I have long since held the position that the “faction pride” for this expansion was bungled from the start. Neither side is getting faction pride from this.
All I can say is I see why the writers have put him this way (looking at future x-pacs where the Alliance and Horde isn’t trying to genocide each other around old gods raising their tentacles up). So there has to be a path forward (somehow) and it seems clear that Anduin and Baine are the two they have laid the foundation for doing so in prior x-pacs.
Which comes back to the question: If not Baine, then who? (Killing off all the current Horde leaders would be the “one side wins” option which by all accounts is off the table.)
Long essay but not very good. You’ve assumed a lot and ignore plenty of information.
Take for example that we don’t see “how horrible war can be” as if there wasn’t a cinematic that addressed the war toll directly or ad-naseum media about the War of Thorns.
You dismiss Sylvanas’ actions as illogical and not reasoned out as if they weren’t addressed at-length in Before the Storm and act as if her violent behavior is somehow strange for her. Teldrassil isn’t the first entire city she’s destroyed (with civilians inside). It’s like her 4th including her Lordaeron and Gilneas campaigns.
You dissmiss Saurfang who’s plans are not to go the Alliance, he was just let loose by them. He didn’t promise anything to Anduin.
You dismiss Jaina’s compassion for the Zandalari as if A: she didn’t just undergo a whole character arc in Kul Tiras and B: as if the objective was ever to destroy the city, especially in light of Teldrassil and her previous experiences in the last war.
Tyrande’s night warrior was not foreshadowed, yes, (unless you consider all the information about Elune and the Light teased in Legion) but it’s not like that’s affecting the major plot. Harry Potter spells weren’t foreshadowed either, just introduced.
You dismiss irony and symbolism just because you aren’t confident WoW’s team is any good at that. There’s a word for it: prejudice.
Setting aside that this is all still before we have hindsight on what exactly the plan with the story is.
Maybe you can argue you shouldn’t have to look to external sources to understand the lore, but it’s literally always been this way and has been the model Blizzard has always used so it’s unfair to expect them to do differently.
I don’t prescribe to the theory that he tanked the battle by not killing Anduin. Genociding the Alliance was never his end game. He speaks against such things during Wrath with Garrosh (a moment Blizz failed to have him live up to). That is Sylvanas’ end game and one she pursues with blighting her own city for a trap.
You need to look at Sylvanas as the new Blackhand & Gul’dan to understand the damned if he does; damned if his doesn’t position Suarfang is in. Teldrassil was his Grom drinking demon blood again. He done the genocide thing once already (Path of Glory in Outlands) and swore to never let it happen again, but he then enables Sylvanas to do just that.
Mak’gora? That is just being Orgrim Doomhammer at this point and Saurfang has seen where that goes. All out war with the Alliance continues.
As far as rebellion goes, that could have been a thing but post-MOP and with Teldrassil having been done that is going to be hard to work. I am uncertain if that isn’t another Doomhammer deal where the war continues.
Also killing Anduin is just another Doomhammer move and Saurfang lived through Doomhammer killing that Anduin and the results that brought on. Anduin is a brake on Alliance reprisal atrocities that Tyrande and Genn won’t be.
Saurfang has no good choice. Even giving Thrall a kick in the rear to come out of retirement is just a band aid cause what happens when Thrall retires again? He appoints another Garrosh/Sylvanas?
If I’m going to take the question seriously, how 'bout Zekhan? He’s new, young, and idealistic, apparently wasn’t at Teldrassil, and is not a faction leader with a whole country/race to think about. I suspect you’ll say the problem is that he doesn’t have the prior relationship with Jaina/Anduin/the Alliance, but that’s exactly why he’d be a better choice.
Or they could have let Zelling survive. In many ways, he’d actually be the ideal bridge between Horde and Alliance–better than Baine, frankly. He has ties to both factions, and (thanks to Lillian Voss acting extremely out of character) he actually would have had something good to say about the Horde, since they provided him with a solution to his problem and kept the promise to look after his family. And once again, he’s not a racial leader, unless they wanted him to take over after they do whatever they’re going to do to push Sylvanas out of her position.
