Talk: Blood elf

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Blood elf Shamans

The infobox mentions Shamans as a plausible blood elf class.

I did some research and think it's a bit implausible to say the Sunseeker Geomancer is a viable source, considering the NPC casts only Arcane Explosion and their respective WoWpedia page mentions they're a mage, too. The second cite is a blood elf called Elementalist Starion, but he's Twilight-aligned and thus it's more plausible to call him a Dark Shaman rather than a normal shaman. The Twilight Hammer have been shown to utilize Dark Shamanism before, and considering they're aligned to the Old Gods it makes logical sense for him to be one, too.

I'm not experienced enough with editing references and nor do I want to screw something up, so I made this talk page for actual discussion before anyone changes anything about the classes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Erkorr (talk · contr).

Welcome! Xporc (talk) 21:23, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

While the Sunseeker Geomancer's attack set is very limited, geomancy is loosely defined as a crude form of shamanism in The Old Wizard's Almanac. One could argue that they aren't actually shaman. It seems similar to the relation between harvest-witches and druids. As for Starion, dark shaman are still shaman. --Aquamonkeyeg (talk) 21:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Break up the Alignment section

this section seems... bad. three and a half decent-sized paragraphs with only two references, almost entirely dedicated to an editor's opinions on how a fantasy race compares to real-world politics. it reads like someone just finished a political science degree and was itching to put it to use. like... of course politics influence fiction, but it feels extremely disrespectful to bring up nazi freaking germany (which this section did up until a few hours ago) in regards to a videogame. blood elves aren't real and their actions did not hurt real people.

plus this entire section is written as if the game never progressed past TBC (maybe it was written in TBC and no one has touched it since?), which makes it fairly useless in addition to, well, everything else.

my general view on the wiki is that we're here to show facts, not to tell readers what to think of them. so i think we should integrate the canon things (e.g. mind control, viewing other races of the horde as lesser, etc.) somewhere else in the article and leave political interpretation at the door. —Eithris (talk) 21:48, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree, though I wouldn't know how to properly take the canon parts out of all that mess and make them into more neutral sentences. Political opinions are usually never a good idea in wikis, but some people never learn :sighs: --Ryon21 (talk) 22:32, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

hmm. glancing over the section, my opinions are:

~~"the blood elves aren't evil" is keep-worthy. it actually has a citation!~~ done.
the paragraph about how the alliance failed the high & blood elves in the second & third wars seems like it'd be usable with proper sources. i'm no Blood Elf Expert, but none of this part's statements seem too... (ahem) outlandish.
"successfully drained the energy from a naaru" can stay. but, without in-universe examples of how blood elves are seen, everything else from the "jingoist" paragraph amounts to useless conjecture.
"cultural identity revolves around magic" makes sense enough. Arcane Guardians' propaganda and the use of mind control are good in-game examples of things the blood elves did and definitely need to be kept. the rest of this paragraph is completely unusable.
the "dark destiny" bit... it sounds like a nice historical note, but it's also sort of vague. i could go either way on this one.

i'm not totally sure yet where this stuff would best belong tho. i guess mostly the TBC section. and then of course, some of this stuff may already be present elsewhere in the article... the whole thing could probs use some streamlining in general, but i think that's a much bigger project than i'm ready to take on, eheh. —Eithris (talk) 02:05, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. In The Burning Crusade section probably, yeah. --

Mordecay (talk) 10:54, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I also agree. --Ryon21 (talk) 12:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

okay, i kept putting it off but i finally got around to removing the rest of that section just now, while moving some parts elsewhere. turns out many of the things i mentioned above were already mentioned elsewhere on the page, so i think i've managed not to take out anything important. Eithris (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

About "Arabic" Blood Elves

The "inspirations" section has to be reworked. Implicitly comparing Dath'Remar to Muhammad because he had a dream of a sword and comparing the pilgrimage to the sunwell to the haji is a bit too much. Dath'Remar is not a prophet or religious figure and the Sunwell is not a religious symbol, it is important because it quenches the Blood Elve's thirst for magic. With the same reasoning you could compare Kael'Thas to Louis XIV because he calls himself the "Sun King". Furthermore, there are various aspects of Blood Elf culture that just don't fit the Middle East:

Blood Elves like to put sculptures of themselves everywhere, Muslim art is generally aniconic.
Topiary, and spiral topiary in particular, isn't characteristic for Muslim garden architecture. If anything, it echoes 17th century Baroque gardening.
The look of guards, Blood Knights and Far Striders in no way resembles motifs from Middle Eastern cultures.
The Shape of Blood Elf towers might as well be Lord of the Rings-inspired. Look at the elven towers from the Tower Hills or the white tower of Ecthelion.

