No, what’s actually going on here is that you guys are seemingly either ignorant to how politics work, or are choosing to ignore it for the sake of your argument.
You keep repeating that Quel’Thalas was isolationist, but that does not disprove any of the points that I made. If you co-habit a continent with other people for thousands of years, you will gradually become influenced by each other.
But feel free to enlighten me how the people of the Netherlands would find greater prosperity among Klingons than among the French or the Belgians.
I think you can include Lyria Skystrider to some extend in there too, as she states she won’t be controlled by anyone, not the magisters or the Windrunners; but she freely chooses to be on the Alliance side of things.
It’s a fantasy game and you are taking events that occurred across thousands of years and stretching them into a tale of some great history of mutual co-operation. And being INFLUENCED by each other does not contribute to the shared narrative you are attempting to argue happened.
The High Elves were highly prejudiced against Half Elves for the longest time after all. Many probably still are.
One family is being highlighted in the lore, but I’m all ears in case somebody wants to provide me with a quote that reads “High Elves and Humans stayed within the confines of their own kingdoms and never intermingled through trade, travel, or just adventuring in general.”.
I think the point being, every elf does represent themselves with their own actions, whether it is mitigating with Humans, not picking sides, or chosing to go fully rogue and wanting to blow up all of Azeroth. Like, each action does mainly represent as an individual.
Spare yourself the trouble of going into debate with them, their words are as empty as can be and contribute nothing.
There is no middle ground to be had with them as they are hardliners, it’s why I saved this quote:
Please pay attention to this part: Only logical solution is to argue against everything and make every request as difficult and controversial as possible.
They are not here for constructive debate, they are here for hardline opposition, that’s all. They will only pick the things from the lore and in-game that suits their view, dismiss anything else that doesn’t align with them, even if it’s written down or in-game.
So save your energy for the ones that are sensible and willing to have constructive debate rather than extreme ideologies.
Even if we stay within the scope of “it’s a fantasy setting, bro,” you’re still left with having to explain the highly illogical choice of elves joining their former demonic invaders.
Why is one man and his followers (Garithos) enough to wipe their memories of the demons, the death knights, and the enslaved dragons of the Second War?
Even if you only compare these two periods of history together, the First and Second War vs. the Third War and WoW Vanilla → TBC, you’re still left with an absolutely nonsensical decision from the part of the Blood Elves.
It is not politics. The elves were always of the mindset that they don’t need anyone from the outside especially when the leading race of that partnership keep wasting your people in pointless and suicidal missions.
You can ask for high elves without dismantling all story they got since and after Warcraft 2 because in Frozen Throne they had their own story for the very first timeakncowledged by Blizzard to this day.
What I’m saying is that the burden of proof is on you if you want to suggest that High Elves and Humans didn’t intermingle despite being neighbours for thousands of years.
We even have hard evidence these days, with many High Elves joining the Arathi across the sea. Even if that’s a recent development, it’s still silly to argue that these two peoples just happened to share a continent while never actually meeting.
After being betrayed by Humanity from their perspective, the Blood Elves were approached by Sylvanas Windrunner. Whilst undead, she had been held in high regard by the High Elves, now the Blood Elves. She was a part of the Horde and she offered troops and supplies to help the beleaguered Blood Elves. She also offered them a place within the Horde, and facilitated meetings between the Blood Elves and the Horde leadership. The Alliance on the other hand had tried to execute their leadership under Garithos, and the Dalaran leadership had stood by.
In the crazy world after the third war, the desperate Blood Elves gave it a shot. It has worked out immensely well.
I mean, this is all in the lore. The Blood Elves choice is documented and explained. Why did you need it retold?
Don’t waste their time. High elf fans think their entire lore is happening in Warcraft 2 where humans and elves are eternally friends even when all other sources say the opposite.
I said there is one family. There is no lore supporting to say other High Elves outside of the Windrunners mingling with the humans, (i.e getting married, having children, you should get the idea.)
Since you admitted this is all about hairstyles for you I fail to see what you are bothering with yourself. Void Elves will probably get new hairstyles in the fullness of time regardless.
“Betrayed by humanity” is a nonsensical statement on its own, because Garithos doesn’t represent “Humanity”. That’s like thinking any political leader elected in 2025 represents “Humanity” rather than just his or her own political party as well as a slice of the electorate within that country.
Given how ancient and wise High Elves are, they would definitely have been able to figure out that Garithos isn’t representative of Humanity nor the leader they should even be looking to for diplomacy. They would have sent messengers south, west, and east.
What really happened here is that the developers at the time were largely pro-Horde, wanted a pretty race on their faction and had to even out player numbers. So they said “eh, let’s leave logic aside for now and just make it happen”.
But high elves ALREADY EXIST IN THE GAME! They exist in different villages, some are even in dwarf zones like Vyrin Swiftwind. With your logic blood elves are already invalidated since day 1 of vanilla as the high elves have continued to exist even after the fall of silvermoon. High elves were actually in the game BEFORE blood elves
And that is your whole argument? I can tell you numerous blood elf NPCs standing around in Horde cities. Even in vanilla. Baeryl Firehand in Stonetalon Mountains for example.