Do you think the night elves were justified in their spying on the blood elves?

[Tarba]

Both the Blood Elves and the Forsaken were "betrayed" (certainly as far as they are concerned) by humanity. The Horde needed allies in the Eastern Kingdoms.

So how does it make no sense?

Lordaeronian and blood elves have a shit tone of reasons to hate orcs and trolls. The fact that one orc who murdered many Lordaeronians to free other orcs (who also killed a lot of humans/high elves) decided to build a city on an other continent named after Orgrim Doomhammer, one of the most atrocious orc ever that nearly destroyed Lordaeron and Sylvermoon some years ago, does not sound to me like "they must be friendly guys, let's enter in a world war with them against all civilised races near us who don't give a shit about us right now".

And the horde needed nothing in eastern kingdom. They were chilling on Kalimdor killing night elves for "reasons".

[Tanaria]

Lordaeronian and blood elves have a shit tone of reasons to hate orcs and trolls. The fact that one orc who murdered many Lordaeronians to free other orcs (who also killed a lot of humans/high elves) decided to build a city on an other continent named after Orgrim Doomhammer, one of the most atrocious orc ever that nearly destroyed Lordaeron and Sylvermoon some years ago, does not sound to me like "they must be friendly guys, let's enter in a world war with them against all civilised races near us who don't give a shit about us right now".

And the horde needed nothing in eastern kingdom. They were chilling on Kalimdor killing night elves for "reasons".

Forsaken are done with feelings and emotions. They side with those who will take them. The Alliance never returned Sylvanas' envoys.
The Sin'dorei were mistreated by the Alliance in years gone past, so they took their chances with their old Ranger General and her allegiances to the Horde.

[Ardenaso]

Lordaeronian and blood elves have a shit tone of reasons to hate orcs and trolls. The fact that one orc who murdered many Lordaeronians to free other orcs (who also killed a lot of humans/high elves) decided to build a city on an other continent named after Orgrim Doomhammer, one of the most atrocious orc ever that nearly destroyed Lordaeron and Sylvermoon some years ago, does not sound to me like "they must be friendly guys, let's enter in a world war with them against all civilised races near us who don't give a shit about us right now".

And the horde needed nothing in eastern kingdom. They were chilling on Kalimdor killing night elves for "reasons".

Thrall only had combatants killed and he made sure the Horde didn't kill civilians in Southshore/Alliance Naval Base

[Tarba]

Forsaken are done with feelings and emotions. They side with those who will take them. The Alliance never returned Sylvanas' envoys.
The Sin'dorei were mistreated by the Alliance in years gone past, so they took their chances with their old Ranger General and her allegiances to the Horde.

Right forsaken are not resentful and joining a world war against every civilised race in their continent is the smart move... and blood elves will forget about centuries of war with trolls and orcs to join them in again a new war they started against the alliance.

Thrall only had combatants killed and he made sure the Horde didn't kill civilians in Southshore/Alliance Naval Base

Good to know. Their comrads friends and famillies won't hold any grudge then. Neither the civilians who heard about the soldiers getting killed, or civilians being butchered by other orc clans.

[Tanaria]

Right forsaken are not resentful and joining a world war against every civilised race in their continent is the smart move... and blood elves will forget about centuries of war with trolls and orcs to join them in again a new war they started against the alliance.

So Sylvanas should just continue sending envoys to Stormwind, in the hope they'll except her, one day and the Blood Elves should just forget about Dwarf and Night Elf spies as well as the Humans and how they were treated. It's little wonder that Anasterian pulled support from the Alliance after the Second War.

It's not as though she's got a bunch of crazed Human Holy Light zealots on her doorstep, who call themselves "The Scarlet Crusade."

Forgive me, but are you the sort who just thinks that any new playable race to the game should just go to the Alliance, no questions asked?

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Looking just at the in universe reasons -and not the meta ones, which is that they just needed the Blood Elves to join the Horde- it does make sense.

It wasn't the most sensible decision, but it was just one of many choices that compounded to the Blood Elves joining the Horde, most of them linked to a distrust of the Blood Elves by the alliance and their races.

