Arthas has to be in the Shadowlands

[Makorus]

How did Arthas make a deal with the devil? I don't think you've really paid attention to his story.

Picking up Frostmourne, fully knowing that it was a cursed soulsucking blade, just to get petty vengeance on a demon.

[Nosgoth]

Picking up Frostmourne, fully knowing that it was a cursed soulsucking blade, just to get petty vengeance on a demon.

Yes, but not for petty revenge. He said he would bear any curse to save his people. That's a selfless act, and not an act of evil. That it would turn him into a Death Knight who would ultimately be the doom of his own people, that was irony. Because it was exactly the opposite of what Arthas wanted.

[Dark Succ]

Whattabaout Broxigar ?

He lives in our hearts still.


F

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Playing the Devil's Advocate here.

Sylvanas went to the Maw (we assume), and also saw Arthas there. Sylvie, up until that point, never attempted anything worse than what Kael'thas or Arthas did iirc.

But Kael'thas chills at Revendreth despite his attempted omnicide, something that Arthas is also guilty of, yet Sylvie, innocent as fuck at the time in comparison to big blonde powerhouses' crimes, went to Maw. So did Arthas, if he wasn't a mirage conjured by the Arbiter/Jailer/Sylvanas' mind.

The afterlife doesn't sound fair to me. If Kael'thas isn't at the Maw, there is a chance Arthas isn't either imo.

[huth]

That's not a deal with the devil. That's a cursed blade he took up to save his people.

Potato potatoe.

[Reydan]

Culling of stratholme says hi, he was damned way before he even took the sword, also he was kind of an asshole and you have to remember that he was warned against picking up frostmourne yet he did it anyway only because he wanted power.

Culling of Stratholme can be justified. He picked up Frostmourne and he didn't care about the curse because he wanted to save his people. So no it wasn't "just" for power he wanted to stop the Scourge at all cost to save everyone.

Arthas was brash, arrogant and sometimes stupid, but he wasn't the only one. Uther was an idiot and so was Jaina and many others. Arthas was the only one who took the fight against the Scourge and see it as the treath it truly was/is. The culling of Stratholme makes this very interesting because it's a morally grey area. There are people who agree with Arthas wanting to purge the city and people against it. Both sides have points why they can be right in this situation.

However IF the purging didn't happen Mal'ganis would've swarmed and destroyed Lordaeron. But thanks to Arthas it was prevented at this moment, however Arthas lost it at this point. He had to kill innocent people "for the greater good" and in the end the one who caused all this slipped through his fingers and fled up far North.

And that was his turning point. He was enraged, in pain and ashamed so he had to go North to "justify" his actions and stop the Scourge whatever it takes. I think in his eyes no one believed the Scourge as the treath it truly was. But he saw it with his own eyes at the culling what could happen. Even tho his father ordered him back he could not obey not after all what happened, out of shame and anger he had to make it right.

Now him killing his own men by mercenaries is something a bit out of nowhere and that can't be justified. He was not corrupted at this point but nothing could stop him from returning home without Mal'ganis dead and the Scourge stopped.

While arriving in Northrend he was trapped by a huge army of the Scourge and Mal'ganis. His only option was finding this powerful blade that was mentioned during his trip. After finding Frostmourne and now knowing it was cursed he saw no other option to accept it as he would bear any curse to save his kingdom.

Ironically that curse was him becoming corrupted and destroying his kingdom.

[KrayZ33]

Is the "he used mercenaries to kill his own men"-part something out of the books or something? Because that never happened in WC3.

He used mercenaries to burn down the ships and fight the undead that occupied their way to the ships.
Even Muradin did help him with that.

In the end, he betrayed his mercenaries... which is evil, but then again - also kinda... normal?
And by "normal" I mean:

They are not his loyal subjects, I think I've done worse with my player-character in WoW for the greater good and I'm considered a hero there.

[faithbane]

The only one in game who believes it was justified was Arthas himself. The game, and lore, is quite specific in letting you know that this is a pivotal turning point in his character arc which sets him on a path of irredeemable vengeance

lol what? He was 100% right in culling of stratholme. The fact that his mentor and gf turned their backs on him there was one of the biggest turning points, not the fact that he killed some zombies. Have you even played either version of the culling? He lost his moral compass and support, ended up going down a singular path of vengeance after being abandoned.

