Canon changes with every expansion thanks to shoddy writing and the need for retcons.
This is an interesting departure from smugly insisting that nobody but you knows and has read the lore, to be clear, after being shown you have no source for your claims, you’re now saying the lore doesn’t matter?
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It was never canon to begin with–there’s no source that ever said Zin-Azshari spanned thousands of miles. It is just speculation. It always has been.
And I’ve stated often in this discussion that it is purely semantics. I don’t agree with the use of the term imperial within the context of this conversation.
Can I have an excerpt? I remember there was a mirrored Karazhan, a demonic menagerie, Morose, some kind of washerwoman-cook-maid, orc-killer …
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.
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What term would be appropriate then?
Really? Ever walk around the map in Vanilla? Listen to the original dev’s talk about their development ideas and how they couldn’t fit their concepts into the original map of Azeroth due to technical or production constraints.
We’re looking at lore through the lens of modern day retcons and trying to piece things together. Much of which has been retconned away to fit today’s lore structure.
To me I see the Alliance as imperialistic. Others would say the Horde is imperialistic.
Are you going to rummage through dictionaries?
There is not a single source that says Zin-Azshari spanned thousands of miles. Th That is my dispute. Nothing more, nothing less. If you mean to infer that from conceptual musings and structural game design, that’s fine–but it’s not, and never was, canonical. It is, as it has always been: speculation.
I just see it as normal, natural progressive expansion . Today we like to toss the word around too lightly through the lens of modern day perception.
But it used conquest.
We need dictionaries. Yes … It’s not colonialism, is it?
We can agree to let it rest on this. The original idea vs the limited product wrapped in retconned presentation.
Use whatever term you feel most comfortable with to explain how a nation grows. But when using the term imperialism in order to give a negative connotation to the method of an empires rise is sorely out of context.
Every nation and empire in WoW lore has grown at the “expense” of another. To try to infer a negative perception on a particular empire because it expanded is false. And that is the context with which the term imperialism has been used here.
The elven nation expanded, came into conflict with others. The human kingdoms expanded, came in to conflict with others. The orcs, the trolls, on and on and on. To attempt to explain them away, or worse ignore that completely and single out the elves as imperialistic is out of context.
That is why I object: context.
“Natural progressive expansion” sounds like an antiquated social darwinian term for conquest. It implies you are extending your influence for general betterment and that it is apart of a progressive ‘march of civilization.’ Or, and I hope you aren’t that ignorant, you mean to dismiss blame for the vices of conquest by implying that conquered regions were merely empty when the conquest occurred.
Regardless, in cultural anthropology, either is erroneous. Even our early modern human ancestors competed with other hominids for resources. Disregarding modern moral platitudes, expansion is, always, in self-interest, and it always competes with the self-interest of other parties. When that expansion is backed by the force of an empire, historians and anthropologists call that imperialism.
Wha … We need dictionaries.
The conquest of one village by another village can be considered imperialism?
No, not trying to dismiss anything, certainly not elvish atrocities against other races. Plenty of that about. See my last post.
There is no retcon because it was never canonical to begin with.
Imperialism doesn’t depend on number of ethnoracial groups displaced, killed, or subjugated weirdo
And to establish the Troll Empire.
Empires are produced via Imperialism.
This was their intent in both cases.
The only difference today is that it’s been numerous generations of Trolls since and only 2-3 generations of Elves since both expansionist campaigns
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Scream.
Can this whole conversation be used against the Horde by accusing it of colonialism?