Whenever the Horde was under the control of a power mad dictator like Garrosh or Sylvanas and they were in trouble, they turned to the Alliance for help. Unlike the rest of the Horde, they’ve always kept a largely friendly relationship with their Alliance counterparts. When Baine was rescued, he came to Stormwind for sanctuary as did Mayla Highmountain.
Despite their tribalistic nature, they have always had more in common with the Alliance than the Horde in that they are largely peaceful and don’t seek out conflict which constantly puts them at odds with their allies in the Horde that are of a significantly more warlike bent. They’ve historically maintained such good relations with the Night Elves that they even consented to train them as fellow Druids who largely considered them peers instead of mere students.
The Grimtotem might fit in with the Horde’s ideals, but the rest of the Tauren? Not so much.
And even under wise leaders like Thrall, questionable practices went on within the Horde particularly with the Forsaken that the Tauren found extremely distasteful and had difficulty reconciling.
They’ve constantly questioned their relationship with the Horde which is only fair considering it has dragged them into entirely needless conflicts with the Alliance not once but twice now. So why do they realistically stay with the Horde when outside of a few instances it has largely been a negative experience for them?
Some in the Alliance might hate the Horde, but I very much doubt there are many who have a legitimate grievance they can lay at the feet of the Tauren people. Heck, even Genn Greymane and Jaina Proudmoore have a lot of respect for the Tauren whom they see as fundamentally ‘different’ from the rest of the Horde. As an Alliance player, I can relate to the Tauren as a people in a way that is almost impossible for the rest of the Horde.
When the Tauren needed them, the Alliance always came to their aid. They’ve traditionally been better friends than they’ve been enemies, so wouldn’t they make even better allies?
While the Tauren have been essential as a voice of reason and morality for the rest of the Horde, frankly it’s time the rest of them grew up. The Tauren don’t need to be the Horde’s emotional crutch nor should they feel obligated to be. If they can’t survive without the Tauren being their indispensable morale compass, do they really deserve to?
tauren fit with the horde, orc’s story has always been one of trying to better themselves, and so has been alot of the other horde, they either already fit or are trying too. A Tauren are there to show the right path to those struggling I think its needed for them to be in the horde. Its forsaken that don’t fit, as the xpacs gone and gone, from vanilla to bfa, they have walked further and further away from the ideals the horde embody, and the forsaken never started close to those ideals in the first place.
The Forsaken have never embodied the tenants of the Horde but have largely only used them as a bulwark to shield them from their enemies. Now that Sylvanas’ poisonous influence is finally excised, there’s a real hope that they have a path forward to truly grow as individuals and as a people instead of brainwashed pawns to the Banshee Queen’s will.
The Orcs though? Initially they tried to better themselves under Thrall, that’s true. However, all it took was someone like Garrosh to entice them back into the old ways of glorious bloodshed and slaughter and I think that mindset will always be there. Some have truly grown out of that, but they are precious few and I don’t ever see them being more than aberrations.
And just look how that worked out. Suffice to say, more than a few of them are regretting that.
Blood oaths have become an excuse and a chain that the Horde has wrapped around the Tauren and used to push them into joining their atrocities. The Orcs did the Tauren a great service yes, but how many times have they and the rest of the Horde subsequently proven themselves manifestly unworthy of that oath?
It’s become a chain that the Horde has abused more than it has honored and deserves to be broken.
Didn’t the blood elves also? They were still willing to faction change, and some of them already have, lol
Though if you mean a different oath than the swearing-in, I don’t remember them making one.
/shrug Baine disagrees. He flatly turned down Jaina’s attempts to bring them into the Alliance.
The tauren are devoted to the Horde. Baine and his kin will work against warchiefs that they believe to be in the wrong, but they are loyal to their ideal Horde.
They’ll fight to see their ideal Horde come to power, not abandon the Horde. If the Horde goes off the beaten path, they’ll fight to bring it back on, as they’ve done so before.
No? They just joined the Horde, they didn’t make the generation oath the tauren did.
