They share common ancestry, but they are biologically divergent to the extent that they are separate species now. Kaldorei are the root, and the most similar to them are the Shal’dorei, however as Thalyssra tells us when we first meet her “We changed” and there are physical differences. Both are then separate from the Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei, who are actually physically identical (Blue eyed Blood Elves exist, as do Green eyed High Elves), the only distinction being political. Both Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei are then separate from Ren’dorei, who are altered by the power of the Void.
So essentially you have four different branches of Elves. Kaldorei, Shal’dorei, Sin’dorei and Quel’dorei (Same species) , and Ren’dorei.
They can’t be a separate species, they are all elves. Sub-species perhaps, but even that is arguable you won’t call black Africans and white Europeans even sub species, and they have the same degree of physical variation that elves appear to have, or nearly.
That can’t be correct, addiction became a problem near the time of the first invasion, various night elves were warning the queen she was pushing it too much and were noticing signs of addiction. The entire Valewalker order was set up to solve the problem.
It is well documented.
Being born from the arcane and having a natural affinity for it isn’t what makes the night elf addicted. Their love for the arcane and natural tendency to take anything they do to perfection (or extremes) led them that way.
I’ve got a theory on their addiction. Well it’s more a filling in the gaps
They are different Species. It’s less like black and white Humans, and more like HomoNeaderthalensis and HomoSapiens.
Both are part of the taxonomic subtribe Hominina, but still different enough to be considered different “races”, like Ice bears and brown bears, both are bears, but different “races”.
Race is very informal, but the real definition of species doesn’t really work, because according to it Humans, Elves, Draenei and Orcs are all the same species…
can’t seperate the words in Homosapiens and homoneanderthalensis, because the latin word for human being is seemingly forbidden here.
Are you extrapolating that conclusion because the game character creation has them down as different races?
technically speaking… the race selection screen is more like a faction selection screen.
Humans and forsaken and gilnean worgen are technically the same race. An undead human isn’t a different race from a living one genetically - yet they are separate races in-game. The name race is used more loosely here, like americans call blacks, latinos, whites, orientals etc “races” while in europe they are called ethnicities - they aren’t scientifically different races.
I don’t htink there is enough classification or information to classify the night elf bunch (kaldorei and shal’dorei) as a different actual race from the thalssian bunch (high/blood and void elf). They are Elves - that is clear, and have been shown to have far more similarities than differences.
warcraft species vary differently… Troll is an umbrella for several sub-species… but they seem to haev the sort of variatioin you would classify as a sub-species. Elves, not so sure. While the nocturnal (i.e. night) elf bracket seems to be one distinct section with its branches, and the thalassian elf a major off shoot branch of its own with its own sub-branches - they don’t seem that different.
the major difference between night elf group and the thalassian group that seems to go beyond that of black and white humans is the former is nocturnal. The rest of the differences are minute. such as different colour eyes or skin colour or ear inclination - we have that variation between natives from europe or africa or far east asia. what we don’t have is one group that is nocturnal while the other diurnal.
Is the diurnal a genetic trait? A sufficient distinction? or is it habitual?
Monitor the history of the change. the normal kaldorei and the shal’dorei aren’t that different at all, save for uptruned tip of the ears, they are identical, shal’dorei are thinner simply because they starved and had to substitute real food with arcane energy to sustain them. The changes this caused seemed to break them in a way the arcan’dor fixes. Thalyssra says it changed them, not by much, but it did. Genetically? curved ear tips seems to be the only physical difference, that and going without arcwine devolves you into mindless monster. Somehting the arcan’dor fixes. So does the arcan’dor actually restore them to normal?
high elves, change isn’t exactly pinned down, several sources have differnet reasons, some have the druids magically severring the genetic tie to the arcane well of eternitiy and the magical link to Nordrassil the dragons gave the Hyjal surviving group (note the other night elf groups in Eldre’thalas and suramar or moonguard stronghold do not have this ) - now this shouldn’t be possible but they are druids, with Cenarius a demi god working with them, if anyone can alter things about a person naturally it would be them, they change to animals for crying out loud. Another factor in the same account is the journey of the exile that lasts a while, it severely weakens them, and without the strengthening links to the world tree or the natural arcane well, they change, but it is described more as a removal of the enhancements of the well of eternity - which are described as greater height (stature), strength, intelligence, and longevity as well as the purple hue to the skin - and this is confirmed, the high elf doesn’t live as long, isn’t as strong, isn’t as big and we assume became less smart until the sunwell was established and the intellect was arcane enhanced - as the night elves use to do when they were using the arcane for spells (and which off course the shen’dralar night elves and Suramar night elves won’t have stopped doing).
