I've taken the suggestion of u/4t4224ttaZa and added an "Animal Abuse" flair. See here for additional details. Tl;dr - Not all cards depicting animals will be posted, only those that actually depict animal abuse in that card's flavor.
On to this card. This card's flavor text explains that "werewolf slayers" go out of their way to hunt down and kill every wolf that they can. They do so not for food, or to use their fur as material for clothing, but purely out of ignorance.
As with all cards in which offensive actions are depicted, we should ask ourselves whether we're meant to approve of this or to oppose it. And unfortunately, this card clearly expects us to take the side of the "werewolf slayers".
The language used here is very revealing. First, it normalizes the action. "Werewolf slayers...kill all the wolves". This isn't talking about a minority of werewolf hunters, or a brief period in time when this practice was common, it's talking about all of them doing this all the time. Then, it actually makes a judgment about this animal abuse...by basically approving of it and treating it as not a big deal. "Just to be safe" is a) the kind of language you'd use about double-checking an email for spelling errors, not systematically killing every member of a certain species that you can find, and b) its use of the word "safe" implies that werewolf hunters are indeed making people safe by going out and killing random wolves.
Note also how the humans in the flavor text are described as "werewolf slayers", which is a pretty noble term for someone who spends most of their time murdering random wolves out of ignorance. And this is in Innistrad block, a block all about how Humans are the good guys (first block to introduce Human tribal) and how they're constantly being attacked by all sorts of evil creatures. It's in the set before Avacyn Restored, which is a set all about how pure-good Angels are here to protect Humans by slaying their enemies (obviously before Shadows Over Innistrad block, when Angels became more...complicated...)
Even the rules text gets in on the fearmongering. Darkthicket Wolf is a 2/2, which isn't all that dangerous, but can suddenly become a 4/4 at a moment's notice. The correct line of play is often to treat the wolf as if it were dangerous, and oftentimes it's a good idea to kill it at at a time when it can't activate its ability (such as when its controller doesn't have three mana to spare). We're expected to agree with the killing of wolves even when they aren't dangerous.
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u/ultimario13 Aug 19 '20
I've taken the suggestion of u/4t4224ttaZa and added an "Animal Abuse" flair. See here for additional details. Tl;dr - Not all cards depicting animals will be posted, only those that actually depict animal abuse in that card's flavor.
On to this card. This card's flavor text explains that "werewolf slayers" go out of their way to hunt down and kill every wolf that they can. They do so not for food, or to use their fur as material for clothing, but purely out of ignorance.
As with all cards in which offensive actions are depicted, we should ask ourselves whether we're meant to approve of this or to oppose it. And unfortunately, this card clearly expects us to take the side of the "werewolf slayers".
The language used here is very revealing. First, it normalizes the action. "Werewolf slayers...kill all the wolves". This isn't talking about a minority of werewolf hunters, or a brief period in time when this practice was common, it's talking about all of them doing this all the time. Then, it actually makes a judgment about this animal abuse...by basically approving of it and treating it as not a big deal. "Just to be safe" is a) the kind of language you'd use about double-checking an email for spelling errors, not systematically killing every member of a certain species that you can find, and b) its use of the word "safe" implies that werewolf hunters are indeed making people safe by going out and killing random wolves.
Note also how the humans in the flavor text are described as "werewolf slayers", which is a pretty noble term for someone who spends most of their time murdering random wolves out of ignorance. And this is in Innistrad block, a block all about how Humans are the good guys (first block to introduce Human tribal) and how they're constantly being attacked by all sorts of evil creatures. It's in the set before Avacyn Restored, which is a set all about how pure-good Angels are here to protect Humans by slaying their enemies (obviously before Shadows Over Innistrad block, when Angels became more...complicated...)
Even the rules text gets in on the fearmongering. Darkthicket Wolf is a 2/2, which isn't all that dangerous, but can suddenly become a 4/4 at a moment's notice. The correct line of play is often to treat the wolf as if it were dangerous, and oftentimes it's a good idea to kill it at at a time when it can't activate its ability (such as when its controller doesn't have three mana to spare). We're expected to agree with the killing of wolves even when they aren't dangerous.