Interestin paralell in the Star Wars fandom

Lore Story Forum
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That always blows my mind. I assume WoW suffers the same problem that SW and every other community does in that is has a lot of Fake Fans who look for any excuse to trash whatever they happen to be talking about at the moment.

It wasn’t bad writing at all and that story arc was pretty good actually. I ton more people who liked than hated it. And what makes the arc even better is that Ahsoka proved that council needed her more than she needed them in the end. And that arc happened when Lucas still owned SW anyway.

Besides, Disney has put out more great SW content than bad. Mando, Grogu, Thrawn, etc are all insanely popular characters that Disney has done a great job with.

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Isn’t it Arthas who is usually compared to Darth Vader / Anakin? I’ve never seen anyone outside of this thread compare Sylvanas to Vader.

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Or how about you just ignore it? If you feel that it’s offensive, report it.

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Well after vowing to never get involved with Star Wars topics for 6+ years I’m going to treat myself for holding out this long.

Over the years I always notice how people would draw parallels to Anakin and Arthas. Concluding how much the same they were. Where those two are actually different by a lot.

Anakin was a good guy surrounded by awful teachers. Yes this includes Obi and Yoda. The Jedi Order was just awful all around. Thank god for Ep. 8 (fight me). Anakin was exploited when he was at his most vulnerable.

Arthas was an awful person surrounded by good teachers. Who was given so many chances and who ended up being a serial killer who kept mementoes (Sylvanas’s blood) of those he wronged.

Anakin’s redemption felt earned and thank god that they never did this for Arthas. Because when a character has the memento collecting habits of Ed Gein there isn’t much to redeem. Uther was justified to throw him into the Maw.

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45

Arthas took a magic sword and equipped a magic helmet that broke his mind.
Anakin never got mind controlled

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46

He was well progressed on the whacko trail long before he touched Frostmourne.

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If he was wacko from Mission 1 where instead of trying defend Lordaeron and its citizens but rather was trying to kill them all or take power from his dad prematurely you would have a point.

But thats not what happened.

I saw a character that got more and more desperate, took shortcuts and hard decisions for what he believed was right until he doomed himself by taking weapons that were best left alone.

He was an interesting and conflicted character so people trying to boil him down to a one dimensional caricature are being disingenuous.

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48

Indeed he was a man broken by the sight of the Civilians of Lordaeron being turned into mindless Undead until he was consumed with the desire to avenge this crime on his people to the point where even his soldiers(who apparently no longer were seen as his people when they decided to mindlessly obey Terenas’s order to return to Lordaeron) didn’t matter.

Of course he didn’t just have vengeance on his mind or he wouldn’t have mentioned saving his people to the Spirits guarding Frostmourne.

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People bring up Arthas deserving redemption because media literacy’s plummeted in the last decade and a lot of fiction in general has been used as a political football for various groups that try to create the veneer that most fantasy hasn’t by and large been progressive… even accidentally.

Arthas was a subversion of a long standing fantasy role in a time when subversion was still somewhat new in mainstream fiction and fantasy, though it was becoming more popular with the release of Shrek (yes I know the franchise is a meme but it still had a big impact on perception of fantasy outside of the niche). He was the inverse of the handsome, heroic prince archetype, and prior to that the only character who was similar was Gaston, and he was… much more on the nose.

Arthas was designed as a hero who failed at literally his very first heroic test, and became consumed by a vengeance born more of his own ego than anything else. He was meant to be the inverse of Thrall, the ‘fantasy monster’, who pursued a new path for his people despite all the harm that had been done to him. At the time, over 20 years ago? This was a pretty fresh take. Arthas had never truly been tested, and when it came time to be a hero, he chose the most ruthless path. Until it went to the point where he doomed tens of thousands, if not hundreds, to what is still canonically the worst fate you can inflict on a sentient being (per The Road to Damnation). He doesn’t, as a result, deserve redemption.

Anakin is weird as a character in regards to redemption because outside of some EU stuff written in between the films and such, his redemption happened before the vast majority of the bad things he’d done were even conceived. His story thus had a set ending, and then decades of further writing followed that added more and more bad stuff… but he still canonically got a pseudo-redemption, and that couldn’t be changed. And though in the OT he of course was complicit in many atrocities already (Alderaan being one of them despite not being in charge of that), that’s more abstract to people than killing children.

