Do we get a story behind brown/black elves?

[Aucald]

It should go without saying that this thread isn't about real-world race or identity politics, so let's keep the discussion grounded in WoW lore and not real-world ideologies and the like.

[Mace]

There's no point in any Watsonian explanation, it's obviously IRL considerations. WoW was originally designed in 2002, when the US was 77% non-hispanic white and Irvine, California was 61% non-hispanic white with having an equivalent to a real-life race not being considered core to whether a piece of fiction can get off the ground or is acceptable except mostly in academia. Right now the US is close to 50% non-hispanic white, with 37% for Irvine and race relations in general and for fiction how a work does or doesn't depict the constituent racial groups of the US being the beginning and end of most discussion. Even more so in the social class that makes up most of Blizzard. Ergo, with humans being covered in the same expansion and since blood elves are the second most played race after humans and the human equivalent of the Horde and being able to depict real life races is requisite, you've elves of every colour of the rainbow. Be glad we're not at full out self-parody like the Witcher, based on a book series made in a country that's 95%+ Polish having casting that involves a black elf being upset about being oppressed by a black human.

It's still abit jarring.. i mean we know why we have those sort of distributions in the US, and where the origins are or how it came to be that way, because there is a logic and sense to it that you can see over time... completely ignoring it for ever and just plunking it in game is just one of many things they don't seem to care to detail.

I think warcraft would be better for them to explain things than just plunk in there, I mean this is not unreasonable to expect surely!?

[Alanar]

Why do I have to think about lotr rings of power here??

[shoc]

Avatars serve player representation first, lore second.

[Mace]

This is one of those things that I think is best taken as is. It's a small retcon. They've always existed, but are only now being properly represented in game due to customization updates. I don't really think there needs to be a lore reason for why blood elves, who already had more or less human-like skintones, to suddenly have more human-like skin tones. Some of them are just more tan than others. There is no new black subculture among the blood elves of Silvermoon that suddenly needs to explain itself. You're free to make sense of any dark-skinned elves you see however you choose to.

The problem I have with this topic in particular, that is, elves with dark skin tones, is how terribly, terribly easy it is for it to people to use the topic to step outside the boundaries of lore and just be assholes under the convenient guise of being lore purists. This is just not one of those retcons that I think anyone should be up in arms or calling Blizzard out about.

It's still nice to know how they came to be. WE got an explanations as to why we got the purple skin tones on blood elves to make void elves, though we weren't exactly told how we can now have the original skin tones on void elves again /shrug


I for one would like to know how/why humans got theirs where they came from, but I'd also like to know if the skin furs on Tauren denote a particular ethnicity or are just random. Well clearly they are not random.. that defies logic.. but then with no explanation, we don't even know the logic of this world when it comes to that.

If you're going to imitate irl, then give us something no?

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Avatars serve player representation first, lore second.

Clearly, but they should follow the real world they allegorise that does show where different ethnicities come from /shrug

[BreakerOfWills]

There's no point in any Watsonian explanation, it's obviously IRL considerations. WoW was originally designed in 2002, when the US was 77% non-hispanic white and Irvine, California was 61% non-hispanic white with having an equivalent to a real-life race not being considered core to whether a piece of fiction can get off the ground or is acceptable except mostly in academia. Right now the US is close to 50% non-hispanic white, with 37% for Irvine and race relations in general and for fiction how a work does or doesn't depict the constituent racial groups of the US being the beginning and end of most discussion. Even more so in the social class that makes up most of Blizzard. Ergo, with humans being covered in the same expansion and since blood elves are the second most played race after humans and the human equivalent of the Horde and being able to depict real life races is requisite, you've elves of every colour of the rainbow. Be glad we're not at full out self-parody like the Witcher, based on a book series made in a country that's 95%+ Polish having casting that involves a black elf being upset about being oppressed by a black human.

Any time someone tries to reach for real world demographics to justify excluding Black people from a fantasy world you might as well pull out the calipers and the pointy hood because straight up racism is more logical than the absurd hoops you gotta jump through to try to justify why a magical anything can't have dark skin.

[Aucald]

You see, I like that we got some explanation for their skin and eye colours at one point in time. THe skin was purple because of the well of eternity, adn one of the reasons the high elves become white is because they are severred from that connection somehow (i think the RPG said by Cenarius and the druids) and the exile journey changing them further, finally the sunwe.

