If the Lich King had won, and conquered Azeroth...

[Schattenlied]

LOL what? It took the most powerful weapon in Azeroth's history to destroy it. The heroes only removed the plates from him.

I never said the heroes destroyed it, please learn to read. Everything else you said, and this, is irrelevant. Your entire argument hinges on the incorrect assumption that Deathwing can only be killed by the Dragon Soul, when we know for a fact that is untrue because we see him impaled on top of Wyrmrest in End Times, proving that he is able to be killed through normal means... If you don't think Galakrond, who is several times his size and would be hopped up on death magic, which we know makes things stronger, wouldn't be able to overpower him do something similar, you're not being logical.

Infracted.

[Houle]

on topic: since arthas was obviously not woking for the Jailer, and keeping all the souls under his command from the Maw, i dont think the Jailer would be that happy. Just because Frostmourne/the helm was made with the power of the Maw doesnt mean the Jailer has full control over them. Same as Sargeras doesnt have full control over every fel user.
If we assume Arthas managed to kill Horde/Alliance, rezz Galakrond and kill Deathwing+N'zoth (which is a pretty fckn bold assumption), im pretty sure thats the state Azeroth would be for the next thousand years: Arthas ruling over a dead world.
Until, inevitably, the legion/sargeras would arive by "foot", corrupt azeroth and kill everything in the cosmos.

ooor arthas finds a way to kill and rezz the world soul under his command (altho we dont know if thats even possible)

[tommyhil622]

Azeroth would have been destroyed without the heroes since we wouldn't have had free will ... maybe by Deathwing, maybe by Sargeras.

I'm just thinking that with Arthas/LK inadvertently accelerating the Jailer's plans, that it would allow the Jailer to show up or do what he wanted to do before any other major threat like Deathwing or the legion to appear.

[Nathreim]

Presumably all life would be souls trapped in undead husks until Deathwing destroyed everything

Deathwing couldnt beat the Scourge if every life on Azeroth had been raised as undead. Galakrond alone would be enough to kill him.

The Legion would also be mute as they need someone to summon them to Azeroth to launch any real invasion. With everyone dead no one would have the free will to summon them.

[mizeri]

I'm amused by people who think Arthas could win XD

well technically he won the fight in wrath, until tirion did the by the power of light BS and somehow broke frostmourne

[Harbour]

My theory is that Blizzard plan to Illidan Arthas. They do it simple - while Jailor wanted the Lich King to kill azerothians, Arthas resisted it and kept Scourge in check. Hence why there is always must be a Lich King - right person to keep Scourge in check.

So, here we get that "Light has struck the bargain with the enemy of all". Obviously, it implies The Light and The Death are temporary allies. Hence why Lotraxion is in the Light Army, and not as double agent but part of the deal, the watcher so to speak to check that the bargain is in the motion.

When Arthas became Lich King and started resisting, Jailer asked the Light to move its Azeroth forces against Arthas. His goal was to erase this unexpectedly problematic figure from the board.

Silver hand did it, Arthas has died, but, thankfully to Terenas, position of the Lich King was successfully taken by another good guy.

Jailer didnt like it and finally Sylvanas, his ally, removed Bolvar too.

So, by doing this, Blizzard:
-can callback to WotlK,
-make a shocking twist (we were manipulated by the Light all the time back then),
-partially redeem Arthas (he resisted Jailer all the time to safe Azeroth),
-change Uther's opinion on Arthas (when he will learn the truth),
-and slowly establish The Light as the villain for the next expansion.

[Razion]

It would have resulted in a lot less souls in control of the Jailer - perhaps like in how we see with Uther, Arthas would have control over that many more halves of souls if not their entire souls (seeing as Uther may have been a special case with his soul being spared because of how strong he was in the Light). If we never ended up going to the Shadowlands, I guess maybe the Jailer gets out and then him fighting the Lich King would have been a situation.

