I don't think Sylvanas is really the bad villain you think she is

[Mehrunes]

This is the equivalent of having two characters in the story say that Sylvanas is a good person twice and that's how you are supposed to view her character. But unfortunately it does not work like that. She's not nice and it wasn't genocide.

Nuh-huh. Anduin described Sylvanas as beautiful in Before the Storm so her beauty is an objective fact and if you don't consider her to be beautiful you're wrong. Because that's how narration apparently works.

The omniscient narrator said it was genocide, not a character in the story.

When describing Anduin's views on the matter. It's almost as if the narrator could describe the views and state of mind of characters as well, not just the world itself.

Following the example above in my reply to Evilfish, if that was followed by "Sylvanas looked even better than auntie Jaina. Anduin had never expected this." what exactly is the narrator explaining here? That Sylvanas looking better than Jaina is an objective fact of the Warcraft universe or that it's what Anduin's impression was? Quite obviously it's the latter. So how comes "Sylvanas had committed genocide. Anduin had never expected this" creates such monumental interpretational issue for some people?

[DemonHunter18]

I feel like that's the point of Lich King Arthas. He's not Arthas. Or rather, he's just the evil Arthas. He's not the good Arthas, who had noble ideals but was misguided and ended up losing his soul because of it. He's a more generic villain, he's not the fallen hero that Paladin Arthas was.

ofc but when he became a DK Arthas, he was evil as well and was pretty badass.

you know that infamous retcon about Arthas fighting Nerzul for 2-3 years which resulted in Arthas' victory by destroying Nerzul for good???

it was supposed to be just Arthas after that.

he also destroyed his heart iirc.

[Evilfish]

The omniscient narrator said it was genocide, not a character in the story.

Then we can have the narrator describe how two characters, not one, think about how nice and sweet Sylvanas is. But nothing in her character traits and actions denote anything that could be interpreted as nice just as burning the nelf tree wasn't genocide.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people talking about genocide think they have the bull by the horns with this, I mean you can't argue with a word like genocide and everyone would be forced to agree with your opinion, right? Unfortunately it still does not work like that.

[Varodoc]

Then we can have the narrator describe how two characters, not one, think about how nice and sweet Sylvanas is. But nothing in her character traits and actions denote anything that could be interpreted as nice just as burning the nelf tree wasn't genocide.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people talking about genocide think they have the bull by the horns with this, I mean you can't argue with a word like genocide and everyone would be forced to agree with your opinion, right? Unfortunately it still does not work like that.

The omniscient narrator said that it is genocide, thus it is genocide, whether you like it or not.

[Evilfish]

The omniscient narrator said that it is genocide, thus it is genocide, whether you like it or not.

Correct me if I'm wrong but does not the narrator describe the thoughts of certain characters? You are really grasping at straws here. If they want it to be genocide then write it like bloody genocide. Fill the criteria to be genocide and nobody could argue with it. And if this is genocide then anyone who has been questing through the game is guilty of it.

[Varodoc]

Correct me if I'm wrong but does not the narrator describe the thoughts of certain characters? You are really grasping at straws here. If they want it to be genocide then write it like bloody genocide. Fill the criteria to be genocide and nobody could argue with it. And if this is genocide then anyone who has been questing through the game is guilty of it.

In neither of those quotes is he describing what the priestess thinks the Burning was. He is taking a pause to tell the reader that it was genocide. This is even more obvious in the second quote, where he talks about what the priestess thinks only after he's pointed out how the Burning was genocide.

Also it was genocide. It was mass murder aimed at eliminating a particular group, in this case the Kaldorei. Sylvanas' ultimate goal is not even genocide, but mundicide, since she wants to exterminate all life on Azeroth and force everyone to serve Death.

[Evilfish]

In neither of those quotes is he describing what the priestess thinks the Burning was. He is taking a pause to tell the reader that it was genocide. This is even more obvious in the second quote, where he talks about what the priestess thinks only after he's pointed out how the Burning was genocide.

Also it was genocide. It was mass murder aimed at eliminating a particular group, in this case the Kaldorei. Sylvanas' ultimate goal is not even genocide, but mundicide, since she wants to exterminate all life on Azeroth and force everyone to serve Death.

