What the elf expansion of our dreams would be

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This week on lore watch, we decided to reach back into the archives and pull an episode that seems to be topically
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relevant forward in something we're calling well from the archives. Today we
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are going to go back and revisit episode 270 where we talked about all about the
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elves, the future of them, and what a future elf expansion might look like. With midnight around the corner and us
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rapidly approaching uh what would definitely be an elf-centric part of the
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story, it felt about right to revisit this and at least bring this back up
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again. If there is anything you want us to rehash or if you want to talk to us about anything, leave a comment, uh you
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[Music]
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Hello and welcome to Lore Watch, a round table free form discussion about lore and our favorite media. I'm your host,
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Joe Perez, one of several lore focused folks from Blizzard Watch. And I've got my stupendous co-host with me today, Matt Rossy. How you doing today, Matt?
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I'm okay. And as am I. Uh, we're going to be doing something a little bit different today.
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Instead of answering questions, we have a theme. Now, that said, if you have questions for the show, be sure to send
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Discord. We will look there as well. And be sure to share the show with your friends. Uh, it helps grow our
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listenership, which is immensely helpful. So, what happened at the end of
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last week's episode is Matt and I were sitting down and we were like, you know, one of these days we should just do a
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whole episode about what we think an elf expansion would look like. And then Matt said, well, why don't we just do that next week? So, that's what we're going
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to do. We're going to do what an elf expansion we think would or could look like. Now, I think going through some of
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the highlights of all the things that have happened to elves is probably a prudent point to start at, unless you
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disagree, Matt. Yes. Viral. Instead, let's talk about gnomes. No, fine. Let's go.
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So, over the course of the Warcraft history, like elves have just had
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basically everything done to them. They've lost numerous homes, have had a faction that has been divided and evolved over time uh into different I I
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don't want to say like offshoot branches because they're all still elves. They all still start from the same place, but
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they've all had wildly different experiences and have adapted to their environments across the face of Azeroth.
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So, the one thing that we should note, and if you are unfamiliar with elves, is that at one point in time, they were
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trolls. Don't tell that to an elf, though. I'm pretty sure they have very strong feelings about that. But at one point, they were uh what it was the
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which tribe was it again, Matt? Uh it was night trolls. Dark trolls are called dark trolls which settled around the
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banks of the wound that was left behind the well of eternity. Uh that was
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essentially left behind when they plucked Yash the titans plucked Yash out of the out of Azeroth itself. As the
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trolls settled down they eventually began to evolve and stood up straighter and got a little bit I don't want to say
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like thinner but they bulked out in different ways and uh became the elves that we know of today. the ones that
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were basically divided between what? Knight and high elves, right? Well, I mean,
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it's complicated. I know. I'm trying to condense it down. The the high elves themselves were
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originally just an offshoot of the night elves. It was more like a subset within night elf society. It wasn't like their
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own people. The highborn, they were called, the uh the Quelder, were they called themselves the children of noble
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birth. It was basically just a status thing. It wasn't you're a different kind of elf. it was, you know, you're a noble
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in the society. Uh over time, the Quderai became very adept at arcane
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magic because arcane magic was the means to power for the ancient Calderai Empire. And thus, if you weren't a mage,
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you you h if you weren't into magic, you had somebody on staff who was.
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It just you weren't getting anywhere without a magician somewhere involved. after the well the war of you know the
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well of eternity the war of the ancients when the well of eternity was basically imploded and the uh the much of the
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continent of ancient Calumor was subsumed under into the waves their society changed as it would have had to
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but a lot of people a lot of the qualai didn't want to abandon magic even the ones that had ultimately sided with the
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uh the the their own kind against the demons didn't want to give up arcane magic
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it was just integral to like their society, right? It was just it was just an identity of themselves, right? Yeah. That at this point it was how they
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had defined themselves for, you know, however many years they had done so. Um,
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so when the the Calderai under Toronto Whisper Wind and, you know, Malfurian
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Storm Rage basically banned Arcane Magic said, "You can't do this anymore. It's
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too destructive. Look at the the cost to the world." They were like, "No." Uh,
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and they basically created a storm to try and show off their power and why they were necessary. Instead of that
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working, it basically got them banished. The uh the other night els were like, "Get out. We don't want you around." And
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so led by, you know, Dathramar Sunstrider, um, I don't know what his last name would have been in in The We
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actually get to see that. But again, we we don't get to see Malfur and Storm Rage's name in Theassian either. They
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just translate them. But Sunstrider was always a unusual even for a night elf.
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He'd always been unusual. Even for a cowdery, uh he liked daytime. He liked the sun. He liked going around. That's
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that's not very very night elfy. The Cderai literally means uh children of
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the stars. So in essence, that's why they're they became different people. Uh
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before that split, they were the same people, just some of them considered themselves better than the others. When
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that split happened and they exiled themselves across the new sea, what we call the great sea to what is now they
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first showed up in what is now Lorderon, but they were like, "Oh, there's something weird going on here. We don't want to be here." And they moved further
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inland. They started changing. They'd been cut off from the Well of Eternity
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that had been destroyed. They were cut off from the new Well of Eternity that Idon had made using the water from the
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old well. Uh they couldn't get to that either. Um, but they did have access to
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something that Dathramar used to create a different kind of well, the Sunwell.
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And exposure to the Sunwell changed them. Uh, they started they they they
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noticeably were different. Their skin, their hair, their eyes, all of it was
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different. Um, I don't know what how you would describe the difference between them. You know, they tend to be shorter
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and more grassile, if that makes any sense. They tend to be less bulky than night elves.
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Night elves kind of have a they're built for speed more than they are for I guess it's a weird way to say
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it, but like they're they're just life. They're just what much more life. I would say that if you think of night elves as linebacker type builds, uh high
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elves had more of a a dancer type build. Um now that's the difference between
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night elves and high elves. And for a while that was the only real division and they were physically separated. They
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there were they were like the entire ocean between them and they they did not communicate very often. Occasionally a
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high elf would somehow get over to Calumor using magic. Uh there's a place up in Winter Spring where you they you
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actually there's a quest where some some high elves show up and and they've been they've come back looking for you know
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to because while they lived a long time, they weren't immortal like the high the night elves. the night elves had the the
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uh world tree uh Nordrasil and the pack that was made with the dragons that made
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them immortal. They couldn't they didn't die of old age anymore. Like technically they weren't immortal. They just were
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unaging. Uh you could kill them. Uh lots of them got killed over years, but you they didn't die of old age. Whereas the
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the hiles would live a couple thousand years, but they would die. Like they they didn't they didn't have that
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endless youth. Dathar has been dead for a while, for example. Uh, but still, I
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mean, you know, you can't really complain about living a couple thousand years. It's not like it's bad. It's a bad deal. Um, regardless, to them, it
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became legendary. Like, this is stuff that happened 10,000 years ago, you know, that's that's like your great
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grandpa's time. Whereas for the night elves, it was yesterday cuz they don't
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age. Like, they get to a certain point and then they just stop dying. They stop aging. Yeah. Here we are. Up until the
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Well of Eternity, I mean, up until Nordic was destroyed. Uh that's that's when that got changed. But so that was
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the only division for a while. I'm stopping now so you can talk. Uh that was really the only division for
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a while. But again, that was something that is is notable. Right. Two at this point we have the two separate branches
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that begin to uh expand and and develop their own cultures and eventually just
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they're just gulfs apart, right? Um then with everything that happens with the devastation of uh let's fast forward a
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little bit. Uh the we'll call them high elves still at this point. The they have
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their own society and then all of a sudden what happens the events of Warcraft 3 happens and a certain human
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death knight shows up after uh a period of time and completely decimates them.
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There's almost nothing left at that point. Uh they're essentially a group of
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stragglers and survivors that try to eek out an existence for x amount of time.
