Why was Arthas wrong?

[FelPlague]

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.

How would they quanrtine the whole city?
The kirin tor were far too busy to help them quanrtine an entire city.
where do you get the infustructure for that?
A family of 4 fits in a house, but how do you qaunrtine all 4 people in 1 house where they are seperate from eachother?
Teleport magic is limited, they cannot just teleport people and supplies there cause where the fuck do those people and supplies come from? Do they just conjure supplies out of thin air? Yes they can conjur water and bread, but its not fufilling, it lasts for a short bit, but cannot sustain.

[huth]

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"

People seem to not want to acknowledge that you can take the right path of action but botch it so badly that it's still the wrong thing to do.

[FelPlague]

Assumptions based on what he found out during his travel toward Stratholme. It wasn't just him pulling that assertion out of his ass. And Arthas wasn't trying to save Stratholme. That city was already lost. He was trying to keep the infection from spreading. Considering the cursed grain acted fast, and the grain that is used to feed an entire city has already been delivered and baked into goods and consumed, there was simply no time to check who was infected and who wasn't, especially since there didn't seem to have any symptoms other than right before turning.

yeah pretty much this

if they just left strtatholme, the entire force of undead would be strong enough to wipe out lorderan, so they had to act fast to dwindle the numbers

also the grain varied why never certain, but it varied from instantly after eating, to days, they literally arrive at a town where the men are turning mere seconds after eating.

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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"

You... you know jaina was with arthas when the people turned into zombies right?
It was not "they turn into zombies because i say so' it was "We know they turn into zombies, we need to stop this"
Plus uther had been killing tons on his way over to meet with arthas in stratholme
it was not some fairy tail he made up and they didnt beleive.

[Ielenia]

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?)

Quarantine would have done nothing other than allow everyone in the city to turn into mindless undead, and force those who aren't infected to consume the cursed grains to not starve and therefore turn, too. And those who miraculously did not turn would suffer a horrific death under the hands of those who used to be their neighbors and families.

Yeah. Quarantine. Best option. It's as best an option as seeing a person on fire and instead of just putting out the fire, you go "no, no, just let him burn. The fire will eventually stop."

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

Because there was no time to find out who was infected and who wasn't. We're not talking about a simple disease, here, in which we can just put on a quarantine suit and interview everyone. We're talking about a magical curse that rapidly turned those who ate the cursed grain into mindless undead. The entire city would have turned before half the population could have been properly interviewed.

Again: grain-based food was basically all that people ate that wasn't a fruit or vegetable. So the assumption that the majority of the population, or even all of it, was not an unfair assumption to make.

[Thage]

Of course he was wrong. You're all missing the point that he killed indiscriminately without regard to whether the person he was murdering was actually infected.

This. A lot of the Stratholme discussion falls into the fallacy of post-facto justification. Yes, ultimately, he was proven right that purging the city of undead bought valuable time (we can surmise that Lordaeron was at least holding its own prior to Arthas himself leading the second wave after killing Terenas, throwing the chain of command into disarray), but in the moment he was half-mad from the stress of being in vastly over his head and in a situation that far outstripped his competence. In the moment he had no assurance he could give Uther or Jaina that his course of action was important beyond accusing Uther of treason and attempting to dissolve the Knights of the Silver Hand for not immediately joining him in attacking a city full of civilians.

He wasn't wrong because Stratholme could be saved. He was wrong because his solution was "If it moves, kill it," and he couldn't explain why doing so was a necessity to his superior officer and an official representative of the Kirin Tor, instead deciding to take their refusal to immediately jump to mass murder alongside him as acts of treason. "The city has already consumed the infected grain, it's going to be overrun, and we have to buy time for Lordaeron to consolidate and establish defensive fallbacks around Capital City" probably would have been enough to get them onboard, especially if he proposed allowing fleeing civilians to be funneled out through the main gates at a controlled flow.

Again, at the time, he had no idea Mal'Ganis was active there, nor did Uther or Jaina. When discussing Arthas's behavior at the front gates, you can't take into account things revealed after he went in there and realized the situation was well and truly fucked beyond all hope of recovery. In that moment, he was wrong, and his failings allowed the entire situation to spin even worse out of control, since if he was able to formulate a plan more nuanced than "kill everything that moves" and gotten the other two on board, they could have talked him down and formed a smarter approach to the Northrend situation and Medivh's warnings about Kalimdor, with all the domino effects that would have had.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

family while still in their own mind, but no longer in control of their bodies, eyes full of tears as they cry, knowing full well what they are doing, but being unable to stop themselves,.

I’m pretty sure the grain undead aren’t still in there corpses after they die which is why they never got free will back like the forsaken did and are just reressed and controlled when a new necromancer shows up.

