Talk: Blood elf controversy

Old stuff

This is a great article, as it really sums up some of the complaints I think many people have about BEs joining the Horde. I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in for anyone who is making revisions. The article is pretty acurrate, and covers most of this, so I don't want to mess with previous stuff.

First, I do think it's a pretty tough argument to squeeze the BEs into the Horde, given the history that the High Elves have had with the alliance races, particularly the humans. I mean, didn't they first meet because the humans helped defeat the trolls that were defeating the elves? And didn't the elves fight a long, brutal war against the Horde, who decimated the elven homeland in the second war?

I feel that any argument to get the BE into the horde has to point out the relative distance that Quel'thelas has held itself from the other members of the alliance historically, and the BEs desperation to gain some much needed allies at the current point in time. Also, I would imagine the BEs would be pretty fickle & shallow in their alliances.

"Arguement for including BE in Horde" I think the main reason is as much that the Alliance doesn't want them as anything else. The NE hate them, the draeni really hate them, and the humans, dwarves, and gnomes are probably pretty wary of them, both because of the xenophobia & racism shown in WIII:TFT and the BEs subsequent rebellion.

For the Horde, I would guess that the Undead would be the greatest advocates of assisting the BEs, given that Sylvannas probably is still friendly to the UD (why exactly wouldn't she be?). As mentioned already in the article, the Orcs probably have some symphathy for the BEs due to their addictions. The problem is the Tauren & Trolls - their acceptence of the BE must be as much because of Thrall as anything else. The Taurens can't like the BEs due to their magical addiction & elvish heritage, and I'd bet the Trolls hate the elves guts. Its really an alliance of necessity, just as with the UD - Horde needs more troops, more magicians, and more Eastern Kingdom allies.

"Common Controversy" Definitely a good point at first, but I think the arguement laid down here is pretty good - "BE are arrogant, reclusive, and dissinterested in the rest of the Alliance, so it is easily reasoned that the common BE adventurer wouldn't have a firm grasp of Common."

I think the bigger question is not "Why don't the elves know Common," but "Why do the elves know the Horde language?"

"Why hunters and not warriors?" Because the BE are physically weak, so they don't want to be warriors. However, I don't see why this makes them want to be hunters. And I don't see why if BE can't be warriors, why gnomes can. I guess we'll just have to accept that, if WCII is any indication (with all the Elf Rangers), the Elfs are good with bows.

I also don't understand the game balance reasons for why BE can't be warriors. Where there too many Horde warriors amongst the other races or something, and not enough hunters?

"Paladins" Frankly, I think this is the most forced part of the whole BE / Draeni lore. I'd almost bet all the gold in my bank that this is how it went down inside Blizzard: "Alright, for good balance reasons we need the Horde to get Pallys and Allies to get Shammies. We're pretty sure the new races are Draeni & BE. How can we twist and hammer the lore into a position where we can have BE pallies and Draeni shammies?" And then, they got a little carried away with things, and ended up with spaceships & captured holy demi-godsgods & "pewpewpewlazergunz". Of all the arguments, this is the one we just have to accept as "Well... if Blizz says that this is the official lore, then thats what happened" even if it doesn't sit well.

And as pointed out in the article already, why do Thrall & Cairne allow the continued torture of the Naaru? I suppose the best we can say is that they must not know the significance of what exactly is going on.

As a side note, how will the Horde Forest Troll allies, the Revantusk Tribe, react if they find out that their ancient hated enemy, the former-high-elves now-blood-elves are supposed to be their allies? User:Sul'jin/Sig

"The Superficial Details" This isn't so much a lore arguement as a debate about whether Blizz deliberatly crippled the Horde with a "pretty" & "human-like" race, and the tweaks that they've made to it. First, you have the argument about "Does the attractiveness of a race really attract more 'newbs'?" I'll be honest with you - I don't think you need any further proof of this truth then looking at all the forum posts about the bulk up, and seeing all the people who wanted the skinny & attractive Horde race so they could still be hot but also roll Horde. I don't know 100% whether these players also sucked, but its not hard to imagine.

