You’ll never guess what caused the sundering
I don’t know. Humans had a pretty rough time in the Third War and Cataclysm.
Recently though? Yeah, I can see the problem.
Yep. Another trope I don’t care much for, the whole ‘human number one’ nonsense.
I don’t think they’re necessarily boring. Some of them are even amongst my favoured characters - but they are often written to steal large aspects of storytelling that are more deeply appropriate for various non-human races.
It is what it is, though. At least I can purposefully avoid it in my own setting.
The forefathers of the blood elves messing up yeah, I know!
All comes across a bit hypocritical to be worried about a people who ally themselves with the Legion when she’s out there cutting down loyal night elves to free Illidan, a guy who repeatedly allied himself with the Legion.
It’s not like her own people - the ‘loyal Night Elves’ are free from falling under the Legion’s sway, which we saw a bunch of happening in the Legion expac - Wardens and Demon Hunters and more. Tyrande herself dealt with an entire forest of corrupted NElves twisted by the Nightmare, including Cenarius himself! If Cenarius can be corrupted, then what hope do any of us have?
For her to get out of that and go “huh, what’s the guarantee YOU won’t turn evil?” is like…of course there isn’t one. There’s no guarantee for anyone. It’s a question that cannot be answered except with platitudes, ones which Tyrande clearly wouldn’t accept.
It’s a valid concern, yes, but asking the question isn’t. What guarantee do we have that Tyrande wouldn’t turn into Azshara? There is none, save for her history, but Thalyssra’s got the same history of rebelling against the Legion, so that’s really a wash.
“Why wasn’t Tyrande more tolerant?!”
Baine.
Ya’ll are literally describing Baine, Azeroth’s most tolerant and forgiving (bull) man, and people didn’t stop whinging about him for Three Expansions Solid.
/rant
Anyway, the reason is Blizzard decided Horde needed another AR to balance numbers, wussef out of a Neutral race, threw some typically weak writing together and went “Yeah, that’ll do.” Bam. There’s your reason.
I think that again goes back to what is the source problem for Tyrande. The Nightwell was basically a tool to keep the entire Nightborne population hostage. Tyrande’s thoughts seemed to be: remove the nightwell = attacking the problem at its roots.
I don’t think she underestimated the Legion, and she’s probably very aware that individuals can still fall to their influence, but from her perspective it has been Wells of power that are the common donominator between elven tyrants falling for the Legion and dragging down their entire kingdom with them.
I think that’s the core of it. Power corrupts, power makes you sudceptible for blackmail. Power is what the Nightwell offers in abundance.
But again, she could have used more tact (though given she indeed slew a number of wardens we can safely say that never was her strongest suit).
The whole Nightborne joining the Horde is fine, especially after Tyrande’s tactless treatment of them.
The problem is the Nightborne assisting the Horde in attacking, killing and destroying the Alliance during the Battle for Azeroth. Not just Tyrande and her Night Elves. We see the Nightborne actively taking up arms in the favour of what turned out to be pretty much another tyrant, against people, soldiers and heroes who fought and died to save Suramar.
And then they join the rebellion. Again. lol
It all comes back to Blizz stupidly putting Teldrassil before Lordaeron.
Yeah. Furthermore on that note it also turned out to be a necessity for someone or rather multiple someones to wield the same magic as the Burning Legion to better understand how they operated so a near infinite enemy could be defeated in the first place.
If nobody turned to wield the Burning Legion’s methods, then they would not understand their tactics or truly grasp the stakes at play.
It’s what makes Illidan a cool anti-hero even if he hasn’t been handled perfectly.
Now, finally, she seems willing to tolerate the presence of fel-wielding and undead elves so long as they stay in their little tower on the new world tree. So, progress at least!
On a personal level I don’t care for the ‘noooooooooooooo u cant use dark magic nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ahhhhhahhahahashashhshshashs’ mentality that has crept into a lot of modern day fantasy stories. I just really like the trope of wielding darker powers for the sake of a greater good.
My Belf;
“I’m a medic, but-” -drops right hand, lifts left hand, banishes people to the Shadow Realm-
The character of Tyrande Whisperwind is consistantly inconsistent and that’s all there is to it.
No, nobody calls her out on the exceptions she makes or ever expanding on them to a larger group or through slow progression. For a long while I’ve always believed that the Kaldorei was less of a one married couple making all the decisions for everyone since you’ve had Staghelm, Shandris, Jarod, Maeiv, etc… But today how is it not a Monarchy in all but name? Tyrande has made decisions that are very Azshara like despite her previously claiming never wanting to become like her.
It’s just wild man. Questions that should be asked, past occurences that could be brought up are never mentioned.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean with this? Even the basic reasoning for her decisions are almost always with the intention to do good by her people and by her goddess. Azshara only did things for Azshara.
Azshara expected adoration, dispised her own people, happily doomed the world in exchange for power, none of which are reflected even remotely in Tyrande’s leadership or personality.
It’s true that all story decisions seem to be made by 1 or 2 people, but that’s not a typical night elf evolution throughout WoW. Blizzard has continuously centralised all races into one or two figurehead characters who’s decisions seem to be absolute. So of course none of it will ever be called out, because I don’t think Blizzard is willing to deal with that.
TBH they do get called out, although it’s usually by the villain of the expansion (eg. Nelf Primalists and their Druids of the Flame allies claiming that the armistice is a joke after what they endured at Teldrassil or the Gnome mage terrorist that was building mana bombs at Theramore) and we course correct them after applying some genocide to their ranks.
True enough. I think the one time a central leader did get called out that had a direct consequence, at least on Alliance, was when Tyrande refused to contribute her armies to Anduin’s war efforts to instead go and liberate Darkshore. But even then it didn’t bring tensions to the Alliance in any meaningful way, which I still think is a shame.
Good thing the Night Elves never signed or agreed with the armistice
Yep, hence it was just a big old misunderstanding and overreaction from the Primalist Night Elves’ side, which is even more moronic.
If we lived in a better world, Kaldorei Primalists would have been searching not only for the means to avenge Teldrassil, but also to do it without relying on Elune in her fickleness. When “the instriment of her vengeance” is denied the means to do justice not only to the people that wronged them, but to the very mastermind of the genocide happened but a year ago, one might rightfully question the reasons to follow such deity. And when thought cynically, only the elementals would bless a similar slaughter, even if made in retaliation, without turning those committing it into monsters. But again, not enough lore presented.
The latest batch of Druids of the Flame were pretty based. The Night Elves should aspire to regain their near immortality. Sacrificing it for the sake of Azeroth continuing to survive wasn’t exactly taken with as much gravity as it deserves.
Plus Elves of some flavour should always be on top anyway.
Mmmm, muh 'Murica logic.