Council? Actually, Baine is the unofficial Warchief

[Super Dickmann]

I think you read far too much into Jaina's change of heart than what is actually on offer. She softens a bit, sure; but turn her long-lost brother into a brainwashed Forsaken assassin and send him gunning for her and her family? Jaina's not going to take that lying down, especially not after all the shit she's already been through to get where she currently is. She may not go off-the-walls crazy like she did post-Theramore, but regardless, some Horde soldiers are going to die shortly after that goes down on her way to wherever Sylvanas might be found. She's got more than enough power to see it done, and has gone off for less reason in the past.

What I'm saying is that it would not change overall Alliance policy, given how this can be pinned exclusively on Nathanos and Sylvanas unlike most everything the Alliance overlook, and its relatively narrow scope. In terms of Jaina's reaction, I'll freely admit that my position is purely speculation based on what we see of her before, since we don't know what would have happened, as it didn't actually happen. That having been said, I think given that her ultimate conclusion was that most in the Horde have at least the capacity to be fundamentally decent and lack responsibility and in turn, that Garrosh/Sylvanas were the bad eggs, and that the destruction of her city, the attacks on her people, etc. etc. by the Horde at large wouldn't change it, a crime upon her family inflicted by Sylvanas in particular would be unlikely to shake it.

If I were to steelman this entire scenario, I'd go with the fact that the flimsiness of the plan was intentional, as was its publicity. I.e, that Sylvanas publicly raised Derek to make the rest of the Horde culpable in it by being aware and not doing anything, and didn't care whether he killed Jaina or not because the real aim would be to piss Jaina off into throwing a compromise off the table. I don't actually buy this though, because the Horde is never privy to Jaina's character turn and still assumes she's out for blood, as evidenced by Rexxar or Talanji's position for instance, and that Jaina might waver would be needed for this to take place.

This is a point in any single-minded dislike or outright hatred where you can't permit a character to be seen in any form of positive light. You'll over-emphasize them when they're at the worst, and recontextualize them into sucking when they're arguably at their best. The inverse is often true for characters people like - they can do not wrong, and when and if they do wrong it's often cause to justify them with obtuse metaphors or ecstatic rationalizations. Baine is flawed without a doubt, and he's done some truly dumb things as a leader - but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the saying goes. An utter refusal to give Baine *any* possibility of doing the right thing is far from objective.

It's no secret that I loathe Baine as a character and what his actions actually entail with the vast gulf in how they're presented to us as some epitome of virtue. He's basically everything that's wrong with the Horde in narrative form. That being said, when I give Baine shit, it's when he does or doesn't do something - see his reaction to Taurajo, his actions with the Quillboar, betraying the Horde at Theramore, betraying the Horde with Derek, etc. You'll notice I haven't given Baine shit for say, trying to kill the void creatures in the tauren heritage scenario, recruiting the Highmountain, fighting the Grimtotem dude at the end of Mulgore, and the like. But those moments are few, far between and lack much to actually discuss in them as compared to the magnitude of his fuck-ups which are always a big story focus and always treated by the narrative in a fashion anemic that's incoherent and ridiculous in the broader scheme of things as well as contextually.

Everyone has their breaking point. You are treating each incident as an isolated and completely discrete occurrence, judging them solely on their merit in a vacuum and so insinuating there's no causal link between one occurrence and the next. "Because Baine didn't react to this, or this, then obviously this last thing is too minor to matter." Baine simply reached the limit of what he could allow, after a long time suffering Sylvanas' misdeeds in relative silence. Baine's made little bones of his opposition to Sylvanas and her methods throughout BfA, so we already know he's very critical of her. He doesn't act in light of Teldrassil, doesn't act in light of Lordaeron, bides his time in Zuldazar, but when push finally comes to shove and something comes along where he can act then he does so. That's a good thing, and one totally in keeping with his character. As for his role within the Horde and the very idea of his changing hearts and minds, the very narrative is against you there - with Lor'themar calling him "the Heart of the Horde" and major Horde leaders from Rokhan to Thrall to Lor'themar to Thalyssra falling in with the rebel sentiment and acting either to aid Saurfang in rescuing Baine directly or afterward, sensing that the time to oppose Sylvanas is nigh. Those at the leader summit summit against Sylvanas was circumspect and unsure of it, save for perhaps Mayla and Rexxar; but Baine's action galvanizes them and does much to lead to the later movement against Sylvanas when Saurfang returns to the Horde proper.

