Arthas' Redemption: The Death of Sylvanas

Lore Story Forum
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What quote? I never said such a thing.
Can you quote what I said exactly? Maybe it was a typo.

Arthas was being manipulated throughout the human campaign. He just kept making worse and worse decisions but it was all for the greater good.
In Northrend he finally took up the sword and it was pretty much over after that.
He just became a tool for the legion and the scourge.

This is what is said after Arthas takes up the sword.
Which by the way happened in Northrend after Stratholm.

Mal’Ganis told him that the voice he was now hearing was that of the Lich King. However, Arthas replied that voice was instructing him to destroy Mal’Ganis, much to the dreadlord’s surprise. After slaying the dreadlord, Arthas fled into the frozen north, leaving his troops to fend for themselves. Arthas soon lost the last remnants of his sanity.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Arthas_Menethil

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Good thing we aren’t limiting our judgement of him to pre-Frostmourne.

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Yeah and pre-frostmourne Arthas’ crimes is barely a bump to Sylvanas’ crimes she has done so far.

And she has complete free will to exercise.

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You’re basically making the argument that “anything someone does while drunk isn’t their fault, cause they aren’t in control!”

Arthas made the choices that led to him taking up the sword. If he hadn’t been a piece of crap in life, he wouldn’t have picked up the sword and commited all those atrocities in death.

He’s responsible for what the sword made him do because he CHOSE to accept the sword. And then proceeded to drunk drive over two kingdoms, and a whole other continent.

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206

Oh, Phae.

After slaying the dreadlord. After. After that is when he lost his sanity.

He slayed Mal’ganis in Stratholm. After that, he lost his sanity.

He wasn’t already insane before that.

He also still wasn’t mind controlled. Being insane isn’t having someone control your mind. Nothing has said his mind was under anyone’s control. He was influenced, sure. But influence isn’t control.

I can influence you to reply, but that doesn’t mean replying isn’t your own choice still. Arthas made his choices. He was influenced to make them, sure, but they were still his to make. Nothing, anywhere, at any time, has stated Arthas Menethil wasn’t in control of his own actions. Only influenced to make them.

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You have never once, shown Arthas didn’t have free will.

Meanwhile, Lore has shown time and again, he did.

Saying he lost his sanity is not the same as him loosing his free will and being a slave. He served the Litch King to be sure, that doesn’t mean he did it against his will.

" A few days later, Arthas appeared in Vandermar Village at the bidding of his new master, the Lich King. There he met Tichondrius the Darkener, a dreadlord like Mal’Ganis. Thinking that the dreadlord was Mal’Ganis out for revenge, Arthas immediately threatened him, only to discover that this dreadlord had come to congratulate Arthas for his efforts. When spoken to Arthas said he no longer felt remorse for any of his actions, though deep in his heart he knew this was a lie. Tichondrius explained that the sword was designed to steal souls, and that Arthas’s own soul was the first one it had claimed."

From the same page you keep linking, and…

" As the pair traveled to Alterac, Kel’Thuzad explained the full extent of the “second invasion” and the Lich King’s plan. Arthas and Kel’Thuzad went to the Alterac Mountains to destroy encampments of Blackrock clan orcs who had taken control of a demon gate, which the lich would use to speak to the demon lord Archimonde. The Scourge destroyed the orcs, and after Kel’Thuzad received orders from Archimonde, they set out for the powerful seat of the world’s mages, the city of Dalaran. Archimonde instructed them to acquire the spellbook of [edivh, which would allow Kel’Thuzad to summon Archimonde into Azeroth."

This is not the actions of a slave, this is not the actions of someone without a will, this is the actions of someone -willingly- serving… he might have been coerced, manipulated, or tortured into said service, but he did it.

EDIT: And for the record, he was a fairly terrible ego driven individual before even touching frostmourn as has been said before. I feel like your just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point.

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208

Omg Alynsa…
No… he killed Malganis in Northrend…

You keep telling me to play WC3. Did you play it?

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OMG Phae.

He did, you’re right.

He still had his sanity up to Northrend. Meaning he was still sane during Stratholm.

