Why wasn't the Void Elves held accountable for necromancy?

[Daronokk]

Sorry, but you're factually wrong. I don't know if it's on purpose or you're just a low-information type.

What the Horde did at Teldrassil was genocide, it's even referred to as such in the novelization.

Just because you give something a label doesn't mean it's factually that. The bombing of Theramore has also been called a warcrime yet it was a legitimate military target. The bombing of the tree is just an act of war during war time, nothing more, nothing less. It's not genocide.

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Void Elves can do necromancy too?
Wait, ofc they can
Yasss, more powah to the alliance

Same as AU Ner'zhul, he also used void magic to raise corpses from the dead.

[CalamityHeart]

People seem to think that war precludes genocide somehow. Why? Just because they're perpetually at war doesn't suddenly make it not genocide. They're not mutually exclusive.

[Zyky]

And if there was any contention in the lore you’d have a point but there isn’t so as far as the canon goes it’s genocide.




well then your just wrong and willingly so.

The facts are there, you're trying to use outside sources, 'canon' or not, to counter in-game experiences of the player characters. Blizzard has outright said that written works outside of the game are from a "certain perspective" and not absolute truth. The player experience is therefore more canon than outside written lore.

[Mace]

(disclaimer: please don't bring up Garrosh/Sylvanas or the Horde here; the topic is about Void Elves)

I'm a bit late to the party but why wasn't Umbric and his gang held accountable for raising up sacred Zandalari dinosaurs? I remember Kel'thuzad being ousted in Dalaran for just one single damn rat; and considering that they're proactive against threats and would-be-threats, they would have investigated their undesirable action. And then there's Anduin who's pretty much "nooooo please don't do that or we won't be any better than the Horde noooo"

Surely there would have been at least one small group of salty Sunreavers who would have manipulated the Kirin Tor and the Argent Crusade to undermine the Void Elves' reputation?

That’s coz it wasn’t necromancy. And war, nothing to be held accountable for by alliance standards.

They infused the skeletal remains of dead dinosaurs with void entities / magic they could control, then safely banished them after their purpose was done.

The action is also intentionally taken to provoke the Zandalari. The alliance is fully aware the trolls find the animals sacred but the alliance doesn’t care. This is war and the psychology helps.


Alliance players have no issue killing Zandalari within the context of the war (O must stress), they don’t have issue killing their dangerous dinosaur animals either. If the void elves can then puppet the corpses with void energy to destroy their foes then banish the void entities. Then good (for the alliance).

Necromancy violates the laws of life taking souls from shadowlands back into their decaying corpses for power, control and destruction. Very different both in terms of action and motive.

When evaluating void elf actions and motives, read the text blizzard supply on them to contextualise their actions. What they say is very important.

You will notice the void elves are modelled in the high elf nobility frame as modelled by Alleria. They have an edge (emo edge) cos they seek power but their motives are noble, so utilising dangerous source like the void is where they go. But they believed that it could be harnessed to help the plight of their world and defend their allies Without being corrupted.

Alleria proves them right hence why we have this

[Daemos daemonium]

The facts are there, you're trying to use outside sources, 'canon' or not, to counter in-game experiences of the player characters. Blizzard has outright said that written works outside of the game are from a "certain perspective" and not absolute truth. The player experience is therefore more canon than outside written lore.

Again your just wrong there’s nothing more to it then that. You can make up your own head canon and try and pick and choose what parts are canon and what’s not but it’s not up to you and you’ll never stop being wrong.

[Magical Mudcrab]

don't mind if I move the goalpost a bit but how about Void + necromancy? so far only the Alliance is cool with them and so I thought the others wouldnt

I don't think there would be a reason for the Alliance to be particularly bothered by Void Elves using Necromancy. Are Void Elves using Necromancy any more or less deplorable than Death Knights - Undead who once served the Lich King - using Necromancy? I would say no, at least not in any practical sense, and the Alliance during the war campaign seemed more than happy to allow the Void Elves to use their magic, and in many instances it was in fact Magister Umbric that cautioned against the Void's overuse. I would suspect that they give the Void Elves a certain amount of leeway because there's an expectation that they know their limits and can be trusted to work within them.

[Thage]

Just because you give something a label doesn't mean it's factually that. The bombing of Theramore has also been called a warcrime yet it was a legitimate military target. The bombing of the tree is just an act of war during war time, nothing more, nothing less. It's not genocide.

