The Amani are NOT the good guys

Lore Story Forum
805

Yikes, Yikes, Yikes, Yikes.

Do… You not understand that the High Elves were refugees on the brink of starvation? It’s literally mentioned in the Chronicles that they were freezing to death in the mountains and desperate to settle in with a new source of Arcane magic (as the Highborne relied on Arcane magic for basic sustenance).

I don’t like to make irl parallels, but when you claim that a group of desperate refugees were just “invaders”, well… yikes. Sends a terrible message from the camp that presumes to defend the “downtrodden”.

Around 6800 BDP, the Highborne’s journey proved unexpectedly brutal when a ferocious blizzard stopped them for nearly a month, with no way to move forward or escape from the mountain passes. They quickly realized just how vulnerable they had become without the Well of Eternity, and for the first time in memory, they began to die of starvation. Only the compassion of some primitive humans living in the mountains kept the entire expedition from perishing in the winter’s fury. Once the storm lifted, the Highborne forged ahead, shaken but determined to find a new home. As they drew closer to the northern lands, the ground beneath them crackled with potent lines of magic and hope warmed their weary hearts.

806

No but the High Elves/Blood Elves aren’t good ether for invading their sacred lands and ended up destroying the amani empire down to the ground in warcraft 2 and further in TBC.

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807

So let me get this straight: the Amani INVADED Quel’Thalas with the Horde and basically started the Second War, entire forests were burned, the sacred runestones destroyed, and many rangers felled (all things the recent short reminded everyone), and we must blame the High Elves for fighting back against the invaders (the Amani)?

Utterly ridiculous.

Never mind how the High Elves “destroyed the Amani Empire down to the ground so much” that the Aman control half of Eversong and Ghostlands in TBC on top of Zul Aman quite clearly being intact.

808

Ok then I may have misremembered something. It’s still incredibly contrarian to claim that the elves somehow didn’t know.

809

No, Chronicles says they hated the elves because of the horrors of Azshara’s empire and how it smashed the Amani to pieces already. The Night elves (they hadn’t mutated yet) were not unknown to the trolls at that point.

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810

I feel like we’ve been over this. It wasn’t about if they knew, it was about the Trolls explaining or trying any sort of diplomacy to fix the situation.

Because the original comparison was with the Night Elves. And the Night Elves, after talking over the situation, worked it out. They worked together with Horde and Alliance refugees.

The Trolls attacked immediately and seemingly never stopped fighting to try and look for a solution.

811

Unlike the high elves who totally were shown to be diplomatic in this undertaking

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812

I’ve noted before the High Elves aren’t entirely blameless. Though there was no apparent chance for diplomacy with the Trolls attacked them immediately and relentlessly.

813

that’s all I’m arguing lmao

I’m not saying the Amani are angels, far from it, just that their hostility is understandable, especially when most races in WoW doing the same thing they did get a pass.

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814

I think it is understandable, yeah.

If I haven’t been clear, my view is basically both sides did bad stuff. I generally hold the Amani as worse because they physically attacked first and made no apparent diplomatic overtures. But obviously they got screwed in the end.

I think the High Elves are generally racist too. And probably shouldn’t have stolen land from people despite their initial mistake. But that’s also understandable to me because they were almost wiped out crossing the mountains. Going back wasn’t really an ideal option without help either.

Neither side looks great to me.

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815

but the elves did not hate the amani until the amani attacked them.
And that was the thing i refferenced, that the hate was totaly onesided from the beginning.

816

Wish we got to see the Revantusk more. In Cata the Hinterlands story has them take Jintha’Alor. Figure you could make that a lower c capitol for the Horde and turn the current village into a proper harbor with connecting boats to Dazar’Alor and the Echo Isles.

Then we could have our cake and eat it too with the Amani. As you could have the Revantusk working out cohabitation with the Sin’Dorei and Forsaken and any sensible Amani is welcome to join. But they still have crazy hardliners who just straight up want every elf dead and won’t budge.

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817

It does worry me that people are unironically sympathetic to the Amani.

Absolutely NOWHERE is there any display of integrity and good will shown from the Amani, they are outright just slaughtering whatever they can get their hands on, and whatever they are strong enough to slaughter. That is what the Amani is. There is absolutely NO hint of deserving of sympathies, anywhere.