You didn’t refute me. You strengthened my argument. You keep quoting when Arthas lost his sanity and saying he wasn’t in control of his actions, but he had long been committing evil acts well before then. You keep claiming he was mind controlled, but he long had been making his own choices. Pointing out it was actually longer than I remembered?

Didn’t help your point in the least.

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210

Yes he was sane during Stratholm.

Yes, Arthas’ greatest crimes… like destroying his homeland. Destroying Quel Thelas. Threatening the world as the lich king?
All these things are not completely his fault. Everything before Frostmourne is his fault.
But his decisions seem wrong in hindsight.
Honestly if I was faced with a situation like Stratholm I would probably do the same as Arthas.

What else can you do? The people were already dead, there were dead Hordes being risen by Mal Ganis inside the city. What is the solution?
Ignore it? Seal off the city? How do you contain the seal?

Which choices? As long as we agree after frostmourne his decisions were not completely his own then we agree.
If not we have an issue.

I don’t hold that opinion but are you going to apologize in the demeaning way you spoke when you thought I had my facts wrong?
I think that was uncalled for.

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No I am making the same argument as the people defending the orcs and their demon blood fueled rampage.
Are you going to apply the drunk argument to them as well?

Agreed though I am more sympethatic towards him. He was way out of his depth.
He should have just run away like Medivh told him. But he didn’t, so he just took the necessary steps to survive which was exactly what the legion was planning for.

I disagree otherwise every orc is guilty of what they did on dreanor.
They don’t have the “Oh the demon blood made me do it” excuse.

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All started because Arthas made the choices to go down his own path to corruption.

You act like slaughtering Stratholm was the correct answer because you, personally, don’t see other options. Jaina and Uther who both were present, didn’t think slaughtering the city was the right call. What else could have been done is moot, because without trying to find another solution, Arthas jumped right on the slaughter wagon.

Could the city have been contained with the huge gates we see? Maybe, maybe not.
Could they have separated the infected from the non-infected? Maybe, maybe not.

Did killing everyone in Stratholm kill innocents? Yes. Did it stop or even slow the spread of the plague? No, not really.

Was it the right choice? No.

But was it the moment Arthas showed himself as a corrupted person? Before losing his sanity, before picking up the sword, before even going to Northrend?

Yes. Which was how this whole debacle of a debate comparing Sylvanas to Arthas began. Pre-banshee Sylvanas clearly was, if not a good person, at least a moral one who died protecting her people. Pre-Frostmourne Arthas slaughtered a city because he didn’t want to listen to smarter, wiser voices.

Frostmourne didn’t destroy Arthas and make him into an evil thing; Arthas was an evil thing and the Helm removed the bits of him that weren’t evil. We actually saw this in Wrath (go back, do the Icecrown zone quests). His own actions prior to the sword, prior to the helm, showcase that at best, they removed his inhibitions.

Interestingly, lost in all of this is that when Sylvanas was killed, her soul was transformed by Frostmourne (warbringer cinematic). If you believe Frostmourne utterly changed Arthas because he weilded it, and all Arthas’s actions from then on were controlled by the sword, then Sylvanas gets the same excuse for the exact same reason. The sword made her into what she became.

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They are guilty of it, the orcs who did it, even admit they were responsible for it… They did most of that murdering BEFORE the demon blood anyways, they were just being manipulated by the legion rather then full on drink the kool-aid.

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He did the necessary evil for a greater good though.
You could argue he didn’t have the perfect solution but who did? We may never know.

And we don’t know what happened to Stratholm afterwards.
If Arthas never went further North and came back would Lordaeron be over run by the undead from Stratholm?
It was an impossible situation to be in.

Frostmourn was designed to make Arthas a tool.
We see other spirits from the sword like Uther or Terenas who appear as good as they were in life.
Remember in Wrath Uther warned Sylvanas to run?

If he was changed by Frostmourn he would trick her or call Arthas instead.

Sylvanas was changed by what happened to her but she has the full faculty of her mind and her free will.
Arthas had neither when he came back from Northrend.

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For something to be a necessary evil, it must need be necessary. Nothing suggests it was. Jaina and Uther didn’t think it was; only Arthas did. Arthas had no more knowledge of the situation than either of them did.

