Night Elf-Forsaken Pity Apocalypse?
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About how they can be confused. About how you can argue whether it is one thing or there other. The key is they are separate things. If they were synonyms, the saying would have no point.
Of course, but it’s just the thing. For the Alliance, Sylvana’s killing could also be pure justice, although in this case it could also be seen as revenge, on the Horde’s part.
Justice and revenge are not the same thing. Thats why we have courts of law, rules of law governed by dedicated professionals.
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It could be. It might not be. And given the long history of using “justice” as an excuse for “revenge”…
I mean, lets try and put the shoe on the other foot. If the Explorers League were to apologize for the destruction of the Stonespire tribe and try and make amends. And someone decides they don’t deserve redemption. Justice or Revenge?
Yes, but, again, the only way we make sense of a fictional world is by drawing comparisons to the real world. I don’t know what an elf’s/orc’s/goblin’s/whatever’s supposed to act like, but I know how humans act, and I can compare make comparisons.
However, I’d wager (or at the least, hope) that very few people posting on these forums have any direct experience with genocide. Thus, for our brains to make sense of fictional genocide, we have to compare it to what we know of real-life genocide, which is scant.
As you said…
I agree with this. In all honesty, I know very little about Hitler or the Holocaust, outside the broad, sweeping details. I assume that I’m not the only one. I do believe that people don’t typically, fully understand the enough of the scope of the Holocaust to speak intelligently on it. As such, when Hitler is mentioned in internet arguments, he’s typically used to represent the concept of evil, moreso than some actual historical figure. It’s not a stance I disagree with, but, as you said, it’s trivializing some massive real life tragedy for the sake of drama.
So…
I guess the TL;DR is that I think people are usually taking a cheap shortcut when making broad comparisons to real life tragedies. However, unless they’re experts or have experienced it first hand (which I hope they haven’t), then their brain really doesn’t have that much choice, so I really fault them.
EDIT: Basically, their brains feel like “oh! I know about this thing!” because they can draw an immediate comparison, even they they don’t actually know about that thing. It doesn’t make it right, but it is understandable.
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Perhaps. On the other hand, it’s also possible to make comparisons within universe. For example, comparing Garrosh and Sylvanas has been a thing for a while. Or Sylvanas to Arthas.
The problem with comparing wholly to real life is that the WoW universe is very four color. Common peasantry is hiring the player to eradicate sapient entities because their crop of pumpkins was getting raided. People are allowed to casually summon demons in major cities. There’s so much high blue activity that it can’t be acutely compared, in fairness, to real life events. Likening Theramore to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gets us nowhere and as evidenced by plenty of threads typically devolves into finger-pointing and gnashing of teeth.
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Are you pancakes now? What the hell, man?
Anyways, I’m not really explaining myself well. Because, what I’m describing is happening in our minds on a level we don’t actively comprehend, you know? We can understand it, but it’s not something we’re passively aware of, right?
I went on a rant.
So… What does every playable race in WoW have in common?
Two arms, two legs, a head, two eyes, a nose, two years, head hair, a mouth. They eat and speak with that mouth. They have a brain in their head that runs the body, a stomach that digests the food, a heart that pumps blood which carries oxygen. They walk on their feet and use their hands to manipulate the world around them. When you think about it, that’s very specific for a world so different to ours.
They’re humanoid. Think of how many races in sci-fi are just straight up humans or humans+ (humans with horns, humans with extra fur, humans with two arms, etc). Even though these races are alien and designed by forces entirely foreign to Earth, they still wind up being human. The more alien they are, typically, the more likely they are to be villains (not always though!). Because human is our mind.
Hell, think about people in real life. There’s not a single person who has a pet and doesn’t give their pet a personality. Even cars, right? People say the front of the car looks like a face. Our brain contextualizes everything within ourselves.
The component that’s missing is the more abstract component of logic. For example, numbers and relations. “If A = B and B = C then A = C” kinda stuff. This is about the internal consistency of a world. Even then, though… We assume that a fictional world must operate on some fixed laws, principles, and mechanics that work in a pattern because that’s how our reality works.
Looking at your example of people comparing Sylvanas to Garrosh. Those two don’t exist within a void of Warcraft, right? When we compare them, we use real-life metrics, right? Like, our brains can understand the concept of death, typically pretty intimately because we’ve all experienced death. Our brains can think about times when we’ve lost loved ones, and extrapolate that someone who causes that intentionally must be bad. We also understand how numbers work (in general). So, we can say things like, for example, “Death is bad, Sylvanas killed more people than Garrosh, so Sylvanas worst than Garrosh” or something like that.
Similarly, when it comes to “genocide”, right? Our brains typically understand death, right? But, unless someone has been so unfortunate as to have experienced that for themselves, then… Our brains really suck at truly grasping big numbers. Like… What’s a million people look like in your mind? For me, it’s either some amorphous blob of vaguely-human shapes, or like… rows and rows of people that fade out into white mist, right? Big numbers just get lumped into the emotional concepts of big or many.
So, I think our brains conceptualize genocide as just big death. Just “death, but a lot of it”. I can tell you what it’s like to lose a family member, but I can’t tell you what it’s like to nearly be extincted. I can only say “well, must be like when grandma died, but just… more?”
So, when we try to make arguments about something our brains don’t have a good feel for, something that might be beyond our scope of imagining, our brains kinda… Instinctively take a shortcut. They’ll compare to what scant we might know of genocide, which, for many people, is this vague idea of Hitler. Again, it’s a shortcut, it’s not right, but it’s… A passive thing.
Everything I’ve said seems pretty obvious. But, that’s the point I’m making. Our brains can only use what they know to inform any thought. What we know must come from real life on some level. That’s why people make an incorrect shortcut to compare fictional genocide to real-life genocide.
