Since days of Warcraft 3 the Frozen Throne.
I’ve been asking myself.
How did Illidan lose against Arthas.
First time Illidan and Arthas fought they were equally matched, Arthas was at his prime as a Death Knight.
But the 2nd time Illidan and Arthas fought, Illidan lost even tho he absorbed the powers of skull of gul’dan, and Arthas was weakened (Lich King restored part of his power, but not all of it).
so…did Arthas actually hold back the first time, or is it just a “plot hole”.
Since i dont understand how Illidan lost with more power than before against a weakened Arthas.
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The reason is simple : the script sayed “And at the end, Arthas win against Ilidan”.
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Arthas never meant to defeat Illidan back when they fought for the first time. His master, Lich King thought of Burning Legion as their enemy, and dreadlords as his jailors but he couldn’t attack them directly. Arthas “fought” Illidan and told him what he needs to do to reach win-win situation. It wasn’t a full-out fight on either side I think.
As for the second battle, when Arthas reached Icecrown citadel, Ner’zhul no longer penalized him and instead imbued him with all of his power, so we see Arthas at his peak right there in front of his master.
I might be wrong, but that’s the way I understood these events.
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During the same last mission, Arthas’ powers are back to full strength. In fact, while he had been slowly leveling downwards throughout the TFT campaign, in the last mission he is able to level all the way back to 10.
This is also noted in the lore:
As they climbed out of Azjol-Nerub, the Lich King contacted Arthas once again, and explained that he was losing his power because the Frozen Throne had been cracked and his energy was seeping from it. Ner’zhul replenished Arthas’s powers, knowing he would need them in the coming battle.
For some clarity, Arthas did not hold back.
Their duel was a harrowing one on both sides and Illidan himself was able to injure Arthas badly, striking his warglaive right through Arthas’ heart and coming very close to winning (This wound eventually led Arthas to tear out his own heart once he ascended The Frozen Throne, tossing it away in Naz’anak). The in-game cinematic doesn’t do a good job of depicting this, I know, as it was shown in Warcraft 3 the duel was very one-sided with Arthas coming away without a scratch.
However, in the lore we have a few more sources that remain consistent with the fact that Arthas and Illidan were very much equally matched:
After a short but intense battle, Illidan inadvertently left himself open and Arthas took advantage of it, slicing open the demon hunter’s chest with Frostmourne.
According to Matthias Lehner, the duel with Illidan was the only battle in which Arthas came close to dying
Hope this helps clearing up the confusion! 
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