How would you fix Baine and others?

[Mehrunes]

I'd say Voss should dedicate herself fully to guiding Forsaken that feel lost and step out of leadership altogether. She doesn't want to be a leader, she doesn't feel she's suited for it and someone that just joined the Forsaken just five seconds ago really shouldn't be their new leader.

Plus WoW has way too many "untested young leader that doubts themself but is actually the best thing since sliced bread" characters. Or at least characters that are presented that way by the narrative, because if you think for more than one second about it most of them are atrocious and the only reason they haven't bought their people to ruin is because the plot armor they received so that Blizzard can preserve their "deep" philosophy of friendship no jutsu that wouldn't function in anything even remotely resembling the real world.

The rest are beyond salvaging. Though it wouldn't hurt Thrall to actually acknowledge his fuck ups for once.

I'd rather fix people who assume that just because something isn't the way they think it should be, it needs to be fixed.

You're doing this very thing about those people right now.

[Super Dickmann]

@Mehrunes

That's the thing that gets me about Baine too, right. The game and a lot of his apologists say that he's just 'an untested young leader', but he's had more time in charge than most of the current Horde cast. Hell, I'm fairly sure he's been in charge for more years than Thrall was when he became Warchief or close enough at this point. And even before he was High Chieftain he was still in charge of Bloodhoof Village.

[StillMcfuu]

Baine's biggest issue is he is a conniving sneaky little shit who dishonors his people and name. He could be interesting, his connection with Anduin is fine, but his constant betraying of the Horde, he is far too self serving while feigning a moral high ground. Maybe we will see Cairne in the SL and we can tell him all about his shitty son and he will grow annoyed, make a spirit trip to TB and Baine will throw himself off the Bluff in shame.

[Claymore]

I don't say this lightly, but part of me thinks Baine may be beyond salvaging. However, I'll at least take a stab at it...

I would have a scene of him on the plains of Mulgore. Alone, he basically lets down his "mask", and speaks to the stars, and his ancestors among them. Have him lament that he has tried, with all of his heart, to follow in the example of his father, Cairne, who the people clearly loved. Cairne led with wisdom and kindness, always seeking peace when it was an option. Only once did his father ever stray from that path, and doing so cost him his life.

Baine is then shown filled with anger, having wanted nothing more than to have marched right up to Magetha and rip her traitorous horns from her skull. Then we see Baine break down, basically unsure of what kind of leader his people need. Then, the spirit of Cairne, and many of us other ancestors, appear before him.

He rises up, taking stock on who they are, reflecting upon each of the legends they left behind.

But as he reflects upon his father Cairne, he realizes that his kindness often came at a price. When they allowed the Centaur to share their hunting grounds, they were eventually turned-on and forced to flee. When they agreed to aid the young Orcs that first traveled to Kalimdor, they were indebted to the Horde, and thus subjugated to it and its many conflicts.

Slowly, Baine realizes that what his people need now, is a leader who is strong, honorable, and places their well-being above all others. That his people need safety and stability. That, their place in the cycle of life can no longer be the downtrodden pacifists, but the courageous Brave warriors that he knows his people are capable of becoming.

With that, he pledges to bring honor to his ancestors, not merely by remembering their stories and struggles, but seeking to live up to their legacy, both for himself and for the Tauren as a whole.

From that point on, Baine begins to carry himself with a greater confidence. Still obsessed with honor, but also more driven to improve the Tauren's standing in the world. Not like "oh no he's going down a dark path now", but more that he finally comes to grips with the fact he must be a LEADER, which means FIGHTING for his people when necessary, and not only choosing peace of its own sake.

[Syegfryed]

I'd say Voss should dedicate herself fully to guiding Forsaken that feel lost and step out of leadership altogether. She doesn't want to be a leader, she doesn't feel she's suited for it and someone that just joined the Forsaken just five seconds ago really shouldn't be their new leader..

she will just do that so they can crown Calia, probably by the end of shadowlands that will happen for sure.

[Swnem]

Honestly, you won't get much from this thread since the most vocal horde posters are the defenders of the "evil" horde.

They want to obey the genocidal leaders and want to kill off the peaceful and humane ones. They like to think they can win the faction war with that, but that is never happening.

[Overlordd]

How to fix Baine:

Let Golden stop using him as a way to involve Jaina and Anduin with everything

The sheer hypocrisy of Baine that he didn't care about his own people getting bombed and blighted by Sylvanas, and on top of that they get raised by her aswell, didn't matter to him.

But once it was revealed that Sylvanas raised Derek, Jaina's brother, oh my lord, this was apparently the step that went too far for Baine.

This useless fucking cow, does not give one DAMN about the Horde. If you want a more clear example, Baine was present in Stormwind during the cinematic when Wrathion got involved, but he felt like it wasn't important to inform us, no that was the job of Valeera, someone that's not Horde aligned.

This cow is the most useless sack of shit the Horde has ever had. All he does is go to Jaina and Anduin for internal problems the Horde has, just so Golden can involve them and shove them through the Horde player's throat.

Mods, sorry if my language isn't allowed, I don't mean to offend anyone but this character literally pisses me off.

[Arrashi]

Honestly they should just push his story to logical conclusion - have him abandon horde and become anduins servant, possibly one of first boikingforged/sworn.

[Gann Stonespire]

For Baine you will need a retcon for the whole exiling his people bit at cata for fighting back. Maybe imply that those exiled were consorting with twilight hammer people/ attacking actual civilians.
BFA was bad writing all around and pissed on so many chars backstory. The sooner we move on from this expac the better

If you're going to retcon, may as well retcon the exile altogether.

