Tensei Shite High Elf ni Narimashitaga, Slow Life wa 120-nen de Akimashita - Highelf with a Long Life - Ch. 53

[DirtEater21]

Thank you for the translation

 

[Hauberk1800]

They can never stop being human supremecist if they keep eating animals and raising livestock.

I think slavery and veganism aren't quite on the same level

It's always refreshing to see the goodwill of people when you just talk and connect over a meal or drinks. Those sailors he just met were so concerned about him and his son. So touching

Thanks for the tl

 

[alexandergc]

It seems to me that country should start supporting the coalition as much as they can. Send them weapons, food, whatever they need. They might be suspicious of human troops, but even those if the coalition accepts it. Before that, Zilcheas might want to invade Cazaria if that place truly favours enslaving elves. Occupy it and destroy the mentality of wanting to oppress the elves. That would send a strong signal.

They'd essentially be declaring themselves traitors of humanity.
Might even be called "followers of the Demon Lord" by the Western Church.
And even if they COULD do that, they looks to be just a small coastal nation.
Them and what army?

Plus, as long as the Coalition isn't convinced of their sincerity, letting them die would be the default option.
(And leave them one less human nation to worry about.)

Aesir's method is probably the best chance these people have.
The western elves will probably have to respect the opinion of a High Elf, especially if Wynn happens to be one of their leaders.
Plus, if things REALLY go south, Aesir can...you know...reshape the continent.

 

[blablablub]

If you're strapped for words to say to your son, Aesir, how about a simple "I'm proud of you"

Can't rush off when there's a promise of a giant lobster for dinner

It better be buttery!

 

[Kireato]

Aesir just changing his tune the moment he realises it'd mean he'd stop being a role model for his son. XD

 

[MagnaDrake]

Aesir youre meddling again!

 

[Kaarme]

It's a dicey thing, waging war to curry favor with a 3rd party. The people care for elves sure, but sending their own to die is a big step.

And the main thing they're worried about in the first place is getting overwhelmed by monsters. So sending soldiers or supplies is a short-term gamble for something that takes time to get rewards. That's why the lord is so desperate.

So, their show of goodwill is to try to rely on a single elf, without offering or doing anything else? They might as well do nothing at all and pray for the best.

From what Aesir said, to improve their image among the elves, it's not enough for Zilcheas to just conquer Cazaria.
They need to go Assyrian Empire, FULL EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE, Roman Servile Wars types of collective punishment; think highways lined with men, women, and children crucified for miles.
Only by showing their sincerity by killing every single person they can get their hands on who had anything to do with the slave trade, will the elves think they might be worth giving the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know why that would be necessary. Do you want to associate with someone demanding such a horrifying tribute? The elves would be no better than the supremacist human nations if they demanded such a thing. It should be enough to execute all the slavers, slave traders, and their henchmen. Free every single elf and offer them some compensation and a protected passage out of the country, as they no doubt would want to leave. Punish all elf slave owners to some significant degree, but not by massacring them, unless they had treated the slaves inhumanly. Execute them if they did.

They'd essentially be declaring themselves traitors of humanity.
Might even be called "followers of the Demon Lord" by the Western Church.
And even if they COULD do that, they looks to be just a small coastal nation.
Them and what army?

Plus, as long as the Coalition isn't convinced of their sincerity, letting them die would be the default option.
(And leave them one less human nation to worry about.)

Aesir's method is probably the best chance these people have.
The western elves will probably have to respect the opinion of a High Elf, especially if Wynn happens to be one of their leaders.
Plus, if things REALLY go south, Aesir can...you know...reshape the continent.

They can try to play both sides if they want to, sure. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The nobleman did approach Aesir, so obviously there's some desire to respect the elves and get along with them. That automatically means they are already picking a side. Doesn't that mean they are betting on the coalition beating the supremacists?

 

[UncleKaos]

the eyes of his when he said "free the slaves and kill all who does deal in slavery". devoid of sympathy or any feeling.. creepy.