Treating them as separate events is honestly the most charitable interpretation that they can be given, because in that context at least you can occasionally plead a lack of awareness on his part or an inability to intervene. When he does actually intervene however, it's about an offense magnitudes more minor than the ones he ignored, that's where the issue is, along with what he chooses to stand up for. Let's recall what he first committed treason for after all, namely a conventional attack on a city with a heavy military presence that was an aggressor to his people, that being Theramore. Even the idea that it'd be attacked was enough for Baine to tip Jaina off. Yet he does not react when Teldrassil is burned, nor to the harm inflicted upon his people by the Warchief, much bigger things, nor to the routine stuff we mentioned before. The only differentiating line that remains is that he moved when his friends were hurt, in this case Jaina, but not elsewhere. Is that the intended reading? Of course, not but it is what we have. Baine standing put for all the things we've gabbed on about endlessly, but acting for Derek does not make him look good, it makes him appear worse and to care less about the Horde, the tauren or a general loss of life than he does about his own personal relationships.

As for him rallying the leadership against Sylvanas, I'll give you that he becomes a martyr that drives the rest of these pansies to oppose her, but he also serves to further galvanize the Horde against them in terms of a mass movement. The killing of Horde troops in saving Baine alongside the Alliance and the public spectacle done of his sentencing which was deliberately engineered by Sylvanas to send a mass message both about his conduct and the cost of suffering is what ended up with the rebels being a minority instead of a majority when it came time to engage her and punted the ball over to Saurfang resolving the situation with Mak'gora. Both the publicity of Baine's sentencing and the break-in were ultimately harmful to the rebellion.

[Raisei]

There is indeed different kinds of slavery, which are variously morally abhorrent. Personally, I find poaching randos from your component nations to pit them in death matches for entertainment rather than for any functional purpose is the most detestable, because its slavery as a social structure rather than slavery as a temporary tool, but I can understand the arguments contrary to it. Put simply, Derek being tortured into slavery to then become an assassin I find only marginally worse than being mind controlled, and leagues preferable to say, the genocide of a city's worth of civilians, the raising of far more people as mind controlled slaves that are from your component nations, or the sending of their souls to hell. Derek does not rank even above the routine practices of the Horde, let alone the routine practices of its darkest component, being the Forsaken.

I can agree to those levels, the genocide at Teldrassil was definately above this, so was Theramore (or would have been without Rhonin's intervention and scarifice), but I have problems seeing those happenings as routine practices of the Horde (except the Forsaken). It is after all the two biggest events that the two dishonored and overthrown Warchiefs of the Horde are famous for.
Sure, the Horde loves to wage war, but usually they restrain themselves from outright slaughter of civilians, because even an orc (apart from the original Horde ones) realizes that there is no honor in killing someone that does not fight back. A war can be fought in a very honest and honorable way after all, army against army, tactic against tactic. Especially in a world like this where war is a near constant thing, war by itself is not the vile thing it is in our modern mindsets. It depends on the "what do we fight for" as the Panda said and "how do we fight" that decides who is on the right side.

You misunderstand the portion of that argument, but I'll address it anyway since the way this story ended is the ultimate demonstration that this could always have been solved within the Horde. The rebel+Alliance forces were set to lose, all of Baine's bullshit and Bob and Jaina joining sides to end up helping free N'zoth and so on were completely irrelevant. What took out Sylvanas was Mak'gora, and Baine should've done what Saurfang did if he had any issue with her and what his dad did when he had a much lesser issue with Garrosh. The greater point of my argument however isn't that he went behind her back, though that is a show of his weakness, but that the thing he did ultimately subvert her for was less than many of the things he's had zero response to and that he stuck with her through.

I assume it could have just as well been Baine in the Mak'gorah, but I think they wanted someone that more symbolizes the "old honorable Horde", and despite Baine going way back, Saurfang is a lot more famous and (for me personally) more interesting then an upright cow with totems on it's back.
So I am pretty sure the decision of who was in the Mak'gorah was made because of extrenal symbolism not internal logic. Thrall would have worked too maybe even better then Saurfang and considering that Metzen wants to retire I very much assumed he would be dying here. Baine was hated by the community way before this expansion so pushing him to the front like this would not have worked from a marketing standpoint.

