This is just my perspective, but this is the problem with Baine as a character. I started in MoP and honestly I enjoyed learning all I could about the lore at the time. However the past 3.1 expansions (WoD, Legion, BfA, Bastion in SL)…have been eye opening to what people must have felt in Cata and MoP. However, even Cata had great moments shine through like Stonetalon.
This is also why Thrall gets a “free pass”. Baine is not a proactive character. Baine doesn’t have goals himself. Baine is a character whose only roles in the stories so far have been to either accompany other characters, or provide some lesson to the viewer on how you should act. This is why Baine is unsalvageable to people. Thrall gets a free pass because in the annals of history Thrall had the goal of “freeing his people”. Nostalgia is keeping Thrall out of the uber annoying characters list. At one point in time he was an active character. Baine has never been.
Now the truly subjective part is this, the way Baine has been characterized in achieving these two roles feels bad. Yes, he’s stuck with the Horde, however the writing revolving around these decision never tells why. Your comment brings up the main issue.
It makes no sense (other than gameplay). Who are his friends in the Horde? Who in the Horde has helped him out? Did he oppose Sylvanas to save the Horde? Did he save Derek to save the Horde? Did he save Derek for his conscious? Did he save Garrosh because he wanted to or was it simply to show that he could? Was it to honor his father? Did he join Vol’Jin to save the Horde? Was he just capitalizing on an opportunity to get rid of someone that was doing him harm?
There are so many questions like this. Answers to these determine if Baine is an enjoyable character to someone. You may have some answers to these, great! It is undeniable that a huge portion of people don’t have an answer to any. And in my opinion, these types of questions should form the core of the Horde story. Obviously less targeted toward specifically Baine…
That is why I don’t like the character Baine Bloodhoof. Goalless reactive character, whose motives don’t make sense other than to fill the role of “gentle giant”. Except that role then becomes damsel in distress constantly in an attempt to hammer in the point that “Might doesn’t make right”.
I generally like Baine - aesthetically and for his potential and connection to the WC3 Horde. I think the character would be very interesting if put in the right situation.
However, everything you said here is perfectly valid. Baine is a very, very often mishandled character.
I think it’s because goblins are meant to be a joke race and Gallywix is the quintessential example of such. I’m pretty sure you’re just meant to lean back and laugh at them for being idiots and blowing themselves up in wacky ways.
In my opinion, the problem is that Baine exists to be abused. He’s basically the moral barometer for the story to show if someone’s being bad or good, so you pull him out for a measurement and then stick him back in the cupboard when you don’t need him anymore. The alliance is good, so they treat the cow well and that’s a good thing. When the horde is being bad, they’re kicking the cow instead. It makes his continued presence in the horde bizarre because why WOULDN’T someone prefer to hang out with people who treat him well instead?
This use of him carried over into Shadowlands; if I remember the intro correctly, the jailer’s first appearance is calling Baine worthless and dropping him like an unliked toy. In fact, the beta had the jailer throw him away twice because apparently he just wasn’t worth torturing in Torghast. But after a decade of this, this is basically his personality and theme now and I imagine trying to harden or toughen him up is just going to seem out-of-character at this point.
Then shouldn’t his requirement to be this sort of plot-device be alleviated if more or the Horde are allowed to be “good”; taking the burden of the Token Good Horde off his shoulders. People like to just ignore the reality that as long as Blizz feels that role needs to exist, its going to exist. If its not Baine, that burden is going to be pushed onto someone else. And with how they’ve written the Alliance into these paragons of flawless moral virtue … there is no escaping the reality of “Being Good” leaning you with “Alliance friendly”. That is the truth we find ourselves.
As for the Jailor “worthless” issue … wouldn’t that be the perfect catalyst for growth? Baine has had his own powerlessness and weakness shoved into his face pretty tangibly within this expansion. Blizz probably wont capitalize on it, but that’s not to say its not something that couldn’t be capitalized on. That sort of thing in the hands of more competent writers would be something used to have a character be introspective & develop. Especially within a setting like the one we find ourselves in, where there are no real limits on who can help him on that journey.
Baine literally came into power with the alliance at his doorstep baying for tauren blood, having massacred 2 tauren villages, while also funding and equipping the Tauren traitors who killed his father so they can go kill and supplant him.
Yeah, even Garrosh and Sylvanas combined haven’t done so much damage to him.
He was around 20 if him being “A Boy” in WC3 is to be believed.
Had just dealt with his Father’s assassination; a full blown rebellion with many casualties; and dealing with many of his own people wanting to leave the Horde entirely due to hardships they were facing under Garrosh and the Horde. And Garrosh didn’t lift a finger to help during the Grimtotem situation, because of his own petty ego. So, Baine was dealing with a lot?
Also, where are you getting this second Tauren village? The Beal’Modan vs Stonespire conflict happened in Vanilla under Cairne’s leadership. While there were dwarves active in that site in Cata, as far as I remember the story didn’t have any real relevance to the Stonespire at the time.
