World of Warcraft®

Earlier today in the HordeOOC channel someone remarked that the green floating crystals with eyes that can be found throughout Quel'Thalas are fel crystals. I commented that this might not necessarily be the case, and for the next hour or so a by and large civil debate about whether the Blood Elves of Silvermoon siphoned fel magic ensued. My argument was that the matter is debatable because of Blizzard's lack of consistency and contradictory sources, and while we ultimately agreed to disagree it got me thinking about the question more intently. In part this was because someone accused me of lying and trolling when I said that I leveled a Blood Elf warlock in The Burning Crusade and didn't remember anyone in Quel'Thalas other than warlocks talk about using fel magic. I take my integrity seriously and that's honestly how I remembered Quel'Thalas, but my memory is also not perfect and the claim motivated me to do some more research. The debate in HordeOOC also seemed to reveal some strong opinions on the matter, so in the interest of starting what could be an interesting discussion on the realm forum and clarifying my own position without the limitations of in-game chat I figured I'd repost my argument and ask for comments and criticisms. If any part of the following is false, please tell me so I'll know where my errors lie.

Quel'Thalas Blood Elves and Fel Magic: Sources For and Against

The first and second editions of the WarCraft RPG series claim that all blood elves possess a fel taint. The town hall entry for blood elves when they were first announced at Blizzcon repeated the assertion that, as a society, they drained and utilized fel magic.

The WarCraft Encyclopedia, however, came after the first edition of the RPG series and the town hall entry and seemed to tell a different story. Instead of fel magic, the blood elf encyclopedia entry stated that the Silvermoon blood elves learned how to drain arcane magic from Rommath, that many of them would be horrified at the prospect of draining magic from demons, and that the night elves don't like them because they "stink of desperation and arcane magic." Their race page on the old WoW website was, if I remember correctly, similar in mentioning arcane but not fel magic in how blood elves were responding to their addiction.

Fast forward to the launch of The Burning Crusade and the Blood Elf starting zone, and, if I remember correctly, the presence of anything explicitly fel is lacking. There's an abundance of malfunctioning Sanctums, creatures running amok as the arcane bindings that held them weaken, and dangerous arcane experiments, but there are few if any demons present. The warlocks talk about a possible demonic presence somewhere and players sense a taint of some sort when they visit the Shrine of Dath'Remar, but that's pretty much it. And as for the ominously green crystals with eyes, players are told in one of the earliest quests that the crystals predate the Scourge invasion and have been used to power the elves' experiments for years.

Quest: Reclaiming Sunstrider Isle

The sooner you begin your education, <name>, the better for us all. There is little room for error, so listen closely.

The Burning Crystals - the green floating objects to the west of the Sunspire here - have long been used to power the isle's experimentations. The mana wyrms were their guardians, but the Scourge invasion of Quel'Thalas has driven them errant from our lack of magical control over them.

There is little choice but to thin their numbers for reclamation. Do this, then return to me.

That seems to rule out them being fel crystals, despite their semi-demonic appearance. With that said, though, there is a Silvermoon-aligned Blood Elf in Outland at Falcon Watch (Ryathen the Somber) who explicitly drains power from fel blood, and the last book in the RPG series (Dark Factions) maintained the claim that all blood elves are fel tainted. The new race entry for blood elves on the new WoW website makes no reference to Quel'Thalas blood elves siphoning fel magic, however, but it is also only a concise summary and glosses over a lot of details.

Get to the point – Did Quel'Thalas Blood Elves drain fel magic or not?

With the sources seemingly contradicting each other, my argument was that it is possible to assert that the blood elves in Quel'Thalas did not, as a society, drain fel magic and that they are not fel tainted. The green crystals—one of the major pieces of evidence people cite in support of siphoning fel magic—were apparently in Quel'Thalas before the Scourge invaded and the elves adopted drastic tactics to stave off their addiction.

And as for the green eyes of the blood elves themselves, there are alternative explanations. The green irises could be the result of blood elves switching from passively getting their arcane "fix" from the ambient energies of the Sunwell to directly draining arcane magic from their environment. Or it could be a byproduct of the taint Kel'Thuzad's resurrection corrupted the Sunwell with. Kael'thas destroyed the original Sunwell to spare his people from continued exposure to the befouled Sunwell's dark energies, but as the elves of Silvermoon and Lordaeron who became Blood Elves were closest to the tainted Sunwell their proximity might have affected them more than the more distant high elves in Stormwind, Ironforge, and Kalimdor.

