Learning and becoming something are two different things. For example: A knight started his combat training around 7 at average. In some places soldiers could be only 14. You became a knight with 21 (on average etc.).
I don’t think they should. I also don’t know how well Ice Trolls can live in other climates.
But not trolls, your talking about humans. You might wanna use orc lore which is much more close to trolls style of growth. They are war ready at 12 in Orc culture.
So that gives them the right to push into dwarf lands? There is lots of space in Dun Morogh, the frostmane have lived alongside the dwarves since the dwarves settled the in the mountain, they know the boundaries.
For Trolls is actually 17. (Or more they really start from there).
Edit: This was confirmed in MoP on the Isle of Thunder.
So we don’t know how old these whelps are though? They could be 17? Or is it just Zandalari who are warriors at 17?
They don’t look full grown.
It’s mentioned it goes for all tribes (rituals may differ for each tribe, but the basics are pretty much the same).
I don’t think we disagree much.
Indeed you are a worthy opponent to debate with. The situation both dealt with wasn’t ideal, but they both acted as pragmatically as each side would.
Leave it to the story forum to turn a thread about discussing Gnomish Politics and forms of the Gnomish Government into another alliance vs horde “your side is worse than mine” mud flinging contest about trolls for some reason.
It’s because gnome politics are easy. The high tinker is the best gnome so he is king! Maybe they would hold another election, but who would vote for any other gnomes?
In all honesty, we don’t really have a full grasp on Troll Aging anyway, since we’ve only seen Zandalari Children and adult Trolls of various sizes (an Rokhan whose age seams to vary based on the recons.)
But to the Point addressed earlier, Children are Whelps but Whelps aren’t Children. Whelp just means to young of a Animal but doesn’t expressly dictate it’s maturity. Zekhan can be defined as a Whelp, or just beyond that perhaps.
Until Blizzard actually makes a statement regarding this, I’d say it could be interpreted either way. Blizzard should just bite the bullet and update their models one way or the other.
If said “whelp” is barely reaching hips size of adult woman then it’s a child.
Teens are bigger than that. Much bigger. Because Zekhan in game is using the adult male model and he is not shorter than other adult males in game despite barely passing puberty.
The Frostmane whelps are tiny.
It’s really crazy that people even question that.
Why am I not surprised you will join that nonsense? Insanity.
I’m not joining anything of the sort and I agree the quest and their portrayal is effy as hell.
But it doesn’t help that these “whelps” are depicted (IN-GAME) as “pint sized brutes and savages” that would sooner attack you on sight then to run to their matrons. Even by the quest, it implies that these “whelps” were engaging in attacks against the dwarves. Which makes the change from openly hostile to neutral even more confounding.
When they were changed in Wrath, they should of either been removed from the objective of the quest or it removed entirely.
If I can interject here, I don’t think it is necessarily indicative of anything that the Whelps would stay and fight rather than run away from a hostile enemy. I mean not only is their culture different, and values different things.
This isn’t even getting into the fact that most children (and let’s face it, a lot of adults) can be extremely unreasonable, even more so when they are not fully matured. We see in Shadows Rising the Orc child fearlessly / stupidly not back down from Turalyon, one of the most accomplished and skilled living Paladins in all of Humanity. It stands to reason that a Troll child could act just as recklessly to any invaders into what they consider their home.
Also, I’d like to point out with how dangerous Azeroth is I’d not be surprised if weapon skills are taught at a young age, which seems to be true for most of the races of Azeroth. Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, etc.
I don’t disagree though that does bend the narrative towards Trolls being the “savage” race that’ll teach their young to fight and kill at an early age.
The problem comes, actually because of the change in hostilities during Wrath. If blizzard hadn’t changed their Aggro from red to yellow, we wouldn’t be here having this conversation
I mean don’t dwarves also teach their whelps to fight from an early age?
And speaking about Humans Anduin was being taught swordsmanship and how to shoot a bow from a young age.
It’s not just limited to ‘savage’ races that teach their young to fight from an early age. Though it generally gets mentioned in a different light between ‘savage’ and ‘noble’ races.
You’re not wrong but as far as I know, humans and dwarves don’t have their whelps engaging in raiding parties. Not short of a possible “Lord of the Flies” reference.
But … are these Trolls engaged in raiding parties?
Reference for Quest Text:
The text of the quest to kill them in Classic is:
My brother Senir and I were sent to different parts of Dun Morogh to investigate the threat posed by the trolls. The Senate has its hands full with the troggs, so they’ve no need for further annoyances.
From what I’ve seen, the trolls aren’t well situated here in Coldridge Valley–mostly the southern cave. I’d say that the army will not be necessary. A few strong arms should be more than enough.
Perhaps you’d like to assist in this endeavor? I have the authority to offer compensation for your help.
As for the updated quest as of Cataclysm:
The trolls’re acting up. More than usual, I’d say. We’ve seen them put together war parties before, but this time it’s… different.
What matters most, however, is the continued protection of Anvilmar. I’ve no intention to let those trolls flank Anvilmar while its attention is turned towards troggs. Go thin their ranks a bit. They need to know that we’re still not without defenses.
And the investigation quest added in Cata says:
I’m notoriously bad at reading troll facial expressions. That being said, these trolls don’t look angry to me. They seem to be confused… maybe a little frightened.
Something happened that we’re not seeing here, . I say we do some investigation before we just kill every troll in sight.
There are three troll camps in the area: one to the southeast, one to the southwest, and one due west. Each camp has a soothsayer… see if you can get close enough to listen to what they’re saying.
It does not indicate they are using these trolls to raid, only that they are nearby. Like as not the Frostmane Trolls have lived in Dun Morogh for generations and in Cataclysm they are specifically called out as having to have moved due to the Cataclysm. So it seems less like these Welps are part of the raiding party, so much as they are just living among their tribe who has, for one reason or another, had to move too close to the Dwarves.
Unless I’m missing something, these particular Trolls don’t seem to be indicated as part of any of the Raiding parties themselves, but instead just part of the Trolls living nearby that need to be ‘thinned out’.
See, that’s where the disconnect between the way the quest was originally portrayed to the player vs how the trolls became in Wrath.
Originally, the trolls were all hostile to the player and when you’re given the quest, it’s perfectly understandable that these same trolls were engaging in hostilities with Anvilmar.
But they they get recon’d to being an innocent troll village that the adventurer comes in and kills their children?
They should of thought to update the quest to
Well arguably the Vanilla starting zones and the post-cata starting zones are two different series of events (except for the BC races)
So this could just be a separate splinter tribe of the Frostmane coming up and getting entangled in the same way as a previous group. (Perhaps that particular cave is just really comfortable to live in?)
Regardless to all of that I’d argue the root of the problem lies in terming the mobs Whelps in the first place. It’s not really an endearing term and in warcraft is (aside from here) either used as an insult or a reference to the youngest state of Dragon short of being in an egg. It’s almost exclusively used to refer to dragons in this game, and it being applied to another species always seemed a bit … troubling.
Generally when I wonder if something is more terrible than first glance, I try to imagine if it was another race that was in their shoes. Like Humans, or gnomes. I have a hard time imaging a quest where you would have to go kill Human Whelps living in some small buildings who were all smaller than regular human models.
At the end of the day I think that’s the main problem for a lot of people with this quest.
Agree completely which really lends to the credibility of the Dwarf in question was using it as such and not particularly referring to children as a legitimate target, so the terminology was only compounded by the fact that they used reduced sized models