Since Sylvanas didn't go from door to door demanding everyone bring out their nelfs for a killing and considering that there are a lot of nelfs spread in neutral factions, didn't specifically target the nelfs for being nelfs but rather nelfs who were part of the alliance. It does not fill the criteria to be genocide, ergo, it's not genocide and you don't get to use it as a method of scaring people out of their opinion. Sorry.

[Varodoc]

Since Sylvanas didn't go from door to door demanding everyone bring out their nelfs for a killing and considering that there are a lot of nelfs spread in neutral factions, didn't specifically target the nelfs for being nelfs but rather nelfs who were part of the alliance. It does not fill the criteria to be genocide, ergo, it's not genocide and you don't get to use it as a method of scaring people out of their opinion. Sorry.

She did not demand to do that because she had no power to do that in the first place, since there are no night elves living in Horde territory. That's why she just annihilated their greatest kingdom, in an effort to wipe out any hope they might have had for future generations. That is not surprising, since she is a genocidal psycopath who believes it is foolish to cling to hope, to cling to life.

[Nerovar]

Except I haven't failed to make an argument, you just covered your eyes and decided to pretend that by doing so you'll alter reality and magically unmake it. My argument is that in lieu of in-universe definitions (as is the case here) the definitions that matter are those that the contemporary reader would be familiar with. I.e. the definitions we use in real life. Because that's how books in general work. The author is communicating a specific message to the reader and that only works when they are on the same page as to what things mean. And if anything that is particularly true to terms that don't otherwise fit in-universe like anachronisms or using our legal definitions for other worlds. Because that eases the author-reader communication even if it may impose upon the internal cohesion of the work.

Okay, let's go through this point by point. The argument you've made was for using any real life definition (which isn't something I disagreed with) but you haven't made an argument for why we should specifically use the legal definition that is provided to us by the International Court. You've only said that the other definition is meaningless even though the source you posted acknowledges that "The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements [...]" which directly contradicts your point about author-reader communication unless you think the average reader of Blizzard's stories is a legal scholar.

Seriously, if a fantasy story about a different world covers some legal topic like murder, do you honestly go "damn, murder isn't defined in this story and since its about another world I have no idea whatever the author could have meant"? And if some character in the story screams murder after being slapped in the face do you treat that as the meaning of the word for the story afterwards, even if that character is by no means presented as omniscient, or even an authority on the matter? Because by your logic that line of thought would somehow be sensible. Alternatively you could do what everyone else does and assume that the author is clearly referring to what you and they understand by murder.

This is a really weird strawman argument. Murder as a concept has existed in different forms in different societies at different points in history and didn't necessarily always describe the same thing. When an author uses the term murder in a fantasy setting, I therefor don't expect "murder" to be strictly congruent with modern western law but I would have a broad expectation that it involves (i.e. some form of intentional, unlawful killing). For example, when I read the word "decimate" in a fantasy novel, I don't think about the Roman legion's practice of killing every tenth soldier of a group because the Roman legion most likely didn't exist in that universe and since the popular use of the word can describe a wider array of things that aren't necessarily tied into real world history, I would be inclined to assume that the popular definition was the more likely one.

And that's me being generous because limiting this to just legal matters is completely arbitrary on my point. But there's no reason to really do that. One could easily apply your reasoning to a sentence like "Thrall sat in a chair" and go on how neither sitting nor chairs have been defined in the story and since it's Azeroth and not Earth, using Earth meanings for those words is wrong? By this train of thought books about other words are absolutely devoid of meaning and you could replace the words inside them with gibberish and it wouldn't make any difference.

Again, this is just a really weird strawman. I'm not saying you can never assume that words that are used in-universe have the same meaning as their real-life counterpart. You're presenting this as a false dilemma: words either have the exact meaning you choose or they have no meaning at all.

As for your argument about Anduin in particular, I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that you weren't treating that quote as factual? Yet here you are doing precisely that. Even though it doesn't make sense even in light of your own arguments as to what genocide is. Because each material you used to support your claims quite heavily pointed out (and rightfully so) that the issue of intent is crucial to the topic. Now, care you point out how Anduin could have known what Sylvanas' intent was moments after the fact, while he was on another continent?

It's quite simple: the definition Anduin uses differs from the real-world legal one and simply refers to the killing (caedo) of an entire (more or less anyway) people (génos) which is more or less the popular understanding of the word. Then it's an observation of Sylvanas' actions that doesn't require the factor of intent.