[QUOTE=Raisei;52614191]The fact that you hate your own faction is hardly what makes me "angry" ("amused" is a more fitting term actually), but that people go around complaining endlessly about Baine killing a few Forsaken torturers or exiling some Tauren, but when Sylvanas tries to murder the entire Horde including the player character you only hear: "Give us our Dark Lady back! We follow her to death and beyond! Kill me first, Sylvanas!!"
Sylvanas is loved and worshipped for being a psychopathic monster that murders Horde and Alliance for fun and her personal power, while Baine is being hated and needs "fixing" for trying to safe lives on both sides.

Oh look strawmanning again by assuming I love Sylvanas.

Exiling people for fighting back and killing Horde members to save one single human is not trying to "safe" lives on both sides, its just treachery against the Horde.

[Die]

Most fans want heroes that are brave, bold, apologize for nothing, and not made to look stupid for being this way.

Current writers make everyone the samey-same. All of them are deep in drama, brooding, sullen, unsure of themselves, and whiny. That's why the entire hero lineup needs to get killed off. They've ruined them all.

[Raisei]

Oh look strawmanning again by assuming I love Sylvanas.

Exiling people for fighting back and killing Horde members to save one single human is not trying to "safe" lives on both sides, its just treachery against the Horde.

You are missing or conciously ignoring my point. It doesn't matter if you love Sylvanas or not.

It is a fact that the Horde community holds Baine by different standards then Sylvanas.

She can murder the entire Horde for fun and there are still people that defend her and love her for her brazen maliciousness, while Baine is lynched for killing a few Forsaken and will never hear the end of Taurajo.

A mass murderer with evil intentions all around gets nothing but praise while a guy with good intentions is shunned for muuuuuuch less.

This hypocrasy is what I am adressing, maybe it is not yours personally but the Horde community's most definately.

- - - Updated - - -

You are right in the sense that Baine himself is not the problem, but he's definitely a representation of the problem that being that what he is and what he does is a game at war with itself and that he is framed in a fashion that's unpalatable. Sylvanas is a villain, now a world antagonist, previously someone who's always been some variant of evil and the narrative treated her accordingly. It also treated her and her race and the existence of people hostile to one another as a desirable given, as a game like this should. Baine is held up as the ideal of all that is good when he's mostly just a pansy who's fucked over his race every time he's had the opportunity and his defiance is not brought up so much even because it was effective or laudable but because, by your own admission and that of pretty much every other Alliance poster here, he is not Sylvanas, ergo in opposing her he is automatically good. And it keeps coming back to Sylvanas as well, because not even those who defend him on that can say a lick about the quillboar, the Stonespire, the exiling of people at Taurajo or tipping off Jaina. Only when compared to the Great Satan.

It's not so much that I can't say anything to defend him on those charges, one can defend them based on his own character, he is soft and wants to be a "good person" ("being true to his heart"). Hence he safed the Quillboar and did not want to escalate the already smoldering conflict with the Alliance after Taurajo, maybe also for fear that the Alliance would come after Mulgore next and that Garrosh just as he had done during the civil war before would not come to his aid. He is simply not one to enjoy war and does not want his people to die in one. The only thing avenging Taurajo had created was more dead tauren. Tipping off Jaina finally was simply paying her back for her financial help against Magatha.

But my point was a different one. I maintain that it is not so much that Baine needs defending but that I find it hypocritical how Baine keeps being dragged to the front for his "evil and treacherous deeds" while much worse people are barely touched upon, hence the comparison to Sylvanas who is even now still defended and loved and very likely will be no matter what she does in SLs.

I agree on the part that Baine is in a game at war with itself, but that I think is more the fault of the ping pong the writers are playing with the Horde's alignment. Baine is clearly a chaotic good character in these terms and as such cannot function in an evil Horde, everyone that ever played an RPG knows that this clash will explode sooner or later. This would result in Baine leaving the party normally.
But since the writer jump between evil Horde and neutral-good Horde every other expansion, there is a loop. Just when it would be time for Baine to leave, the evil leader is overthrown and we get the good Horde for a time until that is overthrown again.

Frankly I would very much like for the writers to decide on something there, also from an Alliance PoV. I am tired of waiting for the next dagger in my back, because the next Warchief is evil again. Either make the Horde an ally or make it a clear enemy that we are going to fight, stop this back and forth. I know this is not how it works in real life politics, but WoW isn't exactly showing deep political intrige anyway.

This would also help the playerbase I think. The Horde atm is ridiculously split. Half are sad they cannot be with Sylvanas and hate Baine and Thrall for forcing the good Horde back, the others are glad to not be the villain anymore. If the writers picked one line and stuck to it then at least people could decide if they wanted to stay or leave. This pandering to one side and then the other from expansion to expansion hurts the narative and the characters.

While that's all well and good from a partisan position, a character like him and the mentality he and the bulk of the Council who have his values if not his baggage is that they're antithetical to the purpose of the game - that being conflict and war. Unlike someone like Thrall, who's repeatedly had his bad decisions bite him in the ass and has to suffer or grow, or villains who lose, Baine is cast as the epitome of all that is right despite holding positions that no right-thinking person ever would and doing things no one in their right mind would back. It's insulting to one's intelligence, but worse, it's boring, unfathomably so. The caricaturization of characters like Garrosh and Sylvanas Horde-side and the neutering of Moira, Genn, the dwarves in general and soon Tyrande Alliance-side congeals the cast into being the same variant of boring twats mincing a message that game all about varied conflict and getting better at it neither can nor should sustain. Characters like Thrall exist in the setting and suffer, having to struggle to do good, even Anduin finally had that in Shadows Rising and you know how much I've shat on him, so you know I'm not giving him credit as a matter of course. But Baine hits that perfect balance of at once constantly fucking up and the narrative never bringing it up but instead telling us how great he is, sharing that only with Calia, except for her replace 'constantly fucking up' with 'doing absolutely nothing'.