He was overcome by depression and self-loathing and felt helpless to do anything as his Horde was twisted into something he hates. He wouldn’t leave his cell because he wanted to sit there, shut his eyes and not have to see his Horde become even more corrupt under Sylvanas.
He left because he realized that he can’t pin his hopes on someone else while he lies in a cell consumed by his own angst. He needed to fix things himself, because no one else would fix it for him.
Therefore he didn’t leave for Anduin, he left for the Horde.
It might not be what you want to see, but it isn’t quite what you say you’re seeing.
Warning: I’m having strong Baine feelz right now for some reason.
Rambling reply incoming.
Save yourself.
No really.
Tl;dr version is still that Baine’s a more complicated cow than people give him credit for. And everything he does is for his people and for the Horde. It’s just that what he thinks is best for them often aligns with the Alliance’s interests.
Leave now.
Right.
Extremes all the way.
No middle ground.
If you don’t agree with all of your faction’s actions and actively fight against some of them, you must want to be a member of the enemy faction.
As much as people like to dumb down his motives to Jaina and Anduin are his friends so he’s secretly Alliance–ignoring of course that Anduin wasn’t part of his thought process in Tides of War or the Derek Plot and that he’s never done a thing for Anduin’s benefit that even vaguely damaged the Horde–his thought process has been shown conclusively to be a lot more complicated than that.
It’s literally there in the text if you read it.
One very important thing to remember here is context. Tides of War paints a different picture of events than Cataclysm does. Per Tides of War, while there were many fights between the Horde and Alliance, they weren’t actually at war yet. While Taurajo was attacked by the Alliance, it was a mistake made due to faulty intelligence and the leader did everything he could to avoid civilian casualties. You might not like it or agree with it, but if you are going to use the events of the book to judge Baine you need to accept all the events the book describes. You can’t pick one or two and ignore the rest because those actions didn’t take place in a vacuum.
He didn’t refuse to retaliate and evict the dissenters because he loves the Alliance so gosh darn much he couldn’t bear to hurt them. He did it because seeking vengeance wouldn’t bring back the lives that were already lost, it would just cause more tauren to die in the attempt and even more when the Alliance inevitably responded with their own counterattacks. He wanted to de-escalate the situation rather than invite more suffering for his people.
It was to protect them.
It’s also important to note that it was only Thunder Bluff they were evicted from, they are still welcome to live in Mulgore behind the safety of the great gate.
A desire to avoid conflict isn’t just a Baine trait. It’s a typical tauren trait. They are defined everywhere as a people who lean heavy towards pacifism. Most tauren were perfectly fine with how he handled things. In fact, at one point many tauren wanted to leave the Horde entirely because they viewed their membership in the Horde as the source of their problems.
It’s also his love for the tauren that keeps him from challenging Sylvanas directly. What if she cheats to win and his death is meaningless? She’s already threatened his people to ensure his compliance. What will she do to them if he challenges her and fails? He had this same thought process in Tides of War when one of Garrosh’s cronies challenged him after he spoke out against Garrosh. He wasn’t afraid he couldn’t win fairly, he was sure that he could and he was certain the fight would be fixed just like his father’s was and his people would be in danger. I sincerely doubt he views Sylvanas as more honorable when she’s done more despicable things than Garrosh and Malkorok had at that point.
After Cairne challenged Garrosh what happened? The tauren people were slaughtered by an ursurper. It wasn’t the Horde that gave him the means to reclaim Thunder Bluff and save his people. It was Jaina. Without her support the Tauren would still be under Magatha’s thumb. Or worse. If she was successful in getting the remaining tauren to follow her there’s a good chance Garrosh would have gone to war with her.
That act alone is as much, or more, than the rest of the Horde has done for the Tauren since he became High Chieftain. People like to belittle his friendship with Jaina, but I’ve noticed that some who do don’t even know why she is important to him and the Tauren. They just parrot what they’ve heard on reddit or the forums and don’t have the full picture.
I’m not suggesting you are one of those people.
Just making an observation.
His personal debt to Jaina was only one factor in his decision to warn her about Theramore, just like it was only one reason he saved Derek.
