What´s even funnier is that Garrosh himself outright told him he´s bad pick for Warchief. The guy himself knew that he doesn´t have what it takes to actually lead the Horde but was told “nah, you´ll do fine, it´s just temporary anyway” by Thrall.
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Some real, real-world parallels there, in hindsight…
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There wasn’t an option for the nelves to mantain an intercontinental expedition while keeping their own territory safe. The satyr alone were a reason enough to keep the Sentinels battle-ready all the time, and they use fel without outside help. So, sadly, not everything could be blamed on the single people.
What satyrs? They were absolutely not a major threat in the years leading up to the Third War. The War of the Satyrs had happened literally thousands+thousands of years and is touted as one of the examples of NElves basically decimating an enemy.
In Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Maiev Shadowsong mentions the night elves wiping out various races in the past. Was this just bluster, or have they actually engaged in genocidal campaigns?
Maiev may not be the most balanced individual on Azeroth, but she does understand the value of intimidating her enemies. The night elves have never completely wiped out a species, though they have engaged in brutal and efficient campaigns of total war that have shattered their enemies’ civilizations, such as the War of the Satyr, in which they completely decimated any semblance of central leadership for the satyrs, forcing them to live in small sects to this day..
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ask_CDev
Where exactly is it stated that Tyrande did nothing because of fears of the satyrs? It’s certainly not mentioned in Chronicles, which talks about how she knew that the Plague was Legion-related.
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Maybe she knew it because the Scourge was the Legion’s vanguard since it reached Kalimdor? As of the satyr, they were a genuine threat in Ashenvale, Desolace, Feralas, Felwood, even Teldrassil itself to a degree, already in Vanilla. How can a barely-extinct species come back to the ability of being a serious threat to an entire race over a half a decade unless it was already there and it wasn’t stated that the demons converted the Kaldorei en masse in all these areas?
Gonna need a citation on that one. Cause I don’t recall anything that suggested the night elves were in Lordaeron checking andorhals grain shipments.
I must have missed that episode of CSI: Lordaeron.
She knew it before it left Lordaeron, while it was still in its infancy. Chronicles makes that clear.
If the Legion does a massive invasion of Kalimdor, granting the scattered satyr some central leadership that it explicitly lacked, and blowing up a bunch of night elves to weaken them, they might be more of a threat again than they were before.
Of course if Tyrande had stopped them in Lordaeron maybe that wouldn’t have come to pass.
And future lore has also confirmed that the Night Elves did go to the Eastern Kingdoms. Two Sentinels - one of which was Shandris - helped aided Thalassian elves 2000-3000 years prior to current day, which implies the Troll Wars. So how exactly could they spare the Sentinels to help out there?
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Rendezvous_with_the_Courier
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Ending_Areiel
Moreover, what sort of Long Vigil is it if the Night Elves dedicated themselves to this task only to not even consider maybe being able to travel to another continent to do so?
Chronicles 3, Page 70.
The vigil did not extend to the Eastern Kingdoms. Tyrande Whisperwind and her people were partially aware of events transpiring across the Great Sea, but they rarely intervened. When they did, their activities were always subtle and unseen.
The druids were the first to notice the plague of undeath killing the wilds as it spread across the Eastern Kingdoms. From within the Emerald Dream, their spirits reached out to the physical world to stop the blight. Yet they had little success. Some of these druids told Tyrande of what was happening. Though she maintained her isolationism, she sensed a familiar force at work behind the Plague.
She sensed the Legion.
No “they couldn’t go because they were tired of fighting Satyrs”. Just “she maintained her isolationism” even as she senses the Legion at work.
The Kaldorei aren’t a sailing race. The idea of assembling both a fleet and an army capable on taking out an entire kingdom’s worth of undead while fending off any stray troll they meet would’ve taken quiet an amount of time to be realized. Clearly longer than it took for the Scourge to bring the fight to them. Sure, the Chronicles before the part 4 are written adequately, but military logistics aren’t the setting’s stronger part.
If you’ve going down the route of “Why didn’t the night elves save lordaeron?” You might as well ask where was Khaz Modan, where was Stormwind, where were the naga, where were the Titan Watchers and their armies, where was everyone else who is a friend of Lordaeron or an enemy of the Legion.
It gets ridiculous fast. It’s best not go down those roads.
Also frelling chronicles man. There’s a nest of retcons and contradiction.
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Yet they had ships available for both Maiev to chase Illidan and for Tyrande/Malfurion to chase Maiev and cross the sea in Frozen Throne.
The events of TFT directly follow on from WC3. When exactly would they have had time to build those fleets? They must have had them before. Maiev even quotes that Nendis is a ‘port’, and it wasn’t the only one that Illidan attacked.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Nendis
When Tyrande/Malfurion arrive at the Broken Isles, there’s a sidequest to collect the scattered Night Elf fleet that they brought with them.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Balancing_the_Scales_(WC3_NightElf)
They absolutely had ships.
But even if they didn’t (which they did), idk that kinda seems like another flub. What, they never expected the Legion might do anything on any other continent? That’s just another sign that they’re letting themselves down.