Lore-wise, we don't really know if the skin tone of the Night Elves actually changed a great deal due to exposure to the Well of Eternity. Night Elves were originally trolls, most likely Dark Trolls given their description as a "nocturnal tribe," and the remaining Dark Trolls today have darker skin tones like blues, blacks, and greys. The arcane essences in the Well might have given the Kaldorei the purple tones they're known for since the color purple is often associated with arcane energies in the same way green is with fel energy, but beyond that, they may have also kept most of their original Dark Troll tones. When the original High Elves departed Kalimdor for the Eastern Kingdoms, these arcane energies waned and they began to slowly lose even more of their original coloration, with paleness being predominant (but again, not universal even prior to the expansion of palettes). In a soft lore sense, I would imagine those former Night Elves who tended to the darker shades of blue and purple might have become the deeper shades of brown we now see, whereas pink and lighter purple tones became paler shades like white and peach since prior to the expansion the Night Elves also didn't have the darker shadows of blue, purple, and even grey.

THe silver eyes are because of the arcane inherent power too, i notice they are later given a blue tinge more than silver, though youc an still get the pure silver.. but the default silver was changed to blue tinged with the update.. but the xplantion is there at least.

Insofar as eyes go, if I recall correctly, the only eye color that denoted an inherent affinity or skill was gold, which denoted Druidic potential. The baseline color for Night Elves' eyes was silver, with some variations like silvery-blue or silvery-white. Those with golden eyes were, prior to the revelation of the connection between color and Druidism, thought to be fated for greatness due to Azshara herself having golden eyes, and the cult of personality she assembled around herself. Since the Night Elves prior to the War of the Ancients put so much stock in arcane affinity and power, those with golden eyes were often put in places of prestige such as the Moon Guard or found a place among Azshara's Highborne court. That was basically Illidan's ultimate trajectory before the War of the Ancients. Malfurion himself was born with silver eyes, and thus assumed a lower calling than his twin Illidan, but during the course of learning Druidism from Cenarius, his eyes actually turned gold, revealing the link.

So I would expect the hair colour, skin colour and eye colours mostly purples, pinks, blues were thier main arcan indications when seeking for representations of their arcane legacy, but the Highborne customisations we were asking for, wanted to refelct cultural additions, like jewellry, very tidy hair and eards in extravagant styels, and magical features like tattoo runes to represent both mage and priests - like Tyrande has and the nightborne have. At least again, those have explantions. Or their introduction implies an explanation.

Granted, but I think telescoping lore rationales into hard restrictions is wrongheaded, as WoW has always been rather open when it comes to character expression.

You see, I'd love more of that stuff, Grimtotem the only Mulgore Tauren tribe? What about a bit more depth about their groups and more clans or tribes? And tie both skin colour oand patterns, or at least fur colour to it. I know in animals you just don't have that.. i never heard of black pigs coming from somewhere specific, and dogs have all manner of variations - but that's because we breed them that way.

Prior to the formation of Thunder Bluff, the Tauren appeared to be highly nomadic and clannish, as they still have disparate tribes even today. So it's likely certain genetic traits like dark fur, dark horns, and the like probably stayed within certain tribes like the Grimtotem - who were especially xenophobic and rather distrusting of outsiders. On the lore level, you'd probably find the same is roughly true of other Tauren tribes like the Bloodhoof, Ragetotem, and Wildmane - they likely have common distinctions among them that quickly mark them as members of a given tribe, although with the Tauren having a central region and now being freed from their forced nomadic lifestyles, there's probably an increase in relationships and children across tribal boundaries (another soft lore rationale for expanding player choices).

It was a good story albeit - nothing wrong with having a slavery story, given how the ORcs come out of it, but remember orcs were slaves/prisoners again between WC2/3 after losing the war - which was a common thing to happen in our world through most of our past (the great slave trade of the west was unique in that it was a business deal , African chiefs selling their people off for profit) - but slavery by conquest wasn't a thing from the northern european nations like Britain and France who indulged in this, but it is very common in Asia and the middle east for conquered peoples or villages/towns).

the orcs off course rise up from this and regain their courage, then expand greatly as leaders of the horde.

I thought you were referring to the orcs as the slaves of the Legion, which they were to a degree, albeit it was more that they and their society were corrupted with considerable buy-in from the chieftains of most of the orc clans. Their internment post-WC2 wasn't really slavery in that they weren't put to work or sold as chattel - the lethargy that struck them due to their withdrawal from fel energy precluded any ideas of that, save for Aedelas Blackmoore's dream of pressing them into service as his personal warriors to overthrow Terenas and rule Lordaeron. The internment was done because the Alliance couldn't bring itself to conduct genocide on them despite the heavy damage they'd caused, and with their failure to conquer Azeroth they'd fallen into despair and lethargy that the Kirin Tor recognized as a demonic influence, and even pointed out could mean that the orcs were not inherently evil or monstrous (which indeed turned out to be the case).

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

No. They exist only because Blizzard wanted to score some easy inclusivity points.

I guess you can headcanon them as being Thalassian colonists sent to Tanaris.

