Board Thread:Skyrim/@comment-12599067-20130928060857/@comment-24589685-20140323042756

Since when are "oppressed people" and "fledgling oppressors" mutually exclusive? In my experience, it's pretty much -never- the case that an oppressed or marginalized group remains itself innocent of engaging in oppression or marginalization of its own. This is usually internal (like 'colorism' within African-American communities, or the hatred of effeminate 'queens' within gay male communities, or the hatred of trans women who aren't sufficiently 'passable' or 'making the effort' or 'feminine' by other trans women -and jealousy/bitterness often exhibited in the reverse direction towards young and conventionally attractive trans women-, or jews resenting jews who aren't of a zionist / pro-Israel politic, etc) or it's applied laterally towards OTHER marginalized groups (like african-americans who exhibit racist attitudes towards latin-americans, gay men who are transphobic and misogynistic and hateful towards lesbians, jews who have a decidedly prejudicial and hateful attitude towards muslims and people of arabic or persian ethnicity, etc).

The Forsworn can be hostile, brutal, nasty, definitely "unfair" in their tactics of war, and hardly likely to create a Sunshine and Gumdrops Society if they were to "win", but that doesn't mean that they aren't themselves victimized by other, stronger cultural and military forces that have left them disposessed.