Not every race needs to be the same, bland, squashed down into one thing, like currently exists on the alliance where humans are pretty much operating like an empire with other races as vassals. Conversely, the same sort of operation that works for the horde - Warchief racial intrigue doesn’t necessarily work for the alliance either, you don’t have to mirror what they do there on the alliance to make it interesting.
Wc2 showed the humans of the alliance can have intrigue and division, GoT type of machinations, where there allies don’t have to be locked so their tune and are their own people with their own issues, worries and things they focus on. Only coming together for war. There is a brilliant topic made on the US forums (and MMO-Champion) that explores this in detail.
Sadly I can’t post links, so please search those forums for the post titled:
The Inconsistencies of High King, and why the Title Damages the Alliance Identity and Narrative' - i've copied the post here if you want to click this
As a long time Alliance player, I was not too excited to hear about this “Trials of the High King” right around the launch of Mists of Pandaria. As the game’s story has progressed and the title implemented on the newly returned Varian Wrynn, I noticed that the alliance story slowly became more… bland. Stagnate. Predictable. The Alliance has either deliberately or inattentively stopped being an alliance of multiple nations with their own identities and cultures and morphed into a human-ran empire with vassal races who signed away their sovereignty the moment Varian was elevated about his peers. And now with Anduin Wrynn named High King with zero explanation, I am fully convinced that the Alliance of old is dead and rotting. I know Blizzard has gone out and said otherwise, but saying one thing in a dev interview and not showing it in game is a terrible trend that further re-enforces player misunderstanding of the faction. I will try to theorize how and why this happened.
Blizzard Wanted a Alliance Warchief Equivalent. Even if it means copying Horde stories.
Many people who played before Wrath of the Lich King can attest that “faction Pride” was mostly a Horde-only trait. We’ve all seen or heard about how Early BlizzCons would kick off with a loud, hearty “FOR THE HORDE!” that was followed by a limp “for the alliance” that was sometimes booed and jeered more loudly than the cheer was. The Alliance did not have a real central figure in early WoW. All the member nations had their own issues and were focused on putting out their own fires than working together to fight against the common foe that it was born to counter.
As the Expansions dropped and faction stories started to move towards the center stage, there was a clear discrepancy between the two. The Horde had Thrall, a character that was largely beloved by most of the Horde player base. The Alliance had no one. Around the timeline of Wrath, Blizzard decided to do something about this. So Metzen brings back the Vanilla endgame quest trivia NPC Varian Wrynn, with a comic book story.
If you’ve read Varian’s comic (and ignored the abomination that shall not be named in the latter half) you will notice a lot of similarities between Varian and Thrall’s early history. Both were slaves forced to fight in a gladiator pit, struggling to find an identity. However they deviated near the end. Thrall worked tirelessly to build the Horde we know in Warcraft 3 from nothing. Varian however took leave to rescue the Night elves in their new permanent role of damsels in distress that they will now regularly find themselves in. After kill-stealing everyone’s favorite black dragon and ripping off a Marvel duplicate character arc, he was then promptly installed as the King of Stormwind and then center of the Alliance spotlight. I believe Chris Metzen wanted an Alliance frontman, and unsure how to present it a new way that fits in with the Alliance, just repeated a formula that he’s pulled off in the past with a more heroic light at the middle.
An Alliance of Equals? Or Humanity and Their Silly Sidekicks?
Varian immediately dominated the Alliance story. He was technically an equal at the round table of other Alliance leaders; yet due to being the new guy on the table or a sign of future machinations, Varian monopolized the narrative and overshadowed his supposed peers. Varian was the one calling all the shots, the other members either non-existent or following his commands.
(fun fact: there’s a surprisingly similar example of a small time NPC with an overnight explosion of overexposure of importance to both factions in BfA: Nathanos Blightcaller. Take from that what you will)
Fast forward to Cataclysm, but mostly the novels written during this expansion. Looking back at this time with the benefit of knowing what comes next and we see the seeds of the Trials of the High King. Varian has a significant presence in almost all the books, much of it impressing or proving his worth to his allies and single-handedly saving the day. The Night elven damsels once again fall victim to Orcish aggression, and Varian’s leadership this time gets divine endorsement by both Elune and Goldrinn.
