The Vulpera, faction perspective, and subtext

Lore Story Forum
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So, this is a topic that I have been hesitating to post for about an hour now. I considered if it’s something I wanted to address now, or if I wanted to wait a few days to stew on it more, but I felt that if I waited too long I would of likely forgotten about it and not posted it at all. It’s something too that I felt was important, though perhaps considering how heavy the subject matter was it might of also been inflammatory,

So, the most I can ask of you is to approach this topic with an open mind, and try to be respectful. If you disagree I want to make it clear i’m not casting a moral judgement on you, I think the tendency to call people evil for having differing beliefs on this forum has in many ways caused civil discourse to break down.

It started a handful of days ago, when we were discussing as per usual what constitutes a genocide on the story forums. We’ve had this debate for a thousand times I think since BfA had started. With everything that has happened it’s recently flared up around events in the Zolaco and the importance of intent when it comes to that sort of thing, i’ll spare you the details and simply say that I had seen a post from Grandblade at the time. It simply read that the moment we seemed to have really lost the plot was when we called what happened to the Vulpera a genocide.

On it’s face, my knee jerk reaction was agreement.

I mean why would I not? the notion of calling attacking the Vulpera to cut off supplies a genocide, rather then destroy their homes and their people seemed absurd and well within the Alliances rights to do even if some of the methods were questionable. That was that, or so I thought, and yet I couldn’t help this nagging feeling I had in the back of my head, around my heart, that something wasn’t quite right. I chewed on it a couple days, thinking about what it could possibly be.

Once again Darnassus reared it’s ugly head, and I wound up the same argument that i’v been holding onto for quite awhile. That beyond the massive loss of life, the destruction of their homes and supplies had damaged them irreparably, that in the long term Night Elf society may not recover. Then I had that feeling again, that cognitive dissonance with what I was typing, and what I believed, that something wasn’t quite right. Then I remembered two Vulpera: Hilda and Jeni.

“Home is where the wagon is, we go where the sands take us, my caravan has called this place home much longer then I have lived.”

Considering my cultural background, when I realized what it had been I was almost very upset with myself, it’s something that I should of caught onto immediately. It’s apparent in everything about the wagons design. They are covered, they have windows, all those things the Vulpera own aren’t merely stored in the burrows the Vulpera make, much of it, most of it, is stored in the wagons because they are nomads.

The wagons that the Alliance were setting fire to were the Vulperas homes why WOULD THEY NOT fight for them to their death? some of those wagons were passed down from generation to generation, because the Vulpera never live in one place, they all exist in a desert. They barely know of any other world, when you ask them about where they are from they talk about other Vulpera across the sea that they themselves had never seen, and that’s when game scale hit me over the back of the head.

Every Vulpera who lost their wagon to the fires was as good as dead. Thats where they keep their food, their water, their everything, if all those wagons were burnt down could the Vulpera even…continue to live? in the sheer vastness of the desert was survival even feasible? who would they trade with without the Horde? the Sethrak? what would they even pay them with? the implication of the event is that the Alliance had just sacked the Vulperas only means to survive in the desert and that without those things they would simply die.

That’s everything that the Vulpera tell us after all, that they merely scrape by as is, that they cannot afford to waste resources. Do they even have other wagons they could of put the Horde supplies on? would they even of thought about putting them on other wagons? they know little, perhaps nothing, about our conflict and are only trying to…well…survive and the Alliance was stripping them of everything.

I mean yeah, the Alliance was scaring the Vulpera away now instead of killing them(Some of them at least, shackled Vulpera commented that the Despoilers were about to execute them.) but, was there even a tangible difference for these people? what do you think?

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That’s a very well written post and a very intersting perspective ! It is true that what happened to the Vulpera seems a lot worse to me now.

I am not sure to understand if you are calling it a genocide or a massacre much more worse than we thought. So I don’t really now how to answer to your post.

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I hesitate to call it a genocide because that has a lot of baggage with it, but if I try to look at it objectively it meets these criteria from the Rome Statute at least:

  • The destruction of a group as a nation or culture, while the Alliance weren’t going out of their way to smash Vulpera statues or blow up cultural relics, pretty much all of that stuff is put in the wagons.
  • Deprivation of resources and supplies needed for the groups survival. Creation of events that would lead to a slow death, such as the destruction of a house.
  • Potentially torture, depending on if you take what the Vulpera say at face value or not, but is burning them alive with Fel fire really needed? I can’t help but notice every Despoiler is a Mage, Warlock, and Shaman who all kill people in pretty painful ways and seem to be ready to inflict those things on their prisoners.

I’m cautious about this because calling at such would immediately lead to people calling it not as bad as Darnassus, or a lesser genocide, and those are all reasonings i’d prefer to pack in a small box and leave off to the side.

But thinking of it from a legal standpoint, yeah, it’d qualify.

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When you put it like that, yeah. Alliance pretty much did a mini Teldrassil. Dooming dozens, if not hundreds of them to death.

