Proudmoore Reunion Cinematic - 8.1.5 War Campaign (Spoilers)

[Sangris]

And people discuss the "rightness" of Baine without any blinders? Wat? The only people that claim Baine is righteous are the ones who can't handle Sylvanas and argue that Baine is right precisely because Sylvanas is wrong (or, in one case, argue that Baine is a good character because he'd be a good character if everything about him changed), as if both couldn't be wrong at the same time. So sorry to deliver this information to you, but Baine is such a failure as a character (or anything, really) that even he needs Sylvanas to carry him forward.

Please tell me there aren't actually people who think this is a valid argument. Please tell me it was sarcasm. Don't make me lose even more faith in humanity.

[Aucald]

Please tell me there aren't actually people who think this is a valid argument. Please tell me it was sarcasm. Don't make me lose even more faith in humanity.

I can't think of anyone who argues that Baine is righteous, only that it is possible he may be right (as opposed to Sylvanas' being wrong). I would argue that Baine is right but for the wrong reasons - in accordance with the old aphorism about the broken clock being right at least twice a day, as it were. I also don't think that Baine is some kind of Alliance shill, turncoat, or double-agent in the way many seem to, but I would agree that his view of the Horde doesn't match the reality of the Horde (and likely never did).

[Mehrunes]

Please tell me there aren't actually people who think this is a valid argument. Please tell me it was sarcasm. Don't make me lose even more faith in humanity.

Yup. Now, to make things clear, that particular argument was only whether Baine is a good character or not, not whether he's morally justified and whatnot. Paging @Wildberry and @Super Dickmann as they can attest I'm not making things up (I wasn't even part to that discussion).

[KrakHed]

And even your assertion that Sylvanas is an avatar of a Deus Ex Machina is complete BS, because Sylvanas doesn't know about it and as such it plays nothing into her motivation. It was nothing more than plot device to push her plot forward. Blaming Sylvanas as a character for that makes no sense whatsoever.

Fine then. She's always been a boring character. The thing is that unlike other boring villains, there's been no raid to kill her yet. She's not more complex or interesting than a picture of a stretched out anus posted in public. People will complain as long as its there and a few freaks will get off to it for being a strong female character.

[Zappidoo]

"Notice the blade" YOU MEAN A WARRIOR HAS A BLADE? AHMIGOD, THE BETRAYAL! :P
On a more serious note. Just having something means absolutely nothing. I got a red lightsaber, it dont mean ima Sith Lord :P

Kinda does though.... well maybe not a Lord

[Aucald]

Fine then. She's always been a boring character. The thing is that unlike other boring villains, there's been no raid to kill her yet. She's not more complex or interesting than a picture of a stretched out anus posted in public. People will complain as long as its there and a few freaks will get off to it for being a strong female character.

I wouldn't call Sylvanas "boring," but neither do I find her compelling or ultimately complex. Sylvanas fundamentally is what she does insofar as the story is concerned - she moves and the world reacts. We know what she's doing, we know more or less why she's doing it, and we know why it's done. Sylvanas, as a mover of plot, is ultimately two-dimensional. Everything the touches on Sylvanas concerns people's agreement or disagreement with her actions: the murder of the Desolate Council, the burning of Teldrassil, the raising of Derek Proudmoore, etc. etc. Baine, on the hand, has complicated stances that are internal to him - whether or not one agrees with them they arise from him and his history, and can be traced back to his actions from his very inception as a major character (discounting his childhood as depicted in WC3: TFT). Sylvanas' rationale, such that she has it, is more or less a black box - she's perfectly consistent, and that consistency makes her somewhat bland (the same criticism often leveled appropriately at Anduin). She's the two-dimensional evil to Anduin's two-dimensional good.

I put Baine in a similar class or tier to Genn - their positions are complex, their loyalties tinctured, and they ultimately serve their own people and associated ideals over their chosen faction.

[Super Dickmann]

Fine then. She's always been a boring character. The thing is that unlike other boring villains, there's been no raid to kill her yet. She's not more complex or interesting than a picture of a stretched out anus posted in public. People will complain as long as its there and a few freaks will get off to it for being a strong female character.

I'm glad you've retreated from making a substantive argument to this, but you don't really need to look far to see that people are arguing her actions on the basis of their merit and have been doing so for years. Hell, people are arguing over it across the other thread with Baine's name on it a lot more vociferously than anyone's bothering to defend the burger in question. And there's so many of them that Blizzard were forced to change quests and delay her heel turn at the expense of their own cobbled together storyline, solely to temporarily appease said players.

