No, the Trolls did not necessarily have to go anywhere. The Humans, Tauren, and Vrykul that lived under the purple map of the Night Elf Empire were not displaced or removed from their lands. To headcanon that the Trolls were is exactly and only that: headcanon.
What you doubt is not a canon lore source.
This would indeed be the appropriate response to your post, which does not amount to anything beyond reading into what isn’t there and stating Yuh Huh! Did happen!
As you have no evidence, and in fact you have nothing beyond your doubt to support your claims, you have no real grounds to stand on at all:
According to people like Amadis, no trolls were displaced from their homes. Ever. Because apparently Chronicles didn’t exactly spell it out word for word. Some people really are just incapable of reading between the lines.
Ok, they displaced them. I guess the followup question is “so what?” Azshara didn’t roflstomp a bunch of disconnected troll tribes, we’re talking three or four troll EMPIRES; i.e., states themselves based around hegemony and territoral acquisition. In other words, they stepped onto the field, and they got tackled in bounds.
Point is, to say no trolls were displaced is just being dishonest and people who make that claim know that. But to say that Chronicles doesn’t say it, as if it really needs to be spelled out for some people is just dumb.
Well, responding is easy. It’s another thing when I need to go back and search through a novel (I don’t remember if it’s War Crimes or Wolfheart), and find a very specific line.
I usually respond at this time in the morning, because it’s right before I starting meeting with clients. The rest of my day is pretty busy. So I might not get to it until this weekend. But in this case, I know what I am looking for. It is a very specific scene where Tyrande is alone in the Temple of the Moon, and she is commenting on the wrinkles on her face that she hadn’t had before.
But I said I’ll get the reference, so I have every intention of doing so. I know Tamanii likes to pretend I am a horrible, dishonest person, but that’s not the truth.
I am more arguing against presenting something unverifiable as if it was objective lore. Y’all can think it is more reasonable to assume that land was conquered from the Trolls by force of arms and ethnic cleansing. As long as you also acknowledge that it’s headcanon and not something that can be stated as a verifiable objective truth.
I think viewing the situation moreso as a natural migration of people leading to a conflict, and Azshara cleverly using political leverage to essentially extort the Zandalari into forging their land rights as a means of resolving that conflict, it a far more interesting way of looking at it, and truer to how the lore paints the situation.
It’s not like that paints Azshara in any kind of moral superior light either. Why does the line have to be drawn at Genocide? If Azshara isn’t committing genocide on the trolls, she’s not being portrayed poorly enough?
Why does there have to be a “good guy” and “bad guy” in this situation? A fall of an empire and the rise of a new one can’t possibly be nuanced? The one that falls MUST be virtuous and the one that rose MUST be evil? It can’t be a little of both and a little of neither?
We both know blizzard doesn’t do nuance. They beat you over the head with their moralization by sledge hammer if necessary. But honestly though? Why is hard to admit that some troll clans were in fact displaced from their homes? I mean, is it really THAT HARD to read between the lines? Does it really need to be explicitly spelled out?
Lore rationalization doesn’t really work in this case because the writers are making everything up as they go, mostly for gameplay reasons, ad hoc. Nothing they do will have as big an impact on gameplay as to switch a player character faction. It’s literally an impossibility.
While this might be a fun thought experiment, in a vacuum, that’s all it is.
Ultimately, most every choice they’ve made is due to gameplay reasons or faction balance, right down to belves and everything else.
I certainly understand it as a perspective. But if you are trying to present is as official, verifiable lore. If you are trying to say “This is how it happened, and it is the only valid interpretation” then yes, it does need to be spelled out.
Especially when Azshara is said to be uninterested in conquest. I am supposed to believe she conquered the trolls, but was disinterested in doing so, and went to the lengths of extorting the Zandalari, only to do what she threatened them with anyway?
I am supposed to believe genocide and displacement happened at this time, when it is NEVER mentioned anywhere in the lore. And it is only EVER mentioned as an embarrassment that lead to years of resentment.