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Um not only this, but it leads to uh sort of trying to think of how to
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explain Kalethos. Kale Thas taking over as leader uh was an interesting thing
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for them at that time because one he escaped the devastation of their homeland and when he returned uh there
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were lots of things that weren't there anymore. One like the Sunwell which meant that the source of essentially
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their existence wasn't there anymore and that basically put them into a tail spin
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as Kelas was trying to find every which way he could to essentially let his
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people survive. This led to uh what is greatly considered some bad decisionmaking. Uh alliances made that
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probably should not have been made, fights that he probably would have been better off not getting into. Uh and
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eventually led to him working with the Legion. This is where again more tragedy occurs because at this point we see the
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sort of what are now essentially blood elves going through a withdrawal process. they become husks of their
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former selves if they don't have uh the energies to sort of like sustain themselves. Uh and it creates even more
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division and tragedy. Uh and they're not members of the Horde at this point. In fact, they're just basically members of
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the Legion and working with Illan at several points in time. And again, we're trying to condense a lot of years into a
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very short period of time. We're going to miss stuff or we're going to glance over stuff and I apologize in advance.
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So now they're rebuilding. You have Loamar taking over in place of Kalfos
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after all of those events happen. They're trying to rebuild their society which is still besieged by undead as
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well as trolls. Uh which they're not exactly the fans of the Armani that are basically right there. Uh and they're
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not doing so great. Now the night elves also have their own trials and tribulations. You have a nightmare
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creeping through uh the Emerald Dream ever so slightly. You have Malfurion who has basically pulled himself back uh
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from essentially night elf society for thousands of years at this point. How long was he in slumber for? Pretty much
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uh he would get up he would wake up from time to time but pretty much from the moment they made the pact at Nordrasil
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which is just after the the war of the ancients. So we're talking a solid 9K
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years. Yeah. So, so he's removed himself from society for that that period of time, leaving uh Tronda to lead their people.
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All the meanwhile they're getting uh way laid. Well, they don't even understand what's happening to them because you
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have Xavius doing his stuff in the background. Uh the saders trying who are former elves, another offshoot in
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evolution. Uh basically undermining them. And then it leads us to just even
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more just I don't even know how to descri I keep saying tragedy. elves have getting have basically gotten a raw deal
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all the way through. All right, here's here's what I'm gonna try and do for us. I'm gonna try to run through everything that happened elves
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in that time from about 9,000 years ago. Malfurion and his uh his druid
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supporters in between their their extended, you know, hundreds of years long naps uh tried to develop something
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called the pack form. This didn't work out. Uh the pack form drew upon the
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power of uh Guldrren, the the wolf ancient, also known as Lagosh to other
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peoples. Gold wasn't stable anymore because during the War of the Ancients,
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he'd been hit by so much fell power while fighting to defend the the world
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that he'd gone kind of insane. So tapping into Gold's power, it granted
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him the ability to create a new form. It was like a giant hybrid warg human
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thing, but the power was came at the price of madness. He couldn't control it. He attacked Sinarius while using
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this form. Um, Sinarius barely managed to stop him. So, he forbade that form.
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But during a war with various sadders called, you know, the the the war of the sadder uh or the war against the green
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flame, the uh pack form got rediscovered by several night elves, including one named Laurelar Fang Fangfire. And this
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is where the curse of the Wargan comes from. So that happened about 9K years. Uh at some other point,
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they had a long period of basically trying to get the world back into some
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kind of shape. Keep in mind that half the continent, it was just underwater now. And all their older places like
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Suramar, as far as they knew, they were gone. Like there was very few people who knew anything about, you know, any place
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that's on like the Broken Isles or what have you. They did. They just did not know about those. Um, as far as they
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knew, they were gone. So, they trying to rebuild their society. They don't have access. Like pretty much every night elf
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alive for that 10,000year period after the war was a refugee. Like because every place that they'd settled in was
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pretty much gone or cut off. Cut off or gone. I I mean and as far as
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they knew gone. Uh so they ended up settling in mostly what is now called
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Northern Calum. They had settlements in other places. They had one in Silith. You can still see this the evidence of
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it. They had one in Ferilos and that's the the rem that's still there. Feather
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Moon Stronghold is basically built on the remains of it. Uh to watch of all things it was to watch another former
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night elf settlement Eldrathales which is now called Dire Mall. A lot of it you you can see the
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ruins of the night elf society on both continents. Uh there's plenty of them over on the Eastern Kingdoms as well,
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but they weren't currently over there, or at least if they were, it was like they would travel through one of the portals because during this time,
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Fandrol Stagghelm, who was one of Malfurion's like top students, he was
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awake a lot more than Malfurion was cuz Malfurion was basically handling the whole healing the world in the Emerald
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Dream aspect of things. So, so uh because again they haven't realized exactly what the cause of or what the uh
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extent of the nightmare really was just that the the thing that they were entrusted to was sort of just not doing
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what it was supposed to do and not looking the way it was supposed to. Keep in mind too the nightmare wasn't even noted known of in these days too.
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Correct. It wasn't known as the nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. The rift of they didn't know what the deal was with that. But so while
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Malfurion was basically taking extremely long naps to try and heal the world from like the whole half of it sank part of
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the the the the old days the sundering uh his his student whose name I just
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Newman said Fandrol uh Fandrol Stagelm was basically trying to fix the world himself by planting more world trees
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just all over the place. Anywhere he could go he'd he'd try and fix it with a big tree. That was I am surprised that
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when Fandrel had a child, he didn't try using a tree to stop its bedwedding or what have you because that's what he was
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doing. He just every time he came up with a problem, a world tree was his solution. Uh there's a world tree up in
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uh yes, Grizzly Hills up in uh Ice Crown, that's him. He planted that. Um
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the various trees like the around the world that have portals on them, those were all Fandrol. Fandrell planted those
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trees, too. He's attempting to deal with he's found he finds a a sarinite deposit. He builds a tree. Like that's
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seriously his go. Like, hey, there's some kind of old god corruption here. Tree. So, at some point, he was over on
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the Eastern Kingdoms planting trees because there's two big, you know, bortals with giant trees growing out of
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them. And that was his doing. He he just loved planting trees. So he that's one of the things that the night els were
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trying to do was was fix the planet from all the damage it had gone through through the sundering from all the old
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god corruption. And as a result of all that about a thousand years ago, the
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worst thing before the return of the old of the uh legion happened in that the
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the one of the old gods, Kathun, woke up. Like before that, we had old god
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minions. We've had like cathra and uh you know, zakajas and other things like
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that. Chthraxi minions. We've had those things. Keith, those things are dangerous and bad. No one no one's
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arguing that they're good. It's it's very bad when all of those things wake up. But Kathun woke up. And when Kathun
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woke up, it sent out its uh no longer Akir minions, the Karaji they're now
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called. It sent them forth to do its bidding. And what resulted was the War
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of the Shifting Sands, which the night elves were getting their butts kicked in. They were losing and losing badly.
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They got driven out of Silith. They got driven across Angoro. And the only reason they didn't get driven further
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north when they got to Tanaris was because on their way north they stopped
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and basically begged the the bronze dragon flight for help. The draw dragon flight said no that this not our deal.
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And then luckily for the night elves the uh the Silithid and Karaji armies
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attacked them. Attacked the uh bronze dragons forcing them to intervene when they
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normally wouldn't have. Yeah. They were like, "We're we we do time stuff, but we can't let you attack us in our home." So, they ended up
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teaming up with the the night elves. But this kind of soured Fandrol's relations
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with the with the dragons, especially when on fighting their way back to
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Silith and beginning to fight their way into uh the Enarage, which was the place
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that they were the Karaji were coming from, Fandel's son was kidnapped and murdered in front of him by the general.
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Uh I can't remember the general's name, but the general of the Karaji forces murdered Fandrel's son literally in
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front of him to try and break him. And it and it worked. Fandrol basically shut down. He was like, you know, my only son
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dead. Uh but they the the dragons and the elves managed to push the uh Karaji back. They couldn't defeat them. So
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several really prominent dragons basically sacrificed themselves to buy them time to basically put a barrier of
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null time around. like just like a barrier that nothing
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could enter or leave because there was like no time in it anymore. And that lasted for a while, but unfortunately
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old gods are what they are. So that we're coming back on that one. But that's the kind of thing that was happening to the elves all the time.