Theramore technically was a war crime for the same reasons the UN considers employing chemical weapons on the battlefield a war crime; we know from the external novels that most peoples of Azeroth view weapons of mass destruction along a similar vein as we do in real life in both moral and ethical terms, and have since the mana-bomb was introduced in The Burning Crusade and the Blight in Vanilla. Teldrassil was described as a genocide in-universe because the Horde destroyed a primarily-civilian settlement, killing a large chunk of the night elves' civilian populace in what looked to be a deliberate attempt to purge the night elves from Kalimdor. Attempts to purge an entire populace from an area are classified as genocides in common parlance, even if you wouldn't be able to win a court case with that argument.

Same as AU Ner'zhul, he also used void magic to raise corpses from the dead.

Sorta. The void elves don't so much raise the corpses from the dead as they do use the corpses as a skinsuit for lesser void creatures. That's the main difference between void necromancy and true necromancy--true necromancy in Warcraft involves imperfectly affixing a soul to its corpse, void necromancy involves Buffalo Bill'ing the corpse.

[Verdugo]

Theramore technically was a war crime for the same reasons the UN considers employing chemical weapons on the battlefield a war crime; we know from the external novels that most peoples of Azeroth view weapons of mass destruction along a similar vein as we do in real life in both moral and ethical terms, and have since the mana-bomb was introduced in The Burning Crusade and the Blight in Vanilla. Teldrassil was described as a genocide in-universe because the Horde destroyed a primarily-civilian settlement, killing a large chunk of the night elves' civilian populace in what looked to be a deliberate attempt to purge the night elves from Kalimdor. Attempts to purge an entire populace from an area are classified as genocides in common parlance, even if you wouldn't be able to win a court case with that argument.

I completely forgot how Alliance hates weapons of mass destruction.

Although its impossible for a mage to be tried for war crimes since he would just cast mass alzheimer and teleport away.

Sorta. The void elves don't so much raise the corpses from the dead as they do use the corpses as a skinsuit for lesser void creatures. That's the main difference between void necromancy and true necromancy--true necromancy in Warcraft involves imperfectly affixing a soul to its corpse, void necromancy involves Buffalo Bill'ing the corpse.

So much better.

[Thage]

I completely forgot how Alliance hates weapons of mass destruction.

Although its impossible for a mage to be tried for war crimes since he would just cast mass alzheimer and teleport away.

People can be hypocritical. That wasn't the point brought up. Also, whatever you tried to link was deleted off IMGUR, might I suggest img.bb as an alternative hosting site?

So much better.

I didn't say it was? I directly referred to a famous fictional serial killer for a reason, dude. Although if you want to split hairs, yes, only desecrating a corpse is marginally less immoral than desecrating both a corpse and a soul.

[Verdugo]

People can be hypocritical. That wasn't the point brought up. Also, whatever you tried to link was deleted off IMGUR, might I suggest img.bb as an alternative hosting site?

Works for me.

Anyway, its the firestorm that human mages created to wipe out troll army.

[Zyky]

Again your just wrong there’s nothing more to it then that. You can make up your own head canon and try and pick and choose what parts are canon and what’s not but it’s not up to you and you’ll never stop being wrong.

There's literally zero "head canon" lmao. All the facts are straight in the game, your blatant ignorance refuses you to admit that you're wrong. Grow up.

[Daemos daemonium]

There's literally zero "head canon" lmao. All the facts are straight in the game, your blatant ignorance refuses you to admit that you're wrong. Grow up.

The irony is rather palpable when you claim others are ignorant Or need to grow up while pretending that the actual canon doesn’t count just because it doesn’t mesh with your head canon.

[Jester Joe]

There's literally zero "head canon" lmao. All the facts are straight in the game, your blatant ignorance refuses you to admit that you're wrong. Grow up.

You realize when the tree was evacuated is irrelevant, right?

Also again, Sylvanas intentionally burned down the entire tree with the desire to wipe out all of the Night elves.

It's genocide. Just like she wanted to kill literally every other race.

[Violent]

I assume, based on nothing at all that it comes down to the source of magic and the mechanics of the reanimation.

Death magic necromancy, like the Scourge, forces the soul back into the body and forces it to follow the will of the necromancer.

Void magic however simply makes the body move again without touching the soul.

