You might not have recognized her, but the elf lady featured in The War Within is Alleria Windrunner

No, seriously: over the past few months we’ve seen a lot of people wondering who the heck this elf lady is — people don’t seem to recognize her as Alleria Windrunner. I don’t think most people have any issues with the design itself: it’s a good enough design. “It just doesn’t look like Alleria” seems to be the caveat with it. Lots of people seem to think it’s actually Alleria’s sister, Vereesa — and that would make sense, given the color scheme, but it’s not the case either.

But which aspects from Alleria’s original design are missing from her new design? We’ve got three major changes going on: her tattoos, her outfit, and her hair. By themselves, each of these changes would probably be fine. But combined, perhaps they make the new look a bit too far-removed from the one we’re used to since the Warcraft 2 days.

The eye tattoo is, by far, the most obvious one. Sure, it’s probably not an actual tattoo, but rather some warpaint — and if we’re thinking about the character’s journey and place in the story, it’s understandable that she’s had a change of mind and is no longer keen on painting herself to kill Orcs the way she did during the Second War. She’s probably “above” that kind of behavior at this point. However, the fact remains that Xal’atath is out there, and that Alleria is hunting for her — meaning that she didn’t have to lose this iconic element from her design.

The fact that she no longer wears green also contributes to the confusion. Alleria was always depicted as a Ranger, as someone who navigates the forests of Azeroth with ease and shoots arrows with precision while completely unseen — the archetypal “elf archer” idea. The change to white/gray clothes clearly shows that her story is no longer about that: The War Within Alleria struggles against the Void, not the Horde.

But the Void isn’t just the voices in her head: it’s now manifested into an actual being in Xal’atath — a foe to be defeated. With arrows, most likely, as a proficient Elven Ranger is wont to do. A good compromise would have been to incorporate green into the new outfit: she’d probably look more like Alleria if her outfit was white and green instead of white and gray.

The hair length change, by itself, wouldn’t be an issue as long as the character was still recognizable through her other features. But losing the eye marking while getting a new wardrobe (with a completely different color scheme) and completely changing her hairstyle definitely makes The War Within Alleria look like an entirely different person from original Alleria. Hence, confusion.

So remember, folks: that lady is Alleria — NOT Vereesa, and NOT some new elf character. It’s the same Alleria you’ve known and loved for decades. She just went through too many changes, perhaps too fast — or maybe not that fast, but still away from our eyes, like that old high school friend you haven’t seen in 20 years and suddenly find, irrecognizable, on social media or a class reunion party.