Your retort there creates a false dichotomy between Anduin using other definitions or him not knowing the "laws of Azeroth" while the most obvious answer is that he was a shocked and distressed young adult that made an emotional statement that should by no means be treated as an authoritative treatise on the event. Because given the circumstances and the nature of that statement it can very well be wrong. And it being wrong doesn't somehow mean that Anduin doesn't know the law in general.

You're correct in stating that I presented this as a false dichotomy. Of course, there are more possible readings of the passage I quoted. Yours is one of them. Though, fact of the matter remains that we have two accounts of the word genocide (describing the same event) in the Warcraft lore and both seem to describe a concept that isn't congruent with real-world law but very much congruent with the broader real-world definition of the same word (the same one that was mentioned in the UN source you posted).
Is it then unreasonable to assume that the characters in question didn't both wrongly identify the event as genocides due to emotional stress but simply use the popular understanding of the term?
To me it seems more likely than a possible scenario in which:
A) there exists some form of written or unwritten law that outlines genocides
B) this law is congruent with our real world laws
C) two characters misidentify the same event as falling within the terms of that law due to emotional stress

[Yarathir]

It was considered genocide by two non-infallible character and I can't think of any case of the term war crimes being used in WoW since the kangaroo court trial of Garrosh.

It falls under the definition and the fact that the words 'war crime' and 'genocide' exist prove that the concepts exist in the setting.

There is really no argument to be made, no matter how hard you want to defend your girl from scrutiny.

[Evilfish]

She did not demand to do that because she had no power to do that in the first place, since there are no night elves living in Horde territory. That's why she just annihilated their greatest kingdom, in an effort to wipe out any hope they might have had for future generations. That is not surprising, since she is a genocidal psycopath who believes it is foolish to cling to hope, to cling to life.

Of course she did, she had one of the superpowers under her command and she has one of the strongest armies in the world doing absolutely anything she asked. She didn't care about nelfs as a whole, only that they were part of the enemy faction and they had a lot of combat potential and they were right next door to the Horde capital. Plenty of nelfs in Moonglade, Hyjal and other areas. More accessible, more assailable. If she had a beef with nelfs why not get those too especially when she's a genocidal psycho like you say?

The fact is this genocide thing wasn't a big deal until some of you figured you can use it to spook people. Liking Sylvanas does not make a genocide supporter or whatever some of you are trying to imply by milking this fake concept.

- - - Updated - - -

Since we now know Sylvanas' true goal was death to as many people as possible, we know she would be more than happy carrying out any genocide, not just the attempted one she did. She didn't *commit* genocide technically, because obviously night elves still live. She attempted it though, and we know her endgame plan was killing pretty much everyone, Horde or Alliance.

Is attempted genocide and actual genocide that different? Outcome-wise, yes - it's good for everyone that she failed and reee'd away, but morally - it makes her no better person for failing. She just sucks at being a villain, which is double dumb.

She is the leader of a race that relies on killing and raising others to join them. I think mass murder was on the table before certain people developed a hate boner for a fictional character. I think the majority of people who like the Forsaken are aware of that fact.

[Yarathir]

You're not a "genocide supporter" for liking Sylvanas. There are plenty of people that like villainous characters. (Although I'd have to question your standards, considering Sylvanas doesn't even make for a good, well-written villain.)

If you're going around trying to justify or rationalize her actions, well, that's a totally different story. I might want to keep my distance from you in that case.

[Mehrunes]

It falls under the definition and the fact that the words 'war crime' and 'genocide' exist prove that the concepts exist in the setting.

There is really no argument to be made, no matter how hard you want to defend your girl from scrutiny.

Except it doesn't. We had the same exact argument less than three weeks ago where you magically vanished after I pointed it out to you.

[Feanoro]

where you magically vanished after I pointed it out to you.

Isn't it astonishing how many times people stop talking to you? I mean, you complain about it all the time. It certainly can't be that they realize they're talking to a brick wall. Nope, it must be your incredible debating skills and singular knowledge of the Truth, especially since you can magically insult and berate people since forum rules don't apply to you.