 

[RayLas]

Nah, I've seen enough fantasy stories to know that humans could label the Beastkin king as the 'demon king' out of religious fervor just to give him bad PR.

Nahh not just the Beastkin king, but pretty much everything that opposed that said religion. I've seen some even labeled a wise king just because that said king trying to exposed the religious faction corruption.

 

[Abricomas]

I don't know why that would be necessary. Do you want to associate with someone demanding such a horrifying tribute? The elves would be no better than the supremacist human nations if they demanded such a thing. It should be enough to execute all the slavers, slave traders, and their henchmen. Free every single elf and offer them some compensation and a protected passage out of the country, as they no doubt would want to leave. Punish all elf slave owners to some significant degree, but not by massacring them, unless they had treated the slaves inhumanly. Execute them if they did.

Well, that's what Aesir said would be necessary. He said that if Zilcheas wants to be considered a BIT better than other Human nations in the eyes of the Elves, they need to raze the Western nations to the ground and kill everyone who every dealt with an enslaved elf.

That's not me saying it, that's Aesir straight up saying that nothing short of a genocide of the slave trading nations will be enough, without his direct mediation.

 

[BoredTears]

I'm excited to see how the Western Elves would react to seeing an Eastern HIGH ELF in their midst

While he has been living in the east, the high elves are from the center of the continent. So I don't know if they would really consider him having lived in the east as being particularly special.

 

[HaxtonFale]

So, their show of goodwill is to try to rely on a single elf, without offering or doing anything else? They might as well do nothing at all and pray for the best.

He is not only a high elf, meaning that he's quite the spiritual existence, but also has a finger in a lot of pies across the continent. He might be odd for a high elf but he's by no means a pariah so his involvement is generally a good way to start because they want to open a dialogue rather than convince the local elves to return instantly.

 

[Kaarme]

Well, that's what Aesir said would be necessary. He said that if Zilcheas wants to be considered a BIT better than other Human nations in the eyes of the Elves, they need to raze the Western nations to the ground and kill everyone who every dealt with an enslaved elf.

That's not me saying it, that's Aesir straight up saying that nothing short of a genocide of the slave trading nations will be enough, without his direct mediation.

That's just one elf talking. Sure, you could believe it, but it's not even realistic to try to do what he suggested. Not to mention if the elves in general really wanted and desired such an outcome, that would make them the Thalmor. In such a case Zilcheas should forget all about it and merely keep their own base clean. And try to deal with the monsters the best they can. If the Coalition wins, maybe they will be too tired of war already and would leave Zilcheas alone if there's not a single elf oppressor present (or even an elf, for that matter). If the supremacists win, maybe they won't destroy Zilcheas if they also adopt the supremacist religion.

My comment was about what to do if they want the Coalition to win. Since the elves are working with beastmen and whatnot, it kind of suggests their aren't Thalmor, so maybe they don't want to massacre every human who once ate a meal in the same restaurant a slaver happened to visit as well.

 

[kingdudman]

When it comes to elves. There is never a rush.

 

[Abricomas]

That's just one elf talking. Sure, you could believe it, but it's not even realistic to try to do what he suggested. Not to mention if the elves in general really wanted and desired such an outcome, that would make them the Thalmor. In such a case Zilcheas should forget all about it and merely keep their own base clean. And try to deal with the monsters the best they can. If the Coalition wins, maybe they will be too tired of war already and would leave Zilcheas alone if there's not a single elf oppressor present (or even an elf, for that matter). If the supremacists win, maybe they won't destroy Zilcheas if they also adopt the supremacist religion.

My comment was about what to do if they want the Coalition to win. Since the elves are working with beastmen and whatnot, it kind of suggests their aren't Thalmor, so maybe they don't want to massacre every human who once ate a meal in the same restaurant a slaver happened to visit as well.

The Western elves don't want to kill all of the slave traders; they consider that as too much of a bother to do. As Aesir said, elves will consider trying to judge the sincerity of a human nation (as individual human lives are too short to bother considering) as a waste of energy and will close off interaction with all humans, unless a human nation shows their sincerity by proactively taking such a drastic action themselves. An action which Aesir also granted is impractical and not realistic.

