Curiosity on a certain trend with elven lore

[Tanaria]

I know you want to keep pretending TFT never happened, but I feel like both of the main elven nations are depicted as having far too much of a vicious streak when cornered to really be said to have goodness as a core value.

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That's an understatement, until Warlords there were hardly any named Sin'dorei warlocks outside of trainers and the sunfury (maybe one in the reliquary? There was Keelen, of leper gnome sweatshop fame, but we know by current lore that his business was shuttered after getting exposed), priest seems to be the only original blood elf class with fewer unless you stretch and count a number of NPCs with weird magical schools (like astromancers) as secular versions of priests; and even the Dalaran quel'dorei have one of the alliance's warlock trainers.

Priests, as far as the Sin'dorei society go - a large portion of them became Blood Knights.

Astromancers are an extension to the "Mage" class. They aren't "Priests" as they aren't healers.
Sunfury Astromancers were Magi who were drawing upon the powers of the stars over Netherstorm, to enhance their Arcane abilities.

SNIP

Right - the limited use of Blood Elf Warlocks is quite telling on where their lore is going.

Blood Elves are a race that focuses on their Magisters, Blood Knights and Farstriders. This is their army. It's what we saw in TBC against the Sunfury, it's what we saw in Suramar, it's what we saw on Draenor - Warlocks are such a small part, as is the use of fel magic, that it's almost non-existent...but that doesn't mean they are like High Elves, correct. The Blood Knights, Blood Magic - all of this stuff, which is an integral part of Blood Elf and Silvermoon society, didn't exist before the Third War.

Blood Elves aren't an evil race, nor have they ever been a "bad boy" race. They are a race of survivors who now do everything they can to survive and carry on living in a savage world. These days, Quel'Thalas blossoms as a magical Horde bastion on the Eastern Kingdoms and I hope that Sin'dorei and Horde players will get a new, updated Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon

[ravenmoon]

I know you want to keep pretending TFT never happened, but I feel like both of the main elven nations are depicted as having far too much of a vicious streak when cornered to really be said to have goodness as a core value.

i disagree, the night elves are described as benevolent, and while you see some hardcore sentinels like the party that ambushed Grom, and Tyrande certain has her warrior side, you see a lot more of the opposite, that serene, calm manner of the night elves, and many goody like characters litter their appearances. including Tyrande who has that other side.

I think Maiev and some of the Highborne and Demon hunters are largely the more vicious type. Same with the high elves, before RoC, they pretty were much that near LotR type high elf (not quite that good, but enough to share the same name and identity). this is how they were portrayed, and identified as. but it changes.. now they aren't all evil, they aren't mostly evil either, they're very driven now, ambitious, and power seeking - which does not make them nice people, they are willing to do bad things too to get what they need to survive or crush their enemies, this is not a "good" character trait either.

While some remain "good", i would say a fairly large portion, it's no longer a racial trait of the blood elf. Still as elves they are more leaned over to good. You see it across board, even in the demon hunters who become chaotic good, chaotic neutral or anti hero types. it's just a racial thing. The ones to truly go evil, like the night elven highborne court either get destroyed or transformed into monsters like Naga or Satyr, or fel elves and Wretched.

That's an understatement, until Warlords there were hardly any named Sin'dorei warlocks outside of trainers and the sunfury (maybe one in the reliquary? There was Keelen, of leper gnome sweatshop fame, but we know by current lore that his business was shuttered after getting exposed), priest seems to be the only original blood elf class with fewer unless you stretch and count a number of NPCs with weird magical schools (like astromancers) as secular versions of priests; and even the Dalaran quel'dorei have one of the alliance's warlock trainers.

there are a few more than that, the warlock legion class quest has a blood elf, but yeh there aren't that many new ones, there were a lot that joined the Illidari faction as ordinary warlocks rather than transitioning to demon hunters, we know some were part of the scryers, and we saw a lot more amongst the sunfury and sunhawk blood elves.

Weren't they some amongst the blood elves in Azshara in classic?

yeh blood elf priesthood is weird, the priesthood and magister were the two pillar classes of the high elf nation, this is what they were famous for, and when the alliance marched to war, the best mage and priest units were high elves. Before TBC put a lot of emphasis on the mage, we had an equal emphasis on priest and mage - when we said magic, this incorporated both mage and priest.. but the impressions of elves in Wc2 were not fleshed out in this universe and relied heavily on LotR. which is not surprising. what do you expect when you call your races dwarves, high elves, orcs etc - without fleshing them out much we know that they are referring ot the general characteristics of such races as they have shown up in larger works like DnD and LotR - with the warcraft story showing it's variations as per appearance.

