If they wanted to build her up they should have started by at least late WoD. I mean she only pops up in Legion to say “lol I don’t want to lead the Forsaken”, then immediately starts getting involved in Forsaken affairs?
But how did that unfold? At a meeting. Which she called. To expose him. When he was already caught.
Not super heroic. And that’s the problem. Why didn’t he declare Mak’Gora right then?
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Calia is such a bizarre character. She could be so potentially interesting. She’s got her own personal trauma and the burden of her little brother’s innumerable sins on her hand.
When I first saw her in Netherlight I figured her and Faol might start a more explicitly Human / Undead faction, similar to the Nelf / Tauren Cenarion Circle.
And if they wanted her undead why not have her be killed in the assault on Netherlight? Then maybe a Forsaken Priest raises her. Something!
She’s Arthas’s older brother. She’s the heir to a ruined throne she does not want. Her family has been utterly decimated yet she knows the undead can be good as Faol’s her Obi Wan.
That in itself was interesting enough. Making her a super special undead raised by Naaru necromancy of all things was such a bizarre story point.
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He could have said nothing and never admitted guilt. Instead, he spoke up and pointed right at Sylvanas and named and shamed her, in front of every Horde leader. You people act like that was just a silly willy no big deal thing to do because it was not an immediate attempt at violence towards Sylvanas.
I would have liked that but it would have meant the death of Baine, since we know Sylvanas is overpowered and Blizzard had future plans for her story. It also isn’t Baines style and it never has been. He, ironically, is typically more calculating than rushing in like a bull.
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I’m still a bit amazed that they botched the whole Jaina / Derek subplot in the way they did. They presented Jaina as an insurmountable threat to the Horde PC at least 3 times in the expansion (Lordaeron, Stormwind, and then BoD as a raid boss), but then they also went out of their way to frame the only countermeasure to her as something so unspeakably atrocious that you should feel ashamed for wanting to try and use it. And, the person trying to use it is now the villain you should work against, while Jaina’s now your friend.
It’s a very weird premise. Superman beats you up and almost kills you on 3 occasions. Lex Luthor discovers kryptonite and offers it to you. Luthor is clearly evil for wanting to weaponize kryptonite against Superman, so you start working with Superman to remove Luthor from power. Superman promises that he’ll definitely never attack you again.
That’s what the story feels like.
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Jaina was responsible for atrocities against the Tauren/Blood elf peoples and attempted a Teldrassil-scale one against the Orcs (and goblins and whatnot who also lived in org).
I’m extremely not cool with the story trying to make the horde PC okay with her. If there was an option to join with the Blood elf magister who called her out on her crap I’d have taken it despite being nowhere near a Sylvanas fan.
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Ehhh. I guess but only if the kryptonite came from the worst possible crime in your culture. There’s gotta be a line somewhere, even in all out war.
What bothered me about Derek was, well when we drudged up his inexplicably well preserved corpse, my thought was
"Oh I see where this is going. So we’re going to have the flying swedish gals zap him. Then we let Underek return home to see his family who will of course assume it’s a trap and try to destroy him. We rescue him and Voss does her therapy thing like we’ve seen with Stone and BAM
We got ourselves a new Admiral with exquisitely personal knowledge about how to not just take down the Kul Tiran fleet but Proudmoore herself. Genius"
But then Blizz went,
“How about instead of that Slyvanas tries to torture the free will out of him in a chilling show that she’s completely stopped giving an ish. So he can be a bomb”
I’m still speechless. You had her firebomb a civilian population center actively surrendering Blizz. We did not need more hints that Windy had gone off the deep end. An actually diabolical but strategically sound manuever that didn’t violate the only sin the Forsaken recognize would’ve made her more complex and created a potentially interesting new Forsaken character.
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The Tauren? Jaina helped Baine get Thunder Bluff back from the Grimtotem after Cairne’s murder.
Theramore was directly responsible for wiping out every named Tauren settlement in the Barrens…
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Maybe Baine shouldn’t have had the Tauren participate in Garrosh’s war that Cairne died trying to prevent.
Maybe Tyrande shouldn’t have been harboring Worgen after they committed an terroristic assault on the Horde armies during a period of armistace.
(The Stonespire slaughter wasn’t even during a period of active warfare, just Alliance butchers being Alliance Butchers)
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The peace treaty was broken during Warlords of Draenor any way. The Horde player even executes an Orc for having aided the Alliance during said expansion.