It's that distrust that led the dwarves to send an ambassador/spy, and it was that distrust -fueled particularly by their own history with the Highborne- that edged the NE's to send spies as well. They weren't good choices on the long run, but I can see where they came from. Relationships between the alliance and the elves were fractured after the Third War, and it was that distance that colored those first diplomatic approaches.

I see a lot of people decry that "it just doesn't make sense" but it really does, and it's one of the few places of Warcraft lore where there's enough nuance. But a lot of the "doesn't make sense" is really more of a "I didn't want that to happen", and in diplomacy things can go to shit real fast.

[Dancaris]

Few slight corrections. At this point the night elves didn’t resolutely shun arcane like pre Wc3.

Legion had already returned and it was pointless. As you see they worked with human and high elf mages in the Mt Hyjal battle and allied with arcane using humans and Draenei etc.

What they hadn’t done was lift the practice ban on their people and the ban on highborne in their lands. But they weren’t shunning at this point which is why Cata Shen’dralar made sense.

also Illidan association was a more powerful motivator to mistrust the blood elves than Naha were.

Illidan was perceived as rogue after TFT and Karl’s had, since first meeting Tyrande started using fel. His is the red flag that sets off the night elves to warn the alliance and also splits the identity of the high elves from the blood elves as at this point handling fel is exclusively tied to and believed to mean you are evil and a legion lackey.

The night elves send their team in to verify whether the blood elves have gone that far. They choose to spy instead of ask makes sense giving their mistrust at this point in time after knowing Karl has shuttled off with Illidan and Vashj.

Question for them is are the rest of the race now corrupt. How much do? Etc. They feel their reason for query is legit.

The dwarf is prob their to poke via official diplomatic channels while the night elves verify

And where in that logic are things like destoying arcane sanctums?

[mysticx]

As the above said - an Ambassador, maybe a Priestess sent by Tyrande, could have engaged with the Blood Elves and inform them what happened on Azuremyst, but instead - the Alliance saw red and sent a hostile party. Ironically, the night elves pushed the blood elves to Sylvanas, which is quite funny when we think about it.

The bit i find funny is that apparently “The Alliance was mean to me” seems to be a common reason for races to join the Horde, does that make the Alliance a bunch of meanies, or the Horde the “Well, the other ones don’t seem to like me, so i guess we’ll join this lot”-faction?

The Blood elves, Nightborne, and Vulpera all did the same “The Alliance was suddenly and arbitrarily mean to us, so we’ll join the Horde”-schtick, can’t Blizz think of another reason for a race to go Horde?

[Newname1234567890]

Right forsaken are not resentful and joining a world war against every civilised race in their continent is the smart move... and blood elves will forget about centuries of war with trolls and orcs to join them in again a new war they started against the alliance.


Good to know. Their comrads friends and famillies won't hold any grudge then. Neither the civilians who heard about the soldiers getting killed, or civilians being butchered by other orc clans.

Orcs have been on Azeorth for less then 40 years and they weren't at war with with the Darkspear trolls.


- - - Updated - - -

The bit i find funny is that apparently “The Alliance was mean to me” seems to be a common reason for races to join the Horde, does that make the Alliance a bunch of meanies, or the Horde the “Well, the other ones don’t seem to like me, so i guess we’ll join this lot”-faction?

The Blood elves, Nightborne, and Vulpera all did the same “The Alliance was suddenly and arbitrarily mean to us, so we’ll join the Horde”-schtick, can’t Blizz think of another reason for a race to go Horde?

Vulpera weren't arbitrary, they were supporting the Horde and Zandalari with trade etc.

Nightborne and Goblins were arbitrary. I still think the fact SI7 jumped to slaughtering refugees even to cover up a crime was an extreme overreaction.

[mysticx]

Vulpera weren't arbitrary, they were supporting the Horde and Zandalari with trade etc.

Nightborne and Goblins were arbitrary. I still think the fact SI7 jumped to slaughtering refugees even to cover up a crime was an extreme overreaction.

