The Issue with the Amani

Lore Story Forum
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Hello everyone,

The purpose of this topic is to explore what I believe is the pervasive issue ruining, or at best diminishing, many promising stories in the World Soul Saga. That issue is time. Many stories, like the Arathi, Undermine, K’aresh, and now the Amani, felt somewhat half-done, rushed, and poorly executed overall. I don’t believe this was the result of an incompetent story team, however. At least not entirely. The issue was simply not giving these stories enough time to properly mature. From here on, I will focus on the Amani, since that is the story I am most passionate about, and it is the current focus of the community’s attention.

To me, the Amani’s story has felt a bit lackluster because of how sparse the old hatreds have been. The elves and the forest trolls have been warring with each other for thousands of years, yet we see so little contention between the two. Ideally, most of the Amani should be acting like Zul’jan, and most of the elves should be acting like Lor’themar does in the Bitter Truth short story. All of their baggage can’t be swept under the rug with something as small as the reveal of a shared lineage, which is what has happened in 12.0.7, and that is reflected. However, from what I’ve seen coming out of the 12.1 PTR, it seems like where this story is going is not good. Essentially, it feels like Blizzard has divided the Amani into two groups. Group A includes those who feel the war has lost all meaning and aren’t sure why they’re fighting anymore. Group B is those who cling to the old hatreds and want to keep fighting. 12.1 appears to be a convenient way to eliminate Group B, leaving only Group A behind, and Group A is the group that will make up with the elves. By the end of 12.1, Zul’jarra is standing beside the likes of Arator, Lor’themar, and Liadrin in Silvermoon City. The conflict between them, which has lasted for thousands of years, is now, ostensibly, ended. It does not feel authentic, though. It feels forced, and that is, I believe, because in the grand scheme of things, the Amani plot is not the A plot. It is a side-story. Midnight, and indeed the whole World Soul Saga, is hamstrung by the A Plot. Blizzard has these other stories that they want to tell, like the Amani, and how they’ve portrayed Zul’jan, Torundo, and Lor’themar’s interactions, show that they can do it authentically. However, because they can’t just drop the A Plot completely, they rush many of these B-plot stories, resulting in forced, convoluted resolutions that feel fake. The Amani’s story, ideally, should be the A plot of an entire expansion, and be prevalent across every patch, major and minor. But it is just a side plot, so it suffers from not having enough screen time.

Also, I’d like to add that this is not me trying to let the current writing team off. Even if the Amani story is suffering from a lack of time to be told properly, it could still be told better than they are currently telling it.

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I could understand why the Amani hate the blood/high elf’s. But the elf’s hating Amani is harder for me. From my understanding Amani had been mostly in the receiving end of things. They lost their land and were put through the meat grinder a few times. Their situation is so dire because the elf’s came there and created their nation.

On the other hand what are the elf’s so upset about? They been well off minus Arthur’s which had nothing to do with the Amani, the elf’s were literally Arthur’s/scourge to the Amani. Sure maybe some elf’s fought in the war and hate the trolls but there shouldn’t be many as it was years ago. Unlike the trolls their lively hood didn’t change.

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Amani almost genocided them back and were saved by the Arathi.

The Amani border raids butchered villages entire.

They’re also man eaters and cannibals. It was generally only the Darkspear who stopped in order to join the Horde.

The Amani, like every troll and elf empire, also were big on slavery and using hex magic to mind control slaves.

Like idk why we’re pretending the Amani are some poor little hard done by group who just did a little oopsie woopsie too long ago to remember. The elves are long lived and a lot of the horrors of the trolls are fresh for many of them.

Plus even the Kaldorei, long lived, would remember the wars with the troll empires as Azshara expanded her territory and the misery the trolls committed against the elves and other trolls alike.

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Oh you’re right I forgot about the troll wars where trolls were winning. Were they trying to genocide or just trying to take their land back? Or is it one of those things we only hear one groups perspective.

I do feel bad for the Amani, I mean they were pushed from their historical lands. From their perspective they only fought back to take back what was there’s. It is not like the elf’s didn’t commit war crimes or the humans. Ethical cleansing is bad.

