Garou and xenophobia

[Lashet]

Also, speaking of thermes.
I remember my argues with Garou-hatrrs from those times I was WtA -fun. Their point - Garou would kill a sentinent beings (vampires) for formal reason (just for being vampires) which is close to racism and nazim. According to current consensus in fandoms, there is nothing worse than fashism and to be a fashist is complete crossing of Moral Event Horizon, hence your average Garou is worse than Ramsey Snow (although Ramsey is a rapist, which is also taboo, so your average Garou is more like equal to Ramsey).
Sorry, if usingsuch terms was offensive

[Heavy Arms]

Also, speaking of thermes.

Nothing in your post has anything to do with themes.

Their point - Garou would kill a sentinent beings (vampires) for formal reason (just for being vampires) which is close to racism and nazim.

No, it isn't.

There is nothing uniquely racist or Nazi about declare something a crime punishable by death; even for actions that aren't directly the crime of the one being punished (like getting Embraced). It's something that's been part of human law since, literally, we started writing laws down. Thousands of years before the rise of the modern concept of racism or the Nazis.

Vampires aren't a race in the sense racism means. You can't be racist against all of something. If you think all humans are inherently evil, you're not a racist, you're a misanthrope. If you think all vampires are evil, you're whatever the equivalent of a misanthrope would be towards vampires.

The Garou belief that vampires are inherently of the Wyrm and thus must be destroyed is religious fanaticism, not the scapegoating of minorities the Nazi's used to justify their atrocities.

Of course people also toss around the word "sentient" like it's some special qualifier. Sentient just means "feeling." Every farm animal, from dairy cows, to horses used for work, to guard dogs, to chickens bred for slaughter, to a barn cat? Those are all sentient beings, as they're all capable of the emotional capacity for feelings that sentient means. Every bane, fomori, and BSD a Garou kills for being what it is, was also sentient.

Sapient is the word that humans actually care about (we're called Homo sapiens for a reason), but also something entirely ill-defined. It's an ephemeral idea of wisdom that separates use from other animals.

According to current consensus in fandoms...

You really don't have the grounds to be speaking of any sort of consensus on this.

Also... you don't seem to get what fascism is either. Fascism doesn't apply to this. It's a governing philosophy. Killing people because Gaia said to isn't fascism.

...hence your average Garou is worse than Ramsey Snow (although Ramsey is a rapist, which is also taboo, so your average Garou is more like equal to Ramsey).

This doesn't follow the rest, and makes no sense. Ramsay wasn't a fascist, he was part of a feudal system and never claimed any inclination towards a different mode of government. The power afforded to feudal lords was plenty to sate his sadistic urges.

Your average Garou isn't doing something because they enjoy causing pain and suffering, which was Ramsay's primary emotional motivation. Hence, this claim is another load of bunk.

Sorry, if usingsuch terms was offensive

If you're sorry, why did you use them? And worse, use them in such an offensively wrong way?

[MyWifeIsScary]

One important thing I think this thread has overlooked.
Vampires are social master wizards. You engage with dialogue with one, chances are it'll bewitch you. You'll be his best friend for an hour and divulge important secrets or you'll get back to the sept and find yourself on a killing spree. Not only are they excellent manipulators but vampires have social magic, man, you can't just try to reason with one, because they'll always win. You will be compromised, and your pack will have to act accordingly or suffer the consequences. Naturally, this fear of being compromised makes Shoot First Never Ask Questions the only reasonable option.

Oh, yeah, you argued that vampires are better than humans because they're not using plastic bottles and such.
The impact of individuals on the planet is nothing compared to corporations. Vampires have a big influence with the latter. They have a vested interest in increasing urbanization so that they have more options for food, in increasing corruption and the gap between rich and poor to better their feeding opportunities whilst minimising the risks. You can even get into very esoteric actions like increasing the height of buildings and gaining thicker smog so that the sun becomes a lesser threat. Every bright eyed neonate left to live will some day become a cynical ancilae and then an elder, who will perpetuate this urban corruption.

Garou are literally powered by rage and a removal from reality, they're flawed. They're also brought up in isolated communes and indoctrinated into a theology and ideology that promotes obedience and punishes subversion. They're taught the world is sick and they're the god-given cure... But given most of the values they're taught they've got more in common with libertarian miliitias or christian cults than Nazis. Sure, they've got imagined pasts, but they have to defend great defenseless earth-mother figure from big-bad father evil. Many of the pleasing fictions are very left-wing.

[Gryffon15]

I wish I could like your last post more then once Heavy Arms. It's a succinct and accurate reply which deconstructs the opposing argument very well and in a very satisfying way, imo. There's nothing I could add on top of that so I just want to say: thank you, that was awesome.

Along with what MyWifeIsScary (May Gaia grant I never meet her then : D) said, its stated numerous times that the Garou have been tricked, betrayed, and brought to ruin for trusting vampires, not even working with them or making formal alliances-just trusting them, for MILLENIA. The Garou Nation has a history of tragedy and betrayal attached to vampires that dates back to the First City (especially if you agree with the theory that Ennoia, progenitoress of the Gangrel clan, was kinfolk) and to this very day. Given everything we knew about garou as an honor martial culture with a strong oral tradition, all kenning garou would be aware of numerous tales of this genre. Also, given that Garou are of the nature to murder each other and other fera, their abject allies, over grudges that can be centuries or millennia old, the fact that we have as few garou as we do roaring into places like New York City, Chicago, & Mexico City to commit mass killings and property destruction is frank a miracle and a sign of just how desperate the focused war effort against the Wyrm is for modern garou.