Also one thing about the Mak'gorah is very important for this argument I find. A Warchief does not have to accept it, at least not from a traitor (which you can very easily be labeled as through the Blood Oath), she only took on Saurfang because she wanted to personally hurt him (and because she and everyone gathered knew she would win by default).
I doubt she feels the same hatred towards Baine, he does barely registers on her radar I would assume, so why get her own hands dirty and risk a scratch on flesh that does not heal when she can have him executed as a traitor.
The emotional reactions of Sylvanas are very clear here. She shouts at Saurfang, angry, maybe even a touch hurt, while with Baine, she speaks in a calm and measured tone, barely showing any emotion at all. She would have casually declined Baine's challenge I am sure.

A lot of the plan hinged on Sylvanas emotions really. As you say, the Rebel/Alliance was (because of some miracle that has yet to be explained) suddenly heavily outnumbered, they could not win conventionally, or at least that would have drained both forces to the breaking point. Saurfangs goal was to rile Sylvanas up so she would voice her true thoughts, basically just as Delaryn riled her up with her speech about hope. He remembered that, since he was standing just meters away during it.
Baine simply could not have done that. He is too small to unimportant to annoy Sylvanas enough, even if for some reason she had accepted a challenge from him, she would have turned him into hamburger in seconds and then went on, unimpressed.

I agree that honor is a big deal to the orcs and tauren, which is why my main problem with Sylvanas raising these people, as I've said often, isn't so much the out of story morality of it - since this is actually a callous but tactical decision rather than just being a genocidal barking bint, but the fact that there's no way that the orcs, who even when under demon blood were so respectful of the dead that Gul'dan feared they'd off him on the spot if he put his SHadow Council's souls into orcish bodies, had no response. That having been said, this is also aside from the point - the thing Baine took a stand for may make sense for him in-story, but I've argued throughout that he not only worsened the situation, but that within the knowledge that he had at the time, he was mistaken to intervene. That he believes that this is honorable and so forth has no value past in telling us what his motives are, it doesn't make these actions ipso facto virtuous to the audience. Only an assessment of what those actions are can do that.

I can't agree here. If in Baine's worldview honor is an essential part of being, a part that allows you to be proud of of your actions instead of guilt gnawing at you every second then his action to safe the Horde's honor is very much the correct one. Sure if one dismisses this worldview entirely then from an analytical and completely logical standpoint he was wrong. But that is not Baine's way of thinking, it is Sylavanas'. She sees Jaina as a problem and devises a way that might remove this problem without any regard for morality and repercussions, if she had any emotional investment in this plan at all then it was only hate and malice, because she might not even be able to feel other things anymore.
Baine is as Lor'themar says the "heart of the Horde", because he does look at things emotionally and does not coldly disregard morality and the lifes lost.
The two viewpoints are not able to coexist which is what sparks the entire problem.
So yes, from the point of cold logic you are absolutely correct that Baine was wrong to intervene. But from the emotional standpoint Baine was right, since he believed himself to be saving the Horde's, for lack of a better word, "soul". While (as he thought at the time) Sylvanas only cared about the "body's" survival.

And in any case, the conflation of orcish honor with tauren honor is highly dubious. The orcs are a far more militant race and the inter-clan variance in what is considered honorable and what isn't is massive, let alone difference in characters. To use my go-to example, Garrosh, Nazgrim, Saurfang and Thrall all talked about honor and had it as the forefront of their thinking, but what that honor entailed and required is massively different. This variance is what gave the race and thus the faction that it's the center of depth, and why the Saurfang dialogue is all well and good for his character, but ruinous for the identity of the faction as it's basically a go-to for it wholesale adopting the beliefs of its opposition.

No argument here, I was generalizing, but of course I mean the Horde's honor as Baine from his background thinks it should be. That his idea of honor is a lot more about peace and morality then an orcs goes without saying.

I don't understand what you're arguing in this bit of paragraphs, because my point was not that everyone there was genocidal - Garrosh never performed any genocide, for instance. It's that the parties who were the participants in his trial were guilty of many of the same things he were or in Sylvanas's case, worse, yet were not put on trial and the trial as a whole was a sham meant to point this out. Is Sylvanas a traitor to the Horde for trying to kill Garrosh at the trial? I mean, sure, since he was overthrown in a coup and was thus still Warchief, so any act against him would be treason - so is the entire Horde. What sets Sylvanas apart from say Baine or Bob, is that while committing treason she at least didn't do it to aid the enemies of the faction during a war. But she's still been in violation of the Blood Oath since Gilneas, something I've pointed out myself often.

