Night Elves

Night Elves

Introductory video

Physical appearance

Similar to the Humans, the Night Elves follow the classic fantasy paradigm: ultra-muscular men and ultra-willowy women. ¹

In fact, one of the female avatars’ jokes makes tongue-in-cheek reference to the popular practice of standing them somewhere prominent, like the fountain in front of the Stormwind bank, and having them dance, usually naked:

“Oh, look, I’m dancing again! I hope all your friends are enjoying the show…”

Blizzard could never be accused of ignoring their players.

The male Night Elf dance is based upon the late great Michael Jackson’s moves, and the female Night Elf dance is based upon French pop star Alizee’s her concert performance of “J’en ai Marre”.

Language

The Night Elves also speak SAE, though they tend to sound more dreamy and enigmatic, which fits the whole Elfy tradition.

Architecture

WoWWiki cites lead writer Chris Metzen as claiming Nordic and Japanese influences in the Night Elves’ buildings, particularly their main city, Darnassus, which apparently follows the style of the Pagoda at Yakushi-ji (薬師寺). There are indeed elements of Nordic and Japanese styles here, as this image shows:

The inn at Auberdine. Nordic: over-exaggeration of wood, elongated floor plan. Japanese: roof shape/texture, openings in the walls.

However, there’s another influence: Classical styles, as in Greece:

The Warrior’s Terrace in Darnassus. Note the Greek columns and marble construction, and Japanese roof.

Lore

They’re nature-lovers. Just like Tolkien’s elves, WoW’s Night Elves are a druidic people whose power and fates are tied to the earth. Their historical conflicts revolve around preserving their environments, especially their World Trees (in which they build their cities), from various blights and corruptions from encroaching evil forces.

They’re in decline. The Night Elves were once immortal, but they became mortal in an ancient war. This element comes from Tolkien too: his elves are consistently presented as having already had their day, and by the events of The Lord of the Rings, they’re leaving Middle-earth in droves for the Grey Havens, their version of Heaven. In LOTR, the elves’ ubi sunt motif is a metonymy for the larger theme of ancient magical forces leaving the earth and being replaced by the much less magical and more industrial “Age of Men.” WoW shares this to an extent – you can see a lot Elf ruins laying around in various zones – but WoW’s Elves don’t seem to be going anywhere, and the other races are just as handy with magic as they are.

They’re gender-neutral. The Night Elf government is run by the Sisters of Elune, a cabal of priestesses. The lore claims that Night Elves’ classes used to fall into strict gender separations: the men were druids, and the women were warriors or sorcerers. Now, apparently, those separations have disappeared – both genders can play all of the race’s classes. So the narrative might reflect the egalitarian design ethos of the game – avatars of both genders having equal gameplay abilities, even though their representational designs fall into standard gender stereotypes.

They’re West-meets-East. There are a lot of mixtures of Western and Eastern representations in the Night Elves. According to WoWWiki, they were “originally based on the Drow from the various Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings,” which are a group of fairies from Scottish mythology, according to Sir Walter Scott. But their annual holiday, the Lunar Festival, coincides with the Chinese Lunar New Year. And of course there’s their Greek/Japanese/Norse architecture.

So there’s some representational connection between WoW’s night elves and the standard sources of high fantasy. However, the way the Asian signifiers are presented suggests a hint or two of Orientalism, especially the stereotype of the mysterious, “inscrutable” Asian. The Night Elves’ lore describes them as quite aloof: they live on an island off the coast of one of Azeroth’s continents, and they’re depicted as having only recently come into regular contact with the other races. Even this was a matter of necessity: the Night Elves were forced to ally with the Humans and Orcs to defeat the Burning Legion in the Third War. Now part of the Alliance, they’re still kind of standoffish and mysterious to the other races.