Crystalis's book club: Mount Hyjal and Illidan's Gift.

The major problem with night elves is that, up until recently, they were immortal. Not that there's anything wrong with immortality, per se, it just doesn't make for great literature. When you're going to live for an infinity kabillion years, you don't mind setting aside a decade or two to read a book. Night elf authors were happy to oblige. What might show up as a racy cartoon in a dwarven magazine would be a 9,000-page monologue in a night elf comic book. Now the night elves don't have that kind of time anymore, so they've had to try to adapt to what we mere mortals might actually consider reading. The result: dry and uninteresting prose. Everything the night elves write ends up sounding like a history book, whether or not it's actually history.

Today's selection is Mount Hyjal and Illdan's Gift, which I found laying around in the Auberdine inn while waiting for a boat. Problem is the damn thing put me to sleep and I ended up missing the boat anyway.

Note that the night elves refer to the group of folks who destroyed the Well of Eternity and blew up the world as "weary heroes". Among other things, that cataclysm allegedly created the continents we know and love today, kick-started the Maelstrom (and thus adding a few hours to our trans-continental travel time as we sail around the magically destructive vortex) and, oh yeah, as an added bonus created the entire race of naga. I guess if you destroy the world and there's nobody left but you and your buddies, you become heroes by default.

Not so long ago the entire noble race of gnomes exploded themselves by trying to fight off a horde of troggs without any aid. After the dust settled they all decided to just go find new, interesting ways to explode themselves and others. Which isn't a credit to my race to be sure, but at least we didn't get mired down in the same kind of emo hornswaggle these pansy night elves are accustomed to.




It's tragedy enough that any elves survived the cataclysm unscathed, Highborne or otherwise. Just goes to prove that the only things left after a magical catastrophe of epic proportions will be elves and roaches.




The elves are complaining that their holy mountain is "fouled by magic"? Sheesh. The mountain where I used to live had been fouled by dwarves for generations. And, more recently, troggs... but that's only a minor improvement.

All night elf texts basically amount to "Magic bad! Grrr!" This Illidan chap is my hero. Man, could you imagine a world without magic? How droll. Oh, and while I'm on the subject, you night elf priests use magic, too. Don't give me that "Elune" baloney either; you guys are a bunch of haughty magic-using hypocrites and everyone knows it. The only reason nobody has pointed out your atrocious double-standard until now is because they all want you to heal them.




Go Illidan! Someone should have told this Malfurion guy a long time ago that the world needs chaos. Order is the bane of existence. If there were no magic to keep everyone on their toes, the whole world would be a terrible beurocratic mess. Try and imagine Stormwind's red tape everywhere you go. With nobody to periodically light the politicians on fire, they might get out of line, yeah?

Wait a minute. Isn't Cenarius supposed to be some kind of druidic demigod? So making a magic pool and stirring up a little bit of chaos is bad, but calling in a favor from your centaur-god buddy to slap your brother in prison for eternity is perfectly okay!? What kind of twisted logic is that?

Now, I'll be the first to admit that the night elf forests are nice places. They've managed to diligently maintain some of the prettiest vacation spots in all of Kalimdor. In fact, if having to put up with this kind of self-glorifying kodo dung is the price I must pay to have purples trees and fresh air, so be it.

As far as being a literary work, I'd say/ Mount Hyjal and Illidan's Gift is about on par with what you'd find in the men's room of a dwarven tavern. Which is to say it's useful for wiping yourself with, but not much else.