Yes, but my point being, instead of Quel’Thalas, Gilneas, and Stromgarde demanding extermination they could have also thought that the internment camps were fine, and thus there would be no worse option trying to be avoided.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Because again, the original leaders of the Alliance of Lordaeron—with the exception of Antonidas and the only-occasional exception of Terenas himself— were not good people.
They were a group of power-hungry, human-supremacist, political rivals/bureaucrats who only ever banded together out of sheer convenience to begin with.
This is demonstrated very clearly with the initial formation of the Alliance in Tides of Darkness, in which everyone from Perenolde to Greymane to Daelin Proudmoore thinks he should command the overall army, and only after Terenas brings up Anduin Lothar’s ancestry and connection to the Quel’dorei do they finally start behaving themselves.
Another excellent example is when Proudmoore and Greymane can’t seem to keep their hands off each other, and are literally ready to draw swords in Day of the Dragon. Deathwing may have been influencing their minds, but the power-lust and warmongering was already there to begin with.
They didn’t have to be good people. It could have been something like:
Terenas: We will put them in camps.
Anasterian: Good. Keep them in cages like the beasts they are!
Instead of
Terenas: We will put them in camps.
Anasterian: They should be exterminated!
That’s severely underestimating the sheer hatred that Anasterian, Kael’thas, Lor’themar, and all three Windrunner sisters felt toward the Horde for everything they had done during the Second War, from burning the forests of Quel’Thalas to actually killing several citizens, one of them being Lirath Windrunner.
Racism and vengeance aren’t exclusive motivators.
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And now the people of Quel’Thalas are allies with the Orcs.
And as I pointed out earlier, even Alleria came to work with Saurfang, when he helped lead the Orcs in the attack that killed her brother.
Which is an excellent demonstration of how people can change if they make the effort, and honestly should’ve been given more emphasis in-game.
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Daelin’s original position was unawareness, and he did not condemn the orcs on the basis of their personality, or prejudge them, but on the basis of their actions in the second war, including the murder of his son. Thats not racism, sorry, thats a natural reaction of an leader, or do you think hate is gone over night because the orcs were imprissoned?
That same change applies to the Alliance as well, especially when most of the leaders of the seven Human kingdoms are long dead.
Most, but not all, which takes us right back to the real original point of this conversation:
The dangerous possibility of Genn Greymane and Turalyon slipping back into their old habits, and taking the leadership of the Alliance back down that road.
Literally all that would be needed for this to happen is for Yrel to show up, “explain” to Turalyon how barbaric the orcs are/were back on Draenor, and then subject him to her “Light Mother” (who is undoubtedly Alternate Xe’ra).
Bam, we get “Racist Light Zealot Alliance” straight out of the “good” old days.
This is literally the definition of racism. Daelin looked at Thrall and Rexxar, and immediately saw the orcs of the Second War.
Because they were orcs.
You yourself admit that
Read: He did not judge them as individuals.
He judged them as orcs.
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I referred to one single writing decision as dumb: the decision to have the Alliance put orcs into camps, only to turn around and frame it as, “Well what else were they supposed to do?” and treat it like some kind of mercy that ultimately came back to bite them in the rear.
That the Alliance was put into the difficult -through no fault of their own, apparently- of having to choose between concentration camps or genocide, chose the camps, and that it was treated by the narrative as sensible/merciful is not some natural logical consequence of writing within the constraints of the universe. It was a deliberate choice made by the authors who can decide anything they want about the narrative. And because the decision was made by people at Blizzard, not the actual Alliance, I call the people at Blizzard out on it.
And it wasn’t a necessary decision, since as we’ve already demonstrated, one can remove that contrivance and still keep the overall narrative intact.
I don’t think they did it because they like concentration camps. I think they did it because they probably weren’t thinking about the greater ramifications of what they were doing. Bad decisions don’t have to be the result of malice. In fact, most bad decisions aren’t.
Sometimes Blizzard contrives situations in which a faction commits war crimes, then tries to turn around and act like they actually had no choice but to commit war crimes in order to avoid even GREATER war crimes, thinking that makes it less bad. They think they’re being clever and delivering an emotional gut punch. But instead, people rightfully call it out as the bad writing it is.
