Why was Arthas wrong?

[AcidicSyn]

I keep Cassowary, which are infinitely more horrifying than any zombie apocalypse. I -might- have them as a ZA deterrent. Maybe.

....Why do you keep Velociraptors?

[Aydinx2]

He wasn't.

Typically the "right" thing to do does not result in you yourself becoming a tyrant who wants to kill all life on the planet.
Just me 2 cents.

They had already quarantined the city.

[cuafpr]

Cause he was an entitled little c* about it.
He was technically not wrong, but he openly stood up to his superior, in front of his men, and once his superior said "no" he went ahead and pulled the "i am your prince" card.



The plague was a lot more similar to the "black plague"... even with that the approach wasn't to burn people alive.
Isolate them and discriminate against them; yes
Kill/burn them alive; no.

from a quick google and skimming results, the black plague is still only a 50%+/- mortality rate, so I still have no faith that given a 100% mortality rate that people would not burn cities/villages to prevent the spread. (this ignores the undead part as well cause yeah...)

[AcidicSyn]

He was completely right about Stratholme, it was both Uther & Jaina in the wrong who abandoned their duty. The civilians were beyond saving and the one thing you can do to both end their misery and to avoid giving Mal'Ganis a bigger army is to end their lifes as quickly as possible. They didn't have a cure (we still don't to this day) and they didn't have the manpower to do a quick quarantaine. On top of that you also had Mal'Ganis actively harvesting civilians from within the city. The one thing Arthas could have done better is to quickly explain Uther the situation and what he saw at Hearthglen, rather than just ordering him to purge an entire city. I would like to see a conversation between the 2 at some point during Shadowlands of how they think of the aftermath and how much it changed them and their perspectives.

One thing that I never really understood is why he blamed the mercenaries for killing the boats, while he could have also easily blamed the Scourge who were very close to these ships aswell. Maybe there wasn't meant to be Scourge at all and that it was just for gameplay.

Because he used the mercenaries to destroy the boats. They were an easy scapegoat to retain the loyalty of his men. Had he blamed the scourge, he'd have a bunch of mercenaries hanging around who knew full well this human prince destroyed the boats because he paid them to help him do it. This would undoubtedly leak out and then he wouldn't have an army to attack mal'ganis with.

[Kaver]

Athas wasn't wrong. Uther is like a mom who let her children eat cake all day long because she is afraid of being unpopular. Arthas did what was necessary.

- - - Updated - - -

Typically the "right" thing to do does not result in you yourself becoming a tyrant who wants to kill all life on the planet.
Just me 2 cents.

So I guess you haven't been following any of the lore recently.

[guisadop]

his only actual wrongdoings were after arriving in northrend. he was completely in the right when fighting in lordaeron against the undead.

[Ielenia]

Typically the "right" thing to do does not result in you yourself becoming a tyrant who wants to kill all life on the planet.
Just me 2 cents.

Then it's two cents that you lost. Because Arthas did not purge the city out of malice, or to establish his power as a tyrant, or anything. He did this literally because he believed it was the only way to contain a plague that was as insidious as it was quick to turn people into undeath.

Not to mention all of that happened before Arthas got his hands on Frostmourne, which is what started him on his path to "tyranny" as the Lich King began to influence his mind more and more.

They had already quarantined the city.

Did they? As far as I know, they haven't.

[Nnyco]

Probably because he killed everyone, infected or not. Then he brought his men to a suicide mission, betrayed the mercenaries, left muradin to die... etc etc.

[Zephire]

Considering the magic that's available in WoW Arthas was very wrong.

They should instead have quarantined the whole city and study it. People could still be saved. They have teleport magic. Like, supplies and personel could've been there in minutes. I mean, they even had Jaina with them who already has been showing her teleportation skills (might remember worng here though, was it later?).

This is a typical faulty writing in my oppinion where they use the real world as referens and make the character decide to do X in that setting, disregarding everything that's not present in our world (currently), magic. In a medival time it might've been the best choice due to it being difficult to manage with logistics, communication, coordination being time consuming and challenging.

[erifwodahs]

Athas wasn't wrong. Uther is like a mom who let her children eat cake all day long because she is afraid of being unpopular. Arthas did what was necessary.

He killed civilians based on assumption. He did not check if they were infected. His method did not save anyone, city was destroyed and left for undeads. Not even talking about what he done after that including deciding to get the cursed blade. After that we can let him of because of the jailer. But before that? He should have been stopped by Uther and Jaina. They are no better for letting purge to happen

[Dellis0991]

He probably wasn't wrong for Stratholme but everything after that he was wrong for.

[Kaver]

He killed civilians based on assumption. He did not check if they were infected. His method did not save anyone, city was destroyed and left for undeads. Not even talking about what he done after that including deciding to get the cursed blade. After that we can let him of because of the jailer. But before that? He should have been stopped by Uther and Jaina. They are no better for letting purge to happen

"Based on assumption"? The city was clearly doomed and purging it was the necessary method to keep it from spreading. Saying otherwise is just stupid and probably based on the Horde being mad that they are always the bad guys.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Considering the magic that's available in WoW Arthas was very wrong.

