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yukieThis came out of (a) me contemplating how different tea cultures of Azeroth would have developed (i'm going to write about that too eventually) and (b) someone asking me if the tiling patterns/geometric screeny things in Dalaran looked Ottoman to me too.
My answer: yes it does--and incidentally, this is one reason why the High Elves and Blood Elves are not universally as pallid as--well--ME when I'm drawing or writing them. (Again, the credit for my getting into thinking of this at ALL goes to my amazing girlfriend and her patience and insight and badassitude XD)
Seriously, none of their architecture is fully European in origin. Silvermoon City is not ttly zomg Euro-looking in the least, and neither is Dalaran.
(Hold on tight, guys--I'm about to hardcore art nerd all over the place.)
The primary influences seem to be Byzantine and Mughal architecture (and the somewhat-wacky Victorian British take on these), as well as the Art Nouveau movement which was itself inspired in part by Japanese and Mughal and Arabic architecture and art.
What makes me say this of the architecture? Well, firstly, the domes and the towers. Byzantine and Mughal architecture are full of the kinds of domes that are everywhere in Dalaran. Neither style has an exclusive market on domes, but when you start to look at the proliferation of tall spires alongside them, and the shape and proportion of the spires in particular...they are similar to minarets. They're not the right shape to be a spire or a fleche. Silvermoon City uses more hyperstylized onion domes and tower shapes, but the general feel is 'we were looking at the Taj Mahal and Alfons Mucha a lot'.
Another thing to look at is the shape of the arches you see in Silvermoon and Dalaran. There's a lot of horseshoe arches. These are usually seen in Islamic architecture. They're not exclusive to such, but they're a common design element.
It's the same case with the geometric design elements you see in both places. They're of a somewhat different sort between Silvermoon and Dalaran, which kind of makes me want to thunk Blizzard for not being as internally consistent as they could have been. The tesselated tile and stone patterns and the geometric designs in Dalaran are -not- "what happens when you cross Silvermoon with Stormwind" as I saw someone once claim. I would honestly expect to see more of the tesselations and geometric designs around Silvermoon itself, what with all the Byzantine- and Islamic-style and Art-Nouveau-ish arabesque and curvilinear designs you see. You can't really put a line down the middle and plunk the geometric stuff on one side and the pretty curvy lines on the other, because they both come out of the same historical roots.
Yeah, maybe you could say the Blood Elves abandoned the geometric motifs after they rebuilt, but--why would they? There's no reason. They were very adamant about fixing the city up to be the way it was pre-Zerging in order to give Arthas the finger and prove he hadn't beaten them down.
Anyway...
Another element I looked at as a basis for this post is the interior decoration--rugs, furniture, draperies--of Silvermoon, and in anywhere the Blood Elves hang out, and also in Dalaran.
I'll go through these one-by-one.
RUGS: Silvermoon and Dalaran share some rug designs (which is a thing I like) and the patterns on the rugs aren't very occidental. While rugs are not exclusive to the Middle East and South Asia, what rugs are RLY RLY FAMOUSE ZOMG for being fancy? Persian, 'Oriental', Afghan... This is a less direct connection than the rest of what I'm talking about here, but considering that fancy carpets as we usually think of them often came West via BRITISH EMPIRE EVERYWHERE...yes. Saith Wikipedia: "Historically the word [carpet] was also used for table and wall coverings, as carpets were not commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century, with the opening of trade routes between Persia and Western Europe."
FURNITURE: THIS is where it's really apparent that Blizzard had--well, they were probably thinking 'Arabian Nights' more than anything genuinely historical but still. You do see regular chairs, and those little folding stools but you also see a whole lot of big cushions, chaises longues/daybeds (themselves based on Egyptian furniture), and even the throne in Sunfury spire is more based on a divan than the type of fancy chair we usually think of.
Another piece of furniture--well--hell, I'll class these as furniture for want of a better category. The hookah (a.k.a. shisha, argileh, etc.) You will find these just about everywhere there are Blood Elves. They are absolutely not occidental in origin. Social smoking with these is still a significant thing in the Middle East and South Asia, and has been for ages (and have started to take off here because white people gank everything). We don't know what's in the ones the Blood Elves use (my best guess is peacebloom and dreamfoil--they may possibly use tobacco though, because the Tauren may've taught the Night Elves about it, being the first druids and all XD) but--yeah. Hookahs! The trolls seem to have them too, meaning they've been a Thing for a long time.