But I sincerely doubt Blizzard will portray it like that. The Vulpera will be a little mad that they got attacked and the Alliance will ignore the event entirely.

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Probably, but with all the hints we’ve been getting with Vulpera it seems like they are going to become a Horde allied race.

And compared to all the other allied races whose reasoning’s could go from ‘okay’ to ‘complete nonsense’ I think i’m comfortable saying ‘Yeah the Vulpera have a relatively good reason to join the Horde.’

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Well if I have to be as cold-hearted as law I would I have stated the opposite. I thing there is several key factors here:

  • The intent : Even according to you if we were to call this a genocide it would be an involuntary one at most. I would also argue that those despoilers seem to act on their own because they clearly don’t respect the orders that we are given as an Alliance player and so this wouldn’t be an institutionalized genocide.
  • The proportion : I think this quest just shows some Vulpera getting attacked and killed by Alliance forces. As a comparison it is just like Brennadam : (people killed, houses and plantations destroyed), the only difference would be that it is a lot easier for the kultiran to survive in Stormsong than Voldun for the Vulpera. However, they both can live by being helped by the rest of their people, the Alliance/Horde or the Sethrak for the Vulpera

To conclude, I think this event is a lot more worse than what it seemed for the Vulpera but I think that the scale of the attack still let the survivors a chance. Moreover, It would most likely ( legally speaking) be called a casualty of war at least or a war crime at most.

Edit: This story became a real mess when they put those kind of horrors in a game. Even if I argue about this I truly despise having to and I whish Blizzard would finally understand how to write a real morally grey faction war story.

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This is actually the same thing that I was talking about when it came to Darnassus at the time when I had my realization. Essentially what I had been arguing at the time was even though Sylvanas was not aiming to destroy that nation in particular(In the sense it could of been filled with humans, dwarves, gnomes, etc and it would of had the same outcome.) and argued that it would count as Democide, which is an extension of Genocide that essentially boils down to ‘Destruction of a culture/ethnic group with no intent to destroy that group specifically, carried out by some form of government/military.’

Proportion is hard to say, but I would point out that in most forms of genocide it was added that destroying cultures in whole, or in part, counts as an act towards that group. I also have some problems with that because it’s unclear how much, if any, help the Sethrak could provide because they likely survive with limited resources the same way the Vulpera do. The Horde could of helped, and are indeed helping as much as we can, but those supplies were going to us to exchange for survival goods after all.

That said yes, I do agree introducing these things to the game without giving them the narrative they deserve has been destructive to the story.

Edit: Also in regards to the Despoilers, the problem with them is that even though they are disobeying orders, we also aren’t clapping them in irons and turning them in either. In essence, the Alliance still bears their full responsibility because it doesn’t seem like any kind of punishment is being handed out, it’s unclear if the Alliance is even trying to stop them beyond words.

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The Alliance didn’t go far enough.

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I am a night elf main but I also think that Teldrassil isn’t a “true” genocide even if it is really awful.

As for the proportion and the possible punishment or not of the Despoilers, I guess we will never know because of the game limitations.

I still think that if we start to call this a genocide we have to call events like Brennadam genocide too and I don’t want this game and this forum to be a game of who did more genocides.

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That is fair, it is worth pointing out that Democide was a purposed term to encapsulate military killings and is not accepted within all academic circles. It is however, very, very close, close enough to be uncomfortable.

The second part frustrates me because I get the impression the Dark Iron Crusaders in the Zolaco probably aren’t going to get a mention in the same way the Despoilers are not.

I think we’ve kind of already gotten into the ‘who did more genocides?’ game as of late, for better or worse. But in the spirit of not making that worse, I think we can safely label these things by the extremely legal term of ‘Very Bad Stuff’ TM.

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I pretty much blocked this scenario out of my mind bc i couldnt take the purge squad seriously in the ptr.

Are draenei warlocks (???) Still Going out of their way to be as dickish as possible And shamans ripping a page of the twilight hammer’s playbook?

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The Draenei are mages, but are still working with human Warlocks and the Shaman are indeed using Ascendants, they seem to be led by Dark Iron Dwarves.

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Blizzard should of never used the word genocide in any capacity. Their game isn’t mature enough, nor is the writing good enough to deal with the weight of the subject.

Having said that, many of the quests performed by either faction would be considered genocidal under most accepted definitions of the word. Which is another reason that they should of avoided labeling anything as such.

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Okay then, let me gather my thoughts on the matter.

I dont think it counts as a genocide due to three factors: 1- intent/knowledge, 2- scope, 3- results

1- i dont think the alliance knew destroying those caravans was akin to burning a nelf forest, and the ones who went out of their way to kill vulpera were apparently ignoring orders.

2- do we know for sure the alliance hit all the caravans at once? Or is this a case of “only 10% of orcs sided with garrosh even though we pretty much killed them all ingame by the truckloads”?

3- Meta knowledge tell us the vulpera will most likely join the horde, so i think even the ones that lost their caravans will eventually be fine.

