All of these examples are completely homogeneous unto themselves, and most of them don’t have perceivably different cultures. What sets the Bloodhoofs apart from the Skychasers, other than a few lines on the Wiki?
These are the exception rather than the rule, though.
While I agree with your post in general, I think Blood Elves are a bad example. Blood Elves are specifically the faction of High Elves who originally followed Kael’thas (the faction was named by him), and later came to join the Horde. You could have High elves who are not Blood Elves, and some Blood Elves later might show different sympathies, since Kael’thas’s original faction did splinter… but it’s difficult to imagine how some random High Elf living in Dalaran would become a Blood Elf. Basically, Blood Elves are more of a faction than a species; similar to Mag’har Orcs, or Darkspear Trolls… you can’t have a Darkspear Troll somehow not from the Darkspear tribe.
For most races this works though. We see Gnomes and Dwarves living in Stormwind, for example; they have a whole district. Dwarves themselves could be from Menethil too; I imagine some humans live in Ironforge as well, though I would think that’s a bit more rare than the other way around. Gnomes also have a ton of colonies and you see Gnome NPCs all over the world, so it’s not far-fetched to imagine most larger settlements might have at least one Gnomish family living there.
I actually think this is maybe more limited on Horde side: Orcs pretty much only exist in the Durotar area due to their history on Azeroth, unless you have some very adventurous backstory of being a Blackrock Orc or such. PC Trolls are specifically meant to be Darkspear as well, so not much choice there. Tauren already only live in one relatively small area. Goblins are probably the most diverse, if you get away from the canon PC backstory.
Considering that those few lines on the Wiki are often the only lore we have on specific clans, I would say a lot.
Also, since you´ve ignored trolls and orcs (2 out of 3 races I mentioned that actually have their clans/empires described extensively instead of barebones tauren tribes), I take it you can´t argue against the idea of orcs and trolls having variety of cultures?
So? Big cities have always been more cosmopolitan than small ones. It makes sense that in a setting where pretty much every race managed to create political entity (or several ones), you don´t actually see many areas which are called home by multiple races. Big cities make sense as they attract people (and Blizzard has been showing this, with Stormwind having population of gnomes, dwarves and even night elves (before Teldrassil got burned down), Orgrimmar having other members of Horde and Freehold having pirates from all around the world) while small towns are usually inhabited only by natives.
Then there is one big exception and that is Dun Morogh, which is home to two races that are extremely close to each other and as a result pretty much every settlement there is mixed gnome/dwarf one.
All in all, World of Warcraft has quite logical lore when it comes to where the population lives and to call it lazy is simply wrong. Worldbuilding isn´t lazy just because every town in the world isn´t inhabited by 50 species living happily together.
Quoting this because the rest of your comment relies on this: That’s not really true. Blood elves are either the elves who followed Kael’thas into Outland, or the elves who remained in Quel’Thalas following the Scourge’s attack. High elves are those who did neither of those things.
Admittedly, that makes it a little harder to imagine a 100% cosmopolitan blood elf, because they had to have some ties to Quel’Thalas at some point in their past. So you’re kind of right: It’s not the best example.
… But then that’s not really true either. In-game, blood elves are elves with green eyes, and high elves are elves with blue eyes. Does a high elf who went into Outland during TBC to fight demons and who got exposed to enough fel to turn their eyes green become a blood elf? Will they be welcome anymore in high elf communities? What of blue-eyed elves who want to rejoin Silvermoon? Do they have to turn their eyes green as the price of admission? What of green-eyed elves who are disgusted with Silvermoon and want to join up with the blue-eyed elves? Are they just out of luck?
Warcraft has no answers to these quasi-cosmopolitan questions. In my view, these things are—or should be—a lot less black-and-white than they are repeatedly demonstrated.
I’ve never delved into troll or orc lore much, but I have delved into tauren lore, so I took that which was familiar to me. It’s still entirely beside the point, though, because those cultures are totally homogeneous unto themselves. It even strengthens my point, because troll cultures are divided along the lines of subraces.
It is lazy, though. “This tree is where the elves live”, “this hole in the mountain is where the dwarves live”, “this village is where the tuskarr live”. You have to assume that in the 10.000 years since the War of the Ancients, not a single night elf thought to leave their forest and create a cool cosmopolitan place with tauren and furbolgs and trolls and goblins. In 10.000 years.
Even worse is Pandaria, where all the races were practically enslaved together under the mogu, but then they all decided to go “this pond is where the jinyu live and this jungle is where the hozen live, and they’re mortal enemies along racial lines”. That’s lazy writing. They didn’t have to write it that way. I’m sure there’s quasi-plausible logic for why it turned out that way, but it didn’t have to be that way. Pandaria would have been a perfect continent for cosmopolitanism.