And, depending on whether one buys into the Jailer being able to exert control via the Helm of Domination or not would probably decide the fight. The Shadowlands ARE endless though, and there are finite living souls on Azeroth unless the Lich King was going to start making people/undead farms to make more undead or something. And I guess at that point it's more a case of who makes more undead allies faster and who would decide to invade first while the armies were closer to equal and who is the better commander.

I guess a big tipper in this kind of fight is that the Lich King has psychic control over his entire army -- it might be lessened by trying to fight off mental fights with the Jailer, though. I'm inclined to think the Lich King is stronger but that's probably because we don't know too much about the limits of the Jailer's powers yet. If the Jailer could fashion himself similar armor and weapons to the Lich King it would stand to reason there wouldn't be much stopping the Jailer from taking over Azeroth, though. I guess that's probably why he's got the original forger of the armor of the damned and all that all chained up in Torghast. A good ace to have up his sleeve... but I guess if Arthas managed to kind of take him before the Jailer got the armor it would be a case of perhaps the Jailer having to deal with maybe multiple Lich Kings.

Questions then would be who would be the other Lich Kings and if they would have the willpower to fight off the Jailer - so powerful servants of the Lich King would be needed. Kel'Thuzad would probably do very well, as well as any of the now-dead faction leaders like Thrall or Anduin or Turalyon and so on and so forth. An army of Lich Kings against the Jailer would be much more likely to succeed... which I guess canonically is what the player characters are kind of going to end up doing - albeit not necessarily as part of the Scourge with all of Azeroth under the Lich King's grasp.

Probably best it goes like this, it's easier to go forward with new threats to Azeroth if everyone isn't under the hand of the Scourge. Then again, the Scourge is a good unifying force in terms of getting everyone on the same side if everyone is mind controlled by the Scourge and such... but I guess the deplorable acts by the Scourge would probably make people feel like they would be war criminals all the time. And people also have attachments to their factions and the faction war even if just by nostalgia so while I personally think joining the Scourge would be cool maybe not everyone would see it that way.

[loras]

yeah, thats a second acc right here lmao

Because i happen to appreciate Schattenlied despite disagreeing i am a second account of someone? How odd.

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My theory is that Blizzard plan to Illidan Arthas. They do it simple - while Jailor wanted the Lich King to kill azerothians, Arthas resisted it and kept Scourge in check. Hence why there is always must be a Lich King - right person to keep Scourge in check.

So, here we get that "Light has struck the bargain with the enemy of all". Obviously, it implies The Light and The Death are temporary allies. Hence why Lotraxion is in the Light Army, and not as double agent but part of the deal, the watcher so to speak to check that the bargain is in the motion.

When Arthas became Lich King and started resisting, Jailer asked the Light to move its Azeroth forces against Arthas. His goal was to erase this unexpectedly problematic figure from the board.

Silver hand did it, Arthas has died, but, thankfully to Terenas, position of the Lich King was successfully taken by another good guy.

Jailer didnt like it and finally Sylvanas, his ally, removed Bolvar too.

So, by doing this, Blizzard:
-can callback to WotlK,
-make a shocking twist (we were manipulated by the Light all the time back then),
-partially redeem Arthas (he resisted Jailer all the time to safe Azeroth),
-change Uther's opinion on Arthas (when he will learn the truth),
-and slowly establish The Light as the villain for the next expansion.

This seems not unlikely, and might actually be good.
It might also tie in nicely with the void standing ready to intervene/exploit in Icecrown via Yogg-Saron's armies and Deathwing.

[Gamespud]

To the people suggesting the Jailer would have to fight Arthas.. Sylvanas with what is probably only a portion of the Jailer's power was easily able to dominate Bolvar. Pretty safe to say since the Jailer is the entire reason for the LK existing in the first place, he can probably just shut him down and make him his bitch were they to actually meet face to face.

