Sigh I can dream, I could write such better believable story which I think most people would like.
edit: well except zerde.
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Baine is unsalvageable as a character. Too much happened, there’s no fixing him.
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Forget Anduin. Let him stay lost as long as Turalyon was (no less than 20 IRL years), along with Sylvanas.
Put Baine at odds with Magatha.
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If the Horde aligned quests in Dragonflight thus far gives us any idea of where narratives can go, or at least how well Blizzard can write a Horde focused narrative when they want to, Baine can be salvageable.
His quest in the Ohn’ahran Plains is pretty good. You see the strength and size of a tauren (like my favorite unnamed tuaren #37 smashing through the Horde’s own barricades in the BFA cinematic, RIP), the care he can have for his people, the distrust and differences they need to overcome with people who have wronged them and the trauma involved due to an entirely different group. Couple that with our Dragonmaw quest in DF and the Orc heritage quest, theres some solid Kalimdor Horde writing.
Given Baine’s recent experience in the Plains, a come to Earth Mother moment could be nice for him. Not that I want to see some poor tauren tribe be attacked and slaughtered by Dwarves again just to get Baine to move, but seeing the struggles his people face in being overly passive - because of his own passiveness and inaction- makes him start to apologize for all the years he sat on the sidelines wishing for peace and diplomacy to win the day knowing very well that they were far past it - that he needs to act and vows to do so going forward.
We know he can. Not just in the Ohn’ahran Plains quest, but in Mulgore, in the cut lines from the Great Gate taking on the Alliance. Just got to lean into it and start recorrecting. I say this as one of Baine’s biggest critics too. I want to give the character a chance before fully writing him off and asking for a nice burger.
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As far as I am concerned it is a good thing you are not writing it then.
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I didn’t like how they input that lore during BFA.
There could had been some cool potential of a time he left Highmountain & went on an adventure where he’s able to provide the champions with knowledge on X, Y and Z curiosities he’s faced before and how to best deal with them.
Perhaps he still could, if he mentions like a ‘Travelling Protection Totem’ or something he was able to carry once, when he had left Highmountain before. 
I believe you’re being overly dramatic, yes. You hate Baine to such a degree that you’re seeing Baine where there isn’t Baine.
You mentioned Cairne and this supposed trope not being the image you had of Cairne, but like, you projected that image onto him. Cairne did basically nothing in WoW except die, and in WC3 he did only marginally more than nothing, with his notable feats being saved by Thrall, and his son being kidnapped.
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I’d say that there are quite few similarities between Ebonhorn in the cinematic I linked, and Baine in the following one:
The impression given by both, is a recurrent theme Baine has in the story. One that often drags the impression his race creates amongst the audience.
And I dislike the fact that’s the case, as I firmly believe that Tauren should be more than the softie teddies, to be constantly used to pull on player emotional strings.
The task of a writer is to work with the setting in a way that it signals a particular message or story to the audience.
This goes for both plots and characters.
It’s a fact that the majority of playerbase that dislikes Baine, loved Cairnes characterisation.
And writers, should start considering why is it that two characters that supposedly should’ve signaled the same values, have been welcomed in such different ways.
Because I can personally think of a few reasons.
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Yeah Baine’s kind of a boring do-gooder. The idea of having an ethical voice of reason character is cool, but when the guy is doing cringe stuff like sending Anduin pieces of his horn, and defecting to save Jaina’s brother it’s just eye-rolling. Especially since you’d think the perfect time for him to defect would’ve been Sylvanas trying to burn down Teldrassil, but no, Jaina’s brother is the final straw here.
The character just doesn’t have any edge to him, like yeah you can be a good guy but have a spine.
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His closest friends are in the Alliance, He has little to no interaction with any horde characters at all. There is Mayla but she is simply a background “girlfriend” troupe for his character she isn’t really a character anymore except just telling us where baine is.
He doesn’t have any connection to the Horde like cairne did therefore he feels like an outsider within his own faction. Especially as he spends so much time undermining its other leaders by warning, assisting or spending time with Alliance characters.
They need him to stand against the Alliance and specifically Anduin as he cannot be both the leader of the Tauren and keep them in the Horde while having all his friends and associates being on the Alliance. I mean after everything that has happen since Cairne died there is little reason for the Tauren to remain in the Horde other than some underlying threat that the rest of the Horde would attack them if they did leave.