The most visually "Middle Eastern" aspect is the interior design you find in Silvermoon, e.G. the sleeping area in Silvermoon city inn. But then again, the cutlery, chairs and stair railings are more "Art Nouveau" than traditionally Middle Eastern.

EvilMorrigan (talk) 16:34, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure the Louis XIV point makes sense, that can be added.

Art Nouveau is actually derived from Ottoman Imperial aesthetics, first developed among Hungarians, so you're wrong there, FURTHERMORE, nobody has ever been able to find the citation behind the devs stating it was Art Nouveau, the edit that added this bit to both the Wowwiki and Wowpedia cited an interview nobody has been able to find. The Sunwell is a religious location since Wrath, where it is described as a sacred location during

[25-30] Journey To The Sunwell, and we see both Horde Blood Elves and Dalaran/Alliance High Elves being called "Pilgrims" during the questline by their NPC name during

[25-30] The Purification of Quel'Delar, so they are very much doing pilgrimage to the Sunwell. The style of the towers do not resemble the White Tower of Echthelion, due to it resembling a gothic spire with its square edges while the blood elf spires are firmly rounded segments and rely on curvatures, which in particular resembles Ottoman period minarets.

Nobody listed the guards, blood knights, or farstriders as MENA derived, so this is non sequitur. Nobody listed the gardens as MENA imperial styled gardens, so this is also non sequitur.

User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 19:17, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Art nouveau: I couldn't find a source claiming it was derived from Ottoman Imperial aesthetics. I could find sources claiming art nouveau has sources in Far Eastern art, such as Japanese and Chinese.

Regarding the sunwell being religious: Point taken. Comparing it to the Haji still seems awkward to me. Lots of adherents of different religions do pilgrimages (e.G. Catholics, Hindus). The pilgrimage to the Sunwell is (to my knowledge) never said to be mandatory. The Haji, on the other hand, is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Regarding the towers: Even if it's not the Tower of Echthelion, similar towers exist in movies and concept art regarding Tolkien's universe.

Regarding "non sequiturs": My examples served to contradict the notion that Blood Elves were primarily Middle Eastern inspired. Garden architecture, guards and Blood Knights stand in stark contrast to a supposedly "Middle eastern" vibe. The section as it appears in the article gives a false impression.

You haven't adressed Dath'Remar. EvilMorrigan (talk) 20:50, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

The thematic core of Orientalism during that period was centered on Ottoman Imperial and East Asian Imperial aesthetics; the earliest examples of Art Nouveau (eg Gaudi in Barcelona) were stated to be partially inspired by Orientalist revival motifs by the artists themselves, some of whom listing the Ottoman Empire. But certainly, if you want to expand the point that Art Nouveau is based on 19th and 20th century Orientalism, responding to both the Ottoman Empire, Qing Dynasty of China, and others, that can be done.

It's a pilgrimage to a holy well surrounded by minarets.

The art used for Tolkien's earlier editions that were approved by him retain Gothic motifs, no Orientalist motifs; same stands for all the towers in the movies. Non sequitur and baseless.

No false impression is given; the notes state blood elf aesthetics is partially inspired by MENA themes via Orientalist lens and other high fantasy motifs, and I added two French points you brought up, and another French point that occurred to me earlier today. There are MENA motifs and other motifs, and the notes recognize both.

There is nothing to address, the sentence reads the story is similar to some versions because it is, and is followed up by it being an Andruil parallel as well. Nowhere is anyone making the claim Dath'Remar is Mohammed, just as on the Anduin Lothar being Charlemagne/King Arthur and other pages that have historical/mythological parallels nobody is saying anything beyond it being a similar story with similar tropes that reinforce the pre-existing parallel cultural motifs. Do you have a problem with those as well or is your concern limited to this example?

User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 21:23, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Edit: just checked, the notes already list both Orientalist interpretation of Ottoman and East Asian motifs, so already present.

User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 21:25, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Ofc the things listed stand there now, you just edited them.

Regarding Art Nouveau: Maybe it would be more constructive to specify what part of Bloodelf Architecture seems "Art Nouveau". Is it just the tendril motif of the stair railings in Blood elf inns? Is it the flower motiv on the floor of some buildings? And if yes, why would that imply an Ottoman connection in particular?

Regarding Tolkien's motifs: I didn't want to say that Tolkien's concept art had Oriental motifs.

Regarding the towers: First of all, Ottoman minaretts are pretty heterogenous. But the towers seen in the Blood Elf areas are clearly not minarets. Are there Muezzins calling for prayer? Is every tower close to a house of worship? Similarly shaped towers appear in concept art about the Tower hills from LOTR, which you didn't adress. Not every slim, elegant tower is a minarett.

Regarding the Sunwell: It's not a religious virtue to have travelled to the Sunwell once in your life. If the pilgrimage is supposed to be like the Haji, you'd have to source that.