There’s a few knocking around.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Lanesh_the_Steelweaver
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sunreaver_Captain
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sunreaver_Frosthand1
It does though? The HElf/BElf split has always been political/ideology, not physical. That they choose to shorthand it for player models for HElfBlue+BElfGreen doesn’t change that.
You’re making it physical because you want it to be, when they’ve never indicated that.
This is stretching it, and you know it.
Do you know of any real life example where somebody just left their home to create a nice city for people from different (some even likely unknown) nations?
And that´s just other humans, cultirally different. We don´t live in a world with multiple intelligent species, but it makes sense that divide between species is far bigger than divide between cultures.
Also, even in areas with mixed population, you still have divided population. Serbian region of Vojvodina still has Slovak and Hungarian villages over 100 years after the region was given to Serbia. There are separate Serbian and Albanian villages in Kosovo. Germans in Russia or Hungary lived in their own towns and villages for a long, long time before being expelled after World War II (in fact, Slovaks were for quite a long time not allowed to live in German towns in Upper Hungary) and there are tons and tons of other examples from real world where people living in the same area but coming from multiple nations often rarely (if ever) mix. Earth, a planet inhabited by one species, is not always cosmopolitan, so why the hell should Azeroth be?
Yes, it´s not as if hozen tribes betrayed jinyu empire when Lei Shen attacked, creating long-standing grudge between the two peoples. I am sure nothing similar happened in our history, after all, we all lived in harmony, right? No nation/race/culture/religion ever disliked another one simply on basis of being part of said nation/race/culture/religion.
Those subraces came to existence because of trolls living in different environment which shaped both appearance and culture. Of course trolls from Stranglethorn will have different culture from trolls that live in Northrend and of course they will look different. Europeans have different culture from Africans and they also look different. Does that mean Earth has lazy writing?
The Tauren were nomads and seem to still retain fairly little in terms of concrete towns and villages, at least the ones native to Kalimdor. The only Trolls native to Kalimdor (in Night Elf lands, not on the other end of the continent), the Shatterspear, were heavily reclusive, and the Furbolgs also preferred to just live alone. Goblins are (usually) antithetical to Night Elf ideas of natural balance, at least in their current zane-engineer iteration post-Cataclysm.
It hasn’t happened in 10k years because two of those races prefer to be left alone, one of them hadn’t arrived on Kalimdor, and the last was busy with their own traditions. A better example would have been a Dwarf/Gnome/Human settlement, given those races have been friends for centuries.
ShadowTooth Clan, they lived in Hyjal.
And now they’re dead.
No they aint!
Still one left.
Not in Kalimdor, tho…
Because night elves have been an isolationist species ever since the War of the Ancients, but they do live with the furbolgs, and have what you describe in Moonglade with the tauren? As for the trolls and goblins, well. One’s their ancestral enemy; again with the exception of the dark trolls, who like wise kept to themselves, and the goblins, who are their complete opposites in just about every regard. But I think you should go look up Freewind Post on Wowpedia, that village down in the Thousand Needles. Quilboars and tauren live there in peace, which is carefully maintained by a high elven magistrix.
Earlier you claimed high elves are those who neither followed Kael’thas or stayed in Quel’Thalas, but that is wrong. The high elven population that lived in Quel’Lithien were blood elves, they remained in Quel’Thalas for over a year until they were eventually exiled after Rommath returned to Quel’Thalas and brought with him the teachings learnt in Outland from Illidan, so they were exiled and took up the moniker of high elf again. Blood elves are blood elves because they are loyal to the state of Quel’Thalas, that is what differentiates them from high elves. It isn’t their eye colour, it isn’t moral, it’s the simple fact that they are loyal to their nation and more than that; their people. A high elf could have been born in Dalaran, lived there his entire life, but still feel enough kinship with his people to ultimately embrace the moniker of the sin’dorei, especially after the Purge of Dalaran. Wear red and proclaim loyalty to Quel’Thalas and the blood elves, it’s that simple.
Lordaeron had a dwarven fort constructed in it, maintained and controlled by dwarves. Stormwind has the Dwarven District, Ironforge has Tinker Town; I think something you’ve overlooked here is that the humans, dwarves, high ((and blood)) elves and, to a lesser extent, the gnomes, share the same religion; the Holy Light. With the same customs, the same virtues, the same holy places.
