Honestly I can say the same for many many characters in wow. Theve all gone downhill. Tyrande for example was amazing in Warcraft 3, not sure what happened to her after that.
Jaina has gone crazy after Theramore too, although she did get back on the right track lately.
I just get the impression that people (especially the horde) hate the windrunner sisters because they are pro-alliance Thalassians.
In any case, I don’t like any of the windrunners. I just have a little more respect towards Alleria than her younger sisters.
There are far far better Alliance Thalassian characters out there. Like
Auric Sunchaser (leader of the Allerian Stronghold)
Jalinde Summerdrake (one of the Rangers of Highvale)
I don’t mind interracial marriages in wow, but yes all three the windrunners having a love for them is beyond annoying to me. Hence why I hate them and their husbands/lover.
She is a portal trainer. But yeah most of the Mages in the 7th legion (battle Mages) are actually High elves, not humans. Makes sense as high elves are better Mages than humans are.
You can check everywhere else - even to the final quests of the War Campaign in Durotar - most of the 7th Legion Mages are Humans. Followed on by Void Elf, Night Elf, Gnome and High Elf.
Oh. I haven’t done many 7th legion quests I probably only did the Arathi ones. If that’s the case, then my bad.
But I liked that they included the race into the BFA conflicts at least. In BFA we saw many non-playable groups start to make an appearance, amongst them the San’Layn who joined the horde briefly
So you might be a Warlock and spit out fel stuff, but who cares…I’ll speak to Thalyssra.
It’s fine. I’m not cheering for most Magi on the alliance, being Humans. It’s wrong in a way and the main race should be Void Elf (for playable races) and High Elf for the non-playable race. (For Mage NPCs, that is.)
It was good.
They didn’t have to do that. They could have used Vereesa and her High Elf Rangers, over Shandris and the Night Elf Sentinels, but credit where it’s due. Blizzard was focusing on the races that were playable.
But more needs to be done on the Alliance. That wasn’t enough. The Alliance is still “Humans the rest.”
They could have done a bit better to combat the “Humans and the rest” bit. It would have been better to have a night elven character with the player in Najzatar, instead of Jaina. I know they were trying to emulate the Isle of Thunder but we had enough of her by that point. Also I still get a chuckle from the Zandalar suicide force being non humans. There is a disposable meat comparison somewhere in there.
Thalyssra and Shandris counted for the “Highborne” and “Lowborne” presence within the zone.
They wanted all 3 warbringers to meet at one stage. So, we had Jaina and Sylvanas for 8.0, Jaina and Azshara for 8.2, Sylvanas and Azshara for 8.3 (brief flashback.)
That’s fair but shouldn’t it have gone somewhere afterwards? A payoff other than that they’re boss fights where they all survive. It could still happen but it seems bleak if Shadowlands is the end of that story.
Arcane is a means to advance, just like technology, but development of things like cities come based on culture, trade, need to gather together…
In the night elf story, they gathered near the well of eternity, they investigated and sought Elune through it’s study, they picked up the arcane too. as their populations grow the need or rather the advantage of a city expands.
They are a very intelligent people, they probably decided to do this very early on or the both the need and advantage of cities very early on, the arcane was a tool, one they are drawn too because it’s in their blood which probably made them vulnerable, but now we understand the addiction comes from lack of balance - it becomes a discipline and lifestyle issue to remove it from being that. However the arcane is not the reason for a city nor for it to be beautiful. A city is just common sense to any people that grow and develop, beautiful buildings and architecture occur because of talented artist and those who love tings to be beautiful make them so. Things like the arcane or technology simply aid a peole make things. The more resourceful the people the better their tools. but beauty, need, design and things like that are not based on the arcane
This doesn’t mean all night elves will want to be mages or have an arcane society, it just means that those who study arcane or how many get involved with their natural affinity would never be snared like they were because of Azshara’s ambition.
It must be noted that it was Azshara’s ambition that did lead to unbalanced use, not the other way round. this tells us and confirms that night elves were actually quite responsible and good with their magic for a long time. The blue dragon flight joined them researching the mystery and secrets of the arcane, long before they fell to hubris and arrogance - if you pay attention to the Azsuna quests (including item descriptions, tomes, comments and conversations)
But they have hindsight and now understand the problem. you can ask what led Azshara to become so ambitious… was it just pure vanity? That side of her story hasn’t been told yet.
