Varian Wrynn already personally arrived in Ashenvale and fought Garrosh, sending him packing.
The Alliance already had begun a mass invasion of the Horde territory of the Barrens.
Never-you-mind how righteously furious the Alliance was over Gilneas and Hillsbrad.
The book doesn’t match the facts. Baine doesn’t accept reality therein. And so people haven’t, largely, forgiven Baine’s credo of “Peace first, war never.”
But Baine only exiled Tauren - in the book.
So you have to judge his actions by the book’s setting, not in-game questing’s setting.
We just have to accept that TOW doesn’t fit the main narrative. It is wrongful to rip Baine’s action out of its context and put it in an entirely different one.
Remember, a character’s constant impotence and inaction is VERY ENGAGING and makes him a GREAT CHARACTER because he’s SO WISE.
Remember those great movies like ‘Man Simmered Quietly While Others Acted’ and ‘Person Judged Silently And Observed Atrocity’. What legendary tales. What captivating narratives. The searing history of stories about molten rage squashed, suppressed, and controlled is long and glorious.
You can’t rhetoric or wheedle your way around the fact that Baine does nothing 99% of the time, and then when he acts it is always forbearance, playing it safe. He defends the status quo even when that status quo is of his people being killed. He is no champion of the Tauren, he’s barely a beaurocrat. He’s like Garrosh in BC Nagrand, cowering in fear of what he might do if he chose to act.
And then, when he actually raises a hand in violence, it’s against Horde bodies to save a single Proudmoore.
Put this cow down Halal style.
How could Varian be marching his armies towards the Horde but at the same time already be invading and already be constructing forts everywhere?
You realize game timeline is not exactly linear right?
Not sure what you’re getting at.
A timeline is supposed to be linear.
How could Varian still be marshaling his troops when there is a fort in southern barrens fighting the Horde?
I said before, Baine would be a fine character if he wasn’t a racial leader. If we had a chief Diplomat position or the position of vizier i think Baine would fit into those areas perfectly fine. His non-confrontational nature winds up hurting him and his people do to his leadership positions. I know we tend to dislike leaders who act solely on instinct and are to confrontational, but people who are to little confrontational have the opposite problem, they can be strung along and often fail to object.
Baine isn’t a bad person, not by any stretch of the imagination, but in terms of leadership quality he is seriously Lacking. I get part of it is the notion he doesn’t wan’t the tauren to be in a bad position, but he is so overly concerned that he winds up never actually doing something to benefit Mulgore as a result. He certainly does have beliefs but he remains silent in them an takes no action.
Baine lacks the strong personality that is needed in a leader, his kindness is pleasant to be around, and he certainly would be one to get along well with the alliance, but Baine would be incapable of managing an empire of the scope of the horde.
Baine is only good for the horde if you think peace with the alliance is the only thing that matters.
It is pretty obvious there was another ceasefire between the events of Cata and pre-Theramore bombing. Cataclysm and near end of the world tend to do that.
I think Baine’s fine, as a Leader of the Tauren; but that’s taking into account who the Tauren are as a people. They’re not pacifists by any stretch, but one of the biggest consistent problems with them is that they’ve never really been given a dog in the fight of the Faction Conflict. Heck, part of the established narrative of the Tauren of the Horde is that (like the Darkspear) they’ve actually taken nearly as much pain from the Horde under Garrosh as they have from the Alliance.
I mean, is it any wonder that the Bloodhoof and the Darkspear have mellowed out so much regarding the Horde’s conflicts with the Alliance with the hardships they’ve suffered from their own faction in recent years? The Horde isn’t a monolith, part of the wonder of the faction is the diversity of its peoples; but that diversity extends to cultural differences and experiences as well. As such, Baine is a representative of a people that almost left the Horde, and have mixed relations with the Alliance.
I would prefer him to be more aggressive when its needed, but honestly outside of Baine not committing to duels he knows will just get him killed … the guy’s inaction has never really bothered me.
Treng,
If you are going to insist that the situation laid out clearly in Tides of War doesn’t make sense and insist that they are already at war, despite everyone in Tides of War saying they aren’t at war… you should just disregard Baine kicking the vigilantes out of Thunder Bluff as well.
You can’t say, “This one thing Baine did in Tides of War is 100% true!” while simultaneously ignoring everything else about Tides of War, including his reasons for doing it.
