Its honestly kind of sexist we are demeaning a female character like she is incapable of making reasonable decisions after experiencing trauma years and years later.
Its like treating her as some sort of a child who can’t be expected to mentally handle what happened to her.
Meanwhile the male character? We judge him by higher standards than we would the female character.
Yes, your preface showcases your sincerity. It would be blatantly dishonest, without such a preface.
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I am comfortable in not peddling hypocrisy because my own selfish preferences.
Being objective is necessary when analyzing story elements like this otherwise as a whole the story and its message would be inconsistent.
For example if you applied the same logic that you do to Arthas to all anyone else who made a decision for good reasons but horrible consequences would go against the main message Blizzard tries to tell us to characters and races put into a similar position.
Like Orcs drinking the demon’s blood, or Blood Elves using fel energy to stay alive or the entire Horde following warchiefs after they commit evils like consorting with old gods or committing genocide against helpless captives.
Nuance means you can’t paint someone or everyone with one black brush for one single decision that had horrible consequences. But if you start choosing when this logic applies then that’s just hypocrisy.
Thats like in Starwars both the empire and rebels have death stars and both use them but somehow its only bad when one side does it.
That’s debatable… highly debatable. you need to consider that acts have a bit more nuance than simple binary you’re imposing upon them.
And it’s also the fact that picking up Frostmourne led to Lordaeron’s destruction, not it’s salvaiton.
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Aren’t you discarding nuance when you just look at the end result to determine whether an action was good or bad?
Rather shouldn’t we look at what the character knew at the time and what they faced or what their intention was to judge them on their actions?
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The end result in this case proves that Arthas was wrong to simply disregard every single person who tried to give him advice and caution him.
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It depends if you believe that the means justify the ends.
If my good intentions cause substantial loss of life and property, am I responsible for that? If I go to help you move your expensive computer and you and other people tell me to be careful and I insist I know what I’m doing, it’ll be fine, does the fact I’m helping absolve me when I drop it in a lake?
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But on the other hand, if you’re honestly trying to help and you’re just clumsy (even if you’re a pushy jerk who insisted), I feel like that should be looked at it in a more charitable light than if you busted into my house and hucked my computer into a lake on purpose.
A decision made with foreknowledge and malice is different than an accident (even a stupid, easily preventable one). At least in my head.
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I agree with all that, but if we’re keeping things contextual, then it’s not just that I’m clumsy. I also had a bunch of friends reminding me I’m clumsy, suggesting maybe I don’t move the expensive thing, and I intentionally ignore them all the way up until I drop the computer in the lake.
Sure, my clumsiness is beyond my control. But people were throwing me warnings left and right and I chose to ignore them.
Of course the real fault goes to the person making me cross a lake with their computer. That’s just dumb. But…
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Damn Jailor!
He strikes again! If only we’d noticed all the many clear hints that this was the plan all along.
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It’s sort of why I hate villians with Master Plans soo complicated no one knows what actual plan is or what it entails.
It’s bad storytelling when we’re heading into 9.2 and we still have more questions than answers.
Arthas for the 2020 Mawlympics btw 
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This is the point I have been making this whole time, and why I think Sylvanas is worse than Arthas. Sylvanas straight up used the souls of living people to empower the Jailer. All for a goal that is completely self serving.
Arthas sacrifice himself to save his people. Sylvanas sacrificed everyone except herself. Same reason why I think Illidan is a villain.
That’s one of the issues I have with current Sylvanas: she knows what the Maw is (she’s been there), and she sent her own troops there of her own free will. That’s a pretty fundamental betrayal. And yeah, it’s the same Illidan issue where it’s UNFAIR that something bad is happening (her unjust afterlife), so she sacrifices other people to rectify it.
Of course, it’s a bit more up in the air with Blu-Vanas and how they want to take her personality post merger. But that terrible person is part of her.
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Not to mention just how out of left field RG Sylvanas is. It’s such a forced, ham fisted way to marginalize what she has done.
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Its more than simply marginalizing what she’s done I think, and a lot to do with the fact that the story is just plain trash and incoherent. It was trash at the beginning, and continued being trash with lolwot @%^&# moments piling on top of each other.
I would actually like to see them try and spin this story in the form of a monologue from Sylvanas’s own perspective just so they have to see, realize, and admit how stupid this story has been. I think SL could have been a fine expansion if it wasn’t for our manner of arrival and the overarching narrative.