[Varodoc]

Of course she did, she had one of the superpowers under her command and she has one of the strongest armies in the world doing absolutely anything she asked. She didn't care about nelfs as a whole, only that they were part of the enemy faction and they had a lot of combat potential and they were right next door to the Horde capital. Plenty of nelfs in Moonglade, Hyjal and other areas. More accessible, more assailable. If she had a beef with nelfs why not get those too especially when she's a genocidal psycho like you say?

The fact is this genocide thing wasn't a big deal until some of you figured you can use it to spook people. Liking Sylvanas does not make a genocide supporter or whatever some of you are trying to imply by milking this fake concept.

- - - Updated - - -



She is the leader of a race that relies on killing and raising others to join them. I think mass murder was on the table before certain people developed a hate boner for a fictional character. I think the majority of people who like the Forsaken are aware of that fact.

She did not. Teldrassil was not Horde territory. Thus, she couldn't round up the night elves and do what she pleased with them.

Also, the Nelfs in those other areas are a fraction of the Nelfs in Teldrassil. There's a reason why the omniscient narrator considered it a genocide, given how the majority of the night elves in the world lived in Teldrassil.

She wanted to destroy the night elves because they still had hope. She wanted to crush their hopes for future generations. Thus, she wanted to commit genocide on them.

I never called you a genocidal person, since I am able to tell the difference between player and player character. That doesn't change the fact that Sylvanas committed genocide.

[Yarathir]

Except it doesn't. We had the same exact argument less than three weeks ago where you magically vanished after I pointed it out to you.

"Vanished."

More like didn't care for your cherrypicking of definitions.

Were you also the guy that complained about Golden's "liberal values" being inserted into the book?

- - - Updated - - -

Isn't it astonishing how many times people stop talking to you? I mean, you complain about it all the time. It certainly can't be that they realize they're talking to a brick wall. Nope, it must be your incredible debating skills and singular knowledge of the Truth, especially since you can magically insult and berate people since forum rules don't apply to you.

Well, I respond to him now despite knowing better about him. Sometimes it's fun, but when he cherrypicks definitions to desperately prove that his favorite character is just a maniacal psychotic mass-murderer and not a genocidal one, I'm going to scratch my head and pardon myself.

[Mehrunes]

Okay, let's go through this point by point. The argument you've made was for using any real life definition (which isn't something I disagreed with) but you haven't made an argument for why we should specifically use the legal definition that is provided to us by the International Court. You've only said that the other definition is meaningless even though the source you posted acknowledges that "The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements [...]" which directly contradicts your point about author-reader communication unless you think the average reader of Blizzard's stories is a legal scholar.

Except this claim is still nonsense because I have made an argument for why we should specifically use the legal definition for a legal concept as well. Popular usage of the word misrepresents the subject matter, making it wrong. Hell, I even gave an example of how a broader definition of rape that is used by some people is equally irrelevant to the topic of rape.

This is a really weird strawman argument. Murder as a concept has existed in different forms in different societies at different points in history and didn't necessarily always describe the same thing. When an author uses the term murder in a fantasy setting, I therefor don't expect "murder" to be strictly congruent with modern western law but I would have a broad expectation that it involves (i.e. some form of intentional, unlawful killing). For example, when I read the word "decimate" in a fantasy novel, I don't think about the Roman legion's practice of killing every tenth soldier of a group because the Roman legion most likely didn't exist in that universe and since the popular use of the word can describe a wider array of things that aren't necessarily tied into real world history, I would be inclined to assume that the popular definition was the more likely one.

It's almost as if I mentioned something about what the contemporary reader of the book would be familiar with. Which makes the fact that murder meant other things at other points in history and/or in other places completely irrelevant to my point. And the expectation that murder would involve intentional, unlawful killing isn't broad by any means. It's a very narrow segment of the act of killing that somehow is on point with modern usage of murder in the legal sense in large part of the world. Imagine that.

Again, this is just a really weird strawman. I'm not saying you can never assume that words that are used in-universe have the same meaning as their real-life counterpart. You're presenting this as a false dilemma: words either have the exact meaning you choose or they have no meaning at all.

I've done nothing of the sort but then again by this time it's become rather obvious you're replying to some fantasy version of my posts rather than the actual thing.

It's quite simple: the definition Anduin uses differs from the real-world legal one and simply refers to the killing (caedo) of an entire (more or less anyway) people (génos) which is more or less the popular understanding of the word. Then it's an observation of Sylvanas' actions that doesn't require the factor of intent.