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  1. I mean yeah, I would argue that the Alliance probably didn’t know that the Vulpera used their homes as their wagons but there’s also no way they can’t know that destroying those wagons would harm the Vulpera as a people. Not unless they thought that the Vulpera had a lot of tools to survive and it’s…well it’s Vol’dun.

  2. We never have specific numbers for these things, so it could only be a small group of Vulpera. However it was the caravan group that had Nisha with it which is, thusfar, the largest caravan of Vulpera we’ve encountered.

  3. I mean…I know the Night Elves are probably going to be fine by the end of BfA, I doubt that Blizzard will keep them in a perpetual state of victimhood after, but that doesn’t make Darnassus retroactively okay.

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  1. Ignorance isn’t an acceptable legal defense. Also, I think it’s pretty obvious that if you rob someone of shelter, resources, and transportation in the middle of a desert your going to cause them a very bad time.

  2. It’s irrelevant whether the action was immediate or systematic.

  3. Meta knowledge doesn’t excuse the behavior. We all new night elves would be fine, yet the action is labeled genocide.

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I mean, thats why i said results. From what we know -so far- the horde will rediscover their honor (ugh) and help the vulpera on their time of need simply bc its the right thing to do or whatever the call.

IF things play out that way then not many additional vulpera will die. Mind you, the emotional scars will always be there but thats besides the point.

On the other hand, the only reason we KNOW the nelves will be fine is due to the pop number magic that blizz uses to keep the orcs, draenei, belves etc afloat- if Warcraft ran on logic instead of rule of cool then its GOODBYE JOJO for them. Sylvanas herself said her actions would change nelves forever simply bc of the sheer number killed and HypocriteFang got ptsd nam/shattrah flashbacks to just show much the metaphorical mustache was being twirled

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That’s a good point. The Alliance actively destroyed the caravans of the Vulpera. They not only took the lives of the slain, but destroyed the way of life of any survivors.

The Horde champion helped free Nisha, and the Horde is helping them survive by protecting settlements, clearing out threats, and helping random Vulpera in need throughout the desert, as well as aiding them with commerce and gold.

The Alliance then massacres the Vulpera for it.

As far as the genocide discussion, I don’t know if Teldrassil qualifies. The narrative has Anduin and Astari reflect on it as a genocide, but that is just the opinion of biased characters. Not a separate narrative point. I don’t see the objective narrative stating Teldrassil was a genocide. I only see it in the reflections of Alliance characters. I don’t take Anduin’s point of view on things as gospel narrative truths - merely the narrative explaining his opinion. He is not omniscient; he had to ask Sylvanas what happened on the Broken Shore.

So, I see the use of the word “genocide” in Astari and Anduin’s mind as their opinion, and nothing more. Definitely not some objective lore point.

As far as a Forum argument: I wouldn’t jump to calling Teldrassil or the massacre of Vulpera genocides. They may or may not be - but I would use other words for such acts of warfare in the setting of Warcraft.

However, if Teldrassil is a genocide, by that measure, we have the Alliance Genocide of Vulpera in Voldun as a rampant act of genocide committed to a race that is not even currently in the Horde.

The Alliance posters seem to bemoan genocide simply because their faction does not do it as well as the Horde.

I was happy to see Kiro at Rastakhan’s funeral. He expresses understanding of the Faction war, and he thinks the Alliance has gone too far.

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I think the problem I have with that is that genocide isn’t very results oriented as a term or as a war crime. A unsuccesful attempt to do something that would kill a large chunk of one culture is still absolutely an attempt to do something that would kill a large chunk of said culture. If the Vulpera bounce back with the aid of the Horde it still counts.

There’s also some questionable quotes by the Despoilers themselves: At one point they state that the Vulpera are being held hostage and unless we give up the supplies they won’t let the Vulpera go, which would be abducting a group of people to use as a bargaining chip in a war. When confronted one states ‘The Vulpera should of kept their noses clean’ as though whats happening to them right now is a just punishment for doing pretty much what they have always done, trade with people.

These things indicate a level of hate towards the Vulpera, one that seems pretty unwarrented. Sure they might be disobeying orders, but their C.O doesn’t seem to be stopping them from engaging in some pretty malicious behavior.

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This is the legal definition I found : “A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves”.

The caravans and Teldrassil itself could be interpreted as these “foundations of life” but in both case the aim of Sylvnas/ the Despoilers is not to annihilate these people. Sure the result is somewhat pretty close but aiming to destroy a people is a lot more malicious.

I will give two examples of non-genocide war crimes that look a lot like this situation, one in game and one in the real world:

  • Brennadam: As I said before, the Horde there is killing everybody, torturing them destroying their homes and their livehood. It’s still not a genocide because of the aim.
  • Any type of bombardment: when the US bombed French towns in order to cripple Germany it pretty much destroyed entire towns and killed a lot of innocents and even allied of the US. It’s still not a genocide.

The Vulpera and Night Elfs are in the same situations they are victims of war crimes and casualties of war. They are not hated as a people by an ennemy who seeks to do everything to annihilate their existence but also their culture, their history etc…

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