Well, I know you find the game without faction war boring, we will probably never agree there, but I see your point. I even agree that a character that always "wins" is boring. If we had had a "Burning of Mulgore" as was possibly planned and cut in BFA that would have helped.

In the end I think it comes down to the split in the Horde, with good and evil characters somehow forced to cooexist and depending which side is in charge the "opposition" is a problem for the writers. However the role this opposition has, I think, directly correlates to what the writers actually want the Horde to be. Namely good.
Because it is only the good guys that make a move under evil leadership, the opposite does not happen. Baine sabotaging both Garrosh and Sylvanas is the most glaring case and we never see Gallywix or Sylvanas trying to sabotage the leadership of Thrall or Voljin.
This does invoke a paragon position for those good guys, basically telling the player "this is the right thing to do, do it!" and I can understand how that kind of a neon-sign pointer might invoke misgivings on the Horde side.

There needs to be a clear line for what the Horde wants to be, I think, that would solve lots of issues. If it goes evil then we can work on getting the good folks into the Alliance and not have them as grumbling oppositon in a faction they don't want to be in.
I assume that BFA was the prelude to that, with the Horde excising the evil parts and recruiting more goods (i.e. Calia). This will not make everyone happy for sure, but in the long run I think it would improve the narrative, IF they stick to it despite all the backlash.

[Super Dickmann]

It's not so much that I can't say anything to defend him on those charges, one can defend them based on his own character, he is soft and wants to be a "good person" ("being true to his heart"). Hence he safed the Quillboar and did not want to escalate the already smoldering conflict with the Alliance after Taurajo, maybe also for fear that the Alliance would come after Mulgore next and that Garrosh just as he had done during the civil war before would not come to his aid. He is simply not one to enjoy war and does not want his people to die in one. The only thing avenging Taurajo had created was more dead tauren. Tipping off Jaina finally was simply paying her back for her financial help against Magatha.

But my point was a different one. I maintain that it is not so much that Baine needs defending but that I find it hypocritical how Baine keeps being dragged to the front for his "evil and treacherous deeds" while much worse people are barely touched upon, hence the comparison to Sylvanas who is even now still defended and loved and very likely will be no matter what she does in SLs.

I agree on the part that Baine is in a game at war with itself, but that I think is more the fault of the ping pong the writers are playing with the Horde's alignment. Baine is clearly a chaotic good character in these terms and as such cannot function in an evil Horde, everyone that ever played an RPG knows that this clash will explode sooner or later. This would result in Baine leaving the party normally.
But since the writer jump between evil Horde and neutral-good Horde every other expansion, there is a loop. Just when it would be time for Baine to leave, the evil leader is overthrown and we get the good Horde for a time until that is overthrown again.

Frankly I would very much like for the writers to decide on something there, also from an Alliance PoV. I am tired of waiting for the next dagger in my back, because the next Warchief is evil again. Either make the Horde an ally or make it a clear enemy that we are going to fight, stop this back and forth. I know this is not how it works in real life politics, but WoW isn't exactly showing deep political intrige anyway.

This would also help the playerbase I think. The Horde atm is ridiculously split. Half are sad they cannot be with Sylvanas and hate Baine and Thrall for forcing the good Horde back, the others are glad to not be the villain anymore. If the writers picked one line and stuck to it then at least people could decide if they wanted to stay or leave. This pandering to one side and then the other from expansion to expansion hurts the narative and the characters.

To defend someone based on their character is an entirely different state of affairs - you can argue that someone acts in-character, but that being in-character is evil, as these are separate parametres. Ditto being stupid is separate from that. A character can be stupid and this fit his character, but it doesn't make him less so. There's a poster who keeps making the case that Baine is the most consistent character out there and I agree completely, it's just that he's consistently hot garbage. That's why I've said many, many times that Sylvanas is both evil and out of character in BFA. Baine may be in-character, but he's unpalatable as such and in either case, that explanation doesn't gel here - he was already in a war, exiling the people at Taurajo didn't start the war, Jaina's troops were always the initiators against the tauren, both at Honor's Stand, at Taurajo, at the Great Gate and ultimately as the zone wraps up, the man in charge of the entire front is Twinbraid, of Stonespire massacre fame. It's indefensible behavior, and any leader who so bends over to a conqueror who's already harmed their people constantly should decorate a lamppost.

As for why Baine gets dragged out - the reasoning is pretty obvious. Prior to BFA, Sylvanas's actions consistently lead to Forsaken benefit and, in a geopolitical sense, Horde benefit as well, while hitting them in terms of public perception at some points. Sylvanas as omnicidal baddie who wants to kill everyone is an entirely new concept. So new that the writers themselves hadn't decided it in the BFA hype book. More so than that, throughout most of the expansion, the actions she took vis a vis people who didn't oppose her on the basis of things like genocide deeds but did oppose her on say hunting down a treacherous high official who'd agreed with the foreign king she's at war with to overthrow her (Saurfang) or went on a killing spree of their own side, a side ignorant of her omnicidal plans by the way, from a faction that are all complicit in genocide anyway (Baine) to free a human relative aren't objectionable. Every state would want Saurfang and Baine locked up for life and stripped of all titles, most states practice much worse than what was done to Derek, and most states would also execute the two and not just imprison them. The moral stand held was and is ridiculous and came as a result of framing. Framing that puts Sylvanas in muted colours and gives her an evil voice, something later done for Tyrande as well, and constantly talks about how Baine is the best thing since sliced bread, despite his moral stand being about a comparative non-issue and his constant record prior to the expansion of sabotage to his own race. One has baggage to the entire faction, the other largely had baggage with the entire other faction and had an extremely committed following especially among the race. Sylvanas is the face of the Forsaken, and she was a premier Horde character. The game treats Baine with a double standard, the playerbase less so.

