I’m lying by highlighting the actual lore and not snippets? Okay buddy, that’s a take I guess.
You can check the Chronicle, I didn’t edit the passages to make it fit what I’m saying, that’s literally what the Chronicle says.
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to be further fair to Thrall, the penance was a Golden retcon to begin with.
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I always forget how unimaginative Pangea!Azeroth is. It’s literally just a circle. It looks like Teldrassil without the branches.
I do wonder if the Nelves would have ever betrayed the Pandaren.
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Same.
Not that I’m any map maker of repute or anything.
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Idk Do what i say or we will take your land isn’t much better
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No, but it’s not ‘on pain of death’ like Dreadmoore is claiming either.
By no means am I saying that it was a good deal for the trolls, but there is a difference between saying “Hey, you do what I say or I’ll take your sacred mountains.” and “Hey, you do what I say or I’ll kill you all.”
The lore clearly states the agreement was the former, not the latter.
it sorta is unless you intend to take their land without a war
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Again… no.
Will some Zanadlari die in defensive of their home? Yes. This is obvious. Granted, bloodless takeovers of territory have happened before, but I doubt the Trolls would just let the Night Elves take the mountain.
But again, going back to the former and latter. The former is the elves saying “I’ll take your territory.” and obviously anyone defending that territory who didn’t retreat would likely be killed or captured (we don’t know if the Night Elves captured trolls, although considering that they enslaved nascent humans, it’s possible that they did use captured trolls for slave labor, that’s not 100% confirmed though, just an assumption).
The latter is killing for the sake of killing. If I say to a group of people: “Do what I say on pain of death.” and they don’t do it. I’m not interested in taking their territory, I’m only interested in killing them for defying me.
Azshara’s deal with the Zandalari is clearly spelled out. Do what I say or I take your sacred mountain. Not, do what I say or I kill every single Zandalari troll.
Yeah, the WotA novels implied that she was always emanating a sort of compulsive “aura” that made those nearby want to serve and worship her. Illidan noticed it when he was brought to Azshara’s court and had to make a conscious effort to resist the effect.
And Captain Varo’then was somehow immune to it but still fell in love with Azshara anyway.
The trolls were not a singular empire by this time, but several different nations.
It’s not equal power though, the night elves devastated any troll nation that they wanted land from. With their arcane power and night warrior powers.
It’s also stated “… the first night elves began their rise to power by defeating a number of nearby troll tribes. As a consequence, the trolls came to fear and respect the might of their new rivals.”
So the night elves started by defeating the nearby trolls, which made them enemies of the larger troll kind and it’s a conflict that kept going since the nelves kept expanding.
Also, let me quote Maiev “Many craven races have tempted our wrath over the centuries. None have survived!”. While not expanded on what races she’s referring to, we can only speculate.
Here’s also a map with an overlap of the troll vs nelf territory, nelves took more than half of the land trolls had.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/528895988648247319/1152862717573595137/empire.png
All that said, comparing the current nelves to the man’ari is not even a good one. The mainline nelf society are pretty much new people and a whole new society. They also allowed a troll tribe to live in isolation on their territory when they needed a home.
The only one you could compare to is Azshara and the few remaining highborne still alive from that time which are most likely either naga or satyr at this point. But even that is a stretch since I don’t think anyone on Azeroth can claim the “accomplishment” of the Man’ari. The Man’ari literally joined the legion willingly, sure they might have not really understood what it meant at the time, but they were then seen as one of the stronger weapons of the legion, they are the literal commanders of the legion, having armies of demons under their command, and wiped out countless worlds and races, with the end goal of the organization to end all life in the universe.
Not even Sylvanas or even the lich king is on their level of atrocity. Which sure is something.
And to the OP, orcs have tried to change, Thrall being the most obvious one with his new Horde etc, but that proved to not be enough change to fix the issues of the orc/horde society. However it’s changed further now after bfa with a council instead of a warchief and even now in df, we see members of the clans discuss about the past etc, we see the dragonmaw talking about their past atrocities, we see the burning blade essentially saying that the clan does not take new members and it should wither and die since it is now mainly traitors that carry the banner, etc.
So steps are taken, what remains to be seen is the effect of it.
The man’ari has done nothing of the sort from what we’ve seen. And their crimes are as said earlier, far worse than any orcs.
