| rdfs:comment | - Ever since their introduction with The Burning Crusade expansion, there's been much talk of Blood Elves "ruining" the Horde by simply not fitting into the fierce mentality of the faction. Looking even a little past appearances, the complaint simply doesn't hold water - under surface appearances, Blood Elves are far more Horde than Alliance in mentality. They are not humans with pointy ears, any more than they are Victorian and androgynously ethereal Tolkien Elves. They aren't even the cliched Anne Rice vampires, "except with magic addiction instead of blood addiction". Though prettier on the outside and more political than most Horde species, as a race Blood Elves share the ferocity and some core beliefs as all the Horde races. More importantly, they share the same recent history and crisi
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| abstract | - Ever since their introduction with The Burning Crusade expansion, there's been much talk of Blood Elves "ruining" the Horde by simply not fitting into the fierce mentality of the faction. Looking even a little past appearances, the complaint simply doesn't hold water - under surface appearances, Blood Elves are far more Horde than Alliance in mentality. They are not humans with pointy ears, any more than they are Victorian and androgynously ethereal Tolkien Elves. They aren't even the cliched Anne Rice vampires, "except with magic addiction instead of blood addiction". Though prettier on the outside and more political than most Horde species, as a race Blood Elves share the ferocity and some core beliefs as all the Horde races. More importantly, they share the same recent history and crisis. They belong with the Horde for the same reason as all the other races: for desperation. To survive, they have no choice but to accept the allies they have, and be grateful for them. Like most Horde races, Blood Elves have a glorious past, now lost to them. They come to the Horde as the last 10% still standing after a disastrous war: this is much like what the Orcs faced in Kalimdor after the Second War, or circumstances that drove the Forsaken and the Darkspear to join the original Horde after the Third War. Like the more tribal Orcs and Tauren, the Blood Elves have deep respect for their ancestors and their fallen warriors; they wear red as a tribute to the hundreds of thousands lost saving Quel'thalas. Though historically elves and trolls are enemies, the Troll Wars were fought with the Amani trolls, not the Gurubashi tribes the Darkspear hail from. And though formerly members of the Alliance, the Blood Elves have as little cause to love their former allies as the Forsaken do. Like the Forsaken, they were abandoned by the Alliance in their hour of need; for their pragmatic willingness to make hard choices if it comes to a choice between high principals and survival, they find themselves branded traitors; for their thirst for magic, they have been demonized. As a species, the Blood Elves are compelled to get along with the Horde, or perish alone. But - again something all Horde species have in common - for all their desperate need, Blood Elves are not beggars or victims, nor anything but proud of who they are. The core of Blood Elves is their tenacity and their sense of righteousness, even entitlement. This is not the first time their civilisation has been razed and rebuilt from ashes. They are the tenacious survivors of a race that has made war with dragons, demons and trolls; they have survived the threat of genocide by their kin, built a new home in exile, and always come out with their pride and identity and beliefs intact. If they are anything, it is survivors, who adapt to their fate and find a way to go on with their culture and heritage intact. Kaldorei, Quel'dorei or Sin'dorei, more than anything Blood Elves are survivors with a deep sense of racial identity. Perhaps the core of RP'ing Blood Elves in the Horde is that theirs is an alliance of convenience. Though the survival of Quel'thalas requires bowing to the warchief, though they may even be able to find things to respect and identify with in the savages of the Horde, all of this exists only because a Blood Elf's first loyalty is to his people - and right now, his people need the Horde.
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