His personal honor, his loyalty to the ideals the Horde espouses, his compassion and his great respect for life all played a part in his decisions.
So…
Theramore.
Baine’s mindset throughout Tides of War is very clearly that all out war with the alliance would be disastrous for everyone. He believes that Garrosh is dooming the Horde and the Tauren with his plans. Physically and ideologically.
Another important thing to remember about Tides of War is that Baine was not the only one who disapproved. Garrosh intended Theramore to be a first step before attacking the rest of the Alliance in Kalimdor. Many of the Horde didn’t want that for various reasons. Vol’jin disapproved. Eitrigg disapproved. Even Sylvanas disapproved. Lor’themar didn’t speak out openly against Garrosh, but his disapproval was implied despite his silence on the matter.
There were various other less important characters who disapproved and spoke out against attacking Theramore. Some of them specifically because it was Jaina’s city.
Baine still did as he was ordered and gathered his forces to assault Northwatch Hold despite his disapproval. Why? Because he’s loyal to the Horde. He didn’t like the idea of going to war but he also didn’t have any real objections to attacking Northwatch Hold specifically. Why? Because even though he would have preferred to avoid it they were a “legitimate military target” and had few/no civilians. But Garrosh didn’t just attack with conventional military tactics, he used dark shaman to summon molten giants that could barely be controlled and destroyed everything around them. Something that his own shaman told him could literally threaten all of Azeroth so soon after the cataclysm.
Baine spoke very openly against Garrosh, so did some of the others, however it was also made clear that those who speak out have an unfortunate tendency to vanish without a trace.
It was after that, when he felt that Garrosh had lost his mind and couldn’t be reasoned with by anyone and that he threatened the future of the Horde as much as the Alliance, that he decided to warn Jaina.
One of the most important things to remember about Baine is he abhors unnecessary loss of life. Especially innocent lives. Theramore was primarily a military installation but it still held a large civilian population. He believed that Garrosh would not take prisoners and would slaughter everyone in his path. He believed that the Horde his father helped create, the one Baine himself wanted to be a part of would spare all they could.
He also believed that the Horde army would arrive in Theramore in just a few days. Long enough to allow the civilians to evacuate with the early warning, but not long enough for Theramore to receive any significant reinforcements.
To his mind there wasn’t a much greater risk to the Horde by warning Theramore a day or two ahead and he was still willing to fight the Alliance to his dying breath and assume those risks himself as well.
Now Derek…
The Derek Plot checks off most of the same boxes.
Personal sense of honor? Check. It’s Jaina related again. And the Plot used tactics he would consider dishonorable no matter who was involved.
Compassion? Check. What Sylvanas was doing to Derek was exceptionally cruel.
Horde ideals? Freedom is a big one.
Respect for life? Derek’s mission is a death sentence, but this one is iffy depending on whether you think he should value someone who is innocent in any conflict with the modern Horde over Sylvanas’s most loyal flunkies who don’t respect the ideals he believes the Horde represents.
The expansion sucks if you’re wanting something like content for races like Dwarves or Worgen. Honestly, Blizzard is only ever completely biased towards a certain set of races, and that’s Humans, the elf races, Orcs, and Forsaken. Every other race gets short shrift in terms of narrative weight and content. There’s no passion or investment, because they don’t think any of the other races are “cool” enough.
And the only characters worth a single lick in this expansion are Jaina and Saurfang, with Anduin and Sylvanas a close second. Nobody else is getting anything meaningful from this expansion.
I feel like a lot of the explanatory lore is buried so it seems like there are plot holes where there aren’t any. The Night Warrior was an aspect of Elune that was talked about as early as the Well of Eternity novels and the RPG.
Sylvanas’ conviction that Horde vs Alliance conflict is bound to escalate after the advent of azerite is also pretty well-founded. The two factions have material interests that are largely at odds with each other; the Orcs are gonna want to expand more into Kaldorei lands and the Forsaken were cooped up in one of the most important human kingdoms and basically can’t reproduce without death.