Viewed through the lens of an audience in the 80s? Vader getting redemption is a happy ending, as his actions likely saved far more beings than he’d killed. Through the lens of a modern audience with years and years of added content? Just a smidge rougher.

Arthas, though, despite the similarities, never deserved redemption, he’s just a victim of the loud voices that claim male characters are somehow getting the short end of the stick in modern fantasy.

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50

This is a stupid take. Arthas was generally a good person who ended up in a horrible situation. If you read his novel he was a good person for most of his life.

Or maybe it is because people are freer to see media in a different way. Like I get it, there are plenty of horrible media takes nowadays but there are plenty of unique takes as well to old media. Takes we would have probably dismissed long ago but thanks to the curse of the internet everyone is now allowed to give their opinion, good and bad.

This seems disingenuous. Arthas was painted even in the manual as a guy who ultimately did heroic things. He just failed this challenge because it was too big and yes also because of his ego.

And if we want to play devils advocate here. Arthas has the defense of being under the influence of Frostmorne for most of the truly awful things he did. The worse thing he did on his own was probably kill the mercenaries he hired(I still think Sthatholme was a morally gray thing). Sylvanas had “free will”, she could have chosen to run away with Nathanos, she didn’t and continued a war that ultimately destroyed countless souls, she even compared herself to the Lich King back in Cata! And if anything THAT is worse than what Arthas ever did considering the story paints it as a permanent thing, undead being a more impermanent state that will end someday.

I advocate everyone get treated the same. Patriachy is a bad thing? Sure, but that also should apply to matriarchy. Sylvanas deserve redemption? Sure, so does Arthas. Don’t pick and choose.

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If the writers wanted Arthas to be a villain through and through they shouldn’t have added magic swords and helmets that take away free will :dracthyr_shrug:

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52

I will never tire of showing the Shadowmorne epilogue. This was the best ending Arthas should have gotten.

Everyone is free to interpret what happened to him. If you bitterly hated him you are free to assume he got send to hell. Or if you agree to Jaina’s take hope he did find peace.

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Probably a hot take among many people here, but one of the few things I thought Shadowlands did okay enough with was how it handled Arthas. Instead of actually changing anything about him (and thus changing people’s already-settled perceptions on whether or not he would earn redemption), it sidestepped the topic altogether with his spirit not getting the chance.

Though some people didn’t seem to get that and instead came away with the opinion of “Blizzard said he deserved this and it’s not fair that the same doesn’t apply to Sylvanas” when that wasn’t what the game tried to say at all.

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54

He should have gotten the chance.

That is exactly what it was saying and honestly, this is probably one of the few things I would want Blizzard to outright retcon in Shadowlands. That souls can be destroyed.

I am still hoping there is still a fragment of him somewhere in the Maw and Sylvanas get the choice, allow Arthas a chance of redemption, or be stuck with said Fragment in the Maw forever. She gets the agency and Blizzard gets to say that horrible people deserve a shot at redemption. Even these two.

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I think they handled it best they could after writing themselves into the terrible inescapable corner of actually visiting the afterlife. In a world where they picked a better expansion path and never touched the Shadowlands at all, his ending in Wrath was the best one. But I agree their choice given the circumstances was decent.

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That’s the entire point, that’s what I meant. He was a subversion, you can’t subvert without setting up the dominoes. Prince Charming (aka Great Value Arthas) gets a pretty heroic looking introduction at the start of Shrek 2, and it’s only after he arrives in Far Far Away that it’s subverted. Up until then the implication is that he’s a somewhat goofy but heroic guy who was ready to slay a dragon and save the princess.

Arthas is the same, the manual and even his introduction are of a character who is classically heroic, right down to the looks and voice. But when he has to make a hard decision that involves a very difficult choice, he chooses to wipe out everyone, including those who very likely could have been saved, and it doesn’t even do anything. And then he just keeps getting worse and worse, all before getting Frostmourne. And then after Frostmourne, and then becoming the Lich King, which per the Arthas novel was by Wrath 100% ol’ Evil Arty, he proceeded to inflict, again, the worst fate that can befall a sentient being.