True, Garrosh did not perform one, but in his last words it is quite obvious that he was absolutely ready to (and he later helped his dad destroy the Draenei capital with his modern weapons, killing a lot of them in the process), while the other leaders were abhorred to hear this proclamation. I still have trouble seeing how the witnesses were guilty of the same crimes and how the trial showed that or was supposed to. It is actually proven that they are not, as in Varians case, because despite having done some stuff (nearly assassinating Moira) he never crossed the lines that Garrosh crossed. Maybe Thrall gets somewhat implicated because he ignored Cairne, but that is hardly the same thing.

Sylvanas assassination also did not happen for the Horde though, it was simply another selfish act and it was only not directly against the Horde because there were no Horde guards at his cell, but Pandas. I am pretty sure you will not disagree that she would have killed Horde guards just as carelessly as she would have killed the Pandas if it meant she got to kill Garrosh with them (and in any case Vareesa or the Panda cook would be blamed for it).
So with this little and for her completely unimportant change the difference between Baine's Derek-saving and Sylvanas' Garrosh-murdering melts away, the only thing remaining is that you say that Baine acted against the Horde. As I pointed out above, I do not agree, his actions were very much in favour of the Horde, war (which is near constant on Azeroth) or not.

As a side note, my point about your assessment of the Forsaken isn't that they aren't evil - they are. It's that the Forsaken being evil doesn't mean that anyone else is a moral paragon, especially not the orcs. It's not that the Forsaken are your blind spot, though they are, it's that your focus on the Forsaken has you ignore the context they exist in and what other races do.

I admit, I can be a bit zealous in my assessment of the Forsaken lately. Which is a result of discussing here with people not halve as reasonable as you

Technically though, when not engaging in that, I very much see that the other races are not authorities on morality either. It is just easy to forget smaller transgressions when someone as unapologetically evil as Sylvanas has been receiving so much screentime (and undeserved powerups) lately and is still adored and defended in her actions (by both writers and fans).

All resurrection can be chalked up as game mechanics for the most part. But undeath does have lore - most undead also still have souls, i.e, when you raise a ghoul you're imperfectly attaching the former soul to the warped body you're bringing back. As for whether death is final given the Shadowlands? In a sense yes, because the only thing that's guaranteed to be preserved is your anima, which is just energy. The Arbiter might decide that your future is to be an ugly ghoul thing in Maldraxxus who gets killed for their weakness and then you enter nonexistence. Kind of sucks, that.

There are so many questions still open there, for example if you get turned into a Maldraxxus ghoul is that your soul or is it your body that is warped. Do you even have a body, probably yes, how else could we as living beings interact with the shadowlands creatures otherwise. Could be a very interesting expansion that.

Answering also @Aucald in this, I would love to agree that Jaina would react to the death of her family with outrage that would have her reject the white peace the Alliance are pushing and gain the realism that she had back in the comic. But I just can't buy it. As said, she already was in line with Anduin's ridiculous goals as of Dazar'alor, to the point of delaying victory in the war to see it through. The second and most crucial point is that this is actually a plan that would have been achieved entirely by Sylvanas - the capacity of forgiveness for these people and their willingness to blame Sylvanas exclusively even for things that the Horde as a whole is culpable in or where she played no real part, is endless. Shuffling three deaths under the rug when you've already shuffled a city's worth and more is easy. Doing so when the plan is likely to fail when Jaina freezes his sorry ass makes this even harder. I'd like to be able to agree and also project that the plan was intended to fail to spur Jaina into killing more Horde since Sylvanas caught on that she's hesitating, so she wants to ensure the gap remains between them, or that such a profound personal loss would shock her back into sense, but the writing doesn't support either.

I think the point is that Jaina was "hardened". After Theramore she was emotionally broken, she literally snapped when she found Kindy's body, she fell into a temporary case of insanity at that point and she very nearly killed a good friend and a city because of that. She would not do that now, but she is also not a wet noodle that you can push around anymore. Her story arc served to give her determination and self-confidence which she did not truely possess because of the "mistakes" she made in the past. I think she basically arrived at the same conclusion Varian had at the end. "Peace is the noblest aspiration, but you have to be willing to fight for it."
Varian wasn't a monster, but as Moira learned, you do not frag with his family. It is very bad for your health. Jaina is the same, with the added benefit of having a flying ship with arcane cannons and the power to freeze armies.

[Paraka]

Ahahaha oh god, poor Garrosh must be turning in his grave. Plz let us save him from the Maw Blizz, the "Horde" (if you could even call it that anymore) needs him more than ever.

Problem is Ion stated this is Azeroth's piece of the Shadowlands that is infinite. Garrosh died on an entirely different planet. They would need some interesting excuse that The Maw is all encompassing and so happens to be right above a Titan planet.