Again, if you want to believe the Trolls were ethnically cleansed and displaced by the Highborne. Go ahead. But don’t say I MUST agree with you. Don’t say it is the objective lore truth.
I think we can reasonably consider something to be true in the lore via inference. For example, I cannot 100% verify Remy “Two Times” in Goldshire eats food or uses the bathroom, this isn’t stated explicitly. But I don’t think it headcanon to infer that because he is human and mortal that he does indeed eat food and uses the bathroom.
Or the fact we so rarely see bathrooms in any settlement. I think it fair bathrooms canonically exist in various places.
I’m not saying Azshara committed genocide.
Well I think for most it isn’t that there must be, they just think that is the situation here.
But that is explicitly shown. We see food, we see culinary, we see people eating. We see fecal matter. We know those things exist and happen because we have seen it.
We don’t have that kind of evidence for the claim that the Trolls were victims of genocide and displacement by the Highborn Empire. Only that land that once belonged to the Empire of Zul later belonged to the HIghborne Empire. Land that we don’t know was ever settled or cultivated.
Other people are.
People are actively arguing my claim that such a thing can’t be verified objectively. So, your assumption here is wrong.
But we do not see specific and personalized engagement of them with certain characters. We see some people eat food. We see some fecal matter. We’re inferring others that we do not see engage in this activity.
Hence why I referenced Remy “Two Times”.
I wish people would put like a thing signifying when they are no longer talking to me when quoting me.
They think the thing that can’t be 100% verified is a reasonable conclusion.
Clarification. I was responding to this.
I don’t think anyone is saying a situation must have a good and bad guy. Just that they think there is one here. Is someone arguing a good and bad guy must always exist? I don’t see that.
That’s a nonargument. We are not talking about individual characters, we are talking about what one race did or did not do to another race.
We see one human eat food, we can assume all other mortal humans eat food.
But we don’t see or hear about any Highborne EVER displacing or ethnically cleansing trolls. So… You’re not saying anything.
Well you make a habit of coming in with nonarguments out of the blue. I think people assume you are taking a side in an argument, because otherwise, it sort of seems whatever you are saying is irrelevant to the conversation.
No, that is not what they think. Because I have said several times that it’s reasonable, but not verifiable, and they are still arguing.
The analogy fits. Things happen that we do not necessarily see that can be reasonable inferred as canon. It matters not one is about individuals and one is about races because you’ve already agreed to the principle the analogy is showing.
I don’t. Do you have any examples?
You can come into a conversation with a point that isn’t 1:1 with other people. I do agree many people make the mistake of misattributing that, though.
It doesn’t fit though. Your example is supported by observable evidence, when the argument at hand as no such evidence at all. In fact, we have more that contradicts it.
You came into this conversation without understanding it’s context. That’s on you. Scroll up and read.
Are we questioning whether Azshara is a bad guy or not? Because…she is. I mean it’s pretty believable that she could point the xenophobic Night Elves at a target for conquest very easily. Azshara was loved and obeyed without question (she reminds me a lot of Desus from the Exalted RPG) up until she summoned Space Satan (who she wanted to marry!) and his army…and even then most of her subjects thought she was being tricked or mind controlled in some way. Her ultimate goal was to kill all life on Azeroth except for her Highborne caste of Night Elves.
Yet she was described as “Disinterested in conquest”
This isn’t a discussion about Azshara’s moral character. This is a discussion about what the lore actually states. This isn’t a discussion about what is reasonable to believe, this is a discussion about what we can say is or is not objective.
You can assume the HIghborne empire ethnically cleansed and displaced the trolls. That is an interpretation of what is left undefined. It is just as reasonable (I happen to think more reasonable) that such a thing didn’t happen. The reason I think that is because the only reason Azshara made that deal with the Zandalari is so she wouldn’t have to be bothered with conquering Troll territory.