Which part of that extremely short and straightforward sentence conveys that message, exactly? Also (and this loops back to what you said in the first paragraph as well), but remember how I pointed out how political affiliations were excluded from the definition due to various factors? One of those factors was political opposition from various parties on the grounds that including political affiliation wouldn't correspond to what Raphael Lemkin, i.e. the author of the term, envisioned as the nature of genocide. Despite the fact that he crafted it as a merger of genos and caedere.

You're correct in stating that I presented this as a false dichotomy. Of course, there are more possible readings of the passage I quoted. Yours is one of them. Though, fact of the matter remains that we have two accounts of the word genocide (describing the same event) in the Warcraft lore and both seem to describe a concept that isn't congruent with real-world law but very much congruent with the broader real-world definition of the same word (the same one that was mentioned in the UN source you posted).

We have two accounts of the word genocide from two characters that as per the description in the story were extremely shocked and distressed (to the point that in Anduin's case it impaired him physically and caused his vision to blur) and both were outright confused by the whole ordeal. Neither Astarii nor Anduin are exactly presented as reliable sources of information by the story itself. But hey, if you want to treat blurry eyed teenagers as the legal experts of Azeroth go ahead, I guess.

Isn't it astonishing how many times people stop talking to you? I mean, you complain about it all the time. It certainly can't be that they realize they're talking to a brick wall. Nope, it must be your incredible debating skills and singular knowledge of the Truth, especially since you can magically insult and berate people since forum rules don't apply to you.

I complain about it all the time? That's news to me. But then again you're obviously making things up as per usual because trying to discredit me with your fabricated accusatory nonsense instead of making actual arguments isn't particularly new for you. And no, people vanishing when they run out of arguments doesn't particularly astonish me. I don't see why it should astonish anyone for that matter.

"Vanished."

More like didn't care for your cherrypicking of definitions.

Yeah, using the definition that's actually used to convict people of genocide in international tribunals and that corresponds with the vision of the goddamn author of the term genocide is hardcore cherry-picking on my part

Were you also the guy that complained about Golden's "liberal values" being inserted into the book?

No, which can be easily checked in the thread. So the hell are you even trying to achieve here other than create a smokescreen for your lack of real arguments?

Well, I respond to him now despite knowing better about him. Sometimes it's fun, but when he cherrypicks definitions to desperately prove that his favorite character is just a maniacal psychotic mass-murderer and not a genocidal one, I'm going to scratch my head and pardon myself.

Proper usage of legal terms is simply massive desperation, it is known. Only treating meanings of things as mere suggestions at best is the proper and non-desperate conduct.

[Feanoro]

Well, I respond to him now despite knowing better about him. Sometimes it's fun, but when he cherrypicks definitions to desperately prove that his favorite character is just a maniacal psychotic mass-murderer and not a genocidal one, I'm going to scratch my head and pardon myself.

What I don't get is, what's wrong with saying "I like this villain character"? Why the ridiculous lengths to try to convince us she's actually the hero or something?

[Yarathir]

Yeah, using the definition that's used to actually convict people of genocide in international tribunals and that corresponds with the vision of the goddamn author of the term genocide is hardcore cherry-picking on my part




No, which can be easily checked in the thread. So the hell are you even trying to achieve here other than create a smokescreen for your lack of real arguments?

Look, it only takes a single google search to prove you wrong.

It adheres to every part of that, even the 'particular nation or ethnic group'. Sylvanas doesn't need to hate night elves in particular and want them wiped out because she considers them inferior. She just needs to deliberately and knowingly try to wipe a huge, targeted portion of night elves, which she did at Teldrassil.

And I asked you a question, not an assertion. Just answer it and stop tossing and turning. There is no need for a smokescreen anyway, since you're just plain wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

What I don't get is, what's wrong with saying "I like this villain character"? Why the ridiculous lengths to try to convince us she's actually the hero or something?

I have no idea. I guess it's to do with being too emotionally attached to Sylvanas to the point that you want to morally whitewash her at any cost, too?

[Aucald]

This thread isn't really about what the term genocide is or isn't, or whether or not it's relevant, but rather the degree to which Sylvanas is a villain. Let's return to the actual topic at hand and away from this entirely semantic argument about what a term means.