Melanin needs no lore just as we don't need lore on how pregnancy works. They have more melanin than others giving them darker skin. No need to make a fuss about having black elves. Also nerve of you to say that considering Alleria's VA is a black woman

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I mean ...Do we need a lore justification? Don't understand nor fathom why it is a big deal.

Because it's not a big deal. People are complaining for the sake of complaining or something they were raised to have an old problem with.

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This continues to be a waste of words, as is your usual.

Do you really have nothing better to spend your time on?

I agree! I think this thread should've been closed. There's no need to debate on something as silly as this.

[Super Dickmann]

@BreakerOfWills

I don't know why you're bothering with implications, I'm being very direct. It's entirely demographics. Media will invariably reflect the demographic that produced it and towards whom it's directed. You won't see any Romanians in a Korean drama because Korea is 99% Korean, similarly where you could have incidental and side cosmetic options in 2002 you no longer can in 2022 without social backlash or the writers themselves feeling like they aren't reflecting what their office looks like or cares about. The original Polish Witcher novels didn't have to make its fantasy Europe equivalent include ethnic group equivalents because Poland is 95% Polish, but the American adaptation does because of American demographics.

@Mace

You can have distinct demographics that correspond to real world ethnic groups and the origins thereof if you build your setting out of it. Tolkien does it, GRRM does it, the Elder Scrolls does it, but WoW never did, so there's no way to do it that wouldn't be retroactive busiwork that 90% of people and especially the target demographic that'll use those customization options don't care about. Not bothering is just the better choice.

[Varodoc]

Melanin needs no lore just as we don't need lore on how pregnancy works. They have more melanin than others giving them darker skin. No need to make a fuss about having black elves.

Indeed, no need to make a fuss about it. They are in the game because it was 2020 and Blizzard realized that they could score easy points with Twitter. It's simple, why make a fuss about it?

Also nerve of you to say that considering Alleria's VA is a black woman

Spare the sentimentalities for someone who cares.

[korijenkins]

Black humans have been in the game since classic the adults were just limited to one skin tone and no other features, they how ever had black kids which were alot clearer.



In all likely hood they figured high elf's/blood elf's have human skin tones so why limit them to only one shade when the humans in wow have always had black/brown.

No one is saying they shouldn't exist, but that there should be the same explanation behind it that there is for brown trolls, green trolls, brown orcs, red draenei, etc. Just chucking them into the game and saying "haha, now they will believe we're tolerant" is rich given the employees were actively harassing female employees.

[Mace]

Lore-wise, we don't really know if the skin tone of the Night Elves actually changed a great deal due to exposure to the Well of Eternity. Night Elves were originally trolls, most likely Dark Trolls given their description as a "nocturnal tribe," and the remaining Dark Trolls today have darker skin tones like blues, blacks, and greys. The arcane essences in the Well might have given the Kaldorei the purple tones they're known for since the color purple is often associated with arcane energies in the same way green is with fel energy, but beyond that, they may have also kept most of their original Dark Troll tones.

THe lore does specifically mentioned the Well of Eternity gave them greater intelligence, lengthened life span, stature and strength as well as tehir characteristic purple hue.

But this was before they retconned trolls to come from elves. Still the dark trolls were changed to have closer to elven appearances. Although the darker skin tones seems to mkae sense, you would think that dark trolls would have paler skin tones due to the lack of sunlight - still whatever turned trolls to elves was acomplete transformaton, if 3 digits can become 5, the face totally changed (tusks to fangs) , and skin also (elves lack any of the scale like warts inherent from the lizard/elemental origin we now suspect trolsl h ave, it's not surprising skin colour changes as well. Night elevs after all have shades of purple from near moonwhite to near black but going through blue and purple, - unlike humans that go through brown.

trolls though seem to have many colour pallets.

When the original High Elves departed Kalimdor for the Eastern Kingdoms, these arcane energies waned and they began to slowly lose even more of their original coloration, with paleness being predominant (but again, not universal even prior to the expansion of palettes). In a soft lore sense, I would imagine those former Night Elves who tended to the darker shades of blue and purple might have become the deeper shades of brown we now see, whereas pink and lighter purple tones became paler shades like white and peach since prior to the expansion the Night Elves also didn't have the darker shadows of blue, purple, and even grey.

Yes, you coudl say so, but then some of the night elf tones are almost peach like pale, so it is a natural colouration. Which I would surmise the Well colouration is just not as strong in some as it is in others.. and perhaps once transformed to night elves, their natural skin colour is brown to pale white, and it's the Well connection that inserts the purple. We do now see them get near pale and near black skin tones.