Regarding Dath'Remar: There's a difference between "seems similar" and "is inspired by". And yes, I'd actually have a problem if you compared Lothar to Charlemagne. This section is about inspiration and not analogies. Obtaining an artifact because of a dream or a vision is a common trope found in many mythologies and fantasy stories. EvilMorrigan (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, because I integrated your feedback.

No, it wouldn't, because we don't do that with any other page or race. Quel'thalas is Art Nouveau (again, an uncited point due to community memory of a lost interview) and Art Nouveau is based on Orientalist architecture. That is material history.

Yes, which is why I said they are similar to minarets during the Ottoman period, because they are; also similar to some Mughal period minarets, different from other architectural styles during other periods of history. Cultural function being different does not dismiss the architectural replication; the Halls of Atonement are based on a Catholic Gothic Cathedral even though it's in-game use isn't for worship or prayer but for anima-extraction.

It's similar, there is a pilgrimage where faction-difference is ignored for the sake of its sacred importance, and it is a holy well to a people with various MENA derivative motifs.

Okay, well similarity exists and that's what the note states, and Lothar does have similarities to various European kings so that is also what it states, and will continue to state.

The Tolkien and French motifs are being held equal to the MENA motifs, and I notice you're not arguing against the boat note because that one is undeniable.

I do not believe you are arguing in good faith given this is your first post and seems extremely targeted, and as multiple of your original arguments were either already incorporated (mentioning East Asia was there before you did this), listed things that wasn't mentioned (the gardens and military ranks, which are now mentioned and attributed to French and Tolkien motifs), and other points have now been incorporated (such as the Sun King reference). Do you have any other constructive things to add?

User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 22:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Other influences

Hello! I'm new here so firstly I want to apologize if I did something wrong. I decided to make new subject because I won't talk much about the previous influences. I just want to discuss with someone a few more things that I think are worth noticing. I also want to apologize for my English, that's not my native language and I may make stupid mistakes. I also want to make it easy to ready, which may be hard, but hey, I'm trying :)

Alright, so first of all I want to talk about Blood Elf architecture. That's right, it may have some similarities with Middle Eastern, but don't forget about Neo-Byzantine architecture too. Some blood elf buildings are really similar to this style, I think that the main example may be a (wooden, but still) building that resembles that style on the Isle of Thunder (that place where is NPC called Uda the Beast).
Another thing that I want to discuss is Blood Elf Flag. For me, it resembles the Roman Empire flag with the eagle. Of course, colors are obvious, the eagle was just replaced by a phoenix. Worth noticing is also the fact, that later Eastern Roman empire used a double-headed eagle, and we can see a double-headed phoenix on The Sunfury banner.
We can also see that some names are inspired by Tolkien and mythology. Obviously, the main examples here are Sylvanas (Silvanus was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and uncultivated lands) and Halduron (probably inspired on Haldir from LOTR).

If someone wants to add something feel free to do it. I just want to discuss those things and not simply add them randomly without discussing them with anyone. I just want to add, that I'm still learning how to use wowpedia, so it will probably take me some effort to reply. Have a nice day anyone who is reading this :)

Shylvian (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

all your points are now being added! thank you :D

User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 19:19, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

EDIT! Okay, I don't know if I'm replying the right way. But hello again! :D Thank you for your reply. I've found some new things to discuss before probably adding some of them. I'll start from the some probably obvious inspirations and then go to some speculations. So let's start this:

Firstly I want to add that Magisters may refer to a real-world Magister degree, which is a medieval European academic degree used even today. In Latin the word magister means teacher.
Next thing that I want to talk about is their music, or music instruments exactly. I've noticed two of them and I'll talk about them separately:

The first one is the ancient Greek lyre. We can see them in some places in Silvermoon, or we can see an elf - Emilia Baumoon play on it in Dalaran. We know that it's an ancient Greek lyre because of its shape, which is different from modern lyres, or other ancient lyres.
The second musical instrument that we can see in elven culture is a pan flute, which is named after Pan, the Greek god of nature and shepherds often depicted playing on it. We can see Lirath Winrunner playing on it in Three Sisters comics.

Now before I go to the speculations, I'll just add more influences that affected blood elven names. The name "Umbric" is derived from the Latin word umbra, which means "shadow".

And now it's time for speculations about Blood Elven names. That topic is really interesting and huge. I'll just notice that there are just speculations, maybe I'm overinterpreting things, but they are still worth noticing. This time I'll talk about names in Windrunner family. As we know now name Sylvanas was probably inspired by Silvanus, who was a Roman tutelary deity. But we also have other members of the family and it would be a shame if we ignore them.

I'll start with Alleria, because her name may have many influences. Her nickname is "Lady Sun" (given by Vereesa) and it is a reference to her hair color. It may be a big hint because there three possible names which could be the inspiration.

