Sylvanas' Genocide of the Night Elves

[Castrum]

Slaughter them all. Let their children watch as we gut those that bore them. Sacrifice the brats to the glory of the Horde. Leave no tree unburnt. Leave no sacred grove undefiled. For the Dark Lady!

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Idd! It's the best race after all. Loving them since introduction. Warcraft would be so boring without them. Just generic orcs vs human stuff.

NEs are boring hippies. I'm so glad they're being exterminated.

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I refuse to go out without a fight. The night elves have been kicked around too long.

In Darkshore Garrosh thought the night elves weak and easily routed by a newly recruited band of trolls. It didn't work.

In Feralas the naga thought they easily drove the night elves out. They came back with reinforcements.

A new world tree would look really nice in the middle of Tirisfal, completely blotting out the sun all the way to Quel'thalas.

You went out with a fight. You lost. The Horde burnt most of you alive and slit the throats of the rest. A fitting end for useless tree-huggers.

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Somebody has to be the bad guy, or you have 2 factions who are both good and then every conflict feels forced and arbitrary.
Therefore I will happily help to commit genocide on the Alliance, for it creates living space for the superior horde.
Also we will resurrect night elves as undead night elves, a new Horde allied race coming soon (TM).

The Horde will make better use of all that land than those hippies ever would have. Fortress Kalimdor, here we come.

[mickybrighteyes]

i am okay with that, Sylvanas has no problem to order to kill friends and familly so for her he was a traitor. now Koltira is free and sylvanas win a new threat.

in this case the orders weren't to kill family and the friends in this case were also trying to kill/work against horde interests. The only reason this scenario is coming into question now is due to the leader in charge.

[Logwyn]

So many blind and ignorant Sylvanas sheep in this thread......They realize that they could be dragged into the portal and "re-educated" as easy as the next person..... Once their use is gone they mean nothing to Sylvanas....trash to be cast aside and trotten under foot. You will all rue the day you gladly step in line and followed in lock step behind this psycopath. She's nothing more a slave master. The orcs cast aside the slave masters of the legion only to be shackled into chains of another slave master.

[Zulkhan]

Idd! It's the best race after all. Loving them since introduction. Warcraft would be so boring without them. Just generic orcs vs human stuff.

I'm not sure about that. All the stuff regarding Night Elf issues with beloved nature and whatnot is probably some of the most boring shit I had the misfortune to play and I slightly faceplam everytime I'm forced to deal with that.

[LaserChild9]

Yes. Because that's what genocide means. Besides, as @Zulkhan said, it's rather hard to kill an entire race without actively trying to do so. It most certainly not the case here, because Night Elves have outposts all over Kalmidor and some on other continents.

Is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
https://treaties.un.org/doc/publicat...21-english.pdf

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2

3 words can make all the difference, especially if you pretend they aren't there. Also, the article does not say that the motivation is relevant, only the action and outcome. So whether you destroy a whole race or just a part of it it is still considered genocide and your motivations for doing so are irrelevant, only the fact that you have done it.

Furthermore, here is a list of acts of Genocide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoci...h_World_War_II

Lots of these victims are still around today, but by your definition, they were not victims of genocide. Genocide did not have a name until after WW2 because there was no name for the crime committed against the Jewish people. Your definition of Genocide implies that it has rarely if ever been committed. The official definition of genocide, it seems to me, is a mass killing of a specific group of people from the same nation/religion/ethnicity for any reason, not the extermination of the entire race.

[Ash123]

Is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
https://treaties.un.org/doc/publicat...21-english.pdf



3 words can make all the difference, especially if you pretend they aren't there. Also, the article does not say that the motivation is relevant, only the action and outcome. So whether you destroy a whole race or just a part of it it is still considered genocide and your motivations for doing so are irrelevant, only the fact that you have done it.

Furthermore, here is a list of acts of Genocide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoci...h_World_War_II

Lots of these victims are still around today, but by your definition, they were not victims of genocide. Genocide did not have a name until after WW2 because there was no name for the crime committed against the Jewish people. Your definition of Genocide implies that it has rarely if ever been committed. The official definition of genocide, it seems to me, is a mass killing of a specific group of people from the same nation/religion/ethnicity for any reason, not the extermination of the entire race.

Following your logic, we can start to call every wars in wow universe acts of genocide, as in each conflict, a number of people will be inevitably killed,maimed or forced to lose home, "motivations for doing so are irrelevant", and in the article 2 you referred, there is no restriction on whether it is a mass killing or not.

