Blood Elf Life Span - Immortality?

[Athanior-argent-dawn]

Hello all, I was just wondering what the general consensus was on the life span of blood elves. I see a lot of people who roleplay characters who are a few hundred years old and consider that to be roughly middle aged, but is that really the case?

The lore, especially more recent lore, seems to point towards blood elves having something essentially equivalent to immortality (if not immortality outright), at least to the point that they may live as long as their night elf cousins.

To be clear, I’m not confident enough in this to be saying that you should be running through the streets of Silvermoon on your blood elf shouting about how great it is to be immortal, or that you should be addressing all non-blood elves with “Yes, mortal?”. However, it does seem that Blizzard is strongly suggesting that blood elves are immortal for all meaningful purposes. If they are not outright immortal, how close do they have to get for it to no longer matter? The draenei aren’t canonically immortal as far as I’m aware, but they still live well over 20,000 years. I’d consider the difference between that level of longevity and true immortality to be splitting hairs to the point of meaninglessness.

Here, I’m going to put together all of the evidence that Blizzard has provided us which seems to point towards blood elves being immortal. Some of this is direct evidence, whilst other parts are merely speculative or circumstantial.

Direct Evidence

• "The elves of Silvermoon had the Sunwell and, thus, something akin
  to immortality. " - A Thousand Years of War, page 4

• Lorash, the blood elf operative from the BfA pre-patch, was born in Tirisfal Glades during the exile of the highborne. This would put him at nearly 7000 years old, however he was still in excellent physical condition, able to climb trees and slay enemies. Certainly still in his prime. - A Good War, page 50

• This same Lorash, who was born shortly after the exile of the Highborne, says that his mother died in the Scourge invasion. This would imply that some original kal’dorei are still among the blood elves today. - A Good War, page 50

• The lightforged seem to have essentially no upper limit on their life span, even non-draenei such as Turalyon, who has now lived over 1000 years. On board the Vindicar, Lady Liadrin says that the Lightforged are “as long lived as the elves”. I’m assuming that she must be talking about the draenei since they make up 99.99% of the Army of the Light. If blood elf immortality is a recent development, perhaps the Light /Naaru have something to do with it, which both the Sunwell and the Lightforged have in abundance.

Circumstantial Evidence

• Alleria fought in the Troll Wars, making her at least 3000 years old by the events of Warcraft II, and she has shown no sign of anything approaching old age. She was young enough to give birth, which would seem to suggest that she wasn’t even middle aged if we assume that elves function somewhat similarly to humans. She has now aged an additional 1000 years, and still looks as youthful as ever, although Turalyon most certainly shows signs of age. - Alleria Windrunner, The Warcraft Encyclopedia

• Ranger Captain Areiel says that it’s been three thousand years since she last met Shandris Feathermoon, and if she was raised as a dark ranger, she was presumably still healthy enough to be in combat at the time of the Scourge invasion. - Ending Areiel, Alliance War Campaign

Speculative Evidence

• The original Well of Eternity made the original night elves “virtually immortal beings” (Chronicle I, page 93). The second Well of Eternity on Mount Hyjal, with the blessing of Nozdormu, granted the night elves true immortality. We have no information on the natural life span of elves without a source of power, so we can only speculate on how long a non-immortal elf would live in lab conditions. However, if elves already naturally live a few thousand years, I see no reason why the Sunwell would not be able to bestow a greatly increased life span (to the point where age is almost irrelevant) when the Well of Eternity before it granted virtual immortality. Doubly so now that the Light courses through the Sunwell.

• The Warcraft III Blood (Elf) Mage unit has an on-click quote that says “I’m here, mortal”, implying that he is immortal and you are not.

So, at which point can we say that blood elves are, for all intents and purposes, immortal? What does “something akin to immortality” even mean? I feel like there must be a point where the upper limit on their life span is so high that calling it anything less than immortality is just being pedantic. If there was a person on Earth that had been around since Mesopotamia (about 7000 years), would we not consider them immortal for all meaningful purposes?

[Malaficus-lightbringer]

From my understanding of it.
With the restoration of the sunwell the blood elves are immortal unless killed.
It is a smaller version of the well of eternity and could offer the same benefits.

In theory with Nordrassil recovering the night elves immortality shoud return too.
Tho blizzard will never give night elves there immortality back unlike the blood elves.

Magic can extend a person’s life in warcraft and the sunwel is a fond of limetless magic.
Basicly logic aslong you regular “drink” from the sunwell you are immortal.

[Mahlificia-argent-dawn (Mahlificia)]

Do note that how Warcraft decides to treat long lives can play a role in how we interpret the evidence.

When handling long lifespans, such as hundreds or thousands of years; some fictional universes mimic the stages of human lifespans; I.e. a 5000 year long lived race will spend just as much % of said time as a child, adolescent, adult, senior etc as that of a regular human, even though the human lived but for a tiny fraction as long in total.

