Well, the Zandalari have been making themselves enemies of both the Alliance and the Horde since TBC (Or was it Cata?). They brought back Lei Shen… Which could have been a faction ending event.
Well, you are emphasizing the skin color of these characters.
No, see…what you are doing is continuing to make excuse after excuse for what the Alliance has done because “Team Blue can do no wrong!”
This is the current problem with the faction conflict that I as well as many others, have pointed out on several occasions.
Case in point:
Yeah, and the fact that Vol’jin literally led a small army against Zul’aman during Cataclysm, alongside Vereesa Windrunner and Halduron Brightfang, all to stop the Amani from joining Rastakhan’s empire (which might have actually been Zul’s plan, see below) didn’t stop the Darkspear and Zandalari trolls from getting along years later.
More importantly, Zul brought back Lei Shen. Not the Zandalari in general; Zul specifically as an individual. It was part of his grand plan to unite all trolls under one empire, which of course led to him getting corrupted by G’huun.
I guess you also hold all night elves responsible for Tyrande’s crimes, then? No? She gets a free pass for being Alliance?
I guess you also hold all night elves responsible for Tyrande’s crimes, then? No? She gets a free pass for being Alliance?
… What crimes, exactly? Leading a nation that was inconvenient for the Horde?
There IS an issue here that you’re obscuring. The Horde is a fascist, genocidal regime at this point and we are dealing with parties that supported it after they were aware of the extent of that. This is like being an ally in World War II to Imperial Japan with full knowledge of what they were doing in China.
Clearly, you do not know me that well, because I have no love for the Alliance. I am quite firmly in the “Night Elves should be neutral” camp.
Zul and a small army of Zandalari warriors. The Alliance and Horde really had no reason to believe Zul wasn’t acting out Rhastakhan’s wishes. The Alliance found Zul, a known enemy of BOTH factions, and arrested him and everyone on his company.
What crimes? And Tyrande being Alliance would have nothing to do with it, because I don’t particularly like the Alliance lol.
You are making some pretty significant assumptions about me.
I know this is just a side tangent and not in the scope of the thread at all so I’m just going to ask this and not push it, but assuming you mean race, why would you call that the most important game decision to make instead of your class, which is the means you use to interact with the game’s basic mechanics?
Not to say that I don’t think race is important, but I’d be interested in why you’d might put that over class.
I’m not obscuring any issues; these two alone are just off the top of my head:
What’s that? So the entire empire of Zuldazar wasn’t responsible for the actions of Zul and a rogue band of Zandalari, whom we learn were actually going behind Rastakhan’s back?
Sure, just like the Alliance of Lordaeron had “no reason” to think that the orcs were anything other than demon-crazed monsters when they created the internment camps.
Just because something is understandable doesn’t make it right.
Regarding 1: Defending your territory from invasion is not a crime. The Horde and the Alliance were invaders at the time - this being after Grom’s invasion of Ashenvale, and with full knowledge of that invasion.
Regarding 2: Being skeptical of arcane users is also not a crime, and magic use is not an immutable characteristic.
See, I could buy that if Tyrande didn’t double-down on her initial xenophobia after awakening Malfurion:
Malfurion: So, the outlanders battle against the undead as well? They could prove to be powerful allies against Archimonde and his ilk.
Tyrande: They are mongrels and nothing more! They are responsible for Cenarius’ death! I will be damned before I stand with them.
This one may not be a “crime” per se, but it could certainly be seen as a betrayal of the trust that the other Alliance leaders had placed in Tyrande as a representative to what was, again, a neutral faction/potential ally at the time.
Also consider that the night elves had already allowed Highborne back into their ranks, yet we have Tyrande deriding Thalyssra and the Nightborne all throughout the Suramar Campaign from the moment of Tyrande’s arrival.
For a RL analogy, this would be like if the U.N. dispatched the British Prime Minister to negotiate with a country in the Middle East, and then acted shocked that said country decided not to join up with them after the PM treated said country like second-class citizens.
It’s literally a diplomatic disaster.
Unforgivable that she should attack a military force occupying her territory.
I mean, she was right though. The Kaldorei swore off the Arcane because it attracted the Legion… And the Legion targeted Suramar because of it’s arcane power…
The worst you can say that isolating the Nightborne was not a a sound diplomatic strategy… calling it a "sin? though? A bit of a stretch.
