As I mentioned in an earlier post. Settling anywhere on Azeroth is absolutely horrible, in between vast amount of wastelands, troll tribes occupying one half of the world, Night Elves occupying the other half, old gods corruption that have seethed into other parts of the world.
We don’t really know what happened in and around Lordaeron anymore, the last piece we know of is that the elves did not settle in Lordaeron due to being very sensitive to a dark presence in the lands.
The elves did exactly what you suggest, left the lands where they could not thrive, aka, the mountains and ventured to lands where they could thrive.
The suggestion I see here is basically: “Why didn’t the High Elves just kill themselves?!”
I mean, it is a fair opinion to hold. But I still blame the Amani for their own downfall. The High Elves already cooperated well enough with the primitive humans, who instead of attacking decided to show compassion.
No, Elves had a lot of options. Starting with just switching to druidism and not go to exile to begin with, or just settling elsewhere. They CHOSE to invade independant nation and cause conflict which would last for centuries.
It was deliberate on their part.
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Gilneas could be good…IF the High Elves could survive without the Sunwell…there’s no magical layline in Gilneas to create a Sunwell, maybe there is one in the lake near Dalaran but I think that’s near the Amani anyway, and it’s not strong enough to create a Sunwell anyway.
You could say “they could resist their own magical addiction even without a source of arcane magic”… yeah sure but they would have a lot more problems, and remember that magic is part of their own heritage and culture, High Elves without the Sunwell and arcane magic in general = Humans with long ears
so that would be bad for the Warcraft setting in general if you could not make the Elves different from the Humans at all
Ultimatums tend not to be filled with a lot of options.
As a matter of fact, they chose to walk one way following leylines to lands that they did not know were occupied.
Your suggestion is literally: “Why didn’t the elves just kill themselves?!” by suggesting they turn around and return to the lands they just barely escaped alive.
Can we say that they then chose the wrong way to walk? Certainly.
But at the end of the day, the Amani did not leave the High Elves much of a choice either, it was yet another ultimatum: kill or be killed.
Note the High Elves were on the defensive the entire time, imagine too if there were lands beyond the Amani’s empire’s territory. I mean, we know there is not… but it is great to be the omnipotent gods and know absolutely everything about the land.
The High Elves’ intention were not to invade, to intrude, it was to survive. The Amani made a choice for the High Elves, it was kind of a mercy on the Amani’s part in a sense.
Imagine having to choose between living or preserving some ruins that are considered holy.
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I mean, the whole leyline thing is pretty much the biggest egoistical thing the High Elves committed, next to disobeying Malfurion and the druid’s orders of no arcane usage.
They did not need it at all. They felt they had a right to it though, exactly because of their heritage. But there was no need in it. So that one is a purely egoistical thing.
No I didn’t say for elves to kill themselves, and never use that line with me because I never vouched for that. I said that had a lot of options and they chose the worst and the most illogical one. If they had options it didn’t by far mean that they had to kill themselves, it’s ridiculous how could you come with such conslusion.
You deliberately ignore other options just to come with such hyperbolic statement.
What is even worse is that you advocate to wipe out the tribe because they were just defending themsleves from invaders and apparently they “had it coming”. Now that is totally backwards approach if someone would ask me.
I don’t think I did.
I just disagree with the assessment that the High Elves were given any choice once on the Eastern Kingdoms.
Past information tells us they could not settle in Lordaeron and possibly around, due to being sensitive to a dark presence there. Did this include Gilneas? Who knows. Who even knows if this is canon anymore, the chronicles make no mention of it.
All we know is that the High Elves were at one point in some mountains, nearly perished due to winter season and only survived because some primitive humans showed some compassion.
Then they wandered further up north to a huge forest and were then attacked by trolls they had no idea were even living there.
So here they have the choice of going further, try and find land beyond the troll infested forests.
Or go back to the mountains they just barely escaped alive. Their choice was fairly logical, they wanted a strong arcane source, they followed the leylines. Sadly, they are not omnipotent beings who knows everything about the world, especially not after the sundering.
As said, you throw the punch, don’t whine when there is reprisal.
Regardless, I don’t think I advocated wiping out a tribe, it certainly was not the High Elves’ intention to wipe out the Amani, and it wasn’t for thousands of years although they had to deal with the Amani harrasing their caravans and convoys, etc.
The High Elves through it all fought a defensive fight to survive. It was pure hatred from the Amani which caused a fight from the beginning.
The dark presence was Zakajz the Corruptor, the C’Thrax general of the Black Empire and Yogg-Saron who was “killed” there by Tyr in Tirisfal. I think it was his void essence still lingering there that was making the High Elves crazy so they had to relocate far away, the sorrounding regions of Tirisfal were still too close. It’s also another proof that if the Void Elves ever lose control of the whispers in their heads, they can go completely crazy at any moment, Void magic is particularly bad for the sanity of everyone, but especially the High Elves it seems.