Because the Night elf was the night elf, it had an opportunity to be very unique. It was made to be a fusion of the dark elf and forest elf - which is why you have all that stuff on Highborne, being born from the well of eternity, the pre-sundering empire, and the arcane affinity of the night elves seen through moonwells, arcane priest and druid spells as well as Highborne and Nightborne etc - with aspects from the forest elf - including the strong nature connection, the more unique emerald dream, walking trees with magic related stuff. Night elf doesn't exist anywhere in fantasy except for warcraft, so it has to be uniquely defined, and is defined as the original elf, with a connection to the stars, a moon goddess, an arcane essence and affinity and nature love aptitude. These are the things that make them unique.

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Priests, as far as the Sin'dorei society go - a large portion of them became Blood Knights.

Astromancers are an extension to the "Mage" class. They aren't "Priests" as they aren't healers.
Sunfury Astromancers were Magi who were drawing upon the powers of the stars over Netherstorm, to enhance their Arcane abilities.



Right - the limited use of Blood Elf Warlocks is quite telling on where their lore is going.

Blood Elves are a race that focuses on their Magisters, Blood Knights and Farstriders. This is their army. It's what we saw in TBC against the Sunfury, it's what we saw in Suramar, it's what we saw on Draenor - Warlocks are such a small part, as is the use of fel magic, that it's almost non-existent...but that doesn't mean they are like High Elves, correct. The Blood Knights, Blood Magic - all of this stuff, which is an integral part of Blood Elf and Silvermoon society, didn't exist before the Third War.

Blood Elves aren't an evil race, nor have they ever been a "bad boy" race. They are a race of survivors who now do everything they can to survive and carry on living in a savage world. These days, Quel'Thalas blossoms as a magical Horde bastion on the Eastern Kingdoms and I hope that Sin'dorei and Horde players will get a new, updated Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon

I agree with most of this. But blood elves were shaping out to be a bad boy race at first, i found this variation to be so cool, cos I always thought illidan was cool, and loved the idea of a not so pristine high elf - while still loving hte pristine high elf too.. A bad boy variation that wasn't evil, but cool, was very appealing, they were turned away from that.

They are largely good, but if you play the alliance side, you see enough evidence that shows they are far from pristine, and there is still a slice of that bad boy, element, over ambitious, power hungry and reckless. Willing to stil, kill or murder to advance their own goals, this isn't "good"

[Doreidorei]

They are largely good, but if you play the alliance side, you see enough evidence that shows they are far from pristine, and there is still a slice of that bad boy, element, over ambitious, power hungry and reckless. Willing to stil, kill or murder to advance their own goals, this isn't "good"

To be fair that's also a reflection of how the game forces conflict, often in pretty annoying ways. The factions have always been a straightjacket for the writers to work around.

Also from the player belf perspective, if you weren't a paladin or a warlock, all you saw in early questing was shifty paladins clearly hiding something, a society that was cracking at the seams, and a handful of rangers and mages desperate to help unfuck the woods (there's long stretches of early belf questing that you could palette swap and dump in old nelf zones with 0 effort).

[Tanaria]

I agree with most of this. But blood elves were shaping out to be a bad boy race at first, i found this variation to be so cool, cos I always thought illidan was cool, and loved the idea of a not so pristine high elf - while still loving hte pristine high elf too.. A bad boy variation that wasn't evil, but cool, was very appealing, they were turned away from that.

They are largely good, but if you play the alliance side, you see enough evidence that shows they are far from pristine, and there is still a slice of that bad boy, element, over ambitious, power hungry and reckless. Willing to stil, kill or murder to advance their own goals, this isn't "good"

What race hasn't done that?

Humans, Dark Iron Dwarves, Grimtotem Tauren, Night Elves - even High Elves...they can all be viewed as having a "bad boy" slice, as they've all been willing to kill or murder to advance their goals, at some point in the lore.

Blood Elves needed to be developed and in the main, Blizzard has done well with the small bit of lore advancements that they've given the Blood Elves. The "Magi" of Silvermoon are primarily "Blood Magi." The main defenders are primarily Blood Knights. The only bit that has remained "High Elf-like" are the Farstriders, but even that is called into question as it was two former Farstriders (Lor'themar and Sylvanas), who worked on getting the Blood Elves into the Horde.

"Bad boy" doesn't just mean one way of doing it and of recent - I've seen far more questionable acts come from the High Elves, than the Blood Elves.

[ravenmoon]

To be fair that's also a reflection of how the game forces conflict, often in pretty annoying ways. The factions have always been a straightjacket for the writers to work around.

Also from the player belf perspective, if you weren't a paladin or a warlock, all you saw in early questing was shifty paladins clearly hiding something, a society that was cracking at the seams, and a handful of rangers and mages desperate to help unfuck the woods (there's long stretches of early belf questing that you could palette swap and dump in old nelf zones with 0 effort).

