I know a lot of people are angry Sylvanas beat Bolvar, the lich king, relatively easily. I kind of was at first too. But Bolvar is not the same kind of animal Arthas was as lich king. Arthas had Frostmourne, he had thousands, maybe tens of thousands of souls trapped in Frostmourne increasing his power immensely. Bolvar does not have that.
Arthas spent his time building up his power, Bolvar has spent his time being “the jailor of the damned” he has not been building up his power, if anything until recently he’s been undermining the Scourge. Finally, Bolvar probably wasn’t expecting Sylvanas to show up and 1vs1 him.
Meanwhile, Sylvanas has probably been preparing for this fight for a long time now. Id argue she’s always been a better combatant than Bolvar was in life or in undeath. And finally, she has been steadily building up her power since Legion. Making deals with Helya, using souls to empower her self.
Sylvanas has had many fights recently in which she can build up her skills using her powers. Bolvar has had no fights since becoming Lich King, id be surprised if he knew 1/3 of the tricks Arthas knew as Lich King.
Its more how she beat him and the horde of undead with no effort. She didnt even get really hit once and got to humilate bolvar. It would have been nice to feel like she was on any danger what so ever in the fight.
It just wasn’t convincing. Why can nobody hurt Sylvanas? She never takes damage at all. She can just escape all harm and any threat to her anytime she wants to. The most that’s ever happened to her was Saurfang leaving a tiny scratch on her face. Now we have an entire expansion where Sylvanas creates an entire safe space for herself and her followers to escape to called the “Shadowlands”. No other character is given this sort of treatment. Say what you want about Jaina but Jaina isn’t involved in every single WoW cinematic for the past few years and Jaina doesn’t drive the entire story of WoW like Sylvanas does. It’s just getting old and tired.
On one side we have some one who prepared extensively for this fight. On the other we have a dude who just woke up from his ice tomb throne, doesnt like his job, has not trained at all on using his abilities, and deep down does not care about the outcome of the fight, because he’d rather be free from his curse.
Explanation is barely needed. Bolvar was always a pale imitation of the Lich King. And Sylvanas basically spent an entire expansion obtaining new powers from her super secret death god.
He may view her as some kind of threat to the balance…but id imagine he’s always wanted to be free from being the jailor of the damned. He calls the helm and the position of the lich king a “prison”. Clearly its not something he wants to be stuck with forever.
Arthas and Bolvar were both Human, Arthas a Paladin and then Death Knight, Bolvar a Warrior then Paladin. What made them powerful was the Lich King armor/helmet. Arthas and Bolvar were both equally powerful Lich Kings, because it was the demonic armor crafted by the Burning Legion to raise and control undead legions to conquer Azeroth that gave them BOTH demi-God like powers.
Sylvanas won because of an off-screen power-up that is nebulous and undefined at best or a complete power-wank at worst. That, and as I’ve said…author fiat.
It is a prison he accepted and he views her a threat to everrything including everything he took up this curse to protect.
Its not that she couldnt have beaten him its thd whole she dise it all so easily take down a hirde easily over power bolvar humilate him and break the helm heck breaking the helm seemed more effort than the fight fir her.
They were not equally powerful lich kings. Arthas Lich King with Frostmourne is a 10 while Bolvar without Frostmourne would be a 6. Frostmournes power was colossal.
Frostmourne was not the thing that made the Lich King powerful. Frostmourne, while iconic, is just a powerful sword. It was beaten by the Ashbringer, which was forged by the mortal Dwarf King Magni.
The Helm of Domination is where the power lied. It could command the entire Scourge remotely and allowed one being to enforce their will over the souls of countless mortal creatures as well as ancient creatures such as Dragons.
The Helm of Domination is what controls the Scourge, True, but id argue Frostmourne was the source of the lions share of Arthas’ power. The Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of souls in it were as batteries turbocharging the Lich Kings power. It helped that Arthas had mastered these powers, while Bolvar had not.
it was at the seat of his power, from what i remember there were some quests where he’d ask for souls from other people (can’t remember which ones specifically), in his life bolvar was a legendary paladin and force to be reckoned with, sylvannas would have also had to go through the entirety of icecrown citadel + all of his forces, when she reaches him he has an army of scourge with him (also making me wonder why he never called upon the knights of the ebon blade to help him), yet she takes them all down and him without even trying like she knew she was gonna win in the first place, the lich king was the one to have originally created her and given her her powers, and she spent her entire life building up to fight him and killed herself when it was over, her just casually taking him out an admittedly weakened version of him made no sense to me, i know she did some building up but was it that much building up where she can take on the entirety of icecrown citadel by herself and then proceed to tear the helm of domination, a legendary artifact made up of some kind of titanium steel, in two with her bare hands really any make sense
Yes he chose the position, but that doesnt mean it hasn’t been non stop agony. The helm nearly drove him insane, and when Sylvanas took it, he likened it to a prison.
I like how you think their starting races or classes have any bearing on their overall end power levels upon becoming demigods.
Actually, a HUGE part of Arthas’ power as LK was due to Frostmorne. To the point where destroying Frostmorne destroyed Arthas. Bolvar NEVER had access to that power at all.
Bolvar is like Sauron with no One Ring.
Yeah, and it’s definitely going to remain unexplained in this upcoming expansion based around the entity that gave her those powers…
I’d argue that reluctantly accepting a position because everyone would die if he didn’t is not the same thing as being willing.
I would say it’s a position he “begrudgingly chose to become”.
Shadowmourne was much more than just a powerful sword. It was a sentient creature in its own right, and consumed the souls of those it perished. It was, for example, the sole reason that Arthas was able to defeat Illidan.
It was broken by Ashbringer, true, at a moment when the Light had directly intervened to save Tirion Fordring, and the Ashbringer itself was forged specfically to be a counter to undeath. The Ashbringer is also extremely powerful.