This ties into the Horde being split and while I've flirted with that position sometimes before so I can get where you're coming from, I heavily disagree about any need to 'fix' the Horde by giving it a uniform morality and position on all things and flooding its cast with people of the same sentiment. That's why the Alliance is so staggeringly dull to so many people, including its own playerbase. It's why even you protest when say, the loyalists are given a free pass. Variety is the spice of life, internal conflict is the core of a good faction dynamic. Having both Garrosh and Vol'jin in the same faction created conflict and characterization, else Vol'jin would be a blank slate, his race and the tauren just different looking, boring orcs. Making Forsaken into ugly humans is all well and good for eliminating conflict and bringing them more into line with peace with the Alliance, but all the races are also products catering to different groups, and alienating that audience to service an audience that already exists reduces future storylines and makes the internal dynamic more boring as well. Homogeneity is the disease, not the cure. An all Vanilla Thrall Horde is a narrative wasteland, as their non-stories up until Wrath can attest to, when the Alliance had all the story momentum on account of having actual variety and dynamism, rather than three shades of the same race, one of them characterized. But give them struggle and you have something. The races are collective entities, they're not a DND party, and telling the story from the point of view of faction leaders alone and removing the civic element has been a grievous mistake for this very reason. A DND party can't have too clashing alignments. Nations can - they can and are bound by collective practical interests. The Horde is that, a union of nations, so is the Alliance, and that's where the interest lies. The soap opera of watching these holier than thou pricks pursue one note villains isn't it unless there's emotional clout to go with it.

Well, I know you find the game without faction war boring, we will probably never agree there, but I see your point. I even agree that a character that always "wins" is boring. If we had had a "Burning of Mulgore" as was possibly planned and cut in BFA that would have helped.

In the end I think it comes down to the split in the Horde, with good and evil characters somehow forced to cooexist and depending which side is in charge the "opposition" is a problem for the writers. However the role this opposition has, I think, directly correlates to what the writers actually want the Horde to be. Namely good.
Because it is only the good guys that make a move under evil leadership, the opposite does not happen. Baine sabotaging both Garrosh and Sylvanas is the most glaring case and we never see Gallywix or Sylvanas trying to sabotage the leadership of Thrall or Voljin.
This does invoke a paragon position for those good guys, basically telling the player "this is the right thing to do, do it!" and I can understand how that kind of a neon-sign pointer might invoke misgivings on the Horde side.

There needs to be a clear line for what the Horde wants to be, I think, that would solve lots of issues. If it goes evil then we can work on getting the good folks into the Alliance and not have them as grumbling oppositon in a faction they don't want to be in.
I assume that BFA was the prelude to that, with the Horde excising the evil parts and recruiting more goods (i.e. Calia). This will not make everyone happy for sure, but in the long run I think it would improve the narrative, IF they stick to it despite all the backlash.

The faction war is the core expression of this, but it's as much about having identifiable and player-joined groups clashing as anything else. Groups with goals you can understand and who's perspective you can follow. That is not to say a perspective they find morally agreeable, but one that they can nevertheless want to see the results of. An NPC faction can never deliver on this. A faction where everyone thinks and acts this way never can either. If the factions collapse, you can (but won't) do this with individual racial conflicts or between ad-hoc alliances. But you won't, what you will see is Jesus vs Satan.

What makes Baine even more odious though is that his struggle is based on hypocritical abstractions of the 'my people can melt and be raised, but i will die and suffer for jaina's brother' to be responded to with 'truly this is the soul of the Horde'. A character unfettered by anything except by his ideals is compelling. Cairne is compelling in how he opposed Garrosh immediately, even if I don't agree with him - he acted immediately and consistently. When we're told that he is doing it because those are his ideals, we believe it because we're shown it. But there is an impassable gap between what we're told Baine's ideals are and what they are shown to be, what we are told of his troubles and suffering and what they actually are. Anduin had and still has a similar thing to an nth degree, but at least in the newest book, he finds himself caught by how many he's sent to die, he struggles with how he hasn't achieved his goal and the delivery of certain lines gives the tone of what he is - a child reassuring himself that he's making the right call. And because he's now challenged, both internally and externally, he becomes compelling - I want to see what happens to him next and if this is a one-off miracle like Nathanos in that book actually being interesting, or if they're going somewhere with it. Baine has never had this. Baine has always been odious, treacherous, weak and incompetent and he's always presented as a hero, with the struggles he has 'am i honorable enough' being completely at odds with the struggles he is actually shown to have and the adverse consequences he actually has. The sheer cognitive dissonance one must practice in his story is why I, and so many others find him uniquely infuriating. I don't have this problem with Thrall and I've consistently praised his post-Wrath version as a character even as I've criticized his in-story decisions.

On that note, there's always been friction between the Horde to some extent. THe Forsaken and later blood elves had a madwoman in the attic vibe, and Sylvanas herself disobeyed Thrall and Garrosh both, mostly the latter, showing that moral alignment isn't the same as characterization or theming, hence how flipping everyone to good won't make them interesting no more than equalizing their standards to all being the same. I don't doubt that save maybe Kosak, pbuh, all of them want the fans to like the Honor Horde - but you can't help but see the glee with which they like at least showing the WC2 Horde and the way the Horde drops off in the 'neutral expansions' like Legion. One group is more interesting to write, to set off against good guys. There's tension when Vol'jin and Garrosh meet, there's interest there. But there's none when Mayla and Baine meet - the fuck would they even talk about, they're the exact same person. Conflict is the name of the game, and the best conflict isn't between pure good and pure evil but between shades of it, some of them very incompatible but forced to work together. That's a big appeal of the WoW Horde, the same way unified noblesavages were in WC3 and the different clans of dickheads were in the WC2 manual and their clashes and struggles in the expanded materials.