The night elf empire had a thing for enslaving “exotic” creatures, it’s mentioned in a book (the guardian one I believe) that they even enslaved some of the nascent race of humans, and we know from legion lore that they held a sea giant bound by magic in a pool by one of their temples so that it could perform tricks for visitors.
We don’t know anything outside of there actually has been some form of monarchs and noble blood lines before her, but it really took off with Azshara with her building the fancy royal palace, essentially creating the strict highborne caste and having them go deep into the arcane magics, and then sending expeditions out into the world to expand. We also don’t know exactly when she rose to power, just that it is before 12k years ago as by that time the expansions had already begun as well as the arcane magics.
Well, it is stated she used magic on herself to charm anyone witnessing her. People were bethralled and mesmerized by her brilliant aura and saw it as a sign of divinity. Source is the shaman resto artifact from legion.
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we see the burning blade essentially saying that the clan does not take new members and it should wither and die since it is now mainly traitors that carry the banner, etc.
This part was rather strange considering that there’s been a few Blademasters in the Horde before such as Ronakada. Samuro also, even if he has yet to make an official WoW Appearance. Were none of them Burning Blade?
Yes, but as the current leader says:
" All but a few of the dishonorable Burning Blade are dead, fel-corrupted, or traitors, both here and on Outland.
They do not deserve your loyalty. As far as I can tell, I am leader of this accursed clan by surviving the longest, and I say that it should wither and die. That is my final word on the matter."
He does say that at the start but begins coming around to the idea of the burning blade to continue at the end
It’s more that he’s accepting of those two warlocks that serve the Horde as his kin. I still don’t think he want new recruits into the clan itself.
Nelven empire spread before Highborne were overthrown. There was no split on peasants and highborne as all were one thing and were benefiting from conquest. Nelves were very into claiming entire world on their own, and in order to take this much territory you have to kill peoppe that stand in your way. They had enough place to share it with other habitants but they chose to stomp on others, kill them on their way.
And then when Azshara invited Burning Legion they caused Saundering which made a lot of people drown in the cataclysm.
So don’t give me that speech. Post Saundering true, nelves stayed in their forests. But not before they Became empire.
Also you use excuse that it’s “12 thousand years ago! Old history nobody remembers it” are we talking about the same race? They’re achiving this kind of age. Malurion, Illidan, Tyrande. How old are they again?
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the most of the nelf cast are old enough to have been alive in the apex of the nelf empire, Which given nelf life spans even withought immortality, means they didn’t have many leaders before they fell
The lore’s a bit hazy on this, as no definitive point in time is presented for when the Empire of Zul as a concept truly ceased to be. Technically even during the rise of the night elves, the Zandalari may well have still considered the general troll hegemony to still in effect be the Empire of Zul.
It’s even possible that to this day the the sum total of what remains of troll power across Azeroth may still internally be considered the Empire of Zul by the Zandalari, if not by the other tribes.
In fact Azshara’s arrangement with the Zandalari basically amounted to ending the war by treating the trolls as a single empire with a leadership caste that could be dealt with, because the other tribes would have just kept retaliating ad infinitum for as long as the Zandalari tacitly supported them doing so by not telling them to stop.
So while on paper the trolls were split into four primary nations, even then the Zandalari held such sway over the others that when it came to the war with the night elves, they were arguably still functioning almost like a single empire. To the point that when the Zandalari told them to stop fighting, though they weren’t happy about it they still obediently did so, almost like vassal states rather than fully autonomous nations.
It’s also a thematic point in Shadows of the Horde; as the other tribes formed their own nations, the Zandalari remained sure of keeping a solid grip on their obedience because even as the younger tribes sought their own glories in conquest, they were still so beholden to Zandalar that they’d always come crawling back to pay homage and seek its guidance. So even though they had their own things going on, at the end of the day they continued to look to Zandalar for leadership, and in turn Zandalar still basically saw them as subject nations of its own empire.
While the zandalari kept having a large influence on the other tribes and being the strongest one, they very much were a separate nation since several tribes had their own empires.
I’d honestly compare the empire to zul to the Alliance. A group of full nations going together to work in some unison but still being their own nations with laws etc.
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I don’t think you’re going to get through to him.