But not all. And not everywhere - we have Broken shore as a proof of it.
So far We had direct confirmation that humans came from Northrend Vrykul and how they came to be.
We have no updates that whatever was left from the Tyr’s guardians were in fact constructs which turned to vrykul and then to humans.
There is a missing link to make this claim - to me - of substance.
Or the Tirisfal Vrkul turned into humans as well. Either way, the Humans inherited the Tirisfal Vrykul lands, not the Trolls.
“Vrykul who settled there”. Not a constructs that got deformed to Vrykul, but a settlers. So people that moved to live there.
Settler is homonym to “colonist” and “immigrant”
If they moved to live there then when exactly? They could’ve been the Northrend offshot just like Drust were.
As I said there are still unclear gaps, but then again Chronicles already retconned fresh lore that came in MoP and was retconned soonish later too. So I don’t think that writers came with themselves in terms on humans origins.
Same mess is with nelf origins. If nelves came from Dark Trolls, and Dark trolls are supposedly offshot of Amani and Amani are offshot of Zandalari. Then it should’ve indicate significant time period for the changes to apply for them to become different species. But Malfurion is 16k Old (not sure if it was retconned I already lost a track on retcons) and Zuldazar is also 16k Old (maybe a little bit older). This indicates that Nelves came to be sooner than trolls or developed alongside of them.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Trisfal Vrykul became humans. The Dragonflayer Vrykul are explicitly called out as the ones giving birth to stunted young, explicitly described as leaving them in the south, and those young are explicitly stated to be the distant ancestors of humanity.
At no point is it ever suggested the Vrykul that stayed behind at Tyr’s Fall began to give birth to any stunted young.
But again, for the sake of argument. How should one deal with the idea of trolls moving into Trisfal glades to kill non-trolls and resettle land, and continuing the practice into WoW’s modern day?
Because this seems like an awful lot of nitpicking about technicalities in order to essentially justify why nobody should really feel all that bad for killing trolls and taking their land. Past, present, or future.
If they were on good terms with the humans, that’s prescisely a good reason to not go take their land. Meanwhile Dath’Remar specifically chose the ruins that would later become silvermoon because they looked abandoned, presumably he thought no one would care if they settle there. The trolls didn’t even notice and begin attacks until some time after that, considering the sunwell and silvermoon were already built by the time the troll attacks began.
Abandoned ruins are fair game, it’s not like they burned down zul’aman to build silvermoon.
That’s hardly explanation for justification of this act. If this wasn’t stressed enough Elves slaughtered their path to reach the destination and settled in the heartland of occupied territory.
That land was sacred to them. Would you raze Acropolis because “it’s just a ruins” and no one should bat an eye if you’d put nice fancy hotel on it’s place?
Wait was Zul’Aman ruins when the elves got there?
Also, pre-game history, everyone is a crazy warmonger. Who’s right? The supremacist rump state of a brutal tyrannical empire? Or the splinter group of the culture that blew up the world, which was exiled because of their addiction to the thing that helped blow it up in the first place?
Also, when they first showed up, did they still look like night elves? The marginal difference of Highborne? What do they even count as?
They ( devs) were meant to publish a book about Troll Wars, and in the short preview posted on MMO Champion, Amani Empire was thriving when elves came in.
So Zul’Aman couldn’t be in ruins, it wouldn’t make sense in this particular context.
As for Highborne - they were meant to look like night elves still. In the comic book which shown Sunwell creation they had purpulish skin still, but their leader had by then orange-ish hair. Once Sunwell was made they immediately changed their looks (in that comic).
The Natives that lived in their own territory and tried to repell invaders.
So the supremacist rump state of a brutal tyrannical empire! Fun. Door number 1. Every door is a winner in this game!
One should think the Trolls are just as bad as the Elves that settled in Quel’Thalas. That doesn’t mean that the Trolls deserve to have their land taken. But Trolls shouldn’t be taking land that isn’t theirs, either.
That anyone took land from any Trolls does not justify the Amani and Witherbark trying to take lands the Human got from the Vrykul.
Except we’re not talking ancient history and pre-WoW. Sure, the conflicts in question started then, but they’re still very much a going on in game. They continue to inform current events. That’s what OP’s post is all about.
One of the first quests you get when you make a character is basically, “So we’ve been expanding our territory and killing the natives for a while, but they’re still a pain in the neck! Go into their homes, kill a dozen of them and bring me back their heads. I’ll pay you some silver.”
We, the player, Horde and Alliance, in BfA, are tasked with actively wiping out the remaining Witherbark Trolls in the Arathi highlands as we fight over it.
But nobody bats an eye, calls us out, or does anything to suggest maybe that isn’t cool. Actually, we’re generally praised and rewarded for it. And people in this thread keep trying to justify it in a way they would never try to if were some other race.
“Well it wasn’t ever THEIR land anyway. They took it from someone else too thousands of years ago.”