OT: Personally I'd argue there's a possibility Arthas could have won, he certainly had us beat until the last second surprise. While he would have certainly had a tough time against the likes of Deathwing and other Old God shenanigans, There's probably at least 1 timeline out there where Arthas rules over a dead Azeroth. The big question in my opinion is what exactly is the Jailer's goal (besides killing all things blah blah usual bad guy stuff) and how did him setting up the LK play a part of it. Was the LK intended to rule over a dead Azeroth and somehow empower the Jailer or cause a drought in the SL or was he just a pawn to get the armor in position to shatter the veil.

[kaelix1]

To the people suggesting the Jailer would have to fight Arthas.. Sylvanas with what is probably only a portion of the Jailer's power was easily able to dominate Bolvar. Pretty safe to say since the Jailer is the entire reason for the LK existing in the first place, he can probably just shut him down and make him his bitch were they to actually meet face to face.

OT: Personally I'd argue there's a possibility Arthas could have won, he certainly had us beat until the last second surprise. While he would have certainly had a tough time against the likes of Deathwing and other Old God shenanigans, There's probably at least 1 timeline out there where Arthas rules over a dead Azeroth. The big question in my opinion is what exactly is the Jailer's goal (besides killing all things blah blah usual bad guy stuff) and how did him setting up the LK play a part of it. Was the LK intended to rule over a dead Azeroth and somehow empower the Jailer or cause a drought in the SL or was he just a pawn to get the armor in position to shatter the veil.

Not sure how this is relevant, chris metzen himself stated that Arthas was far stronger than Bolvar, Sylvannas feat against Bolvar have no weight

[Magical Mudcrab]

Presumably all life would be souls trapped in undead husks until Deathwing destroyed everything

If Arthas had won, then the Alliance, Horde, the Dragonflights, including Galakrond, would all be under his control. This would more-or-less mean that there would be no Twilights Hammer, as those within the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimador would be converted by the Scourge, and the Twilight Dragonflight would become a hindrance as birthing chambers like those in The Bastion of Twilight would become new chambers by which the Cult of the Damned and Scourge could create a whole new Plagued Dragonflight, and experiments like those undertaken in Blackwing Descent would just attract the Scourge who would then have both Onyxia and Nefarian, as well as any relevant experiments added to their numbers.

It would be assumed that raids like Throne of the Four winds and the Firelands would not be problems, as the heroes who would eventually go on to deal with them would now be members of the Scourge, with more backing than the previously had.

TL;DR:
Undead getting the upper hand in any fantasy genre is typically apocalyptic.

[Harbour]

I expect Arthas to appear Illidan style in 9.1 or 9.2, and then will become the next Jailer, after Uther will crown him with the Helmet of Domination (i always found it cool that paladin Tirion crowned Bolvar as a Lich King, would be nice callback if Uther will do the same to Arthas after learning that his apprentice was a good guy).

Also it would be kind of poetic if two biggest Warcraft characters will become the Jailers of their respective enemies.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Aside from size all he had going for him was some necromancy... Which Deathwing was capable of as well.

The main problem is that we don't actually know how big Galakrond or Deathwing actually are. Galakrond's skeleton is the closest analog that we have to his size, and Deathwing simply changes size during the expansion (such as his typical model vs. Madness of Deathwing). I think it's fair to say that size infers some level of physical strength due to increased weight meaning more strength needed to move and, additionally, more mass when striking; however, we don't actually know what's being compared.

All we know about Galakrond's magic is that he could eat Dragons to become chonky and then spit them out as undead.
Deathwing's usage of magic is nebulous, as he's claimed to have done a bunch of stuff with magic, but with no explanation as to how.

Galakrond was defeated by the proto-aspects and Tyr, but they weren't able to actually physically defeat Galakrond, they had to resort to causing him to choke on a boulder, lodged in place using a combination of magic from Malygos and Deathwing throwing undead dragons at it.
Deathwing, on the other hand, had been forced to retreat from Gruul and Khadgar after they killed a bunch of his young, and then later required - though it was never clarified as to why - that he be destroyed using the Dragon Soul, which is an artifact whose power is also questionable.