[mickybrighteyes]

Problem is Ion stated this is Azeroth's piece of the Shadowlands that is infinite. Garrosh died on an entirely different planet. They would need some interesting excuse that The Maw is all encompassing and so happens to be right above a Titan planet.

If this is true... Taylor can't come back either. =/

[tehdef]

so much for the "we have a council now, no more power for one person" and we actually have Baine sitting in the throne of Grommash hold bossing around and denying other races to join the faction when he didn't talk to any other leader in the council.

i firm believe the fucker would end up warchief if the community wasn't mad at him, so they just throw the council bullshit to shut up people, but they will end up making him do warchief stuff like he would do anyway.

Now we have a warchief who is subservient to the Alliance and high king Anduin, thats just perfect, blizzard made me hate Baine lmao

IDK, but you just come off as completely annoying and are unable to realize a story that is different from the exact one you wanted to see.

[Syegfryed]

IDK, but you just come off as completely annoying and are unable to realize a story that is different from the exact one you wanted to see.

if you don't have nothing to say about the subject don't say anything, i rly don't care you think about me.

[Paraka]

If this is true... Taylor can't come back either. =/

Not only a different planet but also different timeline.

Imagine the second Velen being there as well.

[Super Dickmann]

I can agree to those levels, the genocide at Teldrassil was definately above this, so was Theramore (or would have been without Rhonin's intervention and scarifice), but I have problems seeing those happenings as routine practices of the Horde (except the Forsaken). It is after all the two biggest events that the two dishonored and overthrown Warchiefs of the Horde are famous for.
Sure, the Horde loves to wage war, but usually they restrain themselves from outright slaughter of civilians, because even an orc (apart from the original Horde ones) realizes that there is no honor in killing someone that does not fight back. A war can be fought in a very honest and honorable way after all, army against army, tactic against tactic. Especially in a world like this where war is a near constant thing, war by itself is not the vile thing it is in our modern mindsets. It depends on the "what do we fight for" as the Panda said and "how do we fight" that decides who is on the right side.

Theramore wasn't a genocide and had no risk of being, since no matter what Baine did the civilians would've been evacuated given the timeframe. Even if they were, obviously when you attack a city and the civilians stay there'll be collateral. That is just how war is. Teldrassil on the other hand was a targeted destruction of a civilian population after victory. That's why I brought up in my reply to Aucald that if one of these things, with Theramore also being the aggressor in Cataclysm, was enough to get Baine to move, then he surely should've moved after Teldrassil. The talk re: orcish honor is an interesting one, but mostly off-topic, so I'll restrain myself to saying that it again, is something that varies. The orcs back on Draenor didn't actually have civilians and the norm in non-Frostwolf clans was to chuck weak children to the wolves because someone who couldn't carry their own weight was a burden on themselves and on their clan. To be a warrior is the default for an orc, there's a reason why the lowest class are peons and they were, even at best, treated with condescension, and usually abusively. The non-Frostwolf orcs don't actually have a cultural taboo vs. killing the defenseless and that's formed a big part of the problem for them.

Hrm, went longer than I intended. Never you mind then, in any case, my point is largely that the behaviour Baine took issue with isn't all that big a deal compared to the stuff he lets slide, even if it's obviously still bad.

A lot of the plan hinged on Sylvanas emotions really. As you say, the Rebel/Alliance was (because of some miracle that has yet to be explained) suddenly heavily outnumbered, they could not win conventionally, or at least that would have drained both forces to the breaking point. Saurfangs goal was to rile Sylvanas up so she would voice her true thoughts, basically just as Delaryn riled her up with her speech about hope. He remembered that, since he was standing just meters away during it.
Baine simply could not have done that. He is too small to unimportant to annoy Sylvanas enough, even if for some reason she had accepted a challenge from him, she would have turned him into hamburger in seconds and then went on, unimpressed.