“They were a xenophobic threat.”
“It was just some ruins. What’s the big deal?”
But if some trolls (or others) were to say, go the lands of the people who just sent headhunting parties to slaughter them and fight back and even retake the territory they were just pushed out- they’re the villains and it’s only further justification to go in and “finish the job”.
Because it isn’t framed the same across the board. Either by the game or players. The Elves aren’t framed as badly as the trolls. The only half painted as a warmonger of brutal tyrannical empire for fighting over the land are the trolls.
Hence the “call for justice”.
No. Being on good terms with the humans is precisely why asking for aid and shelter and joining the budding human civilization would be preferable to mass slaughter of a native peoples.
Also no. The highborne absolutely knew the Amani were there before they settled those ruins. Lore talks about how they fought off Amani trying to stop them from entering Amani territory for years before the Highborne arrived at said ruins.
From The Founding of Quel’thalas, another in-game book.
At best they didn’t know the specific site they chose was an Amani holy place. I find it wildly unlikely they didn’t piece together that the constant Amani attacks were because they were trekking deep through Amani territory, though. They absolutely knew what they were doing. They just didn’t care.
Also also, no. Abandoned ruins are not fair game if they hold a deep cultural importance and are being left alone for a specific cultural or religious reason. That land was Amani territory. The Highborne knowingly settled there after carving a bloody path from the heartland of the Amani Empire to reach it.
And finally… Look at the modern borders of the Amani Empire and compare that to what they used to have. Do you really believe not a single Amani village was uprooted, displaced, or outright destroyed while the elves were expanding their borders?
Your point undermines itself, because what’s going on in game is the current events, and what’s going on in game is no different from the Witherbark than it is for the playable characters. The Witherbark are still trying to kill the natives of Arathi, and have been for trying to for thousands of years, as much as the quest givers want us to get rid of the Witherbark.
The Witherbark deserve no more sympathy than Quel’Thalas does.
Humans aren’t native of there and neither are the forsakens that try to take the land and for worse their population aren’t really that high to even require said land(South of Stormwind is overrun by cultist of the Legion)
They deserve more for the mere fact that unlike the elves aren’t jumping into the trending organization of the moment and sucking their resources to do keep their borders rather than doing it by themselves.
Besides the Whiterbark didn’t genocided other populations unlike the elves of QT did with the Amani in the north or leaving their allies the humans to die at the hands of orcs and only participated into the war when it reached to them
Neither are the Amani. They traveled east to there from Zandalar, after the Vrkul already had.
Trolls deserve to he wiped out.
Humans didn’t get land from Vrykul. Everything so far points that the Vrykul that they settled on Amani territory are immigrants themselves.
Do you have any source that Vrykul did it before the Amani even become Amani? As far as I know curse of flesh happened when troll empires were already established.
And according to Maps they did lorded a huge landmass, Vrykul could’ve had a tiny enclave that nobody bothered with, and that enclave was less likely in Arathi.
Also we don’t know exactly what is their deal with Thrall. I find it odd that they were allied with him, when in WC3 Thrall was the one who attacked Forest trolls and didn’t want any alliance with them. How could forest trolls betray something that wasn’t even there?
The only good troll is a dead troll…
And Blood Trolls… Blood trolls are pretty cool.
All land is elf land since the trolls signed over everything to Queen Azshara in exchange for Zandalar. Sorry babes, a deal’s a deal 
.
First off- the whole argument about whether proto-humans/humans beat the Amani to populate Trisfal is totally separate from the Arathi Highlands. We just got done quoting the story of how the human kingdoms formed out of them pushing trolls out of the surrounding areas and expanding.
Either way, the current situation is that both Arathi and Witherbark want to live in the Arathi Highlands and control it as they see fit. Both want the other gone. Both launch attacks against each other.
But the game’s narrative and by extension, most players take it as a matter of fact that just wiping out the trolls is at worst, pragmatic, and at best, a noble endeavor for which the player is praised/rewarded in participating- while the Witherbark’s efforts to not continue being slaughtered and get back land they have recently been pushed out of has them painted as the enemy and deserving of further violent reprisals.
That’s called a double standard.
Regarding the Elves of Quel’thas and the Witherbark.
It’s not that they deserve more. It’s that they don’t really get any sympathy, and in fact get quite a bit of antipathy from the game’s narrative and much of the players. Meanwhile Quel’thas and the Elves do get more sympathy from the game, and almost no antipathy for what they did to the Amani.
And players take it even further by not only taking it as a matter of course, but even come up with ethical/moral justifications why the Elven slaughter of the Amani on their way to found Quel’thas is A-okay, but the Witherbark are considered to be unjustified and just evidence that it’s okay to keep killing them.
This is another double standard.
I mean, haven’t we just spent years collectively arguing about why it’s bad to try and cook up reasons to morally/ethically justify genocide? Or does this not apply when it’s the “savage” races that are being systematically wiped out and displaced?