Bear with me, as it is something I have come to realize, here are my thoughts, a bit scattered, but here goes.
This is looking from an Elven perspective how it would seem to the elves..not to humans (which is the perspective the wow story is told from) or to us who all come from different countries with different cultures and worldviews.
Night
- Several things make me feel this is the case although it's not explicitly stated as far as I know. Although you never once hear the highborne or nightborne refer to themselves as kaldorei, I suspect they definitely feel themselves the children of the stars, and high/nightborne being an elite facet of it. Even when Elisande makes her speech to the armies against her, kaldorei dishonour the name, and quel'dorei lower themselves. Its like only the Shal'dorei are the true Kaldorei and understand what Quel'dorei truly is
- I suspect, the non highborne kaldorei are just referred to as lowborne, and simply kaldorei because they have no elite or noble status so no tag. The nightborne are a special society of highborne. This is very clear in Broken Isles. Outside val'sharah all the elven ruins are and Suramar are highborne. Checking Archaeology, the music, the lore, even comments from Farondis and the Moonguard and Thalyssra all referring to themselves as "kin", "brothers", "our people" and the legacy of "our queen" Azshara - puts them an the highborne boat.
- Nightborne society is a very specialized version of it and the ne that has properly preserved the Suramar Kaldorei empire culture over the long millennia. (seeing Azsuna has ghosts who are not alive, and the Shen'dralar capital has been in near-ruins for a long time now.
- But, they all have the Star culture (moon/stars/celestial) .. which is the defining aspect of a Kaldorei. Kaldorei I suspect is both a calling and the umbrella race, out of which night elves, nightborne and highborne seem to be facets of. The highborne, and the nightborne that developed since, seem to be elite tags or versions, but they, especially the nightborne (cos we see this loads in Suramar) seem very much the Children of the Stars, very moon/star/celestial as well as been Shal and Quel dorei. This more a suspicion/question that makes a lot of sense to me.
Blood Elf
So, we come to my favourite race. The blood elves. This is more confusing and less clear cut as the ones above, but it begs the question, Do high elves and blood elves still see themselves as Highborne? I know they don't see themselves as children of the stars, there is nothing star/moon/celestial, there is nothing kaldorei in them, it's all the Light, the sun etc... however, they are also proud of their roots, and Sylvannas sings the lament of the highborne song, the blood elf in Menaar is interested in her highborne kin. Are there any indications that the blood elves or high elves still consider themselves highborne although not kaldorei based any longer? I know the night elves of the alliance refer to them as highborne - but is it them just being old fashioned? or do elves think of themelves not quite in the same way as we do.
The names don't seem to necessarily bear much relevance to the race. As a high elf you can be highborne and high elf. Quel'dorei is both highborne (in Darnassian/ancient elven) and high elf in Thalassian. Although the high elf, naga and shen'drelar all are very different races, they all are highborne (well according to the night elves, high elf and shen'dralar are highborne, some of the naga consider themselves highborne too despite their different race form)
Or do we leave highborne only to the night elf related groups, and not bring the blood/high elves into it? Would I be correct in also saying the blood elves are sin'dorei highborne? or do they not think themselves as such. You have highborne amongst the naga, amongst the night elves (still the original) all nightborne are highborne a very specific group of them with racial deviation, and the high/blood elves are highborne descendants.
So do we refer to the high/blood elves as highborne or highborne descendants? If I role play a night elf, do I refer to high/blood elves highborne, but if I roleplay a blood elf , we are highborne descendants, not highborne? Help me out pls.
- - - Updated - - -
Eureka?
Hmm..I think I've figured it out... this may be clearer: for Blood/high elves - are they more like European americans? Proud of their European roots, but they're all American now. like the Americans, the high elves were highborne who left their original continent and moved away finding a new life elsewhere, while they built it as they know how and carried on many customs, they formed a new society they believed fairer and freer than the original one they left behind ..i.e. the original highborne and kaldorei cultures (both the decadent arcane one and the ridiculous no magic one under malfurion).
So they are no longer highborne (i.e. no longer European) they are now high/blood elf (Thalassian) but remember their roots/high calling. [Obviously this is not the same for the highborne/nightborne on Kalimdor/Broken Isles - as they're still pretty much the same, as are the nature orientated night elves who haven't really changed much since they changed after the sundering - so they're pretty much still children of the stars in their heads - just children of the stars who believe in nature (Malfurion's lot), Elune (Tyrande's lot) the arcane (the highborne/nightborne) or the nightwell (nightborne)