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Yes people did caution Arthas a lot but they never offered any other solutions other than giving up.
Thats the sort of nuance you tend to ignore when you already have a conclusion formed and try to find anything to support it. Like making the wrong decision makes you a bad person…
In some earlier post you were saying that being a fool is a selfish behavior.
I am still trying to wrap my head around that. You can’t judge characters with the benefit of hindsight on decisions that they were not fully informed on.
Selfishness stems from being informed on a matter but willfully acting on your own self interest rather than what is fair or just. Arthas exhibited neither in WC3.
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Actually I would say he finally crossed that line in Northrend when he hired mercenaries to burn his own ships so his troops were stranded and couldn’t just sail away upon receiving his father’s orders to return to Lordearon. Then, he compounded that by pretending that the mercenaries were random enemies attacking him and led his troops into slaughtering them. Note that this double betrayal is also the point where The Light itself appears to throw up it’s ‘hands’ and abandons him.
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That was the only right answer as the Prophet intoned… retreat to Kalimdor.
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Unfortunately some posters here have the idea that if you were an abuse victim, that gives you a free pass to pass your abuse onto others. Cause stating that is wrong = victim blaming.
Are you also saying that it is fine for a woman to abuse others because they were a woman who got abused?
Cause that is not something you should believe in. But I guess it is fine with you that Sylvanas denied Dereks right to choose and was going to mind control him to kill his family.
And that makes it okay? Cursewords you are basically saying that it is fine for an abuse victim to pass on their abuse to others. The point is to BREAK THE CYCLE, not continue it.
Well that was a lie. Micah, lying is a sin.
Anyway, for the topic at hand.
Does Arthas deserve a happy ending (whatever that means)? No. He did evil things, even if he had good intentions. He willingly picked up a mourneblade knowing the risks and that led him to become a puppet of Ner’zhul.
Does Arthas deserve a chance of redemption in Revendreth? Yes he does. We have had planet destroys and someone who sold his people to the Legion (Kael’thas) end up in Revendreth. Hell, Garrosh ended up in there and he did some very evil things. Willingly resurrecting an Old God being the biggest one. Only by redeeming himself in Revendreth does Arthas “deserve” a “happy ending”. After all, that is the whole point of Revendreth.
Anyone who says that Arthas doesn’t deserve a shot in Revendreth are lying to themselves while letting their own personal and political biases cloud their judgement. The game is even saying that “go straight to the maw, do not pass Oribos, do not collect 200 anima” was not the fate that was meant to await him. People also forget that Revendreth redeems people by torturing them. It isn’t a realm of sunshine and rainbows. Well, for the most part 
Can’t wait for people to cherry pick my answer for their own agenda. And I want to stress. If you are the victim of abuse, that does not give you a free pass to abuse others. Regardless of their sex, gender, political outlook etc etc. If you think otherwise, that is a very toxic mindset to have. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
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Thats the problem isn’t?
You got a demon running around trying to destroy your kingdom with a zombie plague. There are people who don’t fully understand the threat and want you to abandon pursuing him.
You got a random guy in a bird costume that tells you to sail west and abandon your kingdom because its already doomed.
And apparently the only way to be a good person is to let the demon go and wait for his next attack or follow a random madman’s ramblings and go into self-exile.
Both options seem like crazy solutions without the benefit of hindsight.
@Skarm I don’t recall the light abandonned Arthas, did he lose his powers? I remember the light not being enough for him, he hears about the sword from Magni and he takes the sword when he is surrounded by the undead.
Honestly the whole story of Arthas’ fall is pretty good. You have the young prince who seems to take charge when all the old men want to ignore the problem. Every seemingly good decision dooms him further and the final irony of becoming the weapon that destroyed what he wanted to protect.
Regarding the merceneries, lets put ourselves in his position. You are pursuing a demon, you are sure you have him cornered in Northred, Uther finally got the king’s ear and is going to take your army away and you will have to go back and most likely face another stratholme where an entire city becomes undead.
What do you do? Sacrifice a few merceneries and continue to pursue the demon? Or give up and go home to wait for the next blow?
This is the sort of nuance I am talking about that people ignore when judging Arthas.
Nobody is saying he was a saint, far from it but the situation he was in was an impossible one and his goals were good.
Prince Arthas and Ranger General Sylvanas were good but through the… 
Jailer they became evil. If one deserves redemption then so does the other.
That is the point of all this.
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