Two Sides to a Coin: Part 1 -- Introduction

“I hate the Space Goats.”

“Blood Elves are gay.”

“Draenei are stupid."

“BE women are designed just for oversexed teenagers.”

“Female Draenei are like looking at J-Lo with a tail.”

“Blood Elves aren’t real Horde.”

“I go out of my way to gank the Goats.”

“When I see a BE, I want to punch them.  Pretty Horde my ass.”

Sound familiar?

If you’ve played WoW any stretch of time, you come across a lot of strong feelings about the two Burning Crusade races.  Sure, there’s plenty of love for them out there, but there’s been just as much (if not more) hate.  These two races rarely seem to inspire a ‘meh’ reaction from the WoW crowd.

I’m a bit of an odd man out in that I not only play both races but I actually like both of them.  I recently finished the Loremaster of Outland achievement on Tomakan, and I can now share a belief that’s been growing on me the past year:  the two races have enough in common that they could be considered fraternal twins.

Yes, I know, this is a bit of a departure from a previous post of mine, but that post concerned the low level experiences of both races in the Old World.  That post still remains valid because Blizzard didn’t change things very much for both races in the post-Cata Old World.  As for the entire breadth of Draenei/Sindorei lore present in WoW, consider the following racial history:

• Tempted by outside powers, the majority willingly turn to Darkness.  As a reward, they are granted tremendous power.  Those who refuse flee.
• Finding a safe haven, they rebuild a semblance of their prior life.
• Invaded and decimated by outside forces, what remains clings to life support.
• These outside forces are the focus of their ire to the exclusion of almost all else.
• Convinced of their superiority, the race has a blind spot the size of New Jersey.

Now, which race am I talking about?

Anyone?  Bueller?

Both.

What I intend to do the next few posts is expound upon how similar the two races are, so that maybe they can be seen in a different light.  I’m going to focus upon the in-game lore, because that is the lore that gets the biggest dissemination in WoW.  If you play WoW, you have access to the in-game lore; not everybody is going to read the books/comics or watch the DVDs from the BC Collector’s Edition.

Of course, I’m not finished with Alliance side Loremaster --I might miss a few isolated things in the post-Cata Old World-- but I’m reasonably confident that I’ve got most of the Draenei/Sindorei in-game lore covered.

Hopefully, these posts will help a player gain some insight into these two BC races, and encourage people to explore the in-game lore for both sides and come to their own conclusions.