It´s quite telling that the only organized high elf faction that´s strong enough to do anything on its own and be relevant to the story (Silver Covenant) gets portrayed as rival to small faction of blood elf volunteers who went to Northrend outside of organized war effort of Quel´Thalas.
Then they pretty much always appear as the weakest force:
Zul´Aman: unclear numbers, but I actually went there recently and I think Silver Covenant has far smaller numbers there than Farstriders (once again just a branch of blood elven forces).
Isle of Thunder: they fight as part of Kirin Tor and together, with all the other people from Dalaran, are put as enemies of blood elves only.
Suramar: once again portrayed as smallest force, way inferior in numbers and importance to blood and night elves.
And that´s a good thing, together with how disorganized they are. There is no high elf nation, they are not even bound to a single faction, they don´t have a leader, some don´t even uphold the supposed ideal of high elves to not toy with evil magics and study the Void (although I view high elves to be more of a “at the right place at right time” situation rather than some ideological choice, with them living away from Quel´Thalas and majority of their population when the shift in blood elves happened).
There´s so much one can do with high elf on a character basis precisely because of this dynamic. Otherwise, there would be no difference between them and blood elves besides the colors they wear and allies they have.
This is my take on it too, and to add to it: Isn´t it strange that someone who was not a commander before, being just an ordinary Farstrider and later ambassador, who even in Night of the Dragon did not seemingly have any soldiers under her, suddenly became leader of military group of high elves with decent number of Farstriders?
Of course, there´s one exceptional thing about Vereesa, and that´s her family. Including the woman who lead high elf Farstriders through Dark Portal back in Second War.
And also, how did she manage to find so many high elf Farstriders who are so fiercely loyal to the Alliance and seem to really dislike blood elves? Could it be that many of Silver Covenant elves already had the pleasure to meet the worst of the blood elves and fight against them, causing this strong dislike to them that resulted in their opposition to Sunreavers and even killing and torture of civillians once they were given the opportunity?
It just explains things perfectly and while I doubt it was intentional on Blizzard´s part (otherwise they would have mentioned it somewhere) and is one of the most logical headcanons out there.
What exactly is “enough” anyway? As far as I see it, the Silver covenant alone made majority of the Alliance army that led the assault on isle of Thunder. They don’t look near extinct to me. And if your getting your lore from ion, he’s not a lore guy at all. He even said Blood elves won’t be getting blue eyes because it doesn’t make sense and they got blue eyes 2 weeks later. He’s work is in PVE and Mythic, not Lore.
High elves, along with humans, makeup up the majority citizens in Dalaran. So I don’t think there near extinction at all. We don’t know how much that 1% really is. Are they lower in numbers compared to the blood elves? Yes. Are they near extinction? No.
If Void elves lore wise are lower in numbers than the High elves (Velves being a small group of exiles), then I think they will be just fine.
Don’t make a conclusion about someone you don’t even know. I know my lore very well. After all, they are my favorite race. And I also play blood elves.
The blood elf player above is the one who concluded they are all dead, and I simply corrected him. How is that bias?
I understand that blood elf players have some weird bias towards the race High elves Because of the faction they follow and the fear of them being playable therefore stealing the aesthetic from blood elves. but being delusional in a theoretical discussion adds nothing but cringe to the conversation.
Yet you don’t seem to be accepting of the numbers we are given in lore.
High elves as a population are next to nothing. Wow however suffers from rule of cool or plot convenience disease and thus they can randomly spawn enough to fit wherever.
It was not an Alliance army, it was specifically forces of Dalaran which were opposed to forces of Quel´Thalas. Alliance and Horde as a whole did not participate in that campaign, being focused on their war.
A statement made after insane outrage of toxic high elf fanboys who saw it as the greatest crime in history of this game.
Statement which, according to Blizzard, was followed by internal discussion that resulted in addition of blood elf skin color options to void elves in Shadowlands.
Dalaran is not a big city, being made out of mostly mages and their support staff (it didn´t even have army during Warcraft 3, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King specifically mentions they portalled in one). So, for all we know, high elves of Dalaran can number in hundreds.
At least 1400, most likely more (Kael brought 50% more blood elves with him to Outland and force that destroyed Kirin´var numbered in thousands, meaning there were at least 2000 blood elves, most likely more + others who did not participate in the attack). Given that these same blood elves got overpowered by forces of Garithos, it´s likely that there weren´t 50000 of them or some big number along those lines.
Given how they are split between so many settlements, one of them being already completely annihilated (Quel´Lithien), reducing their numbers even more, I don´t think they can ever recover. Especially without lands where they could rebuild.
Who said void elves are not in even worse shape than high elves when it comes to survival of their race?
However there are two huge differences:
Void elves are organized and it´s entirely possible for them to be stronger than Silver Covenant.
Void elves are made out of specific group of blood elves that was more skilled and powerful than any other population. It´s like with Lightforged, DKs and DHs, they have huge percentage of potential combatants. Meanwhile high elves can be anything, including the most common of civillians.
I don’t think anyone has ever claimed otherwise.
Void elves are yet another splinter of blood elves, there can’t be a particularly large cluster of them; unless they are calling themselves ren’dorei when they are in fact regular Thalassian elves who are just studying the void.
Surprisingly, they don´t even seem to have this benefit. The only high elves we see in combat are Silver Covenant and few 7th Legion mages.
Silver Covenant also never seems to appear in more than one campaign at the time, all their appearances are at different times. For all we know, there´s like 200 of them.
I´m a high elf player (as many can confirm) and he wasn´t being rude to me.
And quite many are. It ranges from delusions about power of the race or about its unique appearance justifying them being a race of their own rather than political and ideological subgroup of Thalassian elves.
Never! You will have to suffer 50000 words long thesis about how high elves should get Celtic hairstyles, tattoos and how blood elves deserve none of that!
What biased position? Again you are saying I’m Biased because I simply corrected the blood elf guy who claimed that ALL High elves are dead. Is Vereesa dead? Nope. Is any other high elf NPC randomly dead? No.
I simply corrected him and suddenly I’m getting called a Bias
You are biased because you force your opinion by quoting incorrect statements made by others. And that’s not even talking about you taking words out of context.
You correcting Aerilen´s statement (which I´m 100% sure was just a case of misunderstanding/hyperbole since everyone knows high elves are not extinct) was not the issue, you saying how blood elf players want them all gone, followed by multiple comments about high elves being actually far more powerful than anything we´ve seen in the lore would suggest, was.