Making either faction pure good or pure evil would be an immense mistake, though not as much as making both pure good. Making so the Horde's longest lasting character is a fucking elf that tried to defect to the Alliance, the leader of the most morally bankrupt race themed around gallow's humor, loss, mad science and with a gothic aesthetic is lead by a shiny Disney Princess and even goblins tell you about union jobs is a nightmare scenario. And what are our wages of it? We watch Baine get captured and have to bust him out yet again. Surely a characterization that's benefitted us, as much as the Alliance has benefitted from everyone aligning with a teenager.

[geco]

With Baine you have to define what it is and show it.
It is supposed to be "pacifist and honorable." But as we have already said several times here. They didn't care about burning Teldrazzil. So it is difficult to see it as either.

But suppose that's the idea. Well then you have to show that you really do something for those things. As Another example in the last novel I could bring some decent peace proposal for Tyrande instead of a "war is bad" or a "trust us". Something like some tribute or compensation. Tyrande could refuse it. Perl the theme is to show Baine as someone active who seeks peace. and peace with all not only with their "human masters". (this would be the Baine that I would like)

The other option is the one I see. It is that Baine does not seek peace. He is just a lazy man who makes excuses to save the Horde's ass over and over again and like the rest of the leaders he wants to kill the alliance when he can (or that's what blizzard shows). In this case we have to stop showing Baine as a being in light and make it clear that he is only lying to the alliance. (It's really not the one I like)

[VladlTutushkin]

@Super Dickmann for all that huge sheet of text i just want to put my 50 silver in. Alliance now stuck in a position where we cant even “enjoy” as little as there is to enjoy in our “moral high ground” because King Kid decided for us that we are “morally equal” with the Horde. Imagine that - your only net benefit for ALL the shit and suffering you take is the fact that you are downright holy martyr but then someone equalises you with a local murderer and pillager. Hell, if they neuter Alliance so much then at least allow us to fully enjoy the glow of our pristine “goodness”. But i cant even do that. Plus we stuck in a position where any retaliation or hate of Horde portrayed as ABSOLUTELY WRONG and EVIL. No matter what horde does. Tyrande and night elfs are clearest examples of it but we can also take Jaina as an example too. Baine and Calia might be not up to edgier horde elements liking but Alliance gets beaten to death by “stupid good bat” and then cant even claim that at least that bat was good because next we are hit with “you are just as bad as your tormentors” bat. Thats just bizarre and screwed up.

[Combatbutler]

Having Baine make one of his usual trusting decisions, which results in a massive Tauren massacre and the survivors laying blame on him, for letting it happen. He as usual will try to appease to their better nature until he gets a stone thrown at his head, looking around realizing it had been a child who threw that stone with a look of pure hate on their face. The refugees are then dispersed by his guards, with the child cursing baine for letting his family being killed, before it is removed from sight.

Later Baine is tormented by the fact that a child could have such a face and say such things, begins to doubt his approach of leadership, realizing he can't just hope for the best outcome, but to make certain that those under his rule do not suffer if his idealistic decisions have a backlash, thus embracing more pragmatic choices.

[Raisei]

To defend someone based on their character is an entirely different state of affairs - you can argue that someone acts in-character, but that being in-character is evil, as these are separate parametres. Ditto being stupid is separate from that. A character can be stupid and this fit his character, but it doesn't make him less so. There's a poster who keeps making the case that Baine is the most consistent character out there and I agree completely, it's just that he's consistently hot garbage. That's why I've said many, many times that Sylvanas is both evil and out of character in BFA. Baine may be in-character, but he's unpalatable as such and in either case, that explanation doesn't gel here - he was already in a war, exiling the people at Taurajo didn't start the war, Jaina's troops were always the initiators against the tauren, both at Honor's Stand, at Taurajo, at the Great Gate and ultimately as the zone wraps up, the man in charge of the entire front is Twinbraid, of Stonespire massacre fame. It's indefensible behavior, and any leader who so bends over to a conqueror who's already harmed their people constantly should decorate a lamppost.

I suspect here that Baine was meant as the guy in the Horde that literally turns the other cheek, a stoic that does not move from his position of peace at all costs. He rather has the few dead of Taurajo unavenged then sending more of his people to die in a war that neither his father nor he agreed with. I don't think that is indefensible, it just is a position that will not make him many friends in the Horde. In a world with deeper political interplay he would be the Jon Snow that gets shived by his people in the dark of night, for ostensibly betraying their ideals.
Sadly Warcraft just isn't a setting that has these deep political plots, especially not at the time of Cata. It is one of the things I hope to see in the future when the removal of faction war allows for the inner-faction conflicts to get more focus and depth.

As for why Baine gets dragged out - the reasoning is pretty obvious. Prior to BFA, Sylvanas's actions consistently lead to Forsaken benefit and, in a geopolitical sense, Horde benefit as well, while hitting them in terms of public perception at some points.

What was this benefit? I know the RAS did some research on the Lich King's plague with Putress of all people being one of the forerunners in finding a counter, but after that? Sylvanas conquered Gilneas, but only to leave it as a blight infested swamp that no living member of the Horde can set foot in let alone colonize. Same for Darkshore, which could have provided the Horde with much needed fertile ground and was instead blighted by the Forsaken for fun. The geopolitical benefit for the Horde seems lacking to me, but I might not have all the facts.