Frankly, I'll admit I'm squarely in the category of person who views the "pro-skinny BE" people as anime junkies who missed the FFXII boat. I suppose for fairness I should state that. I also don't really get what all the complaints are about, but I suppose why thats why I rolled horde in the first place. I think that Blizz' art direction has always been to have somewhat exaggerated characters, so buffing up the beta version of the BE models is not a big suprise.

-Boldog 1/14/07

Blood elves are unbashedly evil

Overly long argument moved to Talk:Blood elf controversy/Evil

Most aren't evil according to Monster Guide, 2007;

Most blood elves are not insane or evil - they just choose to fight fire with fire. They were suffering for lack fo the Sunwell; they all needed -- and still need -- to feed on arcane energies, even though most of them aren't spellcasters. The most powerful blood elf spellcasters are insane, as the magic they wield is corrupting.

Baggins 15:36, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Don't even think about it. If you restart this, I cannot be responsible for my edits. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 20:35, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

References

Blood elf player base

Greeting sir, I am the writer of the "Blood Elf Player Fanbase" - with a little help with Kiri on spelling and such. You must realize that there are sterotypes when you play WoW. That horde are known for winning WSG and AB, and known for having more mature players that work together. The alliance are known for having a dominate majority of the young player fan. If you were a young man (I would say or woman, but man will suffice) would you rather roll a night elf (female) or a.. green skin. Its hard to explain without using vulgar terms and offensive language. I'm not sure if I remember reading this on the (Offical WoW) forums by either a blue or a random person - that Blood Elves are intended to draw some of these young players who previously were too disgusted with the horde. There are already jokes on the internet that mailboxes have the same effect on blood elves than on night elves. I would like to discuss further into it, but again I don't want to use offensive/vulgar terms and I hope I made a good point. I believe the article is somewhat opinion(ized) but it still works. Regards,

~FieryAxel 1/16/07

To sum up my perspective of the controversy, the argument is about influx of BE players who unlike existing horde players likely have chosen their race based on appearance rather than function might erode horde's community integrity and ability to win WSG/AB.

The current write-up talks about alliance are "young adults", and young adults can't win AB/WSG. Those two stereotypes exist in the WoW community and are used to portray the potential BE player base. However, they are the stereotype brought about by the controversy, not the controversy itself. In other word, the current write-up is presenting the stereotype not the controversy. --Voidvector 08:42, 16 January 2007 (EST)

I would agree with VoidVector here - it is not written neutrally. In it's current form it is arguing a point, rather than discussing it. User:Kirkburn/Sig 23:14, 16 January 2007 (EST)

There's also very little you could ever cite as evidence for that section. There's no much information out there on race/class choices by age group. On the other hand, if someone happens to find that information, it'd certainly be interesting, but it may or may not support the claims made.

And, of course, being a "young adult" planning on rolling blood elf, I am moderately offended. User:Montag/sig 21:56, 17 January 2007 (EST)

As a neutral observer of this discussion, I would point interested readers to the excellent survey of race/class/sex choices by WoW players maintained by Nick Yee, a PhD student at Stanford University, here: http://blogs.parc.com/playon/list.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Oryx (talk · contr).

Nice. Their studies looks statistically correct. The sampling method for a few of the studies are flawed, e.g. level distribution study doesn't take into account age of the server. However, most of the studies look all right. --Voidvector 01:18, 22 January 2007 (EST)

These are awesome! Thanks for these. It's a pity the study doesn't have any information on age, although any age data related to blood elves would be flawed this early after BC coming out. User:Montag/sig 22:22, 24 January 2007 (EST)

Heart of the matter: are we removing the section or not? --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 10:27, 2 February 2007 (EST)

Please do. I don't think it adds anything to the article for us to give it the benefit of the doubt on accuracy. User:Montag/sig 22:47, 2 February 2007 (EST)

motion carried, then; Head Bookkeeper and sane-sig admin vs. sore lorelosers. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 23:06, 2 February 2007 (EST)

Blood Elves fighting Kael'thas?

Could someone clarify why Blood Elven players can fight and kill Blood Elves under the command of Kael'thas in areas such as Netherstorm?