Well, apparently they didn’t know, because unlike Tyrande they didn’t have druids whispering in their ears.
Or if they did know of the plague, then as at the start of WC3 they just saw it as an act of nature, a sickness, and not the malevolent acts of the Burning Legion that Tyrande knew about.
But what’s written is canon, for better or worse. Much as I’d like to imagine whole swaths of the lore different (Sylvanas from BfA onwards), we are not afforded such luxury.
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I distinctly remember Antonidas, y’know, one of the leaders of the Kirin Tor at the time? Spending WC3 with a stick up his rear, until it was suddenly Undead shoving it somewhere else…
And the High Elves being, aside from a handful of Priests and Sorceresses, being very much “Not our problem bro” until it was suddenly A Big Problem™.
But, m’kay.
Edit: I don’t know what Chronicles retconned or not, but also apparently Tyrande should have known what Orcs were due to shenanigans outside of the games, so this is why on principle I despise game writers NOT PUTTING THE DAMN LORE IN THE DAMN VIDEO GAME.
But heyo.
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Oh, she knew it without a doubt since the Tomb of Sargeras went to the bottom in WC2, or even earlier. But in the retrospective the Legion was all but impossible to hold off without some Heroes even back at the War of the Ancients, on their home turf. When reinforced by the Horde, on a different continent, with no guarantees to even have any allies on the spot, such a war effort was absolutely impossible to conduct. And the same goes to the Scourge, but with the ability to replenish its losses in the field. Thus sticking to Kalimdor was the only possible decision if the watch for the demons was to go on.
Says you. I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I acknowledge Shadowlands IC.
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That feels like a miserable way to engage with the game and the story
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Maybe for you. Makes me rather happy. And quite a lot of other people too.
I also ignore their retcon of what Garrosh said to Sylvanas about intelligent female dogs, aren’t I the evil canon defiling fiend.
To be entirely fair Medivh’s request was unreasonable. He basically went to humans and said “hey yo man you feel my aura? yeah I’m a prophet now abandon all your houses, the kingdoms you’ve spent generations building, and let us all set sail for kalimdor - a land which totally exists trust me bro”
And kings and archmages were understandably going “what did you smoke?”
And Medivh went “naaah I am leaving”.
I personally think this is fine: as long as the game offers a general overview of what is going on (it doesn’t right now because leveling is a nightmare) you can then choose to learn more, via books and comics and wikis.
It is good that they expand the lore beyond the arguably limited tools of a videogame, and it is what makes sense for a big franchise.
I mean, except for a handful of thalassian elves, they acted entirelly the same until the Scourge attacked them.
Or the Old Horde until Anduin Lothar called upon his blood debt, and only fully when the Amani trolls got involved.
Just sayin’ its an elf thing. Not that you’re wrong in this case!
To be fair, the same page does outright state that the Long Vigil didn’t extend beyond Kalimdor, so yeah. Eastern Kingdoms ain’t Kalimdor!
Weird since the Titan Keepers literally live on the border of Icecrown Citadel!
So long as it’s IC denial, I don’t really see the issue. We have flat-earthers genuinely believing they’re right IRL - it doesn’t seem a stretch for some denizens of Azeroth to be sceptics regarding the Shadowlands.
OOC is another kettle of fish. The lore is what it is, simple as that.
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I think what would be far more miserable is having to deal with the ramifications of knowing what happens after death and that for few years recently, everyone who died (including friends, family) went to a place of unending torment comparable to RL ideas of afterlife that are viewed as punishment for the worst people that exist. Especially when that discovery changed Azeroth, including its religions, in 0 ways.
If Steve Danuser and his team didn’t bother to explore how revelation of Shadowlands would impact the world, why should we?
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I thought we established Tyrande is literally Hitler when faced with people who slighted her(see Nightborne), thus why should she bother with extending the Long Vigil on people who should’ve been put to death according to their own laws, but where only spared due to Malfurion’s benevolance?
Especially after they knew, and were warned, that Arcane Magic draws the Legion. Yea, the Thalassian Elves put up magical wards to deter the Legion finding out about their use of magic, but oopsie they also forgot to teach Humanity the same knowledge and restraint of magic they learned the hard way. The Scourge was a disaster the Thalassian Elves called over Humanity (and themselves) in the same vein that their ancestors, the Highborne of Queen Azshara, called the Legion to Azeroth before and during the War of the Ancients, and I do not see a reason why Tyrande, or the Night Elves, should be held accountable for not intervening in it when the High Elves are not held accountable for helping in the War of the Shifting Sands, where the Dragons and Night Elves fought against the forces of the Old Gods and the Void(I am sure this is glossed over in Chronicles).
Anyways my point is: it serves no purpose, especially in Warcraft, to discuss why X or Y faction did not help in Y or X War, because most Wars in Warcraft are world ending threats, so everyone has a skin in those wars, be it the Second, Sands, Satyr, or Third War.
In this same vein we could argue why the Tauren did not help during any war on Kalimdor, etc.
Also Shandris and the other Sentinel helping Quel’thalas during the Troll Wars is 
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