That criticism of that writing decision in that one game is neither a condemnation of the entirety of the Wacraft franchise, or even any individual game. Neither is it a condemnation of people who enjoy the game. I enjoy the game too!
But the question was put forward of what’s the correct response when a story tries to present something monstrous as being ethical. Replace “concentration camp” with your own personal unforgivable crime and imagine WoW creating a situation where doing that is framed as the most reasonable and most moral choice. I won’t jump on your case for being like, “WTF Blizzard?”
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Posts like this make me wish I could “double like” something - because this does an excellent job of pointing out this thing that Blizzard does, where they contrive a dichotomy that players end up taking as a given when they in reality had an infinite array of possibilities to choose from in the situations that they chose to present.
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Genn has had consistent demonstration that he’s changed. Much more so than Quel’Thalas has been given in relation to their sudden and continuous alliance with the Orcs.
As for Yrel coming back and subjecting Turalyon to an evil Naaru, that wouldn’t make the Alliance racist. That would just have Turalyon be corrupted, and we’d probably spend our time going to save him, not following him.
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In more recent events, the very notion of “Genn might convince Anduin to attack the Horde some day, so the War of the Thorns was justified” is something Blizzard never should have had Saurfang or the Horde players buy into.
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See, your mistake here is in thinking the overall narrative—ergo, the writers— supports what the Alliance of Lordaeron did.
It doesn’t.
If the writers—again, Chris Metzen does not support concentration camps—had been writing the Alliance of Lordaeron as one-dimensional “good guys,” we would never have had:
- Tirion Fordring saving Eitrigg’s life not once, but twice in Of Blood and Honor
- Taretha Foxton risking, and ultimately giving, her life to save Thrall, whom she considered her brother, in Lord of the Clans
- Jaina Proudmoore empathizing with the plight of orc mothers and infants in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King or ultimately siding with them against her own father in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, not to mention willingly aiding Thrall in curing Grom during the Orc Campaign in Reign of Chaos.
The writers didn’t set up the Alliance of Lordaeron’s racism because they “approve” of it; they set up the Alliance of Lordaeron specifically to demonstrate why humanity was in the wrong, and to show that in the many, many examples we’ve been given.
It was necessary, for the reasons I have stated many times. And no, you have not demonstrated that said “contrivance” would result in “keeping the overall narrative intact,” because it wouldn’t.
If you honestly believe the writers of the early Warcraft lore were unaware of “the greater ramifications”—which I’m assuming refer to those in the story, and not simply your own judgement and criticism—then you really need to go back and reread Lord of the Clans and Of Blood and Honor.
You mean like the internment camps, which Turalyon and Terenas both considered to be an act of mercy?
I feel like you’re trying to equate the “Blizzard” of today with the team that created the original RTS games and novels, which is beyond ridiculous.
So, again…
“The story” never presented the orc internment camps as being ethical.
“The story” presented the orc internment camps as being what humanity considered ethical.
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Tell me, how would you view someone, Who literally free guilty warcriminals, he saw only again a path of destruction, build by orcs and blood and yeah, from alliance pov, they were guilty prisoner for their deeds in the first and second war.
Daelin was not right to try to wipe them out, but he didn’t prejudge thrall because he’s an orc, he judge him for his (alliance pov) crime
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And now you’re moving the goalpost from “it wasn’t racism” to “what would you have done differently”?
I’m not playing this game with you, especially if you’re going to try and hold Thrall accountable for events that took place before he was even born.
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Agreed. I mean, we’ve spent a year all pointing out how the War of Thorns and Teldrassil in particular were horribly contrived and examples of Blizzard’s very bad writing.
And we’re all preemptively railing against the idea that Blizzard might try to pull a, “Well actually, burning Teldrassil was the RIGHT thing to do…” Especially if the reasoning is something along the lines of “…because the Night Elves had done nothing up until then but proven themselves to be unreasonable tree squatting inhuman creatures who’d never give up.”
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He freed the guilty and nonguilty orcs, he make no difference, is that a crime?
From alliance pov yes and that’s was thrall, so, yes, from pov alliance he was guilty
You have to be crazy to say that on Tolkien