should have committed to it and accepted that there would be a player population imbalance (and possibly designed around that), or they shouldn't have created that setup in the first place. When Mythic created Dark Age of Camelot, they accepted that the heroic Albion (Camelot, with knights and wizards) would be more popular than the evil Midgard (Ogres and trolls and etc), and they didn't balk when lo and behold, one faction was more popular than the other.

Then again, I suppose WoW had these problems from the beginning. The Night Elves had no business being in the Alliance. In WC3, the Kaldorei were portrayed as being just as powerful as the entire Alliance combined. They were strong enough to stand as their own faction. If the Horde ever threatened the Kaldorei? Lolololol every orc and cow and troll would be dead. Dead dead dead! Plus, the Alliance were located on a completely different continent. And culturally, the Alliance and the Night Elves had little in common. They don't even worship the same god. The Forsaken likewise had little reason to join the Horde. Cut off from the Horde that is on another continent. Neither could reasonably help each other out. Also morally the Horde should hate the Forsaken. Thrall should have never let Sylvanas into the Horde as their leader knowing what she was doing, and if he did then the rest of the Horde led by Cairne and Vol'jin would have protested.

[Varodoc]

She does not have the authority of making alliances with anyone. She goes against the wishes of her people and her nation both, which is pretty much the key essence of being a traitor...

The regime she was loyal to was Anasterian's. She never swore fealty to the new regime set up by Kael and Theron. She had no obligation to serve them.

She does not go against the wishes of her people. As many Blood elf scholars went to Telogrus Rift to study the Void and become Ren'dorei themselves. Since many Sin'dorei are attracted by the power and knowledge that the Ren'dorei offer. She only goes against a fraction of her people, the same way Theron has been doing for years (see the High elves under Vereesa).

[Lupinemancer]

Not betraying your allies and siding with your own enemies, like the Blood Elves did does not make the High Elves traitors, in fact, the Blood Elves are the traitors.

[Varodoc]

That seems like some mental gymnastics. When new rulers or leadership takes place they do not or should not await the swearing of fealty of their subjects, that fealty should be given by the subjects. In fact as you point out, the very fact that she did not swear fealty is in itself already treason.

The subjects don't have the right to say: "Nah, I'm not going to swear loyalty to this new leader."

She has every right not to swear fealty to Theron because he's not a King, he doesn't have royal blood, and his validity as Regent is non-existent since he was appointed by a madman who tried to destroy Silvermoon and went to literal Purgatory for his sins.

So Alleria has every right to say "You have no royal blood Theron, you are not a Sunstrider, and you were appointed by a madman so I don't care if Kael'thas gave you that position. I do not recognize you as an authority."

The subjects have every right to say that because Quel'Thalas is no longer a monarchy, Kael'thas even decreed that the last King would be Anasterian. The subjects have been doing that for 10 years, see the schism between Sin'dorei and Quel'dorei.