[Frozenbeef]

Well the lich king wouldn't have had a chance against Deathwing, even the aspects couldn't without the demon soul.

Even if he successfully rezzed Galakrond, Deathwing was empowered by the titans + old gods + elementium armor so would have turned him into cinder.

If Deathwing won then the void lords get Azeroth and the jailer is screwed.

[Cloe]

IDK does he have to jail too many ghouls?

[tommyhil622]

IDK does he have to jail too many ghouls?

Correct me if im wrong but are you asking if he has like some sort of limit to how many undead he can control? Idk its a great question, i definitely think its a possibility. If that limiy exists then perhaps he uses his campions to directly control portions of his army and/or create structures and relics that help him extend his control range. All speculation of course.

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Well the lich king wouldn't have had a chance against Deathwing, even the aspects couldn't without the demon soul.

Even if he successfully rezzed Galakrond, Deathwing was empowered by the titans + old gods + elementium armor so would have turned him into cinder.

If Deathwing won then the void lords get Azeroth and the jailer is screwed.

I think the lich king is a little smarter than we give him credit for. If he concocted a plan to let say, overtake the other members of the drangonflight and their kin plus other prominent members of power and an army of millions of undead and champions idk if Deathwing could deal with that. But sure lich king on his own with no qualified help, he dies.

[kaelix1]

Well the lich king wouldn't have had a chance against Deathwing, even the aspects couldn't without the demon soul.

Even if he successfully rezzed Galakrond, Deathwing was empowered by the titans + old gods + elementium armor so would have turned him into cinder.

If Deathwing won then the void lords get Azeroth and the jailer is screwed.

And people say Arthas fans tend to exaggerate, by the time Deathwing arrive Arthas would have been full-on soul Juice from Horde/Alliance, he would have Azeroth champions and faction champions as his generals, a full resurrect Galakrong with death magic, horde/alliance add on his army as undead, the aspects as undead, he would have mop the floor with Deathwing under those circumstances

[darkoms]

And people say Arthas fans tend to exaggerate, by the time Deathwing arrive Arthas would have been full-on soul Juice from Horde/Alliance, he would have Azeroth champions and faction champions as his generals, a full resurrect Galakrong with death magic, horde/alliance add on his army as undead, the aspects as undead, he would have mop the floor with Deathwing under those circumstances

This is why they talk about Arthas fans ... First: if Arthas becomes too much of a threat, he will be stopped by the Aspects
Secondly: if we consider only the battle between the forces of N'zoth and Arthas, then N'zoth will have Xavius and the Emerald Nightmare (which even affects the undead), Azshara (which itself can wipe the floor with Arthas), two elemental Lords, Deathwing and possibly Chromatus. Don't overestimate Galakrond, Deathwing will destroy him in a matter of seconds. The only thing Arthas can do in such a situation is to pray for a quick death.

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Well the lich king wouldn't have had a chance against Deathwing, even the aspects couldn't without the demon soul.

Even if he successfully rezzed Galakrond, Deathwing was empowered by the titans + old gods + elementium armor so would have turned him into cinder.

If Deathwing won then the void lords get Azeroth and the jailer is screwed.

How nice to see that at least someone here knows lore.

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If Arthas had won, then the Alliance, Horde, the Dragonflights, including Galakrond, would all be under his control. This would more-or-less mean that there would be no Twilights Hammer, as those within the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimador would be converted by the Scourge, and the Twilight Dragonflight would become a hindrance as birthing chambers like those in The Bastion of Twilight would become new chambers by which the Cult of the Damned and Scourge could create a whole new Plagued Dragonflight, and experiments like those undertaken in Blackwing Descent would just attract the Scourge who would then have both Onyxia and Nefarian, as well as any relevant experiments added to their numbers.

It would be assumed that raids like Throne of the Four winds and the Firelands would not be problems, as the heroes who would eventually go on to deal with them would now be members of the Scourge, with more backing than the previously had.

