Why Is Baine Even A Part of the Horde?

He has committed treason against the Horde on two separate occasions in favor of the Alliance, both of which were times that the Horde and Alliance were actively at war with one another.
Which included:
Baine warned Jaina ahead of time of Garrosh’s assault on Theramore, so she would have ample time to stage a defense.
And now he has gone out and actually killed Horde soldiers to set free an Alliance prison, and sent him back home.

Past that, there are other reasons that, when all added together, cause Baine to continue remaining a member of the Horde to not make any sense.

His father was slain in combat by the Horde’s fourth Warchief.

When the Grimtotem staged a coup and attempted to take over Thunder Bluff, it was the Alliance who sent aid, whereas the rest of the Horde told him to screw off.

His entire faction was kicked out of the Horde once.

And to top it all off, he’s penpals with the King of Stormwind, to the point where Baine sent a literal piece of himself to him.

Nowadays, all Baine does is complain about how “dishonorable the Horde has become”. Like dude, if you hate the Horde that much JUST LEAVE!

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I’ve been asking myself the same question. I’d happily dishonorably discharge him from the Horde myself if I had the chance.

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Because Blizz wants us to like Baine on Horde-side. They try to make him look good, but we all hate him for being literally a traitor. CT? He would go so far as banish his own people for even daring to retaliate against his Alliance buddies. Let us not forget the Alliance equipping the Grimtotem, Baines mortal enemy. In all, Baine is a useless character who should be killed off by now. Sadly he is only imprisoned and will remain there until coward Saurfang returns with his Alliance overlords, kills our Warchief and either becomes Warchief or makes Baine Warchief. At which point, the Zandalari I will be playing will refuse to acknowledge that traitor. Thankfully the Zandalari are not TECHNICALLY part of the Horde but simply allies on equal footing.

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I mean, killing horde members is part and parcel of being member of the horde.

Heck, Sylvanas does it all the time and she’s the warchief. This must be blizz clever way to foreshadow HE will be the next one

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Cairne was great. Baine has always been trash from the first time he showed up in WC3 as a horrendous escort mission.

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If you’ve ever seen Excel Saga, he is our version of Menchi.

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Generational blood oath. The tauren, seemingly as a race, swore a blood oath to the Horde, that’s apparently (according to the WoW guide) generational. Since it’s only been, what, thirteen years? We’re still a long way off from that being fulfilled.

well, to be fair, that traitorous action amounted to nothing, since Garrosh’s plan hinged on the Alliance knowing they were coming and giving them ample time to stage a defence. In fact, Baine thought Garrosh was giving the Alliance too much time to prepare.

Hey now, that’s a massive misinterpation of the events. Baine didn’t even approach any of the other Horde leaders since he didn’t know if Garrosh was in on the Grimtotem take over, and if so, if the other Horde leaders would support him. You can certainly cite a lack of faith Baine had in the Horde, but the other leaders didn’t turn him down, he didn’t even ask them.

Also, the Alliance did not send aid, Jaina gave Baine money. The other Alliance leaders were shocked and angry when they learnt of this, with Varian even saying that it was grounds for being arrested (though Jaina told him to screw off, and if he pushed it, she would leave the Alliance).

The situation was not as cut and dry as you portrayed it. Jaina was not acting on behalf of the Alliance, and the Alliance did not approve of it when they learnt of it.

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Pretty simple to me really, the Alliance won’t accept Tauren, and being with the Horde is better than being neutral.

This didn’t happen. He specifically did not turn to the rest of the Horde because he was not sure who he could trust.

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The Alliance just accepted VOID ELVES. The Tauren would be considered honored members if they joined. Aside from Anduin being all for it, and Jaina, even the Night Elves would be stoked to have the Tauren fighting alongside them.

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Because he’s cool.

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I don’t really understand the comparison, what do Void Elves and Tauren have in common?

