The Shal'dorei, the Sin'dorei, and the Horde

The Nightborne and their induction into the Horde as an allied race was a controversial move by Blizzard. Certainly they weren't the only controversial allied race (Void Elves, who came out of left field and more or less closed the door on a more traditional Alliance High Elf, were another,) but there was a big reason why giving them to either faction felt pretty harsh.

In 7.0, Blizzard showed off something very impressive - a zone entirely meant to be completed at the level cap. Now, there had been things like this before - the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, for instance, or patched-in zones like Tanaan Jungle. But these zones have generally, in the past, been light on story and focused primarily on repeatable content like daily quests.

What we got with Suramar was something fully realized - a zone that had an entire story, quest chains, and an new, urban questing environment they had never done before.

We spent a large chunk of in the early part of the expansion aiding Thalyssra with her Dusk Lily rebellion, and while it was gated by reputation, this was not some "five chapters and it's done" sort of thing. It was a really committed quest line - one that might actually have been longer than those in the leveling zones (not to mention a few rather significant side-chains.)

Then, in 7.1, we got another full quest chain, which was a rather full and thorough story that culminated in the opening of the Nighthold raid and the completion of Legion's first raid tier.

Player characters put a ton of effort and time into aiding the Nightborne in throwing off the Legion's tyranny. Far more time than, say, they had spent with the Highmountain Tauren or the Lightforged Draenei (even though the latter was the epic conclusion of a 25,000 year story.)

Which meant that having the Nightborne pick either side felt rough. With an Alliance main, it was my human Paladin who helped kickstart the Dusk Lily Rebellion back when it was literally just me and Thalyssra. Obviously, every player character exists within their own separate canons (apocryphae?) but the Alliance did canonically put in a lot of work to get the Suramar free.

Now, if they had to choose a side, I do somewhat get the choice of the Horde - the Blood Elves are the most culturally similar to the Nightborne, with their shared history of magic addiction, their Highborne ancestry (or... just former identity,) and the arcane focus to their societies.

Still, especially after Teldrassil, I've got to wonder how the Nightborne feel about their decision.

See, one of the issues with the faction conflict is that it tends to work better for some groups than others. The Tauren have always felt like odd members of the Horde for this reason - while they share the shamanistic spiritualism of the Orcs and Trolls, they were forced to abandon a historic friendship with the Night Elves in order to join the Horde. Whenever given the opportunity, the Tauren try to work alongside the Night Elves, as we've seen particularly in the Cenarion Circle.

The Pandaren split along faction lines out of necessity, but one gets the sense that the vast majority of them still consider themselves to be a unified people. Aysa and Ji are not enemies, even though they stand as the leaders of their respective factions within the larger ones.

Now, on one hand, I think the Blood Elves might really be happy to have the Nightborne on their side, and the two populations are likely to get along quite well. But the Blood Elves have also had a bit of a problem with the Horde. They have very little in the way of cultural common ground with Orcs, Trolls, or Tauren, and the Forsaken keep acting far less like the Lordaeron humans the High Elves were once friends with and more like the Scourge that massacred 90% of their population.

The Blood Elves are, of course, more than anyone, forced into the Horde by circumstance. During Mists of Pandaria, Varian had been secretly negotiating with Lor'themar to return the Blood Elves to the Alliance fold, but Aethas' use of Dalaran to aid Garrosh in securing a magical WMD led to Jaina's crackdown and expulsion of the Blood Elves from Dalaran, which scuttled the deal.

Garrosh's removal made the Blood Elves more comfortable in the Horde - they joined Thrall's Horde, and Vol'jin was a pretty good continuation of that style of leadership.

What's interesting is that it was Sylvanas who brought the Blood Elves into the Horde. But that was at a time when Sylvanas was defined by her fight against the Scourge. The Blood Elves were eager for any ally to fight Arthas, and with Alliance help drying up, they were willing to take Sylvanas' offer.

But post-Arthas, Sylvanas has a lot less going for her. It is becoming clearer that she was only a good and useful leader in opposition to something far worse. With the Scourge and now the Burning Legion no longer a threat, Sylvanas is emerging as one of the biggest problems on Azeroth.

Despite originally being one of them, the Blood Elves must be careful of Sylvanas. And they also have to deal with the fact that there's now a sizable portion of their population that have left them, taking on the power of the Void and joining the Alliance.

It's a weird time to be a Horde elf these days. And it's a terrible time to be a Night Elf.