Are Arathi good because they're racist zealot HUMAN villains, or bad because humans get more spotlight?

Lore Story Forum
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That is almost always true, except in this case the whole point of the mission was the church basically. Fighting in a glorious battle in their religion’s version of Armageddon as soldiers of their holy emperor of man would definitely see them push a lot of resources towards the building of something as wacky as that giant church.

They seem to of been dancing around some of the finer points of the empire they wanted seen in game. There is obviously stronger human elements, but I think that is mostly because they have made so much more human stuff to draw from… and honestly I think the Arathi are their Empire of Man with the serial numbers filed off.

Yeah. From what we have on the empire so far, they seem to of basically killed whoever was in the way of the empire’s expansion and took their lands in some version of manifest destiny. They take must make high elven imperialist ventures in founding Quel’thalas look like child’s play if they control most—if not all—of a continent like the Hallowfall Arathi say they do.

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And if all we had was the massive church and the buildings around it, I’d buy it as a frontier town a hell of a lot more. Instead we have the church and its grounds, a nearby large town, large farms in numerous areas, some even pretty far from both church and large town, some smaller township/village settlements, the Aegis Wall, the massive light towers, and more.

This isn’t a frontier town. It’s a nation-state, complete with civilians and orphans and workers in addition to its military, a working trade system with neighboring national entities, and their own technologies.

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Yeah, I am not gonna sit here and deny they changed gears for sure. I am wondering if the Arathi empire was one of the things Metzen rewired, as it seems like it might of been pretty late on.

But, that is the hand they played, so I am gonna go off appearances and I guess go with the Arathi are also part worker ant to get so much done in so little time.

:dracthyr_shrug:

It is certainly funny this little expedition got more built than full out kingdoms upstairs—Quel’thalas is apparently just now starting to get around to rebuilding.

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Stormwind could do with learning some construction tips from the Arathi too. It took 'em six years to give the barn-inn in Westfall a roof, and about as long to replace the stones Deathwing’s claws melted!!

In that same time, the Arathi probably would have built at least three Sentinel Hills and stuck a light tower in the middle of it!!

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They did build a brand spanking new airship in relatively short order

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There needs to be a meme about Arathi Efficiency at this point, like those ones you see about German Efficency.

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Even so, that would have to be just a generic catch all term, not an actual genetic percentage.

Are we to believe that the Arathi had some kind of compulsory “you can only marry a person of the opposite race, which we luckily have in perfect distribution according to gender” law?

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No, just saying we know they’re half elves but they prefer to call themselves Arathi

Anything else is pure semantics

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I just mean that it’s more accurate to say that they are hybrids, but we have no idea what percentage is elf and which is human, even if an NPC says it’s half. They didn’t set out on an expedition with equal numbers of elves and humans that conveniently coupled exclusively in bi-racial pairs.

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They’re half elves. Don’t know what to tell you. That’s the lore

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Yes, but the question is “what does that mean?”. Are you claiming that every single Arathi has an elf parent and a human parent?

Not only is that highly unlikely, given the lore, but I doubt that’s what blizzard means. It’s lazy to call them “half-elves” but we all know what they mean, so it’s no big deal.

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Arathi are an answer to the question of “What does WoW just not have enough of?”

The answer: Elves and humans. Clearly, we suffer from a drought of elves and humans and they certainly aren’t ferreted into every nook and cranny of the entire game.

As such, they made elf-humans but also made them turbo-zealots because that’s also something that we haven’t beaten a dead horse about either.

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We haven’t seen the Arathi actually do anything racist or bad so far. Plus this was a expedition Holy Order of Knights and Warriors that are little bit more understanding than judging people outside of their territory.

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I find interesting that the Arathi on Siren Isle do mention that the nagas are also a thing on their mainland continent.

Which means we might see more nagas even in their place!

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Now I wonder if the Storming Seas was something Azshara created for nefarious reasons. Maybe to keep whatever artifacts that are on the Arathi mainland from leaving?

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From how it seems, the ‘heretic’ titanforged likely were touched by azeroth and granted free will early on. So, they rebelled because odyn is a donkey and the watchers often mistreated the rank and file titanforged in their charge because they were intended as disposable tools and not people.

So… they rebelled, fled, and somehow made the storming sea as a barrier to keep Odyn’s punitive armies at bay.

A storm would never keep the naga away, though, as they are safe from even the worst storm just a few hundred feet under water.

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I’m gonna have to deep dive this Siren Isle stuff, because I thought they fled after Thorim went distant, which would mean Loken was in charge. And I was convinced Odyn had sent val’kyr to aid Circe. Is none of that the case?

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Oh the Siren Isle Vrykul were winterscorn war era, the ‘heretic’ ones who seem to of fled west over what is now the storming sea would of been far earlier, likely pre dragon aspects.

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Ah, gotcha

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Ok well I’m sensing the OP is mostly annoyed by the Arathi and several conversations seem to focus on the obsession with evil humans and whether that’s good or bad.

I can’t speak directly to the Arathi, but personally, having played all kinds of games as early as the 90s in particular, I think people need to relax about morality in games in general.

Like, one game I liked back in the day was Carmageddon, and it was a game where you basically got points for driving crazily and hitting pedestrians and crashing into buildings, it was hilarious and fun because it’s you know, just a game. I think just about every other person has also played GTA at this point.

When it comes to more modern games that emphasize player choice and stuff, the odds are usually stacked so you want to play good side or just would probably feel bad playing bad.

But there are things like SWTOR where it’s just an empire being an empire and you can just play an ends justify the means type like a Sith Inquisitor and make evil choices all the way down as I did and it’s pretty fun.

It’s just fun to be different a bit sometimes, I think is all it is, and since it’s just a video game and entertainment it’s really the perfect place for what people call “evil” factions or groups to be playable or whatever.

I played a Dark Elf in Everquest, I mean like Bioware games or something they really “want” you to be good so I never played evil in those games (except SWTOR and KOTOR) and it’s just fun when it’s done right to play a different side.

I think you can argue that the Scarlet Crusade isn’t really racist so much as zealous and their methods extreme, but that can just be “their view” of the world and not inherently “evil.”

If I was at Blizzard I’d actually put a bunch of effort into making the Scarlet Crusade a 3rd playable faction, have it be like Pandaren can’t join them and they have no death knights and less major cities or only one, kind of like a unique faction for advanced players.

There’s no reason, since it’s just a video game, you can’t have factions or groups that other people find wrong or evil to be fun for other people to play in the game.

Warcraft won’t be much fun if people are upset when less “obviously good” factions are around and get rid of them. It just leaves a dry stale agreeable universe with no discord or tension.

Edit: I think I should add that Warcraft and Blizzard have been kinda uneven in terms of representing “evil.” Like, in WC2 the Horde was blatantly evil in an unappealing kind of way. They sort of realized that and changed with WC3. I don’t know, Metzen just does such big bang busters on any story that’s why most people play WoW, but Blizzard hasn’t always had the facility with gray area that other companies have had.

It’s not nothing hence this thread I suppose and the discussion, I can only imagine they can maybe go there in the story though one day and make it all work out right.

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