Yep pretty much... i assume most of the priests became paladins after the scourge attack, wanting vengeance and ceasing power - etc, these ofc are not good things at all, definitely in the bad boy category, we know the blood elves didn't mean to be evil, lashing out, so to me it feels more like bad boy, and though it definitely is an evil thing they were doing with that Naaru overall blizz does enough to not make them feel like an evil race. Unlike the forsaken.

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What race hasn't done that?

Humans, Dark Iron Dwarves, Grimtotem Tauren, Night Elves - even High Elves...they can all be viewed as having a "bad boy" slice, as they've all been willing to kill or murder to advance their goals, at some point in the lore.

Blood Elves needed to be developed and in the main, Blizzard has done well with the small bit of lore advancements that they've given the Blood Elves. The "Magi" of Silvermoon are primarily "Blood Magi." The main defenders are primarily Blood Knights. The only bit that has remained "High Elf-like" are the Farstriders, but even that is called into question as it was two former Farstriders (Lor'themar and Sylvanas), who worked on getting the Blood Elves into the Horde.

"Bad boy" doesn't just mean one way of doing it and of recent - I've seen far more questionable acts come from the High Elves, than the Blood Elves.

I think it's a problem with wow races. The devs don't seem to know what they want them to be.. on both factions not just the horde.

on the horde they are plagued with indecision, the blood elves joining has brought a lot of alliance type mindsets and character, then the orcs who were honourable, then not, then honourable again, then not.. are the forsaken evil or mis-understood.. the trolls originally described as vicious and cruel and vindictive seem white washed.

Whereas the alliance races seem to just be cut into the one uniform brick, making them mostly boring, the best part of their character and lore left in the past.. night elves are your classic example, to me a night elves with a pre-sundering minded half and long vigil minded half, arcane and nature, meshing against or in unison with one another is far more interesting than cookie cutting them into human sidekicks yes men. their original characterisation had enormous diversity and flavour, from the forest and trees of northern Kalimdor to the struggle with their arcane heritage, the legacy of the Highborne and forging a new future after 10k years of a life dominated by watching for the legion..

having the duality of the calm serenity of a peaceful day, to the violent fury of nature during a natural disaster - all these nuances are literally left in the dirt.. to have ordinary good guy, bad guy coats the main identifier of the races, and the brush used to paint them as if to say @hey look our characters are varied and deep because some are goo d and some are evil, like that is all there is to show@

Off course they can do better, they just not going to invest in it.. so much of everything just feel incomplete, poorer than it should be or flat out lame.

Still something's gotta keep you here. so it isn't all that bad?

[shoc]

Yep pretty much... i assume most of the priests became paladins after the scourge attack, wanting vengeance and ceasing power - etc, these ofc are not good things at all, definitely in the bad boy category, we know the blood elves didn't mean to be evil, lashing out, so to me it feels more like bad boy, and though it definitely is an evil thing they were doing with that Naaru overall blizz does enough to not make them feel like an evil race. Unlike the forsaken.

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I think it's a problem with wow races. The devs don't seem to know what they want them to be.. on both factions not just the horde.

on the horde they are plagued with indecision, the blood elves joining has brought a lot of alliance type mindsets and character, then the orcs who were honourable, then not, then honourable again, then not.. are the forsaken evil or mis-understood.. the trolls originally described as vicious and cruel and vindictive seem white washed.

Whereas the alliance races seem to just be cut into the one uniform brick, making them mostly boring, the best part of their character and lore left in the past.. night elves are your classic example, to me a night elves with a pre-sundering minded half and long vigil minded half, arcane and nature, meshing against or in unison with one another is far more interesting than cookie cutting them into human sidekicks yes men. their original characterisation had enormous diversity and flavour, from the forest and trees of northern Kalimdor to the struggle with their arcane heritage, the legacy of the Highborne and forging a new future after 10k years of a life dominated by watching for the legion..

having the duality of the calm serenity of a peaceful day, to the violent fury of nature during a natural disaster - all these nuances are literally left in the dirt.. to have ordinary good guy, bad guy coats the main identifier of the races, and the brush used to paint them as if to say @hey look our characters are varied and deep because some are goo d and some are evil, like that is all there is to show@

Off course they can do better, they just not going to invest in it.. so much of everything just feel incomplete, poorer than it should be or flat out lame.

Still something's gotta keep you here. so it isn't all that bad?

Blood Elves were only added to the Horde to address faction imbalance, as well as a faction/gender one. During Vanilla there was a big demographic problem - women were not playing Horde characters, and Horde men couldn't convince their girlfriends to play with them.

"OH - one thing I vaguely remember was that Blood Elves were based on a STRONG request from a poll of asian players (either korean or chinese - I can’t remember which was live at that point) - where many remarked on the horde side that they and their girlfriends wanted a non-creepy femme race to play" - John Staats

If you think lore matters when it comes to which races are in which faction you are mistaken. It helps to think of playable races as a product intended first and foremost to facilitate a kind of aesthetic fantasy.