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Like if if it wasn't an army of sats, it was their own kind driven crazy into
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werewolfism. If it wasn't that, it was some weird scythe of aloon that somehow
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was, you know, doing all sorts of bad stuff because it was actually like golden related. uh which is also tied
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again into the Wargan. If if it wasn't that oh the Silithid and the Karaji are invading it just you know
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meanwhile 10,000 years of nut of nutty stuff. Meanwhile over on the other side meanwhile on the other side you have uh
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descending into madness. You have your city being literally cleaved in half. Uh your royalty being completely decimated.
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your uh the leadership of your military force, the Fire Striders, being uh not
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only murdered, but being resurrected and used against you in a mockery of life.
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uh then having your supposed leader, the brightest star that that had ever shown
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uh take over, make deals with fell powers, uh curse your people into needing the fell energies at this point
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now in order to survive uh while then still condemning your the rest of your
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people to a slow and steady death. Uh until eventually you can have your source of power reignited. Uh which
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that's a whole complicated thing and does involve the blue dragon flight as well. Uh it is weird. Um
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women that turn into pools of magic should not be a form of government. Um not only that, but now you have in that
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pursuit of survival, you have an entire group of of elves, these high elves that
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capture a naru and consume its light in order to basically become not just
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paladins, but to essentially purge themselves of the fell addiction and leading to a whole series of complicated
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choices. joining the horde uh and then having to justify that after your own
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people reject you because that's a thing that happens as well after uh reaching
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out to the people that you had long since lost contact with deter telling them that you want to come back to elf
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society that you want to uh join up again and and be part of the whole only to be told nah we're good you can stay
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on this island because y'all done some real shady stuff peace uh then going to
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the horde, which is almost anthemma to you because the horde was the first
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thing that caused your people problems. Uh, orcs and trolls and the original,
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the OG horde that came through the the dark portal murdered your people, continued to murder your people for
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years and years and years. Uh, they devastated the world multiple times and you are left to deal with that. uh then
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leading to the modern-day sort of gulf between them. Uh there's more
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complicated stuff in there. But now we also have other divisions within the elves themselves. On the night elves
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side, they brought mages back. They brought the high elves back. His elves that had been separated uh and and sort
24:23
of integrated back into it, which just led to further questionable blood between the blood elves and the night
24:28
elves, cuz it's like, "Oh, you told us no because we were tainted by magic before, but yeah, here you go. Oh,
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you're you're accepting these these ones that are, you know, never stopped using magic back into your ranks. Okay, we see
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how it is to some dedicating themselves to the power of the void where you have
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Yia Windrunner who has basically just said, "Okay, cool. We're going to take an offshoot of all these high elves and
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other elves that, you know, were formerly of the alliance that were formerly allied with the night elves and
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say, "Cool. we're going to accept these void powers, creating even a further division. Whereas on the blood elf side,
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there's a reintegration of the society that was once thought lost to them. We talked before about Suramar being lost
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in in believing that it was under the water for 10,000 years only to discover that no, it it didn't. It was still
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there. Uh, and it was under in a magical bubble uh that basically kept them
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separated from everything, leading them to have the same problems that the blood elves wound up having with that magical
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addiction, except it was to their arcane font. Uh, having the same problems of
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becoming wretched and uh withdrawn from their power source. So, or their food
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source, their source of survival and longevity to the point where they were had entire groups of outcasts. They had
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to be almost tyrannical to keep their people alive. uh then seeing this reestablished uh colony then fall under
25:54
the sway and a deal being made with the Legion which caused a lot of the problems that the elves had in the first
25:59
place. then having them try to be reintegrate back into society at the end of that which is at the end of uh the
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end of the events of Legion where now both factions are trying to v for this
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faction of of nightborn elves to join with them only to have what are now the blood elves reach out and say look we
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understand we've been exactly where you were we understand what it's like to go through all these trials and tribulations why don't you you know join
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us and that creates even more division between the elves Which now leads us to
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well the current events of the last we'll say couple expansions starting with the burning of Teldrasil. Would you
26:38
like to talk about that man? I know you have strong feelings. I I do have strong feelings but it's the
26:43
burning of Tascal in in many ways is it's the start of the post Legion World
26:48
of Warcraft that we're still we're kind of feeling our way through right now. Um what happened there is pretty simple.
26:55
Sylvanas minr runner was already working with the jailer. And so she decided her goal was to destroy the Alliance, but
27:02
more importantly, it was to provoke a war between the Alliance and the Horde that would lead to a lot of people dying
27:08
because she needed as many people to be dead as possible in order to swell the ranks of the Jailer's minions. Keep in
27:14
mind that we now know that in the Shadowlands, the Anima drought was happening and anybody who died was just
27:20
going straight to the M where the jailer would use them literally as material.
27:26
Like you saw that he would grab their souls and turn them into machines. Like he was beating them into weapons and
27:33
armor and constructs. Uh so that was her goal. Her aim was to do that. It was to
27:39
provoke a war and it worked. Uh she got her war. the Alliance and Horde. She
27:44
basically led an attack. She fainted an attack to the south. The Alliance sent its forces to the south uh to defend
27:52
against it and she showed up instead marching north straight from uh Orgamar
27:58
through the zone that's called Ashara. Not to be mistaken with the queen who's called Ashara. Um but it is named after
28:04
her. through that zone straight into um Ashen Vil which was a primarily night
28:10
elf zone where they they killed their way through like the major night elf settlement there then marched up through
28:16
dark shore to you know right up to striking distance of of Darnaces but it
28:22
wasn't it wasn't striking distance had they not had access to um Azerite they
28:29
couldn't have done anything to Darnasses like cat sure they could have used some catapults and launched flaming
28:34
projectiles at the the gigantic tree, but those wouldn't have done anything. It would it would have been like trying
28:39
to set an actual tree on fire by lobbing a couple matches at it. Maybe you'll get lucky, but probably you won't. However,
28:46
these were Azerite catapults. They were throwing enhanced munitions, and once
28:52
Sylvanas gave the order to use them, Darnaces was doomed. Uh the loss of life
28:57
between the the horde offensive and the attack directly on Donacus is still
29:03
unknown, but at least at least a thousand elves died. Uh probably a lot more. We know that at least a thousand
29:10
because there's a quest you get uh it's no longer in the game, but at the time when you would be doing that event, if
29:16
you're Alliance, you would get a quest to basically try and save a thousand people from Dacassis as it's on fire.
29:21
You pass out 30 people in from smoke inhilation and you barely survive. You barely dragged out. So yeah, about a
29:28
about a thousand people at least died. Probably more because there were villages all over the the island that
29:34
were not Darnaces. Oh, easily more. Plus everything that was on the shore and everything else. Yeah. Everything they I mean they
29:40
evacuated as many people as they could. Uh and keep in mind at the time the Alliance seriously thought the fullback
29:46
position was the Exodar on Azure Mist Island. they were getting ready for that to get in. The reason that didn't happen
29:52
was because while Sylvanas had achieved her goal, she'd, you know, nearly gotten killed by Malfurion, uh the the Alliance
29:59
was most likely going to come back in force and they they didn't think they could hold it. So they they pulled back
30:05
to the mainland. This led to basically one of the things about this, one of the reasons that that division has come
30:12
between elves at this point is because this was directly after the nightborn of
30:18
Suramar joined up with the the the blood elves and the horde. And there were blood elves in the force that attacked
30:26
the night elves. Mhm. They they were directly there. There were night elf there were blood elf paladins like attacking night elf
30:33
settlements that had like no military to them. They were like fishing villages. Um, that's there's a lot of hostility on
30:42
the night elf side towards both the nightborn and the the blood elves now. That that wasn't really there before.