Discounting Shadowlands, because let’s face it the sheer scale of what they were trying to get across is… dumb, and cannot be related to at all, Sylvanas in terms of ‘bad stuff done’ is simply not on par with what Arthas did, and that was after what was inflicted on her. Arthas wiped out an entire city and killed the people who followed him before he so much as got his mitts on the It’s Not A Phase Mom sword, Sylvanas had to have her body, mind, and soul violated to the nth degree before she did any Scourge things, and broke free the moment she was able to.

In the context of Shadowlands, would Arthas have ended up in Revendreth with the chance for redemption? Given what we’ve seen, sure, right along with Sylvanas. But honestly post BfA it’s almost impossible to reconcile the writing of the past with more recent years. It’s incredibly difficult to compare the two because Arthas was killed when the writing was… well, very different and the scale was far lower.

If we factor in the mournblades and whatnot, and say they’re not responsible for their actions from the moment they either get, or are killed by, Frostmourne, then Arthas’ actions still weigh far more heavily against him than Sylvanas.

The real dude who should have been tossed into the Maw immediately, that said, is Kel’thuzzad.

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The same could be said of Uther! Uther as a character is classically heroic but when he was given his own moral test, he left Arthas, he and Jaina could have fought and stopped him. He didn’t. Then Shadowlands Uther had the choice to do the right thing and deliver Arthas to proper judgement, he didn’t.

Which again is retconned. Whatever the Lich King was he wasn’t totally Arthas or Ner’zhul. Hell, he even tells Alliance players he was a shaman once. Chronicles even goes out and mentions that even “evil” Arthas still wanted what was best for the world. A planet without suffering by turning everyone undead. How is he so different from Sylvanas who wanted to reorder the world into something she wanted? Something she, in her twisted mind, thought was better?

Oh it can still be fixed. Hell, people didn’t like depowered aspects and now here we are, soft retconning that change(even though I still think Warcraft is better now that the Aspects are not some near demi god creatures). Events in Shadowslands can be retconned as well and I hope to see it my lifetime.

Also, you said he was sorrounded by great teachers. Well the problem is everyone enabled him. No one once bother to say no, and we will not do what you want. Muradin could have said no to Arthas about the blade, or not help him. Jaina/Uther could have fought him and stopped said carnage, they didn’t. Hell, Muradin helped Arthas burn the ships! He could have said to Arthas’ men the truth and who knows what could have happened.

Arthas is much a moral failing of the Alliance as anything else. And I’d prefer to see said failing actually corrected.

As a side note, I hate that Shadowlands retconned Uther’s ending in Wrath.

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58

Wow!, yes. This.

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What are you even on about? Uther and Jaina said no at Stratholm but he was their superior.

His daddy told him to stop his mission in Northrend and come back, and Arthas reacted by burning his ships and damning his men.

You can tell a brat no, repeatedly, but a brat will be a brat.

Um, Muradin did tell Arthas not to grab the blade - but Arthas did it anyway because he was a brat.

Even your excuses for Arthas are based on falsehoods, because there is no excuse. He was evil before he even grabbed Frostmourne. And he never repented.

Even Anakin at the end threw Palpatine off a walkway down some hole, to save his son and the galaxy. Arthas never repented or expressed contrition.

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The person who brought fantasy subversion to the mainstream was Michael Moorcock.

“By the way I’ve slain all ofthe Gods of Chaos for you.”

“I imagine Donblas would be pleased.”

“I doubt it, I’ve killed all of the Lords of Law as well”

-ending of the Corum cycle.

And Arthas is essentially a beefy, non spellcasting version of Elric of Melni’bone.

(he even affects the same hair, eventually)

and his other Eternal Champion heroes who frequently do far more harm than good.

Arthas was a flawed person who never practised introspection on himself. And part of the blame is due to his father and his trainers who never called him out on it, until doing so was pointless.

Actually, most of the worst things he did to individual people are a direct result of his own individual peevishness and reflexive anger to anyone who’s given him the slightest lip. Every bit of caution his friends offered him, he met with anger. He disbanded the Silver Hand out of sheer spite, He betrays his mercenaries for expedience. His actions after taking the blade when not in direct service to the Lich King show the exact same characteristics and are clearly done under his own agency. His mission didn’t require that he take personal charge of Sylvanna’s body. It was his own personal desire to inflict more individual torment on her for no purpose other than his own emotional gratification. And as seen in the Artha novel it’s a characteristic trait carried all the way over from childhood. When he died, he had no remorse, only thinking of the personal darkness that was engulfing him.

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