Was The Teldrassil BBQ A Genocide?

Lore Story Forum
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Visualizing population density and size of towns in wow has never been easy. I know Teldrassil was meant to be the main home of the night elves an we’re supposed to view it as this massive multi city tree of wonder. But how much does it matter when compared to the dozen or so other zones and areas that have night elves.

Is Teldrassil the equivalent of destroying a real life metropolis? An entire province/state? Or is it like destroying an entire country like the United states except you still have Alaska and Hawaii alive?

As others said, its a major war crime regardless and I’d argue that due to the nature of night elves, im more willing to belive most towns outside of Teldrassil would be incredibly sparce.

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There has not been any blanket objective narrative statements labeling it as such.

No Horde characters have called it that.

Anduin and Astarii Starseeker felt it was. That is their biased opinion as the effected party.

I think not.

These forces have been at near constant war for near decades.

The fact that some Night Elves were spared shows it wasn’t a genocide. Saurfang allowed for Night Elven leadership to flee by his own word and deed. What kind of a genocide is that?

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So I guess it didnt happen to the Jews or Armenians cause they are still around right.

Man this xpac has horde players trying to redefine what genocide is now.

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Teldrassil was still their best chance imo; Azshara was not really an option right from the outset of battle since the Horde army came up from the Barrens and had basically the eastern third of Ashenvale cut off right from beginning.

Stonetalon was also probably not viable for that same reason getting there likely meant going through the Horde army’s axis of attack.

Felwood was certainly an option at least in the early stages of battle. But likely not an option after the battle had progressed certainly not after the Night Elves lost the Falfarren River and Astranaar. And I’m not sure how an influx of civilians would have liked their chances amongst that many demons and satyrs roaming around.

TLDR imo they really didn’t have many good choices to start with =\

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Sylvanas said in A Good War that it would make the night elves defunct as a people.

de·funct
adjective

  1. no longer existing or functioning.

Tyrande said that the species would never recover in Elegy. We know from both novellas and the actual WoT quests that every night elf settlement in Ashenvale(and there are more than those present ingame) was hit at the same time as Astranaar, using the same methods.

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Sylvanas will never succeed.

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Just about twenty posts in and this thread has hit maximum awkwardness for me. Excellent.

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Technically? No. There are still Jews in Germany, so technically that thing in the 40s wasn’t a genocide since they didn’t finish the job. Just an attempted genocide. Which still isn’t a genocide. Somehow though that saying it wasn’t a genocide is extremely likely to ruffle a lot of feathers.

Mass slaughter of that nature are called “genocide” in common parlance. So yes, in all but the technical sense, Teldrassil was a genocide.

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I hit max at the title.

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Lore wise Teldrassil was equivalent to the American North East and the West Coast and Florida combined that would include NY state, California, New England, just to name a few sections of the United States. While the country would survive such attack the majority of Americans would be dead.

The remaining population would echoes of the wonder that is our country. Meaning that the surviving Dixie populations of the South, Midwest and central part of the United States would not represent the Northern Yankee culture or the unique Californian cultures. What would remain would be “Americans,” but they would not be representative of the majority who are dead.

Also remember Kal’dorei are more homogenized as a people relative to the American populace, but distinct cultures, internal communities and the provinces held in Ashenvale, Darkshore and Teldrassil represent the majority of the civilian population. What remains lore wise is mostly military and small pockets of Kal’dorei culture.

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Just wait. A few more Horde apologists, a couple of Night Elf fans, and this thread is really gonna go places.:sunglasses::popcorn:

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Given my background, I have a bit more awkwardness and cringe to hit every time the “Not 100% of the people affected were wiped out so obvs wasn’t a genocide” argument is trotted out.

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I mean, I’m always willing to tease the Horde about how it takes the ENTIRE HORDE ARMY, a sneak attack, and a deus ex machina to deal with… The Darnassus City Guard and Malfurion.

