Finding out that one needed to defeat Jaina (if winning that raid fight can really count as a defeat - she successfully delays the Horde forces from harrying the Alliance and then bamfs out of there) in order to progress on the Horde war campaign (oddly, Alliance players do not have to set foot in the Battle for Dazar'alor to get their equivalent quests,) I did the quests that lead to the fateful meeting between Baine and Jaina off the coast of the ruins of Theramore - appropriately enough on my Tauren Shaman (though don't get me wrong, my Undead Rogue is long past thinking the Banshee Queen needs to have a convenient accident that might give the Horde a leader with a more sustainable leadership style.)
While I haven't finished the follower mission that allows you get the last chapter of this story on the Horde side, I do know how it ends thanks to the Alliance quest that has you spy on the meeting.
Ultimately (and I don't count this as spoilery as it's been out for a while,) Sylvanas blames Zelling as a traitor and loyalist to Kul Tiras and has him summarily executed, though not before this provokes Baine to claim responsibility for Derek's release.
It seems pretty clear at this point that, even if Derek does not believe himself to be a sleeper agent, he almost certainly is one. Many of the guards on the ship - Forsaken ones - simply surrender and flee rather than die to protect the prisoner. Only the Dark Rangers and the officers on the crew - perhaps chosen as those loyal enough to die in order to sell the deception - actually die to the Horde player and Baine's assault.
In fact, Sylvanas might have even gotten the idea from the Alliance, who sent Telaamon and a sizable number of troops on a suicide mission through Nazmir, where their purpose was to draw the Horde's main troops north and distract them while the true assault hit Dazar'alor at its harbor.
Which means that, in all likelihood, Baine got played. Sylvanas is ruthless and cunning, and even if the latter attribute has been told rather than shown for the most part, we know that she never hesitates to sacrifice something for the win - like her own home city, for example.
Of course, the Battle of Lordaeron shows that Sylvanas' diabolical plans don't always really work. Sylvanas had intended to decapitate the Alliance with Lordaeron, trapping Anduin, Genn, and Alleria in a blight-blasted chamber where they would almost surely die. She didn't account for Jaina, who turned what had been a big sacrifice play into, at best, a slash-and-burn retreat.
The Derek gambit is, of course, directed at Jaina. But how successful is that likely to be?
Let's make the assumption that Derek is a perfect sleeper agent - he believes that he has complete control over his own undead faculties, and genuinely wants to be reunited with his family, but when triggered by a subconscious suggestion - maybe with a Manchurian Candidate-like code phrase - he will go into killing mode, attacking his loved ones when they are vulnerable.
This only works if the Proudmoores act naively. Jaina, the moment Derek arrives, is immediately suspicious. While she softens once Derek speaks (interestingly, it's his acknowledgement that he was meant to be a weapon against them that she seems to develop some trust for him,) those of us on the Alliance side see that he's not going directly to Boralus to hang with the fam - instead, Jaina is sending him to meet an "old friend" who has been through something similar.
In-game, we've heard nothing of Calia Menethil's fate, except for some vague references to the massacre in Arathi Highlands. But Calia's status as a sort of "lightforged undead," meaning that she was raised not through traditional necromancy, but instead through the Holy Light, yet still seems to be sort of undead, means that there's another side to the undead coin that could mean the conditioning and brainwashing Derek has likely undergone might be undone by something that Sylvanas did not anticipate.
So that's a plot to keep your eyes on.
But what of Baine?
Baine is a man of honor, representing the spirit of his people. Grimtotem aside, the Tauren have always been the most unambiguously good members of the Horde. The Tauren have always seemed the most likely to be able to broker peace with the Alliance - especially given that they were on friendly terms (even if not direct allies) with the Night Elves for ages before the arrival of the Orcs.
With Vol'jin dead, Saurfang gone, Lor'themar still holding grudges, and Thrall sort of politically irrelevant (though we are seeing a new model for him in 8.2, so who knows?) Baine is the most likely advocate for offering the Horde a different leadership direction - one that hold to the ideals of honor that Sylvanas clearly has no interest in whatsoever. But that honor has caused him to do something rash - he has gone to consort with Jaina Proudmoore, and his timing could not be worse. Even if, as an Alliance player primarily, I generally think Jaina has been justified in most of her actions (purging the Sunreavers wasn't great - the ends were justified, but not the means,) she did just lead an assault that killed King Rastakhan, meaning that Baine has just gone and consorted with someone who has become a hated enemy of the Horde's newest and most important new allies.
So, the High Chieftain of the Tauren Tribes is now a criminal and a prisoner. This presents a couple problems:
First off, Baine is, or at least was, popular within the Horde. His father is a beloved hero and he was seen as keeping up the tradition of honor among the Bloodhoof. Likewise, while he did betray the Warchief, Sylvanas is not exactly the most popular Warchief they've ever had (maybe that's Vol'jin?) Especially given the disappearance of Varok Saurfang, the Horde is in an uncertain position (and let's not forget that after Dazar'alor, the Alliance is winning - both sides say as much.)
Also, the Tauren are leaderless. With Baine in chains, what does it mean for the status of the Tauren within the Horde? One of the few politically intelligent things Garrosh did was to give the Tauren a privileged status after his accidentally dishonorable killing of Cairne. But now, the moral heart of the Horde is going to be alienated and isolated and without a clear authority figure.
The player character is also notably not punished for these actions. Sylvanas clearly figured out it was Zelling and Baine behind Derek's escape (and planned for it, one would assume.) One would think, then, that she also knows we were part of it as well. But did she tell us that it was all part of the plan? No. We're the only ones who seem to have faced zero consequences. When is that other shoe going to fall?
Sylvanas' tenure as Warchief does not seem sustainable. But this expansion has also done a hell of a job creating a real mess when it comes to what the better alternative would be. In Mists, Vol'jin was leading a revolutionary resistance that, while it received aid from the Alliance, was still fundamentally independent of it, and thus only the most jingoistic Garrosh-loyalists could claim anything other that that Vol'jin was fighting to change the Horde from within.
Sylvanas must have paid close attention. The most obvious contenders who could replace Sylvanas in some sort of coup are finding themselves compromised. Saurfang was clearly unleashed by the Alliance in order to create a challenge to her - and while that might work, if that fact is exposed it will create some big problems for old Varok. Likewise, Baine, who could have made a good argument for himself as someone who embodied the true honor of the Horde, has now incriminated himself. There is no clear untainted Vol'jin analogue who could simply take over from Sylvanas.
Sylvanas' story is still in the "everything going exactly according to plan" stage. But compelling villains work best when they are challenged. Take Walter White from Breaking Bad, one of the best villain protagonists of recent years. He was constantly on the edge of catastrophe, which made his survival all the more impressive. I'm fine with Sylvanas being clever, but I want to get a little more insight into her process, and see what happens when something doesn't go the way she wanted it to.
Likewise, I really want to see a more active role for the Alliance. While Jaina's story in Kul Tiras has been great, and it was immensely satisfying to see the Alliance successfully deceive the Horde, I wish we could get some of this intrigue and intra-faction challenge and conflict on team blue. There's potential there with Tyrande's invocation of the Night Warrior, but we have yet to see exactly how that will play out. (Side note: there was some recent text datamined that, at least by my interpretation, suggests that N'zoth actually wants our help to fight Elune, which... would be some crazy stuff.)
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