TL;DR: Even in-universe comparisons are rooted in what we understand of how real-life works, because our brains don’t work otherwise unless we force them to. Things like genocide are so big, our brains instinctively take shortcuts when we don’t have personal or academic experience with a particular subject.
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Interesting note, if we’re going down the rabbit hole of bringing in real world comparisons, then Teldrassil could be comparable to both events.
Even Saurfang initially believed that the reason Sylvanas decided to burn the tree was because Summermoon told her that the NEs would not surrender; thus Teld would turn into an unprecedented Horde meatgrinder like Darkshore and Ashenvale had been. And Sylvie was the only one who knew what was waiting in that tree, no other Horde member on the field did. Which is comparable to the US’s feelings on a prospective invasion of mainland Japan that (in part) contributed to the dropping of the Atomic Bombs.
On top of this, as a genocide, the WoT as an independent event from Teld was neither intended to be or was functionally a genocidal act. And frankly, it would have been more than justified if Blizz didn’t habitually whitewash Alliance aggression. Only Sylvie (and perhaps Nate) intended for it to be a Genocidal event, and for the most part the Horde was merely turned into a tool for genocide. Its still horrific, but its odd to compare it to the years long, intentional, systematic genocide of multiple groups by Hitler and the N*zi’s.
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Didn’t know this. Where is it from?
It from a brief moment during A Good War I think. He’s watching Sylvanas talking to Summermoon, but can’t hear what is being said from either side. Suddenly Sylvie orders the Tree to be burned, and his initial (momentary) response is to believe its because Delaryn told her the Kaldorei did not intend to surrender. Which … yeah would mean a meatgrinder for the Horde if true. Especially since he didn’t know it was only noncombatants left in the Tree.
EDIT: “Did that dying elf tell her something? Were they planning to resist? Is the Alliance about to arrive with reinforcements?”
While I don’t compare it to WW2, let’s not act as if Teldrassil was just a one-time deal. Sylvanas’ goal was very much to kill as many people as possible and her primary tool was the Horde. Teldrassil was just the most shocking and horrible part of her campaign.
I agree, however her goal strangely enough was not just genocide, but outright omnicide. Just look at her satisfaction at watching Horde soldiers burn in A Good War. Hell, every single one of her tactics in the expansion only make sense if they were intended for escalating and prolonging the conflict. And the Horde was supposed die just as much as the Alliance. The Horde was a tool for Genocide, but had no intent to do so. Sylvanas intended for Genocide, but she never made those intentions known until Teld. Or really after…
Which is part of why what happens after is so frustrating. All Blizz had to do was portray it as if the Horde was kept in line out of fear of reciprocation from the Alliance after Teld, and it would have made the delay in turning on her make so much more sense. It would take time to prove the Alliance was not invested in a War of Extermination against the Horde after Teld …and until that happened it would naturally silence decent in her ranks. Fear of the alternative, fear of reprisal, is a remarkable motivator to suppress rebellion.
But … Blizz wanted to keep their damned “surprise” on her betraying us. They wanted their false “loyalist” choice. So … instead … the Horde was made convenient; and Teldrassil was only allowed to be even mentioned by the two Horde characters not involved in the War. Saurfang and Thrall.
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Yup. Decided to change things up a bit. 
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But somehow Sylvanas isn’t evil despite commiting far worse crimes than Garrosh.
Weird times we live in
They did it.
“They’ll come for us. All of them.” And they came in the battle of Lordaeron.
Sylvanas used that argument in the end of Lordaeron senario to get the “For the Horde” answer from Bame.
They also had Lor’themar mention something to that effect at Baine’s arrest if you talk to him. That he agrees with Baine’s intentions and reasons, but doesn’t agree with his timing as he felt it left his people at risk from the Alliance.
The Point is, this was a message that was buried and you really had to search. Largely because Blizz seemed dogmatic in trying to “surprise us” with Sylvie’s betrayal.
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Do you know what it takes to enforce justice and why retribution and justice are so close together? It takes Power to defeat the one who has caused the injustice. That is why the state has a monopoly on the use of Power so that it can be the strongest, so that it can exercise its laws and duties. In an anarchic state this would not be the case, there everybody would try to enforce his right and if necessary use force to enforce it, and there the stronger one would win.
The monopoly on the use of Power is intended to ensure that the state is the strongest. so, yes, if the dwarfs are to weak to defend themselves, it will be possible to kill them, and it could be justice or revenge, it depens on the persons view.
Actually. The line between them is not thaaat hard to define.
Justice = A logical system executed by people who have no direct emotional connection with the crime, following pre established laws and procedures. And the objective of justice is to keep social harmony and order.
Retribution = An EMOTIONAL need to cause harm to someone you think harmed you, often in a desproportional way because you’re being guided by what you FEEL it’s a good punishment.
Actually, the main reason state has a monopoly of the use of power is because there would be no society if anyone could just make justice with their own hands, you need ONE justice system with a clear and organized procedure and laws to keep things in order.
It’s not just a matter of ‘‘who’s stronger’’ it’s a matter of logical necessity. You wouldn’t be able to have a huge and complex society like we have without state holding monopoly over the power to punish.
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Having something in common doesn’t make two things the same. But the places where justice, revenge, and redemption are, and aren’t, the same illustrates my point. And not, even then you are talking about “justice imposed by force”.
Both imposed justice and revenge generally require power over the subject. Having something in common doesn’t make two things the same. Justice is about an outcome that fits a moral code of how to resolve wrongs. Revenge is about satisfying some who sees themselves as wrong.
Both redemption and justice have in common the sense of fulfilling a moral code of resolving wrongs. Redemption differs from imposed justice in the willingness of the subject to accept that they have done wrong and need to atone. That is why redemption doesn’t deny justice.
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