Indeed, this is what makes them actually feel real, as opposed to other franchises fictitious races that all seem to be so monotone. The night elves were designed from the very start to be wide ranging, the best of the dark elves and the the best of the forest elves - is the night elf blueprint and it’s what their development direction has been - bear in mind we meet them first in WC3 at the END of the long vigil. The Long vigil isn’t their defining state. But the WC3 game shows the end of that era, whereas the 3 book trilogy describes the end of the pre-sundering era. The night elves new start begins with wow, and through wow they have shown us the forest and nature love but also the arcane mastery and height of their civilization both dark elf and forest elf side. Then they added Elune, the whole celestial magic dimension, and then the demon hunters …making them pretty damn diverse, like humans.
Absolutely, it did. it wasn’t interacting with other aces, nor was it progress, development, knowledge of arcane or any subject matter that did this, as explained above, sometimes in history these things happen, in the case of the night elves the Queen over reached, and their was a consequence to not handling this very very precious resources they had become really good at.
We know the real story really, if it wasn’t for the legion, the Valewalkers would have fixed the error in the queen. on discovery of fel, she was ensnared and seduced by Sargeras, He manipulated her, and it was easy. I often wonder that if there was no legion issue, and the Valewalkers had succeeded, she’d have comet o her right mind…
But what blizzard hasn’t really shared is hat actually drove Azshara to become this obsessed… with power, or perfection or worship - but these are flaws any of us can have. Did something else corrupt her for this darkness to grow? or was it just character? I mean by all accounts she was an exceptional and outstanding individual, how does one such as that become so obsessive and vain? Were the old gods already working on her from some earlier infiltration or very subtle corruption even she missed?
They haven’t told that story.
That is subjective and interpretive… what would you say of the temples and cathedrals then? surely the Cathedral of Elune and the temples were the most incredible structures, the Astromeancer towers too had research and magical uses.
but not everything needs to be functional either, the elves love beauty, it is a sign of excellence not arrogance to do things well and extravagantly.
Opulence and over indulgence can happen, but these do when you exchange what is good or right or do something totally wrong just to achieve your desire. The state of building or the beauty of a piece of work isn’t necessarily an indication of that…
You can have two identically ornate and lavishly decorated works, but one would be considered borne of opulence and the other a great work of art. depends on what the motivations and circumstances, especially motive of creating.
the point is, it’s not having beautiful things that is opulent or indulgent, it is your character and attitude. The Highborne, became indulgent long after the beautiful cities were made and built.
Remember ancient druid trees and Highborne mages built those cities, and when you look at Farondis, and read their history, there was a time they weren’t arrogant or haughty but truly.
it’s exactly the same with progress. progress is progress, but the motivation behind it be very different and that motivation determines where such knowledge or how such knowledge and progress would be applied or used.
Scientist invents or discovers/creates something incredible, depending on who he is, his motivation could have been to solve some major world problems , like lack of power or transports help, or food shortages, while another’s motivation of the same thing can take that discovery and instead use it to destroy or was his motivation for inventing it.
Same thing, great discovery, powerful weapon, or tool, beautiful building etc but very different motivations.
We know the night elves are by character:
Benevolent
Highly intelligent
Graceful in beauty
Their civilization was created not out of greed or opulence or envy, it’s beautiful cities and temples, the way it looked after nature and sought peace, these were all things they achieved before the great arrogance, hubris, recklessness and then those soirees and parties while the world is coming to an end happened, an indication of a truly great people who’d lost their mind.
In the case of the night elves, the story attributes part of the blame to addiction, but it also hints what or at least who led them to throw caution to the wind which results in said addiction. In order to have gotten addicted, they needed to have stopped taking care of using their magic wisely and not stretch themselves beyond what they could manage.
That careful approach would have been how they got to handle a volatile and difficult and dangerous energy source like the arcane in the first place. And do it so well. You have to recognise how that comes to happen first. when you get arrogant, and think of yourself of more than you are, whether it’s the Queen’s favour or knock on effect of arcane usage, what these bozzos did or some of them was think themselves above taking such precautions -
What led them to this? Fighting over the Queen’s pleasure? a threat we haven’t been revealed yet? It seems a little out of character to the sage like elves who had reverence for the arcaneso much?