On the other side of Azeroth, Magni Bronzebeard; who arguably was the cornerstone that held The alliance together, is incapacitated. Gone now is the one Alliance leader who arguably could rival Varian as a Blue Warchief. Furthermore, Moira Bronzebeard comes out of the depths with the Dark Iron and undermines Ironforge’s stability as a nation. After all this is said and done, the Dwarves of Ironforge are without a sole ruler, bogged down with a council, and are no longer a threat to Varian’s claim as a linchpin holding the alliance together.
Now is Mists of Pandaria, and Metzen’s ideal of a Blue Warchief comes to fruition. The Trials of the High King are announced, and they only get to two Trials in game before the story line is suddenly dropped. There was some significant backlash to them, especially the one with Tyrande in A Little Patience. A lot of people objected to some as revered by the fanbase once again being reduced to a blithering idiot once again to make someone else look good. Blizzard has always struggled to build up a character in its own, they seem to be only capable of breaking down other characters to make them look less than the one Blizzard wants to rise up.
To sell the idea of High King and its necessity, Blizzard has systematically chipped away at other races stability and competence to leave both Varian and Stormwind as the sole sane choices.
An Alliance of Nations, or an Empire? Someone Clearly Skipped or Flunked Out of Their Social Studies Classes.
Both Chris Metzen and Dave Kosak point out in Twitter that this “High King” is anything but a King. Its an elected position. It supposed to be like the Supreme Allied Commander once held by Anduin Lothar and Turalyon. They even compared it to General Eisenhower’s job during WW2. Did we see any of this in game? Not really.
Like I said earlier, all those “clarifications” on High King’s limits and powers were only in tweets. In game, High King Varian behaved more like a ruler than a military commander. We never saw a “formal” Alliance gathering like we read about during the First and Second Wars. Varian made all the calls himself even when it involved other member nations and flexed his authority on other rulers. This is further strengthened when Varian dies, and his son Anduin is with no explanation or clarification outside of a CM assuming the Developer’s intent as to how and why he got the title. Not even in the book Before the Storm is there any explanation or clarification. Additionally, Genn Greymane referring to both Varian and Anduin as “my king” is a sign of submission in real life royalty. Canon versus perception is an ongoing issue with Alliance writing.
How many times have we seen other players incorrectly presume that High King was a literal “king” of the Alliance? That other Alliance leaders were vassals subject to his absolute power? Even big streamers familar with Alliance lore like Bellular is factually wrong to presume that Anduin is Tyrande’s literal “King.” There is a title for a hereditary monarch who doesn’t change their seat of power and rules over multiple nations, Its called an Emperor.
Blizzard may claim that the non-human member races are equal members of an Alliance. But in practice they are very much vassals. By voting Varian as High King, they voted away their nation’s sovereignty to a human kingdom with no chance of ascending to leadership themselves or voicing any input to a who a successor should be. Until someone who isn’t the king of Stormwind is High King, member races might as will be and always will be client races to a human king.
At the same time the Stormwind military became the universal Alliance military. If other races were present, they were either as token support or were fully consumed into the Stormwindian way of war, wearing human armor, using human weapons and tactics and abandoning their own. They even go as far as to wear Stormwind’s banner and heraldry, something that in real life, only vassals of an empire did. Wearing another nation’s banner at war in modern times is actually a war crime.
I’ve seen a call for “Unity” to become the Alliance rallying call. But as someone who doesn’t play a human character, what pride is there in Unity if it means throwing away what makes you unique? If I wanted to play a knight of Stormwind praising my king, I’d play a human paladin or warrior, not a Night Elf Druid.
A Rallying Figure for Alliance Players? Or a Tool to Excuse Writer Apathy?