Insofar as eyes go, if I recall correctly, the only eye color that denoted an inherent affinity or skill was gold, which denoted Druidic potential. The baseline color for Night Elves' eyes was silver, with some variations like silvery-blue or silvery-white. Those with golden eyes were, prior to the revelation of the connection between color and Druidism, thought to be fated for greatness due to Azshara herself having golden eyes, and the cult of personality she assembled around herself. Since the Night Elves prior to the War of the Ancients put so much stock in arcane affinity and power, those with golden eyes were often put in places of prestige such as the Moon Guard or found a place among Azshara's Highborne court. That was basically Illidan's ultimate trajectory before the War of the Ancients. Malfurion himself was born with silver eyes, and thus assumed a lower calling than his twin Illidan, but during the course of learning Druidism from Cenarius, his eyes actually turned gold, revealing the link.

Yeh, but not all gold eyes were a connection to nature, and I suspect they scrapped that piece of lore because they changed it. It never made sense to me tbh, and was just an excuse to explain why half the night elves had golden eyes - when actually it was just to give night elves a variation that the character creation system at the time did not permit.

Later we see Malfurion arrive with green eyes in Legion, denoting nature and the emerald dream, which makes a LOT more sense than golden - golden is akin to sunlight or the light or perhaps was indeed one of great destiny.

If it was linked to nature, then it's clear that night elves had no initial natural nature connection, but then you could successfully argue their nature expertise comes from love rather than natural affinity. Cenarius did teach them early on, and the genetic association is which magic (arcane magic) not nature through thier well of eternity origin. /shrug.

Granted, but I think telescoping lore rationales into hard restrictions is wrongheaded, as WoW has always been rather open when it comes to character expression.

Which is great right.. does that exclude given explanations for them? Look at the new customisations, how mcuh better would they be i f they explained to people that this particular set is wildhammer dwarves, or that particular one are sand farakki trolls. They are just in there with no explanation, yet there is an inspiration for htem, and more are added.

The explanation for sure makes them a lot more interesting. This is a role playing game, and creating fantasies or facilitating them by providing lore for everything is very important. The player doesn't create the race, but actually can choose from a good list of options available in the world... it's nice to have those options have a reason or origin.


for those that are saying it doesn't matter, it's like saying we can have any race just plunked in there, no expalnation as to where they come from, or who theya re, i'ts just a model that looks different that you can choose. Which while true, it's far better to explain them, give them a style/ reason/ class etc.

Prior to the formation of Thunder Bluff, the Tauren appeared to be highly nomadic and clannish, as they still have disparate tribes even today. So it's likely certain genetic traits like dark fur, dark horns, and the like probably stayed within certain tribes like the Grimtotem - who were especially xenophobic and rather distrusting of outsiders. On the lore level, you'd probably find the same is roughly true of other Tauren tribes like the Bloodhoof, Ragetotem, and Wildmane - they likely have common distinctions among them that quickly mark them as members of a given tribe, although with the Tauren having a central region and now being freed from their forced nomadic lifestyles, there's probably an increase in relationships and children across tribal boundaries (another soft lore rationale for expanding player choices).

Indeed, wouldn't you like to have this actually explained and detailed??

I thought you were referring to the orcs as the slaves of the Legion, which they were to a degree, albeit it was more that they and their society were corrupted with considerable buy-in from the chieftains of most of the orc clans. Their internment post-WC2 wasn't really slavery in that they weren't put to work or sold as chattel - the lethargy that struck them due to their withdrawal from fel energy precluded any ideas of that, save for Aedelas Blackmoore's dream of pressing them into service as his personal warriors to overthrow Terenas and rule Lordaeron. The internment was done because the Alliance couldn't bring itself to conduct genocide on them despite the heavy damage they'd caused, and with their failure to conquer Azeroth they'd fallen into despair and lethargy that the Kirin Tor recognized as a demonic influence, and even pointed out could mean that the orcs were not inherently evil or monstrous (which indeed turned out to be the case).

Would that the orcs would show the same mercy huh.

Would be interesting to have a group of orcs grateful to the alliance o r at least friendly based on that. This is why the black and white separation of horde and alliance was never a keen favourite of mine. With the stories they told, the relationships between races and individuals across those two factions should be far more nuanced.

but then, given the Wc3 history , especially of the night levs and of the undead, we really shouldn't be having two factions either.

[Illusions]

No one is saying they shouldn't exist, but that there should be the same explanation behind it that there is for brown trolls, green trolls, brown orcs, red draenei, etc. Just chucking them into the game and saying "haha, now they will believe we're tolerant" is rich given the employees were actively harassing female employees.

The general explanation can simply be genetic skin differences not necessarily tied to our understanding of real life biology, or more simply just standard variation. Therefore any geographical location on Azeroth can have a variety of skin tones for people living there, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

[Aucald]

This thread didn't start off great and seems likely to verge into Forbidden Topics quite speedily. It is now closed.