If anything, the Amani is entirely and totally to blame for their own downfall for being such dumbasses. You also do not blame the architects if some kid jumps from a very tall building and then break their legs as a result.

The Amani attacked the elves for no reason, the Amani consistently threw themselves into a meatgrinder for no reason.

The entire thing is mostly a repeat of what happened during the Night Elves empire, before the War of the ancients. The Night Elves established themselves on a big part of Kalimdor, and the trolls just, unprovoked, attacked the Night Elves constantly. There was no desire for further expansion from the Night Elves, they did not attack the trolls, but the trolls kept attacking until Azshara struck a deal with the ancient Zandalari. The Night Elves would not eradicate and genocide the trolls, if the Zandalari promised to keep the other trolls in check.

Case in point, trolls have mostly always been idiots who threw themselves into violent wars for no reason at all, and the amani’s history with the High Elves - Blood Elves is no different.

Very few of the troll tribes actually had some sense, and they were mostly left in peace, Zandalari included.

818

I don’t believe either side of this conflict can necessarily be considered “good”. Neither the Highborne nor the Amani were of the character to break the cycle of violence. There wasn’t a chance for any kind of diplomatic inroad here, no alternative to bloodshed where one group would go unscathed and unconquered.

For the elves it was a matter of survival. Their situation in the EK was incredibly desperate, it’s important to note that what happened to the Amani nearly happened to the human tribes within Tirisfal Glades:

They began to argue that the humans had built their settlements atop the most potent ley lines in the region. Therefore, the Highborne should force them to relocate . . . or even conquer the primitive beings outright.
Page 118, Chronicle 1.

Admittedly, this attitude was also credited as the influence of the darker magics within Tirisfal Glades. But they would soon after depart from the area to take up the exact same stance towards the Amani within Eversong, but without any moral qualms. It’s a classic case of elven supremacy in the sense that they were always intent to conquer, it was just the careful question of when, where, and who would be driven out…

But there also remains the fact that the Amani attacked the elves on sight. The Elves arrived in the Quel’thalas region 6,800 years before the Dark Portal. That’s roughly 3,200 years without Elven contact, but between old racial tensions and their own war-like nature, this was still an incredible amount of aggression. This was BEFORE Dar’themar and co. reached the leylines that Quel’thalas would be founded on.

This is, undoubtedly, an instance where one group is conquered by another. That the Amani Trolls, a much shorter-lived race, are continuously born into a cycle of extreme violence at the hands of Elves who live long enough where an individual can have a hand in exterminating entire generations. It’s extraordinarily cruel.

But suffering does not automatically mean virtue. The Amani had their own inclination towards bloodshed, and their relationship with the early human tribes are proof enough of this. I understand why some would sympathize with the Amani trolls in terms of “Colonist vs Colonized/Conquered vs Conqueror”, or even just in terms of WC2 nostalgia, but painting them in a purely positive, underdog light seems disingenuous.

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819

It was during the time when the High Elves were called the Highborne during the ancient times of Azeroth after the war of the ancients and they settled into northern parts of lordaeron but they settled into sacred lands of the Amani that was sacred to the trolls during that time which what led to the hatred of the Trolls vs Elves in the First place.

820

You want the blood elves to abandon the kingdom they built, because the trolls said the ruins there belong to their people who lived there thousands of years ago?

Do you even hear yourself?

821

Ruins that were abandoned mind you. The Amani themselves weren’t even using them

822

If we’re playing this silly game, then the Amani stole lands from the Aqir Empire.

And don’t say “b-but insect people have no rights!!!” because the new expansion is centred around the idea that the insectoid races are just as civilized and “human” as Stormwind or Quel’Thalas.

As a matter of fact, according to Xal’atath, the structures and monuments in Ny’alotha dwarfed Ancient Suramar.

823

If you read the threads, the desire is to “prove” that one side is evil and the other side victims. The idea that two ancient enemies kept going at each other doesn’t fit that.

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824

I mean they’re considered hallowed ground. Like if someone takes over an old graveyard my grandma was buried in, that’d be pretty enraging.

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