Why is Taurajo seen as unjustified?

[Mehrunes]

I guess those he exiled where cowards as well since they could have challenged him as well.

Not only is Mak'gora not a practice of the Tauren themselves, but those Tauren went with the option of aiding the Horde in its war campaign in order to liberate the Barrens even without Baine's help. There is no indication whatsoever they wanted Baine gone and they still achieved their goals from within the Horde. Now compare that to Baine. There is plenty of indication that he wanted Sylvanas gone. It's just that he didn't do shit about it within the Horde, he simply ran to Alliance like a lapdog and instantly bent over for Anduin. So congrats, your comparison falls flat on its face.

But I really do like how in every single post you've made in this thread your defense of Baine relies on throwing (or at least trying to, as in this case) someone else under the bus. It's almost as if you were inadvertently admitting that Baine's case can't stand on its own and for him to be not shit someone else must be at the very least guilty of the same thing as him.

And Baine does not act for the Alliance because he prefers the Alliance more. He acts for the Alliance because the Horde under Sylvanas rules was hurting the Earth Mother, simple as that. Baine is not a warmonger, he is a peacemonger I would say.

You mean the Earth Mother that blesses Horde soldiers in one of the BfA quests? And since when does Azeroth operate on some kind of weird dichotomy when one has to act for the Alliance when they consider the Horde to be wrong? And why is that Baine didn't do shit about things like Blighted Tauren or Saurfang being "left to die" (in his deluded mind at least, because in reality Saurfang disobeyed the order to retreat right in front of Baine) and only started to give a damn when the family of his human friend was put in jeopardy? For someone that supposedly cared about the Earth Mother so much, he should have acted much earlier.

Hence the reference to broken systems, yes. It remains that no one could actually remove a corrupt leader like Sylvanas from power - there were no "legitimate" means to do so in the Horde's previous political structure. Mak'gora couldn't work, because Sylvanas couldn't conceivably be beaten in her empowered state, and would still have been corrupt as the "victor" of said challenge. The system, such as it was, was broken.

You mean the empowered no one on Azeroth aside from her confidants like Nathanos didn't know about until she blasted Saurfang's ass?

A system that allows a corrupt ruler to remain in place despite their corruption is not really a system that is "working as intended" unless corruption itself fully normalized as part of governance. That's not a great way for things to be on an objective level, at least from the perspective of the people living in said system.

The system in which the only way to remove a leader one does not like is through combat is most certainly working as intended if that leader is capable of winning any challenge. It's a rather idiotic system, but those are two different things. No one forced the Tauren to join an organization with such idiotic rules. The decision to do so, through which they accepted those rules, is on them and them alone. If Baine didn't like that anymore, he could have left, joined the Alliance and lived the rest of his life as Anduin's foot rest as he always desired. Hell, Sylvanas herself wondered why he didn't do so at the start of BtS.

[Aucald]

You mean the empowered no one on Azeroth aside from her confidants like Nathanos didn't know about until she blasted Saurfang's ass?

Whether or not her empowerment was known is kind of immaterial to the fact that she was empowered, and thus undefeatable. She knew she couldn't be challenged, yet still allowed challenges to potentially be made (such as the case with Saurfang). I would say that's quantifiable abuse of the system, such as it was.

The system in which the only way to remove a leader one does not like is through combat is most certainly working as intended if that leader is capable of winning any challenge. It's a rather idiotic system, but those are two different things. No one forced the Tauren to join an organization with such idiotic rules. The decision to do so, through which they accepted those rules, is on them and them alone. If Baine didn't like that anymore, he could have left, joined the Alliance and lived the rest of his life as Anduin's foot rest as he always desired. Hell, Sylvanas herself wondered why he didn't do so at the start of BtS.

It being an idiotic system rife with the potential for abuse is pretty much what I'm hammering at. It's objectively stupid, easy to corrupt, and offers no real way to address said corruption beyond luck or skill in combat (which are completely unrelated to good actual governance). As for Baine specifically he had no real desire to make an enemy out of Sylvanas directly, and he likely intuited (correctly as it turns out) that leaving the Horde would not end well for him or his people. Sylvanas is not the kind of person to turn the other cheek, and she'd probably make her ire known soon after Baine left the relative safety of the Horde. I speculate she'd probably have Baine assassinated shortly after he left the Horde, then covertly install a more flexible leader in Thunder Bluff and bring the Tauren right back into the fold.

[Combatbutler]

Ok so according to you, Sylvanas is an awful leader since she does not care about her people at all. Am I getting that right ?

Yeah, that is pretty much correct. Any leader, who does not care for their subjects is rotten by default.

As you will see in my most recent post, I agree with this, except for the part that it was "for a damn proudmoore", because that is close to irrelevant. His conviction and him prioritizing it over the lives of his people is the problem and a clear reason to criticise him.

