One of the oddities of the language options in WoW is that Night Elves speak "Darnassian" as their race-specific language. Languages are not generally shared with other races except for Common and Orcish, which serve as the linguae franca of the Alliance and Horde respectively (and frankly, even in the RP side of things it's clear that people on both sides generally speak common if you ever watch any cutscene.)
Still, what's odd about it is that Darnassus is a very recent city. Indeed, the entire massive world tree of Teldrassil was only grown following the Third War - its first appearance was in WoW classic, and we found that its purpose was to replace the damaged Nordrassil in an attempt by Fandral Staghelm to restore immortality to the Night Elves.
Now I could grant Darnassus as some kind of ancient city raised from the depths by the rapid growth of Teldrassil, but that has not ever, I believe, been established as canon. Perhaps Darnassus is named after some long-lost city? But we know that the most important cities in the Night Elf world prior to the Sundering were Zin-Azshari and Suramar, one of which is now the scattered ruins found in Azshara and the other being an only-recently re-opened sort of urban time capsule. We've heard of other places like Eldre'thalas, but as far as I know, Darnassus really has only been around as long as Teldrassil.
The point being: the Night Elves, many of whom are about ten thousand years old, have only had Teldrassil for a little over a decade.
Its loss is going to be bad, certainly. But we need to look at the history prior to the Third War to get a sense of its role in Night Elf society.
Prior to the arrival of the Horde and the Burning Legion on Kalimdor, the Night Elves had a very different society than what they have now. For the most part, all male Kaldorei were druids, and spent most of their time sleeping in the Emerald Dream, aiding Malfurion. Not all men did this, like Jarrod Shadowsong, or of course Illidan Stormrage, but it seems like a large swath of Night Elf males only surfaced periodically out of their dreamstate. Meanwhile, Night Elf women basically had to do everything else, serving as the military (Sentinels) and the Priestesses.
But what they got really good at doing was surviving in the wilderness.
The forests of Northern Kalimdor were Night Elf territory, and before the Third War, that meant if you didn't have their trust, entering was a death wish. Only a few humanoid races were on good terms with the Night Elves - the Furbolgs primarily and also the Tauren, who largely learned Druidism from the Night Elves. But there's a reason you don't see, say, Centaurs in those forests. It wasn't until the Horde arrived that those forests were successfully invaded, and only with the aid of demonic magic were they able to defeat Cenarius.
Now, dynamics have shifted dramatically. The Night Elves do have the aid of the Alliance, but the Horde has made its primary base of power directly south of the Night Elves' historical territories. Now that they've had a long time to get settled in, the Horde has built up an industrial and military power base that the Night Elves' guerrilla tactics aren't working as well as they first did. The Orcs are cutting the forest down, and it's a lot harder to hide among felled trees.
The Night Elves' decentralized society served it just fine for ten thousand years, but we've seen in the history of the Horde that the one thing that seems capable of stopping them is fortified cities. Historically, the Horde has only taken four major cities by my count - Shattrath, Karabor, Stormwind, and Blackrock Spire. In three of these cases, they needed a significant boost: in fact, in their genocidal war against the Draenei, they were at the edge of losing the war and falling into internal combat after being repelled from the fortified Draenei settlements until they took the Blood of Mannoroth. Stormwind also only fell after Llane Wrynn was assassinated and the leadership and morale of the kingdom fell apart.
The Night Elves have not had a lot of success keeping the Horde out of their territory, but one place that has always seemed totally unassailable has been Teldrassil. Apart from the occasional Rogue or magically-inserted agent, we've never seen the Horde even come close to threatening Teldrassil.
This has given Night Elves a safe haven as well as an urban center where they can put down roots, so to speak, and perhaps start to rebuild their culture. Its position off the coast of Kalimdor has kept it out of the Horde's reach, allowing the Alliance a safe port to retain access to the continent.
So even if the Night Elves got along fine without it for millennia, the new dynamics of a world that includes the Horde has made it a crucial asset. And that means that losing it is going to seriously destabilize the Alliance position in Kalimdor.
Indeed, not long ago we saw the Alliance cutting a gash across the heart of Horde territory by connecting its forces based out of Teldrassil with those in Theramore. With both of these ports gone, the only major presence the Alliance has in the Kalimdor area is the set of islands inhabited by the Draenei.
This puts a lot of pressure on the Draenei to be the backbone of the Alliance presence in Kalimdor. Here's the good news: the Draenei have just secured new allies, and not just new allies but the most battle-hardened, badass, experienced veterans of a war that for them may have, due to some timey-wimey shit going around on Argus, a million freaking years of warfare experience. Seriously: Lightforged soldiers would have to be, lorewise, the most absurdly excellent soldiers in the Warcraft universe.
Here's the bad news: The Lightforged have spent that million (or maybe it's only a mere twenty-five thousand) years fighting irredeemable demons in a war of mutually-exclusive survival. The Lightforged are not trained to think in nuanced terms about the lasting viability of peace and what exactly distinguishes a Horde civilian from a soldier.
I realize Blizzard might not want to go there (though depending on how reliable the narrators are for the Mag'har Orc unlock quests they might,) but I'd have to imagine that the Lightforged would eagerly glass any Horde settlements within their allies' territory with the Vindicaar's weaponry if it meant stopping the Horde. The Lightforged have generally been taking the attitude that as one war ends, another begins, and that to me suggests that we're going to see them using tactics developed fighting the Burning Legion to fight against whatever young kids the Horde hands spears and swords to. It's going to be ugly.
Where do the Night Elves factor into this?
One huge question is what Malfurion does. Malfurion has been resolute in taking a faction-neutral position with the Cenarion Circle, desperate not to alienate the Tauren and now Troll members of the organization. But that neutrality in the face of Horde aggression has earned him a lot of detractors within Night Elf society. Fandral Staghelm was never a fan of his former teacher, but when his granddaughter was killed by the Horde, he and his daughter-in-law both gave themselves to Ragnaros so that they could take their revenge - both against the Horde and the Shan'do who had turned a blind eye to this aggression.
Malfurion has tried so hard to remain neutral, but at the same time he claims co-rulership of his people with his wife. He has left the more Kaldorei-specific leadership to Tyrande, but can he really continue to ignore the plight of his people after the burning of Teldrassil? I know that he was opposed to its creation in the first place, but that's not a position he can fall back on after it burns without coming off like a dick.
Horde members of the Circle are going to have to answer for this, but I think Malfurion in particular is going to need to decide whether he's a leader in the Alliance or not. If he is, we've got to wonder about the future of the Cenarion Circle. And if not, we've got to wonder how Tyrande's going to take that.
And while we're at it: what about Cenarius?
The Night Elves have Ancients on their side. Cenarius once stood against the Horde. He has, like Malfurion, basically forgiven them for murdering him that one time. As a demigod, Cenarius might truly be above this fray, but I kind of hope he isn't. Why? Hear me out:
What if the Alliance/Horde conflict becomes a war between gods?
Think about it, you've got Troll Loa - some of whom are Wild Gods like the Night Elves' Ancients, and some of which, like Bwonsamdi, are some kind of death spirits. Can you imagine... I mean, can you freaking imagine what a Cenarius versus Bwonsamdi fight would look like?
What better way to demonstrate how insane the Alliance/Horde conflict had gotten then by having gods get involved? The premise of BFA seems to be that by defeating the Burning Legion, the Alliance and Horde are now realizing that the other faction is a bigger threat than anything the cosmos can toss at them. What if we now start to see the two factions actually ascending into that cosmic level of power by having the gods forced to pick sides?
I told you it was going to get uglier.
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