That is why Aesir taking Zilcheas' diplomatic letter is essential to trying to mend the relationship with the Central Western Elves. Not just an elf, but a High Elf from the Sea of Treas, vouching for the Humans, is the only way that there would be a chance to rebuild those bridges, without Zilcheas needing to hunt down and kill every slave trader and owner.

For wanting the Coalition to win, yes, Zilcheas doesn't like the Far West nations or their religion, but even Grenda believes that there will be conflict from the Coalition winning spilling into the Central West. Aesir taking a letter to the Coalition is the best way to be introduced to the Coalition's leadership, as he would be able to guarantee, on pain of kingdom destruction, that Zilcheas is trying to make peaceful contact in good faith. Anything else would have the Coalition be distrustful of a neutral power trying to cozy up to them when it looks like they're about to win. And as Aesir said, elves generally do not care about which nations hold what faiths, but which race holds power. And since the Coalition contains races who had been persecuted and enslaved by Humans, they won't trust the aid of a Human nation (especially when they're winning and don't need the help) unless said nation did something first to show their sincerity.

As for taking one elf's word; Aesir has shown that he understands how both elves and humans think, by successfully resolving the elf slavery question in the East and creating the elven trade convoy system. As both an elf with a proven track record, and as the author's mouthpiece on worldbuilding, I think we can trust what Aesir has said, as I don't remember him being shown to be an unreliable narrator.

 

[BringinTheBeefUS]

Aesir looked cool for all of 2 seconds before food was brought to the conversation again

 

[Kaarme]

As for taking one elf's word; Aesir has shown that he understands how both elves and humans think, by successfully resolving the elf slavery question in the East and creating the elven trade convoy system. As both an elf with a proven track record, and as the author's mouthpiece on worldbuilding, I think we can trust what Aesir has said, as I don't remember him being shown to be an unreliable narrator.

Grenada had no idea who Aesir is. He just wanted to have a talk with any elf who was so confidently walking around in the city.

Nobody sane would have taken his advice seriously. In fact Aesir himself didn't take it seriously. He just stated it as a demonstration of how bad the relationship between the elves and humans should be under those circumstances. If a human country really lined their roads with human corpses as a "sign of goodwill" and then tried to invite the elves in, I doubt the elves would come. If a race is willing to heedlessly kill their own, why wouldn't they kill members of a different race even more willingly? Such brutality proves nothing good. Catching criminals who offended elves is a different matter altogether and won't result in mountains of corpses in a country like Zilcheas, probably not even Cazaria. The far west should be a different matter, but it's a full war out there.

 

[Abricomas]

Grenada had no idea who Aesir is. He just wanted to have a talk with any elf who was so confidently walking around in the city.

Nobody sane would have taken his advice seriously. In fact Aesir himself didn't take it seriously. He just stated it as a demonstration of how bad the relationship between the elves and humans should be under those circumstances. If a human country really lined their roads with human corpses as a "sign of goodwill" and then tried to invite the elves in, I doubt the elves would come. If a race is willing to heedlessly kill their own, why wouldn't they kill members of a different race even more willingly? Such brutality proves nothing good. Catching criminals who offended elves is a different matter altogether and won't result in mountains of corpses in a country like Zilcheas, probably not even Cazaria. The far west should be a different matter, but it's a full war out there.

The elves already see the human race as a race that would heedlessly kill their own race over questions of faith; Aesir was framing it that Zilcheas would have to sign their sincerity and apology in the blood of slavers that they would have to hunt down. It's not like indiscriminate human corpses would be accepted.

Also, I'm pretty sure Aesir did mean that Zilcheas would have to go and invade the far western nations; that's why Grenda said "raze every western nation", not central western, or Cazaria.

 

[Gerdinnyo]

I do generally dislike these race-war themes in fantasy, because their ecistence is very unlikely. Here, especially, it seems quite bad. Generally speaking, for such extremist ideologies to come about you need quite a few things.