Or not. Green is associated with fel magic, and if one treats fel magic as a subset of arcane magic some of the discrepancy between sources can be resolved. I personally believe that the majority of Quel'Thalas blood elves did not siphon fel magic and are arcane rather than fel tainted (although there are individuals such as Ryathen who did take the step beyond the line that separates arcane from fel magic), but I'm quite aware that a strong counterargument can be made and that a single sentence from Blizzard could easily prove me wrong. My question is…does any of this sound plausible, or am I grasping at straws?

I dont know a ton of belf lore, but I think a few things should be taken into consideration for the subject at hand.

Game lore is somewhat diff than book lore at times. This has to do with two things, mechanics, time lines.

Now...time lines. Your essentialy playing a sped up timeline in this game. As a level one elf roaming around in the BC days, your essentialy some untrained nobody tossed into a heap of turmoil. Kael is in outland, Illidian IS helping Kael and his people deal with their addiction via fel energies. The promise is, the fel magic is an infinite power source, where as, as a new player your running around sucking up arcane mana from critters.. Its a transition phase for the belfs.

Ive always taken the crystals to be fel in nature...to a degree...the eyes are that of Kael, Illidian and Kiljaeden at the end. The crystals may of exsisted before, as conduits, but the ones with eyes are "tainted" and more or less used to scry aside from grant mana to feed off of.

I dont recall, but the corrupted belfs may also be a clue, if the starter zone ones have blue eyes, its an indication to arcane, where as the isle ones, if green is an indication of fel. Those are the tainted beings, while belfs just have an aura of what they are sapping IMO.

Tired rambles of someone who just got off work at 4am, forgive me!

There's nothing to forgive. Compared to my messy 4 AM rambles, yours is a shining example of coherence and cogent argument. And I both agree and disagree with you, as strange as that may sound.

To elaborate, in my conception of the Quel'Thalas Blood Elves they were in a downward spiral prior to M'uru's sacrifice and Velen's gift. Rommath taught them to siphon arcane magic from external sources to sate their arcane addiction, and although this slowed their descent it also created a new problem. In addition to being addicted to magic, many Quel'Thalas Blood Elves also became addicted to the pleasurable "high" they experienced when draining magic, and as time progressed many sought out increasingly potent and dangerous sources of magic because of the euphoria they experienced from siphoning.

Or to make a donut analogy, if a person has a craving for something sweet one donut may be enough to fill them. However, because the single donut tastes so good that person might eat another donut or even two or more despite knowing that too many donuts aren't good for them. And so it was with Blood Elves. One arcane siphon might be enough to satisfy their addiction for a period of time, but because the "taste" of siphoning magic was so delicious many did so excessively and some, such as Ryathen the Somber, even went so far as to siphon fel magic, the triple chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles and chocolate chips of the magic family. And while I don't believe as a society Quel'Thalas Blood Elves sank so low as to all drain fel magic, in their desperation and increasing hunger for potent magic they were well on their way to eventually reaching that point prior to Velen's intervention.

As for the green crystals and green eyes, if the crystals are essentially fel batteries why would Blizzard take the time to specify in one of the earliest Blood Elf quests that they predate the Scourge invasion? And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Bloodgem Crystals Kael'thas's Blood Elves in the Netherstorm siphon magic from red rather than green? If the Burning Crystals in Quel'Thalas are already fel tainted, why are the Netherstorm Blood Elves using different crystals?

And about the green eyes, I'm beginning to suspect that the sin'dorei's green irises may be the result of being in close proximity to the corrupted Sunwell following Kel'Thuzad's resurrection. That would explain why Blood Elves already had green eyes in WarCraft III before Kael'thas ever met Illidan (because the Blood Elves who journeyed with Kael'thas to Outland were either in Quel'Thalas when the Scourge invaded or traveled with Kael'thas when he returned to Quel'Thalas and made the difficult decision to destroy the Sunwell).

Or not. Again, I could be completely wrong about this, and I know I'm making a minority argument that goes against common perception. That's part of where the fun comes from in playing devil's advocate (or reverse devil's advocate since I'm arguing that the Quel'Thalas Blood Elves weren't fel tainted), though given the somewhat discrepant sources I suspect that originally Blizzard did intend to have Quel'Thalas Blood Elves drain fel magic. Their town hall entry stated as much. But, at some point between their announcement at Blizzcon and TBC's launch staff at Blizzard decided they wanted a greater distinction between the Illidari Blood Elves and the Quel'Thalas Blood Elves, and so the references to fel magic for the latter were replaced with statements about dangerous and volatile arcane magic instead.