@Aucald

That's a bizarre comparison. Genn not only ultimately serves his people, rather than the opposite faction or some abstraction, but has developed significantly over his time as a character. WC2 Genn to Cata Genn to BTS Genn are all recognizably the same guy, but he changes based on what happens to him. Baine is entirely static. You can predict every move he'll make on the basis of whether a member of the Alliance is penalized or not. If such a situation doesn't occur, he will not be meaningfully involved. His care for his people is not even an informed trait because the game itself is aware that his conduct is in some degree selfish and has characters we're meant to like like Lor'themar comment on it.

[KrakHed]

I'm glad you've retreated from making a substantive argument to this, but you don't really need to look far to see that people are arguing her actions on the basis of their merit and have been doing so for years. Hell, people are arguing over it across the other thread with Baine's name on it a lot more vociferously than anyone's bothering to defend the burger in question. And there's so many of them that Blizzard were forced to change quests and delay her heel turn at the expense of their own cobbled together storyline, solely to temporarily appease said players.

And I don't believe any of the arguments in her defense are really genuine. People will defend her for killing loyal subjects who were in no way hostile to her and scream at Baine for killing people who refused to surrender while sparing everyone who did, as if he's literally Satan.

Sylvanas herself is a lot less interesting than her defenders.

[Super Dickmann]

And I don't believe any of the arguments in her defense are really genuine. People will defend her for killing loyal subjects who were in no way hostile to her and scream at Baine for killing people who refused to surrender while sparing everyone who did, as if he's literally Satan.

Sylvanas herself is a lot less interesting than her defenders.

The arguments themselves are there and they're constant and have been for years. That people would treat people in the process of defecting from their side differently than they would someone actively attacking his own side for the purposes of benefiting the group they're at war with is a given. What one makes of the arguments involved is another topic entirely. As I mentioned in a chat with Qualia, Baine is a beneficiary of being part of a fictional narrative. The positions he has, taken into any real context, are farcical and are supported by virtually no one, but the level of abstraction and idealism that a game provides means that only takes place when someone thinks about it.

[KrakHed]

The arguments themselves are there and they're constant and have been for years. That people would treat people in the process of defecting from their side differently than they would someone actively attacking his own side for the purposes of benefiting the group they're at war with is a given. What one makes of the arguments involved is another topic entirely. As I mentioned in a chat with Qualia, Baine is a beneficiary of being part of a fictional narrative. The positions he has, taken into any real context, are farcical and are supported by virtually no one, but the level of abstraction and idealism that a game provides means that only takes place when someone thinks about it.

Yes, and the arguments are disingenuous as fuck. They don't actually mean anything. They're hardly fueled by what's actually happening, but because people are terrified of Anduin on a meta level or are obsessed with Sylvanas.

Baine, placed in a real context, would probably be executed by his nation, but end up being seen as a heroic figure by future generations.

[Mehrunes]

Fine then. She's always been a boring character. The thing is that unlike other boring villains, there's been no raid to kill her yet. She's not more complex or interesting than a picture of a stretched out anus posted in public. People will complain as long as its there and a few freaks will get off to it for being a strong female character.

Uh huh. I guess that's precisely why you tried to create the false narrative that Sylvanas is only being discussed in context of the hypothetical outcome of the war and why you had no counter to what I said in reply to that.

I'm really not sure who are you trying to convince with your fantasies. Just admit you'd like your hero Baine to be Warchief and move on, you won't get imprisoned for that.

[KrakHed]

Uh huh. I guess that's precisely why you tried to create the false narrative that Sylvanas is only being discussed in context of the hypothetical outcome of the war and why you had no counter to what I said in reply to that.

I'm really not sure who are you trying to convince with your fantasies. Just admit you'd like your hero Baine to be Warchief and move on, you won't get imprisoned for that.

Hrm? Did you say something like that? I generally tune out most of the blather that defends Sylvanas, so I might have missed it. Being realistic, though, Sylvanas arguments tend to come down to how much she really cares about the Forsaken. It's the same old tired argument with an obvious answer, that some people refuse to accept.

She's just a shallow character who some people think is deep for some reason, and that's what all the arguments are. Some people insist she's deep, others point out she's really not. Repeat ad infinitum.

[Super Dickmann]

Yes, and the arguments are disingenuous as fuck. They don't actually mean anything. They're hardly fueled by what's actually happening, but because people are terrified of Anduin on a meta level or are obsessed with Sylvanas.

Baine, placed in a real context, would probably be executed by his nation, but end up being seen as a heroic figure by future generations.