(Jaina isn’t a Dwarf.)
His hands were pretty tied precisely because Cairne died. His father died, his home was invaded, and he had to fight heavily to get it back. After getting it back he was faced with either continuing to fight Garrosh and alienate the Tauren from Orgrimmar and the Horde, whom are the reason they have a home to begin with, or bury the hatchet with Garrosh and retain his peoples position within the Horde, giving them time to reestablish things in Mulgore. I mean, if he had immediately turned against Garrosh after recapturing Mulgore, he would have essentially been seceding Thunderbluff from the Horde and allying with the Alliance proper. This would have been in the short term probably more destructive to his people, though decisively breaking the Horde forever.
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Strangely enough, Cairne never wanted the Tauren to settle down and Thrall had to convince them to.
Given it was the Alliance helping him get Thunder Bluff back, I don’t see the problem with this. Hell, even during Garrosh’s war, while the Orcs were invading the Night Elves’ lands, the Night Elves still sent help to the Tauren to get Freewind Post back for them.
But the thing is I think this would have instantly put them as one of the first targets of Hellscreams war. He would have used violence to try and bring them back into the fold. So, while in the long run this would have probably permanently destroyed the Horde since the Alliance would’ve taken major advantage of it, it also would have damaged Baines people in the short term, forcing them to bear a large part of the violence Hellscream planned to unleash. The Tauren still paid the price of war, as the Alliance destroyed settlements in the Barrens, but I am not sure if it was a higher price than they would have paid being directly attacked by the Horde after seceding.
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I didn’t say it was a “no big deal thing to do.” I said it was not “super heroic.”
And it’s not. Calling her out after you’re already busted is not terribly impressive. I’m sorry, but it’s just not. He already figured he was doomed, so why not say what was on his mind. So he says his piece and goes meekly off to prison. Cue trope#1: Baine, in distress, needs rescuing.
Look, you apparently really like Baine and think he’s great as is. That’s fine…but sure you can admit that most people seem pretty unimpressed with him. And the purpose of this thread isn’t to argue about why Baine is very unpopular, it’s to suggest that Blizzard needs to change how they portray him if they want most Horde players to buy into him.
If you want to sit and argue that “no, most players are WRONG and here’s why”… what does that get you? At the end of the day, perception is everything, and most players clearly perceive Baine as unimpressive.
Blizzard should write a situation in which he unequivocally impresses. You know, like the Baine from the AU who got revenge for Cairne by tearing Garrosh apart with his bare hands (except I think that Baine maybe turned out to be a villain, so don’t go that far. Last thing we need).
I find it odd that I write a thread saying “Hey, let’s give Baine a chance to be a hero,” and you, a professed Baine fan, are immediately hostile to the idea.
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And instead of the war in the Southern Barrens that we saw, the Tauren and the Alliance would have been a unified force against Garrosh’s. If anything, it probably would have ended Garrosh’s war before it even started.
When some one said that Baine stood up to Sylvanas, you asked the question
The answer is, objectively, yes. You may think it wasn’t enough, or it was not a heroic form of doing so, but he objectively did stand up to Sylvanas. What’s the term, changing the goal posts? You started out denying that he stood up to Sylvanas, and now have changed to saying he did not do so in a heroic manner. I personally think at the time it was heroic, but I understand why others were not satisfied. What is not debatable is whether or not he stood up to her at all.
I’m not in the slightest against the idea of giving Baine more heroic moments. Again, I stepped into a conversation and answered a specific question.
Maybe. Or maybe Garrosh begins ruthlessly destroying those Tauren settlements himself, and invading Mulgore (after it has just recovered from the Grimtotem coup and is battling quilboar) before anywhere else, leading Baine to take the brunt of the casualties before Garrosh is finally put down.
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Or it would have had the rest of the Horde turn on Garrosh to defend the Tauren. Lor’themar thought Baine was the best of the Horde, after all. And the Forsaken are only in the Horde because of the Tauren.
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I totally disagree.
Standing up to someone isn’t speaking your mind when you’ve already been busted and there’s nothing left to lose. Standing up to someone is defying them when there is risk involved. There was no risk left for Baine at that point - the worst had already happened.
It’s like being fired and telling your boss off on your way out the door. That’s not standing up to him. That’s just venting.
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