Why must there "always be a Lich King?"

[Daedius]

Aye, I don't understand this meself...

If Bolvar is "good" he wouldn't be making more scourge... so couldn't the scourge be systematically killed off ? Couldn't Bolvar just have them destroy themselves, etc. ?

Just a stupid plot convenience because we know he's "bad" now, and we'll probably fight him at some point... in a 5-man dungeon.

[Deleted]

No, you did not pay attention. OP acknowledged the fact that the undead would run wild. His question (which I have not seen anybody answer yet) is:

why not just kill the LK, then kill ALL the remaining undead, and hang up our hats? I mean we are killing Gods and planets now. Are limbless, mindless zombies really that big a threat to us anymore?

Because it's easier having somebody keep the undead atbay than immediately fight an army of wild undead worldwide after a long campaign

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Aye, I don't understand this meself...

If Bolvar is "good" he wouldn't be making more scourge... so couldn't the scourge be systematically killed off ? Couldn't Bolvar just have them destroy themselves, etc. ?

Just a stupid plot convenience because we know he's "bad" now, and we'll probably fight him at some point... in a 5-man dungeon.

He isn't making new Scourge....

[Gasparde]

why not just kill the LK, then kill ALL the remaining undead, and hang up our hats? I mean we are killing Gods and planets now. Are limbless, mindless zombies really that big a threat to us anymore?

Because we can keep the Scourge in check with Bolvar.
We couldn't keep Deathwing in check. We couldn't keep Garosh in check. We couldn't gto Draenor and ask Archimonde to wait with his invasion until we dealt with the Scourge.

Just like Malfurion let the Rift of Aln in the Emerald Nightmare be, we had to let the Scourge be - because there were more important things to do; things that needed immediate attention.

The Scourge is still a threat, just not an immediate one. It's not knocking on our doors. We're not facing an undead invasion. It's doing it's thing up there in Northrend and Bolvar keeps it like that. Without Bolvar we'd had the Scourge streaming across Azeroth while we were fighting the Twilight Hammer, Ragnaros and the Black Dragonflight, including Deathwing.

There must always be a Lich King.... unless we have time to deal with the Scourge once and for all wihtout running the risk of fighting a three-front war with the Scourge, the Legion, the Void and what not.

[BananaHandsB]

Control of the Scourge Jay.

Basically if there is no Lich King the Scourge would run rampant. The Lich King keeps them in control. And there is still an boatload of Scourge to boot so imagine them all running rampant.

Honestly, I've never understood this. Without the lich king, I feel we could wipe out the scourge with ease. The lich king is what keeps them organized, focused, smart, and he's a powerful being himself. Without him to control them, they wouldn't pose much of a threat imo.

[Forgottenone]

Honestly, I've never understood this. Without the lich king, I feel we could wipe out the scourge with ease. The lich king is what keeps them organized, focused, smart, and he's a powerful being himself. Without him to control them, they wouldn't pose much of a threat imo.

Most people feel this way probably because of how poorly they are represented in-game, the Scourage is suppose to literally be a sea of undead capable of sweeping across Azeroth. They may not take over but the destruction and death they would cause before they are defeated would be higher than when Arthas was the LK. At least now they are basically sedated.

[Bryntrollian]

That's why I said they should go indifferent. It wouldn't effect gameplay since they'll still be there and attackable, and it'll show that Bolvar is doing his job.

That would require an update to the Northrend story arc.

[Thimagryn]

I'm pretty damn sure there weren't millions upon millions of undead before the Lich King either.

Well there was no precedent for them 'rampaging' either, they should have all just returned to dust. That was just a convenient plot device added for the sake of continuing the Lich King title.

[cuafpr]

well the main obvious answer is plot for future content, thus plot armor on the Lich King title.

however at the time no, we couldn't win a war against all undead zerging all over the world, resources were scarce with the war against the Lich king, factions were on the brink of war... and i'm not sure how much in game time passed between his death and the awakening of deathwing. Deathwing + undead zerg = wiped out factions. MoP had the faction war and low resources from the cataclysm, WoD was well, WoD and the best of both factions were "stuck" off world for most of the time. then the legion came. there really hasn't be a long chance to re-group and go back to destroy the entirety of the undead. Also now not sure how the ebon blade would feel about it.

We do have better technology now, but undead dragons and gargoyles and wraiths can stop the air superiority angle people are talking about. How many gun ships do even have left after the first assault on the broken shore ?

[ReleaseDay]

When Bolvar puts on the helmet of the Lich King after arthas is defeated, why is cannon that "there must always be a Lich King?"

Why not just banish the helmet into the twisting nether or destroy it? Undead scourge can only be raised by an entity like Sylvanis or the Vykrul spirit healers, or a *GASP* Lich King. If the Lich King is no more, then wouldn't that serve to stop large swaths of undead from ever rising? Thus, allowing the heros of azeroth to finally kill off ALL of the undead scourge and be done with any sort of threat they might pose?

1000 threads you've made on these forums and 999 of them have been pointless (i'm amazed you haven't been banned already). That said, this is quite an interesting topic. I've personally always been annoyed by that statement "there must always be a lich king" no matter how cool it sounded it doesn't make sense. From what we learned throughout the story in WOTLK, The Scourge were growing more and more powerful, due to the fact that they had a skilled commander. A strategic leader who was winning and gaining ground for his faction. They claim that if there was no LK, they would be running amok and killing everyone..Uhm, weren't they doing exactly that?

No, more likely, without a leader, they would run around, confused and undisciplined, and would've been defeated much easier. I guess wow lore and logic are the opposite of eachother. We saw that for real in WOD.

[lockybalboa]

Isn't it simple? So that they can recycle/reuse the same story/character over and over and over again.

[AbalDarkwind]

The "canon" answer is that the Scourge would run rampant and devour the world like locusts. The fact that the LK would not be creating new undead doesn't matter; the Scourge that has already been raised would be a serious problem without a Lich King restraining them...or so we're lead to believe.

The real reason, in my mind, is because Yogg-Saron tricked us into believing a LK was necessary as he had already corrupted Bolvar by that point. Yogg-Saron wanted control of the Lich King and the Scourge, so he used Terenas as a "friendly face" to get us to believe his phony reasoning. Why else would Yogg-Saron and Terenas both say "No King Rules Forever"? YS even adds "Only Death is eternal!" meaning him, the God of Death. Not to mention that YS used his "Sara" avatar to get us to do his bidding, so him using a "Terenas" avatar is in line with what he does. I also like the idea that Arthas, in all his wickedness, talked to the God of Death, a creature of the Void he was about to be sent to, in his final moments rather than his father. It's a fitting punishment.

Plus, a Wrath of the Lich King 2 would be a popular expansion, hence keeping both the LK and Scourge around from a corporate perspective.

[Saverem]

That would require an update to the Northrend story arc.

It would work similar to how Argus appearing in the sky after you kill KJ works. Once you defeat TLK, all the undead becomes indifferent. Pretty much no chance they'd do it now since that expansion is like 7 years old now and no one cares about it.