[Deleted]

Following your logic, we can start to call every wars in wow universe acts of genocide, as in each conflict, a number of people will be inevitably killed,maimed or forced to lose home, "motivations for doing so are irrelevant", and in the article 2 you referred, there is no restriction on whether it is a mass killing or not.

That depends. Motivation for doing so are irrelevant refers to the massacre part. If you wage war for territory or resources, death is just an unfortunate side effect.

As for Teldrassil, we know very little. The who, the how and the why are all unknown, so that itself might not be genocide.

Justification: I've hated nelves since WC III so I really don't think much justification is necessary. They were pricks and still act like everyone else is in the wrong. And don't even get me started on the druids.

[Mehrunes]

Is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
https://treaties.un.org/doc/publicat...21-english.pdf



3 words can make all the difference, especially if you pretend they aren't there. Also, the article does not say that the motivation is relevant, only the action and outcome. So whether you destroy a whole race or just a part of it it is still considered genocide and your motivations for doing so are irrelevant, only the fact that you have done it.

Furthermore, here is a list of acts of Genocide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoci...h_World_War_II

Lots of these victims are still around today, but by your definition, they were not victims of genocide. Genocide did not have a name until after WW2 because there was no name for the crime committed against the Jewish people. Your definition of Genocide implies that it has rarely if ever been committed. The official definition of genocide, it seems to me, is a mass killing of a specific group of people from the same nation/religion/ethnicity for any reason, not the extermination of the entire race.

First of all, I opened the part about how killing an entire race by accident is hard and how it's not the case in WoW in regards to Night Elves with "besides". As in it was a separate point from the definition of genocide I talked before the "besides". Words, what do they mean.

Now that we've got that immensely hard word covered, good job skipping to later part of the definition while once again ignoring the start. Even after you were schooled on that. Intent to destroy is still part of the definition. Which, lo and behold, is the motivation you try to claim is irrelevant. And it's missing in case of the Night Elves.

I mean, the convention you linked here is the exact same that was initially linked by @tkioz before. The same one about you first tried to push this nonsense as fact. In regards to which you still haven't read the article that was linked in the initial post by tkioz. Here, let me quote it for you before you bore me even further:
"Genocidal intent requires that acts must be committed against members of a group specifically because they belong to that group (Akayesu, ICTR, Trial Judgment § 521)"

And, to emphasize why your narrative is pure nonsense I'll repeat myself again: if things worked in the way you try to pretend they work, every single murder and every single case of causing significant bodily harm to another person would be genocide, because every single person belongs to all of the groups covered by the definition of genocide at once. Every single person belongs to some national, ethnic, racial and religious group. Not belonging to any is an impossibility. But it obviously does not work that way. Because you're wrong.

[LaserChild9]

First of all, I opened the part about how killing an entire race by accident is hard and how it's not the case in WoW in regards to Night Elves with "besides". As in it was a separate point from the definition of genocide I talked before the "besides". Words, what do they mean.

Who said anything about an accident?

Now that we've got that immensely hard word covered, good job skipping to later part of the definition while once again ignoring the start. Even after you were schooled on that. Intent to destroy is still part of the definition. Which, lo and behold, is the motivation you try to claim is irrelevant. And it's missing in case of the Night Elves.

Intent and motivation are very different things. Intent is what you plan to do, motivation is why you plan to do it. You see the difference there? E.g. Sylvanas intends to destroy Teldrassil and all the night elves inside, her motivation for doing so is to take Kalimdor. In this instance, her motivation is irrelevant because the outcome is still genocide, the outcome if she is successful is the killing of countless members of Night elf society, you cant just say it's not genocide because the Night elves deaths were just a side effect of her plan. That's not how it works.

I mean, the convention you linked here is the exact same that was initially linked by @tkioz before. The same one about you first tried to push this nonsense as fact. In regards to which you still haven't read the article that was linked in the initial post by tkioz. Here, let me quote it for you before you bore me even further:
"Genocidal intent requires that acts must be committed against members of a group specifically because they belong to that group (Akayesu, ICTR, Trial Judgment § 521)"

Let me finish that sentence for you:

but it does not require that the acts be perpetrated solely because they belong to that group (Niyitegeka, ICTR, Trial Judgment §§51-53).

It's obviously no accident you didn't link the rest of that sentence because it confirms what I have been saying, it's a dick move and would only have worked if nobody checked your source. It clearly states that genocide does not have to be solely because of the victims group, her hatred of Night elves is enough regardless of her other reasons. So killing all the night elves in Teldrassil just because, genocide, killing all the Night elves in Teldrassil for strategic purposes, still genocide. If you are going to talk down to people and act like you know what you are talking about, at least make sure that you have read your own sources.

