I guess I was kind of hoping they would take the lorewalking about lichking as an oppportunity to shed some light on a bunch of the retconning that I thought took place with the lich king… but doesn’t look like they did?
e.g. why was there a warning on the dias for frostmourne, who had it before Arthas and who put it in the cave? It reads like Zooval is the one who put it in the cave? if so, why would he warn not to take it then? I never really understood the ending of him as well, and thought it was a little weak to not get more of him in shadowlands or leave it open for a future return or redemption of Arthas.
I mean if Syl was given a redemption arc, I find it interesting they wouldn’t have given Arthas one… I mean the guy burned down 1 village of sick people that were likely to die anyway and become undead and kill more people… a difficult decision to make but could be a morally ‘gray’ area that Xalatoes had as well… Syl burned down an entire world tree and killed an entire city purely for power…
Needless to say I think the writing seems pretty bad here, not that Blizz had ever been top tier but I was hoping with the lore walking they would have taken some time to clean it up instead of just rehashing the old content.
Neat concept/idea though…
The lorewalking missed a chance to clarify Lich King retcons or explore Arthas’s arc, making the writing feel lazy.
It is most likely either a member of the scourge (say a member of the cult of the damned) or the revenants that were protecting the cave wrote it.
As for who had it beforehand, Ner’zhul. Frostmourne was included with the ice that Kil’jaeden entombed Ner’zhul in. Ner’zhul then “thrusted” Frostmourne out of the ice. In doing so this left a small insignificant crack… or so he thought.
I think blizzard forgot the the majority of arthas’s soul was cast out of the lichking and still wanders northrend.
Kinda messes up their sl trainwreck. Its just left unresolved in the argent tournament questline.
There was nothing more to his story. He is dead. And shadowland rightly scribbled an underline beneath that.
Also what’s to redeem? He was a monster.
I was surprised it was so short, ending at ICC and not getting into the origins of Frostmourne (and how it got to Azeroth, which IIRC wasn’t adequately explained in SL either, and would probably cover the OP’s question) or anything that happened with Kingsmourne. Although that’s arguably more Anduin’s story, but honestly we could use a chapter for him too, I’ve heard a substantial number of people skipped SL.
And then, since some people will call that Alliance bias, add chapters for Thrall and Clan Bloodhoof (which would cover Cairne, the formation of the Kalimdor Horde, up to his death before continuing with Baine’s experiences after becoming clan chief and during Sylvanas’s reign). The formation of the Horde part would overlap, but they could show it from different points of view and maybe even some things that the player didn’t directly see in WC3.
Really, the amount of Lorewalking is limited only by the dev time they want to put into it. This game has decades of lore (most of the Lich King chapter is stuff that happened before WoW even started) and lots of people either weren’t around for all of it, or have forgotten it. How many people knew who Sabellian was when he showed up in DF? 5%? There were probably some who didn’t know who Wrathion was.
Probably they’re already planning a Quel’thalas chapter for Midnight, and whatever else they think will be relevant.