Wouldn’t he just become a member of the Sunwalkers? They do have their own order of Paladin order; they just channel that energy of the Light through their worship of the Sun. Also, seriously, I wonder why the Tauren would be less than thrilled with this Faction Conflict? A complex relationship with the Alliance AND Horde is one thing … but pretty sure their religion worships celestial bodies (including the Earth Mother who has a giant sword sticking out of her).
But NO, killing Blue Team is the MOST important thing right now for the Tauren people…
If nothing else it confirms that it is considered revenge by the tauren as a whole, not defense, and that they disapprove.
If this is one of the people Baine expelled, it’s also clear that “You disagree? Banished!” is not how things went down.
She was ordered not to use the blight.
She did anyway making the entire campaign against Gilneas pointless. The goal was to acquire a strategic port in the Eastern Kingdoms.
If mouthing off to Garrosh and telling him he’s wrong is the standard Baine wins. That’s ToW in a nutshell.
He placed civilian lives over the lives of soldiers. If they marched immediately the way everyone expected, Theramore would have had a day, two at most to prepare. Time enough to send some civilians packing, not enough time to get reinforcements. The Horde army was set to completely massacre Theramore, just like they did Northwatch Hold. Largely because of tactics like using the Molten Giants to destroy everything in their path.
Garrosh held off the attack on purpose because he wanted Theramore to be reinforced. His plan depended on it. Garrosh did everything he could to make sure Theramore knew they were coming and delayed attacking until he was able to inflict the maximum amount of Alliance casualties.
Baine is weird. Most of the time, whenever he’s brought up it’s because he’s about to back down. It’s like they have this weird quota of “Baine’s here, and he’s against something, but there are many reasons why he does nothing and instead backs down”. His primary motivation in the time of Garrosh and Sylvanas, where he’s received the most screentime, is protecting his people from the Horde by doing nothing and sending them to get killed in the Horde’s conflicts. His primary argument is ‘if I do something, I’ll die, and someone worse will replace me’. That’s an ugly argument. It’s the sort of argument that collaborators make and tell themselves while awful things occur. It’s not necessarily incorrect, but you wind up with zero respect for the people who make it, and those people should have zero respect for themselves as well. You’re not a hero for ‘just following orders’, no matter what sort of justifications you give yourself.
Hence, I’ve no respect for Baine. Whenever he does stand up for what he believes in, it’s in petty, minor ways where he winds up fighting the Alliance still, but just subtly backstabbing the Horde a bit while he does it (like in the case of Theramore). It’s a cowardly way of doing things.
This Derek thing is done in a similar fashion. He takes no real stand. He just goes and carries out the deed in the dark of night and then slinks around as though the are are no consequences to it. It might not be as cowardly as his usual approach, but it’s still very weak. He doesn’t take a stand or follow through, or anything really.
You can fly like an eagle, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines. I’d like to say Baine is just being cautious because of what happened to his dad…but Baine was a worthless cowardly turd in WC3 and WOW:Vanilla too.
I wouldn’t argue it’s a wrong choice to make. He’s probably right about what would happen. But Warcraft is a story of heroes, not self-preserving normal people who don’t want to die. If you don’t have a good way to do something, you FIND a good way. Overcoming the odds and standing up for what you believe in is a quality that merits respect in this setting.
Baine might not be a villain, but he certainly doesn’t merit any sort of respect, nor should he be considered a ‘leader’. In WoW, the racial leaders are meant to act pretty much as the epitome of their peoples. Not just the top of the heap, but a representation of their best qualities and ideals. Baine is a poor representative of the Tauren.
Baine didn’t know what they knew and what they didn’t, and he certainly didn’t know about Garrosh’s plan.
Let’s try running your logic in a real world scenario. Would it be treason if, say Patton gave his friend in the German High Command a heads up about an upcoming offensive? Even if it was likely that the enemy commander already knew about it? Even if Patton’s commander already assumed that he would spill the beans and worked it into his planning?
The Horde was using friggen Fire Giants and survivors from Northwatch (what few there were) made it to not only Theramore, but also Fort Triumph in the south. The Horde was aware of this, and they were in no way being subtle about their presence OR intentions. Garrosh deliberately advertised his invasion to the Alliance and then stalled for time to ensure that Alliance reinforcements would coalesce in the city. He then sent his ground forces in to distract Theramore’s defenders to ensure the Bombing run had a greater chance for success.
There is no way the Horde didn’t know the Alliance knew about their offensive. So yeah, I guess technically Baine is a traitor … by giving the Alliance SUPER obvious information, with no time to prepare (had the Horde done what he believed they would at slammed Theramore into paste when they had the advantage). Baine’s the traitor, but Garrosh is the one who made a meatgrinder for his troops to walk into. The Horde deaths at Theramore were on his shoulders, not Baine (but again, Horde commanders that slaughter their own troops are fine as long as their trying to kill Alliance).
