Lore Explanation For Blood Elf Eye Colors That Are Not Green Or Gold?

[StationaryHawk]

Like some one else said, if this were possible then why haven't orcs reverted back to their natural skin colors.

Though, blue eyes could also be explained with High Elves who decided to rejoin Quel'thelas.

Orcs don't have green eyes. Blood elves don't have green skin. That they reacted differently to fel corruption means you can't use one as justification for the other.

Anyways, while I'm sure Blizzard just wanted to give players more customization options (that has been requested for years), it's easy enough to say the Sunwell did it and call it a day.

[Jastall]

Trolls are the original elves, never forget it

Even worse then, it's basically their fault if elves exist in the first place as well.

[Traveler Voltin]

Even worse then, it's basically their fault if elves exist in the first place as well.

its the titan's fault for creating the WoE in the first place.

[Combatbutler]

Even worse then, it's basically their fault if elves exist in the first place as well.

Well at least they aren't sentient defect toasters, like the titanforged ;P

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Like the title says, are the new eye customizations given a lore reason/ retcon, or are they just a way for player's to get more customization out of their characters and no NPCs will have the customizations?

I mean I am going to state the obvious; whatever new customizations added are part of the lore now, whether through retcon or narrative development.

Whether we get a specific lore answer or not, that is still true.

In case of no explanation, the most likely assumption is "something that was always there", like new skin tones. They would fall more on the retcon side of things even when they are minimally so. All of these I think should be explained with what lore is already present through context.

In such case then, if we don't get specific new explanations for blue eyes, I think there are two major explanations:

-They said the green tint would take "generations" to fade. So that changed, maybe because of the re-ignited Sunwell causes a fel-cleansing effect.

-There were simply blood elves that, either through being far away enough from population centers, or rejoined the BE society after the re-ignition of the Sunwell, and just never got green eyes on the first place. They were always there -like some blue eyed NPC's- they were simply not playable due to the self imposed limits of customization.

[Jastall]

its the titan's fault for creating the WoE in the first place.

And it's Y'shaarj's fault that he was rooted too deep and pruning him caused the Well. So everything wrong with Azeroth goes back to him.

[Darknessvamp]

And it's Y'shaarj's fault that he was rooted too deep and pruning him caused the Well. So everything wrong with Azeroth goes back to him.

Let's get to the real root of the problem, it's that Light and Void's fault that the Great Dark Beyond exists which caused Azeroth and the other titans to form and lead to the eventual creation of elves. They should have just ignored each other and floated in their meaningless sea of nothing.

[Rozz]

There are plenty of reasons why a blood elf may have something other than green/gold.
1) Not all elves draw from the same magic source.
2) RP wise, it gives more freedom in origin.
3) You finally have eyes that match class identity.

I think the most curious option are the white eyes. I'm not sure how a BE would go about staying "pure" unless they had little exposure to most of the events in their history. I guess an elf raised away from a magic indulgent society? Half elves? Idk

[Aucald]

There are plenty of reasons why a blood elf may have something other than green/gold.
1) Not all elves draw from the same magic source.
2) RP wise, it gives more freedom in origin.
3) You finally have eyes that match class identity.

I think the most curious option are the white eyes. I'm not sure how a BE would go about staying "pure" unless they had little exposure to most of the events in their history. I guess an elf raised away from a magic indulgent society? Half elves? Idk

High Elves had blue/white eyes in WC2 and WC3 in some of their portraits - might hearken back to that.

[Saltysquidoon]

Yeah, I'd say the white eyes are a reference to the WCIII Blood Mage portrait/unit window.

[Rozz]

High Elves had blue/white eyes in WC2 and WC3 in some of their portraits - might hearken back to that.

Ahh, then that makes sense. I assume purple wasn't added since it's associated with Void energy, like how VEs can't have green/gold eyes.

[StillMcfuu]

Like the title says, are the new eye customizations given a lore reason/ retcon, or are they just a way for player's to get more customization out of their characters and no NPCs will have the customizations?

Blood Elves gained green eye color by using fel as a source for their magical addiction. After the cleansing of the well, blood elf paladin started to get a golden eye color, this is sort of explained as the Elves going from faith based Paladins to finding a more "magical" route of using the light; First the Naaru and then after belen cleansed the well and left it "tinged" with Light power. Blue eyed Blood Elves have remained the whole time, namely the Farstriders, who were never much for magical abuse, didn't actually change because they never really abused Fel.

[Syegfryed]

blood elf are high elves, therefore they have blue eyes too.

it could be from using the sunwell who also have arcane magic

it could be that high elves who came back to quel'thalas for X reasons after the sunwell as being cured, and so on.

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Blood Elves gained green eye color by using fel as a source for their magical addiction. After the cleansing of the well, blood elf paladin started to get a golden eye color, this is sort of explained as the Elves going from faith based Paladins to finding a more "magical" route of using the light; First the Naaru and then after belen cleansed the well and left it "tinged" with Light power. Blue eyed Blood Elves have remained the whole time, namely the Farstriders, who were never much for magical abuse, didn't actually change because they never really abused Fel.

not even the normal blood elves "abused fel", they only used fel magic to empower the city, they sucked mana from the mana wyrms

[Kendros]

No there is not its a simply shut up and have your sillly customization you been crying about for ages and go away.