30:48
Before the blood elves were really mad at the night elves for spying on them cuz they did and for not, you know, not
30:54
being particularly receptive to them when they came looking for help. But now there's a direct blame on the Alliance
31:01
side and that blame hasn't gone anywhere. Like it's been 3 years since the end of Shadowlands and there's
31:07
nothing in game yet that tells us what the the night elves have been doing. Uh there's one very little thing that that
31:14
will be picked up later as the story advances, but we don't there like we're we know where the the the undead are
31:20
living right now. We know where they settled back down in Lorderon. There were quests. We know that they've had
31:26
Lordon for 3 years. We haven't still to find out what the night elves have been doing for the past years. Aside from we
31:32
know that they fell back to Hyel. Yeah, but we knew that before, right? They fell back to Hyel before as far as
31:39
we know since the end of Battle for Azeroth. And so that's been about 6
31:44
years at this point. They've been living in Hyel. And we don't really know what that means or what that looks like. What
31:50
have they been doing at Hyel? We know Nordrasil is basically almost back. It's almost completely regrown, but we don't
31:57
know what they're doing there. You know, again, are they fortifying it? what what what is happening there? We and I'm
32:03
gonna just drop a spoiler here for Dragonflight. Um if you don't know that this is happening in Dragon Flight, guys, I'd say skip ahead a minute.
32:10
But at the uh in the in the middle of all this other stuff happening, Yera had
32:16
died during Legion, which was a huge blow to the night elves because Yera and the night elves are super tight. In
32:22
Dragon Flight, Malfurion trades himself for Yera. Now, it's not permanent. He
32:28
will not be staying in the Shadowlands forever, but he's currently in the Shadowlands and Yera is currently back
32:35
with the dragon. Um, as a result though, she will not become the aspect again. If
32:41
they get their aspect powers back, she's not going to take them because she's not really back. Like, she's still tied to
32:49
um the winter queen's uh she's she's transcended that form essentially. Yeah. She's part of Ardan wield. Like,
32:55
she's still tied to it. the only reason she could come back through was because, you know, Malfurion basically is willing
33:01
to let her be there in his place and is in there is there in her place. So that
33:07
that's happened too. So now that Malfurion's gone, Tonda has literally been through hell the past few years.
33:13
Like she saw she saw Darnuses die. She failed to save it. Uh in part because
33:20
Malfurion got sucker punched. He he basically was fighting off Sylvanas. He
33:25
was going to win, too. There's no two ways about it. He was going to kill Sylvanas. And he didn't realize that Sa
33:32
Fang was there until Sarfang hit him in the back and almost killed him. And then Tonda showed up and would have killed
33:39
him. But there was Malfurion almost dead and she chose to save him and get him
33:44
out of there, which meant that she wasn't there when Darnacus was set on
33:49
fire. I don't think even I don't think she understood that that was going to happen. Mhm. Like she didn't know that the Horde
33:55
was going to attack Darnaces. Why would she know that? That it didn't make any sense. Like no one knew that the Horde
34:02
had Azerite powered catapults that could burn down Darnasses. I mean Delasel. Darnasses was on top of it. So when all
34:08
that happened, the night elves went, you know, they'd already lived through a world changing cataclysm once. They've
34:15
managed to fight off the Legion the second time it returned. They they made an alliance with outsiders, which is
34:21
something they had not done in ever. They had never done this. This is not
34:26
like the high elves that became the blood elves had made alliances before. They allied with the humans to to fight
34:33
off the the trolls the first time. They joined the human alliance uh during the second war. They had an idea of how to
34:40
go about doing that. Night had not done it ever for any reason. No, they stayed secluded intentionally.
34:47
Yeah. I mean, the closest they came was occasionally they'd noticed there were some torren around and kind of waved
34:52
like they they were not big on outside groups. They're they're they're a touch more xenophobic. And as a result, they
35:00
made an alliance with like these these strange humans and others like the dwarves and so forth. People they had
35:05
not dwarves were just as new to them as as humans. Like they they were like, "What's going on with these things?" But
35:11
they made these alliances with them. They built a city uh at the urging of Fandal Stagghelm. They built a city on
35:17
top of the new world tree he planted. Even though the dragons were like, "We didn't tell you to do that and we're not going to bless this one. Stop building
35:23
world trees for everything, Fandrl. They have a specific purpose. You don't use them for everything." He's like, "No
35:29
more trees." Um, so that tree had its problems and it was later revealed that
35:35
the nightmare lord himself was involved in some of those problems. But at the as
35:40
a result of it, when it was burned, when that tree got burned down, it was like Tonda had finally just had enough after
35:48
10,000 years of putting up with her husband continuously going into a deep sleep, putting up with Fandrol being
35:54
just such a colossal jerk all the time, putting up with all these things that happened to her people. She was finally
35:59
done and that's why she went and tried to do something incredibly dangerous and pulled it off. But after that, the whole
36:07
night warrior thing, which I'm really gonna We think we've done an episode on it. We have absolutely done an episode on that one. So, please listen to the
36:13
previous one if you if you have not heard it. But as a result of all this stuff happening now, she's doesn't even have
36:18
her husband anymore. Tonda is in an interesting place. Uh she's given up the the full-on I will murder you, vengeance
36:26
thing she was doing. But that doesn't mean she feels good about what's going on. Well, and this is sort of the impetus,
36:32
right? like and and because we've getting we've we're basically caught up to the current day at least to a certain
36:37
extent, right? There's some we we've kind of haven't really given the void elves enough, but you know, God, we can't we don't have we don't have
36:43
enough time for that. But I mean, some alliances have been forged and and have been bonded like you have the blood
36:49
elves and the nightborn are now eternally bonded as their respective leaders are now wed. Uh they are husband
36:56
and wife now. uh and eternally uniting those two people. And that combined with
37:03
Tronda basically ready to walk away from the Alliance, which we've pointed out a few
37:09
times because in their time of need and when they needed them, the Alliance just
37:14
didn't show up. Yeah, just the Wargan did. Only the Wargan did. So the Wargan, they're cool with the Wargan, like like
37:20
which, you know, as cool as you can be with a bunch of a bunch of folks led by, you know, a man who is known by his
37:27
rage. But even still, it started this idea of with the dragons now getting
37:33
sort of their story. I don't want to say concluded, but we're getting closure to
37:38
a lot of things that have been happening for dragons for for a very long time now. What would that look like for elves? What would an expansion that
37:45
focused on everything that's happened with the elves in those moments of of of
37:50
I don't want to say reconciliation, but giving them their moments of closure, would it be something like what would we
37:57
like to see from it? Now, Matt and I have talked about this a little bit in the past here and there, but I thought giving it a little more time to go in
38:03
depth would would sort of be I think important. So, Matt, what is Let's start
38:10
with you and your thoughts on it. What would you like to see like in an expansion that focuses on elves in
38:18
general? Not just the night elves, but the the elven society as a whole. What would it do? First off, high elves
38:26
playable finally. And we get to talk about their lore, cuz they're still around. There are still high elves.
38:33
There's not very many of them, but what the heck have they been doing? We know that there's a a high elf village on
38:39
Outland. You know, the Lyan stronghold, it's full of high elves. Those guys aren't night elves. They're not blood
38:45
elves. They're not void elves. They're not. They are high elves. You know,
38:51
classic Warcraft 2 high elves. What's up with them? Are they still there? Have
38:57
they come back since? Uh, we know that there are high elves still in the Alliance military because you can see
39:02
them when you go to Northrand. Uh, there's there's a village of them. They
39:07
work for the Alliance. They're part of the Seventh Legion contingent. What about those guys? What about the various high elf settlements like Quellithan
39:14
Lodge? Uh some of them got taken out. Uh the ones in the plague lands absolutely got taken out, but they're still the
39:20
ones in in uh dwarf lands. What about them? What are they doing? What have the
39:26
what have the high elves been doing in the past I'm going to say decade or so? It's actually actually been longer. I
39:32
can't I can't remember exactly how long it's been since they they lost their homeland. And everything Joe talked
39:39
about with the blood elves. Imagine being like the blood elves were like basically like one out of every 10
39:45
people. One out of every 10 elves that survived Arthus' attack. Like nine out
39:51
of 10 died. One out of every 10 survived. Of that group, one in 10 of
39:56
those people are high elves still and the rest are blood elves. And then of course there's been new children and so forth since. So the the high elves are
40:02
like the barely surviving fringe of a culture that changed into being the
40:09
blood elves and they they've like what has happened to them? What have they been doing? Are they all pretty much
40:16
alliance for life? Have some of them realized, you know, I want to be with my people and gone back to Qualas even
40:23
though they're not blood elves, you know? Has the act has there actually the years of of drawing on fell power and
40:30
now direct access to the pure light. Has it changed the blood elves in ways that make them physically different from high
40:36
elves? Like or is it still just a high elf is like a blood elf with blue eyes? I want to see all this explored. I want
40:42
to see more about them. I want to see more about the void elves because the void elves are just blood elves that
40:50
started practicing void magic and then the vo the the the blood elves in a move that is hilariously ironic immediately
40:58
reacted to them the way that the night elves reacted to the high elves.
