Space

and it's not a matter of purity and all that is bad roleplay. it made the high elves cool an unique and they offered a different type of roleplay than any other group (except the kha I guess, but they ended up living with the High Elves a few times). but then the dark elves adopted it and the wood elves adopted it to an extent and it got sorta... not unique, not different, overused, etc.

I think its mostly because nationalists are the easiest to rouse roleplay. Playing a pacifist would involve having their values continuously challenged, and other factions will certainly target you for it (IE orcs and tribute demanding). 

If you dont have strong nationalism, you need something else that will form a core value to base the culture on. In the books of Divergent, they had 5 distinct cultures (daredevils, intellectuals, hippies, truth speakers, and unconditional kindness), but they lived together in a strange and forced understanding, to which in the end a faction inevitably tried to attempt complete take over.

Having a pacifist culture wouldn't be very sustainable in the world of LOTC, and the high elves are perhaps the most 'peaceful' among st all groups. Still have their own warriors to defend themselves. Can you imagine roleplaying to be a defeated faction over and over again? 

There are actually a decent amount of neutral territories, Sutica being a prime example. So no its not all 'death to every outsider'. And keeping in mind the war that Ames have fought with Aherals, there will always be tension present. You cant just turn the Ames into pacifists all of a sudden, especially since they were conquered and subjugated ruthlessly so many times. 

There is always more to a culture than strong nationalism, with overlaying themes and what not. Aherals with their stringent rules and careful social etiquette, Ames with their ferverent Aspect worship, Ker with their ancestral and shadowy themes. I dont think you can find a culture in real life that didn't have its share in bloodshed. Everyone was violent and peaceful at points in times. So to say that we are all the same really hurts us who put so much effort into developing them, and its why we do get defensive! 

You do present some very interesting suggestions, Space, but I cant see them being feasible unless the culture can sort of pay for its protection. Everyone's gotta live at the end of the day :P

Sorry for the long rant, this status debate was very interesting!

Wood elves are the way they are because of a few centuries of aggression from every race pretty much.

We disallow interbreeding because it's logical (why would you let your children **** something that'll die in ten years, and know their KID will ALSO die in 10 years? same principle for elves breeding w/ humans)

We dont let many outsiders into the city to prevent interbreeding for aforementioned reasons

We rigidly enforce the teachings of the gods of nature, the aspects, cause you know, we're wood elves

We put strong emphasis on nationalism and culture cause in our eyes that's what malinor lacked and that's what made it weak

So pls no complain on OOC statuses, everything you see happened that way cause of RP.