This ties into the Horde being split and while I've flirted with that position sometimes before so I can get where you're coming from, I heavily disagree about any need to 'fix' the Horde by giving it a uniform morality and position on all things and flooding its cast with people of the same sentiment. That's why the Alliance is so staggeringly dull to so many people, including its own playerbase. It's why even you protest when say, the loyalists are given a free pass. Variety is the spice of life, internal conflict is the core of a good faction dynamic. Having both Garrosh and Vol'jin in the same faction created conflict and characterization, else Vol'jin would be a blank slate, his race and the tauren just different looking, boring orcs. Making Forsaken into ugly humans is all well and good for eliminating conflict and bringing them more into line with peace with the Alliance, but all the races are also products catering to different groups, and alienating that audience to service an audience that already exists reduces future storylines and makes the internal dynamic more boring as well. Homogeneity is the disease, not the cure. An all Vanilla Thrall Horde is a narrative wasteland, as their non-stories up until Wrath can attest to, when the Alliance had all the story momentum on account of having actual variety and dynamism, rather than three shades of the same race, one of them characterized. But give them struggle and you have something. The races are collective entities, they're not a DND party, and telling the story from the point of view of faction leaders alone and removing the civic element has been a grievous mistake for this very reason. A DND party can't have too clashing alignments. Nations can - they can and are bound by collective practical interests. The Horde is that, a union of nations, so is the Alliance, and that's where the interest lies. The soap opera of watching these holier than thou pricks pursue one note villains isn't it unless there's emotional clout to go with it.

I don't think that clearer narrative line excludes internal conflict. Look at SWTOR. The Empire is most definately evil with rascism, slavery and genocide happening all around and usually endorsed by the the government and murdering your superiors actually is the way to get a promotion. But there is still lots of conflict inside, so much so that it actually hampers their war effort enough for an inept Republic to win most of the time.

By defining this clear line for the faction the characters can adjust themselves in a clear spot and develop in their role. The back and forth in WoW only results in characters stuck in one mindset that is either barely visible and has no depth or is very flatly single-minded.
For example, take Baine in an constantly evil Horde. He could be agonizing in his surroundings and try in vain to change it, only to actually become a spy for the Alliance, betraying the Horde (for real) on the condition that his people are granted amnesty when the time comes to strike.

I think though that we might be expecting too much of the narrative. At least yet. The story quality is getting better for sure, but we are not yet at a level of say Witcher or Dragon Age or even SWTOR and that is also not the focus of the game.

What makes Baine even more odious though is that his struggle is based on hypocritical abstractions of the 'my people can melt and be raised, but i will die and suffer for jaina's brother' to be responded to with 'truly this is the soul of the Horde'.

I still think that Derek is secondary in this whole plot. Baine's goal was to preserve what he thinks is the honor of the Horde, but it took time for him to reach the end of his patience (which is also in big part the fault of the narrative having to be stretched over 2 years, if everyone had left the Horde as soon a Lordaeron the expansion would have been short) and the point where he could no longer put up with it, even if it meant that his people would suffer for it. Choosing the Derek plot as his last straw was a bad idea of the writing team. It was clear that the Horde playerbase would misunderstand it's intention.

On that note, there's always been friction between the Horde to some extent. THe Forsaken and later blood elves had a madwoman in the attic vibe, and Sylvanas herself disobeyed Thrall and Garrosh both, mostly the latter, showing that moral alignment isn't the same as characterization or theming, hence how flipping everyone to good won't make them interesting no more than equalizing their standards to all being the same. I don't doubt that save maybe Kosak, pbuh, all of them want the fans to like the Honor Horde - but you can't help but see the glee with which they like at least showing the WC2 Horde and the way the Horde drops off in the 'neutral expansions' like Legion. One group is more interesting to write, to set off against good guys. There's tension when Vol'jin and Garrosh meet, there's interest there. But there's none when Mayla and Baine meet - the fuck would they even talk about, they're the exact same person. Conflict is the name of the game, and the best conflict isn't between pure good and pure evil but between shades of it, some of them very incompatible but forced to work together. That's a big appeal of the WoW Horde, the same way unified noblesavages were in WC3 and the different clans of dickheads were in the WC2 manual and their clashes and struggles in the expanded materials.

I agree that you need the shades of grey to have compelling characters, but what I meant is more on the faction itself. The Horde at the moment is not grey, it is either totally good or totally bad and shuffles around every two years, literally without reason other then "the Warchief shouted For the Horde". There is never time for the characters to settle in their reality and develop.
I don't mind the conflict, but it has to be earned and have a purpose. The narrative has to show us the way there and not just take a shortcut like BFA did, which made the faction conflict so forced and ultimately pointless for me. And the internal conflict of the Horde was too, since it was clear that after Teldrassil Sylvanas was not gonna remain Warchief for much longer, the only question was "how" not "if" she was removed. Conflicts that have no satisfying beginning and a forseeable outcome are quite wasted and I do not accept their merrit just because the game is called Warcraft.

[Super Dickmann]

@Super Dickmann for all that huge sheet of text i just want to put my 50 silver in. Alliance now stuck in a position where we cant even “enjoy” as little as there is to enjoy in our “moral high ground” because King Kid decided for us that we are “morally equal” with the Horde. Imagine that - your only net benefit for ALL the shit and suffering you take is the fact that you are downright holy martyr but then someone equalises you with a local murderer and pillager. Hell, if they neuter Alliance so much then at least allow us to fully enjoy the glow of our pristine “goodness”. But i cant even do that. Plus we stuck in a position where any retaliation or hate of Horde portrayed as ABSOLUTELY WRONG and EVIL. No matter what horde does. Tyrande and night elfs are clearest examples of it but we can also take Jaina as an example too. Baine and Calia might be not up to edgier horde elements liking but Alliance gets beaten to death by “stupid good bat” and then cant even claim that at least that bat was good because next we are hit with “you are just as bad as your tormentors” bat. Thats just bizarre and screwed up.