41:04
Mhm. It's it's it's exactly the same. You're practicing forbidden dangerous things. Get out. That's like the elven response.
41:11
I swear to God, there's probably some elven teenager out there somewhere listening to Swedish metal and some
41:16
their grandfather just threw them out of the house immediately as soon as they heard it. That's just that's the elven solution. Get out. Um, but yeah, I want
41:24
to know more about the void elves. I want to know like not a void elf, but she's kind of like the racial leader for
41:30
the void elves because she has an even more profound connection with the void than they do. How does that work?
41:36
Yeah, because that's that's a whole other thing, too, right? And and when are we going to get to see Shandra Feather Moon just kick all of their
41:42
butts with archery? Cuz she's better than any blood elf who's ever lived. And yes, I'm looking at you, Sylvanas
41:47
fanboys. She's better. She is. I don't want to hear it canonically. Yeah, she is the best archer in the
41:53
world. Uh but but that's just a minor thing. I would like to see all three all three. And I'm including Sylvanas in
41:58
this of the Windrunners back. I would like not necessarily they get to be involved in like the whole story. Like
42:05
Sylvanas is busy. Sylvanas is basically trying to do the unpossible and and
42:10
redeem herself in some way. So, I don't think she should like show up and be on a council or anything, but I definitely
42:15
would like to check in on her uh to know what she's doing. Did she find Nathanos's soul? Uh, is it gone? Did it
42:22
get turned into some weapon? Maybe it got turned into the legendary she was using. Imagine if she found out that that bow was her boyfriend
42:29
cuz the bow was given to her by the jailer. Yeah. And the jailer would have had, you know, the guy died, so he was sent to
42:36
the to the mall. So, it's quite possible that the jailer in one of his little moods of irony turned the guy into a bow
42:43
and gave it to Sylvanas because he was just as good of an archer as as she was. Yeah. Well, maybe not as good, but he
42:50
was really good. He was about as good as any human's ever been. Uh, so yeah, who knows? I don't know. But I think that
42:55
would be fun to find out. Uh, I'd like to see I want to see Verissa. I want to see Verissa's kids.
43:00
Yes. We haven't seen them in forever. We haven't ever seen them in game. They have never been in game.
43:06
That's true. Not even when we saw Verisa. Uh her not that, you know, not that Ronin's death was a minor thing, but it's done. It's
43:13
over. He's been dead for a while. What has she been doing since? How has she been raising the kids? How are like, and
43:20
then there's the fact that Yria and Talion have a son, Artor, who is their
43:26
cousin, and they're all part human. They're all like half elf, half human children, all three of them. What's that
43:32
like? Why do Windrunners seem to just love humans? And I mean that literally there's a story a story thread we could
43:39
go on. Um I would also like to see I want to see nightbor elf interaction.
43:45
Yes, because there's a there's a fault line down that culture and I think TR would
43:51
probably at this point admit she made some mistakes dealing with uh with the Nightbor. But at the same time, she
43:58
would be hardressed to say she felt wrong because the nightborn have essentially proven her right. They
44:03
didn't want to try and like earn back any kind of forgiveness. Keep in mind that the nightborn only existed because
44:11
they were directly following Ashara's orders during the war of the ancients until the very end when when Ellis when
44:18
you know Ellis I want to say Estrad Ellstree Alisandra Alisandre thank you
44:24
realized oh no uh she's going to get us all killed and so using her knowledge of
44:29
ancient artifacts that she'd been collecting for Ashara she she created the bubble around Suramar that preserved
44:36
it she was not innocent in that war. She was very heavily she wasn't even like Dramar who started off
44:43
following Queen Ashara's orders, but quickly said to himself, "She's going she's she's going crazy. She's these
44:49
things that she's summoning through. They're not they're the ones murdering everybody. We're we're the bad guys,
44:54
Claus. We got to get out of here." Um that is not what what you know she did.
45:00
So there's there's but at the same time as as I'm sure uh I want to say Thera,
45:05
is that her name? the first Arcanist. Yes. Thissa, who's now in charge of the nightborn. I'm sure she would have some
45:12
points to make about how, you know, my people were suffering and dying and you wanted us to waste our time curtsying to
45:20
you when the blood elves just offered to help us. I'm sorry, but it's not a hard
45:25
decision. Mhm. You know, between between the cold shoulder you were throwing our way and
45:30
their open welcoming one, it's pretty obvious to see why I went where I did, which I don't think would help, but I
45:38
think it's a it's a reasonable argument point. I don't think the one thing I don't think a night elf, not a night
45:44
elf, sorry, the one thing an elf expansion shouldn't do is end up with all the elves like on a council
45:49
somewhere making decisions for Elfkind. I don't think there should be some kind of reproachment.
45:54
I agree. And you're you're hitting on something that I think is is very very integral to that, right? Like I don't
46:00
think it needs to be a happy ending. I don't even think it needs to be an ending. I think it's it needs to be a
46:06
story like Yeah. What we what we haven't seen in years is any sort of meaningful
46:12
interaction between these groups on their own. We've seen them interacting as parts of the Alliance and the Horde,
46:19
but we haven't seen them interacting like just as elves. As elves. Yeah.
46:24
Yeah. descendants of the same people. Um, there's a and there's been like there were moments in Legion where we
46:31
almost got there where we had blood elves, night elves, and even a few high elves all together at Suramar going in
46:39
to liberate it from the Legion. And that's the last time we saw that. And that's that was tantalizing. That was
46:45
this moment of where you have Leadron there, you've got Teronda there, you've got Fara there, and they're all kind of
46:52
representing their people. And it didn't you you really kind of feel like there was sort of like a missed opportunity
46:58
there. Not again, not to make them all buddies, but to showcase how they
47:03
interact. And see, and that's and that's the thing that I want to see the most is I I've
47:08
seen a lot of people talk about how they want to have the elves united as their own faction versus the other ones. I
47:14
don't want that. And I think, and here's why, for a couple reasons. One, I like the idea of what we're seeing in Dragon
47:21
Flight already where the faction divide is starting to get walked back. You are being forced to interact with members of
47:28
the other factions to help the dragons and in such a way that the dragons have
47:34
laid it out where you leave your military at home, you leave your prejudices at home, you can send your
47:39
scholars, you can send your craftsmen, you can send your adventurers that want to help, but I do not want war on my
47:47
doorstep. we have enough to deal with. I would be okay with the elves taking a similar approach. It's not friends and
47:54
and we're going to make everything okay and we're going to erase 10,000 plus
47:59
years of baggage. That's not going to happen. But the establishment of a neutral ground where they can start to
48:06
interact, start to assemble the pieces of their people, because that's the
48:12
thing, right? Every single one of these little factions of elves has a little
48:18
bit of elven history that is unique to them that the others don't necessarily
48:24
know or remember. The oldest living members of the elven race right now are
48:30
Teronda who, you know, has her own wounds and and and baggage to deal with
48:36
and they are not insignificant. As well as just now having to realize that, or I
48:41
shouldn't say realize, but the reality settling in that she must lead her people by herself
48:47
again with no hope of backup and that's just her responsibility at this point.
48:53
But the next oldest one is Thea. She's been around longer than most of these
48:59
other elves. And I think the next oldest one is uh Lothorar. No, Shandrris is way older than
49:05
Shandress is way older than him. Okay. So like Shandra Shandra is alive during the War of the Ancients. That's right.
