"Elves are not warlike by nature..." rant (spoilers)

[Orcish Shyde]

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was clear, but not interesting enough for the final mission. And having the elves turn on you after fighting together for several missions is not a good thing. Since elves are generally regarded as the least war-like and most intelligent race, you'd think they would at least listen to what you and the druid have to say, before deciding to just slaughter everyone in their path.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Crystal, and I can make assumptions about why the elf is mad, but it does not really fit with the usual staid nature of elves, and it seems as if he just jumps to conclusions and attacks.

What usual staid nature of elves? If most of the mainline campaigns are to be believed, the entire history of the elves is a very long love poem dedicated to bloodshed and to themselves.

I still think this battle should have been "Ethiliel's elves help the loyalists to kill all the treasonous followers of Mal M'brin" rather than "Lame ending where Ethiliel negotiates a disappointing treaty".

[Turuk]

For future reference, those feedback threads are to answer the questions posed in the original posts, not for the airing of opinions on how you feel certain races are portrayed in ways that differ from how you would prefer them to be.

[thespaceinvader]

Depends on the elf, just like anything else. We get the impression that every single species in Wesnoth does nothing but fight because (le gasp) this is a WAR game. We don't see them doing anything else... It's a very biased viewpoint.

[Thrawn]

Haven't we had this discussion before?

[Turuk]

Ooo good point, and raised again by the same user no less.

Merging powers, activate!

[Crushmaster]

Haven't we had this discussion before?

I must admit I was thinking the same thing.
God bless,
Crushmaster.

[susanspy]

Hello all.

Thanks a million for the great post, i found the link posted by LemonTea weird he has posted a link to wikipedia & that has no connection with the forum topis, looks to be a spam or something.

Well thanks for reading

Cheers!!!

[Orcish Shyde]

For future reference, those feedback threads are to answer the questions posed in the original posts, not for the airing of opinions on how you feel certain races are portrayed in ways that differ from how you would prefer them to be.

Understood; I thought I'd get away with it because it was a legitimate rebuttal to your assertion that TSG contradicts the "elves r peesful lolz" view of the manual. Remind me to do a full response to that last mission given I do genuinely feel it should have been a straight-up climactic battle with the elvish traitors, not the disappointment it currently is.

Depends on the elf, just like anything else. We get the impression that every single species in Wesnoth does nothing but fight because (le gasp) this is a WAR game. We don't see them doing anything else... It's a very biased viewpoint.

SotBE: Kapou'e, supposedly one of the most warlike beings in Wesnoth, not only doesn't start the fight but doesn't hesitate to resolve it peacefully given the chance.

DiD: With the sole exception of "A Small Favor", Malin tries to avoid shedding non-orcish blood several times. In "A Haunting in Winter" he asks the dwarves to let him stay and they attack him; in "Return to Parthyn" he asks Drogan to let him deal with the orcs, and Drogan's refusal is based on completely insane grounds given that, having seen the boy grow up, he has no excuse for not knowing what Malin is actually like.

Spoiler:

Even as a lich in "Endless Night" he would rather warn his human, dwarvish, and elvish enemies of the fate of everyone before them than shut up and kill them.

HTTT: Li'sar requesting that Asheviere step down and let her take the throne now, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid bloodshed. Not Delfador, certainly not Kalenz. Li'sar.

SoF: Rugnur fleeing from the elves at every turn rather than trying to get the whole of Knalga to give them the war they're clearly after.

NR: Tallin repeatedly attempting to resolve disputes and form alliances without bloodshed, with a far from 100% success rate.

Liberty: Those rebels might have been more of a thorn in Queen Asheviere's side than she deserved, but if anyone presents a convincing argument that they started it, I'll eat my own head.

Maybe a few more examples but I'm running out of time here.

On an unrelated note, further ammunition that elves aren't lovely, friendly forest dwellers:

NR:

Spoiler:

If you don't have Anita's sister, the elves refuse all suggestion of alliance and tell you never to even send them a messenger because they didn't like how you treated someone you were rescuing.

Ironclad proof of elvish arrogance if nothing else.

[joshudson]

If the elves were truly warlike, they'd train up sylphs and keep them around.

Even if the transition were expensive for the undertaker, and storylines suggest otherwise, they would keep enchantresses around.

[Orcish Shyde]

If the humans were truly warlike, they'd train up Mages and keep them around. The implication is that one can advance along any mage line with a kill count of precisely zero (INCLUDING the undead, before you ruin my metaphor ) Not to mention Huntsmen and Master Bowmen, who could just target-shoot to kingdom come (Rangers would at least need to kill animals to gain their legendary hunting skills).

The only reason everyone doesn't hoard L3/4 units in-universe is that it would wreck game balance for your enemy to actually have a properly equipped and trained army of Sylphs when your recruit list consists of Grunts and Archers.

[Joe1]

You do make some very good points, however I don't believe that that is what makes them "un-warlike." I saw that, many times, as I encountered elves in campaigns their attitude was either "Well as long as you leave us alone we won't hurt you." or "Well this is our land and we'll defend it." and many times the elves had to be deceived into attacking me XD I mean I know in that one drake campaign that's what their attitude was... as well as in Invasion from the Unknown...