But they arrested Zul… Who WAS responsible… First, we are not even certain of the Alliance knew that Zul went behind Rhastakan’s back. Furthermore, they didn’t know if Zul wasn’t continuing to do so at the time of his arrest… as it turns out, he and Talanji were.
I think arresting a known war criminal falls under the “right” category.
RE 1: Tyrande doesn’t offer a xenophobic answer. She offered a practical one. The Orcs invaded Ashenvale and killed Cenarius. The Humans joined them and assisted them after this - making themselves a part of the invasion. You ran into a situation where party A committed aggression against party B, and you’re trying to say that party B has no right to fight off party A.
Of calling invaders mongrels and committing aggression, the UN recognizes just one of these as a crime, and it’s not the use of the impolite word.
Regarding your second point, I noticed you’ve walked back calling it a crime. So we may regard that as dispositioned. If you want to talk about whether it’s a good idea to unconditionally trust representatives from the third magically-addicted elven nation now to attempt to doom the world by inviting demons in for promises of personal power, we can do that in another discussion.
Mongrels is not a practical answer.
If she had said only “They killed Cenarius and thus do not trust their loyalty or commitments”, that is practical.
“They are mongrels and nothing more” is not practical.
I’d actually like to return to the original question, because I can already see we’ve gotten off-track with whether or not Tyrande’s actions can be considered “crimes” or not.
Refresher: My original question(s):
To rephrase:
Are we meant to hold all night elves accountable for every action taken by Tyrande as an individual, or does she get a free pass for being on Team Blue? And the same question may be applied toward Anduin vs. all humans, Genn Greymane vs. all worgen, etc.
This was in the context of the Zandalari as a whole being condemned for the actions of Zul on the Isle of Thunder and what was, essentially, a very small portion of the Zandalari Empire.
To the extent that the Night Elves follow her rule - then we may - which is why regarding Zandalar, and frankly the Horde in general - I put more of my focus on their support for a fascist, genocidal regime - support that largely did not ebb until the very last second.
But then taking into account Akiyass’ argument that, “Well, the Alliance/Horde didn’t know the Zandalari in Pandaria didn’t all represent Rastakhan,” it could just as easily be argued that Rastakhan had no knowledge of the Burning of Teldrassil or the Siege of Lordaeron—he just knew there was a war going on.
And again, it should be pointed out that Rastakhan didn’t join (what he saw as/understood to be) a “fascist regime,” he joined the faction that secured his loyalty by rescuing his daughter from the faction that had (wrongfully) imprisoned her.
So much of the overall Warcraft story has been based on misconceptions, which is a realistic basis for building a war narrative. It’s why I fully support the idea of the Alliance becoming more fanatical going forward by allying with AU Yrel and her army of Lightbound.
They wouldn’t be doing so because they genuinely want to be fanatical, they’d be doing so because, “Well, these guys serve the Light and they’re telling us the Mag’har Orcs killed Draenor.”
I have some quibbles, but I see where you’re going partially at least.
Again, she was in the company of a known War Criminal.
Funny, didn’t Tyrande knowingly release a known war criminal…? 
Because if you’re really going to argue guilt by association, then there is a long list of misdeeds that we can hold good ol’ Team Blue accountable for.
Oh, right. “Alliance does no wrong.” I keep forgetting.
How retroactively bizarre does Broxigar make that reaction?
Hey Tyrande remember that huge green dude you fed and healed when everyone else treated him like trash? And then he wound up being a powerful ally in the fight against the Legion? Didn’t occur to you these other huge green dudes might be related?
I get it was a long time ago. But he was the first and for a long while last Orc anyone on Azeroth had encountered. You’d think you’d remember something like that.
Sure… Does that somehow change the fact that Zul has been causing Havoc for several years with a small Zandalari fleet… and the Alliance just happened to find a small Zandalari fleet with Zul out and about? And somehow it is inconceivable that they would dare arrest them?
Nah, see…it’s not inconceivable that the Alliance would arrest Zul and Talanji.
It is inconceivable that you continue to insist that they are well within their rights to do so, as well as anything else their blue-blooded hearts desire, but whenever a Horde-aligned faction gets up to something, it’s time to break out the pitchforks and flaming torches. 