Yeah, the turn in the war is all sorts of crap that has us believe that the vast majority of the Alliance army were on the ships. I think there was miscommunication between the writers. There's a version of the war where the Horde is losing badly, and another where Sylvanas was winning in general and the Alliance were, from the very start, having to rely on a depleting pool of conscripts. The first version we see in 8.1 and 8.2, the latter is what we see in Lost Honor and 8.2.5. Ditto, I agree that the primary reason the plan worked at all is because Sylvanas did have at least some link to Saurfang and thus was emotional to him, where she's indifferent to Baine. That having been said, I disagree with the idea that she could simply have refused the challenge. We know from the way she loses support and why people turn on her that Sylvanas was supported primarily because of the office and her agenda, and the office of Warchief has only one limitation - the Warchief must prove their fitness in Mak'gora. If the Warchief refuses this, then she shows she wants all the perks of the position while not proving her worthiness of it. It is something that should lose her a lot of support. Incidentally, it's also why I'd have really liked if instead of her being baited into it, it was her trying to order him to just be offed, but akin to Gul'dan in the movie, have the refusal of the Horde force her to take the field. This would accomplish a few things - give the Horde agency in sticking by their customs and show what a big deal these historic positions are to them, make the plan less based on Saurfang's crapshoot and more on him understanding the Horde more than her and finally, make Sylvanas's outburst make more sense - they forced her into this position and now she's forced to involve herself in something she hates for something she doesn't believe in, it's her seeing that the Horde will not be her proxy even before Saurfang cuts her.

So yes, from the point of cold logic you are absolutely correct that Baine was wrong to intervene. But from the emotional standpoint Baine was right, since he believed himself to be saving the Horde's, for lack of a better word, "soul". While (as he thought at the time) Sylvanas only cared about the "body's" survival.

To clarify, I agree with what you're saying re: Baine's motives - I'm not questioning what they intended for his goals to be. I'm only disputing that this was a good call or that he acted in a laudable way from an out of story perspective on one hand, and that the fact that he believed something was right makes it right. The latter especially, because such a line of thinking would have us thinking that because Sylvanas considers hope to be wrong she was somehow justified. The character has their positions, and these positions can be right and wrong - but it's not the character's view of himself that makes him right to the audience, it's the audience's assessment of what goes on.

True, Garrosh did not perform one, but in his last words it is quite obvious that he was absolutely ready to (and he later helped his dad destroy the Draenei capital with his modern weapons, killing a lot of them in the process), while the other leaders were abhorred to hear this proclamation. I still have trouble seeing how the witnesses were guilty of the same crimes and how the trial showed that or was supposed to. It is actually proven that they are not, as in Varians case, because despite having done some stuff (nearly assassinating Moira) he never crossed the lines that Garrosh crossed. Maybe Thrall gets somewhat implicated because he ignored Cairne, but that is hardly the same thing.

I'm not going to open that can of warms in this topic, though it's something I'd like to get into on a dedicated one. Tl;dr most wars on Azeroth are race wars; Jaina actually did attempt to drown a city, she just ended up getting stopped, and both her, Sylvanas, Varian and the dwarves in general would be put on trial under the rules presented. The trial was intended to fail, because the Celestials knew he'd escape and allowed it to happen. Thrall actually didn't, except the whole slavery thing or I suppose keeping the Forsaken around.

The Sylvanas assassination argument you'll have to explain to me because I genuinely don't understand it. Yes, Sylvanas wanted to kill Garrosh because of personal animus not because she really wanted to help the Horde out. I don't get your point in that vein. Regardless of what her motive was she'd still be a traitor since he's still her Warchief and she'd have been one since Gilneas, much like Vol'jin has been one since their first conversation, etc. I'm missing the comparability between her attempt to assassinate Garrosh and Baine's offing of Forsaken to free Derek in war time, save for both involving treason and murder.

Technically though, when not engaging in that, I very much see that the other races are not authorities on morality either. It is just easy to forget smaller transgressions when someone as unapologetically evil as Sylvanas has been receiving so much screentime (and undeserved powerups) lately and is still adored and defended in her actions (by both writers and fans).

To note, I'm not drawing a moral equivalence between the Forsaken and the other races - the Forsaken are the most evil, and always have been. Rather that the behaviour that the Forsaken get condemned for is often not exclusive to them. As for Sylvanas's screentime and adored by writers and fans, I'd say she's mostly out of good will on the latter front and on the former, it's not so much screen time so much as presence - even when she barely does anything like in BFA, all discussion and speculation centers around her, giving her a suffocating presence on the plot. So while I get why a ton of people are tired of her, I'd mostly pin it on the lack of dynamism among other plot elements rather than her specifically.

I think the point is that Jaina was "hardened". After Theramore she was emotionally broken, she literally snapped when she found Kindy's body, she fell into a temporary case of insanity at that point and she very nearly killed a good friend and a city because of that. She would not do that now, but she is also not a wet noodle that you can push around anymore. Her story arc served to give her determination and self-confidence which she did not truely possess because of the "mistakes" she made in the past. I think she basically arrived at the same conclusion Varian had at the end. "Peace is the noblest aspiration, but you have to be willing to fight for it."