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Oof.
Honestly I use to be hyped about him given he’d been alive for 10’000 years, and I was curious to the places he’d been, adventures had and wisdom attained from all of them — Until BFA ruined all that, by stating he’s remained in Highmountain the wholetime … That sucks.
Also was hoping he’d humble Wrathion, but no they had to have Wrathion ‘save Ebonhorn’ which kind of cheesed me off too.
The Tauren – Even with dragons it seems, can’t seem to get a win - Without someone else having the bigger flex. Honestly, at this stage the only Tauren that seem to be pretty decent are the villains lol.
Although Hamuul Runetotem - is a pretty cool Tauren … Lets hope it stays that way. 
“Always temper your strength with wisdom.” - Hamuul Runetotem
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To be fair, all the black dragons who weren’t corrupted had to stay in hiding to remain that way. Sabellion had to hide in Outland, Ebyssian had to hide among the High Mountain. Even Wrathion had to do a little bit of hiding in Pandaria for a time, yes? And he’s still a baby when compared to other dragons.
We can bemoan Ebyssian’s choice to stay in Highmountain all of ten thousand years, but that’s a better alternative than becoming just another N’Zoth mindslave.
I still think he’s the best choice for Black Aspect.
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Best choice in terms of morality, worst choice in terms of being an actual character.
At least Wrathion and Sabellian play off of other characters in interesting ways.
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Hey now, elves had something interesting going until the end of TBC. Then nightborne did the exact same storyline.
You also have Cata to BFA Forsaken being Stupid Evil for fans of that particular alignment.
Actually, they could have Anduin betray Baine for some reason he felt was unavoidable. Then they could have it both. Baine gets some distance and Anduin can be all Emo about it.
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Lightbound anduin comes as a herald of the army of light and asks baine to bring his people over to the light. Baine refuses to give up his beliefs, anduin gets angry and demands it based on everything he had done for baine in the past and then they come to blows as anduin attempts to force the light into him.
Too much like the Xe’ra/Yrel situation. I think they would avoid that.
OTOH, here we are now.
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“Come, Baine, let us heal your faction conflict issues-”
“I AM MY FACTION CONFLICT ISSUES!” [charges Anduin and sends him flying… then helps him back to his feet and gives him a clipping of his hoof this time]
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Come to think of it, I find it weird that the Alliance never actively tried to pilfer the tauren out of the Horde and into their ranks over the years, or at least negotiated to get them to leave the Horde.
“Hey look, I realize you guys got saved from being exterminated by the orcs and all, but we know you’re not bad and Garrosh/Sylvans, the orcs and undead…well… We’ll treat you better.”
Varian was on the cusp of getting the blood elves to quit the Horde during MoP until Jaina F’ed those efforts up. I wonder why just them and never anyone else?
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My issue isn’t even that they are treated like the “moral backbone”. I don’t really care if the writers think that Tauren culture is peak Horde, my issue is that they don’t DO anything.
Narratively speaking, Tauren have no place to shine. Every race (minus the allied races) has had some level of spotlight over the years except for the Tauren. They peaked at having Cairne die, since then it’s just been Baine being kidnapped and sad.
Even the gnomes get more spotlight, with Operation: Gnomeregan, Gnomish Engineering, Mechagon, the Northrend Mechagnomes/Mimiron, and the highlight moments Gelbin got in both the Broken Shore and BfA. I wouldn’t even be surprised if I was missing more gnome-centric content.
It’s not even like Tauren have no narrative potential, the conflict with the centaur was unresolved until recently, Magitha Grimtotem still exists somewhere, there are three extra types of Tauren (Taunka, Yaungol, and Highmountain), the Earth Mother and her lore have gotten almost no focus at all, the Sunwalker plotline was almost immediately dropped as soon as MoP ended, etc.
You could probably make a patch for an expansion focused on the Tauren and expanding on their lore/making them relevant, but so far it seems like something Blizzard is weirdly hesitant to touch.
Somehow the Taunka and the Yaungol both existing as canonical subraces of Tauren is something that has less story relevancy or immediate impact than the gnomes trying and failing to retake Gnomeregan and that says a lot.
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