DRAPERY: Dalaran doesn't have quite the proliferation of draperies as does Silvermoon, but you see the sheer draperies a lot in parts of the Black Temple. You see them in the Crimson hall, too! Draperies are another 'old and everywhere' thing; portieres (doorway curtains, roughly) seem to have come from Asia to Europe sometime around the fourth century CE but that's not an exact date.
*gasp gasp*
Of course there are a lot of sheerly fanciful design elements, and there's European-inspired stuff afoot too, but a buttload of the design elements and stuff that you see associated with the Blood Elves are decidedly not.
(SRS BZNSS: This is incidentally why the Blood Elves' treatment in WoW often bugs me--there is a LOT of Orientalism flying around in their depiction, and when they're consistently portrayed as untrustworthy or megalomaniacal/power hungry or insane or cruel or cowardly or sneaky, and you get a lot of jokes about the men not being 'manly' enough, well...guess how Asian and Middle Eastern people are portrayed in media CONSTANTLY. Yeah, see? That. And the Blood Elves in-game being about as dark-skinned as me does NOT make this nonsense vanish. It's still Orientalism. It's still veiled bigotry. All of the 'good' High Elves being consistently lighter-skinned and blond makes it even more egregious!
There is a long tradition of this nonsense in our media, and while I'm not shocked by it, it still annoys me. And trust me, I'm not 'seeing things that aren't there'. This is old baggage in our mainstream media culture. Think 'Victorian' old and beyond.
This isn't to say that they must never be the bad guys EVERRR of course, but rather that that the way they're consistently portrayed as morally suspect or dishonest, with few being honourable, Has Issues Aplenty.)
Anyway. All this is what informs a lot of my depiction of Blood Elven and High Elven culture. It's also why not all of my Blood Elven or High Elven OCs are especially pallid. XD Kristios and Kleidion are the palest, about the same hue as me; Ishandarr is medium-olive-complected with freckles, Aerionn, Serhan and Isythalar are medium brown, and Lytaea is a darker copper. And Mireillie is bluish, but she's kind of also undead circa the Zerging of Lordaeron so there's that XD
SO
YEAH
there is my rationale, nerding, jargon, and DAFUQ WAS DAT XD
My answer: yes it does--and incidentally, this is one reason why the High Elves and Blood Elves are not universally as pallid as--well--ME when I'm drawing or writing them. (Again, the credit for my getting into thinking of this at ALL goes to my amazing girlfriend and her patience and insight and badassitude XD)
Seriously, none of their architecture is fully European in origin. Silvermoon City is not ttly zomg Euro-looking in the least, and neither is Dalaran.
(Hold on tight, guys--I'm about to hardcore art nerd all over the place.)
The primary influences seem to be Byzantine and Mughal architecture (and the somewhat-wacky Victorian British take on these), as well as the Art Nouveau movement which was itself inspired in part by Japanese and Mughal and Arabic architecture and art.
What makes me say this of the architecture? Well, firstly, the domes and the towers. Byzantine and Mughal architecture are full of the kinds of domes that are everywhere in Dalaran. Neither style has an exclusive market on domes, but when you start to look at the proliferation of tall spires alongside them, and the shape and proportion of the spires in particular...they are similar to minarets. They're not the right shape to be a spire or a fleche. Silvermoon City uses more hyperstylized onion domes and tower shapes, but the general feel is 'we were looking at the Taj Mahal and Alfons Mucha a lot'.
Another thing to look at is the shape of the arches you see in Silvermoon and Dalaran. There's a lot of horseshoe arches. These are usually seen in Islamic architecture. They're not exclusive to such, but they're a common design element.
It's the same case with the geometric design elements you see in both places. They're of a somewhat different sort between Silvermoon and Dalaran, which kind of makes me want to thunk Blizzard for not being as internally consistent as they could have been. The tesselated tile and stone patterns and the geometric designs in Dalaran are -not- "what happens when you cross Silvermoon with Stormwind" as I saw someone once claim. I would honestly expect to see more of the tesselations and geometric designs around Silvermoon itself, what with all the Byzantine- and Islamic-style and Art-Nouveau-ish arabesque and curvilinear designs you see. You can't really put a line down the middle and plunk the geometric stuff on one side and the pretty curvy lines on the other, because they both come out of the same historical roots.