Effectively splitting the world in two so that each faction’s principle, expansive races (Orcs and Humans) had space pretty much takes care of a lot of the potential for conflict. Blighting Darkshore (which vaguely resembles Tirisfal anyway) is arguably pretty strategic because it provides Forsaken territory while cabling off Kalimdor for Orc/Troll/Tauren expansion and providing a regular supply of corpses for the Forsaken in the form of Alliance reclamation attempts.
Part of the reason I like BfA (and liked MoP) in spirit is that it briefly sheds big bads as a driving force and allows the opportunity (in theory) for the factions/characters to have more complex motivations.
I feel like it’s also true because the Night elves, Forsaken, Orcs and Humans are the principle drivers of conflict for land etc. The Worgen DO very much feature in this (Genn spearheads lot of Alliance actions in BfA) for similar reasons.
They are just human/night elf pets for the most part, they have no driving motivation that isn’t just supplementary to the motivation of Humans or Night Elves.
They should not be written out of their rivalry with the Forsaken, but that is exactly what’s happened because the Night Elves are far bigger rivals towards the Forsaken than Worgen ever will be now, to the point that it’s a sad disappointment that there will never exist a full-on Worgen vs. Undead warfront with racially tailored armor for both. (Instead Night Elves get crapped themed warfront set to match the objectively better looking Forsaken sets.)
Sure he isn’t about genocide. But then if supporting genocide is fighting int he battle, then he could have refused to fight at undercity. Instead he agrees to fight and is then honorbound to do everything he can to win. That includes killing Andiun which, in fact, they seem to agree “might have won the war”.
Yes rebellion is hard. But you seem to present it as impossible, when Vol’jin has just done it. His honor is presented as absolute, unless it makes thing easier? Either his honor means he has to do the hard work or it selective.
Jazia, I appreciate the passion that led you to write all this out. But you’re not saying anything the rest of us haven’t heard before. The idea that Baine has always been trying to do the best thing for his people in the long run is not new or mind-blowing.
The problem is that this kind of approach is very tricky to sell, narratively speaking. You need the carrot and the stick, the iron fist and the velvet glove, to make your audience respect a character who chooses this kind of path. Baine, so far, has been all carrots and velvet apart from a few occasional harsh words. If they want us to get behind him, he needs to show a bit of iron. If it’s not already too late, which it may be.
A lot of people, even here, have never read the books. They have no context.
Just the comments from people who repeat, “Baine loves Jaina and Anduin! Baine punished his people for being mad tauren were killed! Baine never does anything for the Horde! Etc.” on auto whenever his name comes up.
And this was directed at someone who, once again, accused him of acting for the sake of his Anduin and Jaina feelz and not caring about his people.
People who have read it all, understand and accept where he’s coming from and just wish he would do other things are cool with me.
If they wanted to use Zekhan or Zelling or even pull a new character out of their hat, then they need to get to work. Such a move would require groundwork that doesn’t currently exist.
I am not sure why you prefer a character that isn’t a racial leader to be the answer, since they aren’t a racial leader, then what are they the leader of? And why is anyone going to give said character the time of day? (for example is anyone going to give Zelling and his fate the time of day? Aside from Baine and maybe Voss?) Further more I don’t think Zelling would be positively received Alliance side cause in case you didn’t notice with the darkshore fiasco, the horde raising Alliance themed stuff as horde undead as long since worn its welcome out. About well received as iconic characters for one side going neutral to work with both sides is getting.
I get they have borked the horde story with Teldrassil, but honestly they are going to have to fix it within the confines of the Horde story not by borking the Alliance story as well. Which means they are going to need a character that can work with the Alliance going forward on positive terms, not negative terms.
I don’t think many Alliance players dislike Zelling, if they do it’s not for the same reason people are angry about the new dark rangers.
His story made sense. He was dying and didn’t want to, he was clearly okay with being raised before he died. He wanted to keep going for his family’s sake.
The night elves died despising Sylvanas for what she did to their friends, family and home, were killed by her forces and were immediately praising the Dark Lady the moment they were raised.