Yeah, I wrote this in a separate wall of text to Powerogue, which I think you'd agree with - there's a throughline in the story that claims all desire for punishment for you or your group being harmed is a desire for vengeance and vengeance is inherently evil and makes you like the one who hurt you. Which I don't think I need to tell you is absurd. Hence how the narrative trades in ridiculous moral equivalences like Uther being angry at Arthas and wanting to punish him or Tyrande being angry against Sylvanas and the Horde being these beyond the pale positions. The Alliance has been the ones to get this first because of Metzen's idea that your faction fantasy is to be, to quote, the Captain America faction. Instead, you come across either as overly benevolent tools that get themselves stabbed in the back (tail end of Mists leading into Ashran/Legion/BFA) despite operating from a position or strength or worse, weak morons that don't even get to be the heroes of your own story but instead speed Horde heroes like you're their nanny like in BFA. Anduin eulogizing Saurfang after he was part of the invasion and then chastising Tyrande for being angry, natch. I can totally understand why someone from that position would obviously prefer leaders who are pushovers that fit what your faction has been for ages in order to at least be able to be Captain America if that's all you're forced to be anyway. Ditto, acknowledging how the Alliance has been very boring for a very long time and is only now showing signs of dynamism that I suspect will get snuffed out and I want to enjoy while they're there, I'd prefer anything other than to play as a dime store version of them. Or worse, a sidekick like how Jaina fights through waves and waves of Maw minions and we have to rescue Baine after the Jailor kicks him out for being too crap.

I suspect here that Baine was meant as the guy in the Horde that literally turns the other cheek, a stoic that does not move from his position of peace at all costs. He rather has the few dead of Taurajo unavenged then sending more of his people to die in a war that neither his father nor he agreed with. I don't think that is indefensible, it just is a position that will not make him many friends in the Horde. In a world with deeper political interplay he would be the Jon Snow that gets shived by his people in the dark of night, for ostensibly betraying their ideals.
Sadly Warcraft just isn't a setting that has these deep political plots, especially not at the time of Cata. It is one of the things I hope to see in the future when the removal of faction war allows for the inner-faction conflicts to get more focus and depth.

The early expansions occupy this weird middleground where geopolitics sometimes exist and sometimes don't. S. Barrens in particular is very well done (by WoW standards), and it's because both sides are being given their perspective - the Horde seeing a butcher of innocents, but the Alliance seeing one of their most humane commanders who made a wrong call while saving lives, that humanizes the conflict in ways few others do. Ditto Stonespire and the cycle of revenge. It is an actually interesting and affecting story no matter which end of you it you play and it's one of the zones I'd recommend. The Baine thing in relation to all that is so bad is because it's completely alien to what we actually see with our own eyes - we're told one thing, but can clearly see quite another. The Jaina of the book is an innocent damsel and Baine a peacekeeper, but apply the game to it and Jaina is an admittedly pragmatic woman securing herself from what is an inevitable Horde attack but in the process having to enable the pressuring of the tauren and Baine is an absolute fuckwit who rolls over even after it's plain the fight is still going and the most hardline commander on the Alliance side of the Barrens is now in charge. It's what I'm getting at - framing vs. what the audience sees, tell vs. show.

What was this benefit? I know the RAS did some research on the Lich King's plague with Putress of all people being one of the forerunners in finding a counter, but after that? Sylvanas conquered Gilneas, but only to leave it as a blight infested swamp that no living member of the Horde can set foot in let alone colonize. Same for Darkshore, which could have provided the Horde with much needed fertile ground and was instead blighted by the Forsaken for fun. The geopolitical benefit for the Horde seems lacking to me, but I might not have all the facts.

Putress and the RAS cured the Plague of Undeath that the Zombie invasion was about and in terms of Horde military benefit, they were a free foothold and the Plague was even incorporated into the battle plans for the Wrathgate, Agmar e.g knew about it. In Cataclysm, the Forsaken nabbed up a lot of territory and could take heat. Sylvanas then pulled the plug and didn't push further because she knew she'd get the axe for it. This also factors into her good for her people - she offed herself because she didn't give a fuck after she made these sad zombies achieve her goal and when she came back she helped make them a regional power with a positive self-image. When you saw Sylvanas when playing Forsaken, you knew she was going to do some sketchy shit, but also that it'd probably turn out well for you and the undead. There's not much real altruism there, but success and branding goes a long way. She also was there from day 1. Baine by contrast replaced his much more popular dad and save for one cool appearance in Mulgore appears solely in stories that are lectures to the Horde, while conferring no perceptible benefit to his race or faction. When the marketing for one is 'bitch who gets shit done and might have more to her' and 'spiritual gentle giant who's honorable but knows when to throw down' I think you can tell which one of the two the writers better delivered on for their target audience.

I don't think that clearer narrative line excludes internal conflict. Look at SWTOR. The Empire is most definately evil with rascism, slavery and genocide happening all around and usually endorsed by the the government and murdering your superiors actually is the way to get a promotion. But there is still lots of conflict inside, so much so that it actually hampers their war effort enough for an inept Republic to win most of the time.

I don't disagree you with that a good faction and an evil faction can work. I've advocated it as being better than two pure good factions before, more so that that's not really what the Horde was and while I totally think it can work - I don't think the writers can pull it off. They have pulled off good Horde internal conflict when out of their civil war expansions. And I loved the clan dynamics in the WC2 adaptation novels despite all the orcs there being dicks. Garrosh and Sylvanas had a good contrast. These things can work. I just don't think they're really necessary and the Horde is a broad enough tent to fit them. Especially at this late stage of the franchise where the factions are so massive that any overarching identity will be pretty tortured.

