I don’t think he needs to be replaced, just given a reason to stand up for his people more. Peace is a noble goal but you can’t just let the enemies ride roughshod over you and expect that to lead to a fair peace.
Telling the Alliance they were justified in firebombing the civilians of Taurajo and punishing those who fought back was a ridiculously idiotic and out of character moment and he needs to learn from his mistake.
Maybe the writers can pair him off with Mayla, have her hear about what happened and be shocked given the whole Highmountain ethos being to stand up for all there people and work together. (“Together; we are Highmountain.”) and force him to change his ways?
The better approach would be for Blizzard to write Baine’s attitudes towards Taurajo completely off as retconned material to never speak of again (kind of like…what’s his name? Medivh and Garona’s love child. That guy).
I’m wondering if Christie Golden had anything to do with the writing of the Siege of Lordaeron. We see Baine smashing Alliance troops while fighting in defense of Sylvanas.
That doesn’t seem like her Baine and Anduin BFF angle.
I might be misremembering but didn’t Baine bring up the topic during the funeral? That’s like, probably the worst possible time to bring it up. At least wait until the ceremony is over before broaching it.
So you don’t want a voice of reason, you want a warmonger who just brainlessly follows whatever dictates an unhinged Warchief might give them as long as it kills the Alliance.
You already have Tauren like that in the Grimtotem. Maybe it’s not Baine that is unworthy of the Horde but the Horde that is unworthy of the Tauren people who seek peace rather than getting drawn into wasteful wars against people they have few legitimate qualms with.
Why are we arguing about Baine’s choice to bring up seeking peace during Rastakhan’s funeral?
If Talanji was even listening to him at the moment she probably dismissed it as soon as she heard it so it wouldn’t matter whether he said it or not. Second, Sylvanas shut him down the moment he said it.
Third, it was clear from Shadows Rising that she would love to get some payback against the Alliance, Jaina in particular. By the end of the novel her anger about it was cooled down but she hasn’t let it go yet.
It all means that Baine bringing up peace during the funeral amounted to just wasted wind. Peace was achieved, more or less, but that little bit of outspokenness was hardly a contributing factor.
A Cairne who was true to his character would never have stuck it out long enough to get to the raising of Derek Proudmoore.
If we’re talking about Blizzard’s current writers, they would be entirely capable of writing Cairne as doing all the things Baine has done (and not done) in BfA and claiming he was still the same character.
There would probably even be posters on this board defending it by saying Cairne went through a major change of opinion offscreen.
Alot of the issues stem by how the Tauren are held as the Moral compass of the Horde. They have the least amount of blood on their hands when it comes to dealing with the Alliance. So without them the Horde generally look far worst. It is why they will also never truly act against the alliance.
However having Baine be best friends with the Leader of the Alliance ruins his character regardless of what he does. It makes every decision the character makes skewered to think its benefiting the Alliance.
Only way to resolve this is to have the two actively come to blows and have a disagreement large enough that it prevents that friendship become a thing again. Then have Baine become his own character and get some proper development well away from Anduin and Jaina.
They did something Similar with Jaina and Thrall however they forced those two back together again even though it makes no sense.
Again this comes down to how Golden writes these characters. She has a certain mindset on where she wants the Alliance and Horde to end up and It seems to require all the Horde leadership being replaced by Friends of Jaina and Anduin.
Not exclusive to the Horde imo. All her characters end up soppy goodbois. Even looking back at novels like Rise of the Horde, which are usually regarded as decent, the signs of her future writing are there. Doomhammer is barely an orc in that book.
That really depends on what you consider to be “an orc”. Warcraft1 and 2 might have adapted your basic bloodthirsty Tolkien Orc but ever since Lord of the Clans and WC3, that kind of went out the window. Since then orcs have been more diverse. You certainly had your straight out of Middle Earth Garrosh types but you still had your Saurfangs, Thralls, Eitriggs, Durotans, and Doomhammers. To say that they’re “barely orc” is a sign one hasn’t really been paying attention for the past eighteen years.
You misunderstand my point. He is not similar to the Saurfang-style ‘honourable orc’ - Rise of the Horde is filled with attempts to fill that archetype - and his characterisation is not remotely fitting with how he is later presented, even in other novelisations.
Eeh, I’d say that book wasn’t sure what to do with the orc culture it established and it’s own characters. Durotan is the biggest offender. He ping-pongs from bathing in animal blood to “noo, we shouldn’t fight each other, guys :(” to admitting enjoying battles again. It’s like the book didn’t even trust the readers to understand who’s the “good guy” and who’s not without some weird shoe-horned pacifism.