It wasn’t a necessary evil, it was just expedient evil.

… I’m gonna hope you mistyped this, because we certainly do know what happened to Stratholm. Both live-side and dead-side.

Not at all. Frostmourne was designed for Ner’zhul. Arthas was a tool he chose to use, not the Legion. Ner’zhul wanted Arthas to pick up the sword, so Ner’zhul could get Arthas to the Frozen Throne. Frostmourne was designed to be used by Ner’zhul.

Again, nothing has shown or hinted at Arthas losing his free will. Insane, yes. Controlled, no. Insane because of his own actions, taken under his own will. He became the monster he made himself into by making his own decisions. The only thing you’ve shown as “proof” of the “control he was under” is that someone whispered suggestions to him, suggestions he chose to listen to, and that Arthas went crazy.

Those are not mind control. Those are not forcing him to act against his will.

Arthas was no more corrupted by Frostmourne than Sylvanas was, but if you want to believe the former, then you need to also believe the latter.

Or you could just accept that both were made into evil SOBs by the choices they made. That neither one was forced to act a certain way (except by the writers, of course), that both willingly walked the path to damnation, but that Arthas’s choices led directly to Sylvanas becoming what she became, starting her path while Arthas also started his own.

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Anyone who thinks Sylvanas is more evil than the Lich King is delusional.

She’s a bad b!tch, yes - But Arthas is on a whole new level. lol

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Eh… This is actually something that some people try to use to excuse Sylvanas, that being raised in undeath corrupted her soul and personality and so that mitigates some of the responsibility for all the things she has done after regaining her free will.

I don’t personally buy that undeath supernaturally altered Sylvanas’ personality any, but people who do are very likely to avoid or even contest the same excuse being given to Arthas after his soul was taken.

That said, I completely agree that Arthas is entirely responsible for his actions before picking up Frostmourne, as well as after he put on the Helm of Domination, and absolutely deserves to be in the Maw without a chance of redemption because of it.

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Well, why don’t we limit her crimes to pre-banshee crimes too just to be fair. I think she easily wins then.

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Your first claim is wrong. Blizzard has stated, emphatically and canonically, many times, that becoming undead profoundly alters the personalities of those inflicted. Blizzard has also stated, many times, that Sylvanas specifically was profoundly altered and damaged by what happened to her (c.f. the opening lines of “Edge of Night.”). You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts, and the bedrock rule of this forum is that canon is canon. No arguing with Word of God, even if we don’t like it.

For example, I was an Sylvanas fan. I hated when Blizzard retconned it so that she has been working with the Jailor since the beginning of Cataclysm and has therefore always been a villain. I think that was terrible narrative choice. But it is still a fact because they say it is.

Secondly, your argument is framed to create a false equivalence between Arthas and Sylvanas, specifically by using the passive voice: “his soul was taken.”

Sylvanas had her soul ripped from her violently, while fighting against Arthas to save her people, and he then violated her in every way that he could. She died heroically. This has been directly shown in game by Blizzard and described many times. She was unwillingly damned.

Arthas took up Frostmourne willingly, after many warnings. He killed to get his hands on it. His soul wasn’t taken from him. He exchanged it for power. Like Gul’dan, he chose his own damnation.

There are plenty of parallels between what Arthas and Sylvanas did after becoming undead monsters, especially after the events of BfA (and even before, according to the retcons). But there are few parallels in how they became monsters. She chose to fight the darkness and was brutalized for it. He embraced it.

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Eric Andre voice : Do you think Sylvanas Windrunner had girl power? Do you think she effectively utilized girl power by funneling Night Elf souls into The Maw to be tortured and damned for all eternity?

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We have no lore about the fallout after Stratholm though.
Did Uther come back? Did the undead spill out? Was what Arthas did effective or innefective?

Do you have anything to back this up?

Well when you go crazy and things whisper things into your head to do people tend to do them.
If you compare it to real life if some crazy guy commits the crime then they throw him in a mental institute rather than your typical prison.

I disagree.

I don’t mind saying they are both evil but I object to the argument that Sylvanas is somehow more innocent than Arthas.
She is not. She is either equally bad or worse.
Which means she should end up where he did.

Hence my original idea.