I see very often, people talk about how tragic and mistreated the trolls are, how horrible what has happened to them is, how they’ve been ‘colonized’, by humans, or elves, even by Night elves (not sure how that makes sense, as Nelves are ALSO native to Azeroth). And I’ve also seen to a much lesser extent people express this view about Gnolls, how they’ve been aggressed upon by ‘colonizing’ Stormwind humans. And while I think viewing WoW through this lens is completely and utterly one of the most repugnantly pathetic and idiotic things you can do. I’ll engage with this perspective.
So if we care so much about this, why don’t we feel the same pity for Quilboar? Or really, ANY pity, at all? I’ve seen people feel bad for the cannibalistic (And not in a wholesome ‘recycling’ way, in a chasing down people and ripping them apart while they’re alive and screaming cannibalism) Gnolls, and in comparison, Quilboar are much MUCH more progressive in their culture! They’re honestly, as of Warcraft 3, not really much less technologically advanced than the Orcs were, they’ve got their own strong culture, religion, magic, they do agriculture and animal husbandry, very egalitarian, and unless I can see cited evidence I’m not going to believe they’re cannibals (eat sapient life forms), something even the trolls can’t say they aren’t, they’re not a case of some barely sapient race like Murlocs, Quilboar are a pretty smart race. Also it’s worth noting, their patron god and progenitor Agamaggan played a pretty big role in stopping the Legion in the war of the ancients, that alone should grant them a little bit of charitability here.
What horrible thing did they do to deserve being forced out of their home by the orcs? Other than, being in a place where the orcs wanted to live? Why don’t we feel even a ounce of pity for them? Are they not being brutally colonized and cleansed from their lands? Why are we shedding tears for the moustache twirlingly evil gnolls but none for the egalitarian Quilboar?
You might bring up them using necromantic magic, but this is literally just something they HAD to do out of desperation because they’re on the verge of being driven to extermination by orcs and their allies, once again an extermination being carried out because they were in way of where the orcs wanted to stay. Orcs, under Thrall’s leadership, are trying to do to the Quilboar what they were hoping to do to the humans on the Eastern Kingdoms, exterminate them so they can reside in their lands.
But! There’s more, what’s even cooler, is orcs didn’t stop at trying to exterminate one indigenous people from Durotar and the Barrens, they’re also trying to remove the Harpy’s, as well, and don’t give me any of that BS about how they’re corrupted by old gods, I don’t think that if they were absent of old god corruption they’d be like “Oh yeah, orcs come on in and compete with us for resources and take our land! It was the Old Gods who made me think that was bad!” And it’s not like the orcs want to get rid of the Harpys out of some desire to stop Old God influence, it’s the same as the Quilboar, they’re in the way, and if you’re in the way of orcish
‘living space’ you deserve to die.
So why don’t we care? Because so long as you’re not a Human, or Elf, or Dwarf, you’re allowed to kill and exterminate any race, and it’s not colonialism at all, but when Humans or Elves do it, it’s horrible and a tragedy a wrong that must be righted and Blizzard is showing their ignorance by making the story implicitly approve of it! Yeah, right.
To reiterate, viewing WoW in this lens is stupid, but if you’re going to view it that way then you need to stop being a hypocrite, you don’t get to talk about how tragically colonized Trolls are but view another race that’s close if not just as intelligent as dumb monsters who should all die or leave their homelands forever.