to be quite honest, it really, really doesnt matter whether or not baine knew about what sylvia intended to do; he’s the leader of the tauren nation, and the tauren took part in the hordes imperialistic invasion of night elven territories, thus making him responsible
i, quite frankly, dont care about how he felt about it because even in spite of whether or not he found the genocide horrifying, the tauren are still actively participating in the war, and that shouldnt be forgiven just because he returned derek, nor does returning derek even have any real meaning anything in the face of thousands of dead innocents
leaders are responsible for the actions taken in their name, and the horde is responsible for the actions of the horde, oddly enough
This, by the by, is just one in a litany of reasons why having the expansion kick of with the Horde commiting literal genocide was a staggeringly s^%$ty narrative decision.
With the nature of this game and Blizzards clear unwillingness to disrupt the status quo there is absolutely no way to end this war in a way that doesnt feel unearned, hamfisted, and insultingly stupid.
Blizzard didnt just dig themselves a hole, they packed it with C4 and dove head first in.
The reason they didn’t wasn’t even motivated by a desire to tell a story. They wanted something shocking to happen that they could wave around and go “woah look how crazy this is! And this is just the start! This expansion will be super intense and awesome, pre-order today.”
This has been Blizzard’s entire storytelling model for years though. It’s always all about the hype. I mean, did you ever see Metzen at Blizzcon? It was all about hyping people up with the wow factor of WoW, if you’ll pardon the pun.
I agree. Blizzard’s storytelling is about as subtle as a freight train and relies very much on the Loud Noises model of business. And when it works, it works very well–the Wrathgate cinematic, even with its dated graphics, is incredible.
But, despite the ham-handedness of the storytelling, there is a subtle difference between the two: mood.
The Wrathgate featured a tight, promising narrative arc that continuously escalated the mood. We began with Bolvar Fordragon striding triumphantly onto the battlefield, wading into the hordes of undead and driving them back. Then the Vrykul show up and the battle shifts from one of glory to tension. Then the Horde get the chance to shine in the best way the Horde shines: rushing in, charging and bellowing, and leaping at giant murder-machines without hesitation. There’s a brief, but not overbearing moment of camaraderie, before the Lich King arrives and the tone becomes foreboding. Then Putress attacks and suddenly we’re swept into hopelessness, but it ends with a bright and majestic note of the Red Dragonflight coming in to save the day and we’re left with a bittersweet victory.
Compare that to the War of Thorns, which is confusing all the way through.
Sylvanas wants to occupy Darnassus for reasons that…kind of make sense? Then Malfurion, who we’ve never, ever seen give a damn about the Night Elves, is suddenly the key to their victory? Now Saurfang has a plan to attack from behind? And our first taste of Azerite is that it just makes things explode slightly faster than normal? Then the Horde wins because of Plot (again)? And Saurfang is upset because he attacked from behind, but he seemed pretty on-board with duplicity before? And then Sylvanas gets her feelings hurt and bombs Darnassus with catapults that can suddenly fire across an ocean?
Both these scenarios have big, bombastic moments, but one feels way more narratively coherent and nails all the beats that give us the right mood. We end both scenarios on the same note: things went wrong and are about to get much worse. But the Wrathgate ends on a good note because we got to see heroism, tension and drama, while the War of Thorns feels like we’re just wasting time because it was incredibly confused the entire time.
Also, I really hate to harp on this point but it’s honestly one of my biggest complaints with the expansion so far:
During the Battle for Undercity, Blizzard took the time to show Baine’s discontent with Sylvanas… but instead of having it based on either being complicit or kept in the dark from a literal genocide, he whines about Sylvanas “leaving Saurfang to die”.