Another popular way to treat long lifespans is that longer lifespans simply mean longer time in your ‘prime’. Basically, if you belonged to a race with a 5000 year long lifespan, you would spend the vast majority of that time in a biological state equivalent of the human 20s, with a relatively brief childhood and withering face. I.e. you would live most of you 5000 years looking like a 25 year old human, but once you reached the end of those 5000 years, you would “quickly” wither away and die like a human senior. In other words, it would be difficult to tell the difference between someone who was ‘just’ 1000 years and someone who was 4000.

Many people are drawn towards the first one when they begin writing, though the second one becomes often more popular when you consider the impracticality of a century long or more childhood when doing your world-building, especially if your setting features war and conflict.

But, if someone can live for 6000 years without any obvious signs of physiological withering or decay, I think it’s a safe bet to say that the race can be considered biologically immortal for all practical purposes.

[Athanior-argent-dawn]

As someone with far too many night elves that I would like to admit to (insert world of elfcraft joke here), I totally sympathise with that feeling about how night elves should become immortal again, however at the same time, I feel like only having one immortal race leads to some interesting story possibilities.

The night elves having to adapt to their mortality (something which the Cataclysm touched on a bit in Darkshore), as well as the blood elves embracing this new immortality, viewing themselves as the only capable preservers and protectors of Azeroth. Sure, the draenei are also basically immortal and care deeply for this world, but if you look at their history, and especially now with the Vindicaar, they are perfectly willing to pack up and leave when needed.

Obviously, Blizz will never do that, but I think it creates a compelling argument for blood elves (and high elves to the extent that their numbers permit) taking on the mantle that night elves once had as the immortal defenders of Azeroth. How would blood elf society react to this realisation that they are the only immortal, native race of Azeroth? Could this prompt them caring more about lands beyond their beloved Quel’Thalas (and be honest, 99.9% of Joe Shmoe blood elves could not care less if Azeroth turned Outland 2.0 if Quel’Thalas remained the same. Good thing it’s on a separate world server.).

Similarly, how would night elves respond to blood elves taking on this role? Would they consider it laughable? Would it prompt them accelerate them regaining immortality in order to restore the claim to their sacred, ancient role à la Tedrassil? Could it create conflict when blood elves inevitably have a different strategy for protecting Azeroth than the night elves?

Also, re:Mahlificia, since Blizz seemingly won’t let me either reply to multiple posts or post twice in a row:

I think it’s fair to say that humans, by our very nature, are incapable of accurately writing or portraying a race capable of living multiple millenia. That space of time for a single consciousness is just something that our primitive little monkey brains will never be capable of understanding.

It seems this monkey brain that any human-like creature would have developed enough life experience to objectively make decisions as well as a human adult within 20 years or so, and almost certainly within 100 years. But maybe we’re just incapable of comprehending the breadth of wisdom and experience that immortal beings accumulate over their lifetime? Surely there would be some extent of looking down on the youth in such societies, where someone is technically an adult but are still considered immature and rather irrational (for an example, visit any club in a university city).

It does raise some interesting questions of how such an ancient individual’s personality would develop over time. Our elderly often become increasingly entrenched in their ways, even in otherwise mentally competent people. Would a 5,000 year old elf who’s still in their prime experience that, or is it merely a side effect of old age and human minds? What about old hatreds, such as between night elves and high elves? Would 5,000 years of existence cause someone to mellow their feelings, or cause them to focus increasingly on those negative emotions on a viscous cycle?

I really don’t think that it’s something that humans will ever be able to pull off in any meaningful way. Tolkien was probably one of the most notable and successful in writing what such immortal creatures would be like, however, and this may come as a shock to some of our younger readers, Blizzard is no Tolkien.

[Brigante-argent-dawn (Brigante)]

We do have a definitive answer on this, or as with most things Blizzard, semi-definitive.

Since the Night Elves and Nightborne lost their Immortality, their Lifespans are the same as those of High Elves and Blood Elves. In fact -All- Elves now have the same lifespan, which is described by Blizzard as ‘Several thousand years’. In the English language you use the word “Several” to mean three or more, but less than ten. This actually fits with the lifespans of all High and Blood Elves, and now that they have ‘re-started’ aging, with Night Elves and Nightborne also, Void Elves are not likely to be as lucky, given the nature of the Void, a power of destruction and Entropy, their lifespans are likely to be shorter, I mean that -is- the nature of the Void…

Essentially, No Elves are Immortal, they just age really slowly. Even Draenei are not immortal, but at the point where even a humble mushroom seller can be in excess of 25,000 years old, does such a term matter? is that not functionally immortal?

To all intents and purposes, All Elves are effectively immortal to -our- understanding (As in Earth Humans) as their lifespans are longer than our recorded history… An Elf only a couple of hundred years old is most -certainly- not middle aged. They are an adult, they reach adulthood by age 20 at latest, but they are most definitely not middle aged.

Are Elves Immortal? In the technical sense of the word, No. In the practical sense of the experience of the other races? Yes.