First, he reforged Felo’melorn into a blade able to match Frostmourne, only to take it to northrend, stalemate Arthas in a duel, then rage quit because he didnt win and throw the sword away.
Then he goes to Outland, storms Tempest Keep, probably the most advanced spaceship in the universe, and does nothing with it. It was mentioned the vessel has weapons, depending on how powerful they are, he could have orbitally bombarded Icecrown Citadel, and Arthas wouldn’t be able to do jack about it. Instead Kael’thas gets drunk off mana mist in Netherstorm, joins the Legion for no apparent reason, the same Legion who sent the Scourge to Destroy Quel’Thalas in the first place, and gets him self killed by random adventurers.
Then he learns there is a way to fix the Sunwell through Anveena, but decided to use her power to instead summon the Legion, who very likely would have killed him off once they took the world. Then he fails and gets him self killed by an even smaller band of adventurers than last time.
It’s feasible - perhaps even likely - that without a willing naaru pilot to interface with it, Tempest Keep’s flight and offensive capabilities may not have been accessible to the blood elves.
By the time he was opening the Sunwell portal, Kael’thas was basically a fel-animated Wretched, rendering him mentally unstable and significantly less powerful than he’d been when able to feed on the power being channeled into Tempest Keep.
He allied with the Legion because Illidan’s erratic behavior and seeming indifference to the well-being of the blood elves had him feeling trapped in an alliance that wasn’t going anywhere. Plus as soon as the Outland elves started feeding on fel, the clock on their corruption was ticking. Imbibing fel magic messes with the mind, inciting malicious and violent behaviors and making those who consume it increasingly cruel and indifferent to the suffering of others.
It’s an addiction even worse than that of the arcane, because while arcane addiction makes you want more of the same stuff, fel addiction makes you want more of everything, because you’re feeding the fel more than you’re really feeding yourself, and the fel feeds on anything it can.
Kael’thas is the greatest waste of a character in all of Warcraft. Imagine how the story would have been different if Silvermoon was headed by King Sunstrider all this time - the war against the man who killed his father, his conflict with his old flame during Pandaria, actively FIGHTING the Legion with Illidan rather than buddying up with them…
Elves have a habit of siding with those who masterminded their suffering… They usually aren’t intelligent to begin with and are volatile to the core.
Kael’thas was mentally contacted by Kil’jaeden when they first set eyes on each other yet he didn’t join him until the Scryers defected according to the Chronicle. The shame he felt he had in his people’s eyes was too much and out of desperation he sided with his worst enemy in order to be on the winning side.
Then he went to Farahlon and started extracting Mana/Magic using Manaforges which turned Farahlon into the Netherstorm…
If Mana is Water than Arcane is Steam Pressure(not Steam itself but that which controls it’s flow aka the Pressure). Arcane warps Time & Space and controls the flow of Mana(indicating they are not the same thing).
What forces is the Mana in Netherstorm made of? Most likely Void Energies considering how they are called Warp Energies by the Sha’tar and how the Warp Fields in Hellfire are filled with Void Energies. And that’s not getting into the fact that the Void ravaged part of the Nether assaulting AU Nagrand looks identical to the skies above Netherstorm.
While I agree that Prince Kaelthas was the start of Blizzard villain batting Horde racial icons and was one of the worst decisions they made, most of these complaints with the further development makes some twisted sense.
Felomalorne was a simple case of Kael barely escaped his final battle with Arthas alive since Nerzul put all the power he could into Arthas and Kael never got the chance to reclaim it.
Tempest Keep has a few things.
Army of Light built ships appear to need a Narru for the pilot and part of the power system. Kael sent his Narru back home so Murru could allow us to priest and paladin again.
At the time Kael was more concerned with the Blood Elves’ mana addiction and trying to fix/replace the Sun Well than vengeance and he discovered the engines drew in massive amounts of magical energy that could be contained and bottled and maybe in time reach a critical mass to reignite the Sun Well. What Prince Kaelthas didn’t know though was that nether energy makes elves get somewhere between drunk and high, which played into his already growing frustration with Illidan to make Kiljaden’s promises of power and sating our addiction with fel more appealing.
The last part is merely a case of after Tempest Keep, Prince Kaelthas was a completely deranged shadow of his former self who was being kept alive by the fel crystal in his chest. Expecting logical reasoning at that stage is a bit too much.
Honestly though with making Horde the cannon faction to do Tempest Keep not much of that story of us rifling through his pockets only to leave the body of our deranged but at the time still loved fallen prince to rot makes much sense.
Let alone that having the Horde do it means there should have been enough Blood Elves around to avoid having to kill Prince Kaelthas and instead drain his mana and haul our clearly unstable prince home to answer what was going on and why he was so out of it he lectured his own people on not knowing our own plight.
According to Chronicle the Fel Kael’thas already taken in filled him with Doubt and that combined with the Pride he already had(presumably due to living off of Arcane energies for most of his life) led him to side with Kil’jaeden.
Arcane energies fill one with a sense of Pride making one feel as if they could throttle the cosmos. It fills them with an insatiable lust for power(to fuel their rush of Pride) which not even Fel can cure even though it can cure the withdrawal symptoms.
Kael’thas has spent his life for too long under the corruption of Arcane and it combined with the Fel corruption turned him to Kil’jaeden’s side.
Nah, I doubt he couldn’t have done anything about Tempest Keep. From what we saw in Argus, if it was anything like that at least, they still need to be somewhat close to do anything of note. The Lich King also being very magic heavy and having many resources at his disposal i’m sure he might have lead a personal assault on this spaceship somehow
This is all assuming the Tempest Keep would even be as powerful as the Vindicaar, because from what we saw back then it didn’t really have as much going for it.
The corruption of a hero arc was cool when it happened to Kerrigan in Starcraft, and Arthas in WC3. But after that it just feels recycled, it seems every other character in Warcraft becomes corrupted.
Kael’thas seems like he was a selfish jerk from day one. I mean, that’s TFT where he is gleefully sending suicide wave attacks against the demons to appease his master… because that master satiates his personal mana addiction.
I mean, it’s confusing if you fall for Kael’s pathetic guise. But if you just see him for what he has always been: a selfish short-sighted liar… well, then it’s not that hard to understand.
Blizz has done a lot wrong, but Kael’thas isn’t written poorly. He’s a trickster and you fell for it, and now you’re in denial about it.
Kael’thas is a tragic hero, the tragic thing being, he was a victim of BC’s mishandling of the belf narrative.
When we were introduced to Kael’thas during WC3:TFT, we saw a young leader struggling under the burdens of leadership. Worse, he was leading a destroyed nation and a dying people, afflicted with an unknown illness that was killing the very young and the very old and making everyone else barely able to function. Yet, he wanted to do the best for his people.
He was an idealist, and naive in his desperation to live up to his father’s image.
This desperation was taken advantage of by Illidan and Lady Vashj during the belf campaign. Until that point Kael’thas had all the makings of a truly great leader, and king. Even after that point, he didn’t just sit back and let those two run his armies, he commanded them himself. He proved he wasn’t just idealistic, he was skilled and capable as well.
BC mishandled Kael’thas, horribly. Just like the rest of the belves.
He was using the mana forges to suck out the energy of Netherstorm.
When?
Except, you know, use magic. Even assuming these ‘supposed’ weapons could do anything against Icecrown Citadel.
This is all assuming he could get Tempest Keep to work, which is unlikely. Because 1. we’re explicitly told he doesn’t know a lot about it and 2. they take so much energy they essentially require Naaru to teleport.