For the most part, the Horde hasn’t ever asked the Alliance for help with their internal issues. Medivh directed them with working together against the Warsong clan when they were under the command of the Burning Legion. They Alliance approached Vol’jin and it was Anduin who decided to release and support Saurfang and directed Alliance to do the same
The only real exception to this when Baine turned to Jaina (a honorable enemy) to acquire gold for his battle against Magatha, on account of not unknowing if Garrosh had willingly allowed Magatha to poison Gorehowl or not. The fact that Garrosh bizarrely sat out the conflict between Baine and Magatha, justified this.
That’s not what happened. When was Baine rescued from the Underhold he returned to Thunder Bluff, he never once came to Stormwind for sanctuary. He was only in Stormwind, along with Mayla, for the Vision of N’Zoth in-game cinematic. Thus it’s reasonably to assume that that they had arrived in order to help coordinate both the Horde and the Alliance against the threat of N’Zoth.
When it comes down to the Tauren joined the Horde in Warcraft 3 because Thrall and the orcs saved them and the the majority of the Tauren see remaining apart of the Horde as honoring that life debt.
The Tauren fit very well with the Orcs. They rebelled against Garrosh and Sylvanas, but so did everyone else.
Some have mentioned that the Horde helped save them from the Centaurs when the Night Elves did nothing. But people also seem to be forgetting how the Dwarves wiped out one of the Tauren tribes.
Well to be fair it is because they are on the Horde and races don’t change side.
From a lore perspective the Horde have shown they aren’t the same faction that Cairne had committed the Tauren to initially. They have not only failed to redeem themselves but actively dragged the tauren into wars with their neighbors. Not to mention there is no warchief so there is no longer a blood debt.
On the flip side the Alliance have now saved Baine twice and helped save the Tauren once. At this point they kinda owe the Alliance more than they ever did the Horde.
So yes the Tauren should probably Bail on the Horde, they are strong enough to stand apart from the Horde. However it will never happen, so Just like the Blood elves were thinking of leaving but never did there will always be a reason for them to stay.
…I’m not saying you don’t have a point, but it seems curious to ask for a reason, then immediately discount the actual reason.
That’s the lore reason.
Mechanically, as others have pointed out, it’s not wise to shift one entire race from one faction to the other…especially if it’s not permanent. Imagine what would happen to guilds, for example.
From a story perspective, I like to think that the Tauren are trying to shift the Horde towards a more balanced, peaceful lifestyle. Back when the game launched, with the original four? Trolls were pretty violent, orcs were quick to anger, the Forsaken were…well, the Forsaken. The Tauren were the ones who were a bit more measured. You can even see that in the opening cinematic.
But that’s just in my head. Lore wise, it’s the oath from when the orcs saved them from marauding centaur; mechanically, it’s because it would be far too disruptive.
Thrall was iffy on the Forsaken joining. It was Hamul Runetotem, a Tauren, that convinced them to let the Forsaken join.
It has largely been positive. The Horde has still helped them in trade, the Grimtotem, surrounding enemies, and coordinating military efforts for greater threats. But also clearly loyalty instead of jumping ship after so many years helping one another.
While they’d indeed be unlikely to join the Alliance anyway, overall the tauren don’t seem nearly as upset about Taurajo as the players are. Probably because unlike the players, they don’t meta-classify themselves as “the cuddly good Horde race who didn’t deserve that,” and with noted individual exceptions they’re just not generally inclined to latch onto grievances to the detriment of ending or minimizing further bloodshed.
Just the fact that Baine was even able to banish those who sought revenge without backlash from the other tribes - in fact some tribes were outright threatening to leave under Garrosh because they felt Baine was putting the Warchief’s priorities in the war ahead of the well being of the tauren - suggests that most of the tauren aren’t exactly nursing a bitter grudge over the whole thing.
For that matter, plenty of them might recall that frankly Garrosh’s war got a lot more tauren killed for no good reason than what was lost at Taurajo. Including a village in Stonetalon that was wrongfully wiped out by the Horde itself.