In fairness, that’s it’s ‘nickname’ since the Scourge, not it’s proper name, it was called The Black Wood before that or just Southern Eversong., and most Elves of adult age likely would still use that name.
The Dark Rangers themselves however is a thorny one. We only really see a couple of Dark Rangers, No, Nathanos is not an -actual- Dark Ranger, he was a normal Forsaken human as his model showed originally, and then his soul was ripped out of his -actual- body, and put into someone elses (His nephew Stephan I believe) so as such he’s actually pretty unique, as no other Forsaken was created that way. The only male ‘Dark Rangers’ we see are not actually Dark Rangers, but just call themselves that, and their models don’t even -look- like Dark Rangers, but instead some bizarre greenish hued ‘Leper Elf’ type thing.
This makes sense, as Dark Rangers are pretty specific. They are Banshees who possess their -own- dead body, this is why the actual ones we see are all female. Which makes perfect sense. Male Elves do not become Banshees at the point of death, if they become anything they become Spectres. Spectres have been shown to have no ability to possess anything, let alone their own dead bodies, and have a specific model in game. The other reason that this makes sense is that ‘Banshee’ is specifically female, it is an anglicised version of the word Beansidhe, which is actually pronounced the same way, because Gaelic is mad at times with how words look and are pronounced (as a half Irishman, half Scotsman I get to say that…) Now the ‘Bean’ or in English ‘Ban’ bit -specifically means Woman. That is actually what the word means, ‘Woman’.
So why is this problematic?
Well, it shouldn’t be. Technically everyone should be secure enough in their sexuality to just roll a female Belf and make her a Banshee Dark Ranger.
In practice however, we know that is not the case, and people will be complaining that it is Sexist because it is a customisation only available to female characters, despite lorewise it making sense for them to only be available to female characters.
It actually -would- be slightly shaky on sexist grounds unless male characters got different customisation options to balance it out. I can’t see, in this day and age Blizzard wanting to step into the Hellstorm that would be limiting such an option to characters of just one gender.
So it is tricky. They can either butcher their own lore (wouldn’t be the first time) and make Male Blood Elves able to become Dark Rangers, an easy fix for that is just to go “Yeah, Spectres can totally possess people just like Banshee’s do, you’ve just never seen one do so until now” Which isn’t that much of a stretch to be honest.
Orrr…They implement a desired customisation set for only female characters, and we’re all grown ups here, I think we can see the problem that would cause.
There is, (in the immortal words of Peter Falk’s ‘Columbo’) Just one more thing that is bothering me. For that to happen, there is -another- restriction that needs to be overcome.
Dark Rangers are dead Farstriders. The Farstriders are the only part of the Blood Elves who keep alive the vestigial remnants of Nature Magic, this is specifically mentioned in the description of not only Sylvanas, but of generic Dark Rangers themselves, that they -lose- their Nature Magic (Which implies they had some to start with) and instead manifest Shadow Magic and Necromantic abilities.
You can see the problem looming up ahead already, like the ship’s lookout on the Titanic wished he had…
So who are Farstriders?
Pretty much unanimously Hunter Class types. They do have Pathstalkers, who could be Rogues (or just Hunters with the Camouflage Talent) . and you could even make a case for Monks. They’re Elite Spec Ops types, but they are not huge hulking Warriors, Paladins, and definitely not magic wielders. In combat, they are less ‘The Terminator’ and more ‘The Predator’.
So to stay true to the established Lore, Blizz would essentially be going “Here are some customisation options, but you can only select them if your avatar is a female, and only if you play Hunter, Rogue or Monk”
See the problem?
Honestly, San’layn would be less problematic, lorewise, but nobody really wants San’layn apart from people who watched far too many ‘Twilight’ films.
They’d need to do a lot of Lore changes to make such customisation possible, basically.
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