You would have a case to make if Sylvanas were only argued about for the past say, six months, when it became abundantly clear she was on the chopping block instead of being a popular character since inception. But virtually everything has been debated for years. I lack your telepathy, so I can't divine people's motives when they post, but I'd say those who do post out of spite or for meta reasons are a minority. I for example don't bother with the moral case for the war since there's no point, Sylvanas is plainly wrong. But my position is extremely rare in the amount of people arguing Sylvanas's case. As for individual character obsession, the Sylvanas poster boogeyman is a constant meme that doesn't go anywhere. The reality is that characters like Sylvanas and Garrosh are held to a higher standard in terms of their conduct because the game injects more reality into how their conduct would be viewed and treated, which they exempt for 'good' characters or even just characters who are temporarily heroic. Say Illidan for example, who's by any metric Garrosh's moral inferior, and you could even make a case he's equivalent to Sylvanas, but is practically deified by the narrative.

Nothing of Baine's long line of actions would be tolerated by any state. By contrast, delivering the harshest penalty possible to traitors is a given anywhere outside of heroic fantasy.

[Mehrunes]

I wouldn't call Sylvanas "boring," but neither do I find her compelling or ultimately complex. Sylvanas fundamentally is what she does insofar as the story is concerned - she moves and the world reacts. We know what she's doing, we know more or less why she's doing it, and we know why it's done. Sylvanas, as a mover of plot, is ultimately two-dimensional. Everything the touches on Sylvanas concerns people's agreement or disagreement with her actions: the murder of the Desolate Council, the burning of Teldrassil, the raising of Derek Proudmoore, etc. etc.

Which is why, for example, Saurfang agreed with the logic of Sylvanas' explanation for torching Teldrassil but disagreed with the morality of it. Totally two-dimensional.

Baine, on the hand, has complicated stances that are internal to him - whether or not one agrees with them they arise from him and his history, and can be traced back to his actions from his very inception as a major character (discounting his childhood as depicted in WC3: TFT). Sylvanas' rationale, such that she has it, is more or less a black box - she's perfectly consistent, and that consistency makes her somewhat bland (the same criticism often leveled appropriately at Anduin). She's the two-dimensional evil to Anduin's two-dimensional good.

There's absolutely nothing complicated about Baine. He likes Jaina. He likes Anduin. He hates when the Horde does anything that would put those two at risk. He acts in accordance to those pillars of his character. And while it can be traced to his inception as a major character, it does not explain it. Because his first act as a major character was already not trusting the Horde and deliberately not asking any Horde race for help and instead crawling to Alliance. So we have no actual background for his Alliance sycophancy. It just randomly materialized when Baine stepped into the spotlight.

Sylvanas on the other hand had the major shift in goals from seeking vengeance against Arthas (which consumed her so much she wanted to kill herself after his death) to seeking true immortality for herself and her people while destroying all threats. Then there's her change in her actions from before she was Warchief to after she became Warchief. Her continual shutting out her past life whenever she gets burned. Her stance on undeath evolving over the years. Or on the Forsaken. So on and so forth. And she isn't two-dimensional evil because neither does she do evil for evil's sake (unlike Anduin, who literally has a goodness compass in his bones and acts in accordance to it even if his first instinct is to do something else), nor does she always do evil. Neither your contrasting her to Baine nor your comparison of her to Anduin make a sliver of sense.

I put Baine in a similar class or tier to Genn - their positions are complex, their loyalties tinctured, and they ultimately serve their own people and associated ideals over their chosen faction.

What on earth is complex about appeasing Alliance at every turn and bitching about the Horde for not following suit? And how does Baine serve his own people? By doing nothing when Alliance tried to breach the Great Gate? By exiling them for seeking retribution against Alliance aggression? By putting them at risk by divulging Horde's battle plans to the enemy? What game are you playing? Because it ain't Warcraft.

[KrakHed]

You would have a case to make if Sylvanas were only argued about for the past say, six months, when it became abundantly clear she was on the chopping block instead of being a popular character since inception. But virtually everything has been debated for years. I lack your telepathy, so I can't divine people's motives when they post, but I'd say those who do post out of spite or for meta reasons are a minority. I for example don't bother with the moral case for the war since there's no point, Sylvanas is plainly wrong. But my position is extremely rare in the amount of people arguing Sylvanas's case. As for individual character obsession, the Sylvanas poster boogeyman is a constant meme that doesn't go anywhere. The reality is that characters like Sylvanas and Garrosh are held to a higher standard in terms of their conduct because the game injects more reality into how their conduct would be viewed and treated, which they exempt for 'good' characters or even just characters who are temporarily heroic. Say Illidan for example, who's by any metric Garrosh's moral inferior, and you could even make a case he's equivalent to Sylvanas, but is practically deified by the narrative.