We brush over elf’s crimes oh they were just expanding their empire. But what does that mean, it means they ethically cleansed or genocide the people who were native to the land. Elf’s kingdoms and empire were secular entities they were for elf’s, trolls were either killed or pushed out. Both of those things are horrible.

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Oh man yeah the totally innocent and wholesome Chungus troll empires that never ever ever ever expanded or did a heckin’ evilerino like slavery, genocide, mass slaughter (that they’re well known for) ever. Nope! The poor innocent trolls were just living in their ethically sourced land debating gender identity and theoretical physics when one day evil yakubian yt elves just descended on them and killed them for living off the land and trying to share. The Gurubashi EMPIRE, Zandalari EMPIRE, and Amani EMPIRE actually just held hands the entire time and bravely endured against all odds.

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No they weren’t clean but we have no record of them harming or pushing out another native race….This is all fiction don’t really understand this aggression. You’re ignoring one sides crimes and assuming the others. They did kill other trolls all of them did, but they didn’t push another race. Heck they were victims of another races expansion.

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Expansionistic racist elves coming in to kill the expansionistic, cannibalistic, slave enthusiast trolls. My heart bleeds.

They tried and failed with the Nelves, then tried and failed with the high elves (despite almost succeeding and the elves requiring Arathi assistance to survive).

Why do you keep acting like the trolls aren’t xenophobic monsters who until thrall told them to stop, would eat other people for fun and were generally all around savage chads?

Trolls being brutal is awesome, adds to their flavour. Being Wakanda/Avatar kumbaya singing elves with a fresh coat of paint is boring. Stop detusking them because you want to be a victim.

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The Amani culture is INFERIOR!
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Xenophobic monsters? You stretching stuff there… but do you, none of what I said was wrong.

If fighting back against colonizers makes you a monster then so be it. Not found of them being cannibalis in the past I will give you that. Your vastly ignoring their hardship and the meat grinder the elf’s have put them through.

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They even have a slur for outsider lol. Jah calls you gokinye with contempt every time he talks to you or about others not of his tribe.

Come on man, put the pieces together.

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Are you serious? Gokinye means my friend or my brother…….

Even if they had a slur that makes someone a monster……. I dunno bro, I’m done argueing you do you

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Gokinye is the Zandali word for invaders. It is a derogatory term used in reference to foreigners.

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I google it and got this from ai. It says friend, brother still calling someone an invader since they have invaded in the past is a slur.

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Lmao

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Gokinye = Invader(s).Derogatory term used by forest trolls and their loa for foreigners.

h ttps://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Zandali

That’s why AI can’t be trusted since it’s often wrong.

But it’s not anything friendly.

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And to give my two cents on this conversation, I’ll say this. The point of the story of the Amani and the Elves isn’t that one side is objectively right. It is that there are two nations, two peoples, that have been warring with one another for millennia, and neither of them is pure. The elves came to the Amani’s lands, took them, and then fought fiercely to protect their new home. The Amani, of course, fought against the elven invaders, and they lost. In the millennia that followed, both would skirmish and occasionally war with one another, and both would match the other’s escalation with escalation. The recent short story called The Bitter Truth shows us that both the elves and the trolls committed atrocities against each other. These are things that both sides will have to live with, and though they may not view their heinous acts as evil, that is to be expected. No villain has ever believed they were a villain. Everyone is the hero of their own story, but more often than not, both sides are just as bad in their own way, and both share plenty of blame.

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Yes apparently calling you an invader since you know we have invaded them in that past makes them monsters. You still off base fam.

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Man ai let me down :expressionless_face:

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As the famous Russian proverb goes: Trust, but verify.

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I completely agree with you. But some people here think one side are monsters for defending themselfs.

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An empire upset they’re on the receiving end of the stick isn’t pitiable and the Amani deserve their misery as much as the belves do.

You scoffed at me when I said they were xenophobic and then were categorically wrong about what their slur for outsiders meant.

Also idk if you’ve paid attention to the Zul’jan quest like they released this week but he wants to subjugate the Loa again and rebuild the Amani empire. Not protect their homeland, he’s looking to expand. As the trolls always do. As the elves did.

But hey.

Poor innocent litttle trolly wollies.

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