Isn’t Baine there to be that guy in the Horde to just show “Hey we are not all evil psychopaths!” ?
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The point is without Alliance help, Vol’jin and his forces would be screwed.
We also rescue him in the elemental bond quest. One of his vision in said quest was laying his weapon down in front of Varian.
As Spuddyc mention he has been quite capable of killing Sylvanas lackeys so far.
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You’d be right if the statement was “Baine is a good leader”. It wasn’t. The statement was “Baine represents all that is best about the Horde”. The two can be about the same person, but in this case they are not.
Ok? But what does that even have to do with the point you were addressing? Are you saying Varian would be a good representation of all that’s best in the Horde because Sylvannas and him fought together for part of the Broken Shore?
Are you saying helping Vol’jin defeat Garrosh’s forces is equivalent to helping a kidnapping victim?
He’s been as capable as every Alliance soldier. Except they don’t need to ambush them. I did that questline too, and if we’re judging people’s courage by the number of dark rangers they can kill on a secret mission, my backstabby rogue is a pillar of honor. My hunter here is likely to become warchief, given that Baine had to wait for my lead through that entire chain.
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Lol. Like you have a choice in the matter. We could go with Warchief Kel’Thuzad and Anduin would declare that it was a wise choice while the other Alliance leaders nodded sagely.
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I never said you had a choice.
I said Baine is the guy they made so that no matter what the Horde does he would be there to negate it with his inherent good boyness.
Its a cheap technique that Blizzard uses because they never commit to anything and so piss off everybody that bothers to pay attention.
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You’re right. I should have added that to the list.
He’s pathetic and weak.
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And the Horde needed the Alliance to retake Ogrimmar. Sounds par for the course for me.
Did I forget your precious sunwell would still be a corrupted mess without Velen’s help?
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That’s the way he’s functionally used … which really sucks because the way he’s structurally built he’d be a fantastic character (if the writers ever put his needs as a character before their need to use him in the story). He’s a child of one of the Horde’s founders; A young man who grew up in Thrall’s Horde (and is thus, quite literraly, a product of it); He’s a member of the ONLY race that advocated for the Forsaken (and has shown he values their tenants of Free Will); and … he does have his father’s temperament (if not his strength yet).
Beyond that, he is a bit of a coming of age storyline (alongside Anduin) … which means he DOES have room to make mistakes and continue to grow and develop (at least on paper). However, because Blizz relies SO HEAVILY on him to act as a big lumbering counterbalance to another Horde character going off the rails; his development and potential are consistently squandered.
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Its kind of like Andiun.
He is a kid that has grown from a child to a man during my gameplay, I should care about him but his constant nagging and indecisiveness destroys any likeability I might have for him.
Varian was infinitely more likeable than Andiun ever was. A poor replacement indeed.
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I don’t think it’s a matter of non-committal. They certainly commit to the idea that Horde warchiefs are disposable, and they commit to tired old “faction conflicts” every couple of expansions.
Committing isn’t a problem. It’s what they commit to.
If the Alliance were the aggressors, the MoP2 argument might be pervasive. Likewise, it wouldn’t feel like the Alliance are the patient and befuddled parents dealing with an unruly but lovable child. At this point it’s what, three large scale wars started by the Horde against the Alliance (bundling WC1 and WC2 together, since WC2 was a continuation of WC1, but feel free to make it four wars)? And the biggest retribution thus far was locking orcs in prison for a few years. Because the devs are so committed to this single narrative of Horde as aggressors, it makes both sides look bad. Horde are always picking fights they can’t finish, and Alliance might win the war but can never seem to think of following their victory up in a meaningful way.
As I said, commitment isn’t the problem. Prioritizing what they commit to is the problem.
And yes, it’s a cheat technique they use to wash away all the sins.
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Baine is the best the Horde has because he’s an Alliance character. It’s why the Horde members that are ashamed of being Horde and dream of being Alliance love him.
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Posting in an edgy blood elf thread.
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Baine ‘represents all that’s bets in the Horde’ because he’s the only racial leader horde side that it would make sense to become Warchief in the event of a faction merge.
Thrall doesn’t want the job, Saurfang would rather die, Lorethemar’s people have both old and new grudges against the Alliance, Rohkhan is barely a character at all outside of his interactions with Talanji, Talanji only just became Queen and there’s that whole ‘they just murdered my dad’ thing, and we’re lucky if the devs remember to include Ji Firepaw at all.
Thalyssra and Mayla probably would make peace with and join the Alliance, but they don’t have the seniority to become Warchief. Likewise any and every member of the Forsaken is out of the question for making peace with the Alliance.
So yeah, we’re stuck with Baine ‘Anduin Wrynn’s Best Friend’ Bloodhoof as ‘all the is best in the Horde’ so they can push this reconciliation storyline between the factions despite it making zero sense in light of recent events.
Which, if that was really where this was going the whole time, I can only assume they killed off Vol’jin and installed Sylvanas in an attempt to make swallowing Baine as Warchief easier.
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ooo ooo, me too!
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How is he a bad leader? The Tauren people still follow him even after Thunderbluff was taken over by Magatha and he himself exiled those who sought vengeance after Camp Taurajo. Both moments that could have lead to him being either ousted or severely weakened as a leader depending on how the Tauren populace reacted yet they remain with him (assuming thrall’s assumption at the end of Crossroads implied he still has support from most Tauren). Moreover while many across this forum may not like Baine’s choices at Taurajo, Theramore, or with Derek Proudmoore, the decisions he made were very much in line with Tauren beliefs and as such he’s done a pretty good job representing them.
Moreover, Baine also just so happens to be the racial leader with by far the most allies, the guy knows diplomacy which is the actual mark of a great leader. Previous to bfa no one here would be surprised if any member race of the horde OR the alliance came to assist the Tauren in a time of need. Morever, we’re about to see exactly that with the potential siege of Thunderbluff,
These forums and WoW itself places way too much importance on the act of war when it’s diplomacy that can not only ensure you win wars (If two countries of equal power go to war but one has tons of allies and the other doesn’t it’s not hard to see who the odds favor), but prevent them outright as well as end them early. Reputation and Diplomacy mean a lot.
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I’ll stop you right there and ask you to re-read the sentence you quoted all over again. Because I specifically said he’s not a bad leader, but a bad representation of all that is best about the Horde.
Seriously, it’s right there in the part you quoted. C’mon.
And before you ask why he’s a bad representation of “all that is best about the Horde”, read the rest of the posts I’ve made in this thread that go into depth answering that.
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oh dang, my bad.
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No worries, it’s all good. It happens. I’m’a go put my snark away now.
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I think the original idea is that he represented Thrall’s vision of the Horde best. Baine was/is used to show the side of the Horde that is not the sum of it’s past mistakes, that it is capable of moving past being the monsters that paved roads with the dead of their fallen victims, that slaughtered and burned down villages for the sake of slaughter.
He’s supposed to represent the original concept behind the WCIII and playable Horde from classic. That they’re not monsters and that they’re capable of compassion and deserve a place in the world.
Refusing to challenge Garrosh wasn’t supposed to be a sign of weakness, but rather a calculated decision, as he acknowledges that he would more than likely be poisoned as well.
The writing on the other hand fails to really present any of this, and shows him as an Alliance sympathizer in an expansion that was labeled with “faction pride”.
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Lorthemar? The guy only cares about his own people.
Really? If this traitorous bastard actually cared about his own people, he wouldn’t have started the rescue mission to begin with.
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