Still though it’s obviously the worse option compared to a mace to the head.

[FelPlague]

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

Yes qaunrtining is the best way to stop an outbreak but lets say this new desise comes out that has a mile wide spread radius from the person.
how the fuck are you going to quarntine an entire population when they need to each be a mile apart from eachother
see the problem?
When you have a literal zombie outbreak, you cant just say "hey guys try to stay home if you are feeling ill" it aint that fucking simple.

[Ielenia]

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"

Except he literally didn't. On top of that, Jaina has been with Arthas through a good part of his journey, and witnessed the effects of the grain.

[FelPlague]

Wait to see who's going to turn and who isn't instead of killing everyone. Surely not everyone was infected.

1. the time it takes to turn varies drastically
2. there is limited time you cant just put every single civilian in a massive crowd then wait for someone to turn and walk up and kill them, thats not how things work...

[Ielenia]

If Arthas could kill 100% of the population with relative ease I imagine he could have handled easily (with the help of Jaina and Uther) segregating non-infected vs infected and killing those that turn as they turn.

But we'll never know cuz he took the easy way out.

And how would they know someone was not infected? Again, there were no symptoms other than shortly before them turning. And there could still be some who the grain acted slower, so one believed to be clean would instead go out to kill and infect others later on.

They didn't have the manpower to examine the entire city in the amount of time it took for them to start turning, nor had the resources to individually segregate every single man, woman and child in the city.

[FelPlague]

If Arthas could kill 100% of the population with relative ease I imagine he could have handled easily (with the help of Jaina and Uther) segregating non-infected vs infected and killing those that turn as they turn.

But we'll never know cuz he took the easy way out.

You cant be serious?



"If you could so easily step on a colony of ants, you could easily handle training them to do your dishes!"

[Ielenia]

Can I shoot people who refuse to mask up in real life? Who go to super spreader events?

This is the problem with gamers - so many of you have no actual morals.

Says the guy who is equating a real life disease in a modern, technological world with instant communication across the globe, a real life disease that, at worst, kills people.... to a fictitious curse in a fictitious world where instant communication across the globe is not possible, a fictitious disease that had no cure, no way of detecting and condemns you into mindless undeath with an unquenchable desire to kill the living.

[FelPlague]

I don't have all the answers nor do I claim to, but I know that mass genocide is probably not any government/kingdoms only (nor best) option. Just saying

It was not their only option.

but it was the one that was most likely to save the kingdom from falling, and the best option they had with the resources they had.

one its not genocide, thats not what genocide means
two, it was their best option, as all other options they either did not have the resources or the time, and the other options were ones that were worse.

[Ielenia]

No, a real life analogy would be killing people at a superspreader event because you couldn't know if they had it and might spread it.


You people are bad at this.

More projection. Read my post above to find out why.

[Adamas102]

Which one rather you have

be betrayed and murdered by the people you thought you could trust with a single blow to your head?

Or being forcefulyl betrayed and murdered by the people you loved and trusted while they tear you limb from limb, ripping flesh from bone and gouging at your eyes, biting into your meat and tearing away muslce as your family while still in their own mind, but no longer in control of their bodies, eyes full of tears as they cry, knowing full well what they are doing, but being unable to stop themselves, force you down and tear you limb from limb consuming your corpse and then eachother before eventually losing their minds.

get a fucking hold of yourself if you really think option 2 is "better"
because that is EXACTLY what the plague does in warcraft.
take a read on Kel'thuzad's tour of naxxramas given to him by Anubarak, and then maybe realize the horrors of undeath.
Or if you rather listen.

You mean watching your children hacked at by swords and pikes and left bleeding out on the floor by frightened soldiers who are hastily moving from building to building on an order to kill as many people in as short a time as possible? Not knowing why the blood soaked, armored man who just barged into your home caved in your wife's skull with his hammer and left her twitching on the ground still temporarily clinging to life? If you had known maybe you could have told them that you hadn't eaten any bread baked over the past 3 days. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway, they didn't care.

If you want to have a discussion about the morality of the situation then you can't divorce it from the fact that these would be scared families, and it would be a messy, brutal affair. An absolutely nightmarish experience for everyone involved. Yeah, becoming a zombie is a pretty terrible fate as well, but the fallacy is in pretending that the alternative is "nice, quick, clean, and preferable". You can link as many lore videos as you want to describe the fictional undead plague, but given that we have actual real life accounts of the absolutely horrific situation that is a group of soldiers systematically killing a civilian population (even with more efficient modern weaponry) it's pretty disingenuous to just hand wave it away as "it's a quick death, totally preferable".