Does this actually happen? I’m actually not quite sure what exactly causes green eyes (and yes, I did try to look it up), but I was under the impression a High Elf would have to deliberately tap into Fel energies or such to get them; likely through a fairly long period of time too. The big green crystals in Silvermoon are Fel-powered, I assume… because green.
Whether a blue-eyed High Elf would be welcomed to Silvermoon is… hard to say, and we can really only guess. I get the impression the High and Blood elves kinda see each other as traitors to their kind. But this is all based on the fact that green-eyes are based on a specific group of people, a specific faction of elves; it’s not just a random genetic mutation. Although I will admit it’s possible some unrelated High Elves could get green eyes through some unrelated means, but I don’t know if there are any actual examples of this; and even if there are, I don’t think they’d count as Blood Elves.
A priori, elves in Outland should all have green eyes since passive exposition to Fel is enough for this (the people in Quel’thalas did not necessarily tap into Fel crystals, but they all have green eyes because of the “radiation” effect of Fel magic.)
But having green eyes does not blood elf makes, to answers Flixxi. As explained above, while ingame uses in good part that image for easier differenciation, the divide between High and Blood elves is entirely political. Would a blood elf be a bit suspicious of someone with blue eyes? Probably, it does means they weren’t in Quel’thalas during the events between the Fall and BC, but as illustrated by Elenthas, you still have individuals like that accepted in institutions like the Sunreavers. The opposite probably hold true for high elves and green eyes.
Headcanon:
Since the introduction of paper currency in the form of the Moolah, Kezan’s economy has experienced an infrequent, but consistent, boom and crash caused by runaway inflation.
Whoever the first Goblin was to devise paper money was no doubt a genius, able to accommodate the massive markets of Kezan with minimal use of rare materials like gold or gems. Unfortunately they were also a Goblin, and thus not someone with a great deal of foresight or economic sense.
Once one Goblin figures out how to print paper money, the enterprising, ambitious nature of Goblins combined with their innate love of tinkering and machines meant that soon hundreds, and then thousands, were printing their own money to enrich themselves in short-sighted schemes.
Since Kezan has no form of centralized government, being run by several competing Cartels, there is no oversight or legislation to stop this practice, and soon the Moolah is so ubiquitous that it becomes utterly useless and people stop printing, often stripping the printers for parts or converting them for some other use. However, over time Moolah bills begin to be destroyed, through neglect, use as cheap fuel, recycling into cheap roofing (which is why so many Goblin buildings have green roofs) and fake grass, and the natural flammability of paper combined with the general state of Goblin society results in a great deal of accidental destruction.
Eventually, the number of bills in circulation becomes very low as a result, and people begin trading them for their face value, since they are as rare as most hard currency. Then somewhere down the line, a Goblin figures out that they can build their own machine at home to print more Moolah bills for themselves, and the cycle repeats itself.
They only have to be around sources of fel, their proximity to them doesn’t matter. A blood elf in Quel’Thalas could have been stationed in the southern regions of the Ghostlands, but due to the presence of these crystals; they are fel, yes, their eyes will still turn green. These crystals were used to power the structures of the kingdom, not to siphon magical energies from. The only possible example we have of a blood elf in Quel’Thalas directly draining fel is from a green tinted crystal given to Lady Liadrin before she becomes the Matriarch of the Blood Knight Order.
But they would be a blue-eyed blood elf, not a high elf. Certainly, they would have to prove themselves, they’d be suspected. But we have seen several operate perfectly fine.
Again, incorrect. For a large chunk of the high elves; I’ll always headcanon that the Silver Covenant hosts a majority of the high elven population and most of them are Alleria’s rangers returning from Outland after the events of TBC, it simply means that they were -exiled- after the Fall and Rommath’s return, when Lor’themar kicked a sizeable amount of blood elves out of the kingdom because they refused to sate their addiction through the same means as the ‘loyalists’, most notably draining magical energies from living beings such as mana wyrms. This is up to three years where these exiles, such as the high elves of Quel’Lithien, went by the moniker of blood elf and were present in Quel’Thalas.
The rest of my sentence was important as well. “Not having green eyes would mean to another character who is subjectif that they would not have done Thing.” Please, do not put words in my mouth, it’s unpleasant. Discuss my wording all you want, but don’t do that.
Anymore.
They existed there until Cataclysm and the speaker is probably forced to Zuldazar.
Then don’t put words in mine as well, hm? Because there is nothing to suggest that what you meant is a subjective notion of one character in that they think a blue eyed elf wasn’t present during the Fall of Quel’Thalas. The closest would be where you said blood elves would be suspicious of blue eyed elves; I’ve said as much myself, but then you immediately said blue eyes = not present for the Fall, which is simply wrong.