Any High Elf not obeying the orders of Regent Lor’themar is a traitor to the kingdom. I will gladly help in killing them.
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the truth is that the only reason we are still allied with the horde is that so we can keep using it until its no longer useful serial backstabber for life 
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You…are on my List.
My Wintersveil Card list!
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Replace “banished our ancestors” with “banished my parents and caused their death”, and it makes much more sense to hold a grudge.
ps. I don’t think Malfurion is responsible for their deaths, but feelings, especially of rage and blaming someone are rarely logical or rational.
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Wasn’t properly addressing Lorash in that statement:
It struck me as odd, because clearly the writer was looking at the lore in search of a reason why a Blood Elf would want to kill a Night Elf.
And the banishment is what he came up with - along with a story contrivance that had to make Lorash seven thousand years old.
Don’t know about you, Sylvanas and the Forsaken hating Arthas looked pretty logical and rational.
That is to say, of course you can have irrationally angry people; irrational people, crazy people, can find any reason for murder justifiable in their eyes.
But did it have to be? The Night Elves have committed actual wrongdoings, there are reasonable motives for a Blood Elf to kill a Night Elf, and even more so for a Blood Elf to kill Alliance - instead of being crazy, or irrational.
They had alternatives at their disposal, and instead they went with that.
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True, that bit was weird, an not necessary to give any more impetus to Lorash’s hatred, like you say, he already -had- reason, putting that in just muddied the already murky waters as to how old elves can get.
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Tichondrius actually mentioned to Death Knight Arthas that the Sunwell was a "pool of mystical energy from which the elves draw their immortal powers"
Now by saying "immortal powers ", it’s unlikely a Dreadlord simply refers to arcane magic with these two words, also considering Dreadlords are used to wield magics that they clearly deem “superior” to the arcane anyway (like Fel, Void) so by saying “immortal powers” he’s probably talking about the aging of the High Elves, that the Sunwell could magically enhance them to the point of being virtually immortal.
Now you could label this as a mistake in the dialogue of the old Warcraft 3…but in the Reforged version the dialogue is not fixed and it’s exactly the same, meaning that Tichondrius really meant that the Sunwell granted them immortal powers.
This fact could help in the explanation that Elves like Lorash can actually live that long and the limit is not actually around 3000 years old for the Elves of Quel’thalas…it’s possible King Anasterian was very old and frail-looking around 3000 years old simply because of the burden of being the King of Quel’thalas for a very long and dangerous period of time of the kingdom, or because of all the problems of the politics, and (despite immortality granted by the Sunwell) he became very old anyway (but not exactly weak and frail, actually; against the Scourge he put up a good fight and against Death Knight Arthas he bravely fought in a duel during which he could actually almost behead Arthas and hurt him and his horse quite a bit and enrage Arthas who could slay Anasterian after he completely tired out).
So, the point of all this is…it’s not impossible that the Sunwell (now with 50% more Light, too!) could grant the Elves “immortality”, not the same immortality the Night Elves had obviously, but in the sense of making them live sustaining themselves for an indefinite period of time, so 3000 is not actually their limit anymore now.
Well we know that mages tend to live longer due to the arcane they wield. We also know that, without the Sunwell, the High Elves would have simply died out. So naturally the Sunwell does influence their lifespan.
In fairness we don’t know his age, we just know that his 3,000 years of -rulership- weighed heavily on him. Unless he was Crowned the instant Momma Sunstrider gave birth it is almost certain he was considerably older than that.
Still don’t think that BloodHigh Elves are immortal, I mean that would be a weird twist, in that Night Elves and Nightborne are no longer immortal but -were-, whereas Blood/High Elves now are immortal but -weren’t-?
I think Blizz were trying to standardise Elven aging to be honest with their “Several thousand Years” lore source, which to be fairness just means anywhere from 3,000-9,000. None of the Elven races are currently immortal.
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Well, it seems most Blood Elves will be soon “purified” from the fel taint without having light golden eyes but blue eyes once again like the ancient times instead.
It’s quite a historical moment…"No fel corruption rules forever, my son…except for us Warlocks and Demon Hunters, I guess 
"
I hope Blizzard won’t completely drop the name “Blood Elves” in favour of High Elves again though… the fallen in the Scourge invasion would be disrespected in this case…unless maybe Blizzard really wants to make elves leave the Horde and make them an independent/neutral race once again in the far future, but I doubt it
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I’m sure they won’t drop the name Blood Elves.
Having some of them with their eyes blue certainly won’t lead them to forget those “90% of all High Elves” who were slaughtered during the Third War. I’m pretty certain the Sin’dorei are as well quite proud of who they are now.
Also because if they did change back to “High Elves”, there would be no distinction in terminology between the Horde Thalassian Elves and the Alliance Thalassian Elves and that would be utter chaos for everyone.
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