None of these changes stop them from being elves. Less of an elf than they use to be, but still elven, it isn’t species change at all, just a step down. The creation of the sunwell seems to restore some measure of what they have formally, but not to the extent of their former selves.
The switch from nocturnal to diurnal doens’t have much of an explanation either. It is mentioned during the long exile they abandoned everything to do with thier formal lives and state in earlier sources which may or may no longer be canon (who knows these days), this includes moon goddess reverence, nocturnal to dirunal is specifically mentioned, kaldorei cultures and traditions both of the long vigil era and pre-sundering era are particularly highlighted. from the Long vigil era - they rejected the culture that would ban arcane magic in fear of the legion and would stay in isolation refusing to rebuild civilizaiton. Their new society woudl be a place all magic was freely practiced. From the former civilziaiton they would reject recklessness and decadence, and avoid the mistakes that lead to addiction and calling the legion. The use of arcane magic would be highly regulated or tightly practiced, they woudl go to enormous length to use it without drawing the attention of the legion - hiding the magical signature of their Well of power and their spells via their monolithic arcane runestones called the Ban’dinoriel.
They were altogether formidable - not because they were better than their night elven kin - quite the contrary, they had worse stats, worse in every department, what makes them extraordinary is that being a weaker more vulnerable elf they achieved far much more with what they had and succeeded in their mandate - where the druids felt it would be too risky or a failure.
Inadvertently it was their students, the humans who not understanding the risks, used the arcane to the extent that drew the demons once more to the world, however, the demon were very very smart in how they managed to orchestrate the 2nd invasion in WC3.
Based on the account, I still feel there is a much stronger tie between night elf and high elf than we would readily admit thanks to the faction separation. If the faction divide didn’t put such a heavy emphasis on making horde and alliance races very different, I think we woudl have seen far more artistic similarities between night elves and blood elves, and between humans and forsaken. For starters forsaken would have been uprgiht like humans, and until TBC gave them a new model, high elf models were night elf models with a different stand animation, skin colour and ear incline. it is becoming playable that a unique model was given. In WC3, night elf and high elf models are identical save for colouring and ear incline amognst the females. night elf males were just purple high elf males with more muscle, made taller and ears at a slightly lower angle.
Does that mean that the term “Night Elves”, translated from Darnassian, is actually the common name for Nightborne and Star Elves would actually be Kaldorei?(Thus calling the Night Elves… Night Elves a mistake?)
This isn’t true, though. Lorewise all male Kaldorei are Amber-eyed now, and all females are Silver eyed.
So no, Night Elves aren’t “silver-eyed”. Also; don’t the Kaldorei belief that the Stars are actually revered deceased, whom have been taken by Elune?
Kaldorei culture ingame is “overfocussed” on the Druidic-Aspect. while it was only half of the greater Kaldorei society. Moon-priests and Priestessess are way to underwhelming, which is really anoyying, really.
(And no, Kalibas, the Arcane does not count anymore as the Shen’dralar and their apprentices make up to little of the general population to be of any note nor have any great cultural influence)
6 if you include the Naga and Satyr…! Satyrism is a curse, though! D:
They stated that males are still silver eyed, they just chose to represent the amber eyes that now occur more frequently in males as a way of showing they are around.
the amber eyes are either a sign of greatness or an attunement to nature magic. People born with silver eyes can have their eyes grow amber with use of nature magic, which is why most of hte males have amber eyes, because most of the males amongst the darnassians were druids during the long vigil.
So 2 things I took from that was
not all amber eyed males are because of nature magic talent, some are destiny like illidans
I assume most of hte males that have amber eyes were born with silver and became amber during nature magic progression.
The smae is true for femlaes. Females also haev amber eyes, but the game just represents females with silver and males with amber - most night elves still have silver eyes.