The damn Proudmoore is important, because Baine put the well being of an enemy above the well being of his people, before Jaina's brother got involved he stood by, but this guy is somehow the defining atrocity, not his people being send to their deaths, or being raised etc. no that lone human is the catalyst.

[FuxieDK]

This isn't really the place for discussing real-world politics and other divisive topics - I prefer to keep the discussion grounded in the fantasy context of WoW's politics.

I'm not discussion Earth politics; I'm pointing out a real world example of what was claimed can't be done in a fantasy environment, much less real world.

[Aucald]

I'm not discussion Earth politics; I'm pointing out a real world example of what was claimed can't be done in a fantasy environment, much less real world.

It's a pretty topical and divisive real-world example, and would cause more problems than it would solve if discussed.

As for something that "can't be done," I'm not sure what you're trying to point out. I'm saying that there's no legitimate path to follow to depose or otherwise handle a corrupt leader, because they tend to surround themselves with a corrupt bureaucracy to prevent their own removal. Rebellion and violence to some degree is required to overthrow a corrupt leader - it may not be all out civil or open war, but you can't file some paperwork and expect a corrupt leader to otherwise remove themselves. Real-world experience also shows that the courts or other governing bodies aren't going to do it either, unless they're also the ones joining in said rebellion.

[Feanoro]

Hence the reference to broken systems, yes. It remains that no one could actually remove a corrupt leader like Sylvanas from power - there were no "legitimate" means to do so in the Horde's previous political structure. Mak'gora couldn't work, because Sylvanas couldn't conceivably be beaten in her empowered state, and would still have been corrupt as the "victor" of said challenge. The system, such as it was, was broken.

A system that allows a corrupt ruler to remain in place despite their corruption is not really a system that is "working as intended" unless corruption itself fully normalized as part of governance. That's not a great way for things to be on an objective level, at least from the perspective of the people living in said system.

Thrall's single greatest failure was keeping the Horde exactly as the Legion designed it.

[Yarathir]

Because alliance did it. Imagine the shitshow tho if taurajo was an alliance town, oh my!

Brennadam?

[Minikin]

So Lorewise he cannot be a traitor, even though he committed treason?
Blizzard fuckes their own lore sideways, every day that goes by.

When you conspire with the enemy, in secret, or in open defiance, then you are committing text book treason. There is no other way to put it. PERIOD!
This is EXACTLY what Varok Saurfang and Baine did.

Only Blizzard? Oh wait hold on

Stonetaln was Tauren lands and Southshore was destroyed by Deathwing. Astanaar was in the middle of Horde controlled area.
All three arguments are nul and void.

Yes, we should totally believe it when you say Blizzard screws with their lore, especially when you confuse sylvanas with a world ending dragon. @Raisei I'll save you the trouble of going into the deep end over here with fuxie.

[Ardenaso]

Brennadam?

Because alliance did it. Imagine the shitshow tho if taurajo was an alliance town, oh my!

the fleeing civilian refugees from Hillsbrad and Southshore were literally hunted down to their deaths in Cataclysm

the civilian refugees from Theramore were hauled off to be turned into target practices and to be tortured, sponsored by the Warchief of the Horde himself

the Horde directly and personally killed any civilian they could find in Silverwing Refuge and Brennadam

[Yarathir]

Nothing funnier than me than Sylvanas fans calling other Horde characters traitors considering she has conspired with an enemy of both factions at least 3 times in recent memory, one of which she is giving blowies right now for daddy's death juice.

- - - Updated - - -

the fleeing civilian refugees from Hillsbrad and Southshore were literally hunted down to their deaths in Cataclysm

the civilian refugees from Theramore were hauled off to be turned into target practices and to be tortured, sponsored by the Warchief of the Horde himself

the Horde directly and personally killed any civilian they could find in Silverwing Refuge and Brennadam

This, by the way, is what set Jaina off again during SoO.

People act like she just went full "DISMANTLE" out of nowhere again, but it was quite clearly the fact that the people that escaped the Bombing of Theramore got hunted down and used as live target practice and can be seen in SoO, strung up and impaled.

[Minikin]

Brennadam?

We can't bring that up yet man! Don't you see what that'll do??! It was a legitimate target impaling that civilian!

[Yarathir]

We can't bring that up yet man! Don't you see what that'll do??! It was a legitimate target impaling that civilian!

Proverbial moral pissing contest aside (Alliance wins that anyway, let's not delude ourselves)

I can kind of sympathize with the Horde on that. It reminds me a lot of when Blizzard had squads of Alliance soldiers burning Vulpera alive on the PTR for no gain.

It's one thing to be morally grey or even dark. Another to be immoral for no reason other than to be immortal. Brennadam feels like such a case, too.