Kael has formed an alliance with the Burning Legion to gain more magic, in defiance of Illidan. The Azerothian blood elves, upon discovering this, disagree with him, and must join the other Horde (and Alliance) races in eliminating him before he brings Kil'jaeden's wrath upon us all. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 16:30, 3 February 2007 (EST)

Well, the blood elves know that kael'thas is now evil, coz hes officially with the burning legion. Everyone, no matter which faction, is opposed to the burning legion (or at least all the good ones). So, because of this, as much as the blood elves love their honourable prince, they have to face the fact that he's now evil and go against him. Hit man 13:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

We don't know if he's evil. It may be a duplicity-game of his, with the goal of eliminating Kil'jaeden. When you defeat Kael'thas in Tempest Keep, he yells "For Quel'Thalas". So obviously he still have loyalty to his people. --Odolwa 22:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Up to this point, Kael's motives are not directly clear. Immidiate reason why Blood Elf Players are fighting Kael is because the revalation from the Scryers and Sha'tar that Kael has gone rogue. --Invin Dranoel 13:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Petrus4's addition

Regarding this addition - [1] - it looks good, but I do think it needs to be written in a more neutral format (and probably not just stuck in the middle of the section). It might be better as it's own section, with a few less references to non-Warcraft stuff. Where's it from? Kirkburn  talk  contr 09:34, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Kirkburn,

I more or less just wrote it spontaneously. As far as neutrality is concerned, if you

could help me with that, as well as maybe an idea as to where it should go, I'd

appreciate it. The non-Warcraft references came from an attempt to create a somewhat

more real-world analogy that I thought people might be able to better understand.

As my dearly beloved colleague on here, Ragestorm, can probably tell you from experience,

objectivity concerning the Alliance and Horde is sadly not something I am terribly

capable of. You may be aware of videos on YouTube containing footage of people getting

shoulder tattoos made of the Horde insignia; I'm not going to say that my own zeal or

bias extends quite that far...but it's close. ;-)

Petrus4 09:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Blood Knights

Here's my opinion of the whole "Naaru Controversy" a commonly raised concern is "why would the supposedly good Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren allow the Blood Knights to hurt a Naaru?" One thing that is important to remember that Naaru are the source of the Holy Light and throughout its history, in all its incarnations, and through the history of all of its member races, the Horde has very little positive interaction with the light. Trolls, Orcs, and Tauren have mostly only encountered the Light when it was being used against them, most Forsaken already believed the Light had already abandoned them before the Scarlet Crusade started attacking them, as did the Night Elves. Not only this, but even when it is being used for bad, user of the light tend to describe it as "good," "righteous," and "Holy." Let's someone invaded your country, attacked your army and terrorized those close to you with weapons, all the while saying that the weapon was given to him personally by someone who only gave them to good people to be used against evil people. Would you feel a twinge of remorse if a potential ally captured this weapons manufacturer and extorted his weapons designs fro him by force or would you it feel it justified? Neither knowing nor understanding the nature of the Naaru, do you think the Horde feel any differently? Lckyluke372 (talk) 21:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Trolls

One of the main arguments people who oppose Horde BEs bring up is "How could the elves team up with their ancestral enemies, i.e., the trolls." However, people tend to forget one important thing: THEY'RE NOT THE SAME TROLLS. The high/blood elves arere ancestral enemies of the Amani forest trolls. These are the trolls you fight in Zul'Aman. The playable trolls on the Horde are the Darkspear jungle trolls. They never met an elf, and probably not a forest troll, until they joined the Horde. While they probably distrust each other, they are not all out enemies, if merely due to lack of contact. In fact, according to this quest, the Darkspears are actually mortal enemies of the Amani. And while the Revantusks are enemies of the elves, they are technically not a part of the Horde, only allies, and will probably just have to learn to live with it. --Kenani (talk) 21:00, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

All three races have enough arrogance in them to overlook the fact quite easily (nature-loving and magic-weilding does not equal reasonable). Please note that this is not a forum. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 01:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Blood Elf Priests and the Light

Is there any official explanation of why blood elf priests remained able to channel the power of the Light while their paladins lost that ability and initially had to rely on power siphoned from M'uru? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:16, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge. The three fan theories are I've heard most often are that the priests never lost faith, that they were worshipping Elune or An'she, or that they were also siphoning. The first doesn't make sense and there isn't much evidence for the other two.-_Ragestorm (talk · contr) 15:43, September 11, 2009 (UTC)