I don’t think any Alliance quest actually made a point about Vulpera helping the horde (Maybe the blurb of a world quest or something), and i forgot the goblins, the Lawful Stupid alliance suddenly going “No witnesses, kill them all” felt a bit weird to me at the time.

My point remains though, for many races the horde was “Oh well, better than nothing, i guess”, which doesn’t seem like it would feel good as horde fan…

[Newname1234567890]

I don’t think any Alliance quest actually made a point about Vulpera helping the horde (Maybe the blurb of a world quest or something), and i forgot the goblins, the Lawful Stupid alliance suddenly going “No witnesses, kill them all” felt a bit weird to me at the time.

My point remains though, for many races the horde was “Oh well, better than nothing, i guess”, which doesn’t seem like it would feel good as horde fan…

I mean the Modern Horde primarily existing because of Alliance aggression makes sense and is a valid reason to join together. Just the reasons for the Alliance agression isn't always that good stuff

[masterjc]

this part of the story was as stupid and unsolved as one where SI:7 and entire alliance army were against Thrall's ship and massacred goblins for no reason

either Sindorei story happens after Draenei one as mentioned another user above. (draenei join alliance and kaldorei learn about sunfury elves dealing with demons and thus go to check on quel thalas. and it doesnot make much sense)
either it was done because rule of cool

elves vs elves coooool man

and this part of the story was never mentioned to or by alliance members. as if those kaldorei who joined to quel thalas and died absurdly there never existed.
same goes for goblins wiping out si7 on lost isles. alliance has absolutely no reason to fight vs Horde or neutral goblins or even capturing Thrall who at that moment is neutral figure going to Maelstrom to fix global shit.
yet we have that story so it can move goblins to Horde. as previous one was leading elves to horde

most alliance starting zones use horde races as antagonists but not the horde. while horde starting zones use alliance races and alliance as antagonists

and Alliance PoV has no idea about that

we never know that there was Dwarven steam tank crew on randevouz in Tiriafal glades and forsaken captured and killed them
alliance expedition force sitting in durotar and orcs using it as training dummies
or goblins wiping out kaldorei in azshara
from horde pov its capturing alliance zone and wiping its members
while from alliance pov its full ignorance

[Vaedan]

Few slight corrections. At this point the night elves didn’t resolutely shun arcane like pre Wc3.

Legion had already returned and it was pointless. As you see they worked with human and high elf mages in the Mt Hyjal battle and allied with arcane using humans and Draenei etc.

What they hadn’t done was lift the practice ban on their people and the ban on highborne in their lands. But they weren’t shunning at this point which is why Cata Shen’dralar made sense.

also Illidan association was a more powerful motivator to mistrust the blood elves than Naha were.

Illidan was perceived as rogue after TFT and Karl’s had, since first meeting Tyrande started using fel. His is the red flag that sets off the night elves to warn the alliance and also splits the identity of the high elves from the blood elves as at this point handling fel is exclusively tied to and believed to mean you are evil and a legion lackey.

The night elves send their team in to verify whether the blood elves have gone that far. They choose to spy instead of ask makes sense giving their mistrust at this point in time after knowing Karl has shuttled off with Illidan and Vashj.

Question for them is are the rest of the race now corrupt. How much do? Etc. They feel their reason for query is legit.

The dwarf is prob their to poke via official diplomatic channels while the night elves verify

I wouldn't mind if night elves just spied and gathered intel... but they did not do just that. They also sabotaged one Sanctum in Eversong and likely wanted to sabotage more of them, which put blood elves into grave danger. If the sabotage did not happen, we can discuss if blood elves should at least find out why are night elves spying on them, but since they were damaging one their only defense they had against the Scourge, they had to put them down to prevent disaster.

So, night elves spying is not that unimaginable. They are sneaky and we've seen they tend to observe and then strike. The thing is, blood elves in Quel'thalas did not do anything that bad. If the night elves were not so prejudiced against arcane as you speak, practising magic and operating arcane sanctums should not be issue for them. The only sight of demonic magic were fel crystals used for draining magic, so if anything, I can rather imagine night elves damaging these crystals, which would use chaos as well, as they were use to sustain blood elves in their thirst at the time.

