Night Elves the most diverse racial group?

[Moonrage]

And yet they are not truly united, since the Illidari Night elves serve Illidan, not Tyrande.

Because they're not a part of Night Elf society and don't want to be. Their goal is to stop the Burning Legion and nothing more. Demon Hunter players are the exception.

[ravenmoon]

Mechas are logical enough to do illidari stuff others might consider evil. I put King Mechagon because you need a bit of crazy to go along.

Mechas could potentially have fit in the ancients, as they've lived long past the usual gnomish lifespan thanks to their machine augments - King Mechagon left gnomeragan several gnome generations ago, and they were long dead enough to be a legend by the time we discover them. But the Ancients already had Draenei as the technology group, while the Illidari had none. Goblins tech up the horde, Gnomes the alliance, the scourge rely on the undead of those races to fuel their monstrosities.

And yes, you got it right about the undead, they get their numbers from every race.

Tbh, I feel if we had got that faction distribution, we'd have different races added than the ones we did. For starters i don't think worgen would have been human at all.

- - - Updated - - -

Institutions and affiliations aren't constructs of culture in terms of diversity as they don't make a group more diverse and inclusive, they segregate and make it less diverse and inclusive. By making these orders, the Night Elves prioritize individuality rather than togetherness. I'd argue diversity is more about inclusion rather than exclusion. If we were going by total organizations, that's an arbitrary abstraction -- there can be any number of branches to any number of "companies". But it's entirely pointless. It's not including other races still. It's not including other people. It's still just Night Elves a lot of the time. They aren't taking in other aspects of other cultures as much as Dwarves or Trolls, and they aren't sharing theirs with other races as readily certainly - only Worgen seem to get that special treatment.

A company for what it's worth as a cultural milestone as a worthwhile entity in WoW is broken up primarily by professions and class. This is how the game defines its major cultural milestones and how the races culturally draw the line at where the meaningful lines of inclusion are drawn. So if you want to argue Night Elves are more exclusionary than any other race, sure, they have a lot of red-tape and organizations arbitrarily telling themselves they have different sects of druids. But they're still druids. It's not any more diverse than any other race having druids versus one that doesn't. Druids encompass every facet of power within it as a whole - when classes are available for study on a racial level, all specializations and trees, all forms are open to study and learning.

It's one thing for a Night Elf to say "I'm really good at cat form, and look I made a special institution for it," and then for a Troll to say, "well, we can do that too. Why does having a label for it make that any more culturally diverse? If anything, we don't need the label for people to be able to study it. People can just decide to do that." We could be arbitrary here, and point to all the various examples of Trolls and all the Loa and Wild Gods that they follow, too. The list would equally be long and pointless, as it only serves to segregate at a base level. If we're including all these groups as equal parts as defined in the culture by the base class system that is established as being, frankly, a class caste system, we can get a better idea of what cultural lines mean across different races and where they actually draw the line.

Some organizations can be inclusive, like say the Argent Crusade, which accepts everyone and everything, and some organizations, like Druids of the Fang, are again, far more insular and less diverse. If we were going for business openness, that's something goblins and humans tend to win. But I think the Warcraft universe isn't one centered around business and commerce and money. This is a class caste system that defines your status in this medieval societies and cultures, where supernatural powers and deals with gods and your own connection to magic is far more important than gold. Goblins as well, all the business and collateral in the world. But that doesn't make them diverse or inclusive just because they made another business. Any one person can make their own business and be completely self-employed. That doesn't make it inclusive. To be inclusive is to be inclusive, to let others in. Night Elf institutions by the nature of their culture are generally not very inclusive of outside races. Barely anyone else gets in. You don't see any other Priests of Elune outside Night Elves and Worgen really. Yet meanwhile with Trolls, you can see many many other racial followers of Loa besides Trolls in all the other primal races -- it extends to anyone far more freely and the lines aren't fiercely defended as if territory.

I'm always impressed by your posts Razion, even though I am acutely aware the feeling is far from mutual, and agreeing with Ravenmoon even if you agree with him makes you a target and reduces your rep. Still I will always credit and appraise posts I enjoy reading and agree with , and this is one of them. Very good observation in organising my thoughts and presenting the situation more logically. I have read your other responses and will choose this one.

I think diversity was either used in the wrong context or not fleshed out enough.

Yes in some respects night elves are actually very individual.. not diverse in the way our current politics defines it, but diverse int eh sense they have many different things.