And, to emphasize why your narrative is pure nonsense I'll repeat myself again:

Let me emphasize to you why YOUR narrative is pure nonsense. You are obviously a horde fanboi who can't accept that his faction leader has potentially done something terrible to the Alliance. I found an interesting quote from you while going through your posts in which your definition of genocide changes fromt he one you are stating here because it supports your argument for oppression against the horde, see below.

She purged the city of Blood Elves. That's literally ethnic/political cleansing. The closest crime to genocide there is. And the leader of the Kirin Tor has no such power. They don't even have the power to cast the tie-breaking vote if there's an impasse in the Council of Six. All they are is a representative to other nations. Also, Jaina betrayed Dalaran first, so even if she had the right to purge anyone, she should have started with herself.

So in this quote, you claim that Jaina ethnically cleansed Dalaran of the Blood elves/Sunreavers which you said is akin to Genocide. In this instance, Jaina was removing a potentially rogue faction from her city, not because of their race but because members of said faction had broken their promise of neutrality and used Kirin Tor resources to aid the horde. She killed those that resisted and imprisoned those that did not, yet you claim it was close to genocide, how so? It seems to me that your definition is loose enough to support whatever argument you are having.

if things worked in the way you try to pretend they work, every single murder and every single case of causing significant bodily harm to another person would be genocide, because every single person belongs to all of the groups covered by the definition of genocide at once. Every single person belongs to some national, ethnic, racial and religious group. Not belonging to any is an impossibility. But it obviously does not work that way. Because you're wrong.

You are being pedantic now and grasping at straws the UN are the ones that defined genocide as "intent to destroy, in whole or in part" and now you are picking apart their use of the word part. If you have a problem with that, contact them and tell them they are incorrect. I know the difference between murder, hate crimes and genocide, if you cant grasp that then you have no place arguing about what genocide is. Sure, defining how many people makes it genocide is tricky, who wants to decide that number? But it is clear that genocide does not require the extermination of the entire race.

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Following your logic, we can start to call every wars in wow universe acts of genocide, as in each conflict, a number of people will be inevitably killed,maimed or forced to lose home, "motivations for doing so are irrelevant", and in the article 2 you referred, there is no restriction on whether it is a mass killing or not.

No. Not at all. There are several examples of genocide in game. When Arthas marched the scourge through Eversong forest and obliterated the High Elf population, that was Genocide, just because they were at war does not make it anything else. When the burning Legion corrupted the Orc's on Draenor and manipulated them into slaughtering the Draenei, that was genocide. Genocide is when you single out one race, not when 10 different races go to war.

[Verdugo]

No. Not at all. There are several examples of genocide in game. When Arthas marched the scourge through Eversong forest and obliterated the High Elf population, that was Genocide, just because they were at war does not make it anything else. When the burning Legion corrupted the Orc's on Draenor and manipulated them into slaughtering the Draenei, that was genocide. Genocide is when you single out one race, not when 10 different races go to war.

You just said here that Teldrassil is not an act of genocide. Horde is not singling out Night Elves. Just Teldrassil.

[LaserChild9]

You just said here that Teldrassil is not an act of genocide. Horde is not singling out Night Elves. Just Teldrassil.

You are just being pedantic, so my wording was a bit poor, It is exactly the same as what Arthas did to the Blood Elves and that was genocide, Arthas wasn't singling out the High elves, he just wanted the sunwell but in the process he almost completely wiped out the High elves. Just because it wasn't what he planned to do does not make it any less genocidal.

[Friendlyimmolation]

You are just being pedantic, so my wording was a bit poor, It is exactly the same as what Arthas did to the Blood Elves and that was genocide, Arthas wasn't singling out the High elves, he just wanted the sunwell but in the process he almost completely wiped out the High elves. Just because it wasn't what he planned to do does not make it any less genocidal.

Uh, Arthas did plan to wipe them out. He promised them the gift of eternal servitude if they let him in.

[Verdugo]

You are just being pedantic, so my wording was a bit poor, It is exactly the same as what Arthas did to the Blood Elves and that was genocide, Arthas wasn't singling out the High elves, he just wanted the sunwell but in the process he almost completely wiped out the High elves. Just because it wasn't what he planned to do does not make it any less genocidal.

Arthas didnt plan to kill everyone.

K.

[LaserChild9]

Uh, Arthas did plan to wipe them out. He promised them the gift of eternal servitude if they let him in.

Arthas didnt plan to kill everyone.

K.

