I always wondered if Terenas was a moron or just a senile grandpa. I agree with OP and I think he’s responsible for the fall of Lordaeron.
The cult of dammed operated for years in Lordaeron. The plague didn’t just appeared one night out of nowhere. Kelthuzad was active for a long time and he recruited a lot of people (both peasants and nobles). And these cultists weren’t hiding or acting from the shadows, the cult was known by many Lordaeron officials.
When the plague began, the Kirin Tor and some Quel’thalas envoys pressured Terenas to quarantine the infected. He didn’t quarantine any town, he didn’t even send the army or veteran paladines to investigate what was going on. He just sent his inexperienced and spoiled son instead. Uther helped yes, but with just a bunch of Silver Hand knights. Lordaeron’s army only task was to watch the orcs.
Arthas was the prince, he was part of the royalty, Uther was just a mere Knight. Uther could have stopped him but then we would be likely be tried for insubordination.
Why the heck didn’t Terenas and other officials take precautions before Arthas returned form Northrend? After getting news of Stratholme’s population being massacred by Arthas and rumours of him going mad, why did they let him go unguarded to the throne room? And why received him as a hero?
It’s like if an English prince went mad, massacred the entire population of Birmingham and later he gets a heroe parade in London.
I believe Blizzard always liked to write the Alliance as a bunch of fools, same thing happened recently when Anduin walked into the same throne room without a backup plan.
For someone so enthralled in posting WC3 threads one after another, you surely seem a bit, ahem, lacking, in that area.
Overall Kastrieren has it all covered, but I am gonna add a little more to her points.
Indeed and this is stated in Antonidas’ research, there’s no smell, no sign of the grain being contaminated at sight. It was when he started experimenting living beings that the grain started to show it was plagued (after they consumed it).
And this has been tiredlessly discussed before, people also seem to forget time was not on their side and Arthas had just almost lost at Hearthglen moments ago.
It was more, pile all the corpses in a big bonfire than cremate them thoroughly.
No joke, you can see that in how he is putting his own little titles to the characters and going full hyperbole in some of 'em.
Yeah she is not just Jaina, she was LADY Jaina Proudmoore, I am pretty sure being the ‘‘princess’’ of Kul’tiras had a lot of weight.
Some of what you said is over the top and/or missed the mark, but yes a lot of the 3rd War playing out how it did was people making stupid decisions.
The Largest of these Though Were
Everybody cared more about the orcs than the actual problem. Concentrating the orcs actually helped the Cult of the Damned be created in the first place, due to the money drain of the camps taking away funds that could have been spent rebuilding. Then Terenas and Daelin wasted their effort focusing on the escaping orcs even though that was a decades from now problem, or not a problem at all since orcs becoming productive people was what Terenas wanted.
Medivh was a crap Harbinger of Doom and focused to much on preventing the really bad thing at the end instead of stopping the problem right away, by ending the threat in Lorderon and getting Quel’thalas alerted in time to protect the Sun Well and mobilize the army.
Yes Arthas was an idiot and Uther should have stopped him at Stratholme. Being Crown Prince doesn’t make Arthas king yet, meaning massacring a town was beyond his authority, and being an untested youth vs a 2nd war veteran if Uther a war hero had stood his ground and gave them an alternative to fix things soldiers wouldn’t have followed Arthas.
Yeah Garithos being a racist moron, and Calia running away to play house were the death knell of Lorderon.
Jaina couldn’t even muster any troops of her own when she met up with Arthas and Uther, she clearly didnt have any actual authority, just respect for being a foreign Kul’tiran royal.
Yes, because she was sent as a field agent, lone envoy from Dalaran to study the Plague, in person, and according to Antonidas it’d seem he had arranged for Arthas to escort her, or maybe the other way around, for her to assist Arthas while studying the grain.
Nobody said she had control over them, it was more that she wasn’t just ‘‘some undergraduate student at Dalaran’’ as you delicately put it.
It was never shown that Jaina had the rank or authority in Dalaran during WC3. Was she even a full archmage back then (I know she was a WC3 hero unit Archmage, but game mechanics dont count, right?) From the way Antonidas spoke with her, it seemed like she was still his apprentice. Not a graduated pupil.
Even if she was an apprentice, she still had the full backing of Antonidas (who was by the time the leader of Dalaran)
I have decided to send my most trusted disciple, Jaina Proudmoore, to investigate the source of the plague. Based on my research, I believe only my skillful disciple will be able to handle the unknown challenges that await such an endeavor. She will take with her a copy of this journal and my other research documents regarding the plague. Indeed I will make it public, for all people need to become aware of this imminent threat.
I only wish I could investigate it myself, but Terenas has proved to be predictably stubborn to my requests. It is paramount that I convince him to quarantine the north. Little else matters at this point in time. Regardless, I have the fullest faith in Jaina’s cunning. If she or I cannot put an end to this infestation, I doubt anyone can.
-Antonidas-
This coming from Antonidas, the biggest researcher and one of the brightest minds of the time.
Even so, I dont think Antonidas has authority over anyone outside of the Kirin Tor. Look one of the princes of England can come to America, and they’ll be treated nice, but they cant command around US army divisions and the US navy to do stuff on a whim.
Even if people volunteered to go with her, where did she get ships, on whos authority did she take the ships, did she steal them?
I literally just told you nobody is arguing her having more authority or that she can somehow order soldiers around.
It was a frikin’ apocalypse, who has the time to care about ‘‘stealing’’, it was trying to take whatever Humans she thought were the last remnant to safety.
I skimmed the thread, so it’s entirely possible I missed someone addressing this in this way: but why exactly is Lordaeron at fault for welcoming Arthas back?
He was greeted as a victorious hero, to cheers from the populace. As far as they were concerned, he was right about Stratholme, and then went to Northrend to kill the Scourge’s leader, which he technically did.
You have to look at things from people’s perspectives in that exact timeframe with the knowledge that they had. Arthas had just led a successful campaign against the Cult of the Damned, and won. No one knew the circumstances of HOW he did that, save only his loyalist soldiers he returned with. No one knew that he had gone insane with his crazy cursed sword, all they knew was that he had found the source of the undead and destroyed it.
They were ultimately wrong to think so, but you can’t really blame them for thinking so when the Cult had gone underground and essentially ceased all operations once Mal’ganis was dead.
Also can’t forget that arthas has always been loved by his people becauseHe treated them no different then he would a noble, so of course they’re not gonna question why their beloved prince went through a wardrobe change.