[Minikin]

Proverbial moral pissing contest aside (Alliance wins that anyway, let's not delude ourselves)

I can kind of sympathize with the Horde on that. It reminds me a lot of when Blizzard had squads of Alliance soldiers burning Vulpera alive on the PTR for no gain.

It's one thing to be morally grey or even dark. Another to be immoral for no reason other than to be immortal. Brennadam feels like such a case, too.

That's basically it no? They have wrecked the horde not just by villain batting but also making alliance stupid.

[Super Dickmann]

Proverbial moral pissing contest aside (Alliance wins that anyway, let's not delude ourselves)

I can kind of sympathize with the Horde on that. It reminds me a lot of when Blizzard had squads of Alliance soldiers burning Vulpera alive on the PTR for no gain.

It's one thing to be morally grey or even dark. Another to be immoral for no reason other than to be immortal. Brennadam feels like such a case, too.

The Purge Squad torching vulpera was worse, which is what makes it that funny. It's a shame they toned it down, since the contrast between the Alliance leadership arguing how immoral it was to attack their enemy while they were sad as contrasted with draenei shamans and warlocks going on a killing spree of furry gypsies who were a threat to no one in the middle of nowhere was a master class in self-parody. At least with Brennadam the Horde was seizing some kind of territory and from Sylvanas' end she retroactively wanted to up the cosmic body count. It was also congruous with the Horde's general (lack of) morals at the time and other content. The Purge Squad was like if 40k Spehss Mehreens randomly possessed the Care Bears.

Posting the original thread for the memories. It was one of the high points of the whole expansion.

[Powerogue]

The douchebag went on a civilian killing spree in Alliance quests in the Barrens and his actions showed he would keep killing innocent people until he was sent to Hell. This was the man in charge of the Alliance push into Mulgore. Baine's action were essentially suicide.

The funny thing is I went and read the Alliance side of the questline out of curiosity.

He went berserk and doubled down on brutal, merciless tactics after someone did something so very, very terrible to him that they "made it personal."

A tauren killed his son.

Can you guess that tauren's name?

It's starting to look less like this is a black and white story about the courageous, valiant Gann Stonespire against the evil alliance and their treasonous lackey Baine, and more a story about the cycle of hatred.

So no, I don't think this zone's story would have worked as well if Baine had been at the doors hollaring for the heads of the Alliance.

[Combatbutler]

The funny thing is I went and read the Alliance side of the questline out of curiosity.

He went berserk and doubled down on brutal, merciless tactics after someone did something so very, very terrible to him that they "made it personal."

A tauren killed his son.

Can you guess that tauren's name?

It is your typical cycle of revenge story, there is nothing special about that tauren, whose family Twinbraid slaughtered, who then went on to murder Twinbraids son. Just an eye for an eye.

[Mehrunes]

Whether or not her empowerment was known is kind of immaterial to the fact that she was empowered, and thus undefeatable. She knew she couldn't be challenged, yet still allowed challenges to potentially be made (such as the case with Saurfang). I would say that's quantifiable abuse of the system, such as it was.

Except it's not immaterial in context of whether Baine was justified in treating the Mak'gora system as a broken in the slightest. If he didn't know about Sylvanas' power up, it couldn't have contributed into his decision making when deciding against pursuing the Mak'gora option and choosing becoming Alliance's doormat instead for reasons that are beyond obvious.

It being an idiotic system rife with the potential for abuse is pretty much what I'm hammering at. It's objectively stupid, easy to corrupt, and offers no real way to address said corruption beyond luck or skill in combat (which are completely unrelated to good actual governance). As for Baine specifically he had no real desire to make an enemy out of Sylvanas directly, and he likely intuited (correctly as it turns out) that leaving the Horde would not end well for him or his people. Sylvanas is not the kind of person to turn the other cheek, and she'd probably make her ire known soon after Baine left the relative safety of the Horde. I speculate she'd probably have Baine assassinated shortly after he left the Horde, then covertly install a more flexible leader in Thunder Bluff and bring the Tauren right back into the fold.

There is no malicious thought on Sylvanas' part when she mused the prospect of Baine leaving to join the faction in which he actually belongs. Then again the clusterfuck that is BfA already made it known that even Sylvanas' own thoughts in the books are just from the Titan's point of view or whatever. Anyway, your "Horde's system offers no way to address things beyond combat" statement in this post kinda says something else than the "there's no way to address things, period" from your previous ones.

Only Blizzard? Oh wait hold on

Yes, we should totally believe it when you say Blizzard screws with their lore, especially when you confuse sylvanas with a world ending dragon. @Raisei I'll save you the trouble of going into the deep end over here with fuxie.