They should instead have quarantined the whole city and study it. People could still be saved. They have teleport magic. Like, supplies and personel could've been there in minutes. I mean, they even had Jaina with them who already has been showing her teleportation skills (might remember worng here though, was it later?).

This is a typical faulty writing in my oppinion where they use the real world as referens and make the character decide to do X in that setting, disregarding everything that's not present in our world (currently), magic. In a medival time it might've been the best choice due to it being difficult to manage with logistics, communication, coordination being time consuming and challenging.

Jaina was with arthas on the way to the city and then left to go get help while arthas made the final push to it. The kirin tor blew her off so there was no aid to port in and she just went back by her self.

[deenman]

For purging stratholme... I mean whats the better option than if he hadn't done such, what alternate should've happened??? / was a more rational / moral decision

he should have just cast cleanse on them

[erifwodahs]

"Based on assumption"? The city was clearly doomed and purging it was the necessary method to keep it from spreading. Saying otherwise is just stupid and probably based on the Horde being mad that they are always the bad guys.

How did he know that it was clearly doomed? How did he know who ate it? How did he know that some people weren't just travelers/villagers who came to the market?
Did he stop it from spreading? Clearly not. Did he even prevent zombies from getting away? All he did was a reduction of the zombie forces. Btw his fuck ups ruined even that because his lack of judgement led him into acquiring cursed blade, certainly not by following right path.
Killing his troops to have a scapegoat? Really? How is that not wrong?
Anything what from Uther leaving him was a absolute shitshow and he must be held accountable. There is no redemption. Even if he held jailers forces at bay. He was the reason why he had to do it.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Chinese bronchitis omg im dying.

Quarantining is still the best option, regardless of what kind of disease/virus it is which was my point (that went over your head by a mile?)

Arthas had no idea who was infected vs who wasn't and just killed everbody, but yea let's pretend like genocide is the best option lol

Quarantine would be the worse possible option. Even if they could stop people from leaving the city for days while they waited for aid (which they wouldn’t be able to do) that would just lead to the undead increasing in numbers wiping out the living inside the walls any way and then get ported about by a dread lord to other places to continue the attack.

[deenman]

Wasn't that the initial anti vacc argument?

well ordering people to be executed and mandating masks and a lockdown is a bit different,heck mask wearing should be the norm even outside of covid,it would help prevent a ton of issues with flu every year,japan has been doing this for a long time as the norm

also anti vacc's are almost as stupid as flat earthers,arthas knew what would happen in this case

[Darknessvamp]

Well he ultimately wasn't, attempting to purge Stratholme was the only logical option due to the spread of infection at the time of their arrival but we should note there are two different contexts of the situation.
The set up is that the infected grain had been delivered to Stratholme for some time before Arthas, Uther and Jaina had arrived at the city.
In Warcraft 3, there is a some benefit of the doubt that not all the citizens had been infected by the fact they weren't all turning immediately and Mal'ganis actively had to get involved and covert them into zombies which exposes the ethical issues with Arthas' decision to not even attempt to find and help those citizens during the purge. Although there is also the problem that Uther and Jaina don't even attempt to help those people either so their moral grandstanding was all for show in the end.

However in World of Warcraft, during the purge it is shown that the infected have already spread throughout the city so there was little chance of anyone having been spared so there is a distinct lack of ethical issues in that case. Although Uther and Jaina remain hypocrites.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't necessarily think he was wrong since a solution was better than no solution but in a world where teleporting is literally instantaneous I don't see why Jaina couldn't just have zipped to Dalaran, brought a bunch of mages and raised an impenetrable barrier around the city.

That would've given them more time to study the disease in a more controlled environment.

The end result might still have been the same, that Stratholme would've been beyond saving, but at least then it would've been a more informed decision.

I think what most people forget is that at the time noone knew that the plague of undeath couldn't be cured. The "It was beyond saving" argument is really only something WE as "readers" know to be true. Similarly I don't think anyone knew that the entire city had been infected, that is also only something we learned during the dungeon or mission.

All in all it depends how you look at it, I'm inclined to personally believe that it was a rash action especially considering that the mages of Dalaran raised an anti undead field in and around their city in WC3TFT I imagine that they could have prevented infected people leaving the city somehow to establish a proper quarantine.

They tried to get aid from dalaran but were blown off because of the orcs. They also tried to cure it with the light to no result and knew it was spread through out of the majority of the city due to it being there main grain supply which got to the city days before.

[Ardenaso]

once again for the 342343242323432423rd time already: he didn't assess the situation properly to Jaina and Uther. He literally just said "they turn into zombies because I said so"