But that was not his reason. He went to Quel'Thalas to use the sunwell to resurrect Kel'Thuzad. He did not just decide to go and slaughter the elves, they just got in his way so he killed them. In game you can see the route he took, he did not deviate, he marched directly through Silvermoon and straight to Quel'Thalas, at no point did he leave the path to continue killing the High elves, he did not pursue them he just killed those in his way. If his goal was to eradicate the elves he could have, but he didn't, once he had what he wanted, he left.

[Verdugo]

But that was not his reason. He went to Quel'Thalas to use the sunwell to resurrect Kel'Thuzad. He did not just decide to go and slaughter the elves, they just got in his way so he killed them. In game you can see the route he took, he did not deviate, he marched directly through Silvermoon and straight to Quel'Thalas, at no point did he leave the path to continue killing the High elves, he did not pursue them he just killed those in his way. If his goal was to eradicate the elves he could have, but he didn't, once he had what he wanted, he left.

So what you are saying is that Alliance commited genocide on Forsaken.

[LaserChild9]

So what you are saying is that Alliance commited genocide on Forsaken.

No. In the battle for Undercity in the BfA trailer, there were orcs, trolls and tauren there, from what we saw it was just a battle between 2 factions. I never said the burning of Teldrassil was definitely genocide, in my original post I said:

Of course we don't have all the facts and it could be a provoked attack, in which case you wouldn't really class it as genocide, in much the same way that if a person of another ethnicity punches you, its not racism to punch them back.

We don't have enough info at this stage, but if Sylvanas attacked first without provocation and the Night elves have no assistance from the rest of the alliance and as a result lost a massive chunk of their population, then it is genocide. Though the fact that she had the other horde factions defending Undercity implies she knew it was coming and the fact there are no night elves in the alliance forces could mean there weren't enough troops to send (though there were no gnomes either so they could just be occupied elsewhere)

[Verdugo]

No. In the battle for Undercity in the BfA trailer, there were orcs, trolls and tauren there, from what we saw it was just a battle between 2 factions. I never said the burning of Teldrassil was definitely genocide, in my original post I said:

So only reason why you consider it a genocide is because there were only Night Elves? If Sylvanas sent a letter to Stormwind to inform Anduin that she is about to siege Teldrassil, and they send reinforcements its no longer genocide?

What if Anduin doesnt believe the letter and doesnt send anyone, is he complicit in genocide?

[Friendlyimmolation]

But that was not his reason. He went to Quel'Thalas to use the sunwell to resurrect Kel'Thuzad. He did not just decide to go and slaughter the elves, they just got in his way so he killed them. In game you can see the route he took, he did not deviate, he marched directly through Silvermoon and straight to Quel'Thalas, at no point did he leave the path to continue killing the High elves, he did not pursue them he just killed those in his way. If his goal was to eradicate the elves he could have, but he didn't, once he had what he wanted, he left.

Is that why gargoyles attacked the ships that tried to flee, that he left the scourge behind to continue to kill blood elves, that he raised Darkhan to claim whatever power was left in Quel’thalas.

Kelthuzad stated the destruction of the elves was part of the legions plan to soften Azeroth. Arthas has no intention of letting the elves live.

[etheldald]

the word genocide has no meaning in wow.
the only ones that have done such things are dead now, arthas, garrosh, and garithos.

currently, in the horde and the alliance there are not genocidial characters, only murderers who had done what they have to to protect their interest. war criminals? maybe. it depends on who is judging.

[Deleted]

No. In the battle for Undercity in the BfA trailer, there were orcs, trolls and tauren there, from what we saw it was just a battle between 2 factions. I never said the burning of Teldrassil was definitely genocide, in my original post I said:



We don't have enough info at this stage, but if Sylvanas attacked first without provocation and the Night elves have no assistance from the rest of the alliance and as a result lost a massive chunk of their population, then it is genocide. Though the fact that she had the other horde factions defending Undercity implies she knew it was coming and the fact there are no night elves in the alliance forces could mean there weren't enough troops to send (though there were no gnomes either so they could just be occupied elsewhere)

I agree mostly with what you wrote, also in your other posts. But I do think the attack in Lordaeron is just as much an attempt at genocide as the other examples shown and the rest of the Horde forces are indeed there to prevent this from happening. The Highelves didn't have help and (as far as we know) the Nightelves didn't either, but the Forsaken were able to bring in help. It is, however an attack on their kingdom including all of their cultural places and civilians. It is an attempt to make them pay but also to cripple them enough that they never recover from it, or not for a long time, and to simultaneously rob the Horde as a whole of their stronghold.