[Ilanin]

There are occasions, mostly in Legend of Wesmere, when Elves are shown to be peaceable:

1. They attempt to reach an accomodation with and even surrender to the invading Orcs. Neither works of course.

2. Kalenz is stripped of his command for launching aggressive actions against the Orcs despite them being militarily fairly obvious solutions.

3. They very rarely initiate a combat - they seem to prefer warfare by other means, meddling through agents such as Delfador or infiltrators such as Kalenz. Not that this makes them nice, on the contrary, it makes them treacherous bastards, but I wouldn't say they were warlike as such.

I'd say that Elves were no more warlike than humans, which is to say, very. They are, however, far more convinced of their superiority and have an unshakable belief they deserve to dominate the Great Continent. They would prefer to accomplish this without warfare but will stoop to that if they have to.

[Taimat]

For the elves, I think of them as annoying arrogant buggers with a tendency to start fights needlessly.

Qucik point: the novice campaign that introduces you to elf tactics etc, along with orc units. I forget the name. Some orcs cut down some trees - They might have needed the warmth. They could have been keeping a litter of orcs/goblins alive with it for all you know. They dont try to negotiate, they didnt even believe orcs existed,just hey someone cut some tr- OMG ORCS KILL.
Then do they settle with killing the ones who actually cut the trees? Nope, the gy mentioned another name, so back to butchering orcs until they find this guy.

On top of that, the orcs are in unfamiliar land, and they arent particularly advanced, technologically or culturally. they squabble between themselves and cant even provide adequate equipment for all their troops (See slurbow).

So the elves, who are supposed to be kind and peaceful, have TWO races who are rather inclined to warfare (Comparatively, at least according to descriptions), with few resources and little/no permanant settlements in a place they dont know. One they make a faux alliance with, the other they randomly kill for being near them at the wrong time. But y'know, trying to get them to wipe each other out so you can finish them off and cliam the spoils screams peaceful. (Also of note is that both other races have proven they can stand by allies - see hammer of thursagan for orcs and plenty of campaigns for humans). Only time you see elves doing anything like that is when they're at risk of being wiped out.

On an unrelated not, Orcish shyde put forward a really good argument for Asheviere not being evil - but Its also pretty compelling that she's frighteningly incompetent, which in itself is reason for a coup (Which technically WASNT, because Li'sar was the rightful queen - she passed up her chance when she handed it down to her son. Regent while Li'sar grew? Sure. but by the time of the campaign...Not so much)
Most of his argument hinges on her not being aware of any evil acts committed by her underlings. If that much of her army (And gold for orcish mercenaries) can run around doing whatever the hell they want, then how exactly is she in power at all? Also, she HAD to know where Li'sar was when she was stationed at places (Ford of Abez), because LI'SAR WAS THE QUEEN/PRINCESS. Sending her off to fight could itself be considered treason. But if she sent her off to fight with no idea that she already had a fair sized army close by slaughtering gryphon's to keep them away from some elves. And if she did know? The gryphons obviously dont want the eggs taken, and they can speak (Sceptre of fire) english, so why not protect them instead of killing them? They would have stood a better chance anyway, because they would have had the gryphons aid instead of fighting them.



Long rant, tl;dr: Elves can go die somewhere. Except the archers and hunters. They're okay. Asheviere is either evil, treasonous or a bumbling idiot. Any of those three are grounds for a coup, especially when the person she is regenting for (Said that wrong, but oh well) is the rightful queen.

[Skrim]

Sorry for raising this thread from the dead, but I've been playing 1.6.1 campaigns for about a month and lurking, and thought that there was something missing.

I disagree that elves are "evil"(IMO, they're morally neutral), and I'll say that, while more warlike than drakes or woses, they are less warlike than humans, or orcs, or trolls and approximately on par with dwarves.

Two points I'd like to raise are:
- They are arrogant.
- They'll happily accept any leader who has proven themselves powerful/badass/authoritarian enough. As seen in the Elvish Captain description.

The elves blocking the road, besieging the dwarves for years, and chasing them underground in Scepter of Fire were followers of Landar, the former second-in-command of Kalenz, who had been driven crazy by Crelanu's philter in Legend of Wesmere. Landar was also the cause for the elves going and smashing the Saurians in their own capital, in the same campaign, and causing Olurf's dwarves to leave.

The revenge-thirsty elves in the last mission of The South Guard were similarly fanatical followers of Mebrin, their great sage who had turned himself into a lich because he was tortured by some outlaws.

Erlornas pressed forward his assault against the Orcs for the simple reason of ensuring that they wouldn't come back and attack him tomorrow, the same reason for Kalenz and Landar assassinated an Orcish great chief.

And mercenaries exist in every race in Wesnoth. Orcs obviously. Humans probably. Even dwarves, who were hired by the fanatic elves to chase Thursagan & co. in the volcano. where elves couldn't move quickly.

So in most cases, the elves behaved warlike either out of self-defense, or out of devotion to idiot leaders. Still, I wouldn't call them inherently evil or warlike.

[Araja]

Elves, like some humans, seem just to be racist alot of the time.

While not technically evil, they often seem to find reasons to hate everything that is not an elf for some reason, and sometimes the only reason they don't kill other races is when they need that races help to kill another race.

The point about seeing from a biased perspective because it's a war game is well taken, and I find it very easy to believe that outside of war the elves are peaceful, it's just that trouble has a habit of finding them and they return the favor.