Just my headcanon.

All forms of necromancy are targeted at the body, not the soul.

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You realize when the tree was evacuated is irrelevant, right?

Also again, Sylvanas intentionally burned down the entire tree with the desire to wipe out all of the Night elves.

It's genocide. Just like she wanted to kill literally every other race.

That's called war.
In a game with literally "WAR" in the title, I don't think it's fair to add-in the Geneva Convention and start pointing fingers accordingly.

[Zyky]

The irony is rather palpable when you claim others are ignorant Or need to grow up while pretending that the actual canon doesn’t count just because it doesn’t mesh with your head canon.

I never said it didn't count, I said it was from a certain perspective which is confirmed by Blizzard. The only lore that's 100% is what you experience as a player character.

[Jester Joe]

That's called war.
In a game with literally "WAR" in the title, I don't think it's fair to add-in the Geneva Convention and start pointing fingers accordingly.

A war that Sylvanas started.

The rest isn't really relevant, as titles aren't the end all to what the game is, especially considering since the start of Vanilla the game has been about "banding together, Horde and Alliance".

either way, this is going far off topic at this point.

[Daemos daemonium]

I never said it didn't count, I said it was from a certain perspective which is confirmed by Blizzard. The only lore that's 100% is what you experience as a player character.

Again your just wrong on multiple fronts. The ingame lore isn’t 100% accurate and no matter how many times you try and lie about the perspective thing it has no Baring on any books short story’s or other media out side of chronicles which it was solely directed to.

But even if it did apply to those things it would still be the actual canon until changed by future lore.

You can try and mince words all you want it doesn’t change what the actual canon is or how it works And it doesn’t change that ignoring parts of the actual canon because you don’t like how events played out is you making up your own head canon.

[Eurhetemec]

All forms of necromancy are targeted at the body, not the soul.

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That's called war.
In a game with literally "WAR" in the title, I don't think it's fair to add-in the Geneva Convention and start pointing fingers accordingly.

War and genocide aren't the same thing. You seem to be confusing the general concept of "war crimes" which the much broader and pre-existing concept of genocide.

This has nothing to do with the Geneva Convention, and it takes an immense and astonishing ignorance of history to suggest that it does. It's a matter of morality, and has been for an extremely long time. No-one currently in senior leadership positions in the Horde or Alliance thinks genocide is acceptable.

Sylvanas' actions are arguable as genocide or not, depending largely on how many Night Elves you believe are where (if you think 90% are in that tree, it's easy to call it "genocide" - if you think it's more like 30% or less it's likely to just be a "massacre of civilians", because she made no follow up attempts to track down and destroy remaining NE populations, which is a hallmark of genocide (even more than large single massacres). They're certainly a brutal and essentially unprovoked massacre of civilians, which has never really been okay in war (unless they refused to give in to a siege, which wasn't the case here - they didn't offer a chance to surrender or the like). You can read about Roman legions getting decimated (or worse) for massacring civilians, and as you go through history, it gets more and more unacceptable.

Given most WoW characters (Horde and Alliance) have moralities similar to those in the 20th century (or even 21st), it's unlikely to be generally seen as acceptable. Perhaps in a long and extremely hard-fought war, this might have been considered okay as an attempt to "break the will" of an enemy who had themselves attacked civilians, but that wasn't the situation.

[Zyky]

Again your just wrong on multiple fronts. The ingame lore isn’t 100% accurate and no matter how many times you try and lie about the perspective thing it has no Baring on any books short story’s or other media out side of chronicles which it was solely directed to.

But even if it did apply to those things it would still be the actual canon until changed by future lore.

You can try and mince words all you want it doesn’t change what the actual canon is or how it works And it doesn’t change that ignoring parts of the actual canon because you don’t like how events played out is you making up your own head canon.

You're the only one here twisting factual information to fit the narrative you want it to fit. Enjoy having a one-sided argument lmao.

[Violent]

A war that Sylvanas started.

The rest isn't really relevant, as titles aren't the end all to what the game is, especially considering since the start of Vanilla the game has been about "banding together, Horde and Alliance".

either way, this is going far off topic at this point.

Sylvanas started a war Vs Orcs & Humans, when the Orcs invaded the planet??
Nope. That's all completely care-bear, goodie-good, non-sense.
The very opening scene for vanilla is about "10,000 years of war".
Pansy