I still think that Derek is secondary in this whole plot. Baine's goal was to preserve what he thinks is the honor of the Horde, but it took time for him to reach the end of his patience (which is also in big part the fault of the narrative having to be stretched over 2 years, if everyone had left the Horde as soon a Lordaeron the expansion would have been short) and the point where he could no longer put up with it, even if it meant that his people would suffer for it. Choosing the Derek plot as his last straw was a bad idea of the writing team. It was clear that the Horde playerbase would misunderstand it's intention.

That is the message we're meant to get out of it I'm sure but it's delivered terribly, strikes against what we do in gameplay and see NPCs do in terms of gravity (necromancy, soul stealing etc.) and I think is conceptually bad as well. No matter who the dude is, no matter what he represents to the values of the Forsaken, if we're meant to take Baine as 'the soul of the Horde', he should not be rolling over after genocide to only act a year later. It's too big a hurdle to overcome. Hell. the second you think about the Siege of Lordaeron you run into hurdles too big to overcome because of the whole raising orc and tauren bodies business and the cultural taboo involved in orcish culture so firm that demon blood couldn't wipe it from them and Gul'dan was too scared to break it. It's the issue with the story that Sylvanas' 'bad' choices are too frontloaded and the story has to string along, which while you can sort of gel with the Horde under a certain interpretation, the longer you go, the more the climax can't hold by comparison. If I had to doctor that scene alone with the intention of making Baine look better I'd a) have an actually established Forsaken go with him and have it be their idea too, B) Have him do what Thrall did with the Kor'kron in 5.1 and approach the sailors and talk to them. Then, have with the other Forsaken there, convince them to go. Then the Dark Rangers can start firing for disloyalty or something, since god knows the story made them and Sylvanas 100% pure evil so you might as well go for it. That way the enemy shoots first, Baine talks first instead of immediately declaring everyone there is a zealot and going in with force and it's a Forsaken who takes initiative for their own values. This wouldn't fix the elephant in the room of the Teldrassil, Lordaeron and war effort non-reactions, but then nothing will except much greater rewrites.

I agree that you need the shades of grey to have compelling characters, but what I meant is more on the faction itself. The Horde at the moment is not grey, it is either totally good or totally bad and shuffles around every two years, literally without reason other then "the Warchief shouted For the Horde". There is never time for the characters to settle in their reality and develop.
I don't mind the conflict, but it has to be earned and have a purpose. The narrative has to show us the way there and not just take a shortcut like BFA did, which made the faction conflict so forced and ultimately pointless for me. And the internal conflict of the Horde was too, since it was clear that after Teldrassil Sylvanas was not gonna remain Warchief for much longer, the only question was "how" not "if" she was removed. Conflicts that have no satisfying beginning and a forseeable outcome are quite wasted and I do not accept their merrit just because the game is called Warcraft.

I agree with you entirely. We talk about 'Vol'jin's Horde' and 'Sylvanas's Horde' or now 'the Council Horde', but what are their policies? What is their dynamic? I've read their associated books and I have no bloody clue. At most I can determine that Sylvanas used a lot of pandering, but I don't know how canon that book even is anymore. There's no time for the status quo to settle, to have there be build up before it's torn down again. BFA was doomed since Teldrassil was the opening shot because while A Good War makes for a very compelling ending in a sort of weird - burning the tree as decisive battle doctrine, war being the only viable follow-up because the Alliance wouldn't stand for it and the Jaina: Warbringer could work into it, it was plainly obvious that that wasn't the route taken. The Alliance that existed in Sylvanas and Saurfang's imagination was far more engaging and realistic than the actual one and the Sylvanas who had to think fast to burn the tree after having initially planned to kill one dude may not even mentally exist.

[Combatbutler]

I agree with you entirely. We talk about 'Vol'jin's Horde' and 'Sylvanas's Horde' or now 'the Council Horde', but what are their policies? What is their dynamic? I've read their associated books and I have no bloody clue. At most I can determine that Sylvanas used a lot of pandering, but I don't know how canon that book even is anymore. There's no time for the status quo to settle, to have there be build up before it's torn down again. BFA was doomed since Teldrassil was the opening shot because while A Good War makes for a very compelling ending in a sort of weird - burning the tree as decisive battle doctrine, war being the only viable follow-up because the Alliance wouldn't stand for it and the Jaina: Warbringer could work into it, it was plainly obvious that that wasn't the route taken. The Alliance that existed in Sylvanas and Saurfang's imagination was far more engaging and realistic than the actual one and the Sylvanas who had to think fast to burn the tree after having initially planned to kill one dude may not even mentally exist.

You expect real worldbuilding from blizzard? Hah! We know almost nothing about most of the races in the world, nor the actual scale of it, its population their cultures etc. if they can't even get the basics right, how are they supposed to write believable political entities and conflict?

[Super Dickmann]

You expect real worldbuilding from blizzard? Hah! We know almost nothing about most of the races in the world, nor the actual scale of it, its population their cultures etc. if they can't even get the basics right, how are they supposed to write believable political entities and conflict?

I'm not talking any extreme detail, I'm talking even ATLA cartoon fare - this is Man X, he rules over people X, people X currently live like this, they focus on activities X, this differed from when they were under Y. We assume Vol'jin does things differently than Garrosh, but who knows how.

[Thorqin]

This thread is all you need to know about why Baine sucks. The only posters who are defending him are alliance, because they know Baine carries their water and is treasonous thorn in the Horde. Nobody in the Horde player base likes or roots for him, most of us wanted him dead multiple expansions ago. Let him defect to the alliance, or let us kill him for betraying the Horde over and over again. I miss his dad, now that was a leader.