49:11
Shandress is easily in fact Shandra is older than Felicra. Actually, she may not be cuz Felissra was an adult and
49:17
Shandrris was a little girl. Yeah. So I think the rest but they're they're comparable at this point. They're all basically
49:22
contemporary. The point is is there's very few members of Elvin society that
49:27
are of import that are of that age and having them come together and just open
49:33
up conversation not be friendly with each other, not be best friends immediately, but to start to begin the
49:41
dialogue of I remember when this happened. I remember when this happened. Okay. Well, I remember. Well, here's one example. Here's one
49:47
example of that. Actually, if you'll go back and look at um Battle for Azeroth, when you go to um I keep want to say Val
49:55
Shar, but that's not where I'm talking about the uh Nile Nazjitar. When you go to Nastar, at one point, Chandras shows
50:04
up and goes to a place that was like a village that she like lived in that's
50:09
now ruins on on the on the ocean floor that it's part of the place that uh
50:16
Ashara has exposed. And you basically see from her perspective what it was
50:21
like when the Legion came. What it was like like elf society, we keep forgetting
50:26
this. Elf society existed for thousands of years in a in a form very similar to
50:33
what it was at its end and then it just ended. And for many of them, many of them had no idea what was happening.
50:40
Like go back and watch the Warbringer short with Ashara. Her people were still
50:45
coming to her for help. not understanding that the demons that were coming through were coming through
50:51
because she felt like 9/10en of her own people should be dead. Like she felt like, sure, the elves should rule the
50:56
world, but only the really good elves, the ones the most like me. The closer
51:02
they are to me, the more likely I think they should survive. The ones who are just the street rabble. I mean, if they
51:08
if they die, they die. Now, that didn't mean she wanted to see her city get wiped out, cuz she didn't. when her city
51:15
was about to get destroyed, Ashara went out there and tried to stop it. And keep in mind that that was the entire weight
51:21
of the ocean, as in all the water in the world was essentially trying to push down on her city and she almost stopped
51:29
it. And and who out there has any real memory of her at this point? Ter
51:35
Mhm. Chandress and Felissra. Alisandre, but she's not currently accessible. But thera was
51:42
right there. Felistra also and those people that were there are probably the
51:48
only ones who could stand up against Ashara. And that's why I'm bringing up Ashara is because if there's going to be a villain
51:55
expansion, it has to be Ashara. Yeah. And and that you're going exactly where I was going to go for it, right? Because it's Azara has sort of after
52:03
everything that happened in Battle for Azeroth, she's gone. We don't know what she's doing now. We maybe have a vague
52:09
idea of where she is, but literally radio silence, right? We have not been
52:15
back uh to uh Natar. We have not been uh down there because we were dealing with
52:20
the Shadowlands. We don't know what she was doing during that entire time. And there's been no talk of what she did between the Shadowlands expansion and
52:27
Dragon Flight. And that is I don't want to say out of character because it is
52:32
definitely in character for her to keep a low profile. Uh, but it would be one
52:37
of those if there was an elf expansion, her popping up makes the most sense. And
52:43
you hit exactly what I was going to say because those elves, those ones that have been around long enough to remember
52:50
her and remember what she did are the ones that are most likely able to stand up to her in a united front and giving
52:58
them something where they are forced to work together and the Alliance be damned, the Horde be damned. you know,
53:04
obviously if you're going to send champions, we'll take them, whatever. But I'm not relying on uh you know, uh
53:12
any any of the alliance military army. They already abandoned us once before. I'm not going to take that risk and and
53:17
put my faith in it and have it and to hell with the Horde. They can't keep themselves uh from infighting long
53:23
enough to to get anything done right. So, but if the elves show up and say, "No, this is our ancient enemy. this is
53:30
our burden to bear together and have something where they're forced to interact. They're forced to put their
53:36
differences aside at least a little bit. I I'm not going to say that Tron's going to sit there and welcome the blood elves
53:42
with open arms because that would just be bad writing. Uh but this okay, I
53:47
accept the fact that I need you in this moment, but we're going to have a talk after this is done and it is not going
53:52
to be comfortable. Actually, I I was thinking about that and I can think of a way where you wouldn't have to do that
53:58
and it would still be TR as we understand her. Have Ashara target the
54:03
blood elves and them need the help and have TR literally show up at some point and pull them out and say now you
54:11
owe me and here's how you're going to repay me and that's how it gets started. Because
54:17
think what an epic moment that would be though too, right? Like but plus the blood elves have already shown a tendency to be kind of
54:23
vulnerable to Naga manipulation. Mhm. Kalethos went along with a lot of stuff Lady Vos said but he had no reason to go
54:30
along with it. He just kind of did, you know. And and keep in mind too both Kalethos and Idon didn't really seem to
54:37
understand or care what Vos was doing in Serpent Shrine Caverns. She was draining
54:43
all the water out of out of Outland, guys. She was taking literally all of
54:48
it. and you all didn't seem to be paying any attention to this. It's kind of
54:53
like, yeah, it's great that you've got your your horrible demon infested cathedral at the end of the world and in
55:00
the destroyed zone, Illan and Kelas, good job on the flying Naru city you stole, but if there's no water on this
55:06
planet, nobody can live here. Then what? You know, where where's your endgame for
55:12
this? They didn't even seem to care. So the Naga, I can see the Naga thinking, "Yeah, we can we can make use of them
55:19
like like we did with Kaleas." And I don't think that Loramar would go for it, especially since he's married to
55:24
somebody who would be like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We are not doing that."
55:29
But I could see it like it being like creeping through blood elf society like, "Yeah, we can rejoin with our with the
55:36
ancient highborn. We can learn secrets we've never learned before and be like, it's not the ancient highborn, it's the
55:41
Naga." You know what I mean? like and from there Tonda shows up and basically
55:47
supports The Listra and Thelissra is like, "Oh god, I didn't want to be on the same side as her, but I guess I have
55:53
no choice. Oh, this is awkward." You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I mean, and I'm just thinking
55:58
of the epic moment, right? Like it's that moment where in in to me I'm looking at uh I hate to say it like
56:05
this, but it's the best comparison I can give for pop culture reference that most people would probably understand. It's that moment in Avengers Endgame where
56:12
the portals open up and an army flows through that was unexpected or unanticipated by the opposition, right?
56:18
Think about it in either of those scenarios like you have, let's say, uh
56:24
you have the blood elves under siege and all of a sudden a portal opens up and here comes the void elves pouring
56:29
through this rift in space and time uh to, you know, start mowing down Naga
56:35
forces. You have the nightorn going through their arcane portals uh bringing
56:41
in their spells slingers. And then you have over the hill riding in uh Tonda
56:46
and and Shandra Feather Moon uh leading guardians leading uh wardens down into
56:53
battle uh to sort of be the ground forces and the archer the archer support
56:58
that. Well, you've seen what happens when Tonda attacks a city. Oh, she Oh, yes you do. She decides the
57:04
siege. Oh, yes, please. See, she when honestly I'm going to I
57:09
say this as a joke, but I'm only half kidding. When when Tonda showed up in Siege of Rogamar, I honestly thought
57:15
Vulg was going to propose to her. Yeah. Like he seriously sounded like he was absolutely about to marry her. Uh he's
57:22
like Ter and she's like, I'm not here for you. Let's get this over with. And
57:27
it was just it's a really great moment. Um I I would like to see it. I like the idea of them not forgetting or forgiving
57:34
anything. And this is across the board, not just the don't forget her, forget all of them still have their grudges,
57:40
but they're all aware that Ashara nearly wiped their people out
57:45
and that she could do it again that she is I mean, and that's the thing we talked about before and we've talked
57:52
about Azara as being this this masterclass villain threat and why is
57:58
she like that? She's patient. She's planning. is plotting and she's always looking for more power. Matt pointed out
58:05
last week and we've pointed this out several times. How many powerful artifacts have we just let Ashara get
58:12
her hands on? At least one and probably more sure she didn't get the other three. Yeah. Like
58:17
we left all the various uh you know pillars of creation in the in the tomb
58:24
of Sargeras and the last time we saw them they were all basically in the same place. They were all kind of like in on
58:30
pillars in various rooms. She obviously got in and got the the the you know the
58:36
tide stone. What's stopping her from getting the other ones? The one was right in the right in the front hall, right? The one is in the one
58:43
was set in a dungeon tower set aside to the other side. The ages of Agamar, right? Yeah. And that one was upstairs and the
58:49
other three Yeah. The other three were down in like where you fought the other bosses. So yeah, like when you walk in
58:56
the door of the of the Temple of Sargeras, there's a room that two demons are arguing in and there's the hammer of
59:04
Kasgaroth like literally right there. So yeah, she could have all four of them for all we know.