First and probably most important: You need a highly diverse society. You need different peoples with different cultures, ideas, etc. But they need to be a minority. At most like 20-30% of the population. The reason is simple: The people of the majority need to interact with the minority enough to internalise the idea that they are different. And not all of them. Most will have positive relationships with the minority(s), but there needs to be a medium sized group that has had mainly negative interactions with the minority. This group has to be big enough that they can find each other and talk about their negative experiences. Because then they further radicalise themselves. I'd wager this needs to be like 5-10% of the majority. (This, especially considering elves, does not hold true. If we look at examples such as fascism (or going back to the actual middle ages with the MANY expulsion of jews (which was religious and not racial (anyone, who converted to christianity was welcome))) and such, elves should not be discriminated against. Elves mainly stay in their forests, so they should rarely interact with people. Some humans in this setting could doubt their existence even. Consider medieval europeans and africans. The average person from 1500 europe would probably laugh at you, if you told them about africans, thinking it's a fairy tale. I want to tell you, the nazis didn't hate blacks. Hell, during the 1936 olympics, Hitler was specifically asked by the americans not to personally congratulate Jesse Owens. (There weren't many blacks in Germany back then, so their hatred wasn't aimed at them really.) Point is: You need interactions with the other group to develop a hatred for them. And since elves don't really interact with others, they should realistically not be the targets of hate.)

Then, another thing you need is BIG economic downturn. If the economy is running well and people lead good lives, they will be more positive, less likely to adopt more extreme views. If the economy is starting to turn worse and people start struggling, they will become more agitated, frustrated. This will then lead to more negative interactions, causing friction between the majority and minority.


And then there is another aspect people forget when writing scenarios: People in the medieval ages had WILDLY different worldviews than us. The past and current race-wars are uniquely modern. And there is a very simple reason why. Back then, the main brackets people would assign others into were based on their social standing, religion and jobs. The way we say, ah yes he is american or chinese. They would say, ah yes, he is a knight, she is a baroness, he is a protestant. The differences between individuals from different ethnicities, but the same social class was negligable compared to the differences between 2 social classes. If you read about the medieval period in europe, what you will see are wars between nobles, religious wars, and peasent uprisings. It wasn't ideology vs ideology. Ideologies didn't arise until the centralisation of power of the absolutist era, the rise of the merchant class, the industrial revolution, urbanisation, the Enlightment, the appearance of the middle class and the creation of nation-states. This is 17th 18th century stuff. But really, modern extremist ideologies didn't really appear until late 18th century, early 19th. People just thought along different lines back then. They would be thinking about religious supremacy, not racial.


As an aside, I also have an issue with giving religion the human supremacist ideology. Religions already have a specific outgroup, into which believers can chategorise others. And that is non-believers, heretics, etc. Even in judaism, "goyim" isn't inherently racial. After the adoption of the idea that jews are an ethnicity (not complete adoption or anything, but most people consider them a seperate "race"), the world took on a more racial meaning as well, but it's still mainly about non-believers. As far as I know, there isn't a major religion which chategorises a race or more as the outgroup to be disliked. This is not in small part due to the fact that religions have to be very broad. Their point is to convince as many different people as possible. That's how they spread. Any religion that does discriminate does not get big. Or more accurately, it can't. And big religions such as christianity or islam can't just up and decide to incorporate new doctrines out of the blue. They have sacred texts, which are followed and debated (under which I specifically mean, how to best follow the written words, and NOT whether it is true or not. That would be blasphemy.) This basically means, that only very general, non-discriminatory religions can get big and once they do, they become quite rigid.



Now this would be a very different conversation if the setting was a post-industrial revolution world, still highly agricultural, rural, with nobility and all, but already developing. Because there an ideology such as this would not just be feasable, but actually quite probable. Regardless, I am sorry for the essay. I would have written less, if I could explain it better. Sadly, I am not as good with words as many others and my understanding of these topics isn't high enough to explain clearly.

 

[versub]

Robbed of biggest lobster dinner scene