Baine should have died long ago. The only reason he is still alive served the purpose of a Horde leader who is willing to throw his own faction under the bus to please the puppet masters that pull his strings.
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Wowhead decided to do another article on the quest chain, this time a a lore spotlight one.
Still no word if that village phases into the new Windtotem home.
So is this tribe part of the Horde and does it stay a part of the Horde after these quests? Or is this Tauren tribe neutral now?
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The Windtotem are part of the Horde. Members have been seen in the past and Tagar does mention the Tauren being Horde.
Now when it comes to them being neutral, I think that the Windtotem are still apart of the Horde, but allows Alliance members to visit to fulfill Alexstrasza’s request of no conflict on the Dragon Isles or as apart of the armistice. Thus lore wise Horde, in game neutral.
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Because the vast majority of Horde players base their identity around their opposition to Alliance, in and out of game. That is why we see such tooth-gnashing consternation from Horde players when characters like Calia and Baine are like “Maybe we shouldn’t be war criminals?”
Well, he gave part of his horn after Anduin gave him a mace given to him by the Dwarves. This isn’t something he just decided to do on a whim because he really fancies Anduin that much.
Making reference to an ancient Greek practice or customs means nothing in the context of a fictional society of pseudo-Plains Indians. For all we know to the Tauren it could be like gifting a lock of hair. It could have no romantic connotations at all. I think this is a case of just reading into it too much.
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Eh, if it was meant to be like a lock of hair, Baine has plenty of it all over. Going for a horn tip is just plain weird, imo. If the gesture had to be written, it’d be less bad if it was just a wooden carving or something like that, instead of a body part.
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I dunno, maybe to the Tauren giving such flippant ‘things’ is not strong enough of a statement about the bond of friendship? Is this much different than the old (and dangerous) custom of two parties cutting their hands open and then shaking to exchange blood and symbolize that the two parties are blood-brothers?
Maybe the giving of Fearbreaker struck Baine so hard that a human boy from a kingdom he never had any contact with respected him enough to give him a prized possession as a symbol of friendship that he thought that no carven thing could possibly come to symbolize his gratefulness of the gesture, that it was never about the thing being given but the emotion and meaning behind it.
Or maybe the writer just thought that it would be more powerfully symbolic than some wooden carved statue with no significance whatsoever. Maybe people who already hate Baine will hate him no matter what he does?
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I’m feeling a bit confused over a couple of things. From what I understand, it was never a trade between Fearbreaker and a piece of his horn? Anduin gave it to him when he was taking back Thunder Bluff, and Baine felt guilty after Theramore and returned it. Fast forward a few years later and Sylvanas tells Baine to stop writing letters to Anduin, so his farewell message had the horn tip as a memento.
Also yeah, it does seem different than two people cutting their hands as a symbolic blood brothers gesture. Baine’s the only one doing any cutting here. Maybe if Anduin ripped off a fingernail or something, but that just makes it weirder.
Fair, I don’t like Baine. Or Calia, since you brought her up too. But I genuinely think a carving, arrowhead, or something along those lines would dodge the “cutting off the tip of a body part” complaint. But maybe I’m just not seeing whatever value some random named mace from an unrelated kingdom is supposed to have that would warrant it.
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This is true for alot of characters. Once someone perceives a character in the negative, most of the time they are stuck in the negative. For example by the end of Code Geass I heavily disliked the Black Knights. It makes rewatches awkward because I now dislike them, in moments that I once liked them having.
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I mean I’m probably misremembering myself but I was under the impression that it was part of an exchange. That Baine sent his horn because of the whole Fearbreaker thing. And that even if it occurred belatedly, as in Baine sending his horn to Anduin well after the events of it being given and Theramore, that it was still supposed to represent a strong bond of friendship like Fearbreaker did.
Well, humans don’t have a horn analog. If it was a fingernail the analog to a tauren would be, well, a fingernail since tauren have those already, or part of his hoof since hoof horn is analogous to fingernails. Maybe he’s aware of that and doesn’t expect Anduin break off a piece of his horn that doesn’t exist.
As I said, maybe it wasn’t about Fearbreaker. Maybe it was about the giving of something valuable to Anduin to Baine as a symbol of friendship. That to Baine, maybe he wanted Anduin to understand that their friendship meant more to him than any carved statue he could give. And to symbolize that he gave off a small horn chip. Maybe that’s a thing in Tauren culture that we hitherto have not heard much about. I don’t see how it’s that weird, especially considering that there would be no pain whatsoever involved for Baine in doing so.