59:10
And the thing is, like we said, we don't know what she's been doing for x number of years, but she has I'm going to
59:16
guarantee she hasn't been idle. And if those pillars of creation are one thing, what else has been what else is out
59:23
there that she might have had uh maybe people looking for? We know that there
59:28
are several other Titan artifacts and relics and things like that that are strewn about different facilities that
59:33
AA can go pretty much anywhere. Hey, one of them is a scepter that a bunch of shaman were using for a while.
59:40
Yeah. Just cuz we couldn't use it anymore. I mean, obviously there's another artifact
59:45
that was supposedly drained and no longer usable that ended up becoming a sapient and is now wandering around in
59:51
an elf body. You know, if Zalat was was not quite as dead as we thought, who knows about the scepter?
59:57
The scepter that was originally constructed to house waters from the well of eternity and be used in arcane
1:00:02
rituals that shaman then used for natural healing because that's the only thing they understood how to use the
1:00:08
waters for. but back in the hands of an arcane expert, the one that it was made for in the first place.
1:00:15
Yeah. And that's the thing, too. Going back to this, we mentioned that the ancient night elves had a division based
1:00:21
on who could do magic and who couldn't. Who was an arcane magician and who wasn't. That's the origins of the
1:00:27
highborn. Ashara was to the highborn as the highborn were to completely non-magical elves. Ashara was enormously
1:00:35
powerful. Like it's powerful enough that that when Manoroth saw her for the first time, he was like, "I wanted to kill
1:00:41
her, but I didn't think I could do it." Manoroth said that maybe Sargeras maybe
1:00:47
Sargeras could do it. Not, "Oh, yeah, Sargeras could do it easy. Maybe Sargeras,
1:00:53
you're maybe a Titan up against this woman." And yeah, a lot of her power was indirect. A lot of it was manipulative.
1:01:00
A lot of it was getting people to love her because she loved being loved. But let's not forget that she was born with
1:01:05
golden eyes. And we still don't know what that truly means. We know that it's important, but you
1:01:11
know, it also we also know that elves get golden eyes when they get powerful. Like Malfurion didn't have them until he
1:01:17
became a very powerful, you know, druid and then he got them. But Illan was born with them and so is Ashara. Illan
1:01:24
obviously had a destiny that included fighting, you know, a titan for the rest of his life. What is Ashara's destiny?
1:01:30
Is she is she supposed to fight something else? And what is her plan? Like think about what is she planning?
1:01:36
What is she trying to do? We still let's take it this way. Like if if Sargeras was supposed to be her intended
1:01:42
uh bow, uh we don't know what she found out from Sargeras or again because she
1:01:48
was super manipulative what she knows about the nature of Azeroth. And that I
1:01:54
think is the scariest part. Yeah. I mean, if you look back too, um, Ashar was somebody who took a city named
1:02:00
for Aloon, the chief goddess of the night elf people. She changed its name from Aloundress, eye of Aloon, to Zin
1:02:07
Ashari, glory of Ashara, and her people loved her doing it. They were, they
1:02:12
thought it was great. So, think about what's going on with Ashara, and how she
1:02:18
is, in a in many ways, she is the perfect enemy for an elf expansion, because she is probably the only thing
1:02:24
that could get these groups together. Mhm. Um, even the ones like the void elves
1:02:29
and most blood elves who don't really know how bad she is. Um, the others do,
1:02:34
like the high elves, you know, they they would be fully aware of her because their origin story was all about this.
1:02:41
Um, the night elves absolutely. And the nightborn, the nightborn rebelled
1:02:46
against her because she they realized she's not just crazy and she's just not not just evil, she's going to personally
1:02:53
get us all killed. in her pursuit of power or whatever she is doing. Yeah, she's she's literally bringing
1:02:59
demons in. We got to rebel. Like there there's just no way out of this. So,
1:03:04
she'd be the force that could bring them together. And once they're together to fight her, it's a little easier for them
1:03:10
to talk about what happened. Yeah. Like, and that's and that's what I'm saying like when when I said at the beginning of this
1:03:16
that the an elf expansion shouldn't be closure, it should be a beginning.
1:03:22
That's it, right? Like that's what it should be is it should be at the end of it. At the end of whatever the outcome
1:03:28
of whether it's the capture of Azara trying her for her crimes and then Arcane locking her away in the the
1:03:35
negative universe or whatever the case is. Um you you come back and you sit
1:03:40
down like you said they don't forgive and they don't forget but they look at each other and say what's next right?
1:03:48
Like where does that leave us now? And if they can all admit that they messed up in certain capacities and atone for,
1:03:55
you know, they're not going to have to atone for what they did because it's not going to be a quick process, but have
1:04:01
that conversation of, look, you need us, we need you. We need to find a path
1:04:06
forward. And have that expansion end with the beginning of a new tolerated uh
1:04:12
elven like conglomerate, right? Not a console, not one that sits there and makes decisions, but maybe ones that
1:04:19
periodically meet at that neutral ground and talk about what their societies need. Yeah. I mean, it could be something as
1:04:25
simple as we've now established diplom diplomatic ties that we did not have before.
1:04:30
Cuz think about because think about it. Each of them offers something that the other ones don't have or need. Think
1:04:36
about going back like do you not think a bunch of night elf druids showing up to Silver Moon City would help heal that
1:04:43
scar that would help try to breathe life back into that land and maybe make Silver Moon back to what its former
1:04:48
glory was or at least somewhat close to it. They can't do that themselves. Obviously, arcane magic didn't fix that.
1:04:54
Nature magic might. We know that the uh that there's an old tradition that the nightorn had that
1:05:00
they basically abandoned that was similar to druidism, if not exactly the same. Mhm.
1:05:05
Uh, it melt it used arcane magic along with the nature magic, but what if I I I
1:05:11
don't I'm not saying this to be like to bag on anybody, but I think it's the
1:05:17
reason we don't have blood elf druids already is because blood elves don't want to listen to trolls. Blood elves
1:05:23
and trolls don't get along. The fact that they're both in the horde, it's like borderline
1:05:29
aggression. Like they just they just don't get along. Um, for one thing that the blood elves took a lot of land when
1:05:36
they were the high elves, took a lot of land away from the trolls. Kulan used to go all the way up to where Qualos is right now. That all got taken
1:05:43
from them by the by the blood elves. I mean, the high elves. So, there's there's hostility there. The entire
1:05:48
reason humans got mages in the first place was because the high elves needed help because the trolls were pushing them out. And that's the basically the
1:05:55
reason that humans have a society at all and aren't just a bunch of barbarians still is because the high the hiles were
1:06:01
desperate enough that Anisterian Sunrider was willing to teach 100 humans
1:06:06
magic and from there suddenly humans were like you know all over the place being king high wizards of of the
1:06:12
eastern kingdoms and he must have been like must have been in his head like I knew I shouldn't have taught them. I
1:06:17
knew it but I had to get somebody. Nobody else was going to help against the trolls. It's not like the dwarves cared. Ah, so there's like all this
1:06:26
potential between the different groups in in playing and with not necessarily
1:06:32
liking each other, but I bet you here's one example. I bet you it's a lot easier to learn druidry from a night elf who
1:06:39
you already kind of think is a weird treehugging nutcase anyway. Yep. Because you already you already have
1:06:46
you're getting past that hurdle already. Yeah. And the night elves, they're certainly not going to be gentle, but
1:06:52
you're an elf. You're not a troll. You know, elves and trolls have antipathy in
1:06:57
a way that that elves and and other elves don't. Now, is the is the night
1:07:02
elf going to be a like calm, compassionate teacher? No, they're never that. That they're a wild, frenzied
1:07:09
people, but they're going to treat you like an elf. They're going to talk to you and assume you're capable of
1:07:15
understanding them, whatever else. they they're going to treat you like an elf. And I think that that's the thing that
1:07:20
the thing about an elf expansion would be dealing with that elves have not had
1:07:25
this in in thousands of years, but at one time all elves knew they were elves.