Not all blood elves tapped into fel magic and yes those crystals were there, but I was thinking that perhaps they were corrupted, or perhaps transfered over to fel magic when we lost the sunwell. I was thinking that several used M'uru as a power source like the blood knights did. Gives a conveniant excuse for holy priests I admit.

All high elves, of which blood elves are part, have magic addiction. Every single player on this game has it It is born into them. It is how one deals with it. It can be suppresed, like any junkie can go cold turkey, but it cannot be ignored totally. Think of people who have LSD flashbacks 40 years later. Just the extreme DT's turn you into a wretched.

I honestly do not think they did us a favor by reigniteing the sunwell. Yes, a lot of elves died, a lot of elves got the DT's and went to the extremes of siphoning fel magic, look at the guys up on the mountain in hellfire where you go for your QD dailies. Basically they gave us our crack back after we tried to bury the pipe. Ensureing elves for milenia will be just as addicted as great great grandma and grandpa

Did the crystals exsist as is according to lore, IE eyes and green tint, or solely green tint before the Scourge?

Not knowing the lore in regards to the race as you do, my basic assumption was/is the crystals always did exsist, just are now tainted. The outland ones are explained away easy enough, Kael didnt haul a huge wad of supplies with him and used what he could once there. These were indeed red crystals normaly, just being used as batteries. I havent had a chance to check it out, but what was the color of the miniboss you fight in shadowmoon that essentialy invited you to head into the BT? Red or green?

Although not mentioned in game, and probably very wrong, you got me thinking of a possible theory in regards to colors and crystals exsisting before the Scourge.

Kael never intended to join Illidian from the get go and was always a pawn of Kiljaeden. Knowingly or not. Or some other elf for that matter, but it seems plausible, in my opinion anyways.

And Alishandra, my understanding of the current sunwell is that, though its reborn from a bit of the old, its also very Light infused now as well, which unlike arcane is healing in nature, and the addiction over time may be erased from the current or future generation of elves.

I think the biggest reason there are still fel shards in Silvermoon is because warlocks may prefer to feed their magical addiction with fel energy rather than the energy of the restored sunwell. Because they are warlocks, and they control demons and can transform into demons (if they are demonology warlocks) the fel energy probably satisfies their addiction.

It was all explained in WC3: The Frozen Throne. When Kael met Lady Vashj, he told her of the Blood Elves addiction and withdrawal since the Sunwell's destruction. Lady Vashj then told Kael that he could use demonic energy instead of arcane. She introduced him to Illidan and that's how the Blood Elves began to tap into fel magic and how they gained their green eyes, in a way similar to the orcs with their green skins. Now that the Sunwell has been reignited though, there is no reason to tap into fel magic, so I doubt a lot of Blood Elves still indulge their hunger for magic in it (we have even lost our ability to syphon magic). Maybe the crystals are kept to power something else, or for study, or maybe because it is safer to keep them than to release the demons that seems to be trapped in them?

The only reason those are still there is because Silvermoon City hasn't been updated to match current lore.

The Blood Elves had become addicted to arcane energy due to the Sunwell. When it was tainted, they began going into withdrawal. They learned from Illidan how to draw on the energies of living creatures to satiate their hunger pains. One of the sources of this sort of energy that would be less morally repugnant would be demons and other assorted fel creatures. The problem is this energy was fel-tainted, which had the effect of altering the Blood Elves due to the usage and exposure. This effect was shown in the green glowing eyes. Relatively speaking, however, this exposure was a short term exposure, as the Sunwell was restored via Mu'ru's self-sacrifice to restore it.

The only reason, however, that the crystals are still there is because Silvermoon hasn't been updated to reflect the Sunwell changes. You get more lore about this in the Quel'Delar quest line, which takes you to the Sunwell after it was purified, and there are npcs talking about freeing themselves from the addiction of fel-energy. I believe the Sunwell is a font of Holy energy now, not Arcane like it used to be, which will have a different effect.

Also, the RPG books are mostly not canon. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2721372142

Actually, the Sunwell is now a font of both Holy and Arcane energies. I don't know where I've read that, but it seems the Holy energy somehow "purify" the Arcane energy which becomes less corruptive. But it may be fan based. Like I said, I do not remember where I read this information.

Know your lore had an article about this a month or so back. The well that is, from what I recall, it is both arcane and holy, and since it used a naru, it may also be a font for shadow down the road.