World of Warcraft®

Just voicing a bit of an irritation here...

Why does Blizzard keep using the high elf design for night elf statues? Queen Azshara's statue looks like a high elf in Vash'jir, as do the others. I believe other statues in the past, even in Classic WoW, did this too.

C'mon, Blizzard, your lore states the highborne were transformed when they went to the Eastern Kingdoms because they were far from Nordrassil and the Well of Eternity. Your statues make it look the other way around. :P

The statues in Dire Maul / Eldre'Thalas are High Elven as well, aren't they?

I think so. It's a long standing confusion.

Maybe the Highborne always looked like that?

... No?

... Uh...

*Slinks off*

Or maybe the people in charge of aesthetics thought it necessary to distinguish between Night Elves and Highborne, regardless of which side of the continent they lived on.

Highborne were always like that, and some have adapted to the newer forms of their "kin".

So, the statues are carved and stoned by the people who made it, not chucking Azshara into a block of stone, carving into the stone into her body's stance and have it totally Highborne all the time anytime..
My sentences are too long...

AND! A couple Highborne mobs in WoW still look like that.
Or I'm going insane. *hides in a pile of explosives known as a Town-In-A-Box*

Maybe the statues were created (can't say "built" because, well they had magic :P) after the physical change started happening to them?

On a related note, I found it interesting to see that Azshara's high priestess Siralen as an elf and Lady Sira'kess as a naga share similar roles. It kinda gave me a bit more insight on transformed night elf naming conventions. Lady Vashj kept her name after transforming, possibly because she was royalty, but other naga might've tweaked their names just a little.

Lady Sira'kess = High Priestess Siralen

Just thought I'd throw that out there. Don't mind me.

01/08/2011 12:14 PMPosted by Zeria

Maybe the statues were created (can't say "built" because, well they had magic :P) after the physical change started happening to them?

If that were the case, then Azshara would have one of two versions.

A) Night Elf
B) Naga transformation

The high elves were altered after they left Kalimdor.

I think Blizzard just made a boo boo. ;)

Because we weren't pretty enough to make the cut.

Sorry bro, oh well at least our own faction doesn't hate us and anything to do with us, as the horde do with our blood elven brothers.

Vashj'ir was not originally underwater. It was a Night Elven city(Of another name, I think) above the waterline. It was dragged underwater when the Well of Eternity imploded.

The statues look as they do, because that is the change brought to Night Elves from using too much Arcane. The angle of their ears went higher, they grew thinner. Blood Elves have that same bodystyle because Blood Elves are essentially Highborne Night Elves, many many generations removed.

The statues are accurate.

Sly just totally gave out all that was able to be given.

And....
*snatches her shades and runs away with them*

What I think the lesson of Vash'jr is like any other great anthropological discovery. 100 years ago we thought we knew all there is to know about how humans evolved. Since then we've discovered new hominid species which radically changed our picture on how things came to be.

Similarly we thought we knew all there was to know about elf genealogy. Vash'jr reveals things that have been hidden from the surface for milllennia. What it seems to indicate that the Kal'dorei had variations in appearance, that there were racial divisions within the Kal'dorei, perhaps within the Highborne itself. With that in mind it becomes easier to understand why most of Azshara's loyalists stood by while the demons they summoned ravaged the non-Highborne, they truly considered themselves a people apart and above concern for them.

And it does turn what was already a not very flattering picture of the ancient Highborne to a pretty ugly one. In that case the pre-Shattering rancor showed by the Moon Temple Sentinel to the Highborne emmissary makes a lot more sense.