Because they murdered them literally down to the last tauren. The funny part is the Tauren were right. The elements ended up killing all the dwarves there after the cataclysm.
Largely under Cairne’s leadership. Why isn’t HE getting flak for that? Oh right, “Baine Hate”. While some of the survivors did end up in Taraujo, they were scattered and ended up everywhere.
It seems like arbitrary BS attached to BAINE rather than CAIRNE to validate arguments from people who started at the conclusion of hating Baine … then working their way back to fill in why. If you’re going to hate the guy, at least be accurate as to why. Cairne was in charge during the Stonespire incident. If Baine doesn’t get a free pass for not allowing retribution for it … Cairne absolutely shouldn’t either just because people like him more.
Cairne didn’t stop his people from fighting back. They may have lost, but at least they weren’t discarded (or invalidated in the case of the dead) for daring to stand up against invaders.
And looking over the events of Cata again … neither did Baine. He just used the Horde to do it. Which, last I checked, is the reason the Tauren are part of the Horde. A joint defense pact? But … why do I bother. There is no level of fact, nuance, or argument that could change Baine Hate mindsets. The conclusion can never, ever be wrong. He NEEDS to be held to different standards to either Cairne or Thrall for arguments sake. Context can not be allowed to matter.
It’s becuase one of the first things Baine did was that he exile his people from Thunder Bluff. It doesn’t matter for what reasons, whether the vengeance for Taurjo was completed or not, it’s the fact he did it. He condemned Taurajo as a military target. It doesn’t matter if Taurajo was training military troops or not. It’s the fact he did these things is what makes him marked forever hated. The reasons could be good and justified, it doesn’t matter, it’s the fact he did them.
Baine was screwed the moment he became High Chieftain. He replaced a beloved character, which made him screwed from the get go. He had a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Does he continue being aggressive and smash Alliance faces in even though it’ll do harm in the long run? Does he stop the bloodshed, but becomes questionable with his service to the Horde since he’s not smashing in Alliance faces? People don’t like even close to feeling their leaders are not supporting them with every decision even if it’s for the long run or “the greater good.”
I believe that most WoW players don’t want peace, most want war, just not Cata-BfA style but a cold war Vanilla style. If the opposing factions are not gung ho about fighting the opposing faction, then they’re traitors.
Edit: I said exiled from Mulgore instead of Thunder Bluff, whoops!
He didn’t even do that. He removed them from TB during a time of massive political strain, but they weren’t ever “exiled from Mulgore”. They were still safe and sound behind the wall that he built. We also don’t know how long that removal lasted … they could have been allowed back long ago. But, you are right, Baine has always been shackled with the reality of “Not Being Cairne”. Even in instances where Cairne should hold the blame, Baine gets it. On top of the fact that I think the Tauren (more than any other Horde race) gets absorbed into “The Greater Horde” without a care for the sake of Faction Conflict arguments. Their issues really can’t matter if inconvenient.
sigh fine “99% of Baine Haters will hate Baine for doing good things.” Or “Baine Haters with exception of Treng will hate Baine for doing good things.” There were so many posts for hating on Baine for doing the right thing, and something that takes a lot of guts. There were many arguments of “too little, too late” and others. Doesn’t dispute the fact that he still did something FOR THE HORDE, but it didn’t matter.
I’d bet you had it been Thrall or anyone else, even Saurfang who was hated at the time, there wouldn’t have been nearly even half of much hate thrown at them as there was to Baine.
The weird thing is, the Faction Conflict is easily one of the worst and weakest story threads in the entire game. It was initially created to simply justify PvP on a story level … and it never really evolved beyond that. Which is why, despite people claiming “they just did it wrong”, stories that focus more on that conflict are shallow, broken, and the most contentious. It can’t possibly be done well, because there are too many conflicting and contradictory player expectations from too many different groups. Everyone has a different vision of “how it could be done well”. On top of there being this unbelievable disdain for “changes” resulting from a International War story!
But, the Faction Conflict is treated like a sport, and revved up by people conflating enjoyable experiences they’ve had with a game mechanic … with the actual quality of the storytelling of such a plot. Which is why characters that subvert such a conflict are seen as such a negative.
A faction conflict can never be done right, because simply put, neither side is truely allowed to win. It must ALWAYS end in a peace treaty to justify a two faction system.
You’re not wrong the faction war stories are their weakest. I still think they did it wrong, especially in Cataclysm and BfA.
MoP I actually think they did it well (robocats notwithstanding…) especially since it was grounded in the narrative of us bringing our War to a people and a land that didn’t need to get involved. It even ended in a way I thought would ensure we wouldn’t have any further war, because Vol’jin has never been hat on butt stupid.
And then Blizzard proved me wrong by being terrible storytellers.