Or was it a queen getting too greedy for adulation? Think, to the night elves, (and this is the case even today), the arcane is tied to Elune, it’s reverent, they handled magic reverently because this is the goddesses substance or stuff. whether you’re a mage or priest. however if Azshara lost reverence for Elune, either because her popularity got to her head, and she started fancying herself worthy of the adulation the people gave the goddess, might that have motivated her to plumb greater secrets to discover more wonders to wow the people and displace the goddess in their hearts?
Was that what drove her to abandon the usual caution. Thinking her self equal or going to be like the goddess would that have caused HER to become arrogant and in so doing abandon the usual caution she should have had.
Many in the Highborne court would have followed her becoming less and less reverential towards the goddess and thus consider the arcane less and less reverential and themselves more and m ore powerful beyond what they were (this is what arrogance and hubris actually mean) and so triggers their over use which gets them addicted and warps them even further.
It’s not the magic, it’s not the cities, it’ snot doing beautiful things or doing things greatly is what their problem is and they know it. IT’s bad leadership, they near-worshipped a woman that mislead them.
Same as above - building tall or beautiful things is not the epitome of arrogance. that’s not what that word means. Less you want to consider anything that goes beyond simple to be some result of arrogance. People build great things often out of love, reverence, sometimes their craft develops incredibly, some just love beauty. As I said in the much larger text above, their is far more involved,
There is no evidence of this, I do not think the kaldorei practice monogamy - but they may do it doesn’t seem to be related to any state of their society at all. After all, Malfurion and Tyrande are the only kaldorei couple i know of, and they only got married 10,000 years after falling in love, to me that seems incredibly rare.
The long vigil is a state of “watching”. It’s a war state, it’s not a normal state, like it was before - the long vigil doesn’t happen because kaldorei hate opulence, the arcane, civilization trade or progress… the long vigil happens because the burning legion will destroy the whole world if they come, and the only way they know how to beat them is stop them from being able to come back - to do this they must not use the thing they love the best.
good thing they can love other things, and well they can be surrounded by it (Moonwells, Well of eternity) continue to be suffused by it’s power, just not use it) fate of the world depends on it). No time for family life and growing civilization, or progress or any of that stuff, to them, the legion is their responsibility and they have to protect the world.
Did you not know this is what leads to the Sunstrider Highborne being expelled? Darth’remar fleet 3,000 years was long enough to just hunt the legion remnants and avoid progress - he viewed it as hiding and being overly scared… it was time for th elves to rebuild…the others felt that as long as the threat was there going back to magic was too great.
It’s a mis-interpretation to think that all the nature life o the long vigil is because they hate progress, hate civilization, hate arcane, , hate beauty - and think they feel that this destroyed them.
No, they know the long vigil state is because of the Legion, and they know they got arrogant - not because they did well or did great things, but because of how their attitude changed, Not everyone got arrogant, they were betrayed and misled.
After the sundering, there was no civilization. Society yes, but it was living with task. They were thoroughly humbled having had everything destroyed by the legion and the fel power the queen thought to control. Their hierarchy and way they ruled themselves changed.
There was no need for civil leaders there was no civilization, no city, no council halls, no normal life. Tyrande led the night elves, but what did she leave? She led armies of hunters, sentinels - she did lead a civilian government worrying about the state of the people or a city or trade, prosperity, knowledge and education - none of those things. Why do you think Fandral Staghelm says “Tyrande has no idea how to lead our people” - she didn’t. She was a warrior high priestess leading a people in the task of the long vigil - not in administering a civilization or coming out of isolation to rejoin the world.
She gets raised to high priestess in war time - we all read the story, she has no civil leadership experience, and does not lead in a time of peace or growth and progress. She knows priest stuff, lead a movement, and lead an army of guerilla warfare type tactics.
Off course not, there is nothing to covet in this current world, what they had far exceeded the best of the current age, nothing to covet at all.
But it’s more than that, seeing how lusting for such things is of little importance is something people who’ve gone through war and lost everything and found peace and balance in a new life understand.
