Why do Undead generally come from the North in Fantasy?

[Irian]

Because in real life, bodies turn cold when you're dead. The cold is also basically the one climate that humans simply can't adapt to on earth. In general, cold is connected to emptiness, inhospitality and death.

[Traveler Voltin]

i still say Norse Mythology is the reason

[huth]

they don't. you simply did not read enough.

This. The issue isn't unoriginal writers, but limited reference pool on the OP's side.

[Sorrowseer]

Northerners are tough and grim, southerners are sissy boys...

[Netherspark]

Much of Warcraft's scourge is probably inspired from A Song of Ice & Fire's white walkers.

[Selastan]

Much of Warcraft's scourge is probably inspired from A Song of Ice & Fire's white walkers.

you mean the Others

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Northerners are tough and grim, southerners are sissy boys...

I like this explanation, even if the popularity of norse mythology is probably the reason.

[Lumineus]

Ehh. The Scourge are a combination of your bog-standard zombie plague trope with a healthy dose of Tolkien (Witch King of Angmar + Sauron), Star Wars (Arthas = Vader) and Arthurian legend (Frostmourne = Sword in the Stone, father-figure named Uther). Not saying it couldn't be, but we don't get a lot of detail on the Others in AGoT, and WC3 was already well under development by the time A Clash of Kings was published in the US.

[Feel The Power]

OT: White people live in north. And you can't get whiter than skeleton.

All those albino Eskimos!

[Deleted]

I thought it was a norse mythology thing

It is, along with cold - preserve corpses. Other religions around the world have haunting spirits or ghosts as their main thing. With exception of jews who have golems, both divine and man made.

[Sting]

Not quite sure, but I think arthas brought along the undead with him to Northrend, but they originated in lordaeron(?). Haven't played WC3 in a while, but I seem to recall arthas fucking up the place good in TFT, submitting both the nerubians to his cause and turning sindragosa into a frost wyrm.

[Arrashi]

All those albino Eskimos!

They are just frost asians. Don't count.

Also, how many times you see them compared to vikings ?

[TheImperios]

Except they often come from the South as well. Conan and Warhammer, anyone?

[Typhoria]

Egyptian mummies?

[TheImperios]

Actually, if you think about it, every cardinal direction has an evil characterisation.

The North is associated with death and brutality (Vikings, Inuit, etc), maybe ruthlessness. Evil by the virtue of having no life.

The South is associated with wildness, savagery, and danger - jungles, savannahs, and the deadly animals and natives that inhabit it. Evil due to abundance of life.

The East is spiritual, mystical, deeply emotional: it always comes in hordes (Mongols, Arabs, Turks, the Han) and cannot be understood (the Inscrutable Oriental stereotype). It is evil because it is irrational.

The West is brutal, industrial, imperialist, plagued by greed and values machinery more than humanity. It is evil because it is rational. (ATLA Fire Nation)

[Deleted]

Actually, if you think about it, every cardinal direction has an evil characterisation.

The North is associated with death and brutality (Vikings, Inuit, etc), maybe ruthlessness. Evil by the virtue of having no life.

The South is associated with wildness, savagery, and danger - jungles, savannahs, and the deadly animals and natives that inhabit it. Evil due to abundance of life.

The East is spiritual, mystical, deeply emotional: it always comes in hordes (Mongols, Arabs, Turks, the Han) and cannot be understood (the Inscrutable Oriental stereotype). It is evil because it is irrational.

The West is brutal, industrial, imperialist, plagued by greed and values machinery more than humanity. It is evil because it is rational. (ATLA Fire Nation)

An interesting observation. It is also interesting that all of these tropes were already in use in ancient times (apart from The West, I guess). So we are definitely talking about something deeper than "Blizzard ripped of GRRM" here.