Racial diversity: This comes in all their variations, not just their appearance customisations shown or not shown, but also their off shoots: Naga, Satyr, high elves, (and all their variants), Nightborne, Illidari fel elves, worgen and druids with antlers are all variations.

Cultural diversity: they don't accept other cultures, but they do have several very different cultural modes, the forest dwelling druidic culture is very different from the all female Order of Elune also different from their city /urban based arcane orientated civilization styles most pronounced in the sundering.

Now it is quite true the culture may not seem as varied as it appears - I say this because blizzard hasn't delved seriously into their culture properly.. things that linked the urban arcane culture, with the priesthood with the druids haven't been shown much, yet we know these 3 variations were there in the pre-sundering era which different ones having or being the more dominant - the long vigil amongst the Hyjal survivors had the dual dominance of the druidic nature culture and the Elune order one, but in cities like Eldre'thalas and Suramar, the culture of the height of the pre-sundering era continued even when it varied.

Ideology Diversity: Do arcane practitioners, Elune devotees and Nature druids all believe different things? or is it just their way of operating that is different and can all share similar beliefs? Benevolence, curiosity, intelligence, love of beauty are cultural traits common in all of these groups though they are expressed differently. The arcane wielding elves express this in the structures they build, the druids see this in the beauty of nature they try to preserve or restore to reflect the emerald dream, or the beauty in the goddess - they are all there. if anything it is the arrogance and addiction that marred the end of the pre-sundering era, their main era that was the anomaly.

The long vigil is not the real night elves , it is the night elves in military mode, vigil state, on assignment, this is why the kaldorei don't change name after the sundering. People assume because they build no cities and banned arcane magic 9they often call it abandoned.. but that is the wrong term, they banned the practice of it, not abandoned it, they were surrounded by arcane energies of the new Well and spread it via moonwells, that isn't abandoning, it is the practice that was banned. Also their former caste corrupted by addiction and unrepentant for their role in the legion were also banned.

People seriously mess the night elves up, the long vigil mode of living is not the race's normal mode, it's their military/vigil mode - and it ends when the vigil ends. immediately it ends, they start building cities again, urban lifestyle returns, and not long after, arcane magic too.. ofc it will take a while to get the civilization part up again, but it is noteworthy.

Note how elven variants get name changes.. why didn't the Shen'dralar get a name change for remaining in the civilization? because they are not changed, and they can remain in civilization because they have a functioning city still operational, so too do the ones in Suramar, in fact they only get a name change when the Nightwell changes them, but they are culturally unchanged. the Hyjal ones don't have a cultural change, it's a cultural shift.. the long vigil druidic culture isn't new, it was around in the pre-sundering era, more popular in it's earlier times than in it's latter times, and the priesthood actually is still the same, - the means it has to work with is different, it is also on an assignment so has a fixed purpose, so duty isn't as normal, but it is the same priesthood.

It is the same peoples same belief and fascination with the stars, with knowledge and with magic, only that main group doesn't explore it's arcane magical heritage for very clear reasons.

Is this an argument that shows they are even less diverse because nothing has changed? Well not really, because their original era had a lot of diversity. Add the demon hunters to it, that is a very different lifestyle and "culture" - again it's a dedication to a task and an approach to fighting that is different form the others, one consumed by vengeance to fight fire with fire no matter the cost. it is different even though it is still the same night elf empowered.

I think these are all variations that count as diverse.


but you make an excellent point that show the trolls much greater inclusivity is more diverse, but then again trolls are also quite xenophobic, if you're not a troll you're nothing.

[Varodoc]

Because they're not a part of Night Elf society and don't want to be. Their goal is to stop the Burning Legion and nothing more. Demon Hunter players are the exception.

Then the Night elf race will forever be fractured and divided.

Well, doubly so now that they are refugees wandering the streets really.

[Tanaria]

Every race in WoW has fractured relations from within.
Every Horde and Alliance race has death knights and said death knights are loyal to the Ebon Blade. Thassarian and Koltira joined their respective races' factions on a temporary basis.

Blood Elves and Night Elves have demon hunters.
Forsaken have Sylvanas loyalists

[geco]

Renegades has "Not Loyal to Sylvana". Forsaken is the name of the undead band that follows Sylvanas.
They are going to need a new name.

As Blizzard screwed up making Sylvana the bad guy in the story.