The things you loved and thought were so important are not at all. I have experienced that in life myself, very liberating, I do not covet luxury, however it doesn’t mean I do not like seeing beautiful and well done things and nor does it mean i don’t like making them either.
Just because one doesn’t covet and doesn’t put all my desire in acquiring beautiful things doesn’t mean i don’t have beautiful things, don’t make them or wouldn’t like them.
Do you think every jewel maker and luxury item maker craves and covets these things more than anything? now a sickness of society is when you covet these perishable intransient things over more important things like justice, reverence, love, kindness etc. It is neither haivng these things and certainly not having the capability to make them creates these in people, It is usually simple negative attributes like jealousy, arrogance, vanity, pride, that lead to your opulence. You can have incredibly beautiful and extravagant things and be full of humility and wisdom too, you can have a pride in your work but not be arrogant which is like the wrong type of pride). But just because you can live without something if you have to - like in war situation or in a period like the long vigil doesn’t mean that you don’t want them or you won’t make them again. And just because you make them doesn’t mean you covet them and can’t leave them behind.
Night elves loved what they did, it was good, there were those in their society that had lost their way when the things they made became more important than living and being true to themselves, this doesn’t mean that the things themselves are bad or that they would never make these things. When you get an epiphany or become wise you simply are no longer held by these things. it doesn’t mean you don’t create them or you stop making great things or you won’t ever do so…it just means that they are no longer the be all and end all.
Night elves prove that in the long vigil, they can live without their great civilization - the long vigil NECSESITATED such a lifestyle. But once it was over, and they started building again, it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t build well and greatly with all the skill and love they have for what they had been.
They are not bound to live forever without ever doing great things because they don’t have arrogance. it is not arrogance that created many of the things they did, and even though it may have been so for some, any skilled an intelligent artisan will always do what they can do to the best.
Now imagine if it was graceful spirited, benevolent being like the night elf who’d rediscovered their true self after the tragedy of the 1st invasion of the legion. Surely when the need arose again to rebuild cavillation, they would do so to the best of their ability reflecting the graceful spirit they have employing their very high intelligence to it. And it would be stunning too, extravagant, but the main difference between it and those living at the end of the 1st era, is that they don’t have the arrogance or over attachment.
Why would they? They’ve seen it all, it wouldn’t wow them as it did before. But just because it doesn’t wow them like before doesn’t mean they won’t make it. They just won’t be making it for boastful purposes or in some competition to gain adulation, but this is the level of skill they would be able to do.
So what they do now will at least match what they did before.
And this is why Darnassus temples, buildings, gazebos, and towers are very much like Suramar’s and Zin’Azshari’ on a scaled down version (factoring in updated and old models used in art) seeing that at the time the first version was built, the arcane wasn’t being employed or at least they didn’t have all their expertise or resources to employ.
Indeed. and I have gone into a lot of detail about this above, showing how it shaped the night elves, and dominated their learning and mastering of the arcane, inspired them to build and create - it came as much from with them because of their graceful spirits a s it did inspired too.
I extrapolate away it could have resulted.
Now I will focus down on this statement.
Just because you see night elves in nature, and loving Elune, doesn’t mean you can ignore their origin story and the role she plays in their early development and great civilization.
it’s all part of the same story.
Elune has temples, not trees to her glory and are the physical expression of their love and esteem of their goddess. Druids have trees, they love nature, night elves love nature too, but druids are the ones that focus entirely on it.
Stop thinking of these as two separate world… that is an illusion the situation of the 1st invasion, sundering and ensuing long vigil create that the lore should reveal to more observance is only arbitrary.
Nature existed and was much loved in the pre-sundering civilization and Empire… in fact it’s only towards the end when arrogance and hubris has become endemic that his is somewhat lessened. At least revere for the wilds is pretty much ignored.
What many don’t realise is that nature was and had always been a very strong part of the arcane civilization, empire , cities and state.
In the long vigil, there is no civilization and city not because nature can’t stand the arcane , or night elves the cities or the arcane… no, it’s absent because they choose to watch for the legion instead of rebuild, and don’t use the arcane because they greatly fear doing so will lead to employing the Well to call back the legion, this is why a benevolent people enact a death sentence on those who use the arcane - not because they hate it, but doing so means the end of the world literally to them. Why? Not because the arcane is intrinsically world destroying or would trigger some world destroying chain reaction, but because it would bring back the legion they believe is hunting for magic and basically the only means they think the legion has, back to their world to destroy it.
