Didn’t people love Thrall? I did before he became a hobo and abandoned the Horde.
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I personally like them. Well Calia is still a heavy “whatever” for me, but Baine and Thrall are the only one left of the original vision the latter had of the Horde. Not conquerors, but survivors.
I didn’t like Calia before but you’re starting to convince me.
Undead mommy plz.
Damn right! For the Dark Lady, forever!!! 
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Was it though? Pretty sure the whole mindless undead scourge thing had more to do with the Lich King, the futher shunning of the populace was by Alliance, and then the betrayal was from Varimathras Putress which gained them further dislike from the other races.
Sure the reunion of families was a great idea, but it’s not like everyone was onboard with that, a lot of Alliance still treated them as monsters.
On top of that Calia took it too far, subverting the meeting to cause Forsaken to defect.
She didn’t have to make it a faction thing but she did.
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Calia seems like an awful fit in the story because her aesthetic and story basically clash with the core concepts of what a lot of forsaken fans seem to like about the race; dark, spooky, gallows humor, themes of trauma and depression, and a bit of mad science thrown into the mix. Unfortunately a lot of that has been whittled down to just throwing barrels of blight at things, but the things I listed don’t necessarily have to be evil things in the story. The race is capable of being morose and creepy, or full-on Addams Family or Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
Calia doesn’t really fit in with that, on just about every level. She’d be like what you get if you made a night elven leader a beer-swilling cyborg that hoots and hollars about how much he loves the smell of money, but oh he has long ears so he’s totally a night elf. Or maybe he’s secretly Azshara’s long-lost younger naga brother who was secretly a gentle soul and wants to usher in a new age of Little Mermaid magical academies. I’d imagine that’s not at all what fans of that race signed up for, and the fact that Calia’s being written in a position where she apparently needs to be this savior is a problem in the first place.
It also sucks because she’s not even a homegrown character from within the faction. She’s introduced as an outsider who’s being magnanimously gifted to the forsaken, and her whole “Oh I don’t want to be the leader” coupled with Lilian Voss dragging her all over to attend important events anyway makes me think Blizzard’s repeating Lor’themar’s plot point moral about how “only those who do not wish to lead are best suited for doing so”.
Baine, on the other hand, has a different problem. Taken in isolation, everything he does ACTUALLY fits with what the tauren represent as a race, and his own personality meshes with his actions about wanting peace with the alliance. His issue is that it seems to be all he’s ever used for, so it gives people the impression that he’s an alliance sympathizer who doesn’t actually want to be a horde representative. But even that’s not the core problem, in my opinion.
Baine’s real problem is that his role in the story is essentially “moral abuse victim”. He exists to be kicked in the face so that Blizzard can say “look how bad that person is by hurting this innocent cow!” He’s like a trick target dummy in a shooting range where you auto-fail if you accidentally shoot him, and he’s served that role twice already for the horde (Garrosh abusing his conscience by intentionally letting him slip military secrets to Theramore and then with Sylvanas imprisoning him) while he highlights the alliance’s goodness in working across the aisle (Taurajo’s “valid military comment” moment, Jaina giving him money to hire mercenaries to take back Thunder Bluff when he couldn’t even feel like he could go to the horde for this problem, and going to his rescue in BFA).
This behavior even carried over into an earlier iteration of the Shadowlands beta.
Baine was literally THROWN AWAY LIKE GARBAGE out of Torghast because the King of Hell found him worthless and didn't want him around anymore.
Blizzard needed to let him act a bit more like a minotaur much earlier in WoW, against “safe” evil threats like the Twilight Cult, or the Legion, or something like that. Something where there’s no issue with him shouting “For the horde” or “For Azeroth” while he wades into battle against enemies that obviously aren’t going to ever parley. But he’s been…well, Baine for so long that him actually going into combat almost sounds out of character for him at this point, and that’s not inspiring for a racial leader that’s supposed to be the biggest playable muscular powerhouse in the game.
The idea of a big scary-looking bull man walking up to you and respectfully offering his hand in friendship is honestly pretty cool! It’s part of the original trope inversion with monsters that made the WC3 horde appealing. But he’s still physically a tauren; if someone’s evil enough (and stupid enough) to swat away that hand and spit in his face, he should be capable of KNOCKING YOUR HEAD OFF with a single punch for rejecting peace. But that kind of response never happens with him.