Arthas's journey is a lot more tragic than derps make it out to be in forums.

He held a small village together against a large scourge attack and a plague caravan > then he gets scolded by uther who had an army of knights riding on his back for not holding together better

He sees the effects of the plague and what it can do and knows there is no coming back from it > gets abandoned by jaina and uther when he needed them the most

Goes on a journey north to chase down malganis and makes progress against the scourge head on with his small force > asked to abandon his whole campaign and go back to lordaeron because uther convinced the king.. instead of you know, sending him help?

Accepts to bear any curse to "save his people" > gets tricked into getting his soul consumed by frostmourne. If you play the game, you will notice that he doesn't say I will pick up the sword because I want the power or something.. he sais "I will gladly bear any curse to save my people"

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Culling of stratholme says hi, he was damned way before he even took the sword, also he was kind of an asshole and you have to remember that he was warned against picking up frostmourne yet he did it anyway only because he wanted power.

<read above

[Garymorilix]

lol what? He was 100% right in culling of stratholme. The fact that his mentor and gf turned their backs on him there was one of the biggest turning points, not the fact that he killed some zombies. Have you even played either version of the culling? He lost his moral compass and support, ended up going down a singular path of vengeance after being abandoned.

Arthas's journey is a lot more tragic than derps make it out to be in forums.

He held a small village together against a large scourge attack and a plague caravan > then he gets scolded by uther who had an army of knights riding on his back for not holding together better

He sees the effects of the plague and what it can do and knows there is no coming back from it > gets abandoned by jaina and uther when he needed them the most

Goes on a journey north to chase down malganis and makes progress against the scourge head on with his small force > asked to abandon his whole campaign and go back to lordaeron because uther convinced the king.. instead of you know, sending him help?

Accepts to bear any curse to "save his people" > gets tricked into getting his soul consumed by frostmourne. If you play the game, you will notice that he doesn't say I will pick up the sword because I want the power or something.. he sais "I will gladly bear any curse to save my people"

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<read above

Yea but that's the before LK part.

After that he annihilated the nerubians, the vrykul, the drakkari and set out to turn the whole planet into scourge.
He wasn't even corrupted as the LK, he destroyed nerzhul and acted on his own.

So even tho he might not have been bad as Arthas; Arthas the Lich King did some fucked up shit. You can play thru it on Northrend too.

[Forgottenone]

With their desire to bring back characters I would be very surprised if they didn't bring back Arthas in some form. He could basically be like a trump card they use in Shadowlands lore to help assist Bolvar and the heroes or something like that.

[huth]

lol what? He was 100% right in culling of stratholme. The fact that his mentor and gf turned their backs on him there was one of the biggest turning points, not the fact that he killed some zombies.

No, he wasn't. He behaved like a kid and did little to convince them of the necessity of the action. How would you feel if somebody came up to you and demanded your help in wiping out a large town because "bad things will happen if you don't"?

Goes on a journey north to chase down malganis and makes progress against the scourge head on with his small force > asked to abandon his whole campaign and go back to lordaeron because uther convinced the king.. instead of you know, sending him help?

Upon which he throws a tantrum and turns against his own people, then kills the mercenaries he paid to help him. Surely a sign of a stable and healthy psyche.
Sounds to me like the recall order was entirely justified because this guy is mental.

[Palapop]

I think the same, yeah.

Like... why would they give us new Arthas model in BFA? Just to be shown for 5-6 seconds in Jaina's questline?

[Bloodwolf]

According to the short story, where Sylvanas falls from ICC, the place ahe ends up is most likely the maw, where she meets Arthas. Also according to the same short, the first time she died in Quelthalas she most likely went to Bastion.

[Villager720]

When his brand new model showed up in that Jaina cinematic, it was all but certain we’d see him again.

[Th3Scourge]

lol what? He was 100% right in culling of stratholme. The fact that his mentor and gf turned their backs on him there was one of the biggest turning points, not the fact that he killed some zombies. Have you even played either version of the culling? He lost his moral compass and support, ended up going down a singular path of vengeance after being abandoned.