The first one name is the little-known Ancient Roman name Aelia (Feminine form of Aelius) meaning "sun".
The other one is also Ancient Roman name - Aurelia, meaning "golden".
But to make this more confusing, there is also a male name Allerius (yes, there is a catholic saint with that name), but I couldn't find what that name means. We know that Roman female names are often derived from male names (Aurelius > Aurelia, Julius > Julia, Claudius > Claudia etc.) A similar procedure could be made here, Allerius > Alleria. I would really love it if someone could find the meaning of that name since I searched a lot of sites and couldn't find it.

Now I'll go to Lirath Windrunner. His name may be a reference to a lyre, you may think "WTF" now, but I'll explain this. We don't know a lot about him, but we may see that he probably had some music interests since he was playing that pan flute in that comics (that may be overinterpretation, but hey, I want to discuss that, that's why I separated it from Umbric which is obvious). Of course, Lyre is different than Lirath, but see it my way, how possibly that name could be created:

1. The word lyre was taken, they replaced -e with -ath end to it to make it sound more like a name (-ath end can be seen also in the name Rommath).

2. To make it sound slightly different they changed Lyrath into Lirath (Worth noticing is that in Modern Greek lyre is pronounced as "líra", and in the Polish language, it's just "lira" [information from Wikipedia]).

3. Also worth noticing is the fact, that there is an NPC called Lyrath Moonfeather in Val'sharah. Of course, Lirath Windrunner was first, but in my opinion, they gave that NPC name Lyrath to make it two different names, since they won't name a random NPC with the same name as (probably) an important lore character (He is a Windrunner, so automatically he has the potential to be important).

Now we will talk about Lireesa Windrunner, the mother of Winrunner sisters and Lirath, because it may be connected with Lirath. We can see that those names start the same, with Lir-, so probably one was the inspiration for another. But who was first in the writer's head we won't know. I would say Lirath, because Lireesa may be simply a mix of her kids names: Lirath's Lir- and Vereesa -eesa (not -reesa because r is from Lirath).

We can see that some male elven names end on -ath (Lirath, Rommath), while females end with -eesa (Lireesa, Vereesa). It may mean something, but for now, we don't know what does it mean. Feel free to discuss those things, remember that the speculation is only speculation. I just hope that I replied in a proper way. Have a nice day.

Shylvian (talk) 12:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Aww, little edit because I made a mistake. Indeed, -eesa is an exclusive (if that's a correct word) name end for Blood Elf females, but -ath is not exclusive for Blood Elf males.

Shylvian (talk) 06:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Well given Magister is referring exclusively to the magical-group of the Blood Elves, I think it's more likely it's based on the derivative of Mage that is used IRL by various neopagans and occult societies, rather than it's academic use.

I think the "lyre" I remember in-game is more just an artistic shape of a more modern harp to be honest? Or where are these small Greek lyres with the shape from antiquity?

Allerius is actually an ancient variation of Aurelius so you're probably right on the Aurelius note, rather than Aelia.

By process of elimination (Lady Sun, Lady Moon, Little Moon), that leaves Lirath as Little Sun; but he's yet to play any importance in the story so it's one of the things I've been saving in my head for when he's more important to flesh out the page, especially given that the lyre was given to Apollo by Hermes, and the Pan flute given to Apollo by Pan, and Apollo was one of the youngest Olympian gods and is the second sun-deity in the Greek pantheon (first being Helios).

User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 15:08, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer! I may be completely wrong now, but isn't a harp that big triangle thingy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harp) which indeed is in-game, but in Suramar? One of them can be seen in the Estate of the First Arcanist in her bedroom? (That's funny, her bedroom is on the open-air without any walls xd). The lyre can be seen in Silvermoon behind Lor'themar (slightly to the Rommath side) and a Blood Elf (since she has green eyes) Emilia Baumoon (https://www.wowhead.com/npc=112947/emilia-baumoon) plays on it in Dalaran (If you open wowhead you can see that it's near her, but she also plays on it). I don't know if it's a language barrier, but in my opinion, it's a lyre, not a harp. There was a french guy from XVIII/XIX century named Robert von Spalart, who in his book "Tableau historique des costumes, des moeurs et des usages des principaux peuples de l'antiquité et du Moyen-Age, Vol 1" described that instrument as a lyre. That book is avabile online, but sadly pages are not numbered :(. However, I scrolled it down for you https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=6mIVAAAAQAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP128 should move you to the page where is written "Nos 1, 2 Lyres grecques...". If you scroll 4 pages down (to that place https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=6mIVAAAAQAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP132 ) you can see that's it's about the musical instrument of that shape, like the one seen in Silvermoon behind Lor'themar and the one on which Emilia Baumoon is playing (they just have wings added on the sides). Have a nice day and thanks for your time <3 Shylvian (talk) 16:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)