I think the argument here would be settled fairly smoothly if everyone agreed on three points that can all comfortably co-exist:
The game’s story does consistently portray the taking of troll land and killing of trolls as morally okay and justified, ranging from ‘it was heroic and noble’ to ‘well it was a gray area but they started it so it’s fine.’
This is because the trolls are written to be racist stereotypes of savage primitive natives who therefore (in according with old-fashioned pulp fiction tropes) will irrationally act up against their more civilized betters, thus justifying their removal from their lands in place of real (audience-identifiable, western) people.
Therefore, the game’s story is extremely gross and should be rejected. Who cares how totally-squeaky-clean the lore says the ethnic cleansing of the primitive subhumans was? It’s disgusting to accept its premises in the first place.
*I apologize for making what I feel is the same damned post every 1-3 months, but I really think this is important to drive home.
Night Elves have a history of working with the Horde and several of their races.
Shockingly they still do and this war was started after both Alliance and Horde were allied to fight the legion.
If you fail to see how thats vastly more different than the Amani driving the High Elves to near extinction before the humans showed up then I dont think anyone can.
It’s the Elves who started this conflict, not the other way around, they commited tresspasing, slaughter, sacrilage and theft.
Trolls were fighting back to regain what was theirs. They were not invaders they were defenders.
And trolls also have a records of collaboration with other races.
I am not ignoring them. The fact that Amani didn’t make any neutral organisation isn’t excuse to not give them sympathy for being genocided when they were only fighting for their own territory. It’s like checking validity of nation’s existance based on how many nobbles prizes said nation got.
I am addressing your point of why the Teldrassil and aggression towards the Night Elves was considered worse.
NEs trained Horde druids
NEs had treaties with the Horde.
NEs gave away territory to the Horde for the sake of peace.
NEs fought together with the Horde in several world ending threats.
NEs, except on one occasion, never attacked the Horde. They have always guarded their own borders and when a war eventually did break out they came to a compromise despite being on the winning side.
Despite all this the Horde betrayed all this history and still pursued to have them wiped out.
The Amani on the otherhand is pretty straight forward. They were guarding their land. The blood elves wanted their land and begun killing each other.
Amani were winning and then started losing when humans showed up.
I’m not sure if I read the Chronicles specifically, but that sentence looks familiar. I think it was preceded by something along the lines of “the Amani had been attacking every elf they saw”?
To clarify? The Amani had every right to defend their homeland. I am not disputing that, anymore than I am disputing that high elves were directly moving into Amani territory.
I am, however, not willing to absolve the Amani trolls of any culpability in what happened. If your first response is violence, then that’s going to set the stage for future interactions.
In order to reclaim it, yes, they made a move on Quel’thalas. They lost.
I’m not disputing that. I’m not disputing that Quel’thalas was built on land sacred to trolls.
I am, however, going to reaffirm that that this is not in and of itself anything bizarre, or anything. I’m sure the Amani took that land over from other trolls. Strom was founded by a human fighting and taking over the lands of other humans. And so forth.
But after a period of time has elapsed, yeah, that makes a difference. That makes a huge difference. The ancient kal’dorei empire covered most of Kalimdor. They don’t get to suddenly move to annex Orgrimmar.
And no, the Amani [Edit: did not] sign[] a treaty. I suppose you could argue that that means that the Amani and the High Elves had been at war for 4,000 years, then. Which is…odd.
I don’t know what they’re saying the actual outcome of the “Blood War” is. I think it ended in an armistice. So, no one “won”.
More importantly? The night elves weren’t at war. They didn’t lose a war, they were slaughtered. That’s what officially started the war. I can’t hit someone with a baseball bat when their back is turned and then claim they won a fight they didn’t know they were taking part in. Because that’s not a fight.
I think we’re still fundamentally disagreeing on our definitions of genocide.
So far, this thread has done a surprisingly good job of remaining civil. I like that. In that spirit, I’m going to say that referring to things as “cry threads” is starting to lean towards a discussion that’s not civil. We need to respect people, even if we disagree with them.
I think that would have at least caused a dialogue. I doubt either high elves or trolls really wanted to keep killing each other. Most people don’t. It’s just basic diplomacy. There probably could have been some kind of compromise. It would paint a completely different picture if things had been preceded with “The Amani told the elves this land was sacred to them, and tried to reason with them.” But that didn’t happen. Violence begets violence, yadda yadda.
Oh. Also, in terms of that context thing? This wasn’t on a whim that high elves sought out that area. They weren’t building, like, a resort. They were trying desperately not to die. Someone else mentioned that was a place were leylines did their thing, and that’s something they needed.
I’m not saying that absolves anyone of anything. But it does lend some depth to what was happening. They weren’t just building a pleasure palace, or anything.
I’ll definitely agree that troll writing can be handled better. I kind of liked what they were doing with Vol’jin before random demon 15.
This is actually another reason the comparison doesn’t work. The Amani hadn’t tried to work with anyone, save briefly the Zandalari.
The Horde had quite recently worked with the Alliance to stop the world from being destroyed. They did so in Legion. And in Warlords of Draenor. And in Mists of Pandaria. And during the Catclysm. And during the Wrath of the Lich King. And even during the game launch. (Burning Crusade is on odd point, because Outland)
That’s one of the reasons this attack was so shocking. And one of the reasons a lot of the Horde actively spoke against it.
The Amani…lost. I’m sorry, I’m trying to think of another analogue, but that’s all that happened. The vrykul, maybe? They waged a war, then lost. And they were still a threat to both factions, Horde and Alliance alike. Mostly because there’s enough of them left, because they weren’t nearly wiped out as the draenei, blood elves, and night elves were.