I do understand the relationship between Tauren and Night Elves, Anduin and Baine, and even Jaina and Baine along with various other Horde members over time, I’m an avid WoW novel reader. But that still doesn’t have much effect on the “political affiliation” of joining Alliance. There’s been all this cooperation with Alliance via Baine, but has there been a single overture for Tauren to join them? I don’t think so. It’s also not just a matter of “these guys are cool”, there’s logistics and practicality to consider. Mulgore sits in the heart of Horde country, with Theramore gone, they are literally the furthest from any Alliance territories, which means Alliance protection would be hard to come by, if not impossible.

But seriously, what’s the deal with the Void Elf comparison? This isn’t sarcasm, I haven’t played much in the last few months so I’m sure I’ve missed a lot.

They don’t have anything in common. The statement is a, “If the Alliance will accept Void Elves of all things, then they’ll accept anyone.”

I may be wrong but I believe Northwatch still stands, as do Alliance forts within the Barrens. There is also Feralas to the South which has Night Elves and Tauren in it predominantly. The reality is, the Tauren joining the Alliance places a major Alliance stronghold close to the Horde’s capital of Orgrimmar, and isolates it from any other major Horde capital at the same time. The Horde would be forced to fight the Tauren from the South and Naval Assaults from the East. Meanwhile they’re already fighting in the North over Night Elf territory.

Ah ok I get it now. But to accept that, I’d have to believe the Alliance would accept undead, which I’d say was impossible up until I read Before the Storm. But I don’t want to derail into another Calia thread.

thanks for the clarification

No problem, but do keep in mind the Alliance accepted Death Knights so… yeah.

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I wish they’d just put him up in stormwind where he belongs. He’s without a doubt the worst “horde” character.

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The same reason why Sylvanas is still Warchief.

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Baines issue is the fact the horde story is written to have its morality be what the alliance would think is good or bad.
I said it before and i will say it again, if blizzard wanted to turn people against sylvanas, they should have played up sylvanas destroying undercity. Or at the very least said that she was losing the war with her hasty “Win the war in this next battle” strategies. But instead we are given reasons for the alliance to hate sylvanas as reasons the horde should as well.

Baine get’s the worst of it as one of the main writer who propagates this, Christie Golden uses him as one of her pets, along with the Wrynns and Jaina. She hasn’t ever really played horde, and has no clue what horde players like and dislike. She wrote 2 novels that helped make the modern horde, but she just laid the groundwork for other authors to build upon.

I say we should just look at the goblin character she made, Grizzek. He hates other goblins and likes gnomes, and is popular amongst the alliance because he is shown liking the alliance race more then the horde one (Though, considering everything else golden says about goblins in her book…)

Hordewise we also have goblins that break the goblin mode in unique ways, the most famous of which is Gazlowe, who is a goblin architect, who loves the horde. Sassy is another moral goblin, who cares for her fellow cartel members.
But no, in Before the Storm, golden decided the only way for a goblin to be sympathetic was for him to prefer gnomes to goblins.

Baine in a cut bit of legion content called Battle at the Great Gate had an amazing speech of not allowing the taurens peaceful ways to stop him from protecting them from the alliance invasion, showing he cares about his people more then anything else but golden went the opposite direction, with it appearing he couldn’t care less about the tauren and cared more about the alliance.

She never played Horde, so she has no Idea what horde players like, it’s why whenever she writes a nom-evil horde character, they seem to favor the alliance, she doesn’t know what the horde wants and assumes it is the same as what the alliance wants.

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Which is why I vehemently refuse to accept anything Christie writes as canon, because she has about as much clue of the existing lore as a dodo has knowledge on how to not be extinct. Sadly, Christie will make the Horde a punching bag for a couple of more months until N’zoth is free. At which point Sylvanas is either murdered by Bainduin Bloodwrynn or Traitorfang and we are forced to have either of the two Alliance pets as our Warchief. Thank god that the Zandalari are largely uneffected… yet, by Christie’s inability to write a decent plot. Meaning they are not really subservient to the Horde but equal allies and can choose to hold a grudge for as long as they want… until Christie gets her grubby hands on Talanji and does it to where SHE starts ordering executions or banishments to those who would dare harm her Alliance busom-buddies.

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She wrote Lord of the clans, bud, let’s not get carried away there.

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