As we’ve seen in other media as well as in real life, actual alliances are filled to the brim with intrigue, ambition, political maneuvers and backstabbing. Lots of gratuitous backstabbing. Even NATO, the one organization that Blizzard often points to as inspiration for the Alliance, has more intrigue and inner conflict than the Alliance. Even monarchies and empires are filled to the brim with it, as even absolute rulers have to walk on eggshells when dealing with key supporters. Many a president, king, or chairperson has meant an untimely end taking their position for granted or applying too much power to the wrong subordinate.
In spite of that, The Alliance has no intrigue at all. Nothing. This organization was formed by rival kingdoms who trusted each other slightly better than the Orcs invading their kingdoms with knives in their left hand as they shook with their right. They then promptly broke up the second the Horde was no longer a real threat. Not anymore. Ever since Mists of Pandaria, everyone is happily holding hands and singing koombiah. No inner conflict, no lack of trust, misunderstandings, jealously, or power grabs. Blizzard has gone as far as to suppress or retcon any possible division that could jeopardize this perceived “unity.” Even Stormwind itself got watered down to a city of drones who rubber-stamp anything their king proposes. No scheming House of Nobles, no economic crisis, No rivals in power, nothing. Everyone is happy to grab a sword and throw themselves into blight for their boy king without a second though.
Why would Blizzard do this? Game of Thrones and The Three Kingdoms have shown that inner conflict is all the rage in media lately. My theory? Because Blizzard has little or no interest in writing compelling stories for the Alliance outside of a Lawful Good bend. They also stated once that they thought is was rather hard to write stories for Lawful Good, so why force the Alliance into this corner?
Its simple. Writing for the Horde is and always was their passion (I’m not saying they are doing a good job at it Hordies). Dumbing down the Alliance into a Human-ran Empire stuck in a Lawful Good Overdrive chord means they can stop writing Alliance stories outside of the narrow focal point of their High King or other characters close to him (coughJainacough), marginalizing the other races unless called for. This lets them ignore the Alliance entirely and focus all their attention into the faction they seemingly care for in a demented fashion the most: The Horde. Not to mention writing for human characters is laughably easy compared to non-human characters, which requires thinking outside of the box and not reusing old tropes like “Humanity is Special” and other low-effort cliches. Chris Mezten flat out stated that the Alliance’s theme was “Lawful Good Overdrive.” Even though races like the Night Elves, Worgen, and now the Dark Iron are not compatible with the Lawful Good alignment, and forcing the first two into hole has damaged their racial identities in the past.
As someone who does not mainly play a human character, I am rather bored bored with this insipid “story” about how sad Jaina and Anduin are, and am insulted by the lack of effort and lackadaisical treatment other story-lines are thrown out just to regurgitate the same old boring cliches because their writers lack passion for anything Alliance side not Lawful Stupid Overdrive revolving around one or two human characters.[/QUOTE]
I highly recommend a read of it. Now to the topic at hand. It’s a long read, but it’s worth it. If someone took the time to type it, they likely have something to say.
The Night Elves
- And Doing them Well and Interesting
Here I want to delve into how the night elves ARE different, and is what blizzard should have been using to tell make them more interesting, because all of this is based on their lore. It offers something very different to what you can have for humans, which is as it should be, because they are night elves. As different race, you should expect something different. Warcraft has many races, some would operate similar or close to humans with more minor differences, some would have much bigger differences showing up in a variety of ways from theme to character, to appearance, history etc. they haven’t failed in giving unique races and concepts, they’ve failed in bringing them out more distinctly and interesting in the world of warcraft game opting instead to homogenise and not try. But it is still there.
Let me write about what they can do with night elves. This is not the typical progress the night elves in terms of getting back their powers like their Well of Eternity and World tree emerald dream boosts, or restoring their race and populating them with recoveries, uniting of the various independent factions like Illidari, Farondis etc - that has its place for the general building up of the night elves i have made posts on before. This is more about their life, what they bring to the table that is different and interesting and the sort of focuses based on character behaviour and culture that can make them quite interesting and definitely distinct from humans
A Very Different World
The type of story telling night elves would benefit from is very different to humans - While humans could have a more Game of Thrones sort of take and approach, the night elves’ is more grand scale massive world problems and magical power and wonder in grand powerful way (that has the primal feel and intensity, raw in a way modern societies have lost because much glory has faded, and things now are a shadow of their former self (which is delicious irony given how shadowy the night elves how)… this is how and what they are about (as opposed to humans)…they have the massive Legion world invasion, a world empire spanning highly advanced civilization, dealing with world threats, but now out of isolation and needing to rebuild and move on from the long vigil, isolation no magic times to become stronger by combining the best bits of their past pre sundering era, with the best of their more recently ended long vigil era, to recover from the loss against the most recent Legion fight and be ready for the next huge conflict.