And they still lose 8 soldiers for every night elf combatant they kill.

Oof.

I understand that it’s fair to perceive it as attempted genocide, but I still think night elves are just too scattered to be in real trouble… Emotional responses aside. And it probably killed a high proportion of children.

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Except we know through gameplay that this didn’t happen. The Nelfs are still around and are quite capable of functioning.

That said, let’s up the ante and add that the Rwandan genocide didn’t wipe out all the Tutsis. But it was still a genocide.

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Functional in this case would mean the ability to continue as a people long term. The example of the new Alliance helper group for 8.2 is the example of “non-functional” being discussed. That is, a race that would no longer be able to continue on past the current decade or maybe century.

Whether or not this is accurate or just needless stale raising that will never be addressed after BfA ala the fact that belf’s somehow function after losing over 90% of their population is anyone’s guess.

Edit: you do make a good example of the Rwandan case. Sorry was just being a bit pedantic.

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Fair, the bits about this that make me cringe were experienced by my father, not me.

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I wasn’t trying to imply that it was me personally, but…close enough, if you catch me.

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Also fair. Honestly, I don’t know what Blizzard expected when they brought this topic in WoW with such…stark…terminology, it was always destined to be a trashfire. If someone from the outside peers into the WoW forums these days it’s…not flattering, to say the least.

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Because Blizzard’s morality I am pretty certain should be on the scale of blue/orange not black/white.

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We’ve been over this. The line from Elegy, “Sylvanas Windrunner had committed genocide.” is stated from a third person, narrative perspective, not Anduin’s.

The full passage with all applicable context:

Tyrande closed her eyes. “I said the tree would not be… ” Her voice broke. She opened her eyes and looked at the child she held in her arms, covered with soot, but whole. Healthy. Alive. Tears slipped slowly down her cheeks. “What is her name?” she asked softly.

Mia shook her head weakly. “I don’t know.”

“Then, little one, I shall name you Finel. ‘The last.’ For you are the last kaldorei to escape with your life.”

The World Tree was more than a city. It was an entire land, home to countless innocents. How many night elves were elsewhere in Azeroth? Far too few. Now, they were all who remained of their people.

Sylvanas Windrunner had committed genocide.

Anduin had known she was selfish—arrogant, too. Cunning. Driven. But he had never expected this. Through blurred vision, he saw Genn Greymane’s face as his wife clung to him, and he realized that not even Genn, who hated Sylvanas with his whole heart, could believe it. No one had thought she would put her cruelty before her cleverness. There was no strategic purpose, no possible reason to destroy the tree. Far from it—with this unfathomable decision, Sylvanas had united the Alliance in a way nothing else could.

Third person writing comes in a few flavors. Elegy remains in the third person throughout, with bits of second person writing in there, but it obviously touches on the personal thoughts of certain characters even in the third person perspective. We see this in the quoted passage above as well. Perspective shifts, however, with each new paragraph and/or drastic shift in subject. That’s standard writing for a third person narrative.

The entire first portion of this passage (the italicized bit) is from a neutral, third person perspective. It describes Tyrande asking a question, crying, Mia replying, Tyrande responding again, and then narrative descriptions.

As you’ll notice though, it never mentions anything that can’t be directly observed. Others can see that Tyrande is crying, so it describes her crying. It doesn’t go into detail about her thoughts, or Mia’s thoughts, or anyone’s thoughts, until the perspective shifts to Anduin’s later on. This is simply because it’s not from anyone’s direct perspective. This is further reinforced with the “their people” line at the end of the fourth paragraph; if it were from Tyrande’s perspective, wouldn’t it be “my people”?

This neutral, third person narrative continues till the end of the genocide statement. The first indicator for a shift in perspective - as we see again with paragraphing - is when it starts with “Anduin had known…” and continues through in the boldened section.

The italicized bit in the above passage is the voice of the narrative.

Here was the first time I explained this:

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