Another big agreement with MWIS, and not just because twisting the environment argument to target the actions of individuals instead of corporations is how I gain Rage irl. Vampires, as a whole, are compared to parasites and cancer for a reasons and it's not entirely rhetoric. A vampire is a cancer just smart enough to not be caught and not kill it's host while still weakening from them and destroying them from within for as long as possible. Young vampires hunt and have small gatherings of blood dolls. Older vampires have turned themselves into the top of a bloody feudal empire that constantly draws fresh blood up to them, siphoning off of humanity perpetually. Vampires lobby to keep slums poor and the impoverished in poverty, because it gives them poorly lit places to send their minions to abduct people that no ones will miss and where the police are bought for cheaper then next's months rent. That's on the small scale too. That's just what your local ancillae or young elder does to get by. Conspiracies of elders and ancients lobby nation states and push things in their favor and what's in their favor is rarely ever good for humanity at large. With only their own self-decided limits and the rivalry of their peers holding them in place, as they help make the World of Darkness as shadowy as it is, vampires form great corporations of corruption that corrude humanity and drain it of its life, without ever offering it the dignity of a fair fight or the peace of an eventual demise.

The Garou Nation is flawed, I don't think many here would argue that. It's horribly flawed and in many interesting ways. It holds some of the worst aspects of Neolithic and early human social structure alongside its benefits and provides an interesting contrast to the modern world which they fight. The Garou Nation, as a political entity, is a militant xenophobic theocratic terrorist state.

Yet despite that, this conversation has actually done more to convince me of the heroism of the Garou's campaign of slaughter against vampirism then anything I've ever experienced in game or from the rhetoric of any garou in a White Wolf title.

[TheCountAlucard]

My Malkavian PC had dots in Herd. The ST asked me, "Oh, yeah, what's the story with that?"

"Oh, he's made the psychiatric hospital his own personal feeding ground. When his fuel tank is running low, he Obfuscates inside, puts on a white coat, and goes around taking 'blood samples.' Nobody believes the patients' 'wild stories'."

So, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if a werewolf wanted to kill him.

[Lachdanan]

•Working Together
-Yet what we've discussed here is largely the rule and every rule has exceptions. Like Vancouver's Compact in canon...

Yes it's cannon. But the compact was violated by the vampires and the sept destroyed, it's members killed. Check the Glass Walker Revised.

[Lian]

I don't see why Garou get such a bad wrap about killing vampires. its a drop in the bucket compared to how many are killed by the Camarilla for being "thin blooded" or "not acknowledged" or "a shovel head" or "because I'm the Prince" etc. Most Kindred are killed by other Kindred. This is OCCASIONALLY overcome by poor masquerade practices by Mundanish humans(Non imbued hunters).

At no point are Werewolves any more on the problem for your average Kindred than your average Surfer is going to get attacked by sharks. Yes it happens. Its scary and its over reported. As long as you aren't swimming in shark area generally nothing happens. But Humans are the REAL danger that's why MASQUERADE is the central conceit of the game line. The central conceit of Vampire is such complete fear that humans will murder them in their sleep that they need to make humans not believe they exist. This is not something they do with Garou. They don't try to remove all memories of Vampires existing from Garou. They don't go hunting Garou who "know too much" they don't even put them on their damned Redlist.

The natural innate human state of reaction to Kindred is to destroy them, garou are just scarier. Garou are not unique in their vampire hatred. Vampire hatred is the natural state of beings. All of Vampire society is built around elaborate rules to control the impulse to kill eachother. Treating Garou as having a unique reaction when rather its the standard reaction is silly.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I like most of what you said there, but I do believe that, upon finding out about vampires, a person with any power will ask 'what's in it for me?' and a person without power will get squashed the moment they try to do anything. If you're afraid by your discovery, you'll know that blowing the horn will get you killed faster than not. Garou are in a position where they're not afraid of the lone vampire who intrudes on their territory, as individually they're usually much more powerful and'll usually be able to bring at least a packmate, but garou are entirely afraid of starting an actual war with the vampires; they'd certainly lose through attrition. They could near-wipe a city in a day with planning, but the retaliation's not something they could bear. Unless a vampire is very seriously courting the Wyrm they're not going to go on the offensive in a large city (perhaps a smaller one)

[Lian]

I like most of what you said there, but I do believe that, upon finding out about vampires, a person with any power will ask 'what's in it for me?' and a person without power will get squashed the moment they try to do anything. If you're afraid by your discovery, you'll know that blowing the horn will get you killed faster than not.

It takes a single piece of wood in the middle of the day to kill even the most potent of elders especially post withering. But even before the most recent situations Kindred society has been defined since the dawn of time by hiding from the Kine. As powerful as kindred think they are they have profound weaknesses that allow them to be readily taken down and they know it.

This is before the fact some Kindred sees a hunter going through and thinning the ranks and thinks "Hey I can use this to free up this territory over there". That is the natural state of Kindred to be predator and prey at the same time.

Garou are in a position where they're not afraid of the lone vampire who intrudes on their territory, as individually they're usually much more powerful and'll usually be able to bring at least a packmate, but garou are entirely afraid of starting an actual war with the vampires; they'd certainly lose through attrition. They could near-wipe a city in a day with planning, but the retaliation's not something they could bear. Unless a vampire is very seriously courting the Wyrm they're not going to go on the offensive in a large city (perhaps a smaller one)

Garou have shit to do. For all their Wyrminess Kindred are fairly low on priorities sake. That's before being pretty good at not sticking out by working through humans. Most "Garou kindred interactions" probably gets to "kindred pokes his influence at Garou problems.. loses some pawns decides to work on something else because he can always get more mortals"


And those who don't fall under either of the categories above are neonates who are even worse off. All the weaknesses of having to sleep during the day and none of the decades of build up to deal with it. I think there's a statistic that most kindred don't last 5 years in one of the books that should say something about their situation.