So since shadowlands is coming up and we’re partying in the realm of those long dead, I’ve seen the topic come up for Arthas being redeemed which I’ma fan of the idea. But I have also seen many detractors who call him irredeemable because he committed “many atrocities” before picking frostmourne and donning the helm of domination, but replaying wc3 the only quite atrocious things he did was 1- purge one of the kingdoms biggest population centers because it was confirmed to have plagued grain delivered to it, which the plague worked quick and there was no other options atm.
2- hire mercenaries to burn down his soldiers ships then betray those mercenaries, who being mercenaries probably had much blood on their hands.
Basically the point is that Arthas before falling and being corrupted only has those two event’s under his belt, and the ethics of stratholme are debatable. Arthas’ character was driven by his desire to protect his people whom he loved “treating every commoner as an equal.”
Merely posted this as somewhat of a rant to those types of comments, also we could get into the semantics of his time as a dk but at that point he was a completely different character, driven mad by the whispers of frostmourne within the frozen wastes of Northrend.
So that’s the gist, appreciate you all reading and hey at least Arthas had a reason to burn down that city, what was Sylvanas reason?
Rise of the Lich King establishes that within Arthas’ mind post-Frostmourne and helm, Arthas willingly decided to cast off his humanity AND overwhelm Ner’zhul. As subjectively correct as his actions were in life (purging Stratholme may have been right, but it’s a bit weird how he instantly went to it), it was an omen for how easy it was for him to fall into evil.
Arthas was given the choice to hold onto his humanity, something no other death knight under his dominion was given. He chose to discard it. That wasn’t Frostmourne. That was Arthas. He deserves his fate, with or without comparing him to Sylvanas.
Yes post helm and post frostmourne arthas not the living arthas from before those events, my point is about the two events that people draw upon as arthas being beyond redemption when referencing him in life, but you also forget that Arthas didn’t fully get rid of his humanity because it is stated that the reason arthas didn’t just stream roll over Azeroth was because there was still a small part of him within plus we party with methias lehner in icecrown.
Yeah I’d agree with the above posts. In the end Arthas chose his path and so the actions he commits after Frostmourne and the Helm if Damnation (I think that’s what it’s called lol) are totally open for him being responsible for. Purging a city (which may or may not have been the best way but regardless he was quick to try as above posts mention) the killing of Uther, Antonidas, the destruction of the Elven kingdom the invasion of Dalaran, etc, etc. Arthas / The Lich King is one of the coolest villains in both WoW and video games in general for me, but a redemption arc I don’t know, think we should just leave him how he is.
If you’re gonna compare the two then yes Arthas did a LOAD more than Sylvanas.
But if you use the reason “But that’s because Arthas had Frostmourne” or “Took the Helm of Domination & became undead” then one could wager towards Sylvanas “She died, had her soul twisted by Arthas and became undead; later being consumed by vengeance.” or “She took a dive after defeating Arthas and after meeting the Jailor became a tad further unhinged.”. Arthas slaughtered a city to stop a plague, but slaughtered multiple kingdoms for power leading up towards his undeath. Sylvanas burnt 1 city whilst being in undeath for power (As the more souls that funneled through, the more that soured to the Maw and fed her power).
Sylvanas may be power-hungry at a devastating level, but Arthas jerked everyone’s collar hard - Heck even the Legion sent Illidan to take him out.
Arthas was a jerk in life and a monster after becoming a Death Knight. Hell, he was a pretty big jerk prior to picking up the sword by screwing first his own people and then screwing the mercenaries he hired. Plus as a quick reminder, he willingly took up Frostmourne, knowing it was cursed.
Kind of sounds like your making excuses because your a fan.
Regardless, I don’t see the point in a redemption arc for him. Not every single former alliance character that went bad needs a redemption arc. Him getting a redemption arc would be as on the nose as Sylvanas getting one.
Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to masked language as it is in violation of the Code of Conduct.
That being said, I still think he should get some sort of cameo or minor appearance. Perhaps we could help him on his road to repentance- not necessarily fully redeem him. Maybe just give him that little nudge he needs to even start… because it’ll be a long, long road for him.
He did still have his humanity when he killed his own soldiers though, so that does count really. same with his time as a Death Knight, Death Knights are still “largely” the people they were in life especially before and after (with Bolvar now doing the raising) Arthas himself as the Lich King started orienting them through the Undead equivalent of waterboarding… anything he did pre-Frostmourne/post Frostmourne as a DK counts…
A potential case could be made in favor of, ‘Redemption,’ but I think most people find the idea distasteful because Arthas’ story had a satisfying and appropriate conclusion. Regardless of the extent of control he had over his actions, Arthas is one of the most infamous figures in the Warcraft ethos, and will go down in Azeroth’s history as perhaps it’s single greatest threat.
A redemption for Arthas would have to be contained to the Shadowlands, and be an eternal path of redemption as well. I imagine once we kill the Jailer, as an example, him taking the Jailer’s place would be such a way to earn that redemption, but he’d be forever bound to the Maw. Personally, I think Sylvanas is in line for that position before this is all over.
Everyone can be redeemed. That is the point of redemption. Even the phrase “beyond redemption” refers to someone who will never be willing to accept that they have done bad things.
What most people here are talking about is what they think of a story where so-and-so is redeemed. Shockingly, this relates strongly to how they think of the character and their role in faction politics.
I guess the question is, really, who even wants to see these characters redeemed, and more to the point, thinks Blizzard can actually pull it off. Is anyone here of the opinion that if Blizzard tried, they could convince us that Arthas isn’t a monster?
Matthias Lehrer was a completely separate being from Arthas when we found him, because Arthas has fallen so far into evil, anything that remained of his humanity turned itself into an entirely separate being. It likely manifested as a child because it represented the time before Invincible’s death - arguably the start of his downward spiral.
If anything, Matthias is innocent and deserves a happy afterlife. Arthas deserves the Maw, and ONLY the Maw. Even IF his humanity was still a part of him, a few “good” deeds doesn’t exonerate him for the swaths of horrific ones.
Plus it’s a matter of which parts of his humanity remained behind. People tend to think of someone’s “humanity” in romantic terms, thinking it only encompasses the good, but that needn’t strictly be the case. Virtue isn’t all that sets people apart from animals; we can also logically and meticulously rationalize doing unnecessarily horrible things to a degree that escapes simpler, baser creatures. Technically any remaining humanity that was “holding back the Scourge” could have just amounted to his rationale for thinking the whole world needed to be Scourged for protection by way of his convoluted “trap” for the player champions, rather than any particularly redeemable facet of Arthas that would have felt bad about any of it.
Matthias is outright called the last sliver of Arthas’s Soul in the Novel. When Sylvanas encountered Arthas’s whole Soul in Edge of Night it resembled Matthias in that it was a child not a full grown man!
You seem ignorant of the notion that Souls can become distinct from the Mind… Arthas’s Soulless Body didn’t lose it’s Mind when it lost it’s Soul nor did the Mind of said Soulless Body become enslaved by whatever took it’s Morality and Soul away.
The Body doesn’t drop dead or become a slave without a Soul in WoW it loses whatever vestige of morality it had!
Yven, you’ve spouted nothing but useless headcanons the entire time I’ve known you. Don’t tell me what I’m ignorant about.
Nothing about what you just said changes the fact that Arthas’s humanity was SO DIVORCED from himself, that it literally manifested as another being entirely. Nothing took Arthas’s morality and soul away - Arthas threw them away in Rise of the Lich King.