You literally stated nobody has given an example when I literally gave an example literally just above your post and then claimed its far too much for you to parse through.
So bless your heart :’)
This coming from someone insisting concentration camps are sometimes morally licit
Not what I stated at all. But I wouldn’t expect you to be honest.
All I see is a lot of complicated real world history stuff.
This isn’t a good answer. If someone provides an example and we just don’t read it - then we have not considered the point.
@ Baalsamael
Can you explain to me how the post Warcraft II situation between the Humans and the Orcs, especially considering the Orcs’ origins and objectives is in any sense comparable to the relationship between Spanish Christians and Muslims?
I do not recall the muslims being a demonically spawned army that expressly refused to take prisoners or govern occupied populations.
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I skimmed through the example, how am I supposed to consider a point I don’t understand?
According to the Spanish at the time, they were. In fact the very word Islamophobia was first invented in Spanish in the context of La Reconquista™. But the priest who invented it said it as more of a virtue, as in Spain should and must be Islamophobic.
And even though this was the dominant belief, they still handled it differently.
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Fun fact: in a lot of early colonial churches in Latin America, the Spanish would depict Saint Michael as white, blonde, blue eyed, while Satan being cast out under his foot would often bye brown, curly hair, bearded, brown eyes.
In fact the word for Brown skinned in Spanish is a derivative of Moor, “Moreno”.
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I’m not quite sure I see it as being that severe, and I have to place this in the further context of the Muslims having ruled Spain for hundreds of years beforehand, whilst governing Christian and Jewish communities. I have to include the context of limited trade with the Islamic world. I’m having a hard time carrying this over.
I think the Warcraft II situation is more akin to what would happen after the movie Independence Day, humanity ended up having to find a solution for a large community of the evil space aliens that were just vaporizing their cities. Would they really give them their own island or something to live on? Would that be responsible given what just happened?
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Spanish history is a struggle of two myths
- Black Legend = Spain was the most evil of all of Europe, the Reconquista mercilessly slaughtered the Jews and Muslims, and only because the evil Muslims violently oppressed the Poor Christians (and sometimes Jews)
- White Legend = Spain was an Ethnoracial, Multi Religious wonderland under both Islamic and Spanish rule.
You’re invoking White Legend rn
Except that is not the meta representation of the Orcs. The Orcs are not unreadable “aliens”. They invoke an image of a specific body of aesthetics IRL, and based within the West upon a specific genealogy largely rooted in what Tolkien imagined orcs to be.
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I mean, I get that the myth of the Islamic Andalusian paradise is just that - but some of the elements of it regardless, ring true.
Regarding your second point - I was speaking from an in-narrative point of view, where the Orcs literally were aliens who had genocide as a war aim. If you want to move this to the meta - then I would add that the inclusion of internment camps as a topic is something that modern audiences are going to interpret in a different manner than those in the narrative because of the historical context that we apply to the institution. This certainly means that modern audiences are going to view the concept more controversially than characters in the narrative would - which Blizzard probably wanted - but it does complicate the moral discussion when we consider the actions of those actors in the narrative.
No I don’t think so. By that point in Azerothian history there had already been numerous “abolition” movements (Pandaren vs Mogu, Goblins vs Trolls, etc)
None of which happen in the context of the question of “what should we do with the remnants of this alien demonic army that wanted to kill us all before we defeated them?”
Blizzard created a very unique situation here.
And yet given that is functionally the parallel of the question Spain asked itself in 1492 due to widespread extreme Islamophobia that eventually became the mid colonial Casta system that became modern day race logic, and the conclusion wasn’t “put everyone in Andalucia in camps”, my example still applies.
Yes yes, we can dicuss the portrayal of the orcs until the end of time.
The question at hand, or rather your assertion, is that the old Alliance was as morally bankrupt as the old Horde, which I don’t believe holds up. One was the agressor, took no prisoners, killed indesciminately, and intended to wipe out everyone on the eastern kingdoms continent. The other reacted, and defended against this, and successfully defeated them, thoe not without suffering extensive losses, a noteworthy one being the razing of Stormwind.
Here’s the kicker. The orcs were all high on demon blood during this time, and that was still true when they were defeated at the dark portal. So letting them go free, on top of everything they had done, wasn’t feasable, because they would simply go back to doing what they did before. There’s no real world equivalent to this, because we haven’t had an entire population that went to war affected by a mind altering drug that made them extremely violent. I just don’t see what the Alliance could have done differently. It took possibly years of sobriety, I guess you could call it, for the orcs to lose their bloodlust. That is years that they would continue to hurt people indisciminately.
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I’m afraid I don’t quite agree that it still applies for the reasons I presented previously. The Muslims did not descend upon Spain and then proceed to try and kill all of the Christians. Hundreds of years of evidence of coexistence and limited trade pre-dated your example.
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Historical reality doesn’t matter when this was the ahistorical but popular view at the time. They literally began viewing Islamic and Jewish heritage as a blood trait, ergo limpieza de sangre laws and the Inquisition maintaining genealogical records for centuries. Islam and Judaism became a genetic quality.
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Yes, but that does not translate into “this is an extraterrestrial demon army that just tried to kill us all who we now need to find a solution for.”
It does? Like literally that even the argument to this day. We literally use the word “aliens” in most romance languages to refer to and signal to unwanted immigration in society, as opposed to “expatriates” and “immigrants”
“These darker skinned aliens are invading my land and killing everyone!”
-Alliance circa First War or Medieval Spain thinking about Al Andalus 
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I probably should have anticipated that semantical flourish, but we aren’t talking about a group of people who came over hundreds of years ago using a method that had been used for hundreds if not thousands of years before that. The Orcs were not a known quantity for hundreds of years. In the scenario presented, they just showed up, they just tried to kill everyone, and now all of the sudden the human kingdoms need to figure out what to do with them.
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