[Razion]

Fel corruption is usually a result of partaking in or being in the persistent presence of fel magic. As we see in Blood Elf Orphans, it doesn't take long for the eye strain to kick in, so for someone to not have the eye contamination they would have to be removed from Silvermoon for a long time - but there are plenty of vocations that do this, especially hunters and Farstriders stick away from a lot of contemporary society. Field studies like herbalism, archaeology, etc. would also be pretty removed from society unless they were specifically holding up shops or museums or something. For the gold influence, the Blood Elf has to have fed on the new holy and arcane mixed version of the Sunwell.

And, again, the same vocations like Farstrider hunters, warriors, or herbalists or archaeologists or miners and others wouldn't necessarily be anywhere close to the main capitals or even the Sunwell necessarily. These Blood Elves removed from society may have other sources of magic that they've been partaking in that weren't demonic or the Sunwell. Since these options are usually rare without some kind of manual labor or militant profession, this means that Blood Elves that have these kinds of eyes that don't have these kinds of jobs or vocations may be considered elite or rich, perhaps with lots of land removed from the general populace living out possibly in some kind of magic school or estate as we see semi-frequently spread around Eversong.

[Koryn123]

Fel corruption manifests differently in orcs and blood elves. The difference between why orcs' skin hasn't reverted while blood elves' eyes can have done so is because the orcs drank demon blood. Most blood elves were only standing around a building with floating spires powered by fel magic. Certain orcs such as Thrall's parents didn't drink demon blood and were slowly corrupted by proximity over time the same way the blood elves were, so it's conceivable that given a balancing positive influence like the blood elves have with the Sunwell, one of those first generation proximity-corrupted orcs could have reverted. We'll have to wait and see Thrall's kid (or kids if he has more than one) before we can determine more about how fel corruption works genetically for orcs.

Green eyes: Blood elves who consumed fel energies from fel-charged items, directly from demons, or who were in the vicinity of any buildings or elven contraptions powered by fel energies (this is the vast majority of blood elves, at least all 85% of the survivors who stayed in Quel'thalas and were infected by Rommath and the others he brought with him from Kael's 15%, the Sunfury forces, to power Quel'thalas' defenses and cities with fel magic).

Gold eyes: Elves with low levels of fel corruption (I assume), who spend a healthy amount of time around the Light and the Sunwell.

Blue eyes: Uncorrupted Thalassian elves who are one or more of these (according to my headcanon):

1) Always identified politically with the majority of Thalassian elves but were absent during BC when their buildings were powered by fel (such as perhaps some of the elves from the Sons of Lothar, Dalaran, or independents living as refugees throughout Azeroth), and that is merely being represented in-game now. There is one blue-eyed elf named Lanesh the Steelweaver among the Sunreaver Onslaught on the Thunder Isle.

2) Were only slightly corrupted by fel, spent enough time around the Sunwell to clean it up, but not so much that they got golden eyes.

3) It could easily just be that they work with a lot of clean arcane power and that eventually overwhelmed their previous eye color and brought it back to blue. If humans who normally have no glow can get one from arcane, it's not inconceivable.

4) They could have previously identified as High Elves but decided that since their home is no longer consuming mana from living creatures (the original cause of division), they would rather return to Quel'thalas to live in relative safety in their old homeland than continue to live as refugees among the Alliance. I would imagine this group, given game mechanic ideas of loyalties would be Friendly to blood elves and pandaren, Unfriendly to orcs, trolls, and forsaken, Neutral to tauren and goblins, and friendly or neutral to most of the Alliance. This group would likely be happy to take part in conflicts against say N'zoth, but would only fight the Alliance if the Alliance were invading Quel'thalas. They wouldn't just follow blindly for the yearly "An orc wants to fight humans, so the blood elves have to help him fight them" train.

[TheFirstOnes]

Probably because the Sunwell is mostly rebuilt now, and that you can have Fel within your blood and not have it taint your eye color.

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No there is not its a simply shut up and have your sillly customization you been crying about for ages and go away.

Also this. Pretty sure Blizzard is sick of the whole "High Elf" discussion, and just decided to give both Alliance and Horde High Elven customization options that don't stray too far away from the Blood/Void Elven purpose.

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its the titan's fault for creating the WoE in the first place.

It's the Old Gods' fault for showing up on Azeroth to begin with!

[valky94]

Green eyes - remnants of fel corruption from siphoning fel energy from demons (similar to orc green skin)
Blue eyes - from the arcane energies of the sunwell
Gold eyes - from the holy energies of m'urus core that was used to reignite the sunwell

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Like some one else said, if this were possible then why haven't orcs reverted back to their natural skin colors.

they probably will eventually, orcs arent a race that is addicted to magic like elves, so they dont use another source of magic to filter out the fel from their bodies

[Maljinwo]

Eye color being special is a wow issue to distinguish belf from helf

They always had a range of colors

[Syegfryed]

Green eyes - remnants of fel corruption from siphoning fel energy from demons (similar to orc green skin)

that isn't true, they got green eyes by being nearby fel energies, not siphoning it

they probably will eventually, orcs arent a race that is addicted to magic like elves, so they dont use another source of magic to filter out the fel from their bodies

orcs will not revert because the corruption changed their bodies/dna, its permanently, even the children are green.

they have to breed with normal orcs for normal orcs to be born, like thrall kids.