Its sort of shocking how many of the Horde roster has been written off as unsalvageable.
Baine just happens to be the most obvious one, and gets the most flak. But, I’ve seen similar calls for just about every other character … especially from those that sided with Sylvie during BfA (before her sudden but inevitable betrayal of course). In fact, just about the only character I haven’t seen that same group calling for mass cullings condemn is Sylvanas. She just needs to be redeemed, validated, and brought back in. And Wix I suppose.
Regardless, Baine is not unsalvageable. He needs work, but its not impossible to make him at least a palatable character with the right type of effort. The goal for SLs here for the Horde is to simply get our 3 reps that are likely to come back with us to the places they need to be for their people and the Horde. Thrall, Baine, and Vol’jin can be at least brought to that point with the right storyarc.
The biggest complaint about Baine is he’s too pro alliance. He needs to grow a spine, start putting HORDE interests above alliance ones…and for the love of all things fantasy, he’s a giant bull man. Show him smashing aside Maw soldiers with his weapon/hands as he and thrall rescue the souls trapped in the Maw.
At least thats I got out of it. Feel free to add to it or correct me
No, you’re pretty much right on the money. Some people to take his friendship with Anduin to a ridiculous extreme with criticism of Baine, but he does need to have firm lines established in that relationship. He also needs to be allowed his independence as a character again; he’s become far too much an accessory to Anduin’s story (a lot of things and characters have tbh).
What Baine needs is for that Darker Part of himself he supposedly accepted from War Crimes to have a more tangible influence on his character. Peace oriented is fine … but there needs to be room for force as well. He’s too adverse to conflict as a whole, and that does not work well in a story or setting like this. Hopefully Blizz has something planned for SLs to balance him out.
It’s mostly that, but with an added bonus of pointless whining.
Since the Battle of Lordaeron, Baine kept talking about how what Sylvanas was doing was wrong. How this is NOT the Way. How it all lacks honor. How…
And yet he kept sticking around. Standing by. Whining about the problem, doing nothing about it.
It literally took Jaina’s brother for him to get off his butt. Not Teldrassil, not Lordaeron, not the war campaign prior to that. Just seeing Jaina’s brother getting raised as a weapon.
With Saurfang, at least he walked away early on. Baine just kept… Baining. Sadly Baining. Taking a stand when he had the least to lose, other than a short jail sentence that ended when we rescue him. It felt so damn soft, and a bit of a jab that it took a Proudmoore to push him to act.
To be fair to Baine here though … nobody actively involved in the main Horde storyline were allowed to even mention Teldrassil. Outside of Saurfang and Thrall, who were kept deliberately separate from most of the Horde for most of the expac. It wasn’t allowed to be a motiv for anybody on the Horde roster, which is why for nearly everybody on the Horde roster Derek was the catalyst for dissent. This was a BfA Horde Faction problem, not just a Baine one.
I would wager that’s because Blizz couldn’t figure out a reason why the majority of the Horde didn’t turn on Sylvie right after Teld without making the Horde BfA story an entrapment narrative. Where the fear of the Alliance retaliation prevented the Horde from turning on her for as long as it took.
“If you want peace, prepare for war.” I’ve said this in another forum, but Baine, and to the extension the Tauren in general, are “Nice Guys.” Milk sops who cow down and get stepped on. Baine and the Tauren don’t have a scene where they stand up for themselves, where they put their hoof down and say “No, you move!” And if you try something they’ll pick you up, and beat you down another opponent with you as the weapon. There is nothing like that. And if it’s done then it’s at a bad time, and not as cool. Baine returned Derek’s brother is a strong move, it takes guts to stand up to do the right thing … it was just poorly timed.
Nobody likes the “Nice Guy”, people love the Good Guy, the one who will stand up instantly and call out the elephant in the room in the correct manner. In order to do this, you have to go dark, you have to be mean. You can’t do this as a wimp and all goody-two shoes and keep getting stepped on. You gotta get dirty and stand up for yourself and others right from the get-go.
It’s why Magatha becoming Tauren leader is becoming so popular. Even though BAINE IS THE TAUREN LEADER BECAUSE OF HER! Is she evil? Yep. Is she mean and nasty? Absolutely. Is she power hungry and cares only for herself? Without a doubt. Despite all of that she gives off the illusion that she is in it for others, and is merciless in her goals. She went too dark and is evil, however she isn’t a “Nice Girl” and anything is better than being a useless wimp who happens to be “Nice.”
That being said I find Magatha as a leader a terrible idea, the fact she is a recruited for the Shamans was beyond an insult. She should have been killed on sight, there should have been a shaman mission to hunt her down and end her! As my old Tauren Warrior, when I got my first world quest from her while in the broken shore barking orders at me. I had to instantly pause the game and look up what in WoW I just witnessed. My jaw couldn’t drop fast enough in shock for what I just read of her joining the Shaman Order Hall.