Their people did split, but it was not in tow, they just had different objectives and opinions on how to live.
You have to realise that the kaldorei DO NOT CHANGE which is why they are still called kaldorei (not quite like those who have became high elves who changed to diurnal, changed religion, devolved a little and left quite a few things about their original culture behind, but not like naga who’ve really changed or Satyr). They are the same in the pre-sundering as they are in the long vigil. Same people, same base culture. Means change ofc, (the long vigil bans the arcane for the reason s mentioned above), but it’s the same people.
One group leaves the surviving pack feeling that carrying on in an endless vigil is not the best way for their people. Well they don’t leave by choice, they try to change things, make a terrible mistake, this leads to them being condemned and exiled… and they go off and decide to live the future the way feel best. however the changes done to them in that process alter them physically to be a new type of elf, and they call themselves high elves.
Within those that remain kaldorei you still have the Elune followers, druids, and mages- Even though the main group bans the arcane, several groups (like the Shen’dralar, the Moonguard in Suramar and the nightborne under the dome - continue to use the arcane - ) they are separate societies, and neither agree with nor follow the edicts of the northern kaldorei.
But you have to understand the northern kaldorei aren’t some new group of elf to their pre-sundering selves, they are the same people, same culture, same everything just have to live under different conditions and gain a little wisdom after being humiliated.
A that’s it. They seem so different people because the lifestyle conditions is so different from before, but you need to understand what has happened, and why, and then it is easy to see why night elves in wow, from the north, aren’t tree swinging primitives. they never were, that’s not their story, they are the kaldorei and their circumstances have changed again once the legion returns.
You cannot divorce them from their pre-sundering past, like some of the horde players who play high elves and Highborne night elven nightborne sometimes erroneously try to do, wanting to categorise and put the kaldorei firmly in the tree only elf group. but that’s not what the story about them is.
The kaldorei are the kaldorei and you have to consider the whole story to get the race because it is the same people. Even the different groups… whether priest, druid or mage or demon hunter… or Hyjal night elf, Eldre’thalas night elves, Suramar night elves i.e. nightborne) or Moonguard night elf…you name it.
If it helps, try to think of it as humans Then impose the differences - like the fact that is it the same generation that has lived all that time imagine the kaldorei civilization/empire is when you are 0-20, sundering happenings when you were 20 (1st 5,000 years), the long vigil happens from 20-60 (i.e. 2 x5,000 years which is 10,000 years) and so you are now in your 60s currently.
This is how it feels to many night elves. but add to that super intelligence, a benevolent character, graceful beauty loving/spirited… Elves do not forget anything (unlike humans). this isn’t multiple generations etc)
It’s just that the kaldorei story is like any other, it just their timespan is very different, and they’re like the group that did everything so well . like a race of hot A students.
What was that? There was no original purpose to derail from. They are borne from the arcane, they have an affinity, going their is not derailing, nor is studying or loving magic. nor nature. being highly intelligent is just their nature, as is being benevolent and graceful.
Stuff happens. Azsahra misled her people eventually, after doing so well to start with. This happens, sometimes people go corrupt, it’s much harder in elves, as the story proves, or much rarer, but it’s possible, and when one went bad, one so influential, it led to many rotten eggs amongst her circle.
We know most of the night elves died in the 1st invasion of the legion, which means the Queen didn’t care of them, or they didn’t agree or side with her, they were smart enough to see the madness but defenseless against the hordes (she locked up access to the Well of Eternity during that war).
They got arrogant, some of the druid Highborne - and I mean druids who were formerly Highborne tell us this, acknowledging the hubris the caste in particular were riddled with. this is not a derailing of original purples, it’s jut a corruption of their people.
Indeed… and you know what it would look like, Suramar and Zin’Azsahri - those astonishing cities reflect what the night elves truly were at their peak.
Their fall to hubris and arrogance happened well after those great cities were built.
Those great cities were built with nature and arcane magic together - wielded by the Ancient tree men and the Highborne.
The most astonishing buildings in those cities were not the palaces of Highborne rulers, but the temples to Elune.
They were already great and incredible before the fall happened.
… 
… 