Nothing of Baine's long line of actions would be tolerated by any state. By contrast, delivering the harshest penalty possible to traitors is a given anywhere outside of heroic fantasy.

Sure. And then Baine would wind up a hero in the history books, a martyr of sorts, in the long run. Someone would probably make a movie glorifying his life.

And sure, Sylvanas had fans for some time. I can understand why, but not why any would think she's this deep and tragic character. People build up these characters in their minds to be more than they are. Sylvanas is, and has always been, pretty obviously a villain character. Understanding her character, becoming a better person as Warchief was never on the table. Her seemingly heroic appearance in Legion was more OOC than anything.

I'm a Forsaken player, I like edgy shit, I like pragmatism. I still see Sylvanas as flat and cartoonish by those standards, and she doesn't even make it fun.

[Mehrunes]

And I don't believe any of the arguments in her defense are really genuine.

Damn, did not anticipate such a strong argument from you. I guess there's nothing left than to concede now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Verdugo]

I'm a Forsaken player, I like edgy shit, I like pragmatism. I still see Sylvanas as flat and cartoonish by those standards, and she doesn't even make it fun.

And you honestly believe that it will be better once she is gone? You will with 90% certainty get Calia and suck even more. Why the fuck do you even want your favourite faction to be even worse than it currently is.

[Mehrunes]

Yes, and the arguments are disingenuous as fuck. They don't actually mean anything. They're hardly fueled by what's actually happening, but because people are terrified of Anduin on a meta level or are obsessed with Sylvanas.

And now you're resorting back to your silly fiction about how Sylvanas is only being discussed in context of the hypothetical outcome of the war and hasn't been discussed long before the war or even becoming Warchief (and, consequently, the aforementioned hypothetical outcome)... I mean, given how strong your argument about you choosing not to believe things was, I'm not sure why your backtracking here was even necessary.

I'm a Forsaken player, I like edgy shit, I like pragmatism. I still see Sylvanas as flat and cartoonish by those standards, and she doesn't even make it fun.

Repeatedly carrying water for Baine is the apotheosis of edge, it is true. And pragmatism, as his Alliance sycophancy can bring nothing but prosperity to his people and his entire faction. The people he banished for even desiring striking back at his human overlords are particularly prosperous right now. They are pretty much Horde's 1% now and make Gallywix look like a beggar by comparison.

[KrakHed]

And you honestly believe that it will be better once she is gone? You will with 90% certainty get Calia and suck even more. Why the fuck do you even want your favourite faction to be even worse than it currently is.

Simple. I don't believe we'll get stuck with Calia. No more than I'd expect Magatha Grimtotem to be the new Tauren leader.

We've already lost Lordaeron, so we're already pretty fucked even if we kept Sylvanas.

[Super Dickmann]

Sure. And then Baine would wind up a hero in the history books, a martyr of sorts, in the long run. Someone would probably make a movie glorifying his life.

And sure, Sylvanas had fans for some time. I can understand why, but not why any would think she's this deep and tragic character. People build up these characters in their minds to be more than they are. Sylvanas is, and has always been, pretty obviously a villain character. Understanding her character, becoming a better person as Warchief was never on the table. Her seemingly heroic appearance in Legion was more OOC than anything.

I'm a Forsaken player, I like edgy shit, I like pragmatism. I still see Sylvanas as flat and cartoonish by those standards, and she doesn't even make it fun.

No one likes a quisling. You find me someone who gave up a large portion of his land, benefited those who attacked his people and sabotaged those he was allied with and is later viewed positively, I'll give you a medal. Hell, you find me one who didn't end up hanging from a tree I'll give you a medal.

I'm also a Forsaken player, which is why I disagree so heavily with your reading of both Sylvanas and the nature of her support. Heroism in the classical sense was never what Sylvanas was suited for, but the Forsaken were, while manifestly evil, consistently the heroes of their own story up until this expansion. The game picked no bones about who they were, their relation with Sylvanas or their moral compass or lack thereof. Yet it still portrayed them as capable of virtue within their own society. No one can look at Sylvanas' appearances in Silverpine for example and take away that this was a character the player was meant to dislike. That she was capable of being made a heroic figure in a more generic sense is a given. The writers made Illidan a hero and made humanity tolerate the undead. Making the Forsaken appreciate their allies and Sylvanas extend her view of who her people were is far less of a reach. It was a narrative choice that kept this from happening, not Blizzard's inability to do it or the characters being unsuited for it.