1:07:32
Yeah. This is very similar like before anybody says anything, this is very similar to what dwarves got to do. Think
1:07:37
about Yeah, in a way. In a way it is. Think about that. Like they've established the council, sure, but
1:07:43
they're not exactly best friends. And it they're starting to slowly go back to a
1:07:50
point where dwarves were just dwarves. You have the dark iron that and that
1:07:55
have reintegrated with somewhat with the the wild hammers uh coming in there as well in in in the bronze beards sort of
1:08:03
coming together in a way expansions ago at this point uh where they didn't
1:08:09
necessarily have to forgive all of the sins of their past and in many cases just flat out don't. We see this in all
1:08:16
the books and interactions and the uphill battle that Moira is fighting uh on that front with her with her son and
1:08:22
and sort of trying to find that path forward. But at the end of the day when they came together it was dwarves like
1:08:31
love or hate the Dark Iron. They're fantastic mages. That's their deal. They got
1:08:36
Oh yeah, they got that unlock. And now what do you have dwarves running around as like because of that? They taught other
1:08:43
dwarves how to be mages. They came back and they taught them just like Matt's saying with the elves, they taught them
1:08:48
like dwarves would teach other dwarves. Yeah. None of that. None of that Karen Tour stuff. N
1:08:54
none of that, you know, read a lot of books and you'll be good at it. You know, for dwarves, it's a practical art.
1:09:00
Did you burn your hand? Good. Did you learn from it? Good. Don't do it again. Like that's the type of dwarf teaching,
1:09:06
right? Thing you did to your hand. I want you to do that to his hand. You know, don't burn yourself. Burn them. Like as what
1:09:14
was it? Patton, I don't want I don't want you to die for your country. I want you to make that poor so die for his
1:09:19
country like that. Dwarfs are practical. Dwarfs aren't into flowery language and
1:09:25
thinking about deeper concepts. Dwarfs are like, "You want to blow up a wall? You don't have any gunpowder. Here's
1:09:31
fireball. Done. Thus ends the lesson." But that and that's what But you that's
1:09:37
exactly what you're talking about with the elves, right? It's exactly Yeah. It's the It's the, you know, having a druid show up at at
1:09:43
Silver Moon City and seeing these mages trying to heal the land with this magic and going, "Yeah, that ain't going to
1:09:48
work." Like, that's not how this works here. Like, sit down, shut up, open your
1:09:54
ears, and listen to the land. Yeah. What is the world telling you? Uh, nothing. Well, that's the problem. The
1:10:00
world is in fact trying to tell you something, and you're not listening. And then you have a nightborn come in that
1:10:06
says, "Hey, I found this ancient text that shows how arcane and the natural order can be fused together into one
1:10:12
form. Why don't you try this learning what you just learned from that night elf over there and see what happens?"
1:10:17
And then all of a sudden land starts to re to heal itself or whatever the case is. There there's a case where all of
1:10:23
them need each other even if they don't want to admit it. And that's the most fascinating thing about a potential elf
1:10:29
expansion. Yeah. It basically in a way the elves mirror the situation of Azeroth as a
1:10:36
whole in that there there's been long divisions that have never healed and never been fixed and they don't
1:10:42
necessarily have to get healed or fixed immediately but there needs to be signs
1:10:47
that there's movement and at the same time um we've been going for a while so
1:10:52
we're probably going to have to wrap soon. I will say this, we've there's got to be like some actual motion on some
1:10:59
issues. Like it's time to fix Qualos. So having
1:11:05
all these groups get together at the end of the expansion and fix Qualos would be a good way to cement whatever they're
1:11:11
going forward as. If they're going to have their weary maybe they the the scar that cuts through the Ghost Lands, they
1:11:17
could build their meeting place there. Like they literally build this is where
1:11:23
when we all come together, we're going to do it here on this plagued spot that we've reclaimed as a symbol of, you
1:11:29
know, overcoming something unthinkable. Think think of the ghost lands not being the ghost lands anymore because of that
1:11:35
unified front. Yeah, exactly. Um, but at the same time, it's not just that. The void elves need
1:11:41
to finally have like a real like we haven't gotten a lot. The the nightborn came into the uh horde with Suramar at
1:11:49
their back. The void elves are like absolutely refugees who had nothing. It's time to to give the void elves a
1:11:56
place. Like what where do the void elves go when they're not, you know, void elfing? Like, you know, we're not
1:12:01
currently channeling any elders horrors. What are we doing? Um, I think we're all staying at Steves tonight. Why are we
1:12:07
staying at Steves again? We're always staying at Steves. It's got the biggest couch. Like, you know, I'd like to see there be some place maybe up in the
1:12:13
Twilight Highlands. Maybe like they could have that alliance base in the Twilight Highlands. Yeah. Re reclaim bits and pieces of the
1:12:19
Highlands. Why not? Yeah. And that could be where they live. They could have that. That's a place for them. It's close enough to where they're
1:12:25
from that they could at least, you could imagine them making pilgrimages up north. Maybe they wouldn't get to go
1:12:31
near the uh the Sunwell, but they could go to Qualos. For some of them, they
1:12:36
lived in Quailos a couple years ago. You know what I mean? Like that's that's much their home as it is any blood
1:12:42
elves. And and like I said, you got to get the high elves in into all this. I don't I don't know what how to have
1:12:47
them. Like maybe they should be another both Horde and Alliance race. I don't know and I don't care, but they should
1:12:53
definitely be back. Especially considering them coming out of isolation and the story of them rejoining the alliance. Why not, right?
1:13:00
We we've already had that established. We've had that established that they've rejoined and and I know Matt's been talking about this for a long time, and
1:13:06
I know other players have as well. Let us let us have playable H Highborn and give it to both. There's zero reason not
1:13:12
to. I think that's going to do it. Unless there's anything else you want to add. We could talk for hours probably on
1:13:18
the problem is that if I kept talking it'd be 5:00 before the the thing is is elves need some time
1:13:24
in the sun, right? They need some time to shine and even if they don't like the sun and would prefer the moon.
1:13:32
Uh but that notwithstanding, we've had a lot of and and I can hear some of you out there, but we've already had a ton of elf story. We haven't bits and
1:13:39
pieces. We haven't had anything coherent or con like focused on them. They've
1:13:45
always been a part of another story. Whether it was what happened in Shadowlands, what the elves were going
1:13:52
through was just part of the story of Shadowlands. It wasn't a focus. What the
1:13:57
elves went through in Legion was just part of the story of what was happening
1:14:02
in Legion, not the focus. Same with Battle for Azeroth. These are all important things that happen, and I want
1:14:09
to make sure that that's perfectly clear. uh not don't want to take that away at all, but they were just events.
1:14:17
They weren't the focus. And I can hear you screaming, "But the burning of Toddlas was a major thing." It was for
1:14:25
that moment. We didn't deal with the repercussions of it until way later. We're still dealing with it now. giving
1:14:31
us something where the elves are forced to sort of deal with that and work through that and make their way through
1:14:36
and navigate it while they are the focus of what's going on just like the dragons are the focus of this expansion. I think
1:14:42
that's what we all want to see or at least Matt and I want to see. Don't want to claim that I'm talking for everybody.
1:14:48
But I think that we'll do it for today, folks. Blizzard is made possible due to the generous contributions at
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1:15:10
interesting questions uh through this episode, send those into podcast at blizzardwatch.com.
1:15:16
Uh you can go ahead and hit us up if you are a Patreon supporter on Discord at the Patreon Q and podcast questions
1:15:21
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1:15:26
channel. Well that friends, we'll see you next week. [Music]

What the elf expansion of our dreams would be

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What the elf expansion of our dreams would be

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