The Nuances and Depth Within The Night elves
So lets delve into more of what they can potential do with the night elves that’s interesting. While they play a small role in human affairs maybe a guiding role or a moral standard a younger race like humans can look up to but with an intensity and shadowiness that humans find scary and alien, they represent a more wonder fantasy based side to warcraft…no one has seen a night civilization done proper before or a people wielding the magic of the stars as well as the forest, the grand night cities of the pre-sundering civilization, the wonder of the living forests, walking trees and elves who can take the form of great cats or bears, in gigantic trees, or high class noble elves wielding magic beyond the standard of the regular world, in great ancient cities run ruin from their great war but now restoring g. What sets the night elves apart, even from other elves like high elves, is sheer scale and size of their world be it forests or cities or ruins, and the unique elegant silver purple night everything distinct from the architectural and artistic styles if blazing g golden sun based high elves who are integrated with the regular world, and are the posh end of it. The night elf world is the ancient world where ancient was the best thi gs had been for the world the golden age, the great age, and where this race still endured, with their gia t trees and species from whe the world was you g and their lost craft hidden in their only remaining great cities,
So much wonder to be had with all the elements in their lore they can have some internal stuff too, like reconciling with the need for arcane magic, versus the temptation of getting addicted because they really love it so much and have a natural affinity that lends to addiction, even for those that have successfully abstained, finding the cure in Legion could have been the end of an epic stage in their story. There is also the Illidari, and the great mis-understanding, and the cat and mouse chase of wardens hunting them as criminals, while they have to both evade them, but intervene to fool the plans of Legion agents seeking to undermine the night elves and the world here you could show how a person can good and I intelligent but still naive and the demon hunter that has the bad reputation and appears like the bad guy cos of his looks is actually the most clued up and the one who is truly responsible for saving their little village or community from insidious demonic plots . Can you imagine a interesting scenario of a priest and demon hunter working together in secret, because the others aren’t yet convinced they aren’t traitors like a smaller scale version of Illidan and Tyrande if they had been lovers and not racial leaders allowing an elegant and touching exploration of this side in a way you couldn’t do with those 2 main characters…this would last till legion expansion ofc, that would reveal so much and resolve much (like finally proving to all night elves Illidari were not traitors ever, just brave enough to suffer through fel empowerment and scars to defeat the Legion changing night elf society again, just like the arcane return did allowing the night elves to transition fully to their next stage,same with the arcane addiction final,y being cure. I line with an evolving changing story but o e where the night elves get better, or rather their improvements are shown rather than only their defeats and their massacres like wow has opted to do.
But do you now see the nuance and complexity that can create an interesting face of warcraft totally different to what humans have or blood elves or draenei or orcs can exist. Another example discovering the true fate of the Farondis, meeting actual highborne though cursed that were noble with the arcane revealing g the novel side of the arcane in the night elves which they must have had in the earlier stages and responsible for how they got so advanced in their pre sundering kingdom, because they were not reckless at first, highly I intelligent and skilful till addiction warped. Meeting the Farondis would have a profound d effect in restoring confidence and status of the arcane especially as these were the first ever to rebel against the queen, and they were jot priests or druids, but highborne mages. The way it ca unify the night elves can be a huge amazing first bump moment promising greater acceleration in their restoration
You can also have interesting intrigue with those who trust the shen’dralar cos they know what they went through to get clean I,e, the druids and se tunnels fo Feralas who would have observed them during their expulsion, vs Maiev and her followers determine to prove that arcane users are all corrupted and can never be trusted.
