What about Auntie Jaina?
I think he deserved better than this. The implication here is that he’s gone forever which a LOT of long time WoW fans are not going to be Ok with. When players say Arthas does or doesn’t deserve redemption its never based on the established lore of the game. The lore of the game says he in fact does deserve a chance for redemption. We learn this in Rivendreth. I feel like they’re just done with Arthas and want to create and focus on new characters to be the new image of WoW. I personally don’t like that idea if that is the way they are going. I would rather Arthas return back to his paladin self and continue on in the story in some way.
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I keep trying to explain to people it was nearly perfect.
The whole point of Arthas is that his underlying pride, rather than serving justice for justice’ sake and bringing people together, but being angry/ prideful in it leads you to eventually be the one in the room everyone wants gone.
His arc was also supposed to show to sylvanas, and uther, that having vengeance, and becoming a monster is a curse. His arc wasn’t redemption but to give redemption as a monster to others who became monsters. And for them to look in shame at what they did.
Uther regrets what he did to Arthas by throwing him into the maw, and becoming a force of evil by having his soul shaved down in the Maw to be a weapon quite literally. And if Uther had not done that Anduin would likely have not been possessed to steal the sigils and make the jailer whole.
Sylvanas got her soul back as punishment from the jailer for turning on him, and thus lived with all the crimes she had as a monster. She was then able to pity Arthas as she became him, and if he had a soul (as she retrieved hers) he may have regretted it as she did. But he would never have that chance.
There was a chance for redemption for Arthas, but it shows how Uther was a monster and eliminated it, and brought Arthas back to a force of evil via Kingsmourne. Shows that becoming a monster like Arthas makes many no longer worthy to have a thing to say about the monster that made them monsters, and they want forgiveness.
It also shows the ultimate evil of the jailer. He turns people into a weapon in the afterlife, and uses their fate to his own ends. Souls are broken and gone in the Maw. Arthas was just one of the worst victims of it.
But at the same time he may have deserved it. He was in full control of his actions, but heavily spurred on the entire way. Rise of the Lich king novel heavily implies this.
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In isolation, it might have been a good story, but this is just further exemplification of the narrative bending over backwards and twisting itself to redeem Sylvanas while at the same time, claiming her “atrocities are unforgiveable” even as she gets to stand there and monologue about Arthas fading away forever for his actions, unredeemed, in narrative irony.
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I think that Sylvanas is such a controversial character that there is literally no way that this could have been handled well…
But even in a barrel full of bad choices, this is scraping the bottom.
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Uther’s story puts a lot of weight on his decision to throw Arthas directly into the Maw being wrong, and it’s something that Uther feels incredibly guilty about. Pelagos even talks to Uther about it at the end of the 9.1 story. On a larger scale, it’s also a major point of the Revendreth story for the expansion, that sending souls into the Maw without even a chance at redemption is horrifying and a massive betrayal of their charge. Arthas’ state as nothing more than a bluish mote of light in this cinematic is the direct result of Uther leaving him to the mercies of the Maw’s forges. Uther himself acknowledges this.
Arthas chose the path that led to him picking up Frostmourne, and he was never fully dominated afterward while he was a death knight. Even as he approaches the Frozen Throne he can still hear the voices of his loved ones warning him to turn back, and he ignores them. He was heavily manipulated, yes, but he didn’t have complete loss of autonomy like his victims did. He’s still responsible for the choices he made, just as Sylvanas is for her own.
My apologies then, I don’t always catch sarcasm in text.
I disagree, but only because you used the word “lately”. Anduin’s always had daddy issues, which, to be fair, I think is entirely understandable considering everything Katrana Prestor put him and Varian through when he was a young child. It’s amazing that he’s as comparatively well-adjusted as he is.
(Side note: can I just take a moment to appreciate how wild the story of Onxyia’s dealings with the Wrynns is? Those whelps in Onxyia’s lair are quite probably Anduin’s half-siblings!)
Who died and made Tyrande the Arbiter?
Public Forum Your Majesty.
It’s most likely not going to end the way certain people are hoping it does. Hope they’re ready for that
I’m pretty sure Tyrande is still sitting at “I kill Old Gods” levels of power since she still has the Night Warrior powers.
So, you know the whole “I can smite you all where you stand without really much effort at all” probably is what gives her that license.
It won’t work out that way, mind. But I’m just sayin. That’s a power upgrade that’s still gonna have to be addressed.
As I recall, the bulk of or all of them got turned off in Ardenweald which is why she’s no longer a literal ticking time bomb.
Nope. she mentions she still has it
The power of the goddess still flows through me, but no longer does it threaten to tear me asunder. I cannot say how I will wield it in the future… only that I must do so for the good of my people.”
Pretty sure Elune did something to stabilize it. The whole ritual thing was about how there was just too much for even them to hold.
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She didn’t even fight the old god last expansion with those powers. We haven’t really seen the power demonstrated as “I kill old gods”, we know the deer in Ardenweld did that, so maybe they got a useful form of the night warrior powers. Tyrande has not actually done anything with the night warrior power except needing Malfurion to save her against Nathanos in 8.1 and then killing a weaker version of Nathanos (no valkyr powers and after raid attacked him) in the pre patch.
If the night warrior was actually even a useful power up, she would be fighting against the Jailer, but she is actually nowhere to be seen in 9.2 after losing to Sylvanas in 9.1 when she needed to be saved by Ysera, and whatever she did in the maw didn’t yield any benefit, it didn’t even weaken the jailer’s forces.
The night warrior so far has been shown to do nothing but lose and doesn’t impact the actual story. We still have yet too see the night warrior “”“powers”“” doing anything impactful.
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Recall what? Did you even play the campaign?
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Lore vs Perception.
The buffs on Tyrande throughout that fight make it pretty clear Nathanos was nowhere near close to hurting Tyrande.
I’ll certainly agree that Blizzard has done a poor showing of the actual story.
But she pretty much wrecked the Maw armies, broke and fought through Torghast, saved the Night Elven souls being transformed inside of Torghast, fought her way back out of Torghast, and has been roaming the Maw for months killing anything in her path. It’s also implied she beefed up the soul gem to carry souls out. Or maybe Elune did.
That isn’t nothing. It’s just nothing that matters.
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Probably Elune, since the soul gem is linked to the First Ones, and Elune has a more direct connection to them.
She failed to stop Nathanos from ressing the night elves, she needed to call Malfurion to help her as well in 8.1. It was an entire failure on her part as the introduction as the night warrior. Why did she need Malfurion’s help against Nathanos, why did she run away from Nathanos until Malfurion showed up? This isn’t a perception thing, this is what happened and how blizzard chose to write it. The night warrior powers couldn’t even keep Belmont petrified.
The Mallwalker wrecks the maw armies all the time, this is basically nothing. The night warrior powers were so useless the Jailer didn’t even seem aware that the night warrior was running around the maw killing some red shirts, because it literally did not matter. But the Jailer is made aware of our presence in the maw.
If the night warrior powers were even on the level of Jaina, why isn’t Tyrande there fighting Zovaal? The fact is the night warrior is shown to be entirely useless and it’s strange this plotline is even in shadowlands because they aren’t doing anything with it.
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I played the entire campaign. When the meeting with Elune and the Winter Queen concluded Tyrande’s eyes went from ebony black to their normal pupils signifying that the dangerous Night Warrior power was no longer within her.
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I felt that a romp in the Maw wasn’t complete unless I had attained Hate Status 5.
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The Maw Walker was nowhere near her level of destruction. There is literally a trail of corpses where she fought an army off. I counted it. Well over 200 corpses littered the ground every inch as a trail to follow her
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