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Again, at the time, he had no idea Mal'Ganis was active there, nor did Uther or Jaina. When discussing Arthas's behavior at the front gates, you can't take into account things revealed after he went in there and realized the situation was well and truly fucked beyond all hope of recovery. In that moment, he was wrong, and his failings allowed the entire situation to spin even worse out of control, since if he was able to formulate a plan more nuanced than "kill everything that moves" and gotten the other two on board, they could have talked him down and formed a smarter approach to the Northrend situation and Medivh's warnings about Kalimdor, with all the domino effects that would have had.

They did know Mal’gans was in the city KT told them beforehand and they knew the undead were being directly controlled by the cult of the damned. The only info
They were lacking is that he was a demon.

[Ielenia]

I don't have all the answers nor do I claim to, but I know that mass genocide is probably not any government/kingdoms only (nor best) option. Just saying

Probably because governments don't have to deal with a magical curse that turns people into mindless, raging undead? By the way, the government has done similar things in the past, just not with people: to stop the spread of big forest fires, they selectively and intentionally burn a certain length of the forest around the fire, so the fire stops at that area since it doesn't have anymore to burn. Literally letting the fire continue without doing anything to stop it other than that, letting everything, fauna and flora inside it, burn to death.

It really wouldn't be hard to gather people up and just kill them as they turned and let the ones that didn't go.

"Oh, sorry, Mr. Zombie? Would you mind coming with me so we can kill you away from the rest of the populace? Much obliged, thank you." Again: there was no way to know who was infected and who wasn't until right before they turn into undeath, and they didn't have the manpower, resources or time to probably segregate every single man, woman, child and animal in the entire city, since the curse of undeath acted rather fast.

It took me all of 5 seconds to think of that solution

It took me less than five seconds to know your solution doesn't work. :/

I know it's just a game, but can we stop pretending that it's logic is just flawless? lol.

No one is saying it's flawless. We're just saying it was the only viable option regarding the situation at the time.

Arthas killed everybody because the writers wanted him to end up the Lich King, NOT because it was the best option to handle for a kingdom's people.

Regardless of the authors' intention for Arthas' future, it doesn't change the fact that Arthas' idea, while brutal and seemingly horrifying to us, was in fact the best possible solution to the problem considering what they had at the time.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It really wouldn't be hard to gather people up and just kill them as they turned and let the ones that didn't go. It took me all of 5 seconds to think of that solution imagine if people much smarter than me had more time than that to think of a proper solution besides, "KiLl EvErYbOdY!"

I know it's just a game, but can we stop pretending that it's logic is just flawless? lol. Arthas killed everybody because the writers wanted him to end up the Lich King, NOT because it was the best option to handle for a kingdom's people.

It wouldn’t be hard it would be downright impossible. They would need multiple men to watch each group of people space to split them all up and time to get it all into effect, they had none of those things.

[Thage]

They did know Mal’gans was in the city KT told them beforehand and they knew the undead were being directly controlled by the cult of the damned. The only info
They were lacking is that he was a demon.

That's a pretty integral piece of the puzzle to be missing. A necromancer active in Stratholme (as they were led to believe by Kel'Thuzad) is a manageable situation had Arthas put more effort into persuading Uther and Jaina, come up with an actual plan of action, and at least put effort into implementing this plan--once Mal'Ganis showed himself and everyone involved realized shit was way bigger than anticipated, I doubt Uther or Jaina would have had many objections to working with Arthas on the purge (because again, once a demon enters the equation and he's transforming civilians on the fly, things are pretty well FUBAR).

Like many other times in Warcraft history, poor communication causes a bad situation to spiral wildly out of control.

[FelPlague]

You mean watching your children hacked at by swords and pikes and left bleeding out on the floor by frightened soldiers who are hastily moving from building to building on an order to kill as many people in as short a time as possible? Not knowing why the blood soaked, armored man who just barged into your home caved in your wife's skull with his hammer and left her twitching on the ground still temporarily clinging to life? If you had known maybe you could have told them that you hadn't eaten any bread baked over the past 3 days. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway, they didn't care.

If you want to have a discussion about the morality of the situation then you can't divorce it from the fact that these would be scared families, and it would be a messy, brutal affair. An absolutely nightmarish experience for everyone involved. Yeah, becoming a zombie is a pretty terrible fate as well, but the fallacy is in pretending that the alternative is "nice, quick, clean, and preferable". You can link as many lore videos as you want to describe the fictional undead plague, but given that we have actual real life accounts of the absolutely horrific situation that is a group of soldiers systematically killing a civilian population (even with more efficient modern weaponry) it's pretty disingenuous to just hand wave it away as "it's a quick death, totally preferable".

"left bleeding out"
Except they literally say "Strike to make it painless"

but hey create your own fucking head cannon, whatever you want.