Once again, I actually agree with your post, but differ on the conclusion, as I outlined in my reply to Aucald. It's precisely because of Jaina's prior involvement and because this, unlike most everything else, was actually almost exclusively Sylvanas's doing, that I don't think it'd have a serious impact on the end of the war, even if it would vastly increase the chance of Sylvanas getting a frostbolt up her ass in a setting that allowed characters other than her to move the plot along.

[mickybrighteyes]

Not only a different planet but also different timeline.

Imagine the second Velen being there as well.

not too sure timeline would matter all that much. I'd wager the planet based idea more likely is the case.

[Paraka]

not too sure timeline would matter all that much. I'd wager the planet based idea more likely is the case.

Well it's likely their go-to reason, but the fact that AU Draenor still functions would suggest more complications to explain away.

[Al Gorefiend]

Doesn't matter - Bane will be shoe-horned out of the seat in 2 expansions for another Angry Orc because "orks n' hoomin's" or somesuch outdated nonsense...

And the audience will cheer because "wee B goinz bakz too orks n' hoomins'" or somesuch nonsense...

If anybody believed in this "breaking the cycle" shit, I've got a bridge to sell you. It's got the words "Be warned, if this happens again, we will end you!" engraved on the side by Varian Wrynn himself from half a decade ago...

On a more practical side, the killing the world leaders acheesement does kinda require there to be a leader in Orgrimmar. So I get that part at least...

EDIT: In fact, I'm going to bookmark this post of mine - for when the eventual expansion comes out in 4 years with Blizz proudly stating "We're going back to Orcs and Humans!" and watch people with short-term memory act, once again, as if the game is entering an original era of "returning to original roots" like it never happened before, or happened again, and again, ect...

This makes me so sad to read because of how true it is. The faction war is such a farce concept.

[Friendlyimmolation]

This makes me so sad to read because of how true it is. The faction war is such a farce concept.

I can’t wait for Baine to forget about HONOR

[Kallisto]

I can’t wait for Baine to forget about HONOR

But will he forget about how if 100000 Tauren sacrificed to save 1 human life while at war with the alliance it will be a price worth paying in his eyes?

[Moozart]

Can we address the Sylvanas in the room....

[Friendlyimmolation]

But will he forget about how if 100000 Tauren sacrificed to save 1 human life while at war with the alliance it will be a price worth paying in his eyes?

Only if we get five more ghost Saurfang cinematics

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Baine is doing a ok job at the moment but how long can he last before he snaps? It's not easy being a leader, all the decisions, paperwork, management etc. All that pressure might get to him and he might just end it all and make everyone his enemy. He's a nice guy but a nice guy finally losing would become very dangerous.

[Feanoro]

Problem is Ion stated this is Azeroth's piece of the Shadowlands that is infinite. Garrosh died on an entirely different planet. They would need some interesting excuse that The Maw is all encompassing and so happens to be right above a Titan planet.

They've literally retconned Chronicles and the Lich Queen's inner monologue as cleverly deceiving the reader. Do you really think this detail will bother the writing hacks in the slightest?

[Raisei]

Theramore wasn't a genocide and had no risk of being, since no matter what Baine did the civilians would've been evacuated given the timeframe. Even if they were, obviously when you attack a city and the civilians stay there'll be collateral. That is just how war is. Teldrassil on the other hand was a targeted destruction of a civilian population after victory. That's why I brought up in my reply to Aucald that if one of these things, with Theramore also being the aggressor in Cataclysm, was enough to get Baine to move, then he surely should've moved after Teldrassil. The talk re: orcish honor is an interesting one, but mostly off-topic, so I'll restrain myself to saying that it again, is something that varies. The orcs back on Draenor didn't actually have civilians and the norm in non-Frostwolf clans was to chuck weak children to the wolves because someone who couldn't carry their own weight was a burden on themselves and on their clan. To be a warrior is the default for an orc, there's a reason why the lowest class are peons and they were, even at best, treated with condescension, and usually abusively. The non-Frostwolf orcs don't actually have a cultural taboo vs. killing the defenseless and that's formed a big part of the problem for them.

Hrm, went longer than I intended. Never you mind then, in any case, my point is largely that the behaviour Baine took issue with isn't all that big a deal compared to the stuff he lets slide, even if it's obviously still bad.