Arthas's journey is a lot more tragic than derps make it out to be in forums.

He held a small village together against a large scourge attack and a plague caravan > then he gets scolded by uther who had an army of knights riding on his back for not holding together better

He sees the effects of the plague and what it can do and knows there is no coming back from it > gets abandoned by jaina and uther when he needed them the most

Goes on a journey north to chase down malganis and makes progress against the scourge head on with his small force > asked to abandon his whole campaign and go back to lordaeron because uther convinced the king.. instead of you know, sending him help?

Accepts to bear any curse to "save his people" > gets tricked into getting his soul consumed by frostmourne. If you play the game, you will notice that he doesn't say I will pick up the sword because I want the power or something.. he sais "I will gladly bear any curse to save my people"

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<read above

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter what we see as the right to do, or whether he was justified in his actions. To those around him, he was wrong to purge an entire city. He sought out Frostmourne knowing it was cursed, his quest wasn't so much about saving his people as it was for vengeance.

[Nobleshield]

The whole Culling is sort of the old D&D parable: Is it evil to kill a baby orc (in a D&D setting where creatures are born good/evil) if you know it will grow up to be evil. I mean, he technically was not wrong, despite what the game tries to show. There wasn't any other way, and the game even shows that there wasn't anything that could be done. I mean okay, he did it in the most extreme way possible, but what else would you do? Wait for a city with several thousand townsfolk (Stratholme was a pretty big city, maybe second largest compared to Capital City, so it had to have a lot of people living there) to turn into mindless undead under the command of a Dreadlord and risk setting them off across Lordaeron? Come on, I'm sure people have seen The Walking Dead to know what happens when you get a horde of zombies.

Now Frostmourne was another story, and was essentially the WoW version of Anakin Skywalker's fall in Revenge of the Sith (sell your soul to save those you care about). But Frostmourne also consumed Arthas' soul out in the frozen wastes, so when he really started doing all the evil things he was little more than a servant of the Scourge, and didn't have his own mind. The Culling might have set him on the path of "the ends justify the means" which ultimately led to Frostmourne, but the Culling itself wasn't wrong given the circumstances. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

[Nefastus]

Truth is pretty much EVERYONE in game lorewise would end up in the Maw, specially horde NPCs. Saurfang for instance, he stated several times how he murdered inocents left and right, children included (from his dialogue with Garrosh in Northend). When we stop and watch all the things the NPCs had done pretty much all did evil things.

[huth]

Truth is pretty much EVERYONE in game lorewise would end up in the Maw, specially horde NPCs. Saurfang for instance, he stated several times how he murdered inocents left and right, children included (from his dialogue with Garrosh in Northend). When we stop and watch all the things the NPCs had done pretty much all did evil things.

You don't get thrown in the Maw for having done bad things in life. You get thrown in there for being considered irredeemable and a threat to the Shadowlands.

Saurfang killed innocents and children, but he wasn't proud of it.

[Tyrannica]

He knew what he was getting himself into. He was driven my vengeance and nothing more. Whether you think he did nothing wrong or not doesn't matter, his actions are are condoned by everyone around him. Uther, Jaina, Muradin etc all abandon him, did you miss this? He kills his own men with hired mercenaries to prevent a retreat from Northrend, all in the quest for vengeance.

Uther, Jaina, Muradin etc did not see the greater picture, Arthas did.

You probaly did see what happened, after the scourge took over they summoned Archimonde and bring the burning legion. All that was needed for this was Kel'thuzad and the book of Medivh.

Uther and Jaina just walked away in face of this threat - but Kudos to Muradin wo made it to northrend.

I hate when people try to justfy Uther's and Jaina's mistakes in ignoring the scourge threat and blame it all on Arthas, who had the right intensions, before taking up that sword.

[Beefhammer]

I agree, he always felt he was doing what was right for his people and kingdom, until the point that he grabbed Frostmorne.

What he thought was right also by going against everything he pledged an oath to when becoming a Paladin. He willingly went down this path and did questionable to horrible things before becoming the LK. In my book he is irredeemable. But then I never cared for him or his story.

[czarek]

Oh man I'm hyped for some Arthas and Jaina interaction now.

Im horny and start to polish my dirk.