It was called “War of Thorns”. Not a battle or ambush. War.
That is quite pecular thing to say to someone who’s family was targeted for genocide.
And I am not using “mine” definition, but overall definition that is commonly used. And Amani fill the criteria of it.
I think that even diplomacy wouldn’t help, elves clearly set their mind on the target, and they were all hellbent on achieving it. We’re speaking of the highborne breed, the ones that believed that they deserve everything, the ones who were ready to eradicate the world from species they considered lesser.
And yet, in this scenario it’s the Amani who are shown as the evil guys. Amani who were actually heroic and who contributted in saving the world.
Let that sink in.
But yea thanks for conversation, as mu posts probably shows I got tired myself. And I’ll call it a day for now.
I’m not disputing that, either. High elves literally moved on troll land. It just sounded like you were arguing that the Amani had done nothing that could have contributed to things.
I’m fairly certain the “War of Thorns” happened after Teldrassil burned. One of those “this is the act that starts a war” deals.
There’s no possible way to know this, though. No one tried. Trolls killing elves, elves killing trolls. One side was going to win, and in this case, it was the side that made an alliance with another group. If the trolls had reached out to…I don’t know, whoever else they could have? It could have easily gone a different way.
I have literally never referred to them as evil. They were one side of a war. That’s it.
If you’re referring to, like, the game with the Zul’Aman and subsequent mentions? I have no control over that. That’s the kind of thing that can be attributed to thoughtless writing. No, I won’t say that. I’ll say early writing. I don’t think they knew they were going to take the lore in the direction they took it since Zul’Aman, some Burning Crusade years ago.
On the subject of the Amani and whether or not that was a genocide, I feel like you’re being a bit pedantic in terms of needing proof that Amani civilians were targeted.
The facts are pretty clear on the matter.
The Amani controlled most of the Northern Eastern Kingdoms.
The High Elves marched their force through Amani territory and explicitly killed every Amani they saw on sight.
The High Elves built a city adjacent to the Amani capital and then rapidly expanded their borders.
It would be frankly impossible for the borders of Quel’Thalas to match what we see of the map ala the Troll Wars without at least displacing large sections of the Amani population.
GODDANGIT I STILL CAN’T POST IMAGES?
Okay. Go google it I guess.
You can see Silvermoon’s border pressed right up against Zul’Aman. There absolutely, logically would have been villages in that area that got displaced. We even see one in-game in the Ghostlands.
Again you’ll have to google it because this forum is a dick. I am sorry!
Then this is after the Troll Wars. The Amani are pushed back into a tiny shred of land. Barely a fraction of what they once owned. Are you telling me you genuinely believe that the High Elves never once touched a single civilian while displacing millions of trolls from their homes?
And the reason we can be sure they are being exterminated? High elves don’t have conquered Amani trolls in their civilization. They aren’t taking slaves and they aren’t incorporating the defeated nation’s people into their own empire. That means they are either killing every troll they find or the trolls have had an entire half of a continent’s population crammed into a single city, which is impossible.
That’s a fair point. Although how do you differentiate between one that’s undergone a genocide, and one that lost a war?
I should probably also clarify I’m talking about in terms of Azeroth.
And I just assumed the civilians went deeper into the forests. Nothing I read suggested civilians were involved in the war campaign, where the greatest losses happened in Alterac.
I assumed they survived because they came back. They’re still there. Politically, their empire is gone. There are still people there, though.
It told me I couldn’t post images, either.
Which was strange, because I wasn’t trying to. Then…you know, quoting format trouble.
I think I’m familiar with the map you’re talking about, the one that has Amani Green, Quel’thalas orangeish-gold, and Arathor blue?
I don’t doubt that a large number of Amani were displaced. It probably was more than the villages in the around the Ghostlands, too.
This, though. This is what I’m slightly skeptical about. I always pause when I see something like this, just because it starts making assumptions that can’t be verified. I don’t know, for example just how many trolls were involved in the actual conflict. I don’t know who was killing who. I don’t know how many people were killed. I do know that the other map that shows Arathor as Lordaeron? With the Amani empire in that tiny area? I know that Quel’thalas territory did not move. There was no attempt made to expand any borders.
Humans did make significant gains to the north, into what was once the Amani empire. I don’t know what humans did, either. I do know that if you said something like “Who do you think killed most of these people?” and showed me both maps? I would probably say it’s likely that the people expanding their territories made that decision.
Then we get into numbers. Again, I don’ t know enough to know how many could even fit in whatever area that is. I have no frame of reference for how many were left after the Troll Wars. I have no idea how many went to Zul’Aman, and who maybe went other places. I have no idea how many stayed in the forest in small or large villages. I don’t know this because I haven’t seen it written anywhere.
So, it starts leading to “Well, I’m sure this happened”, but then, it’s like “why are you sure about that?”.
And I get nervous about confirmation bias, so, I kind of wait. Sometimes for answers that never come, because sometimes it’s never addressed again.
This seems…like it makes it a bit too easy to declare any war a genocide.
And the Zandalari…that’s just a whole weird bag, altogether. They keep going from being people allied with the Horde and Alliance, to against them, to with them, to…well, right we’ve all played the past few expansions.
That’s…got to be kind of awkward, Horde Pandaren sitting next to Zandalari trolls. That is a tense dinner.
Having said that, I’m going to step back from posting today. It’s not that people aren’t making good points, it’s that a lot of this is happening fairly quickly, and I feel like I’m not able to address everyone that speaks. And then it gets really awkward when I’m composing a reply to one person, then realize it won’t let me post back to back, so I include a reply to another person in that same message, which just gets…to be a mess.
Also, I’m going to take a moment to play the game for a tick. As is my wont.