Genocide is indeed not the right word for Theramore. "Massacre" is probably better. But as for the evacuation of civilians, the book shows that the Mana Bomb (or another spell) also applies a dampening field against teleportation, it is only because Rhonin being an exceptional mage that he was able to open a short-way portal for Jaina. Without Baine's warning an evacuation by normal means would likely have come to late. So even if we can say that the civilians weren't all slaughtered it was not because of a lack of trying from Garrosh's side and considering what was done with the refugees in Orgrimmar it is clear that he had no qualms with cold-blooded murder of civilians.

As for Teldrassil affecting Baine. You aren't wrong, it should have been adressed. I think the problem was that Teldrassil happened too soon in the expansion for the sedition inside of the Horde to unfold. By characterization alone many of the Horde leaders should have confronted Sylvanas about this act. Thalryssa, as I have pointed out in other posts, has only just finished deposing a leader that did nothing halve as horrible but she says nothing (her dislike of Tyrande hardly justifies that), Liadrin as a highranking Paladin should have immediatedly "cleansed" the Banshee with fire, Hamul and the entire Earthen Ring should be furious (even if they were in Silithus, this news was hard to miss and the following blighting of Darkshore at the very least should have gotten them to act), yet none of them so much as looked at Sylvanas angrily.

The story had to go on for the full expansion after all and for some reason the writers decided that Sylvanas being evil and the Horde realising this deserves more time to develop then the most famous and devious Old God that we know. Personally I would not have minded killing Sylavans at the end of Uldir and going straight into a longer Old God story that culminates in us accidentaly freeing him in Nazjatar with the next expansion being the resurgent Black Empire instead of "Sylavans breaks the world, how will our heroes stop her this time?"
So yes, again I fear out-game necessities trumped in-game logic here, otherwise I completely agree.

Yeah, the turn in the war is all sorts of crap that has us believe that the vast majority of the Alliance army were on the ships. I think there was miscommunication between the writers. There's a version of the war where the Horde is losing badly, and another where Sylvanas was winning in general and the Alliance were, from the very start, having to rely on a depleting pool of conscripts. The first version we see in 8.1 and 8.2, the latter is what we see in Lost Honor and 8.2.5. Ditto, I agree that the primary reason the plan worked at all is because Sylvanas did have at least some link to Saurfang and thus was emotional to him, where she's indifferent to Baine. That having been said, I disagree with the idea that she could simply have refused the challenge. We know from the way she loses support and why people turn on her that Sylvanas was supported primarily because of the office and her agenda, and the office of Warchief has only one limitation - the Warchief must prove their fitness in Mak'gora. If the Warchief refuses this, then she shows she wants all the perks of the position while not proving her worthiness of it. It is something that should lose her a lot of support. Incidentally, it's also why I'd have really liked if instead of her being baited into it, it was her trying to order him to just be offed, but akin to Gul'dan in the movie, have the refusal of the Horde force her to take the field. This would accomplish a few things - give the Horde agency in sticking by their customs and show what a big deal these historic positions are to them, make the plan less based on Saurfang's crapshoot and more on him understanding the Horde more than her and finally, make Sylvanas's outburst make more sense - they forced her into this position and now she's forced to involve herself in something she hates for something she doesn't believe in, it's her seeing that the Horde will not be her proxy even before Saurfang cuts her.

I have my doubts about this affair. It surely is right that by tradition a Warchief would have to accept to prove her strength, but Sylvanas has been scoffing at many of the Horde values before and no one batted an eye. Honor being a core value (taken from the orcish origin that shapes the Horde still) does not interest her at all and her way of warfare has made that absolutely clear to anyone involved (Saurfang basically shouts it at her). but no one cared as long as they were wining and a large part of the fanbase still has no issues with anything Sylvanas did (they demanded to be able to side with her actually, which was not even intended by Blizz), so there would at the very least be a split in the Horde.

That being said I really like that scenario you make. Would have been a great scene. There was a scene like that in Metal Gear 3, the big bad first engages in single-combat and when it doesn't go his way immediatedly he orders his right hand Ocelot to shoot Snake. He refuses with the words: "Fight like a man!" Brilliant scene to show the true character of people.

Gonna have to leave it here for the moment, more later.

[Paraka]

They've literally retconned Chronicles and the Lich Queen's inner monologue as cleverly deceiving the reader. Do you really think this detail will bother the writing hacks in the slightest?

Didn't say it wouldn't, just pointing out how it logically shouldn't be.

But we know Blizzard and the dick shaped holes in their ideology of "Rule of Cool." I was just saying don't expect it cause the logics in place, which is all we can do right now.