You aren’t seperating Sylvanas from the horde (or as Saurfang puts it: His Horde). The fight at UC wasn’t about Sylvanas and protecting her from Alliance reprisals for Teldrassil, but protecting the horde civilians from the Alliance. Even then he was in until he saw the blight use and her raising the dead (horde and Alliance) to fight.
Also remember she questions him on why he wasn’t where she ordered him to be (aka safely away from her while she does this stuff). Notice Baine and Lor’themar were also sent away while this was going on. This wasn’t accidental, Sylvanas did that on purpose cause she knew all three would react badly to what she was doing.
Also the rebellion would be harder for Saurfang because of Vol’jin’s rebellion (which wasn’t that long ago). Sylvanas burned a lot more than civilians when she torched the world tree. Tyrande and Malfurion aren’t going to be big picture oriented leaders now.
Also the political structure of the horde is the same under Sylvanas as it was under Blackhand. Nothing has been done about it even after Blackhand, Garrosh, AU Grom (same political structure if different hordes), and now Sylvanas. This is of course on the writers but it is getting silly at this point that nothing has been done to stop the same mistakes from happening again and again.
It was even making Vol’jin the same as Ner’zhul by having a mysterious otherworldly messenger lead them astray by pretending to be something else. Which of course lead to the horde committing genocide just like it did last time.
I repeat: a leader that lives with his head in the clouds and his heart on his sleeve is a terribad one. And Baine fulfills this 100% of the time (not his fault, but indeed the fault of whoever believed he was worth nothing but to become a plot device for Anduin and Jaina).
We know about Jaina’s saving the day with the Grimtotem, but that type of narrative plots ARE the problem. Golden et al constructed their narrative in ToW in a way that made Baine a foreigner inside his own faction (such convenient plot that says Orcs et al regarly travel to Quel’thalas to give assistance but somehow Mulgore became a farther and harder to reach place for ALL tge Horde leaders; to the point only the Alliance pet character of the author was the only one with the means to save poor wittle Baine… And the downright creepy “muh beloved Anduin, I send you the equivalent of a lock of hair so we tragic lov… I mean friends, can think about the other anytime!!!”… For the love if God, if that doesn’t describe how much he is a secondary character literally devoted to expand Anduin’s and Jaina’s narrative importance into the Horde, then nothing will.
Cairne was too mostly a pacifist. But he didn’t resort to Tyrande nor Malfurion to deal with his problems, he literally went to his allies inside the Horde.
Clearly, they don’t want to do that; they want to use Baine. I just think using a new character would have been a better choice.
Because the optics are really bad for a character seeming to place the benefit of Jaina/the Alliance above the welfare of the people he/she is supposed to be looking out for. A character without that baggage can just be a simple matter of “me and my conscience” without dragging the other questions into it.
Thing is, I don’t think they realize they have borked the Horde story–they think they can still pull this off. They might bork the Alliance story just as badly without meaning to.
I think a lot of people who say those things are aware of the alternate reading you presented (which, let’s face it, is the intended reading). They just don’t believe in it on a gut level, because the narrative has not done a good job of selling it to us.
Its also an issue on the Alliance side.
Both Jaina and especially Andiun seem more concerned with Horde’s people rather than the Alliance.
Right after Teldrassil all Andiun could talk about was how sad he was there was a war and that Sylvanas took the Horde to a place that had no honor (Like the Horde had any redeeming quality in recent memory to speak of)
Well both sides should be unhappy with leaders doing this but it doesn’t make it the wrong choice.
I don’t have a problem with Anduin and Jaina wanting to minimize casualties in Zandalar. Neither Rastakhan nor Talanji are Sylvanas. The Zandalari didn’t march on Ashenvale, Darkshore, or burn down Teldrassil. They got suckered into joining Sylvanas’ War on Life and Hope (and all the misery that is going to bring them).
Also carrying on a war of genocide isn’t in Baine’s people’s best interests. The longer it goes on the more of them that are going to die.
Now I say that as Baine is a living Tauren. Sylvanas is undead, well a war of genocide is quite up her alley and she needs death to expand her minions. Such a war only benefits her and the tauren dying to the last (and being raised into undeath) is a boon to her.
![:purple_heart:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/purple_heart.png?v=6" ":purple_heart:")
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