All the lore said was since the long vigil, amber eyes had become more frequent and this frequency increases was not the destiny amber eyes, but the nature talent/attunement - which converts silver to amber or causes some new amber eyed night elves.
This is what most people have felt-- technically speaking - the nightborne are night elves and the night elves are star elves. The term night elf is common anyway, and we know was to distguish the purple elves from the already known elves - the high elves. No race would call themselves night elf, it’s like humans calilng themselves Day Human - especially if they are the original race.
It’s humans who call them night because they are nocturnal. So racially, night elf is simplly a translation for nocturnal elf. Tihs is why nightborne are night elves - and if you were distinguishing shal’dorei and kaldorei, you’d probably say it like that. But nightborne works, i mean night elf, and nightborne elf - it’s still night elf.
Exactly… Addiction became problem after, but night elves were born from that power, they did not know how to live without it. Well of eternity effected whole nation. Their love for arcane is great example for it. It was always there, but it took ugly turn when Azshara went too far with her experiments and her craving for power. And their perfection is a symptom of Arcane affinity. Take a look at every single race that had strong affinity to it. Arcane is element of Order and every element influences the wielder.
You put it very correctly it became problem when their ambitions of perfect world or Azsharas personal motives took over, which was her way of new Order in her society, she was a visionary, bit evil but nonetheless one. The addiction was always there, until they had to put a stop to it, that was why punishment of Deth’remar Sunstrider was so harsh, it was matter of principle.
Also Arcanes return in Cataclysm and the hard decisions made and grudges still
hold in some of the Night Elves… Anyway I can go on ranting about it till morning : ) Really enjoy Night Elves and their relation with arcane arc in the game
I think not knowing how to live without that power was the hardest transition for the Hyjal group, and it hink it makes them the most resilient of the elven groups bar the high elves, because remember the highborne who become highe lves also go 3,000 years living without it, but then go back to it, that is a lot of resilience too… although going 10,000 years is also quite a feat.
Especially for a group so attuned to magic - they had the Well of eternity power filling them the whole time of the long vigil, and had the strength of spirit to and resolve to not use it… is phenomenal, the grace to accept a simpler life to prevent the legion from comign after being use to THAT sort of life we see in Suramar.
Takes a lot of courage and strength to not fall apart.
Pretty much so, but the punishment of Darth’remar sunstrider was harsh not because they had to put a stop to addiction, it was harsh because using the arcane like that would bring the Legion back which meant the destruction of the world.
They didn’t exile the Sunstrider group just because of addiction, however they did attribute his desire to restart using the arcane given the potential for world destruction by drawing the legion back
I think by the point that if you looked at the skeletons of a Species, that you could tell distinctly that it was not the same as a different set of Skeletons, that they are in fact different Species. We can tell Cro-Magnon from Neanderthal, from Homosapiens. You would be able to do the same with Kaldorei and Sin’dorei for example. The Differences go far beyond the superficial differences of ethnicity in our world. You could argue that Kaldorei and Shal’dorei are different ethnicities, the difference is mostly skin colour,and ears, But Kal’dorei and Sin’dorei (Quel’dorei too) are not just superficially different, they have a different physique, skeletal structure, musculature, lifestyle, different needs. They really are by this point, two different species, they look nothing like each other, and have very little in common, bar a past ancestry. I mean it is directly referenced that the High Elves evolved? Degenerated? when they were Exiled, and these days they look -nothing- like their ancestors.
Apart from having pointed ears ( Which is fairly superficial, and even the ears are at different angles) there is no real physical resemblance anymore. Alright, possibly the fact that in both Species the females have pointy canine teeth, but then, well, I mean humans have canine teeth, it doesn’t make us dogs just because dogs also have (by definition) canine teeth.
In fact that there is a good example.
Dogs and Wolves are not the same Species. They are the same -Genus- as in Canis, but they are two distinct species, those being Canis Lupus, and Canis Domesticus. Now, very much like (I imagine) Elves, the two Species can interbreed, they are very much two separate Species however.
So I suppose if we were to apply those terms, the ‘Genus’ would be ‘Elf’, However the different species would be pretty much the Kalimdor strain, and the Eastern Kingdoms strain of Elves. Which, actually does kind of make a lot of sense. Nightborne and Night Elves are different ethnicities, Sin’dorei and Quel’dorei are not, they’re biologically identical, and the fact that Ren’dorei don’t even have the same blood colour anymore means there probably is some base level genetic change going on there, so whilst superficially the same as Sin and Quel’dorei there is clearly something else going on there (Which, obviously, we know is Void related).
