One of the more interesting stories of redemption which might be too old for some folks here to remember was the Earth Angel Supergirl. Earth Angels are created when two beings are merged on the point of death, one being beyond “all hope” in this case, Linda Danvers who was merged with Matrix, the artificial SuperGirl from Earth-3.
By all accounts, Linda Danvers was irredeemable. Losing her faith after witnessing her pastor mudering his wife, She fell to the point of joining a demonic cult and becoming accessory to the murder of said pastor and mistress without repentence. Buzz the demonic leader of the cult stabbed her in a sacrificial rite but was prevented from completing the ritual by Matrix who attempted to use her shapechanging powers to heal Linda. Unexpectedly however this caused the two of them to merge… and the rest is history… or more accurately was history since she was retconned out of existence during a Crisis.
The point is redemption and forgiveness are mutable concepts, not easy to put down hard and fast definitions and limits on.
Yeah, institutions of power can be bad. One thing they do is enforce collective guilt on unpopular groups. But trying to blame people who had no responsibility or ability to act wrt that institution only makes it worse, inflicting one of the very wrongs that institutions of power commit. You are still trying to force a judgement of who someone is, or what they are obligated to do, just because you have identified them with a group.
I don’t believe presenting immoral things as justifiable is OK. Even in fiction.
If you want to say that Orcs society should learn from their past, that’s fine. But this thread has been about whether Orcs, as a race, have a guilt they need redemption from. That isn’t the same thing.
I agree that everyone should do what they can to stop evil. Like I said, that is why I’m taking the time to post against the idea of racial guilt. An individual Orc might have more opportunity to do something. And one can talk about his actions as an individual. But if he doesn’t. Well, an Orc with no more opportunity to do something than a human has no more responsibility than a human. This idea that you can single out an Arab and demand to know what he does about terrorism just because he is an Arab isn’t great either.
And what does it mean to be “responsible”. You are saying they aren’t “guilty”, but you are allowed judge them by a standard based on the race they happen to be born into? I’m seeing a distinction without a difference if they have to be “redeemed” but aren’t “guilty”.
Recency doesn’t justify racial guilt.
We covered this with the night Elves. Whether you praise and condemn Malfurion for what he did, the responsibility lies with him, not with other NEs that were not involved. Even his second cousin.
Blizzard claims to have modeled Garrosh on Hitler. But mostly I think it is because people are familiar with it. Talking about whether an individual Hutu is responsible for the Rwandan genocide just because of his ethnicity isn’t going to mean much to many.
I think everyone who is truly repentant is redeemable. My main problem with the “Jaina is friend to the Horde now” is not that she has been redeemed. But that she has never acknowledged that what she did was wrong. You can’t be repentant if you can’t admit what you did was wrong.
This is a poor example. Orcs in Azeroth are typically part of a single society and follow the same leadership. Arabs in the real-world are a diverse people who live in many different societies spanning the globe. Do not conflate ethnicity with nationality.
No, I am saying their society is responsible for the atrocities their society has committed. If not individuals, then who is responsible for societal changes? You can’t have it both ways that a society needs to change, but individuals are not responsible for making that change happen.
Blizz has opted to give customization priority over coherent story. The man’ari’s situation given this history is nonsensical but solved in a five minute questline and probably never touched again. I personally am way past the acceptance stage of grief at this point.
I am so tired of Draenei lore always being focused on some other group. AU Draenei, Lightforged Draenei, Argus Broken, and now Man’ari.
Draenei deserve lore and story development beyond just Velen doing something with other groups while the actual Draenei story has never progressed beyond them living in the ruins of a crashed ship.
And that I agree. I’m just saying you can’t introduce a story hook involving the Man’ari intergrating back into society and than refuse to touch it again
Say a “Muslim”. The point is, you are giving yourself the right to treat someone differently based on the group you identify them with.
And note, it really often is the group you identify. People see Arabs as a group, so they impose “responsibility” them. The Horde is multi-ethnic, but we are blaming the Orcs? The most prominent Orc in BfA, Surfing, opposed Sylvanas, at more personal sacrifice than most, Sylvanas as soon as he realized what she was up to. Yet you talk about how “nothing has changed”.
Not matter how you cut it, you assigning individuals “responsibility” not for choices they made, but for the group you assign them to, regardless of the situation the individual is in. A poor orc with no power to even change his own life, and no understanding of what is going on in the world is considered “responsible”?
Side note: You talk about Orce society not changing, It pretty much has changed every time. After Garrosh, all the war chiefs weren’t Orcs. After Sylvanas, the position was abolished completely.
The Horde was still controlled by orcish culture. Unquestionable warchief, mok’gora, the whole might makes right thing, etc. Even if the people holding that position weren’t orcs themselves.
Hopefully the Horde no longer being lead by orcish style leadership will make them calm down.
No, I am saying their society is responsible for the atrocities their society has committed. If not individuals, then who is responsible for societal changes? You can’t have it both ways that a society needs to change, but individuals are not responsible for making that change happen.
I’m quoting myself here because you never answered who is responsible for society change.
Why are you bringing up arguments I’m not making? I’m not arguing all Muslims or all Arabs are responsible for change when it comes to Islamic terrorist organizations. In fact, I pretty directly said (in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict) that Israelis are the ones responsible for change in their society to address the injustices Israel commits within the context of that conflict. I directly argued against Jewish collective responsibility for the actions and policies of the Israeli government.
I’m talking about specific societies, not racial, ethnic, cultural, or religious groups which span multiple societies.
Stop equivocating things that aren’t equivalent and making strawman arguments I never once engaged in.
At this point, it’s pretty clear your boxing with shadows of something you find personally offensive which is not at all what I’m advocating. You refuse to engage with my actual points and are putting words into my mouth which were never said. If you want to continue this debate, actively engage with what I’m saying, otherwise move onto a space that is discussing the things you want to discuss. I’ve repeated it multiple times now.
Individuals within a society/sovereign nation (Not an ethnic, racial, or religious group) are collectively responsible for societal change in the wake of serious moral failings of said society.
Orcish society, as portrayed in WoW and other media, is fundamentally flawed with regards to ideals of conflict. It is up to orcs to dismantle and/or reform the flawed institutions. You said it yourself, Orcish leadership is partially democratic. They are not a completely authoritarian society. Change has happened as individuals spoke out and put their feet down (Albeit way too late) when their leadership failed them. What needs to happen next is long-term, meaningful change that prevents situations like those from arising in the future. The paradigm of an entire civilization doesn’t change based solely on the actions of leadership or those in positions of power.