I mean, do we even know how that horn chip came about? Maybe it chipped a long time ago and he was wearing it as jewelry up to this time until he decided he wanted Anduin to have it. I dunno, I just don’t think it’s that weird. Even if I did, what am I to say about a fictional culture that likely has very different values to my own? Maybe it’s boring to have fictional cultures not challenge our views on what is and is not acceptable, and maybe people would’ve hated Baine even if he gave Anduin a carved wooden statue because, as I said, people want Baine to take a ‘kill em all’ stance against Alliance when that has not, never was, and never will be his character.
Yeah true. Before, I was comparing it to cutting off an ear. It’s awkward to try to draw any analogue because humans don’t have something like horns to compare to. And it’s probably true that I might be reading too much into it, but all I really have to go on are what little I know about bull horns IRL and that’s that they don’t grow back, have nerve endings and it’s extremely painful for the animal to have them cut or broken off.
I know Zerde’s suggested that maybe tauren could work differently but as far as I know, tauren aren’t known for regenerative traits like trolls are, so it feels like too big of a leap to assume tauren culture and biology is intertwined in a specific way to accommodate this one small plot beat that’s never come up before or since.
I was under the impression that the horn base does, but something like very tip doesn’t have nerve endings, that the closer you get to the base it does. I dunno, I’m not a cattle rancher or something. Maybe I, and the person who wrote the passage, are just under the pretense that the horn tip would be painless or relatively so. With a quick skim of google it seems that the last inch or so of the cow’s horn can be safely trimmed without effecting the nerves or bloodflow of the horn. Given that it was as small as Anduin’s fingernail, it was most likely a piece of horn that had no feeling in it.
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The base is where the growth and nerves are – that’s why when you’re dehorning cattle, you have to get down into the nub.
If you don’t, they’ll just grow back. Sometimes kind of funky, like a damaged finger/toe nail, but keratin is keratin.
As for how symbolic, meaningful, or weird it is, we don’t really have the context for it.
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Idk, this sorta just rubs me the wrong way. I get the Tauren are following a vision by settling there, but it doesn’t seem…ethical? For them, as members of the Horde to be settling the Dragon Isles during an armistice period where both sides promised no military maneuvers to the dragons. It’s not that settling is a military maneuver by itself, but during a cease fire where both sides promised no fighting, it can be perceived as taking advantage of the situation and land grabbing.
Not that I’m actually accusing the Tauren of doing that, it’s the Tauren after all. I’d trust one to do drugs with his hoof hovering over my head and for my head to make it out safely. It just seems weird the Horde effectively get an outpost/town/base on the Isles. Sorta reminds me of when the Horde became the default owners of the Broken Isles by getting the only Allied Races that came from there.
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the alliance gets to be hypocrites 90000000000% of the time.
the tauren can be hypocrites once.
Ah, no. You have the reasons completely wrong. And the sweeping generalizations don’t help.
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So is this quest chain Horde exclusive?
That is literally why people do not like Calia or Baine. Forsaken players hate that Calia isn’t an edgelord who wants to exterminate the Alliance and wants to give the Gilneans their home back.
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there’s a reason that kynladoria is posting on a classic character.
her trollfu is weak and she doesn’t want her main outed.
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The author was under the impression that Genn had a tail. She was wrong. And she gets called out on it.
Even authors can get stuff wrong when they are writing for a franchise.
Or, consider this…
Maybe the writer used a creepy apotemnophilia scenario without adding context or explanation, and many people are calling it out as incongruent and odd.
It looks like you are trying to find ways to make it palatable. Ways that are not in the text. With all these “maybes” you keep tossing out.
Nah, Blizzard has been using him in ways that disgust many Horde fans and Horde Players.
I certainly did not hate Baine until Before the Storm. Despite his inaction at Taurajo, as Legion ended, I would make Forum Posts about Sylvanas abdicating to go on some adventure, and Baine marrying Mayla, and becoming Warchief. I thought it would be nice to have those two as the Horde’s new royalty, the answer to the Wrynn’s. It would have been a nice way of honoring Cairne’s death, as he died defending the Horde.
Then came Before the Storm. That horn bit really sunk alot of good will I had for him. I certainly stopped my support for the “Baine for Warchief” campaign.
As an aside - he sorta becomes the de facto Warchief and spurns the Vulpera. More reason to hate him!
I still hope Blizz salvages him somehow, though.
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