Okay…so then why did Baine feel he needed to go warn Jaina?
Your argument makes no sense. Regardless of what others may or may not have known, the simple fact is that Baine warned the enemy about an upcoming attack by his own soldiers.
I agree that Baine is all talk and no action - and this single action he’s taken with Derek now is very lackluster and divisive…
But what bugs me way more is HOW THE HELL DID MALKOROK CONTEND WITH BAINE!? This is the leader of the Tauren, and he’s getting shoved around by this random generic orc who I’m certain was already destined for raid boss-hood at the time of War Crimes writing. Hell, he has a sword for a right hand in Siege of Orgrimmar, could’ve been cool if Baine just up and ripped his arm straight off to tie into that. Would’ve been something aggressive at least!!
It wasn’t about getting her to prepare for an imminent attack (to bolster her defenses). Jaina and Theramore helped Baine (through asylum and funding) retake Thunder Bluff during the Grimtotem rebellion (it wasn’t the Horde that helped tide the slaughter of his people under Magatha). He felt he owed her the warning, if nothing else.
This wasn’t a “we’re coming, be prepared” sort of message, this was a “we’re coming, get out while you can” sort of thing; and he believed due to their past interactions Jaina would take such a message from HIM seriously. It wasn’t to scare her into weakening Theramore’s defenses, it was deliberately telling her he knew she couldn’t defend against their assault (and not to do something stupid). It was exclusively about pushing Jaina to get (at the very least) the non-combatants out.
Had the Horde marched on Theramore using the momentum they had at Northwatch, it would have taken 2-3 days tops to arrive at the city. That might be enough time to ship much of Theramore’s population out “IF” Jaina was placing all efforts towards that (rather than splitting her focus in both evacuation and reinforcements). Baine wasn’t going to stop the attack (hell, he lead from the front lines for goodness sake), but he wasn’t keen on slaughtering civilians either.
If nothing else it confirms that it is considered revenge by the tauren as a whole, not defense, and that they disapprove.
It doesn’t say the Tauren as a whole, it just says some individuals. Regardless ToW’s presentation of what Baine did is indefensible, even if we’re left to think some other Tauren agreed with him, many obviously did not and his actions were in effect a betrayal of the other Horde forces in the region.
Uhh … pretty sure that in between WotLK they had an entire book devoted to the reality that many factions of Tauren wanted to LEAVE the Horde due to hardships they were suffering under Garrosh. Runetotem himself even makes the claim that the Tauren are no longer bound by Cairne’s oath to Thrall (it was an oath to Thrall and Thrall alone, not the Horde), and that while he may not completely agree … he does understand the Tauren’s compulsions to leave.
As for ToW … Baine merely accepted that Justice had been served with the deaths of Hawthorne (the butcher of Taraujo) and his men. Those Tauren calling for further bloodshed were pushing for Vengeance, not Justice; and he didn’t EXILE them from Mulgore, he merely kicked them out of Thunder Bluff. Those Tauren are still living in that territory for all we know.
My issue winds up being that it then proves to me that this expansion existed simply to let the alliance kill another warchief. I hate this entire civil war storyline and the best way to fix it would be to just have saurfang mak’gora sylvanas and kill her, or better yet, have sylvanas abdicate the position without anymore bloodshed.
Hey, I hate the Faction War in general and feel like its far overstayed its welcome. However … with Sylvanas for sure when it comes to Mak’gora, there isn’t anyone on the Horde that can currently beat her in a one-on-one dual (and thats not including the fact that she’d likely cheat if she even for a moment thought her opponent could).
Plus, Sylvanas isn’t going to die. For that to happen she’d have to be killed twice for it be anything permanent, and she doesn’t seem the type to sacrifice herself for a Warchief spot she never wanted (but will totally exploit). Even if she does lose that single extra life, 10 to 1 Sylvie is going to betray the Horde at some point; bail on us; and leave us with the bill for the war she started.
Plus you have to factor in that Sylvanas is dishonorable, dishonest, murderous, and well known cheater. It would be Cairne all over again, if they make it to the ring alive. And yes, as a fighter she is probably leagues above both Baine, and Saurfang. She could have probably upended Thrall in his prime, almost. You need other methods for dealing with someone like that.
The only people that are strangely a threat to her, are Tyrande, and Malfurion, for the moment. Maybe Khadgar, but he’s busy with other things.
What’s your point? Some Tauren leaders disliking Garrosh’s leadership doesn’t have anything to do with Baine allowing the Alliance to run roughshot over his lands and people and exiling those that wanted to fight back even as the rest of the Horde did so.
The Alliance literally still had all their holdings and gains from their incursion into the Barrens. Are you saying killing Sylvanas and her loyalists while allowing the rest of the Horde to keep the lands she conquered is “Justice”?
An exile just from Thunder Bluff is still an exile.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")