Then the intrigue the priesthood brings vs the druids, heavily accenting the feminine calibre of the race against the Male one, the very distinct line between following a true goddess, versus being dedicated to nature and walking with wild gods. The night elf lore painted very different and distinct roles for the priesthood, females and the druid males… they barely interacted in 10k years, only coming g together for major world threats like satyr war, shifting sands and return of the Legion. Now out of isolation, and having to come together form a new civilization will have some clashes of philosophy, druids want their open spaces and upholding nature, priests want temples and concerned about the people… they had something like this between Fandral and Tyrande in classic…
There is enough stuff really here for it’s own world. Including their naga and satyr villain factions - even more intriguing if we get some of both to defect or turn to the good side, because usually, we have people becoming corrupt and going to the bad side, having experienced that in the 1st invasion, how interesting if part of the complexities of dealing with naga and satyr is that some could be reasoned with or lead to the right side, and they had undercover agents amongst both… this eventually leads to us seeing a faction of naga and satyr regain a semblance of their night elf forms when the Legion and Azshara are finally addressed. However this gives an amazing g opportunity to show the incredible intelligence a d espionage skills of night elves as they outsmart highly intelligent satyr and naga, not 100% success rate, but near enough - perhaps provide g that while the monsters may look scarier and have powerful magic, their transition to these evil for s left them worse off, not just in terms feeling e,pity inside, but in able to quite match their healthier more wholesome for her kin who remained unchanged.
A Different Opposite World but not How You Would Expect
You here me often go on about the power restoration of the night elves and the coming together to build them back into the powerful group they were portrayed in their lore, so this discourse might have surprised you by exploring the subtelties and intricacies you could develop within the night elves.
They are a world of opposites, but not always in the conventional sense, and in ways that should surprise you … this is why they are enigmatic. They night to day, something are upside down, but most people for example would expect them to be evil, but they are surprisingly quite good.
However they have an air of shadiness, or shadowiness which gives them a dark mysterious air to humans, and a bit scary because while good, night elves also don’t mess about. They should seem rash, but not because they are rash, but because these guys are very very smart and very very long lived, so wise, therefore they often quickly reach decisions others would take ages debating or thinking about and the decisions they make are right like 99% of the time - and unlike other elves or humans, they don’t hesitate to act swiftly or violently if that is the course that is necessary - this sometimes makes them appear savage and brutal like the orcs, but a closer look reveals the opposite.
And this is where their juxtaspositions and contrasting oxymoron state come in, serene yet violent, savage yet highly civilised.
And a lot of things are reversed.
An Important Must-Read Example - click here
For example, amongst the high elves and humans, the richly dressed highly intelligent mages are the top of the chain, the ones everyone looks too, wants to be and acquire - and the night elven highborne are the grandest, most sophisticated, intricate and magically gifted of the lot (this is how the lore puts it - it’s just currently more easily seen amongst the nightborne thanks to Suramar being pristine than it was amongst the shen’drlaar or Farondis who we met in ruins). While those who live a rural live, in forests or farms are considered simple, poorer, lowborne. However in night elf society the opposite is true, the highborne amongst them despite the beautiful and astonishingly grand buildings and gardens they dwell and the obvious arcane mastery they wield are actually the lowest in society - having recently returned to the fold many only recently overcoming addiction and hubris, you would quickly find though very intelligent are the least wise amongst the night elves. They are more prone to being superficial, concerned with titles or power, something the druids and priests of the long vigil moved beyond.
As such amongst them, the humble druids, living in primitive basic nature surroundings are the ones that have the highest wisdom, highborne arcane types seek their council, defer tot hem almost unilaterally, and night elves don’t make big decisions without their input.
Usually in high elven, human socieites , males dominate positions of authority, power and decision making, in night elves it is the opposite, but not the feminist dream of female superiority, spending time amongst htem would whosy ou males are not subservient or lesser, but females often have positions of leadership via the priesthood that every one respects and follows, no one doubts or questions their capability, and the high priestess has the highest authority now where Queen Azshara use to before the sundering because she speaks with the voice of the goddess.