Baine expelled those tauren for a reason, acknowledge the reason or ignore the expulsion.
Either that or the Alliance were the aggressors. That would be insane though, since they are the Heroes Of The Universe!
I can because they’re unreliable narrators. Just because they say that there isn’t a war going on, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a war going on.
And the crowd goes wild for this year’s mental gymnastics.
Only after Tides of War, back in Cataclysm and Vanilla the Tauren were perfectly willing and active to fight the alliance, namely the dwarves of bael modan and the northwatch assault into their lands. Which is why i find it so hard to beleive Baines peace talking ideas were ever considered the way the tauren should go, the alliance provoked the sleeping giant by slaughtering innocent in Cata and Vanilla, why they are suddenly buddy buddy is simply do to the alliance whitewashing.
The Tauren should have slights against the alliance, but it is never mentioned in game as horde slights are ignored.
Because the “slaughtering of innocents” wasn’t intentional, and Baine was aware of that fact. It turned into a disaster, largely because Hawthorne lost control of two of his conscripted units (and his attempts at diplomacy with the Quillboars failed utterly), but the attempts were made to facilitate the civilians.
Beyond that, justice for Taurajo was dealt, and the Great Gate of Mulgore was built to prevent any further tragedies. Hawthorne (the butcher of Taraujo) and nearly all of his men were slaughtered. Demanding anything more than that is not “justice”, its overkill. It is also VERY true that by Cata large factions of the Tauren wanted to LEAVE the Horde due to rightly blaming their affiliation with the faction as the cause of many of their hardships under Garrosh (and a case could very easily be made that Taraujo would not have been made a target if not for that continued affiliation).
Finally, and most importantly (and here is where the mixed relations with the Alliance comes in) it also true that Jaina and Theramore gave Baine and his loyalists asylum and funding to retake Thunder Bluff during the Grimtotem rebellion (a rebellion, which under Magatha, was slaughtering entire towns of Tauren). This was directly after Cairne’s death; before anyone realized that Garrosh had nothing to do with the poisoned blade; Garrosh was policing the Forsaken, so they couldn’t come to aid; the Blood Elves were too far away; and the Darkspear were to weakened to be relied upon.
Long story short, the Tauren (out of all the races of the Horde) have the some of the most complex relations with BOTH the Alliance and the Horde. They have suffered under both, but they have also been aided by both. By all rights, they’d have every right to be a Neutral faction if they chose to be; but under Baine they’re merely loyal to the Horde, but unhostile towards the Alliance when allowed to be.
Pretty much everything about the Tauren as a people is antithetical to what the Horde has become. Cairne’s oath of allegiance was to Thrall’s Horde. And Thrall’s Horde is well and truly dead.
Even if this were the case, even if the Tauren wanted to leave … its not that simple. Mulgore holds one of the biggest fresh water sources that the Horde depends on, and the region is landlocked deep in Horde territory. Leaving the Horde (even if they wanted to) is not an easy (or safe) decision to make.
Its also very unlikely that the Tauren would just abandon (at the very least) the Darkspear if they ever believed the Horde had become so bad that attempting to leave was the only option. Unfortunately, due to the heavy losses the Darkspear took under Garrosh; the loss of Vol’jin; and the location of the Echo Isles … getting that populous out safely would be quite the feat if both groups decided to bail.
They would almost need outside help to ensure that both Races could safely leave a Horde that had gone so far off the rails that it pushed them out.
I think the issue is that this is viewed entirely one-sidedly. Part of the Horde’s powerful grasp of Kalimdor comes from the Tauren. The other half, from the Orcs. If the Tauren left the Horde, they’d have to divert forces to an entirely new front to fight former allies.
Right now it’d be the death blow to the Horde for anyone to leave it. The loss of territory, the diverted resources to get it back, would leave the Horde far too vulnerable to the Alliance. Either they’d have to ignore the traitors, or risk pushing them into the Alliance.
So… your argument is that Garrosh, Vol’jin, Eitrigg, Gallywix, Sylvanas, Lor’themar and Baine–the entire leadership of the Horde–all just think they aren’t at war?
Is that really the hill you want to die on?
My argument is that if they all say it, they’re all unanimously wrong. They’re currently – in the very same book – being invaded by the Alliance. the Alliance is invading the Barrens. They’re killed at Vendetta Point for that invasion. Those who kill them at Vendetta Point are exiled for killing the invaders.