TL;DR:
Undead getting the upper hand in any fantasy genre is typically apocalyptic.

And Deathwing simply destroys them all. And if Chromatus comes out ...

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Deathwing couldnt beat the Scourge if every life on Azeroth had been raised as undead. Galakrond alone would be enough to kill him.

The Legion would also be mute as they need someone to summon them to Azeroth to launch any real invasion. With everyone dead no one would have the free will to summon them.

I really don't know where this stupid Galakrond myth comes from. HOW will Galakrond defeat Deathwing? Deathwing is an incredibly powerful creature with tremendous magical powers and the ability to erect and destroy mountains at will. Galakrond will be just a big skeleton dragon. Anyone who thinks Galakrond has at least a chance against Deathwing has absolutely doesn't know lore.

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I never said the heroes destroyed it, please learn to read. Everything else you said, and this, is irrelevant. Your entire argument hinges on the incorrect assumption that Deathwing can only be killed by the Dragon Soul, when we know for a fact that is untrue because we see him impaled on top of Wyrmrest in End Times, proving that he is able to be killed through normal means... If you don't think Galakrond, who is several times his size and would be hopped up on death magic, which we know makes things stronger, wouldn't be able to overpower him do something similar, you're not being logical.

Infracted.

You said that a handful of mortals were enough to subdue him. Next time write normally. Yes, we see. Do you know why? Because he himself planted himself on this spire because the Old Gods no longer needed it. Deathwing could not die because N'zoth had pumped him with a huge amount of Void energy. Once he lost his master's favor, he was able to die. And even so, he sat down with his belly on a huge spire and, apparently, pierced his internal organs (if they still remained). This is not the same as hitting by Galakrond's huge paw.

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No, seriously people, why do you keep repeating this nonsense about Galakrond and his power? It was NOT said ANYWHERE that Galakrond could defeat Deathwing. Galakrond was defeated by 5 proto-dragon and a weakened Keeper. Deathwing was an incredibly powerful magician (he could cast spells so that Malygos did not notice it under his nose), he could move and destroy mountains at will, he owns spells like https://wow.gamepedia.com/Endless_Hunger against which Galakrond is not can do nothing at all. Oh, Galakrond big? You know, the Avatar of Sargeras was bigger than Aegwynn and it didn't help him. And it is not necessary to say that Avatar wanted to lose and gave in. Jaina, as well as a book in the stronghold of warlocks, directly indicated that Sargeras knew that he could not defeat Aegwynn and therefore decided to move into her after his defeat. Galakrond was more than 5 proto-dragons before they became Aspects, but since then they have become much larger and much stronger, not only magically, but also physically. And while Deathwing, although a huge dragon, was still very fast and agile, unlike Galakrond, who could not even take off due to his enormous weight. There is not a single example in the lore where a magically stronger creature loses to a physically stronger creature because of size, not skill. Or another example. The 6 legendary Gronns were bigger than Grommash's grandfather, but he killed them anyway. He was not a shaman or anything else, he was just a warrior and he killed those who are ten times his size.

[Mehrunes]

I never said the heroes destroyed it, please learn to read. Everything else you said, and this, is irrelevant. Your entire argument hinges on the incorrect assumption that Deathwing can only be killed by the Dragon Soul, when we know for a fact that is untrue because we see him impaled on top of Wyrmrest in End Times, proving that he is able to be killed through normal means... If you don't think Galakrond, who is several times his size and would be hopped up on death magic, which we know makes things stronger, wouldn't be able to overpower him do something similar, you're not being logical.

Infracted.

You did however say that it "just" took the heroes to subdue him until Thrall finished him off. Which completely ignored the fact that by the time the players got directly involved with Deathwing he already got hit with the Dragon Soul. I.e. the weapon that killed nearly the entirety of Blue Dragonflight in an instant (and by that point the Dragon Soul was even further empowered compared to its WotA state). Twice.