What it needs is it’s own sense of self-validation. I was okay with the renewed faction conflict right up to and including the Burning of Teldrassil because a war story is about horrible things happening that leave permanent changes and scars. Nations typically do horrific things in war for what they perceive as good reasons. (Carthage, Dresden, Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima come to mind.)
Because as presented, there WERE legitimate reasons to sell a war to Saurfang after Azrerite was presented as the next game changer.
But Blizzard threw away the opportunity for a nuanced dual side story to put more Old God or whatever on the table, even going as far as to retcon the events of Wrathgate to flanderise Sylvannas.
Not that I’m against making her into the villain of the following expac, but it was done in a way that missed so many great opportunities to develop depth to the story.
Easily solution for why the Horde didn’t turn, just NEVER SAID IN GAME! face palm! Thus it is non-cannon. It could have been said they stuck with her becuase they were afraid that the Alliance would wipe them out one by one. Which is a very good reason, you can hear what Anduin says, but honestly would you believe him? Just look at all the Night Elves, and Worgen going rabid thirsting for Horde blood in game for good reasons. Yeah I wouldn’t give it a silver of a chance. The Tauren, Blood Elves, and possibly the Dark Spear would have been spared, everyone else would be on the chopping block.
I see Lor’themar stating “She had the support of the people” as the civilians supported her. They didn’t see the burning of Teldrassil first hand. They’re not in the war, and from the outside it looks like Sylvanas is doing it for the Horde. Making it more irony that when they’re in turn used as soldiers in the end makes it more interesting. You also get to see this from individuals in the Horde who are stating how terrible Teldrassil was.
The problem is that the Tauren were never Doormats until they needed to be to justify Baine’s idiotic characterization. The Tauren of Vengeance Point explicitly rejected Baine’s cowardly “Lets just let the alliance soldiers that killed our people sit in our lands and celebrate” strategy. Gann Stonespire wasn’t going to sit and let the bloodthirsty monsters of Bael Modan off the hook.
They’re only written as completely conflict adverse when they need to be for Baine’s story, which sucks, because Baine gets more focus than the rest of the Tauren combined anymore.
It’s a shame that Baine is such a wet fart of a character, because you’d think a giant Tauren warrior would be fun as hell for cutscenes/scripted battles.
Well, I am. It is my single biggest gripe with the Horde story since Cata.
Making the leader of one of the factions the overarching villain for a whole expac was a terrible idea the first time. Doing it TWICE is unforgiveable, and they should never even have considered it.
Villains are the best characters of any story. They drive plot they are the engines of drama. And they get the best lines. That’s why Star Trek cranks out a “Mirror” episode for every series, the cast gets to have real fun with them.
The real tragedy is that Sylvannas was made into such an awful one.
Loads of Tauren? I’ve counted so very few since Vanilla. The only two tauren I can think of that acted like that who wasn’t a Grimtotem or Bloodtotem was Gann Stonespire with Bael Modan. The other is the mentioned nameless one both in the OG and BC cinematic.
The Tauren have always been used as the Nice side of the Horde. “See the Horde isn’t all that bad, we have Taurens.” Just back then it wasn’t needed. Only until Cataclysm the Taurens being the only passive race has been overused. Rather than make the Horde good, the Tauren make the Horde look good by being too passive.
Look I too miss the old WC3 Tauren who wade into battle with a giant cheek clapping totem, screaming “DEATH TO THE ENEMY! DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF THE HORDE!” But that was long gone since Vanilla with the Savage Night Elves. Night Elves were not the only race defanged between WC3 and Vanilla.
The problem is it’s really, really, really not fun to be told you need to hate a character you used to like. It’s an extremely hard sell even when it’s done well, and when it’s done so poorly as it was in BfA, it feels much more like the Horde had one of its last remaining, well-developed characters stolen for a piss-poor narrative.
Villains can be done well when they’re given compelling reasons for action and a degree of sympathy, even if their goals are misguided or just plain evil. Sylvanas was turned into a cartoon villain with no depth, and the character butchering rankles very, very hard. I agree with Pellex - it’s extremely hard for me to see any way in which the Sylvanas villainization was worth it at all.
I’m getting the feeling more and more that a lot of peoples expectations about certain racial fantasies are more based off headcannon of WC3 content, than WC3 content actually reinforcing it. Like, Tauren have always been mellow and conflict averse. Even Cairne was suggested to be sort of that way until he met Thrall.
And the NEs have never been “savage”. The expectation that they were is based off a single quote from Grommash taken largely out of context; and some RTS mechanics. They were always “Formidable”, but they were never portrayed as overwhelmingly so. With even Grommash being able to hold the line and push back an opponent he had never met; using tactics the Warsong had never experienced; being caught unawares; in the NEs friendly territories. The NEs have never really been “savage” (outside of Highborne standards), and the Tauren have never really been “aggressive”.
Fandral Staghelm wasn’t a racial leader for a decade and the leader of the entire Alliance for two years after that, or the last OG Alliance leader left in the faction.
