The problem with that logic is technically you can kill just one person and construe that as a genocide “in part”. We all know that is a ridiculous claim.
Just like you can’t have a partial homicide (a person is either dead or he is not), you can’t have a partial genocide. The race or culture is either destroyed or it is not. The Night Elf population and culture seems to be doing ok on Azeroth so I don’t think you can really call the burning of Teldrassil a true genocide.
In a A Good War Sylvanas muses that her actions would cause the Kaldorei to cease as a society and a people and in Elegy Anduin specifically labels it Genocide.
Stop trying to argue that it wasn’t
And yet their people and their society still live. There is no genocide.
Disclaimer: I’m not bringing this up because I think the real world is comparable, I’m doing it to prove how idiotic the quoted argument is.
So by your own arbitrary definition of Genocide you must not count the Holocaust as a "true genocide’
Seeing as how Sylvanas just lets all the valuable resources in Darkshore go to waste instead of making like a BAGILLION Thaddiuss (or Thaiduis’s? I dunno language is weird) and doesn’t even check out how many Shackled Ur’zuls we got from Argus in order to takeover Azuremyst Isle, I simply could not condone Sylvanas’s actions if they took place in real life. Smh. ![:unamused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/unamused.png?v=6" ":unamused:")
Declaimer: I apologize in advance. I am only going to discuss this once in response to Taalva.
First, it is not my definition of genocide, it is Merriam-Webster’s.
Now, to get real for a second, what happened in WWII is disgusting, it is sick, it is horrific, it was wrong in every sense. I do not condone it, I do not defend it, and in fact, it is indefensible.
Yes, our enemies were deliberately and systematically in the act of committing genocide. They did not succeed. Thank the good Lord, we, and our allies, were able to defeat them before they were able to complete their objectives.
This is a video game. I do not conflate real life events with the game. My arguments and discussions in the forums are strictly related to the game and are not a reflection of my actual world views. If I have offended anyone with my arguments I truly apologize.
I truly do believe Taldrassil cannot really be considered a genocide in game. If you are really so passionate about the topic, I suggest you take some of that passion and apply it to the real life genocidal groups that exist today.
I will not argue or discuss this topic any further. These are my last words on the matter.
Then you are purposefully warping the definition to do so.
The fact of the matter is Blizzard has specifically labelled it as such.
You are wrong
I agree it leaves a weird legalistic area, but on the flip side is it not a genocide if you accidentally “miss a few”?
This is all ignoring the fact that you tried to qualify your asinine point of view with “well the Alliance made Teldrassil a target” despite the act having literally nothing to do with Azerite.
Small tangent unrelated to genocide, but Teldrassil is the worst way to get Azerite from Silithus to the EK. You’d have to ship it A) Through a giant tunnel in the mountains around the zone, B) Ship it over those mountains, or C) Ship it to Gadgetzan, at which point it would be better to head straight for Stormwind. Hell, it would probably be better to do that in both A and B.
That’s another thing that makes no sense. The idea that the Alliance would funnel Azerite through Darnassus is so mind bogglingly stupid it’s a wonder people didnt immediately start to question whether or not her brain had started to rot.
It makes 0 sense.
I mean I can make up reasons to take the Teldrassil route, but Blizz pays people for that and I haven’t got my check yet.
Come again?
Where is that in any of the texts you cite?
When?
Anduin labels it a genocide. But he’s a character in a story. Has Blizzard called it genocide?
I actually don’t think it fits the definition of genocide in the way that term is technically defined, but I also don’t think arguing about the specific word is that important. It’s a horrific case of mass murder in any event.
No, the narration in the story describes it as such.
And this is the victim blaming that Neridon mentioned early up thread.
Yikes, yikes, yikes!
In a way, you may have a point, we might as well blame the draenei for the genocide they suffered at the hands of the orcs (and some people here actually do).
As for the term “genocide” in Teldrassil, I have mixed feelings. Someone should go tweet a Blizzard developer, honestly, and get their take ASAP on the matter, especially as we have no real idea how many night elves actually died; could be a few hundred or a few thousand, we just don’t know for sure, we don’t even know their exact canon population.
All in all, though, the Warchief’s repetitive self-pitying statements on how life is pain and hope fails no longer solicits the same sympathy that they once might have. Now, I do NOT say that I necessarily support Saurfang over Sylvanas for that matter, especially as we do not know exactly what the High Overload ultimately intends to do. Perhaps go to Thrall? We will have to wait and see.
But Sylvanas is pretty much a done deal, I admit she had potential, but whether we like it or not, that potential has been squandered and wasted due to Blizzard needing a convenient new villain for their overly complicated, nebulous storyline, whatever the cost.
People after Legion were sick and tired of the ridiculous faction war as a whole, they just felt it was too forced and sudden maybe 2 months after a dozen different factions working together against a common foe, and stupid as well, as your planet is literally bleeding to death as its factions kill each other. And the whole war is a very tired cliche through and through to quite a few people.
Final thought: I am for one extremely curious as to what they mean when they say this expansion will end the faction war, or at least resolve it indefinitely.
May I know where this is stemming from? Because deciding to attack a city in a calculated manner with the intent to raze it to the ground with no heed to ensuing casualties is the very definition of genocide. I think many people here are thinking of ethnic cleansing (?) and feel like that ideologically, Sylvanas chose her target at random and that somehow makes the act of killing the kal’dorei less systemic, or something?
What she did - a mass killing of people - IS genocide. Canonically, all that is left of the Night Elves are those refugees in Stormwind, and the ones that show up in the Warfronts. But remember too that a lot of this is game mechanics dictated.
Were WoW real, the bulk of the NE soldiers in WFs would be from the SW refugees. Most of the NE quest givers in old expansion zones are probably no longer there, chronologically.
Great post though, and I agree with your closing statements.
I suppose it might be because the term genocide is not necessarily explicitly used in A Good War, not even High Overlord Saurfang, as far as I remember at least. And I do think there was a quest on the Alliance side saying that there were about one thousand night elves in Darnassus. Perhaps I am wrong, but I suppose I do not consider 1,000 lives lost a genocide, even civilian lives, although again, we are not sure whether this actually reflects the number of casualties. In my perspective, a genocide would arguably be something that eliminates over 50% of the existing population of a group. What happened to the draenei and the blood elves would beyond doubt meet such criteria.
I do not condone Sylvanas’ actions, though I may understand her reasoning to a certain extent, and it is telling that so many do. Again, we do not know how many night elves there were originally, how many were evacuated through portals, and how many were killed.
There are likely night elves elsewhere in the world, I presume in Cenarion Circle regions such as Moonglade and Hyjal as well as the Broken Isles, so they might not be near-extinct quite yet. That is more Blizzard’s fault once again for failing to provide us with more explicit and detailed information on the casualties, leaving thousands of fans to argue and speculate on the limited knowledge provided.
Again, adding to my previous post, I do wish that Thrall would return, at least his leadership, despite its flaws, had some semblance of stability, nuance and unity behind it.