🔥 Your view on high elf roleplay at present.
Where do I start? I can say without a doubt that I am proud of how far it has come. When it all started, it was easy to call someone a “pretty princess” or a “snowflake” because they wanted to play a race that had been introduced through lore but had no real representation. Now, everyone I know has played a high elf in some capacity – you see them all over and no one gives a second glance to whether someone wants to play one or not. That is the positive in all of this. The way high elf RP has evolved has been equally as promising, too. I remember back when you mentioned my own head was far too deep in Lord of the Rings to really see much else, and I have to admit, you weren’t wrong.
Where that RP is today, I am not entirely sure. I still know a few folks who play their elves as being three-dimensional characters with good backgrounds and an abundance of great storytelling, but for the most part, it has gone to shit in a handbasket. Now, they have become a meme – and not a good one. Certainly I don’t think all high elves should be RPed the same way; diversity in narrative is essential to display the brilliance of story. The caveat to that is they treat being an elf like they do anything else: A joke.
There are no more engaging stories. There are no more characters with depth and desires. They are all one-dimensional self-inserts that lay heavily on trying to be witty or quippy and just coming off as juvenile and annoying. If they can’t be just serial tropes, they come off as being one-note songs. It pains me to see that it has come so far. Elf RP is amazing, whether you’re playing Blood Elf or High Elf (Void Elf need not apply, that is another issue in and of itself). So much can be made from it, and yet, for whatever reason, it never comes.
I hope one day that High Elf RP can come back to its roots and be what it once was: the wonder of playing a race that has such a rich and vibrant history – one of the few in Blizzard’s existence that isn’t riddled with retcon bullet holes. I want to see elves of all sorts exist who have deep, and engaging stories that draw a reader in, even if you never get to RP with them.