And we have absolutely no idea how Deathwing died in the End Times. As such your claim that it "proves" he can be killed through normal means is based on nothing. Charge of the Aspects made it very clear that it's not the case. Even means like blasting him with enough Arcane power that it'd have torn everyone else apart (which is already very much in the "beyond normal means" category) were not sufficient. Also, in what you quoted @darkoms said that it took Dragon Soul to destroy him. Which is a fact. There were no assumptions that it's the only way that would have worked being made there. Also, we don't know what Galakrond was hopped up on. It could have been Yogg-Saron's curse.

The main problem is that we don't actually know how big Galakrond or Deathwing actually are. Galakrond's skeleton is the closest analog that we have to his size, and Deathwing simply changes size during the expansion (such as his typical model vs. Madness of Deathwing). I think it's fair to say that size infers some level of physical strength due to increased weight meaning more strength needed to move and, additionally, more mass when striking; however, we don't actually know what's being compared.

The charge Deathwing got from the Titans led him to carrying the weight of Azeroth on his shoulders (or the entire back, considering the dragon anatomy) while he was spelunking in the deepest parts of the world, so I'd say he'd have managed a particularly big pile of bones.

All we know about Galakrond's magic is that he could eat Dragons to become chonky and then spit them out as undead.
Deathwing's usage of magic is nebulous, as he's claimed to have done a bunch of stuff with magic, but with no explanation as to how.

It's not like Galakrond's magic was explained either. We don't even know if it was Death, Fel or Old God magic (there's an argument for all three), let alone how it actually worked.

Galakrond was defeated by the proto-aspects and Tyr, but they weren't able to actually physically defeat Galakrond, they had to resort to causing him to choke on a boulder, lodged in place using a combination of magic from Malygos and Deathwing throwing undead dragons at it.
Deathwing, on the other hand, had been forced to retreat from Gruul and Khadgar after they killed a bunch of his young, and then later required - though it was never clarified as to why - that he be destroyed using the Dragon Soul, which is an artifact whose power is also questionable.

Gruul was getting bitchslapped by Deathwing (and despite himself being gigantic, the book portrayed Deathwing as significantly larger than him). And Khadgar forced him to retreat by blasting his old adamantium plates apart, which he needed to fix. Before Cata he had the armor replaced with elementium, which is basically indestructible.

And Charge of the Aspect did clarify why he had to be destroyed using the Dragon Soul. Because nothing else worked and the Aspects were out of ideas. While his body had the issue of being partly liquid, it was still immensely durable itself and had crazy regenerative powers. Kalecgos used enough Arcane energy on the samples of Deathwing he got that it'd have torn apart any other being. Yet all it did in the case of Deathwing's tissue samples was "enraging" them, after which they simply reformed. As I already pointed out, Alexstrasza stated that Deathwing had to be unmade. Because according to her even throwing every mortal at him wouldn't have been enough (so I doubt making every mortal an undead first and then throwing them at him would have fared any better).

Also, how on earth is Dragon Soul's power questionable? Deathwing wiped out nearly the entire Blue Dragonflight with one attack while using it. In an instant. And hurled Singragosa all the way to Icecrown. He demolished an entire Legion army and forced Archimonde to flee as well. And was ravaging the Night Elven forces. And I think at some point Malfurion used it to wound Sargeras to break his concentration.

[Triceron]

If The Lich King (arthas) had won, in hindsight, would the Jailer's job been any easier? What implications would that have had to the shadowlands? Or perhaps it would have thrown a wrench in The Jailer's plans who knows?

I feel like we have a semi-answer with Knights of the Frozen Throne hearthstone expansion.

We'd have a bunch of Scourge top dogs fighting amongst themselves for power and influence instead of fighting the living (who would no longer exist).

As for the Jailer and the Maw, his end goal is rumored to be wanting the soul of 'Azeroth' so I guess it all makes his job easier, unless the Scourge defects against him for whatever reason (ala DKs fighting against Lich King).