Taking a look back at Shadowlands and the lore and writing which has also made me reflect on previous expansions I don’t think Blizzard will ever be able top The Lich King and Wotlk in general.
Arthas, and The Lich King is Blizzard’s Darth Vader. Incredible well written story, badass character, badass weapon, everything.
That and especially nowadays The Lich King is a grounded villain. AKA not a super ultimate TITAN LEVEL Thanos God super sayian threat that also has demon star destroyers and space ships. He’s a classic fantasy character with 1) Cool armor 2) Cool sword
It felt more like Azeroth fantasy. Even despite all of these super ultimate threats that will destroy everything The Lich King feels like 100x more of a threat than the Jailor (WHO WE JUST MET AND APPARENTLY IS BEHIND EVERYTHING AND BASICALLY MAKES A TON OF LORE USELESS)
Also The Lich King is one of two characters in the entire game that in LORE killed the player characters in a fight, the other being Argus a literal titan.
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More like Wrath of the cut content.
Also Mists of Pandaria and Legion already did.
Ya, it’s a shame that Arthas’ soul went poof like a fart in the wind.
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Arthas will always be my favorite Warcraft villain. Everything about him just felt so right.
Compared to other characters in media, and even in games, his character arc isn’t all that unique; he’s a light tragic hero who’s character gets manipulated against himself which sends him into a downward spiral until his eventual fall from grace. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and what-not. Nothing new there.
What set him apart however is how he went from a typical fallen hero villain to something more personal. I mentioned this in another thread, but the fact that the Lich King wasn’t eventually defeated by some lore character (yeah yeah, Tirion helped - whatever). Instead, after four years of WoW and five years since watching his story unfold, the person who killed the Lich King was you.
The Echo of Ymiron (the Alliance flashback quest in Howling Fjord) was the first time I encountered Arthas in-game, and him killing me before proceeding to cause more issues in Northrend made things personal. He was such a bastard, showing up frequently in one form or another, and when he wasn’t popping up in Northrend in person, his presence was always tangible.
Arthas’ origins may just be ‘okay’ writing when it comes to how complex and unique a character he is, but by god did Blizz ever give him the best presentation out of any villain they’ve ever made.
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MoP and Wrath are peak WoW. Everything else just kinda falls under them.
Honestly, I put Legion right up there with Wrath. Tomb of Sargeras is still one of my favorite raids ever and the KJ fight was pretty epic imo, especially the ending.
I didn’t watch the PTR content back then, but being one of first on my server to see Argus overhead when it went live and have it be a permanent fixture was just so damn cool, especially since it was on an RP server.
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Nothing will top lich king, except the Jailer 
looks to star wars and its writing
…have ya’ll ever watched these movies?
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Even the original trilogy had weird dialogue XD
Agreed.
In my heart, the Legion expansion did what most classic rpgs. You are a lvl1 hobbo, small town, then at max level you are hero, travel to another planet and defeat a God.
The whole journey of the draenei from their fall at Argus & Draenor to Azeroth in search of allies to fight back the Burning Legion all the way to their homeworld was so epic, and a top moment for me comparable to the epicness of the Lich King saga.
Well yeah. But I dont count near plagiarism as well written.
He was also a horrible saturday morning cartoon villain.
The dev team disagrees with you. So much so they went out of their way to destroy it with Shadowlands.
The Lich King twirled his mustache at us a lot. I actually hated how he was written in Wrath compared to in WC3 (where he’d just kill someone or kill them and raise them).
I would say that my one hope, if I had a genie lamp and could wish a piece of content into existence, would be a timetravel mega-dungeon where we get to adventure with Arthas and Anubarak through the under-kingdoms before surfacing in Icecrown Glacier and facing the combined Illidari forces. I miss Death Knight Arthas.
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100% This, in Wrath, Arthas was just “le evil mastermind that taunts the heroes like a 80’s evil villain”. I still hate the whole lich king fight, so dumb.
When WOTLK was current, it was widely mocked for the Lich King being a cartoon villain.
“I’ll get you next time, adventurer!” as we escape again while he shakes one fist and twirls his mustache with the other.
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And now he will never be revisited again. The Helm of Domination is now a Burger King crown and and the Shadowlands of which is The Lich King’s true origin is now in order.
Enjoy his story, because it just ended.
Those friendly neighborhood bronze dragons are amazing. I love traveling back in time in the Caverns of Time. It’s so charming to see good history play out. Culling of Stratholm is probably my most favourite.
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