Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-37719459-20181220032704/@comment-37841075-20190622051733

Cheesedoodle wrote: Honestly, this thread made me CRAZY happy to see. Like, I'm smiling from behind the screen. Oh, and Lowkey done with life? High five! That was amazing!

But, if you don't mind, I'd like to add something to your. I think, personally, humanity is not only good at making mistakes, but admitting to them- even if we only admit to them far off in the future. A couple months ago, were doing a history lesson on slavery and even though it horrible, digusting, and inhumane, the fact that we even had a lesson on this says something. THIS HAPPENED. This was one of the worst things in American history, but we admitt to this atrocities existence. And I don't know why no one's ever mentioned this, but guys, why do you think it was told in elvin history that Humans Betrayed the Elves when it was the other way around? It can be inferred that the only people who would know about this was the council, who were sent so many complaints and pleas, the people who were supposed to be there for us, were the one's who told the other elves this.They KNEW why the humans rebelled- you'd have to be complete idiot not to. Yet they CHOSE to lie about it, to what protect themselves from guilt? To protect their reputation? Even if they had to severe ties, the stories of those who died from Vespera's experiments DESERVED to be told. I can just imagine these people sitting in tubes for the rest of their lives, away from their families, friends, children, etc. Not to mention no one even saw the Lost cities flaws until Sophie! Not saying humans are better- cuz we're FAR from perfect- but still.

That's why I'm kinda iffy about "connecting humans and elves will be hard because of the human greed" thing mentioned in Lodestar because the elves will probally make it hust hard as well because of their gigantic ego's. Think about it: the human statue was kneeling in front of the elvin in Nightfall. Yeah, that right there says a lot about how elves view humans, as well as their many many comments. How are they ever going to get along as species if elves don't view us as equals and put themselves on pedastals? Ahh, thank you so much!! I try to have faith in humanity, because a lot of goodness exists in little things, and those little things eventually add up, you know? The world's not all bad, and I've seen a lot of bad. Focusing on all the bad things makes it seem like everywhere is just pure misery and pain, when that's really not the case most of the time. :>

Also, I 100% with what you say in that second paragraph! Us as humans tend to have a lot of hindsight, and that really shows how we've grown and changed in every way, including our views on morality, since then. Like, Germany for example, saw everything that the Nazis did, admitted to it, and then did everything they could to try and make up for it. Countries in a lot of places do admit to when they had done something wrong in the past, and then they go on and teach it. After all, they say those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Just seeing how much people do this really shows that humans are not stagnant. We grow and change and pass that on to new generations and hope they don't make the same mistakes.

We, as a species, recognize things that went wrong and when the same mistake we initially reacted to is repeated twice, something different is done after the second mistake. After World War I, the Entente eventually ended up abandoning and burdening Germany so much that Nazism sprang from it. Germany wouldn't have become so extreme had their not been so much stress on the country that led to poor life for the civilians. After World War II, the Allies realized what had led Germany to the point of Nazism and then proceeded to do the opposite. The US launched the Marshall Plan and began to rebuild West Germany, making the people much happier than they had in the interwar period a few years prior. Japan was rapidly rebuilt and even had a post-war miracle - a post-war miracle. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it happened, and look where Germany and Japan are now. Germany is the 4th largest economy in the world, 83 million citizens, and is one of the most progressive and advanced countries in the world. Japan is a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, the 3rd largest economy in the world, and over 120 million citizens. One hundred years ago something like this would've been inconceviable to both the victors and losers of WW1.

Humans have a level of humility and hindsight that's simply not found in the elvin race. Elves are so caught in the idea that they're perfect, superior, amazing, intelligent, etc etc that they've forgotten they're lumping 7 billion existing people under one label and claiming that over 100 billion people have been all the same.

Have humans done awful things? Absolutely. Have humans admitted to those awful things? Yes.

The fact that they're recognized at all is showing that humans are more than warmongers and violent criminals. If that were the case, then all of these things would've been forgotten, buried, covered up.

Humans recognize the flaws of their own systems and work to correct them. Elves think that they've got everything perfect. Elves are still, believing they've reached the peak because they're a bit higher on the mountain than the humans are. Humans are still climbing, and they will continue to climb until they find that peak hidden by the clouds. It's a dangerous but seductive mindset, to believe that you've reached perfection, but perfection in and of itself is flawed. No system in the world is perfect, elvin or human.

Sophie sees a lot of issues with the elvin system. We, the readers, see many flaws, too. The elves don't. Alden (I think?) once even said they needed a new pair of eyes to look on their world. Uh, hey, guys, doesn't that sound like there's a serious lack of introspection, critical thinking, and a surplus of blind narcissism if you need someone from the imperfect world to point out the issues in the "perfect" one?

The whole idea of "one race is superior to the others" is very very dangerous. You barely need to look further than 300 years to see all of the times this has done all sorts of wrong. Native Americans were enslaved and forced to labor because their colonisers thought they were of an inferior race, stupid and savage. Africans were sold into slavery because they were thought to be violent and unemotional. World War II started, partly, because the Nazis and the Japanese believed they were racially superior. I don't need to go on, do I?

It's true that the elves are held back by their guilt and inability to process it, but that doesn't change that "elves are superior to humans" isn't a good thought pattern. Elves live in their own bubbles that prevent them from seeing the flaws in their system, and the successes of the other system (or systems, considering the countless systems that have been tried and implemented along the course of human history).

Isolation is not safety. It is demise. You destroy yourself when you don't progress. You especially destroy yourself when you don't move to progress and improve because you believe you already have it all. If humans thought that our systems were perfect, modern-day countries would be absolutely unrecognizable. The process might be slow, but decay is inevitable.

I hope I didn't bore anyone to sleep with this... I have a lot of feelings about humans and the way they're viewed by the elves sometimes. >.>"