The illidari, who will develop in time from being shunned, hunted and mistrusted (before legion) would shift to being greatly revered afterwords when the truth comes out fully during legion. This makes them simultaneously the most admired/sought after to be like of the night elves but the most scared of, kept at arms distance - night elves honour their sacrifice but many don’t like being near them or around them, as such you often find them in communities on the outskirts or in fel wastelands left by the legion, harnessing the fel powers there. While they would have representation in the major settlements and cities, they are a rare sight there. Illidari often don’t congregate or dwell like city folk highborne or priestesses in one spot, they are on the move travelilng al ot, hunting, and though they have a “capital” or base as such in pockets where fel was predominant - like felwood, desolace, broken shore, Faronaar (in Azsuna) etc, they often on issions around the world and on other worlds, and seeing demon hunter even for night elves is a rare, exciting and terrifying sight.
Other Races
This is the sort of detail you can get for night elves, just like you pointed out for humans. night elves certainly get the moral high ground as do highe lves because they don’t have that game of thornes like thing, and the group where a measure of it use to exist, the highborne are in fact the lowest amongst their race. ANd back near the first sundering, they played this game in way that made the machinations of the human nobles and kingdoms look like childsplay. And this should be seen sometimes in the high elves when they want something and humans are being difficult (reminds me of how Robert Jordan portrayed Daes daemer - the game of intrigute, and how Cairhien made andor look like childsplay, and the Aes Sedai making them looking like children… but the forsaken and the Dragon reborn from the age of legends made even the Aes sedai look crude)
other races have completely different focuses - gnomes are the cutesy, machine focused, comic relief race, Draenei are draenei, they have their struggles and nuances especially if we start rehabilitating Man’ari Eredar, but there are also broken and exploring the shift from light to nature - exploring their society and how they look at others, it’s not looking down as such, but definitely an air of patronising as if the broken are invalids or simpletons which hs its issues, not to mention krokul types still mad at the Draenei for leaving them - the Draenei explore the spacey advanced tech world as well as the deeply contrasting light and darkness themes. Trolls are well explored in BFA and earlier titels, there world is different, more aggressive and violent, but also more voodoo type too, which has an entire different cultural feel… as does the Zombie type world of the forsaken and undead coping with this state, alchemy, bitterness and the whole zombie apocalypse feel, but this time we get behind the eyes of the zombies who have sentience , how they cope with the mindless scourge that terrifies humans, does that hold any threat for them ? can they degrade to mindless scourge - then introduce the vampires in the sna’layn and humans as an extension of that world that corsses over to the worgen in a pseudo supernatural zombie/vampire/werewolf world. then Pandaren who are totally different.
In a sense you have several distinct worlds:
- The human world - with extensions for dwarves, gnomes, goblins and high elves/ blood elves
- The Night elf world - the night world, and deeply intensly magic
- The Supernatural world - undeads/worgen/vamps
- The Troll world - voodoo, loa etc
- The Tribal World - mainly Orcs extending and incorporating Tauren crosses into the troll world sometimes
- The Pandaren world
- The Draenei World - exploring themes of light and dark, spacey aliens
This is currently 7 worlds - There is also a pseudo 8th world that intersects the night elf world - it is the ancient world - vrykul, dragons, titans, old gods etc, it touches the Tauren too like the Yaungol and Highmountain who represent the ancient world feel, as do normal tauren though they are more orc integrated
There is no reason any race or the alliance faction has to be boring and uninspiring, there is so much you can do and show with each of these that brings something no one else has, or in a way no one else does the same thing - giving it its own character, life and attractiveness they aren’t utilising.
Cataclysm Shame
I remember the utter disappointment when I played cata. Having read all the descriptions of the highborne, what I got was a massive disappointment, with all the development renovations going to stormwind, equally disappointing too was seeing the sentinel army in action for the first time in wow, I,e, since wc3, after a long wait of seeing no night elf army or combat, was expecting an awesome display with some fistbump moments.what a utter disappointment as huntresses and sentinels were out stealthed and out bowed and out manoeuvred in their own forests , just like the returned highborne, utterly failing to represent how the lore and earlier works had presented them.
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