The Embarrassing Fall of the Night Elves

#warcraft #worldofwarcraft

[bv]

Elves come from trolls and trolls never win, so it just makes sense

[gruntmasterbroadcast]

Night Elves: "Elune hear us?! What have we done to deserve this fate!?"
Elune just shrugs and does a backflip
Night Elves: "We truly are cursed...

[litterbox]

Elune: Grants revenge powers to Tyrande for revenge
Also Elune: Takes them away mid-fight because revenge is wrong, Tyrande should use revenge powers for not revenge. Give them back. Idiot Tyrande.

The absolute state of WoW lore and writing. Pathetic.

[Lehnert]

I liked how in MoP Varian was teaching Tyrande, that was 10 000 years old experienced warrior and leader, how to use patience in war.

[sylvansheep]

"The Kaldorei are not nice. They're intolerant, savage, spiteful warriors of nature" My favorite bit of Night Elf lore is that the original priestesses of the moon in wc3 weren't healers but rode tigers, shot flaming arrows, and had starfall! These "DPS priestesses" really epitomize the viciousness of night elf culture/Elune imo, so badass.

[mattemattics]

I still laugh hysterically how they locked up Illidan for creating a new well, then proceed to use and benefit from that very well.

[oliverwilhelm]

I can't get over Night Warrior just being a socially-acceptable Demon Hunter for the night elf culture. Warglaives, funny eyes, and vengeance.

[DDDiegoAGM]

"It's britney b*tch" and then Azshara walking took me out hahaha so good!

[cynthia-oprx]

a friend of mine has been obsessed with the night elves since childhood and i have never met a person so thoroughly devoted to, and crushed by, the lore of their favorite fictional group.

[AvelineMelena]

The night elves are one of the biggest wasted potential in wow. And... Thats saying a lot seeing how much they manage to waste stuff

[Wiliraughshai]

Its obvious Tyrande lost her powers against Sylvanas because she tried to strangle undead being and Elune was cringing so hard she just said "Nahh I give up on you"

[philippeblais]

"I am so tired Malfurion."
*Proceeds to pass out from sheer tiredness.*

I was honestly expecting to hear snoring at that point.

[valeclaw]

Just for fun on a second post about meta lore: Retcons to night elf lore since 2004 that drive me nuts in no particular order!

Wild Gods: Used to be spiritual embodiments of primordial aspects of nature and couldn't truly die because of it, now just big magic animals that die for plot every 2 minutes.

Elune: Originally a spiritual entity whose power was almost always shown as Pseudo forms of Holy, Shadow, Death or Arcane magic, pretty much never life, to the point that Cenarius' connection to nature was always attributed to his father, not his mother. The Night Warrior itself is a hilarious case of retcons because it's lore that actually came out before WoW did, back in 2004: but in addition to not being a mortal avatar (for reasons ill mention later!) she was also not a moon DH. She was an avatar of death, and there's multiple instances in expanded lore of her powers being used to summon spectres made of starlight that couldn't even be killed, just outlasted or run from.

Kalimdor Connections: They screamed 'Kalimdor' as a war cry in wc3. Their bond to the land was significant and ancient. They were it's annointed defenders, chosen by the Aspects to atone for their failures with an existence of kinship and service with the land, ran by a warrior sisterhood theocracy who ultimately controlled their government and politics. Then for whatever reason, mass migrated EVERYTHING to a tree grown by a heretic off Kalimdor's shores, that was corrupted and only 3 years old at most by the time of Vanilla. Warrior Steward culture randomly replaced with 'uh, they have long ears and like trees' culture with no earnest depth.

Moon Priestesses: Warrior Priestesses, whose elite were described in books as being viewed as mortal incarnations of Elune's will. They also know a secret language to commune with Elune for magic and ritual, supposedly taught to them by Elune herself, that is never mentioned anywhere in WoW. Half the time they show up in WoW, blizz depicts them as reskinned Holy Light Priests, despite the Sisterhood training in sacred weapons like the bow and moonglaive, and their deity having powers beyond the light or shadow.

[HollyToadstool]

The bit where Malfurion choked the Troll while saying "Tyrande! I need you!" had me crying with laughter and I had to go back to see it again.
Well played, good sir. Well played.

[zokidawa]

When I discovered the night elves in WC3 they left a big mark in me. I thought they were a beautiful and mysterious people linked to nature, the night and the stars. I also loved wandering their lands in WoW and listening to their music, everything felt magical and possible. Then Blizzard made them "underwhelming" and almost insignificant as the expansions went by and it just broke me. 😭

[eles]

With how much the writers hate Night Elves, it wouldn't surprise me if the seed just gets destroyed by some bad guy or something lol

[mintkasa]

oh azshara. she was teased to be THE MOST powerful mage still alive, just lurking beneath the dark tides of azeroth to one day overthrow the entire world again. hell, we have been fighting her minions in every expansion since classic, so obviously her empire is still huge and the power she holds unimaginable. all of that buildup only to defeat her as a raid boss...

[popamihnea]

I swear, the "I am so tired, Malfurion" is the best TLDR of fan's reactions to Night Elf lore

[valeclaw]

In my personal opinion on a meta side of lore: Blizzard has struggled with the implementation of the Kaldorei ever since WoW started, and has been fundamentally stumbling over their foundational lore / identity since even Classic. Over time i've found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the idea that they were essentially recreated their culture from the grass roots after Nordrassil was planted to be the warrior-guardians of Kalimdor, charged by the aspects themselves with guiding the future of the World Tree, and living under the religious authority of a Warrior Sisterhood in the Moon Priestesses, with the fact that we're expected to believe that they moved the vast majority of their civilization from those lands that they have a personal and intimate connection to, to a THREE YEAR OLD (AT MOST!!) TREE IN CLASSIC, grown by A HERETIC to the religion that runs their fucking government.

Night Elves don't even keep their original fantasy. Elune isn't the same as she was in old lore, where she was described as a spiritual entity, not a god damn tangible robot in a life dimension. She wasn't even asosciated with nature magic, Cenarius' inherited his power from Malorne, not her. It's never attributed to her, shadows, pseudo holy, death power and pseudo arcane ARE WHAT IS USUALLY TIED TO HER. They went from a warrior-steward style culture to pussies, entirely because blizzard writers just arbitrarily wanted them to. To the point where now they're planting ANOTHER MEANINGLESS WORLD TREE instead of defending Nordrassil, WHICH GOT RESTORED IN THE BACKGROUND OF THRALL'S 4.2 QUEST.

[Malcorpse]

At least the first Tyrande fight with Nathanos got changed from the beta version where she outright lost to him after her powerup and it was only changed because of community backlash. The bias towards Sylvannas from the writing staff was not well hidden in BFA and Shadowlands.