Interesting discussion though, nice one for coming up with it.
Blood / Highelves are significantly shorter and weaker than Nightelves, they have a different skincolour, are diornal instead of nocturnal, have a different lifestyle and are as a species change.
Again, if you consider the Bloodelves as Nightelves, do you consider Nightelves as trolls?
They have shorter Teeth and a slightly different eyecolour, but all in all they are closer to Trolls, than Bloodelves are to Nightelves.
A little Anecdote here, when i first saw a female Troll player in game ~15 years ago, i thougt it was a Nightelve until she killed me.
I will never discount your theory, because it is possible, however I can’t also adopt it fully as the situation either, because the other ones are also possible. At least not yet or at least not until it is clearly defined.
We just don’t know, races are created differently in wow, and therefore must be classed differently.
However you do know the blood elf model is specifically designed to give the horde race a different silhouette and not because they are actually different.
Until TBC the two races used the same model. Wc3 and classic. And to me skeleton wise blood elves, night elves and humans just look like slightly different build/size humans standing in different poses…, from an in game model, they could all be the same race skeleton wise, if it wasn’t for the superficial bits.
The larger or sharper canines on the elves was the first major anatomical difference to human.
Trolls and orcs, now they seem completely different, face structure, number of digits, tusks Tec, this is why we regard elves as a new species even though they were once dark trolls, they changed into something new. High elves just feel like night elves de-juiced and nightborne like night elves on altered juice.
Definitely don’t consider night elves as trolls, the face structure is entirely different. Elves and humans share the same face structure, digits etc, teeth.
I would discount lifestyle or culture changes as anything to distinguish races by, because night elves themselves vary enormously too within the racial bracket, cultures influence each other, and are adopted, they aren’t genetic.
Same with strength, they say black people are genetically stronger, greater muscle mass Tec, still the same human, years of different food types, lifestyle choices, lack of pollutants etc, so weaker isn’t enough either.
The change in power source or lack thereof in the high elves may be enough to make them a different species but of elf, not an entire new species. Just like nightborne are a new species of night elf not just elf or point blank new species.
Yeah, that was one of the factors, but I would hate to think that was the only reason. Of course they feared the Legion, but it was also about the nation in general and which direction Arcane had put the civilisation. It was matter of principle to make example such action would not be tolerated anymore.
Old school but my favourite Night Elf Maiev has always stood her ground against the heretics of her people and anyone who would try to jeopardise the cool RTS NE culture
Just to add this. Maiev believed Highborne as inferior scum and massacred them a bunch. Yet never stood trial for this massacre. By default, mage culture is not a part of the modern night elf setting anymore if you want your pure warcraft 3 savage Kaldorei back.
One plot-forced Knaak does not a whole race make, Erevien. Else we’d call all the high born wet-down-there for humans.
Savage Kaldorei and Mages are not mutually exclusive. By that logic we should go back to the all-female Sentinels and all-male Druids, etc. I’m not a fan of the Highborne but unfortunately we don’t always get what we want.
Disagree! Maievs still had a grudge on the Highborne and what their practices has brought to their whole race.
She did not trust them and for a good reason, after locking themselves up for 10 000 years they asked to rejoin their people.
And to say that they do not belong in society is an overstatement. Night Elves used arcane over time in forms of Moonwells. They can be put in arsenal of fighters, but unlike Azsharas rule, they will not have the dominance of their powers in the culture.
Maiev is bit stubborn and doesnt let go of things easily, but we have seen post Legion she has grown, which is kinda silly to say about 10k year old woman.
As for trail, she is way too important at the moment. With that judgement Tyrande should have been put on trail for doing the same thing to Watchers back in WC3.
I think that after thousands of years apart, compeltely different histories and experiences, different customs and a different culture, there is more difference between Kaldorei and Thalassians than just “Mages are bad”.
And if “savage Kaldorei and mages” are mutually exclusive then you better give up your “paladins” this instant, because we all know that Blood Elves have little to do with striving to be a good person.
or you might turn into a hypocrite.