Again, you’re putting words in my mouth. Please, PLEASE stop.
You’re the only one snarling and getting super aggressive.
The soldiers who followed Sylvanas are still in the Horde. Sylvanas had “The support of the people” as recently as 8.2. They knew what she was doing. What she had done.
Meanwhile, along with 10,000 years of separation and societal change, there was an entire class system and widespread deception going on with Azshara’s crimes. And again, those most responsible and complicit in it are now h/b/velfs, naga, or Highborne, who were exiled at the time.
Sylvanas killed a bunch of elves in a war the elves started by mass murdering lumberjacks.
The elves tried to feed the entire planet to Space Satan because they thought it might give them a boost to their spell DPS.
And sorry bud, all the night elves will happily tell you how they were all aroudn ten thousand years ago, and while i’m certain all will say “oh gosh no that wasn’t ME doing those horrible things!” that’s how it usually goes after the atrocity is labeled an atrocity.
No doubt there’s a crew of goblins on a zeppelin somewhere going “What? me? I’ve never even heard of a Theramore, what’s that?”
…what? The attack on the Horde by the Night Elves was during the third war.
We know the class system of the Night Elves. We know who was responsible. And it wasn’t the “tree-huggers”, it was the upper crust arcane users. Who, again, were exiled, or turned into naga.
I know it’s fun and easy to ignore those details, but I’m not going to let you.
And those attacks continued past the third war. it’s almost as if continuing to kill people and completely avoiding any diplomacy is a sure way to keep a fight going or something!
(But then the complete absence of any sort of diplomacy is kind of a regular thing for everyone in this setting…)
As for the elves… Everyone was an Arcanist, bud. Their entire society was built aroudn the Well of Eternity and its arcane power. Sure you had a few mushroom-licking luddites like Malfurion, but they were absolutely the exception, and largely ostracized from society. This is why the renunciation of Arcane magic after the war was such a big deal - because it completely permeated every level of night elf society. The Highbourne were better at it, but everyone had a piece of that pie. How many? Enough that even with the majority of their society agreeing to reject arcane magic in the aftermath, there will still so many who didn’t that it would have been insane to try to execute them all (lore’s idea, not mine.)
With the exception of the dudes who think eatign three whole kernels of nutmeg then napping in a barrow for five thousand years is a great way to spend an afternoon, yes, sorry. Night Elves were on board with Azshara… at least until it became a personal inconvenience for them, whether in the moment or after the fact.
and how defending their lands TOTALLY justifies genocide.
let’s not forget those night elves were the ones who became high/blood elves. The current night elves are the ones who resisted long before they did. We can’t really argue lore if you don’t even know it.
You’re almost right. But to paraphrase Miracle Max, “almost right” is still “mostly wrong”
High elves did indeed come from night elves. Specifically they were the Night Elves who, after the War of the Ancients, refused to give up Arcane Magic and got exiled for it. That part is true, good for you. But what you’re missing, and what makes your statement wrong… is that they were a minority among the Night elves, most of whom did agree to give up Arcane Magic. Because the overwhelming majority of Night elves were arcanists. Because arcane magic was the lynchpin of their entire society.
The soon-to-be High elves were not diehard Azshara loyalists and accomplices, at least no more (or less) than the other night elves that survived on the western fragment of Kalimdor.
If you really want to tell yourself that every Night elf who did renounce Arcane magic did so without ever being part of the problem, and did so out of moral fortitude rather than having a glaive to their throat, well, go ahead. ten centuries is plenty of time to cultivate some very deep self-delusions.
The Horde does share a certain amount of guilt. Even tough most of it belongs to Sylvanas.
But from what everything indicates, things are gonna be more diplomatic now that the horde has a council and the vast majority of leaders are not warmongering idiots.
Nope, that’s demonstrably, flat-out wrong. The Highborne were primarily responsible for the war of the Ancients, not the lower castes, and there are multiple sources that prove this.
Warcraft Chronicle, Volume 1: And I quote;
“Unbeknownst to greater night elf society, the Highborne had begun communing with Sargeras.”
“Sargeras reached out To the Highborne and capitalized on their hubris”
“Azshara and her Highborne used the Well of Eternity’s energies to bring the Legion’s minions into Azeroth. Waves of demonic warriors flooded out from the queen’s palace, murdering every Night Elf in their path save for their Highborne allies”
What’s more, as far as the continued attacks- The Orcs settled in Durotar specifically to eke out a harsh existence because of the way they had wronged the world, after the initial fight with the Night Elves.
Then they went back and kept logging, which they had no right to do. So yeah, fighting broke out. That’s not the night elves’ fault!
Well, the orcs have two choices: Die of exposure in the desert, or harvest building materials so they can live somewhere.
And there’s a whole forest right there.
Maybe hte elves, as sentient, rational beings could have seen the obvious issue here and gone “hey orcs, we’ll use our druidic magic and control of the forests to help provide you with lumber, in exchange you provide…” I dunno, whatever elves want, Illidan body pillows or something.
But nah. That would require these idiots to actually be rational, sentient beings, instead of being mutant moon trolls led by one of the worst-written women in fiction, who are mostly busy pretending they are perfect beings despite having blown up an entire continent out of ignorant greed.
orcs aren’t just gonna die in a desert, no matter how much the thought helps you get your rocks off.
Sometimes colonists don’t get to choose where they set up shop. Long sea voyages can be harsh and they would’ve only had so much food and water. Not a lot of time to scout out the ideal location.
… Plus if they landed a bit north they would’ve been in Azshara and the night elves would’ve gone full genocide on them. Little did the orcs know that the brutal desert was the less dangerous of the two locations.
You can’t make a trade deal with the orcs if the orcs don’t keep their part of the promise.
In fact, there were multiple times where there was a supposed trade deal between the night elves and the orcs, but it all ended with the orcs attacking and finally attempting to (and mostly succeeding to) wipe out the night elves
In the “Founding of Durotar” campaign of WCIII: The Frozen Throne. Daelin led an expedition from Kul Tiras to raid the coast and prevent the orcs from gaining a foothold in Kalimdor. This was when Tiragarde keep was built, and the construction efforts included a lumber mill that used up so much of the available timber in Durotar that the thunder lizards were starving and their numbers had to be culled.
Durotar wasn’t exactly lush before this happened–it was already hot and rocky–but it wasn’t critically lumber-starved the way it was afterward.
Was there anywhere else on the entire continent that wasn’t already claimed as “sacred homeland” by the genocidal fifteen-or-so night elves that existed at that point in the lore?
