The more posts I see making the Draenei out to be flawless and blameless the angrier I get because I have done almost every draenor and Outlands quest concerning them and it boils down to them being the equivalent of the White European Settlers that invaded America. Only goats from space. The orcs certainly aren’t completely blameless either but I’m getting so sick of them being shit on in order to put Draenei on a pedestal.
“it boils down to them being the equivalent of the White European Settlers that invaded America”
lmao whoa ok let’s back up here. you talk about this as if they had a choice to settle on draenor — that they came there in the name of exploration and conquest — and they weren’t forced to remain on draenor because their fucking interdimensional ship broke down and was in ruins, as well as its naaru pilots being incapacitated. that’s the entire reason why they came to the planet — one of those naaru fell ill and needed to make that emergency crash landing.
they were literally trapped there. what were they supposed to fucking do? sit there and not try to survive and make a home for themselves?
they kept their distance from the orcs because they were trying to remain unobtrusive and respectful, and they largely settled in places that weren’t already occupied by orcs. talador doesn’t seem to have a large orc population, and that seems to be where the bulk of draenei settlements are, including their capital. i have a feeling karabor was built where it was because it was on the far end of the valley, and the towns of elodor and embaari sprung up where they did only because an amicable yet slightly tenuous trade relationship between the draenei and the orcs had been established.
tbh i highly doubt that the draenei would just start building cities and towns without a lot of research about whether or not it would be ideal to, or without asking permission. they were chased from their home and they don’t seem inclined to try and edge natives out of theirs. plus i’m pretty certain that, like velen, they feel pretty fucking guilty for having inadvertently brought ruin on other planets because of KJ’s hateboner for velen.
(yeah okay i’ll give you that in some cases the draenei were pretty presumptuous and perhaps they should have reached out a bit more and not been so focused on keeping to themselves, because it might have made them less of an enigma and the orcs may not have been quite as swayed to attack them. but they didn’t, and you know, they suffered for that. it was extremely unfortunate, but hey, hard lesson learned.)
and trust me, no one is “shitting on” the orcs to make the draenei look better. the orcs are fucking awful because they just are. even without the excuse of demon blood they were easily convinced to murder draenei en masse in the name of becoming conquerors.
i fail to see what part of wanting to escape demonic slavery and so being constantly on the run, then crashing on a world and having no escape is “being the equivalent of white european settlers that invaded america.” especially because you know, they didn’t fucking commit genocide or other unsavory acts on the orcs.