Would you say that he’s the baine of your existence.
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That just sounds like making excuses for bad writing.
Like I said, Baine has always been the diplomat and peace talker. Baine has also relied on us, the Champion of Azeroth. He also knows how good and important the Green Dragonflight is. For him to ignore all that is not “dramatic writing”, it’s bad writing.
You can compare this to season 8 of GoT. They didn’t write Dany’s descent into madness, it just happened. There needs to be more of an explanation of a character to be out of character.
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No, that’s not it at all. It’s the quest trying to explore PTSD through Baine having been a kidnapping and near-murder victim of centaur as a child and then being unable to rescue his own savior from that very event when history repeats itself.
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Sets the Worgen in the corner “Bad dog, terrible puns are MY job!”
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And this quest explored what lines had to be crossed in order for him to abandon that ideal.
It’s not like he was behaving this way for no reason. This questline touched on some extremely old and personal traumas for him as well as the loss of a personal friend and role model. None if it came out of nowhere, it was harkening back to a quest in WarCraft 3. It doesn’t really surprise me when Baine acts contrary to how we’ve seen him before. It’s the first time we’ve seen him pushed to this level of rage with this much skin in the game.
Good writing doesn’t treat characters like one dimensional robots. There are circumstances that can cause them to be hypocritical and inconsistent. Behaving that way in entirely believable circumstances for them to be emotionally compromised doesn’t seem like bad writing to me.
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It makes perfect sense. Centaur almost ate him and nearly wiped out the Tauren.
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the same people who made df centaurs
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Good lord he’s not saying PTSD isnt a thing, get a grip.
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Bad writing can absolutely tarnish or damage a character. Moreso when the character in question acts in a way that is not natural for that character. Baine showing some hesitance or being uncomfortable around the centaur I can accept. Him going off instead of seeking discourse (which is what he would actually do in this sort of situation) is ridiculous. He doesn’t even ask what’s going on until like a third into the questline.
We’re not dealing with Varyan 2.0 or a copy of Garrosh. We’re dealing with a character that leans towards being the voice of reason.
What gets me is that Baine (or anyone on the Horde Council, for that matter) should be getting intelligence reports of what’s going on in the Isles. Even if observers/agents aren’t doing the quests like we are, word of major events should be getting around. Something like a civil war breaking out on the plains should be something everyone on site should be aware of (for one because groups like the Dragonscale Expedition needs to know what to look out for to avoid trouble on the trek towards the Azure Span).
Again, leaders don’t get to hide behind their traumas. I hate bringing up real life examples, but Angela Merkel didn’t flip out when Vladimir Putin decided to bring his dog to a meeting with her, despite her known fear of dogs. She was visibly uncomfortable but kept it together.
The same could be done with Baine. Have him show some discomfort towards the centaur, have a chat with Tomul that doesn’t start with “OKAY, TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON!” and go from there.
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Agreed. What Baine showed in this quest was poor leadership. It is not something we should hold up as a good example. No one disagrees with you, not even me. But characters can fail to live up to the roles they’re in without it being bad writing. What you’re describing is what Baine shouldn’t do, not what he can’t do. Nothing is physically preventing him from reacting badly to his trauma.
Which is the entire point of the story. The trauma is real and justified. Baine has a bad response to it and frankly should have known better. Which is why the end of the storyline is him acknowledging how he was wrong. Even the story agrees with you that Baine isn’t behaving like a good leader here.
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It’s not bad writing.
Baine has every reason to hate Centaur then he comes to the Isles and Centaur had attacked the Windtotem tribe and killed many of them and took some captive.
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Humans killed civilians then laid siege to the gates of Mulgore but you don’t see him getting all uppity with humans. The Grimtotem leader killed his father than sacked Bloodhoof Village and Thunder Bluff but that didn’t stop Baine from accepting help from Jevan and allowing them to stay in Thunder Bluff. At least half the Forsaken stayed loyal to Sylvanas and held him captive but he didn’t condemn all of them and they’re still in Thunder Bluff, opening portals.
You can spin this any way you want and throw the word “trauma” around to make your argument work but the fact is it doesn’t. This was completely out of character for him to act that way especially when the Champion of Azeroth and the Green Dragonflight told Baine they were cool. And the fact they’re not even the centaur from Desolace.
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You not understanding the story is not the same as the story being bad.
Take a writing class sometime. Characters behave “out of character” all the time without it being bad writing. I’m not disagreeing with you that Baine is acting contrary to his previous characterization - he is. What I’m saying is that he has a plausible reason to do so. Emotional responses are not logical so if your goal here is to find a through path of logical consistency to Baine’s actions, you’re gonna be disappointed.
But at this point we’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t think there’s anything else I can say to you to change your opinion that it’s horrible writing. Feel free to fantasize about killing Baine with falling rocks.
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Mind you, he only really started to hate and distrust the Shikaar after talking with Tomul, who has all the smoothness of coarse-grit sandpaper.
Me, I’d have talked Lasan Skyhorn to come out and have a chin-wag with Baine to catch him up on who’s who amongst the Maruukai.
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The issue I take with this is that a rookie leader would make the mistakes Baine made in this questline. Problem is, Baine has been high chieftain of the tauren for several years. He’s not new to politics and diplomacy. That’s why the writing of the questline makes little sense for him. He needed to be the wobbly voice of reason that plays off an everyman. Even if we ignore that, he should be aware at least of the civil war (instead, he went in knowing next to nothing of the situation).
The set up should have been that Baine advised the tauren party against traveling to the Ohnaran Plains because of reports of a civil war going on, but upon their disappearance felt he needed to be the one leading the search party. Bring an everyman to be the one that reacts rashly to the centaur, Baine trying to be diplomatic but also showing some distrust in the centaur. Build your story from there. You can thus show cracks in Baine’s armor without making him look like a fool.
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The last decade of WoW be like
Humans didn’t almost drive them to extinction nor tried to eat him. Humans of the Alliance can be reasoned with and said they would accept a Tauren surrender at any time.
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I actually thought that was exactly why it wasn’t bad writing. Because every time we hear another Horde leader opine on Baine, they call him untested and unready for the burdens of leadership he has to carry. He IS a rookie leader. Part of that is that despite Baine being in this position since… MoP I think? Blizzard hasn’t really utilized his character much at all. So his character arc has been extremely delayed.
While I won’t blame Blizzard for how they handled Baine in this story since I think it’s entirely keeping with his character arc, I will blame them for starting his character arc this late. The fact that they’ve done next to nothing with Baine until now is half the problem here.
Anyway I have some work to get done today so this is probably my last post in this thread for a bit. Cheers! I might check back after work.
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You’re applying logic to Childhood trauma. Childhood trauma does not respond to logic.
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That and he was almost eaten alive by Centaur and he finds out on the Isles that Centaur attacked and kidnapped his savior.
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