[Tarba]

So Sylvanas should just continue sending envoys to Stormwind, in the hope they'll except her, one day and the Blood Elves should just forget about Dwarf and Night Elf spies as well as the Humans and how they were treated. It's little wonder that Anasterian pulled support from the Alliance after the Second War.

It's not as though she's got a bunch of crazed Human Holy Light zealots on her doorstep, who call themselves "The Scarlet Crusade."

Forgive me, but are you the sort who just thinks that any new playable race to the game should just go to the Alliance, no questions asked?

Forsaken had no reason to join the alliance.
Forsaken had no reason to join the horde.
The horde was on an other continent. And they were at war with all alliance races on their continent.
Joining the horde meant gaining a lot new close enemies who didn't give a shit about you to get absolutely unthrustable far away allies.

Blood Elves had all reasons to NOT join orcs and trolls. And all reasons to NOT join the alliance.

So yeah forsaken and blood elves joining the horde was retarded as hell. Them joining the alliance was retarded as hell also. So if they are in the horde it's only for gameplay reasons. The garbage lore packed with it is just garbage.

[Loreth88]

They also sabotaged one Sanctum in Eversong and likely wanted to sabotage more of them,

How they sabotaged it? they are not mages, they don't know how this "magic" buildings works.

[Vaedan]

How they sabotaged it? they are not mages, they don't know how this "magic" buildings works.

You can sabotage delicate device just by smashing it to pieces. In Eversong Woods, one of the Sanctums is malfunctioning and it was obvious night elves were responsible.

[Loreth88]

You can sabotage delicate device just by smashing it to pieces. In Eversong Woods, one of the Sanctums is malfunctioning and it was obvious night elves were responsible.

Then in game they don't bother to show us that, there is no dmg on that scantum, even they have damaged scantum models, not even the red orb or anything broke in there.

[Linkedblade]

<snip>

You end by saying times change and people change. That's not the case here. It's also a huge pothole in warcraft lore, as well. Not enough time has passed between the sundering and the third war for the night elves and high elves to not know each other.

Many of the high elves alive are the highborne that were excommunicated. Most of the night elves alive are the ones that saw them off.

Granted it has been 10,000 years, roughly, so there is plenty of younger elves. But it hasnt been so long that generations have completely passed, and it's not some ancient history. Think of it this way: Tyrande is a contemporary to Kael'thas' father, Anasterian.

So, that distrust toward the night elves isn't some vestige of history, it's the same exact people in conflict.

[Vaedan]

Then in game they don't bother to show us that, there is no dmg on that scantum, even they have damaged scantum models, not even the red orb or anything broke in there.

Look, I'm one of the last who would go against night elves, but in this case, the implications are obvious. If I remember correctly, you even gather orders from night elves at the sanctum, detailing their goal of damaging it. In this case, night elves are agressors and blood elves needed to deal with them to secure their defenses.

[Rhlor]

I have my own theory about that.

By the time blood elf introduction storyline begins, Draenei story already happened.
- Blood elves already have Naaru captured in Tempest Keep. They already learned how to siphon Light from it and established Blood Knight order.
- Draenei storyline happened shortly after Sunfury sabotaged them and kidnapped Mu'ru.

By that time, Draenei are already part of the Alliance, they already knew blood elves are in league with demons (conclussion of Bloodmyst is killing of Eredar who commands blood elves). They don't know that elves in Quel'thalas are unaware of their Prince's new allegience. It's also the time when high elves were exiled for refusing draining mana from living beings.

It is possible that night elves learned that blood elves allied with demons and started with dangerous magical practises. That alone might be enough for night elves to check on blood elves and learn about them. Night elves were extremely cautious of Legion's return, so blood elves meddling with dangerous magic was probably issue for them.

On the other hand, they probably should only watch from afar and stay away from any confrontation and sabotage. From blood elf PoV, I don't see anything bad in dealing with these night elves.

if I remember correctly in rise of the horde we know that the blood elves were already part of the horde before the draenei arrived in azeroth