Neutral Blood Elves

| Tuesday, April 15, 2014
The other day's post about the factionalism of some Pandaren led to an interesting comment which, among other things, suggested that Blood Elves should be neutral. The idea intrigued me.

Lore
It's somewhat of an accident that the Blood Elves are in the Horde. As High Elves they'd been part of the Alliance. Their 'conversion' to Blood Elves was recent. Their joining with the Horde was even more recent, and was not inevitable. There were doubts, and justifiably, that this more-than-devastated nation would be little more than a burden. Surely a Horde that had only recently broken away from demonic influence would be wary of a race that was dependent on demonic power.

In terms of personality, it fits as well. Elves are generally arrogant, and high elves perhaps even more so. Why would they not stand alone, away from the savages and corpses?

They have their own problems, trolls and the Scourge. Remember, BC was long before the Lich King was defeated. Could they really afford to go marching off to someone else's war with the many powerful Alliance armies on the continent? But perhaps that's irrelevant, since they have a powerful buffer zone against the Alliance: the Plaguelands and Lordaeron.

Gameplay
Who would become paladins? I still think tauren paladins sound ridiculous, even though I also think that Sunwalkers are a somewhat logical extension of druidism. There has always been a bit of a push for Forsaken paladins, but those also have various problems, even if they sound cool. Perhaps they'd be the inverse of the Blood Knights: rather than being so dark that even their brethren shun them, they'd be rejected for their embrace of the Light.

Geographically, Silvermoon isn't of much use to Horde players. Undercity already gives good access the north of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Most importantly, it's too late for World of Warcraft. The story already happened, not that that has necessarily mattered; Cataclysm was more than happy to erase player actions, such as killing Onyxia. Players are Blood Elves and I suspect would not react kindly to a forced race change. A splintering, as we saw with Pandaren is possible, but also sets an annoying precedent, because what race could not be justifiably picked apart? Break off the Dark Irons again, divide the orc and troll races, might as well just have every character pick its faction. Someone probably likes that idea.

Future Story
This is where I think the idea shines. Or, gets exceptionally ugly.

Despite regaining the Sunwell, I do not believe the Blood Elves are particularly powerful still. They were hit far too hard and were never a populous group. If no longer under the umbrella of the Horde, they'd end up with a potential enemy: Sylvanas.

I'd love to see this dark... darker.... black hole swallowed by another black hole, but without the huge energy releases from gravitational waves... darkerest turn by Sylvanas. Why should her former brethren not rejoin her? Perhaps the Forsaken could find some use for the Sunwell.

This leads to her army marching right back up along the Dead Scar and her journey to becoming the Lich King-lite is complete. Might the Alliance, seeing the risks of the Forsaken gaining such a powerful source of magic, intervene? Things could turn out ugly for Vereesa.

Alternatively, they just get overrun by trolls and breakaway undead.

4 comments:

Dàchéng said...

"Cataclysm was more than happy to erase player actions, such as killing Onyxia"

Or like pretending 600 quests I had completed never happened!

As for factions, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Blood Elves are not naturally Horde. In fact, the events in Pandaria should have led to the complete disintegration of the horde, leaving orcs to stand alone. And undead? They're on nobody's side but their own. Same for goblins. That leaves tauren and trolls. Well, Darkspear trolls, anyway. The horde is a mess.

I feel bad for Garrosh, who did everything an orc warchief should do: crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

He crushed and drove, and should be a hero among orcs, not just the loyal Kor'kron. Instead all orc adventurers have been forced into betrayal and treason or languishing neglected at level 85 for two years, or unsubscription.

Klepsacovic said...

I'd remind you that most states are on the side of no one but their own. Yet, in the interest of not being annihilated, they try to form alliances, so as to make their aggregate power greater than that of those few enemies that remain. After all, look what happened when Garrosh tried to run an orc-only, warmonger Horde: he got his ass kicked. Having a few more loyal orcs would not have saved him from the combined might of the Alliance and a lot of former Horde. Breaking so many ties was not honorable, leading his loyalists to certain death was not honorable, undoing the sacrifice of his father to corrupt the orcs again was not honorable. It was stupid.

Even if you are all for the warmongering, in the end you must admit that he failed to crush his enemies, see them driven before him, or hear the lamentations of their women. His utter disregard for the practicalities of war does not make him strong. It makes him weak.

We should not glorify him. Instead, we should laugh at his failure. He was a small-minded fool with delusions of grandeur.

Dàchéng said...

"in the interest of not being annihilated, [states] try to form alliances"

I wonder why the Darkspear trolls didn't try to join the Alliance? Or the alliance of the other troll nations?

Klepsacovic said...

Maybe they did try. I suspect the Alliance would have not have gone for it. The other trolls are actively hostile to the Darkspear, and are a dangerous group to be aligned with, given their tendency to call down the combined wrath of everyone else with their habit of summoning Hakkar.

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