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Question: How is it that Baine is the “traitor”, and Sylvanas is not?
Sylvanas ordered the use of the plague in the Siege of Lorderon; killing her own soldiers before then raising them as mindless undead. Betraying the very core value the Forsaken hold most dear; free will. And then attempted to do it again with Derek Proudemoore.
While Baine acted based on his moral values consistent with the values of his people to prevent further disreputable (and therefore dishonorable) actions by his Warchief to bring even further shame onto the Horde.
Baine is by far the most patriotic and loyal Horde leader. Willingly taking action (knowing and accepting fully the consequences) to uphold the honor and ideals of the Horde, even at the expense of his own honor and life.
Meanwhile, Saurfang ran off and pouted mostly because “muh honor”. And all the others either blindly followed, or shrugged and tried to look the other way.
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FTFY, this thread in a nutshell.
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Simple if bain had breasts and dresses like a simp lords wet dream they would go with him/her. /Thread
Cringe
/10chars
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Baine did nothing to Magatha after she killed his father/chief then sacked Bloodhoof Village and Thunderbluff, which resulted in the deaths of taurens.
Baine exiled his own people for wanting revenge on Camp Taurajo. Then he called his own base and his own people “valid military targets.” His solution to this event? Build a wall in a world with skyships and griffons. 
I think Baine was a bit too enthusiastic when he defended Garrosh at his trial. It was freaking weird.
Baine stood there and watched Sylvanas murder his people outside the gates of Lordaeron then raise them as skeletons. The only thing he seem to care about was his dumb boyfriend, Sourfang.
Baine murdered members of the Horde to rescue a prisoner of war. Derek was not Forsaken. Being human and undead doesn’t grant you that title. Derek Proudmore was an enemy to the Horde and an orc killer. His sister is a woman that has either threatened or has tried to kill us on more than one occasion. I don’t give a damn if Derek was going to be used as a weapon to kill her. The lives of Forsaken > any Proudmore.
Baine knew returning Derek to Jaina would invoke Sylvanas’ wrath. He also knew she would try to get revenge on Thunderbluff. He said that that was a risk he was willing to take. That would have been fine if it was just his risk but it’s not. He put the entire tauren population in danger for one undead human that shouldn’t even exist.
During the Siege of Ogrimmar 2.0, Baine said he couldn’t even bother to show up and support his people because his b̶u̶t̶t̶ heart was hurting. He also said he was too injured. This is fine and he didn’t have to fight but to not show his face at all just once again shows what a coward he is. But haha. He wasn’t too hurt or broken-hearted to immediately go to Stormwind after Saurfang died.
I hope he dies in the Maw.
Edit: Forgot about Calia. She’s just like Derek Proudmore… an abomination that shouldn’t exist but as long as she doesn’t try to lead the Forsaken, and remains unique, I can ignore her easily.
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Who doesn’t like to stick their wand in crazy every once in a Azeroth-threatening event?
Calia is an alliance stooge who is being established as a puppet dictator to make alliance happy. And Baine is definitely a traitor. He has moved into Stormwind Keep to hang out with his good BFF Anduin.
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I don’t hate Baine, but I do wish they’d been more consistent with his character.
It certainly felt like he just sort of went along with things for a while, up until he didn’t. It’s not like Sylvie started out as morally questionable, however, she was doing crazy stuff from the very beginning.
Why’d it take him so long to wake up? Is he stupid? Or did the writers just want a reason to kick the war into gear without any interruptions?
I do. You just stated Baine has been a traitor to two warchiefs.
Some people are just conservative, don’t like change, and want things to be like the ‘old days’. They would rather have the bad blood. Baine is not ‘old school’ Horde and he’s not bad blood. Calia certainly isn’t.
The main thing is that Forsaken is a title applied to a people. Callia wants them to see that they do not have to be Forsaken just because they are undead.
Garrosh made himself enemy to the horde. He tried to have Vol’jin assassinated. Among many others that his executioners murdered.
Sylvanas was the one that got betrayed by Saurfang and Baine. All she was doing was… trying to kill the Alliance? Aka their enemies. That was what they betrayed her over. Because she was too good at beating their enemies…
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How would the Forsaken… who are undead humans…that are disliking another undead human… have concerns about racial purity? You want to rethink that one?
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Well said.
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