Yeah, maybe you could say the Blood Elves abandoned the geometric motifs after they rebuilt, but--why would they? There's no reason. They were very adamant about fixing the city up to be the way it was pre-Zerging in order to give Arthas the finger and prove he hadn't beaten them down.
Anyway...
Another element I looked at as a basis for this post is the interior decoration--rugs, furniture, draperies--of Silvermoon, and in anywhere the Blood Elves hang out, and also in Dalaran.
I'll go through these one-by-one.
RUGS: Silvermoon and Dalaran share some rug designs (which is a thing I like) and the patterns on the rugs aren't very occidental. While rugs are not exclusive to the Middle East and South Asia, what rugs are RLY RLY FAMOUSE ZOMG for being fancy? Persian, 'Oriental', Afghan... This is a less direct connection than the rest of what I'm talking about here, but considering that fancy carpets as we usually think of them often came West via BRITISH EMPIRE EVERYWHERE...yes. Saith Wikipedia: "Historically the word [carpet] was also used for table and wall coverings, as carpets were not commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century, with the opening of trade routes between Persia and Western Europe."
FURNITURE: THIS is where it's really apparent that Blizzard had--well, they were probably thinking 'Arabian Nights' more than anything genuinely historical but still. You do see regular chairs, and those little folding stools but you also see a whole lot of big cushions, chaises longues/daybeds (themselves based on Egyptian furniture), and even the throne in Sunfury spire is more based on a divan than the type of fancy chair we usually think of.
Another piece of furniture--well--hell, I'll class these as furniture for want of a better category. The hookah (a.k.a. shisha, argileh, etc.) You will find these just about everywhere there are Blood Elves. They are absolutely not occidental in origin. Social smoking with these is still a significant thing in the Middle East and South Asia, and has been for ages (and have started to take off here because white people gank everything). We don't know what's in the ones the Blood Elves use (my best guess is peacebloom and dreamfoil--they may possibly use tobacco though, because the Tauren may've taught the Night Elves about it, being the first druids and all XD) but--yeah. Hookahs! The trolls seem to have them too, meaning they've been a Thing for a long time.
DRAPERY: Dalaran doesn't have quite the proliferation of draperies as does Silvermoon, but you see the sheer draperies a lot in parts of the Black Temple. You see them in the Crimson hall, too! Draperies are another 'old and everywhere' thing; portieres (doorway curtains, roughly) seem to have come from Asia to Europe sometime around the fourth century CE but that's not an exact date.
*gasp gasp*
Of course there are a lot of sheerly fanciful design elements, and there's European-inspired stuff afoot too, but a buttload of the design elements and stuff that you see associated with the Blood Elves are decidedly not.
(SRS BZNSS: This is incidentally why the Blood Elves' treatment in WoW often bugs me--there is a LOT of Orientalism flying around in their depiction, and when they're consistently portrayed as untrustworthy or megalomaniacal/power hungry or insane or cruel or cowardly or sneaky, and you get a lot of jokes about the men not being 'manly' enough, well...guess how Asian and Middle Eastern people are portrayed in media CONSTANTLY. Yeah, see? That. And the Blood Elves in-game being about as dark-skinned as me does NOT make this nonsense vanish. It's still Orientalism. It's still veiled bigotry. All of the 'good' High Elves being consistently lighter-skinned and blond makes it even more egregious!
There is a long tradition of this nonsense in our media, and while I'm not shocked by it, it still annoys me. And trust me, I'm not 'seeing things that aren't there'. This is old baggage in our mainstream media culture. Think 'Victorian' old and beyond.
This isn't to say that they must never be the bad guys EVERRR of course, but rather that that the way they're consistently portrayed as morally suspect or dishonest, with few being honourable, Has Issues Aplenty.)
Anyway. All this is what informs a lot of my depiction of Blood Elven and High Elven culture. It's also why not all of my Blood Elven or High Elven OCs are especially pallid. XD Kristios and Kleidion are the palest, about the same hue as me; Ishandarr is medium-olive-complected with freckles, Aerionn, Serhan and Isythalar are medium brown, and Lytaea is a darker copper. And Mireillie is bluish, but she's kind of also undead circa the Zerging of Lordaeron so there's that XD
SO
YEAH
there is my rationale, nerding, jargon, and DAFUQ WAS DAT XD
