Love if Baine could intercept to be the third option (For Sylvanas / Saurfang). Further down in the middle of the questline on both sides, to switch and be like “Screw ya both.” kinda deal. I like Baine. In the books he roasted everyone in court (Was a true legend), has honour - but understands survival, especially for the Horde; and substantially due to the past of his people. Something both Saurfang & Sylvanas are missing a vise-versa quality of …
His worlds show us that he wants to be seen as someone of principle–yet his actions, or more accurately lack thereof, show us how much he actually cares. There are worse Horde options, I’ll give you that–but that’s not giving you much.
Negotiations after the Siege
Baine Bloodhoof: Perhaps we can open negotiations–
Sylvanas Windrunner: The Alliance slays the leader of the Zandalari, and you speak of negotiations?
Sylvanas Windrunner: No. This war will not end until we stand victorious. Until the Little Lion kneels before my throne.
Sylvanas Windrunner: Come to the Banshee’s Wail. I have a plan to ensure the Proudmoore family pays dearly for Rastakhan’s death.
Wow what a shocker, the woman who started the war takes every opportunity to keep it going and silence talks of peace. More Horde bodies into the wood chipper! Talkin’s fer sissies!
Yes because immediately attempting diplomacy after a raid on an ally’s city is very bad optics for said ally. Nothing in the datamine thus far depicts Zandalari being very forgiving or open to talking with the Alliance just after sieging their city. Correct me if wrong.
“I created this problem and I’ll be damned if anyone else fixes it in any way that doesn’t get me the blood of Stormwind’s innocent in my gullet!”
Talks can’t and never will happen so long as you have a warmonger instigating the opposite. I’m not saying you’re wrong. Very much to the contrary in fact. Talking has been made deliberately out of the question by a vicious warmongering monster.
“Its bad optics.” is a great way of phrasing “Sylvanas dragged us into this corner and now we’d look like idiots if we said we wanted peace!”
Yes I’m very much aware Sylvanas wants to continue the war. I’m stating that even if she does, in the context of Siege of Zuldazar, continuing the war is in the Zandalari’s favor unless, again, there’s some datamine out there I missed speaking that Zandalari would rather negotiate rather than avenge their fallen king.
The price for continuing this all but lost war out of spite in the real world would be an extremely unpleasant defeat with harsher terms. Luckily for you, this is WoW and the Horde has invulnerable plot armor as a player faction.
Likewise, so do the the Alliance. You mistake my position for desiring this faction war narrative to continue. I do not. While I generally like faction conflict I do not believe Blizzard has shown the competency to write such a thing.
Regardless, the point of me entering here is that Baine’s position, or supposed support, isn’t an ideal either, far from it, when you look at his record of actions in the past, or even BfA alone.
Dear, in the real world negotiations wouldn’t even been into consideration from an Alliance PoV… the only thing Baine would acomplish wirh his laughable attitude would be to cause those harsher punishments faster onto the Horde’s population, period.
It may be inmoral, but prolonging the war forces the Alliance into deploying more and more resources so at the end they will have more trouble enforcing the harsher punishments…
I wonder if the Zandalari have any particular attitude to their leader being killed by a non-Troll. It must have been thousands of years since a non-Troll killed a leader of the Zandalari.
Would that rile them and unite them as a people? Would they be fine with neutrality or even beg the Alliance to allow them as a member after such a humiliation?
I don’t object to the notion of diplomacy from Baine. Talanji would know her people best and she is the heir.
She seems to want a war, as long as it is honorable and just… is she ignorant of the Horde beyond Zandalar? Is she aware of Teldrassil existing or burning, and would that change her perspective? I guess she is about to get an education on many subjects before 8.2.
The reason Taurajo was altered was due to the The Shattering novel where Baine travels to Theramore. Similar to the horde in Stormsong, it was too late to swap the alliance into quilboar.
I doubt the extra inconvenience would be allowed to rest with the Alliance. Sanctions. Occupation. Dismantlement. Relocation. Extinction. Making things harder for The Alliance and further committing yourself to an unflinching warpath against them will not be inconsequential to your loss conditions—of which there are more than two options.
The Horde’s plot armour is invisible to them. Only we see it. They can, however, fully witness the preternatural stupidity of the Alliance in world. Who’ve been more than a little willing to let them off before and are now under Anduin: the only person in the lore with a spine as elusive as Baine’s.
“Press the attack as the Zandalari mourn their fallen king? That would make us no better than the Banshee.” Jaina said that. Gosh-dang Jaina. I hate BFA. I know the Horde didn’t hear that particular line, but this is the leadership they’ve been dealing with. One about as awful as their own—in a very different way. One that has pretty much never stooped to their methods. The stupidity of Alliance grandstanding is the one constant in this world.
The Horde ought to expect a reckoning. A big question is how much of this spills onto the less guilty Horde races. The Tauren spring to mind. Remember Baine? I could forgive you if you’d already forgotten him. I try.
This may well sound grotesque to you as a Horde partisan—but it’s probably the wisest choice for these races. They went for broke and lost. Opened the war with a genocide and have all but lost. The situation is very grim. Both these options suck for them.
It is actually arguable that running the odds and sticking to their guns is, at this point, still the best option. But Baine’s suggestion isn’t as fully deranged as you make it out to be—especially since the terms of peace will probably affect him the most—more than relations with Zandalar ever will.
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