You continuing to harp on something @FuxieDK said nearly half a year ago and hasn't repeated since then in a continuous attempt to dismiss whatever they say, no matter how irrelevant it is to the topic of the post you linked is getting really desperate. One would think you never made a mistake yourself *cough* the chronology in the opening post of this thread *cough*

Nothing funnier than me than Sylvanas fans calling other Horde characters traitors considering she has conspired with an enemy of both factions at least 3 times in recent memory, one of which she is giving blowies right now for daddy's death juice.

Putting aside how the Warchief cannot betray the Horde because they are the sole authority that sets its direction, so even if that direction is "let's all die so I get more powerful" that's that (and how Helya was an utter nobody to the Horde at the time of Sylvanas making her deal with her, as it's obviously one of your "3 times"), what's objectively more funnier is how yet another poster defending Baine is not only Alliance, but their defense is the same old "but character X did Y". Which, you know, isn't actually any kind of defense. So even if the Warchief could have betrayed the Horde, absolutely nothing would have prevented Baine from doing the same. You know, when he killed Horde soldiers, freed a Horde prisoner and sabotaged the Horde war campaign. Or when he then marched together with the Alliance on Orgrimmar.

The Purge Squad torching vulpera was worse, which is what makes it that funny. It's a shame they toned it down, since the contrast between the Alliance leadership arguing how immoral it was to attack their enemy while they were sad as contrasted with draenei shamans and warlocks going on a killing spree of furry gypsies who were a threat to no one in the middle of nowhere was a master class in self-parody.

I mean, on one hand it would create a self-parody situation. But on the other hand, it would kinda undermine the message of how it's not OK to make your war enemies sad. And that message is already the pinnacle of ridiculousness. Especially since this kind of messaging in a rather deliberate attempt at passing what passes for wisdom at Blizzard onto the player, while the Purge Squad seemed unintentional.

It's starting to look less like this is a black and white story about the courageous, valiant Gann Stonespire against the evil alliance and their treasonous lackey Baine, and more a story about the cycle of hatred.

So no, I don't think this zone's story would have worked as well if Baine had been at the doors hollaring for the heads of the Alliance.

Except Baine bending over for the Alliance completely clashes with the idea of a story about the cycle of hatred. If anything, a story where even someone who wants to believe in peace like Baine is being forced to fight to protect their land and people would build that story up even further.

[Yarathir]

Putting aside how the Warchief cannot betray the Horde

Stopped reading there.

[Aucald]

Except it's not immaterial in context of whether Baine was justified in treating the Mak'gora system as a broken in the slightest. If he didn't know about Sylvanas' power up, it couldn't have contributed into his decision making when deciding against pursuing the Mak'gora option and choosing becoming Alliance's doormat instead for reasons that are beyond obvious.

Except I'm not referring to Baine specifically, who I'm aware you bear considerable animus for, but doesn't really factor into this scenario. *Any* challenger from the Horde that might have legitimate grievance with Sylvanas would fail in an otherwise "fair" challenge because Sylvanas is receiving power from an outside source (which she has demonstrated no compunction about using i.e Saurfang's Mak'gora). It would be akin to a Titan declaring Mak'gora against a peon, not fair on any objective level no matter how you slice it. This would be beyond the point where the system of Mak'gora, such as it is, totally breaks down as any kind of arbiter of rightness. Not that it was functional for that purpose before Sylvanas took the position of Warchief.

There is no malicious thought on Sylvanas' part when she mused the prospect of Baine leaving to join the faction in which he actually belongs. Then again the clusterfuck that is BfA already made it known that even Sylvanas' own thoughts in the books are just from the Titan's point of view or whatever. Anyway, your "Horde's system offers no way to address things beyond combat" statement in this post kinda says something else than the "there's no way to address things, period" from your previous ones.

Maliciousness is never far from Sylvanas' thoughts, even though I think her musing was more historical than contemporary in Before the Storm. Either way, you're more stuck on Baine vs. Sylvanas when we're really talking about Mak'gora as a practice and how it's not serviceable when someone empowered by a greater being steps into the position of Warchief. As for addressing things, the Horde took the only route it could when it came to both Garrosh and, to a lesser degree, with Sylvanas - full and open rebellion followed by appointing a new leader. Garrosh was forcibly deposed whereas Sylvanas sort of flounced after she outed herself publicly, but either way a brewing rebellion was still at both leader's doorstep by the time a resolution occurred.

[Minikin]

Stopped reading there.

I think there was a very HD cinematic where she yells

the horde is nothing!

Or perhaps an interview with the lead narrative explaining why the now ex warchief needed a complete revamp of the structure


https://www.wowhead.com/news=311664/...indows-central
I wonder why they changed it....

The structure of the Horde's leadership was fundamentally changed, and they now have a real chance to prevent history from repeating once more—though they still have their share of challenges ahead.

I could be wrong though, mistakes and such